Scent of Persuasion: Sensory Ops, Book 2

by Nikki Duncan

  There’s more than a mystery on her hands. There’s a niece she never knew she had, and a madman on her trail who’s hell-bent on getting the child back.

  When a beautiful woman crashes her car into his remote mountain gas station, followed closely by a man with a silencer-equipped pistol, three years of inactive duty fall away as Miles Goodwin springs into action. He saves Lily and her golden child, but nothing can save him from the painful reminder of the family he lost. Retreating to his emotional coma, however, isn’t an option; they’re far from safe.

  There’s something strange about a six-year-old girl who’s never eaten a hamburger or heard of Tinkerbell—and who seems to be the source of psychic phenomena so powerful, someone’s willing to kill to get her back.

  Warning: Contains heart-pounding suspense, a charm-your-socks-off kid, and a compelling romance that may inspire you to combine your DNA with someone you love!

  Enjoy the following excerpt for The Midnight Effect:

  Miles Goodwin tipped his chair back as he took a slug from his beer. Across the tree line the remainder of the day was a bloody smear on the horizon. The setting sun drifted away mockingly. Another day and you’re still here because you don’t have the courage to put your revolver in your mouth.

  He smacked at a mosquito on his neck. The bugs were relentless at dusk, but this was Miles’ favorite time of day. Swallowing darkness was moments away, when he wouldn’t recognize each agonizing minute in the passage of time. Night was limbo in the personal hell his life had become.

  It was a chore to drag himself out of bed every morning, painful to endure every endless minute. The mark of each sunset brought him one day closer to the end he longed for. Closer to the end he didn’t have the courage to seek on his own. Suicide was a sin, and if there was a sweet hereafter, he wouldn’t join Sara and Michelle there if he took his own life.

  The roar of an engine pulled his attention to the dark tunnel of Northern pine where the highway wound out of sight. The front legs of his chair fell onto the porch with a thunk. He rarely saw a customer at his little gas station after six. By now most of the tourists were already in town at the expensive restaurants, sipping their second martinis.

  A classic Mercedes two-seater raced around the bend and went into a drift on squealing tires.

  The car fishtailed before regaining traction. Clouds of white smoke poured from the exhaust as though it had blown a head gasket. As it barreled down the highway at breakneck speed, chunks of rubber flapped at the right rear wheel. The car was out of control, but the driver wasn’t trying to stop.

  Sparks flew from the rim as the last shreds of the tire disintegrated. The car careened down the embankment on the side of the highway and launched itself off the incline, headed directly for his small station.

  “Jesus!” Miles leapt to his feet and dove off the porch, narrowly missing the rusted edge of a twisted bumper as he hit the ground. He scrambled to his feet and ran, still clutching his foaming beer bottle, as the car crashed into the pumps.

  A dull whuff pressed on his eardrums as the pumps exploded. For the space of a heartbeat the dusky forest was as bright as high noon.

  Miles hit the emergency shut-off lever at the side of the garage and the tanks sealed off, but the car was already on fire. There were no sprinklers at the historic station’s stand-alone island.

  Nobody could have lived through an explosion like that. At that horrific moment, he knew there was at least one dead body at Goodwin’s Garage.

  The irony hit him—there could have been two. What had made him run? He’d been longing for death for three years, aching for it more with each day that passed. Yet at the first sign of danger he’d been on his feet, preserving his sorry ass. It had been instinct as much as police training.

  Dammit to hell.

  Momentum had taken the car past the worst of the flames. The windshield was a shattered milky spider web, but still held.

  Conditioned by police training, he ran toward the car without thinking, more concerned for the driver than for himself.

  Movement shifted behind the white-green kaleidoscope of safety glass. A hand passed over the steering wheel, and Miles knew it was a woman in the car.

  She’s alive—there must be a God in Heaven.

  The driver’s door opened as flames burst across the hood. She staggered out and fell to her knees.

  A second explosion rocked the quiet mountainside. Still running, Miles threw up his arm to block the intense heat.

  His heart caught in his throat as he rounded the coupe’s door and saw she had a little girl clutched under her arm.

  The woman braced herself on the ground with her other hand as she tried to get away from the burning car. He grabbed her by the forearm and hauled her to her feet. She wobbled unsteadily as he pulled her arm over his shoulder. The child scrambled past him, headed for the backside of his garage.

  A confusing mixture of past and present rocked him like a punch to the gut. She wasn’t his beloved daughter, but the sight of her blond hair tossing as she ran ahead of him sent coherence spinning away.

  The woman moaned and her weight sagged on him, bringing him back to the here and now.

  “Help…”

  He dragged her away from the car. “Jesus, lady, what the hell? Are you trying to get killed?”

  He was practically carrying her by the time they arrived at the corner of the building where the little girl waited, shielded from the scorching heat.

  “Aunt Lily!” She threw her arms around her aunt’s waist.

  The woman knelt and gripped the child by her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, sniffing.

  “I’m so sorry.” She pulled the child close. “It’s okay, Annie. We’re going to be okay.”

  “Not if you keep driving like that,” Miles growled. “You just blew up my gas station.”

  The woman glanced at him. The horror in her eyes made him flinch. A trickle of blood ran down the woman’s temple and spattered her blouse.

  “You’re hurt,” Annie said. Her voice trembled with the precursor to tears. She reached out and touched the woman’s face with tiny, hesitant fingertips. The gesture caused his shriveled heart to jerk.

  Without removing those wide, brown eyes from his, Lily took her niece’s hand and stood. Only then did she glance past him.

  “Is that your truck?”

  His mouth fell open. “Lady, you need an ambulance.”

  Would the phone still work, or had the destruction of his station knocked out power and phone lines? Services were finicky enough up here without being rocked by a two-megaton blast.

  “He’s coming,” Annie whimpered.

  The horror in Lily’s eyes deepened. She glanced at the child and started past him.

  “I need your vehicle.”

  Before he could have guessed this night would get any weirder, she snatched up a rusted sliver of metal and whirled around, pointing it at him.

  “Give me the keys.”

  She’s robbing me with an old antenna? “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Aunt Lily,” Annie persisted with greater urgency.

  Slivers of wood exploded from the corner of the building above his ear. Miles heard the muffled chirp over the roar of the fire. He knew what it was even before a second shot whizzed past his head. The sound sent him careening back to his eight years with the Seattle PD.

  Silencer.

  Between her eyes and his ears, there’s a world of sensory overload…

  Sounds to Die By

  © 2006 Nikki Duncan

  Sensory Ops, Book 1

  Rookie FBI Agent Kieralyn Beckett is in a delicate position. Her team refuses to buy into her theory that a string of kidnappings is connected. If she pushes too hard, they’ll discover the latest victim was her college roommate and boot her off the case. A garbled recording is the only evidence, and there’s only one man who can decipher it. The hard part will be convincing him to take the case.

&
nbsp; Blinded as a child, NSA “listener” Ian Cabrera spends the majority of his time analyzing data while secretly searching for his father, a missing CIA operative. His plate is full, but Kieralyn’s passion and determination, as well as the erotic beat of her heart, spark his interest. So does the mention of his father’s code name on her recording.

  There’s only one way to follow this new crumb-trail of clues without tipping her off about what he’s really after. Convince her she needs him to be her undercover partner, despite his handicap. Between her eyes and his ears, they make one beautifully orchestrated team. Every time they touch, though, the arousal they generate creates one red-hot element of distraction…

  Warning: This title contains a blind hero who knows his way around a woman’s body, steamy kitchen sex, verbal sparring, kidnapping evasions, fiery near-death experiences, and heart-pounding sensory overload.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Sounds to Die By:

  “You can’t go to the scene with me again, Ian. You’re too close.”

  Right. I’m too emotionally invested. “I listened to you make your case this morning. I listened to your recording. I typically wouldn’t have let you past Dante.”

  “Why did you? What made you decide not to send me packing?”

  Keep her guessing. “You’re passionate.” Or not.

  “Two minutes ago you called it impulsive, as if it was a bad thing.”

  He sighed. With her prideful views, she saw it as a contradiction. An insult. He reached out and took her purse from her hand. After hanging it on the hook by the door, he took her hands in his and linked their fingers. “Passion drives you into impulsive decisions that could get you hurt.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She cleared her throat. “You say that as if you care.”

  “More than I’m comfortable with.” And I’m helpless to fight it. “Passion is a good thing in your work, if you can temper it. Some people need emotional distance to do the job you’ve chosen. Others feel a connection to every victim, every case.”

  He pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. “You need the connection, but you may be too close to this one.”

  “I’m not stepping away from this.” She struggled against him. He held firm.

  “I didn’t suggest that.” He kissed her forehead. “But you need to release some of the energy building inside of you.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “One way or another, you have to allow yourself to escape all thoughts of the case.” He kissed the other corner of her mouth. “Or you’ll burn out.”

  “I’ll escape after I save the women.” She softened against him—marginally.

  “No.” He slid his mouth over hers. “As much as rescuing those women—Lana—means to you, as important as it is to stop the injustices they and other women may suffer, you have to realize that you can’t do it all alone. And you can’t do it without knowing who has them and where they’re being held.”

  Like she had outside the club, Kieralyn melted against his body. Her hands rested at his waist with her fingers brushing against his shirt, sliding the material against his skin.

  “You believe that I’m right about the connection? That the club we were at, the owner, is connected to it all somehow?”

  “Yes.” He walked her backwards, deeper into the kitchen. “But there are still too many unanswered questions.”

  She arched her neck. A tiny moan escaped her lips. “Like what?”

  He nibbled the cord of her neck and maneuvered her around the table. “Like what you taste like.”

  “You’ve already kissed me.”

  “Not enough. Not everywhere.” He slid his hands up her back and buried them in her heavy hair. “Are you going to let me make love to you, Kieralyn?”

  “Ian, the case—”

  “Isn’t going anywhere.” Her heart slammed beneath her soft breasts pressed against his chest. “I, on the other hand, may go mad if you say no.”

  “No pressure.”

  “Oh, there’s a lot of pressure.” He rolled his hips so she could feel his arousal. “It started building when I heard your voice in my lab this morning.”

  “Aah.”

  “The breathy way you pleaded your case teased me.” He fisted his hands in her hair and pulled her head back some more. “Then I caught your scent. Soft lilacs that became more erotic with every beat of your heart.”

  Blood ties run deepest—and deadliest.

  Proof of Life

  © 2009 Misty Evans

  Super Agent Series, Book 3

  No matter how many times he patches the holes in the wall, CIA Deputy Director Michael Stone can’t forget the night a terrorist took him hostage in his own home. Or the mistakes that transformed him into an overwhelming force to keep his country safe. And now that his niece, the daughter of the Republican candidate for President, has been kidnapped just days from the election, Michael vows to do whatever it takes to get her back.

  Dr. Brigit Kent, a consultant for the Department of Homeland Security, knows this particular kidnapper well. Exposing him, however, will reveal her sister’s secret ties to a terrorist group. The only way to keep her sister safe is to blackmail the sexy, rock-solid deputy director. A move that puts her directly in his line of fire.

  Brigit is undeniably beautiful, brilliant, cunning. But is she friend or foe? The answer to that question could break Michael’s personal code of honor—and his heart.

  Warning: Bullets and blackmail, good luck and laughter. Surprises and secrets and love ever after…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Proof of Life:

  Brigit’s pulse hopscotched under her skin. Not because Michael had mentioned her father or offered to take out most of her problems in one grand slam. It was the way he was holding her and looking down at her, like a kid with a secret so big, he was ready to burst.

  In the hospital, he’d made the emotional walls between them fall like they were constructed of thin sticks. She’d confessed too much and now wondered if he felt the same way.

  Yet, if there was any awkwardness, she couldn’t tell from the way he was hugging her against his body. His beautiful, powerful, hard body ignited a hunger inside her. All her anger, frustration and common sense dissolved like the Irish fog when it met sunlight.

  As his eyes, devilish with amusement, invited her to ask about his plan, she tried to unscramble her brain. A nanosecond later, she gave up. Forget the plan. “I think I want to kiss you.”

  Michael’s intensity ratcheted up a notch and Brigit had to remind herself to breathe. They stared at each other for a long moment, his gaze as intimate as the hand stroking her spine. “Now that’s the kind of thanks I was hoping for.”

  She moved on him, going up on her toes and sliding her hands up his broad shoulders and solid neck to pull his face down to hers. Without resistance, he matched her boldness, taking her mouth with the same self-confidence he did everything else.

  A knock made her jump back out of his arms. Conrad Flynn’s voice was muffled through the door. “We’re going to get food. You coming?”

  The predatory look in Michael’s eyes made Brigit swallow hard and take another step backwards. The set of his jaw, the way he stalked toward her as he answered, continued to cause havoc with her pulse. “Bring us something back.”

  Seconds passed as the men left. Michael was nearly on top of her, and the instant the door latch clicked, he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and brought her to him again.

  Talk about crossing lines, sucking face with the Deputy Director of the CIA could only bring her more grief, but as his demanding lips parted hers, she didn’t care.

  For this moment, grief was far away. Guilt and responsibility too. He made her feel sexy and alive like she’d never experienced, and damn if she didn’t want even more.

  Enjoying his sensual lips on hers, she used her tongue to taste him. Coffee and a hint of spearmint. Power and control.

  He returned the favor, meeting her tongue with his as he
shifted her body around to press her against the wall. She sucked in a breath, amazed at his gracefulness, but he mistook it for pain and broke the kiss. “Is it your ribs? Did I hurt you?”

  Brain muddled from an overdose of his lips, she shook her head in confusion. “My ribs?”

  Michael’s fingers grazed her rib cage, sending an electrical charge through her chest. “Your bruised ribs, remember?”

  She giggled, the sound almost a whisper. Had she really just been sticking her tongue in his mouth? “Oh, that, no. You didn’t hurt me.” Touching him in the same spot, she watched his eyes darken with desire. “I’m in tiptop shape.”

  “You were almost blown to pieces two days ago.”

  Two days ago was another lifetime she didn’t want to talk about. She didn’t want to talk at all. She wanted his tongue back in her mouth and his body pressed up against hers, trapping her to the wall. “I’m not done thanking you for today.”

  With slow smugness, he smiled and slid his face so his cheek was next to hers and his mouth was by her ear. “What were you doing hunting Peter by yourself? I told you we would come to Belfast together.”

  His low tone, the sound of pure sex in his voice, made her shiver. How did he do that? Talking about a terrorist and undressing her with his voice at the same time?

  She struggled to form coherent words. “Killing Peter would ruin your career.”

  He kissed a spot under her earlobe. “What about your career?”

  “Gone already.” Leaning her cheek against his, she breathed in his clean-smelling aftershave and hoped it would rub off on her. “No career. No family. No life.”

  “I told you”—he nibbled her lobe—“I’m going to get your dad back.”

  Sinking her fingers in his short hair, she sighed. “How?”

  “Peter’s the key.”

  “Peter will be dead soon, or at least very, very sick.”

  Michael’s lips stopped nibbling. “How do you know?”

  Shut up, she told herself. You’re ruining everything. But she couldn’t ignore his question, nor could she lie. “I poisoned him.”