by Nina Pierce
* Praise for BLIND HER WITH BLISS (Tilling Passions Series Book 1):
5 STARS Miz Loves Books ~ Ms. Pierce has penned a wonderful mystery with twists and turns that will keep the reader guessing until the very end.
5 RIBBONS Romance Junkies ~ [Blind Her With Bliss] is by far, the best contemporary romance I have read this year. A hot and sweet story…a book to go back to when you are in a sentimental mood.
5 STARS Amazon Reader Review ~ This was a great read! I loved how 'real' Julie was as a woman, daughter and sister. The author did a great job creating characters with dimension and character. Damon was a hot, bad-boy with a heart of gold. There’s nothing sexier than that!! Kudos to Nina for a book that was not only passionate and sexy, but sweet and real.
§
* Praise for DECEIVE HER WITH DESIRE (Tilling Passions Series Book 2):
4 STARS Just Erotic Reviews ~ The suspense plays perfectly with Ayden and Deirdre’s romance making you want to keep reading without any breaks…I really enjoyed [Deceive Her With Desire] and can’t wait to read the other stories in this series.
5 STARS Romance Writers Reviews ~ This book had me literally on the edge of my seat. It was a hot romance filled with suspense. I will be looking for more books by Nina Pierce, she is an incredible author!
Romance Junkies ~ Passion and suspense go hand-in-hand in [Deceive Her With Desire]. Author Nina Pierce knows how to turn up the heat and keep it on high.
4 STARS Hesperia Loves Books ~ The story was quick & fast paced with tons of suspense that kept you turning the page.
Deceive Her With Desire
Book Two of the Tilling Passions series
Nina Pierce
Copyright © 2011 by Nina Pierce
Published by Nina Pierce of Rhode Island. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. (www.NinaPierce.com)
Email
[email protected]
Cover Artist
Dar Albert
www.WickedSmartDesigns.com
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Dedication
To Alan, my husband and soul mate, whose belief in my dreams keeps me going even when I can’t remember how important dreams can be. I love you with all my heart.
Acknowledgement
Writing is such a solitary endeavor, but sometimes we’re fortunate enough to come across other writers selflessly willing to give their time and energy to help a fellow author. This version of the book would not be possible without hours of brainstorming, critiquing and hand holding. Thank you JM.
Deceive Her With Desire
Tilling Passions Series Book 2
by
Nina Pierce
Chapter 1
Deirdre Tilling slammed the spade into the soil. Her booted foot thumped down on its metal edge, driving it deeper and transferring her frustration to the wounded earth. She’d been working the flowerbeds around her farmhouse since noon. And though the sun stretched the shadows of the maples long across her lawn, painting their leaves a deeper crimson, the hours of heavy labor hadn’t helped ease the pain of loneliness. Puffy clouds skittered over the tree line, reminding her of cotton candy and hometown fairs. Brianna’s favorite autumn activity.
She swiped the back of her hand across fresh tears and turned the dust on her arm to streaks of mud. Christ. And wasn’t she just a pathetic mess? The spade bit into the ground, collecting another load of wilted petunias. Without ceremony, Deirdre added them to the growing pile of detritus in the wheelbarrow. She wished she could purge her heart of her ex as easily as clearing the summer gardens.
Exhaustion made her back and arms ache. But it was anguish that pinched her heart and made it difficult to breathe. It had been almost eight weeks since her live-in lover had announced she’d found someone else. Deirdre missed her with a physical need that made her ill with want.
Loneliness had become an all too familiar companion.
Deirdre threw the spade over the mess in the wheelbarrow and pushed the load to the mulch pile in the back corner of her property, under the white pines. A bitter sigh pushed past her lips. Love had not been kind to her. Over the years she’d struck out with both sexes. Three serious relationships in her twenty-five years and all of them had ended with a quiet fizzle. She hadn’t even had the satisfaction of huge explosive conclusions that would guarantee her a little time in Delmont’s rumor mill.
Nope, all she netted were whispered condolences and pity glances from a few close friends.
It hardly seemed fair her older sisters had both found someone. They were obnoxiously happy and engaged to the men of their dreams. Not that Julie or Meghan meant to flaunt it, but contentment surrounded them like a sickly sweet cloud that threatened to suffocate Deirdre at every family function. And with the Tilling clan, dinners, barbeques and random celebrations were a weekly occurrence Deirdre had come to dread.
Of course she’d never not go, she loved her parents too much to hurt them that way. John and Alice Tilling were coming up on their fortieth wedding anniversary and nothing meant more to them than their three daughters. Settling in her hometown and opening Tilling Gardens and Plants, a floral and landscaping business, with her sisters had seemed as natural as breathing.
But Bri had thought Delmont, Maine just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The pace was too slow, the neighbors too nosey, and Deirdre’s family too cloying. There wasn’t much Deirdre could do to change any of that, so she’d just watched the woman pack up and drive away with all of her belongings and Deirdre’s heart.
Deirdre dumped the flower refuse on the compost heap. It had all gone to seed. Rotting away to a pile of crap, just like her love life. Damn she felt morose tonight. She threw the shovel on top of the dirt and tipped the gray wheelbarrow on its side. She didn’t even have the energy to take care of her tools. Not a good sign for a landscaper.
Truth was, sometimes life just sucked and then went downhill from there.
She bit her lip, staunching the flow of tears burning in her eyes. When would the pain in her chest go away?
Her feet pounded up the backstairs of the white clapboard house where she’d spent her youth. Too large for her parents, they’d downsized over a year ago, moving across town and into the same neighborhood as her sisters. Deirdre had been the only one of the three Tilling daughters willing to spend the time and energy needed to gut and update the old farmhouse.
She’d proudly signed the papers and made it hers last fall, just before meeting Bri. Four months later, right after the holidays, the beautiful blonde had moved in. Willing to spend weekends pulling down walls, running new wiring and fixing leaking plumbing, Bri had worked tirelessly next to Deirdre. Now silence echoed through the rooms. The shiny remodel had turned into a lackluster project that took more energy than Deirdre was willing to expend. Though they had the roof, windows and siding replaced to update the outside, only the kitchen and the master suite had been finished inside.
Unable to bear the pain of an empty double bed, Deirdre had moved back into her old room on the second floor.
She stalked through the kitchen and living room, taking the stairs two at a time to the old fashioned bathroom, trying to outrun her sadness. W
allowing in it all afternoon had gotten her nothing but puffy eyes, blotchy skin and indigestion. Deirdre’s friend, Emilio, had invited her to some fancy shindig out on the coast. She had every intention of repairing the damage hours of self-pity had caused, slipping into some slinky black number and heels and heading out to join the world of the living. Enough feeling sorry for herself. Sometimes being without a significant other had its advantages in social situations.
Because if this party was like most of Emilio’s invitations, it practically guaranteed some good old-fashioned, no-strings-attached sex. And tonight, that suited Deirdre just fine.
* * * *
Ayden Scott stood at the mirror adjusting the collar of the white button-down oxford. Tucking the tails into the faded Levis, he wondered if it was too casual for the party. Shooting a glance over his shoulder, he studied the two other shirts heaped with the chinos and Dockers on his bed. He’d never had problems dressing before he went undercover for the Drug Enforcement Agency.
It was a simple party, nothing to worry about…yeah, except blending in. He finger-combed his wet hair away from his face. This was a new look for him. The clean-shaven face and his blond locks dyed black made him a different man. Even his mother, God rest her soul, wouldn’t recognize him.
He’d been in Maine almost two months now. They were getting close to a big bust. He could feel it. This was the second time the DEA had given him the privilege of lead on an investigation, and he’d be damned if he’d frig this one up.
Too many times the supplier fell through their hands, and they were left prosecuting the street dealers, thugs who did their bosses’ bidding. None of them rolled over on the head honcho. Not when their only punishment was a couple of years in the slammer, some probation time, or worse, a simple slap on the wrist. Anything beat ratting out your employer. But man, wouldn’t that just piss him off if this case ended that way?
This one was promising to be huge. And Ayden wanted it. He could feel it like an addict could feel the urgency for another fix. It caused a physical ache in his gut. He wanted to bring down the guy he was chasing like nothing he’d ever wanted in the eight years since joining the DEA.
The heroin was coming in from Canada. They knew that much to be fact. They just couldn’t figure out who or where. This party at the mansion tonight promised some prime contacts. Ayden had two other teams scouting out similar locations along a thirty-mile stretch of the Maine coast. They’d bring the guy running the operation down—or die trying.
No, he couldn’t think like that. No one was dying on his watch. Not this time.
“Don’t go there, Ayden, ol’ boy.” He shoved the frustration into the back corner of his brain, encapsulating it with all the other painful memories he didn’t dredge up. Ayden had grown accustomed to his own voice in the last few years. He’d given up trying to psychoanalyze the reason he talked to himself. He’d come to accept it was simply a part of his personality. He was a loner.
“Focus. You have a job to do.” He gave himself one more glance before heading into the bedroom of the rented condo to straighten up. One never knew what kind of informants might be falling into his bed this night.
Ayden had been working hard to get the little fish to believe he had a big enough operation to deal directly with the supplier. He had bogus contacts in Portland, Boston, and Philly, supposedly ready to distribute the goods. That ought to lure them in. Everyone wanted a share of the drug market in those cities. If those places weren’t big enough, he’d also come up with business contacts in New York, but that alias was flimsy at best, and he hoped it didn’t come to that.
Others, more experienced, were afraid he wasn’t ready to take on a job this big. Not after the snafu in Miami. But that had been nearly three years ago. He’d taken the transfer to the Northeast and clawed his way back into the good graces of the DEA. He deserved to be lead investigator. He needed to bring this guy down, if for no other reason than to prove something to himself.
There were so many similarities in the two operations.
Ayden was sure this cartel was somehow affiliated with the Miami outfit as well. That ill-fated mission no one talked about. The one that had pressed him over the edge and into the bottle. Luckily he hadn’t drowned. Instead he’d gotten help, cleaned himself up and now was stronger and more focused. All the more reason for him to be deep undercover. He needed to bring down the fucking bastard who had stolen everything from him and screwed up his life in the process.
But perhaps that was all just wishful thinking on his part.
Monday, he planned a meeting with his teams to go over everything they’d uncovered in the last week. He hoped by then they would have zeroed in on the guy running the show, and he’d have something solid to tell his superiors in Boston. He’d had no contact with them for a couple of days. Ayden knew, given his track record, they’d be getting antsy.
To top it all off, someone was breathing down his neck, keeping an eye on him. He sensed it like a shadow that never materialized. He had to be close if they were tailing him. If, on the other hand, he found out he was being watched by his own men, heads would roll. But his gut told him that wasn’t the case.
Despite the danger, or perhaps because of it, he loved undercover work, bringing down the bad guy, keeping the drugs off the street. But he knew firsthand, it wasn’t without pitfalls.
You had to mesmerize the bad guys with a fake persona while your feet remained firmly planted in reality. He was definitely walking a tightrope stretched taut between both sides of the law. So far he’d skirted around the need to sample the goods. He wasn’t sure how long he could tiptoe around the edge of the precarious precipice before falling victim—again. Undercover work was a slippery slope of acting and real-life drama.
He loped down the stairs, grabbed a light weight jacket from the coat closet and headed out the door. There was no way he was screwing this one up. Not this time.
Chapter 2
Deirdre didn’t know what she’d find when she drove the forty miles from Delmont to the town of Cutler, but this posh residence overlooking the bay definitely hadn’t even been on her radar. She’d triple checked the address Emilio had given her to be sure it matched the one posted on the stone pillars before driving through the ornate wrought-iron gates and up the steep drive.
The grounds were in desperate need of care. The limbs of the maples, resplendent in the sunset hues of fall, hung precariously low over the winding driveway. Come winter, burdened with layers of ice, they would droop within inches of vehicle roofs.
Pulling into the circular drive in front of the pristine mansion, she noted the hydrangea and lilac bushes were in wretched condition and in need of pruning. The same was true of the cedar shrubs planted along the crushed-shell walk. The lawn was mowed, but showed signs of blight in several spots.
As she handed her keys of her little truck to a valet, Deirdre scrutinized the front and side gardens. It was obvious no one had mulched last spring, nor bothered to do much more than a cursory weeding over the summer. Most of the flower beds were going to seed. Such a beautiful property. Such terrible landscaping. She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
Emilio had said someone new had recently bought the property and the party was a sort of housewarming. Perhaps she’d have an opportunity to meet the new owner and mix a little business with her pleasure tonight. It would only take ten days, two weeks tops, for her landscaping company to have this place tucked in for the winter and ready to awaken from slumber with the first spring rains.
Automatically, she started ticking off a quote in her head. No doubt she could come in with a competitive bid. And from the size of the real estate, it appeared the owner was some corporate bigwig from Portland, maybe Boston, who could afford to pay for a big overhaul. A job like this to end the fall season could certainly make the lean winter months more comfortable.
Emilio worked as a mechanic. How he’d gotten an invitation to this fancy party with two of his closest frien
ds was a mystery he refused to solve. He’d been purposefully vague about the details of how he knew the owner. She laughed. Hell if she cared if it promised a new client with a big wallet.
The thought had her springing up the wide, front steps in the three-inch heels. The hem of her black dress swirled about her thighs. Her thong slid seductively between her folds, sending little jolts of anticipation sliding up her spine. The music floating out the open doors sung promises of unfettered sex with some willing partner. Her thrumming body was all too eager to find that person and get on with the festivities.
The early evening air blowing in from the ocean was cool, but not unpleasant, even as the sun slipped lower on the horizon. The mild September weather was prolonging the usually short Maine summer. Deirdre inhaled a great gulp of the briny mix as she crossed the stately front porch.
“Excuse me, miss, I need to pat you down.” One of the bald twins flanking the massive wooden doors laid a thick hand on her shoulder, impeding her progress.
Deirdre threw her arms out wide, feeling every bit as naughty as the glint in the man’s hazel eyes. “Oh, what the heck, pat away.” What was up with the body inspection? She ventured a guess as to what roaming hands was looking for; weapons? drugs? Deirdre chuckled when his hand lingered on her ass a little longer than necessary. With a nod and a wink, he flashed a crooked smile. She might have stayed to flirt if she was into him. But his biker charm did nothing for her simmering libido, so she batted her long lashes and moved over the threshold into the throng of revelers already enjoying the evening.
