by PJ Adams
“I can’t make those kind of calls any more. I don’t want to.”
Dean nodded. No judgment there, I think. Just... two brothers talking. Catching up. Trying to understand.
“So what will you do? Jess says you’ve been living by the sea. Lots of walking and shit.”
I laughed. “I don’t know,” I said. “I like it there, but–” I gestured with spread hands, indicating the town behind us “–all this isn’t too bad either. What’s the property market like? Somewhere quiet, where I can just walk out on the cliffs, an easy stroll down to the beach. Anywhere like that out here?”
I didn’t really mean it. I was just testing the waters. Seeing how Dean might respond.
I didn’t expect him to glance across, hesitate, then tell me there was a place. Nothing like I’d just described, but a place along the coast in a town called Puerto Libre, a bar that had been owned by Fearless Lloyd and was now just ticking over. Dean had been looking after it, but it needed someone to take it on, someone who had connections with Fearless. Family.
“You serious?”
He shrugged. “It’s an option,” he said. “You should take a look. The two of you.” Then: “I like her. Maggie. She’s a good one.”
I nodded.
Didn’t need to say anything more than that.
Just raised my beer bottle and clinked it with Dean’s, and thought how good it was to have options, how good it was to have family again. And how good it was to be living, day in day out, with the fear that I might fuck this all up, a fear that I hoped would ensure I never fucked up again.
Afters
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About the author
Writing under other names, PJ Adams is a successful novelist, with several novels published by major publishing houses and optioned for movies. As PJ Adams, she writes in the genre closest to her heart, erotic romance – love stories with that added heat, including the international bestsellers Black Widow, Winner Takes All, and the first two Bailey Boys novels, Trust and Hit Me. Working as Polly J Adams, she writes best-selling erotica, relationship stories crammed full of explicit sex. Among Polly's most popular stories are the Girls’ Club series, and Wings of Desire, the story of a young woman's relationship with the wealthy owner of a New England sex club.
You can find out more about Polly and her writing on her website, on http://www.facebook.com/pollyjadamswriter and on Twitter as @PollyJAdams.
More from PJ Adams
Dean's story:
Trust: A Bailey Boys novel
Never trust a man who says, "Trust me."
Jess.
As soon as I saw him, I knew I was in too deep. He's a gentleman criminal. A cold-blooded villain. Half the city's terrified of him and the other's on his payroll. Now his sights are set on me... but I can't let him have me, no matter how much I'm drawn to him. I can't let myself fall.
I came to London to put things right, not lose my heart to a dangerous crimelord. He says he won't hurt me... but how can I trust a man like him?
Dean.
I'm in the thick of the biggest gang war London's ever seen: Russian mobsters on one side of me, crooked police on the other. Then she appears and changes everything. She makes me feel things I've never felt before and can't allow myself to feel now. But already she's closer to me than anyone has ever been... and I'm starting to suspect she has a secret that could destroy us both.
From the moment I saw her I knew I needed her, naked and moaning under me, but I can't afford to give in to that need. Can't afford to care.
Too many lives depend on it, including hers.
Trust: A steamy, edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense thriller from the author of Winner Takes All and Black Widow.
This is a standalone steamy romantic suspense novel with no cliffhanger and an HEA.
Trust is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Excerpt
I turned to him and he was looking at me, something in his eyes.
He put a hand to my cheek, and for a moment I thought he was going to try to clean any remaining blood away, but then...
His touch. It was gentle, almost imperceptible. Fingertips on my cheek.
His hand moved to cup my jaw, forefinger against the lobe of my ear, a sudden, electrifying touch as his fingertip tugged on my earrings. My response surprised me, my sensitivity unnaturally heightened.
The adrenaline thing, I realized. Was this the fight or flight phenomenon Dean had referred to earlier? Coming down from the adrenaline rush, the aftermath of danger... he'd said it heightened everything: responses and needs.
He kissed me.
His lips tasted of metal, that coppery tang of blood.
His hand slipped round to the side of my head, fingers sliding deep into my hair, gripping and steering me, as his tongue pressed, almost delicately, between my lips.
I pulled away.
I wasn't ready for this. Wasn't ready for him. A man like him.
His hand fell away from my head, knuckles brushing against my thigh. He straightened, moved back from me.
Light flashed in from outside, another car's headlight beam sweeping across us. Our limo was following the convoluted road through this old industrial estate, one in a line of dark cars heading away from the fight.
In that arc of light I saw the tension in Dean's jaws, the dark flash of his look. He clearly wasn't accustomed to being turned down.
"I..."
I don't know what I'd been going to say, so I fell silent again.
"You can stay," he said. "No strings. It's late, and I guess you don't have anywhere to go, right? That place I took you to before? There's nobody stopping there at the moment. It's a place we keep, just in case. It's yours for as long as you want."
That explained why the house had been so immaculate. Inside, it had felt more like a show-home than somewhere lived in. Was that really a no-strings offer?
I peered at him in the dim light. He had visibly relaxed, as if forcing himself to do so.
I couldn't work out what it was, what he had.
Maybe it was just the adrenaline, coming down from the primitive energy of the fight. Not just Lee's fight, but Dean's too... the way he'd taken the Russian out with a single blow, the way it had taken three of that man Reuben's thugs to subdue him...
Maybe it was as simple as that.
An animal response to danger.
But I knew there was more, too. The complex mix of things that made him what he was. The raw threat of his life, his choices. The protectiveness – the way he'd shielded me from the Russians before, the way he always seemed to be looking out for me, an automatic response for him – but also the chivalry. He was a man who opened doors, who stepped aside for me, who made sure my glass was filled, who made me coffee and talked me down after Russian thugs had waved a gun at me in the street.
And more than anything, it was the way he'd taken my hand back there. Me, a girl who never held hands, a girl who shied away from any kind of display of affection. It had been a protective thing, my hand in his, a sharing of strength and defiance. It had been intimate, a small thing in a big, brash setting.
It had been a statement, one he'd been willing to make in front of those men without hesitation.
She's with me. Don't fuck with that. Ever.
I kissed him.
It was a reversal of his kiss from moments before. It was my hand that went to his blood-smeared cheek, my forefinger that brushed against his earlobe – a brief contact, but one which elicited a brief tensing in response.
I recognized that thrill.
I recognized the taste of his lips when my mouth pressed softly against his, recognized the soft yet firm pressure of his lips.
The roughness of his stubble.
The pressing response of his tongue against mine.
My whole body responded, every sense heightened. Adrenaline o
r not, I didn't care.
My breasts pressed against him, soft against hard; I felt trapped in the tight constraints of my leather jacket.
More tightness in my belly, and lower down.
He kissed back. After a second or two of hesitation – surprise? – his tongue met mine, pressed and slid.
We twisted to face each other, and his free hand went to my waist, slipping inside my jacket, pulling the fabric of the vest-top suddenly tight.
I became intensely aware of my nipples hardening, pressing against the inside of my bra. Tiny pulses of pleasure, thrilling through me at every touch, every pulling and tightening of clothes, of contact.
He pulled me to him, and I tipped my head back, breaking the kiss to release a long sigh that was almost a moan.
Instantly, his mouth went to my jaw. The scrape of his stubble was electrifying, the scrape of his teeth against the taut skin of my neck, the press of his lips and tongue...
The hand moved up across my ribcage, thumb finding the swell of a breast, sliding around the contour.
He moved to cup that breast, thumb against the hardness of my nipple through the layers of top and bra.
I was gasping now. I couldn't remember feeling so turned on – so urgently, so abruptly.
I reached for him, trapping the hand under my moving arm so that it squashed the softness of my breast.
I found his jacket, pushed it aside. His shirt – so thin and insubstantial!
I ran the back of my hand across his ribs, the hardness of a tiny nipple; found his neck-tie and gripped the knot, pulling him even harder against me.
Just then, the car bumped over a ridge in the roadway.
I pulled away a little, turned to look forward. The driver seemed oblivious to us – either genuinely so, or he was the model of discretion.
I still had a hold of Dean's tie, and now I pulled him to me again.
(continues...)
Trust is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Lee's story:
Hit Me: A Bailey Boys novel
I think I love you. Now kill me.
What do you do when the woman you've fallen in love with makes the most impossible demand? Comply and you've lost her forever. Refuse and you've lost her all the same...
I don't do relationships. I don't fall.
I've never needed to.
I'm the bad guy, the one with the reputation. A London gangster, now living it up on Spain's Costa del Crime. Bad men like me have always attracted good women - and bad ones, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell, and I've yet to make my mind up about her.
Imelda.
She had Trouble written all over her from the start. That, and one of the Costa's most feared crimelords watching her every move.
The sensible thing would have been to turn away, leave them to it. Do anything but allow myself to fall for her.
But who am I trying to kid? From that very first encounter we'd gone way beyond sensible.
Hit Me: A steamy, edge-of-the-seat romantic suspense thriller from the author of Trust and Black Widow.
This is a standalone steamy romantic suspense novel with no cliffhanger and an HEA.
Hit Me: A Costa del Crime romantic suspense novel is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Excerpt
Another whiskey, another Negroni.
For a time she allowed herself to forget how dangerous this was. They talked about everything and nothing. About London and the Costa; about Tenerife, which she had never discussed with anyone since she had left at nineteen; about Lee's brothers, and his father in jail, and about Imelda's street family in the Playa de las Américas, for that ragged assortment of hucksters and thieves had been more family to her than anyone else had been.
"It's late," he said, and they both laughed. It had been late even before they had come through here to the bar's back room.
Just two words, but loaded with far more meaning. It's late, so what now? More drinks, or head out into the night? To my apartment, or do you have somewhere we can go?
For that they would go somewhere was inevitable now, an undeniable rule of nature.
They would go and even before they got there they would kiss again, because it was all she could do not to lean across that small table and kiss him right now.
She wanted the hardness of his lips, the pressing of his tongue. She wanted to taste that whiskey in his mouth. Wanted to give herself up to that strength.
She wanted to explore that ripped physique. The way the muscles moved against each other. The way he would respond to her touch.
She wanted to undo the buttons of those gray pants one by one, her eyes fixed on his. She understood the power of locked gazes, of eye contact. That look was one of the most powerful things.
She wanted to pull those pants open, find the waistband of whatever he wore underneath and ease it down.
There would be a tight fuzz of hair, the broad base of his shaft, his manhood straining to be free.
She wanted to see those eyes widen as she took him in her hand.
Wanted to see him gasp at the first gentle contact of her tongue, at the way her lips would press against the wet glande and then yield, taking him in.
She...
It's late. Two simple words, waiting for a response.
"It is," she said, in reply. Again, two words, loaded with so much more meaning. If his It's late had been a question, her It is was the emphatic answer.
They were going to do this. It was undeniable.
(continues...)
Hit Me: A Costa del Crime romantic suspense novel is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Black Widow
Two years ago Eleanor Dryton lost her husband, her job and her friends.
She lost everything about her old life that ever mattered to her.
All she had left were her will and a burning desire for revenge.
Now, El has served her time for being an unknowing partner in her murdered husband's crimes. Her prison sentence has toughened her up and she's learned that she can be bad.
But when her search for revenge leads her to a man who takes bad to a completely different level just how far is she willing to go? If prison has hardened her, what effect will the man who killed her husband have? And does she even have any control over what happens next?
A dark and disturbing romantic thriller from the bestselling author of Winner Takes All and The Object Of His Desire.
--Author's Note--
This is a dark romance novel. It contains themes of violence and mature situations that could make readers uncomfortable.
Goodreads reviews:
"This story is dark and twisted. I liked it."
"My fave part is the ending. Not because the book was over, but because of the huge twist. I won't give it away, but BRAVA Ms. Adams."
"I had a hard time putting this one down..."
"Wow... Just wow! It was 'dark & twisty', kept me hooked and had plot twists that keep you guessing! Kudos to PJ Adams, I loved this book & would definitely recommend!"
Black Widow is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Excerpt
Rob had stayed in the room, giving her a little distance.
She couldn’t work him out. Early on, he’d told her he’d just kind of drifted into the life he had here. He’d come to owe people favors, and he’d found ways to pay them back.
She didn’t know what he did, though, what kind of double life he had. All those periods when he was away from the bar. Was he up here at the villa, or was he elsewhere, doing whatever it was that he had become involved with?
She knew all about double lives, though. She’d lived one for so long without even knowing.
She turned, resting the small of her back against the rail that ran along the top of the balcony’s enclosing wall.
Eye contact was all it took.
He came to her, sl
owly, like a fish being reeled in, the eye contact never breaking.
She stretched up and kissed him, their bodies still a short distance apart. His lips pressed against hers, hesitant, holding back. Stubble scraped her face.
His hand moved to her waist, and came to rest on the spread of her hips.
She put a hand to his face, finding the roughness of that stubble.
Such an intense moment.
She hadn’t expected that: the way such a hesitant, minimal contact could send sensations ripping through her body like this.
None of this was what she’d intended.
She pushed away from the railing, standing, finally pressing her naked body against his. Feeling the rough denim of his shorts against her belly, his thighs against hers, her breasts squashing against his ribs through the thin cotton of his shirt.
She hadn’t expected to suddenly need this so much. Not now. Not like this.
She couldn’t allow herself to be so weak.
She just couldn’t...
(continues...)
Black Widow is available from: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and other Amazon stores.
Winner Takes All
When a guy in a tux walks into a bar in the middle of nowhere, dripping wet from the storm, and pulls out a sodden roll of hundred dollar bills, you just know he's going to be trouble.
Denny McGowan has lost his girl, his best friend and millions of dollars. All he has are the clothes on his back, the money in his pocket, an easy, wise-cracking charm that could melt the hardest of hearts... and two gangsters on his tail and out for revenge.
