About
the Book
Title: Behind The
Mask (Associates, #4)
Author: Carolyn Crane
Release Date: May
19, 2015
Category: Romantic Suspense
Buy Links:
Amazon: Coming Soon!
Barnes & Noble: Coming Soon!
Kobo: Coming Soon!
Book Summary:
TO SAVE HER PROSTITUTE TWIN SISTER
SHE HAS TO SWITCH PLACES WITH HER...
When her
estranged sister is won in a card game by a brutal drug cartel, Zelda knows
what she has to do: take her place. Save her. Focus on infiltrating the shadowy
group--and try not to think about why she left the spying game years ago. She’s
slept with dangerous criminals before; she can do it again.
Hugo
Martinez is one of South America’s most lethal and wanted men, a legendary
mercenary living on a windswept mountain. Even at the height of the war he
wasn’t in the habit of taking women captive, but the American whore has seen
his face. And he and the orphan boy need a cook. He shouldn’t want this woman,
but there’s something so unusual about her…
Meanwhile,
Zelda finds herself falling for her captor…but is he the killer she’s been
hunting all these years?
~~~
About
the Author
I
am a RITA-winning author of romantic suspense, urban
fantasy, and other tales of love and adventure (and erotic & dark romance
as NYT bestselling author Annika Martin).
My books have been published by Random House and Samhain, and I also go the
indie route. I work a straight job as a marketing writer, I love to read in bed
and run, I’m passionate about helping animals, and I make my home in Minnesota
with my husband and two cats.
Hi!! Hey, thank you so much for
having me over to your lovely blog! *waves* Okay, I’m here with an excerpt of
my new book, BEHIND THE MASK. The plot, in a nutshell:
When
Association head Zelda learns her long-lost prostitute sister was won in a card
game by a brutal drug cartel, she takes her place—and comes face-to-face with
the legendary killer she spent years hunting.
**
So things are a little tense between Zelda and
Hugo for much of this book—understandable, what with his being a killer and
Zelda being the ex-CIA agent and all. Things are also tense on another level if
you know what I mean.
In
this scene, they are at a stopover in a motel in South America. He’s got her
captive, making her help him deal with some bad guys. (She has botany knowledge
he needs to solve a mystery.) They’re en route to deal with some bad guys. She
has to color her hair to disguise herself.
******
When her hair
was full of dye, she leaned out the bathroom window and studied the raucous
street below. She needed to focus on important things.
Like survival.
Like the killer on the other side of the bathroom door. Her captor. He only
needed her for a few more hours—just enough time to get into the greenhouse.
And then what?
Small groups of
people congregated around the brightly painted doorways. She traced the scent
of fried sausages to a busy stall on the corner. The stall next to that one
seemed to be selling fried green plantains.
She memorized
every detail as she waited the recommended twenty minutes for the dye to
take…and tried not to think of Hugo would do to her when he no longer needed
her. All the heat between them, what did it matter?
He knew who she
was now. A danger to him.
When the twenty
minutes were up, she moved to the sink to rinse the dye. A knock at the door.
Three raps.
“It’ll be a
while,” she said.
The lock
clicked. The door opened.
“Hey!” She spun
around to face Hugo. He slammed the door shut behind him, gaze roaming wantonly
over her mostly naked body.
Her belly felt
melty. “You can’t be in here.”
He said nothing,
chest rising and falling under the dark gray T-shirt.
She motioned to
her hair, full of goopy dye. “I’m not done with this process.”
“Zelda,” he
grated, rattling off some dark and wildly dirty Spanish. Then he yanked her to
him and kissed her, whiskers rough on her skin.
“Hugo!” she
said, pushing him away, leaving brown smudges on his shirt. “We can’t—”
“We have to,” he
panted.
“Look at me! I’m
full of dye. You have to let me at least rinse it off.”
He stood there
like a predator. It created a kind of vulnerability that she probably shouldn’t
like. “You’ll do it after.”
“That’s not how
it works,” she said.
He reached out a
finger and touched her bare belly. Slowly he trailed that lone finger up to the
bottom of her bra, taking her mind firmly offline with just one swipe. Then he
hooked it under and pulled her to him. “I will rinse it, then.” He kissed her
neck. “I will handle it from here.”
She pushed him
away, trembling with arousal. Usually, having goop in her hair would be the
most unsexy thing she could imagine, but the way he looked at her told her he
didn’t agree. “I don’t need help.”
“The explain to
me beauty salons, Corazon.” He jerked his chin. “In the sink? That’s how you
rinse it?”
“Hugo!”
He glided his
finger down her bare belly, causing her insides to undulate. “You have no
choice in the matter, Zelda,” he said. “You are my prisoner in this. I take
care of what’s mine. Turn around.”
Her heart beat
in her throat. “Seriously?”
“Must I turn you
myself? Must I tie you? Are we back to that?”
She studied his
hooded eyes. Was he serious?
His tone was
strangled. “Face the sink. I have this under control.”
She pulled off
the gloves and turned to face the sink, the mirror. His head loomed above hers
in the mirror, gaze dark, hair unruly. He reached around her to turn on the
water, adjusting it to his satisfaction. “Bend over.”
She complied,
putting her head under the stream. He stood over her, massaging the water
through her hair, bringing incredible precision to the chore. This was the
precision he brought to throwing blades. An artist. A killer.
He made her tip
her head and stroked a bit over her ear. His fingers were magic, movements
strong and deliberate. He was making the process his as he made everything his.
As he’d made her his that first night with those slow, languorous motions.
Destroyed by pain and opium and still he’d made her his.
He gathered her
hair on top of her head and leaned over to kiss the back of her neck. “I have
this…” he kissed her again… “under control.” He kissed her again, pressing into
her. She could feel the hard log of his cock at her ass, nearly bursting
through his jeans.
He didn’t seem
under control. He seemed out of control, and God, she loved it.
“I have needed
to be inside you all day,” he said, breath ragged, massaging the dye out of her
hair.
“Hugo—”
“Quiet, or I
will gag you again. All day I have imagined taking you, making you come over
and over and over.” Her heart pounded as he pushed her head to the other side,
working symmetrically. “When you sucked in my fingers, I imagined them inside
you.”
He turned off
the water and pulled her up by her hair.
She opened her
eyes to see him behind her in the mirror, holding her wet hair, focused down on
her with a level of intensity that felt frighteningly primal.
“And I imagined that
I would make you come screaming. After that I would take you.” His words came
out in gusts. “I can wait no longer.” The furrow between his eyes looked
deeper, his cheekbones more sharp-cut, more ruthless somehow. Her killer, her
lover.
“Okay,” she said
stupidly.
He tightened his
grip on her hair; she could feel his intensity clear through his fingertips. His
voice lowered, control clearly fraying. “Hold on to the sink. You must hold
on.” He didn’t wait for her to comply; he fit her hands to the sides of the
sink himself. Even that turned her on—the way he thought he had to stabilize
her.
With trembling
fingers he undid he bra. Or maybe that was her trembling. The whole room
trembled. She had to remove her hands from the sink to allow him to pull the
bra free of her arms. He planted them back on the sink like she was an unruly
child who hadn’t behaved. “You must not let go.”
She gripped the cool porcelain, blood racing.
****
Eep!!
http://authorcarolyncrane.com/the-associates/behind-the-mask/
~~~
Giveaway
Information
(1) $75.00 gift card to Amazon or Barnes
& Noble (winner’s choice & open internationally)
(32)
Digital Copies of either Against the Dark, Off the Edge or Into the
Shadows (winner’s choice & open internationally)
a Rafflecopter giveaway
You guys!! Thank you so much for having me to your blog today!!
ReplyDeleteI like mysteries....where the hero/heroine have to team up to solve something.
ReplyDeleteI like romantic suspense with military heroes because they're competent and have the skills needed.
ReplyDelete