hunt her down (Mini-Excerpt #1)

“Call it whatever you want.”  Dan lifted the hand holding the dossier and gave Max Roper’s massive shoulder a decent smack.  “Now go eat some charred meat like a good Rottweiler.  You’re missing the party and all the gossip about the reasons behind my first official leave of absence.”

“A leave of absence?”  Max’s gaze slid to his shoulder.  “With a Bullet Catcher dossier still warm from the Research and Investigative Department printer?”
The son of a bitch didn’t miss a trick.  “Just grabbed a file on an old friend I might look up in the Keys.”

“You’re going to Florida?  Cori and I are going down to Miami tomorrow, to her place on Star Island.  Why don’t you stay with us for a few days?”

“And get psychoanalyzed by two of you?  No thanks.  Anyway, I’ll be a couple of hours south, in Marathon.”

“Doing what?” Max pressed.

“Fishing.”

“You don’t own a tackle box.  What’s going on down there?”

“Nothing.”  He hoped.  “I’m taking some time to myself.  See an old friend.  Learn the difference between a trout and a…nother kind of fish.”

“Who’s the old friend?” 

It was a waste of time to try and sidestep Roper.  “A young lady I knew from my Miami days.”  Well, she’d been young.  But not exactly a lady.

hunt her down (mini-Excerpt #2)

Straightening, Maggie nodded to the stranger.  “I’ll be right there,” she mouthed, taking the empty glasses from the table and wending around some chairs to make her way over.

As she did, he made no effort to hide his long, slow appraisal of her, the hungry gaze leaving a trail of heat and a thousand chills over every well-admired inch of her.  By the time he got back up to her face, she’d reached the table, and slithered into the chair across from him.

“You want a Heineken?”

“Among other things.”  He added an imperfect, slanted, utterly decadent smile that took him from jaw-dropper to heart-wrecker in a pulse beat. 

“Name ’em,” she shot back.

He dropped his elbows on the table and folded his arms, a move that just emphasized the power and size of his shoulders, and leaned closer.  She got a whiff of peppermint and spice, and dose of raw sex appeal, and a chance to see that, no, he hadn’t shaved. 

“Mrs. Smith.  Are you married?”

His question was direct, simple, and delivered with a baritone that made her wonder if his chest rumbled when he spoke.   

“Not anymore.”  She met him halfway across the table.  “Are you?”

“Not even close.”

“Well, now that we got that little detail out of the way, how about we finally introduce ourselves?”  She held out her hand, ready for the first touch, bracing for the electricity she just knew was going to zing up her arm.  “I’m--”

“I know who you are,” he said.  He didn’t shake her hand.  Instead, his long, strong fingers plucked at one of the silver bangles on her wrist.  “You make noise when you walk, you know that?”

She just stared at him, mesmerized and unable to look away.

“I’ve been hearing you jingle in my sleep.”

Oh boy.  He was good.  “What’s it sound like?”