Until Twilight
Book 3 in the Nemesis series.
Ellora’s Cave ♦ July 15, 2011
Romantic Suspense ♦ Novella
Read an Excerpt | Order eBook: Ellora’s Cave
Isabella Sebastiani has the best instincts. For defusing bombs. But the moment she spots Lane Hallowell in the Piazza in Florence, she knows her instinct for finding an irresistible lover has improved. Yes, she’s to meet Lane for a job interview. Si, her mind tells her to ignore his tempting good looks and his incomparable charm. But her body tells her to embrace him. And her heart demands she take him home with her. Into her arms. Her bed.
A seasoned security operative, Lane shouldn’t be enthralled by a woman within minutes of meeting her. But the cool, professional explosives expert fascinates him and he’s determined to protect her from harm. As the two of them track a group of terrorists from Florence, to Rome, and on to Paris, Lane and Bella learn that time does not matter when passion demands a future filled with love.
Read an Excerpt
This excerpt contains explicit sexual material and is intended for readers 18 years of age and older.
Chapter One
As she wove her way through the diners at the tiny circular café Isabella Sebastiani was not in the mood to be shocked. Not twice in one day. She’d already endured one trauma this morning in Florence’s Bargello when she had defused the worries of that ancient gallery’s young director over a suspected bomb in a small ladies purse. That had been a false alarm that made her late for a very important job interview.
But halting in her tracks in front of the replica of Michelangelo’s David in the Piazza della Signoria, she saw one man whose appearance created a bursting sensation deep in her stomach. No, Bella, deeper than that. She straightened and tamped down the fierce physical attraction that raged like a five-alarm fire in her soul.
“Va bene,” she told herself all was well. She could handle men who were so good looking they were too vain to really care for a woman. Placing one foot before the other, she hitched the straps of her slim leather briefcase higher over her shoulder. “Men do not astonish you.”
Why does this one? She could not take her eyes from him, this man who was a stranger to her, this man who was the only man among those in the café in the piazza who could possibly be the one she was meant to meet.
She pushed her sunglasses up her nose and tried not to stare. No matter that he did not seem to notice her. No matter that at least fifty others dined on the terrace of that same famous little restaurant. He was the tallest one. The fittest. The most mouth-watering. With chocolate-brown curls and fine, strongly chiseled features that rivaled the David overlooking the square, this man appealed to every cell in her ’ body.
And he mustn’t, Bella. If he likes you as a person, if he values your vitae, if he accepts you as his partner in this international security firm for which he works, then you must not want him to pet you, cara.
She wove her way through the diners at the tiny circular tables. May in Firenze began the march of the tourists—and squeezing among the tables required a ballerina’s maneuver of hips and legs that had him fully facing her.
He seemed not to breathe. Not one movement betrayed whatever the hell he thought of her. He sat, one leg crossed over the other, his sunglasses concealing his eyes, yet she felt his gaze burn away her white cotton dress to caress her nipples and her pussy. Can your tongue arouse me more, American?
Her thong became drenched with her cream at the hope he would taste her and delight her. Her nipples hardened and she cursed the fact that her Italian lace bra had no padding to conceal her interest in him.
Do I attract you at all, Mister Hallowell?
At that moment, he shifted in his chair and she suppressed a smile of satisfaction. That sadly was difficult because now as he faced her fully, she could only admire him more. With his muscular frame molding the expensive black tee shirt to his chest, the gray trousers skimming the long legs, the elegant fingers holding his copy of La Stampa, he consumed her so slowly she felt her labia begin to melt in torrid need. How could he destroy her like that? With a concentration she had never known in any other lover.
Was he going to be her lover?
