Excerpt: Don't Lie to Me by Amber Bardan
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Amber Bardan returns with a heart-stopping third installment in her high-octane, highly addictive Bad For You series
A fling with her best friend's reclusive business partner should've been harmless.
When Emma meets him, the only way she's looking to be tied down is in the literal sense. But Avner—shady hacker, off-the-books investigator, occasional spy—takes her breath away. He's the first man who doesn't turn to mush under her sexual spell: a fact that makes what's between them very different, and very real.
Beautiful and uninhibited, Emma is everything Avner thought she would be and more. Yet his deadly past and dark duties can never be forgotten…not even as he succumbs to their seductive intimacy. But for the first time he's after something of his own, as well.
And now that he's found Emma, he'll protect her, no matter what. Because anything worth loving is worth fighting for.
But nothing about Avner is remotely harmless.
Soon, Avner has infiltrated Emma's personal life, stalled her career and nearly destroyed everything she's worked for—all in the name of protection. Desperate and heartbroken, drawn into a secret criminal underworld in her quest for understanding, Emma discovers the truth: Avner's secrets are far more devastating than his lies.
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise!
Excerpt
His other hand snaked to my waist, and he caught me up so completely against him, I couldn’t focus outside of his touch or the way he looked at me—hungry and visceral. “Do this with me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
My head lolled into his hand. I ran my fingers up to his shoulder. He was so strong.
So strong.
His muscles slid under my touch. Not just his body, but him. There’s no way I’d fail working with him.
He knows how to get what he wants…
My drooping eyes widened. No. Like that, I could think again. He did know how to get what he wanted. Including resorting to bribery. That’s what he’d just done with me. Everything he’d said was to get me to do what he wanted. I stilled, but didn’t pull away. My research wasn’t their area of expertise—it was Waldolf’s. Not to mention they had practically all the money in the world. They didn’t need my research even if the results ended up financially beneficial.
That’s not why this work was important to me at all. An investor would expect a profit, but I’d do this for nothing if I could. Haithem and Angelina wouldn’t resent me, no matter who I worked with or for.
Anger spiked through my system.
I knew how to dabble in a little innocent manipulation—a twist to a smile here, a bite of my lip there—to bend things my way. But what he’d done to me, it wasn’t a smile or a wink, or even a look, and it sure as hell wasn’t innocent.
He’d used words.
Words he could have plucked directly from my own skull. Words I feared and desired most. Words he flung at me like little snares to reel me in.
“The problem is I don’t trust you.”
He dropped his hand from the back of my head to rest high on my shoulder at the base of my neck. “I’ve given you no reason not to trust me.” His eyes went lazier. Those impossible lashes of his, lowering, sucking me into the pure sex of his gaze. “We’re friends. You can trust me.”
“I don’t think so. You already let me down once,” I whispered, and good-job-me for managing speaking.
“How’s that?” he drawled, but his lashes opened.
He still tried to seduce me into his grasp. Damn him, it was effective. Being so close, his hands on me, looking at me that way, it was all so very effective.
“You promised to get me off.” I let it all purr into my voice. All the lust he tried to use against me, I turned it back on him, and whispered, “But, I didn’t get off.”
He laughed, a rich rumble so close I almost felt the vibration of it. “Are you implying I need to fuck you to earn your trust?”
His thumb dipped lightly into a groove at my collarbone.
There was no way to suppress the pulse he must feel there, but so what, he couldn’t be sure it was desire. “You’ve fucked me three times already.”
He twitched, the passionate haze lifting lightly from his expression. “How do you figure that?”
“The way you looked at me before, you were fucking me with your eyes.” I kneaded his shoulder. “The night of the wedding, that night you just plain fucked me over. And again now, you’re fucking with me right now. Fucking with my head.” I pushed myself away from him. “So that’s three times you’ve fucked me. Three times and I haven’t come once.” A snarl moved into my lip. “So sorry, that’s just not the way I like to be fucked.”
I turned for the car door and grabbed the handle.
“Are you screaming?”
I paused, and glanced back. “What?”
“Are you screaming, Emma?”
The handle slipped from my damp fingers. “No, I’m not screaming.”
He reclined back into his seat. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He stretched his legs out. Non-threatening, except for the look on his face. “Are you sure you’re not screaming inside your head where I can’t hear?”
There was something happening in my head all right. Not screaming. My heart pounded in my temples. “I’m definitely not screaming.”
He smirked and it was as irresistible on him as it was obnoxious. “Then you can be damn sure, Emma, if you’re not screaming, I’m not fucking you.”
About the Author
After spending years imagining fictional adventures, Amber Bardan finally found a way to turn daydreaming into a productive habit. She now spends her time in a coffee-fueled adrenaline haze, writing romance with a thriller edge.
She lives with her husband and children in semi-rural Australia, where if she peers outside at the right moment she might just see a kangaroo bounce by.
Amber is an award winning writer, Amazon Bestselling Author, and member of Romance Writers of Australia, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, and Writers Victoria.
