Excerpt: Blood Money by Tee O'Fallon
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About the Book
NYPD Detective Gray Yates has major trust issues. Protecting a serenely beautiful woman hiding enough secrets to take down an entire city wasn’t something he bargained for. She’s a loving single mother, hot as hell, and protecting her will test every ounce of his resolve.
Alex Romano is being blackmailed by the Pyramid—an elusive international organization of assassins every cop in the world is after. When Alex tries severing ties with them they refuse to let her go. The darkly dangerous detective she’s irresistibly drawn to is her only hope of staying out of jail. He just might be her savior…or her downfall.
Despite efforts to maintain his professionalism, Gray can’t deny the fiery passion Alex ignites in him. In an explosive confrontation, Alex’s lies are revealed and Gray is faced with the most important decision of his life: trust the woman he’s falling in love with, or arrest her.
Excerpt
Alex still couldn’t believe the two men actually tried to kidnap her baby.
She took a breath to steady her nerves. It didn’t work, far from it. All it did was make her even more aware of the man sitting a foot away. Every inhalation brought with it his wonderful aftershave. Woodsy, yet fresh and clean.
“I have to call Nicky’s school.” Anything to get her mind off thinking about last night. Despite her words to the contrary, she’d wanted Gray to finish what they’d started. But that was a bad idea, one she had to let go of.
Easier said than done.
Since giving birth to Nicky and having to take care of a child alone, sex wasn’t something she thought of very much these days. But she was thinking a lot about it now. The truth of the matter was, she began thinking about it the day she started working for the NYPD.
The day she met Detective Gray Yates.
Alex hadn’t stayed with Nicky’s father long after the physical violence started. She wasn’t the kind of woman to stay in a bad situation. But after what she’d endured, she hadn’t wanted another man to make love to her. Now the only one she wanted to touch her was the last man who ever would. And the last man she should ever let touch her. There was too much between them. She may have hurt him, but he’d been fully capable of inflicting the same level of pain. And he did.
She turned to watch Gray’s handsome profile. Part of her understood his viewpoint. He was one of the most principled cops in the department. Even she’d picked up on that trait right away—and it was one of the things she admired about him. It didn’t matter what her reasons were. The bottom line was that she had spent money received from a Pyramid assassin, and he thought she’d been paid to sleep with him and get confidential police intel.
Now she was nothing more to Gray than someone he and the NYPD would use to take down a band of ruthless criminals. What happened between them in her bedroom was nothing more than a mistake, a latent reminder of feelings they may have had for each other. Feelings she still had. Ones he didn’t.
“Tell the school—” Gray stopped, obviously realizing Alex had been staring at him for some time. “What’s wrong?”
Aside from the obvious?
“Nothing.” She pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket. There was no sense telling him the truth. He might be sitting right next to her, but as far as anything personal went they were a thousand miles apart.
“Wait.” Gray tipped his head toward the phone in her hand. “Tell them you’re taking Nicky out of school for a couple of weeks, but don’t tell them why. The Pyramid has resources sophisticated enough to tap into your personal bank account, so we have to assume they can break into any database. If you tell the school Nicky is sick, they’ll check all the hospitals. When they don’t find him, they’ll come after him again at your apartment.”
“Then isn’t the best story to tell them he’s home sick?” Alex shifted in her seat to face him. “He won’t be there, so what does it matter if I say that?”
“Nicky won’t be there, but you and I will.” Gray paused to look at her. “The last thing I want is for them to break into your place again.”
Alex widened her eyes. “What do you mean, you and I will be at my apartment?”
Gray’s gaze flicked to the side-view mirror before answering. “Until this is over, you have a roommate.”
“No.” She crossed her arms and shook her head. “That isn’t possible. I won’t allow it.”
Because I don’t trust myself to be alone with you ever again.
Gray chuckled. “You don’t have a say in the matter, babe.”
She turned to face him. “The hell I don’t. And don’t you dare babe me.” Last night was sheer torture. There was no way she could live in her tiny apartment with a man she wanted more desperately than she wanted to breathe.
“Too late,” Gray said in a cold voice. “It’s done.”
She grabbed his shoulder. “I do so have a say in this. I’ll talk to Lt. Frye.”
“Negative.”
“Negative?” Alex shouted. She lowered her voice so she didn’t wake Nicky, who was still sleeping comfortably in the car seat. “And don’t speak to me like I’m one of your cop cronies. Why does it have to be you?”
“Because not only won’t the department pay for your protection, but I don’t trust anyone else to keep you safe.” He briefly met her gaze, and there was anger there, but Alex couldn’t decipher the source of it. He shouldn’t care about her, and he shouldn’t care about protecting her.
Ah, she thought. He’s not protecting me, he’s protecting his cooperator.
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About the Author
Tee O'Fallon has been a federal agent for twenty-two years, giving her hands-on experience in the field of law enforcement that she combines with her love of romantic suspense. Tee's job affords her the unique opportunity to work with the heroic and sexy men in law enforcement on a daily basis. For Tee, research is the easy part!
