Garen,
Rubicon International, #1
Rubicon International, #1
By Ann Gimpel
Dream Shadow Press
55K words
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Amazon: http://amzn.to/1T99dEB
B&N: http://tinyurl.com/jmw9e5u
Kobo: http://tinyurl.com/j4dhvhu
ARe: http://tinyurl.com/guht8r4
Google Play: http://tinyurl.com/zjyp8j9
iBooks will be up soon!
Undercover Shifter Bad Boys = Alphas With Serious Attitude
Tumble Across the Rubicon Into the Death-Riddled
World of International Espionage
Book Description:
As an agent for an
international espionage firm, Miranda has her hands more than full. Between
secretly lusting after her boss, Garen, and making sure the dirty little secret
about her double life as a wolf shifter remains hidden, she’s still a virgin at
nearly thirty.
Sent to eliminate the head of a
human trafficking organization in Amsterdam, she barely escapes with her life.
Injured, frightened, and under attack the second her private jet lands in the
U.S., she’s not certain where to turn.
Garen’s watched Miranda just as
surreptitiously as she’s been eyeing him. Unfortunately, the fact that she
works for him is a showstopper. Plus, he has a few secrets of his own that have
kept him single. When Miranda insists on heading up a covert operation, he
can’t come up with a plausible reason to stop her. Watching her sprint headlong
into danger damn near kills him. He wants to hold her, love her, protect her.
Miranda’s life is on the line.
Will Garen risk exposure to save her?
Excerpt from Garen:
The Gulfstream G280 shuddered
as it banked hard right. Miranda Miller pushed one of the window blinds out of
the way. Damn. Black as pitch outside
the aircraft. She felt like warmed-over crap. Her mouth tasted sour, and her
eyes were hot and gritty. She rubbed them and tallied how long it had been
since she’d slept. At least two days. She reached for a Styrofoam cup in its
no-spill metal holder, sloshed cold coffee around her mouth, and swallowed.
Her headset hummed. “Wakey,
wakey, fraulein,” a heavily accented
German voice rumbled. “We land at JFK as soon as the tower clears us.”
“What?” Fear sliced through her
fatigue. “I told you we needed a smaller airport.”
“Sorry, fraulein. This one was closest. We are below recommended minimums
on fuel.”
She considered asking the pilot
why he hadn’t planned better but decided not to antagonize him. It was bad
enough they were flying without a copilot—probably against FAA regulations. She
had a dummied-up commercial pilot’s license tucked in her wallet under one of
her many assumed names. Hopefully it matched the one on her phony passport. She
hadn’t had time to check. If it came down to it, she’d been instructed to tell
the tower she copiloted the flight.
As if he’d read her thoughts,
the pilot’s next words were, “I need you to move into the cockpit, fraulein.”
“Alrighty. Give me a minute.”
“You do not have much more than
that. I do not wish further difficulties with the U.S. authorities.”
Miranda wondered just what
other problems the pilot might be referring to. She almost asked him, and then
decided she didn’t really care. Her international security company engaged
professionals. Most of them came from either the military or law enforcement
and had checkered pasts. She unbuckled her seat belt and stumbled to her feet.
Her crumpled, black pantsuit stank, but maybe only to her lycan senses. She
hoped humans wouldn’t be able to smell stale blood.
A muffled chortle made its way
past her lips. Maybe once anyone got a whiff of days old sweat, they’d give her
a wide berth. Her body ached, especially her ribs where her target had slammed
a lead pipe into her. She fingered her side and wondered if anything was
broken. Not much you could do for ribs. They had to mend on their own.
A few steps took her to the
tiny head in the rear of the aircraft. She splashed cold water on her face and
winced when she took a good look at her scraped knuckles. Her target in
Amsterdam—head of a worldwide human trafficking organization—had been much
harder to eliminate than she’d expected. She’d needed her supernatural speed
and strength—and her wolf form. One more face-dunking in cold water and she
grabbed a towel to dry herself.
“Now, fraulein.” The jet shuddered again as its landing gear clicked into
place.
The pilot sounded so
exasperated, she rushed down the aisle and hurtled through the already-open cockpit
door. He grabbed her arm and threw her into the empty seat.
“Watch it!” she snapped. Her
upper lip pulled into a snarl. Claws pressed against the ends of her
fingertips. Miranda struggled for control. Her wolf wanted to kill the human
who’d manhandled her.
“Sorry.” The pilot’s voice was
mild. She recognized compulsion beneath his words and wondered what the hell he
was. “I do not wish to draw anyone’s attention,” he went on smoothly. “The
rules regarding business-class jets are in constant flux.” He glanced at her
with gray eyes that didn’t miss much. “Are you hurt?”
She nodded. “My assignment ran
into unexpected snags.”
“Will you require medical
attention before you proceed to the West Coast?”
She snorted. What a subtle way
of asking if she’d been shot or stabbed. Lars Kinsvogel—or whatever his name
really was—had obviously dealt with people like her before. Something he said
caught her attention. “Won’t you be my pilot?”
He shook his head. “Someone
fresh will relieve me.”
“Will I be able to stay aboard?”
He shot her an odd look. “Of
course not. You must go through customs.”
She rolled her eyes and pressed
her lips into a thin line. “That’s why I wanted to land somewhere inland.”
His gray eyes narrowed to
slits. “All flights from foreign destinations are subject to customs, no matter
what the airport. Is this your first international assignment?”
Heat rose to her face. “No.”
She was damned if she’d say anything else. She didn’t know him from Adam.
The radio crackled. The pilot
responded in pilotese and banked the plane. “Flights from Europe are cleared to
land at certain airports. With the fuel we have left, we could have landed in
Philadelphia or Newark, but I have a feeling those two destinations would not
meet your needs, either. What are you afraid of?”
Miranda wasn’t certain what she
could tell him. Company policy was clear. Talk to no one. “Never mind.”
She thought about Garen, her
boss and chairman for Rubicon International. She’d been half in love with his
razor-sharp mind, lithe build, salt-and-pepper hair, and sky-blue eyes for
years, but he didn’t see her as anything but a junior-grade agent. Rumor had it
he scarcely acknowledged employees until they became full-fledged operatives.
If her fellows were any indication, she had a way to go. At least a few more
assignments. And then there was the problem of her being a lycan.
She sighed, and fantasies of
Garen went up in smoke like they always did. It was nice to dream, but Miranda
steered clear of men. Between her wolf side and her somewhat unorthodox career,
intimate relationships carried too much risk of discovery. She relied on her
fingers, a vibrator, and the occasional one-night stand to take the edge off
her needs.
The jet banked yet again and
dropped lower. Its wheels made contact, and the pilot hit the brakes. Because
she wasn’t belted in, Miranda nearly plunged into the instrument cluster. Lars
made an aggravated clucking sound, but he didn’t say anything. They taxied off
the runway.
“Since I have to get off, I
need to get my things together.”
“Wait until the aircraft comes
to a complete stop, fraulein.”
He sounded so much like a bot,
she stifled a laugh. The plane moved smoothly into an enclosed hangar. Once it
rolled to a halt, she pushed out of her seat, returned to the passenger
compartment, and unhooked her small duffel from the wall. Lars’ breath hissed
against her ear. “Where are your weapons?”
“On me and in my bag.”
“Put everything in your bag.
Clips separate.”
“I’m not that stupid.” She
pulled a 9mm semiautomatic from its shoulder holster and punched the button to
discharge its clip. She drew back the slide, extracted the chambered bullet,
and stuffed it into the clip. Next came a snub-nosed .38 revolver and two
knives. She spun the chamber to make certain all the bullets were out and then
placed everything in locked gun cases in her carry-on.
Lars still stood practically on
top of her. She met his gaze, noticing he was a few inches taller than her five
feet eleven. “Yes?” She quirked a tired brow.
“Has anyone ever told you how
beautiful you are?” He settled his hands on her shoulders. She smelled his
arousal and knew he had a hard-on without even looking.
“Christ! Not now.” She spun
from beneath his grip. “Let’s just get through customs and allow whoever’s
knocking to search the plane.”
“We will have some downtime in
the terminal. At least an hour.” He sounded hopeful.
Miranda looked at him. Really
looked at him. Lars was attractive in a Teutonic sort of way, with ice-blond
hair and gray eyes. His trim body suggested he worked out. Interest flickered
but then died. She shook her head. “I haven’t slept for forty-eight hours. I’m
dead on my feet.”
“Why did you not sleep during
the flight? The air was smooth.”
Good question. She’d wondered
the same thing. “I have no idea. Too keyed up, I guess.”
He shouted something in German
to whoever was pounding on the side of the jet and took her arm. “I will watch
over you until you are safely back in the plane.”
She opened her mouth to tell
him it wasn’t necessary, but something in his face stopped her. In that moment,
she understood he was a trained operative just like her. His role this time
around happened to be pilot, but she was certain he’d stood in her shoes
before. “Which branch of the military trained you?”
He shook his head and let go of
her arm. “It does not matter. Follow me, fraulein.”
She shouldered her duffel and
walked to the rear cabin door. Lars had just sprung the locks. He spoke
soothingly in German to an obviously agitated customs officer standing at the
top of the stairs. The agent’s beady, black eyes settled on her. “Do you speak
English?”
“Yes. Is there a problem, sir?
It’s been a long flight, and both of us are tired. It took me a while to get my
bag together.”
Nostrils flared, the agent
looked intently at her and then stepped into the aircraft, waving them down the
jet’s steps. “Customs is the last door at the north end of the hangar,” he
barked. “Don’t even think of running. This hangar is locked and fully alarmed.”
Lars placed a hand beneath her
elbow and guided her across a concrete floor. “It is best if we do not deviate
from a straight line,” he muttered.
“Holy crap,” she said. “Why are
they so uptight?”
He shrugged. “As you Americans
say, it goes with the territory.” He grinned, displaying very white, very even
teeth. “Everything we do and say between here and the customs area is filmed
and recorded.”
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