Protect Me - Coming 1 May - Blurb and Excerpt

 Protect Me is Coming 1 May

He was supposed to be a man from a tough world of crime and danger. But he’d never fitted that image he was supposed to portray. He’d always felt lost and out of his depth, like he was forever treading water.

Kayden Cole – ex-junkie, one-time gangster’s toy and…birdwatcher

Mason Pearce – the Miami narcotics detective assigned to protect Kayden while he turns state’s evidence

Never had he wanted to protect and cherish someone the way he did Kayden.

Mason likes his men big, brawny and brainless. Kayden’s ten years younger, short and slight. He’s also cerebral, introverted, and haunted by his past. Mason can’t understand his instant attraction but it’s like being struck by a thunderbolt. Closeted alone in a hotel room with Kayden for twelve hours every night, Mason is driven beyond the edge of his control, but he’ll lose his job and compromise Kayden’s safety if he tangles with him.

He was back to the lowest place he had ever been—alone with nothing and nobody— and if someone wanted to put him out of his misery, that was just fine.

Kayden’s damaged and scarred and in fear of his life. He lost the only man who ever meant anything to him and he’s suspicious of the cop’s motives. But Mason burrows beneath his skin, opens Kayden up and even though he’s scared, he wants to hope that finally, life will give him a break.

Possible Spoilers:

Themes: hurt/comfort, age gap, forced proximity, drama, angst, crime

Genre: Dark, gritty contemporary romance

Warnings: Violence and strong language. Sexual scenes. Rape (off page). Drug abuse.

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CHAPTER ONE

As Mason Pearce crawled along the road in his car squinting at hotel signs on the never-ending residential street, his phone shrilled. He snatched it up. “Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Two minutes away. Still looking.”

“Christ, I already told you, it’s a blue sign with birds on. Sparrows or something.”

A second voice piped up in the background. “They’re barn swallows, you ignoramus. Hirundo rustica.”

Mason laughed. “That your witness?”

“Yeah, it’s him,” his partner drawled. “He’s got a big mouth. How about you get over here before I strangle him? And, oh”—he lowered his voice—“he’s kind of cute. Might be just your type.”

Mason stiffened. “Mickey, don’t push it.” He hung up, shaking his head. Really, how unprofessional did his partner think he was?

He slammed on his brakes as he saw the distinctive swallows on the blue sign. Even he recognized the steel-blue back and forked tail combined with the red throat. Mickey really was an ignoramus.

Mason climbed from the car and retrieved a bag filled with food, drinks and reading material. Night shifts in narcotics were not his thing. Especially night shifts spent looking after a junkie about to turn state’s evidence against a drug lord, when the US Marshals should have been watching him. It was co-operation all the way this time, manpower shortage and all that jazz, and Mason had drawn the short straw.

He glanced up at the bed and breakfast as he locked his car. It was a Victorian-style building with ivy climbing to the eaves and hanging baskets loaded with blooms. It didn’t look like a safe house hiding the chief prosecution witness in an ongoing trial—all power to the person who had thought it up.

He already had a key to the front door, which had been locked on police instructions. Letting himself in, he nodded politely at an elderly couple just leaving and headed up the stairs to the third floor.

Mickey took his time answering the door of room sixty-one. Probably drawing his gun, gesturing to the witness to get out of sight, checking the spy-hole.

“It’s me,” Mason said, and stuck out his tongue.

Bolts rasped back. A key turned. The door swung open and Sergeant Mickey Saldana, six-feet-five of intimidating Italian, blocked out the meagre light from the room beyond.

“Come on,” Mason grumbled, pushing past him. “Either you want to get home to Maria, or you don’t.”

“Yeah, okay, who got out of the wrong side of bed today?” Mickey cuffed him over the head as Mason glanced around.

It was a small room with twin beds separated by a nightstand. It featured a pine wardrobe, a dresser—complete with an electric kettle, two cups and a sugar bowl crammed with tea bags and instant coffee sachets—and a door leading to an en suite. The thin curtains were drawn. Sitting on the bed facing the window was a slight, narrow-shouldered man with short, dark hair.

He stood up and turned, and Mason’s glance became a stare.

It wasn’t like the guy was even his type. Mason liked them big, well-hung, and brainless. He wasn’t interested in conversation and picked men based on looks alone. He preferred blonds to brunets and muscle to bone. He liked to dominate—and even better if there was a fight for domination with a guy bigger than him.

The witness was a little on the short side—barely five-feet-six—and in his late twenties, probably ten years younger than Mason. Lean and delicate in a clinging T-shirt too small for him and skinny jeans, he looked as though he needed a good meal, or he’d stolen his younger brother’s clothes. His short hair—chestnut with copper highlights, shiny and poker-straight—fell into his eyes in a dense fringe. His eyes were virtually black and wary, mistrustful. A rosebud mouth was drawn into a sulky pout.

Mason swallowed on heart-stopping lust. Why? he asked himself, but failed to come up with an answer.

Mickey sidled up behind him and put his mouth to Mason’s ear. “Told you.”

Mason turned to face him, cheeks burning. “Get gone, smart ass,” he said.

His partner smiled slyly. “Mason, this is Kayden Cole. Kayden, this is your guardian angel for the evening, Detective Mason Pearce of Miami-Dade’s finest.”

Mason scowled. He kept his back turned to the witness. “Go.”

Mickey winked at him. “Sure. Now be a good boy and play nicely, Mason.” He laughed as Mason shoved him out the door and slammed it shut.

Mason threw the bolts, turned the key and slotted the safety chain in place. Then, on professional autopilot, he went into the bathroom to check the access. A single window that no adult could squash through—not even the witness—which was locked anyway. Back in the bedroom, the witness was blocking his access.

“Excuse me,” Mason said.

Kayden shifted, a faint scent of alluring cologne following in his wake, but it was still a squeeze, their bodies brushing as Mason squeezed past. He checked behind the curtains. The double window was locked with no access to it from below without a ladder or being Spiderman. Mason looked down the street in every direction before he pulled the curtains across.

“Keep away from the window,” he told the witness sternly. He was rewarded with a glare.

Twilight was falling outside, and he crossed to the nightstand to flick on a lamp. The light bathed the pale, almost luminous skin of the witness in a peach glow. He stood there at the end of the bed regarding Mason—somewhat forlornly, it seemed to him—in silence.

The bed nearest the window must have been his. It had a sweater and a couple of magazines on the end of it, so Mason claimed the other, dumping his bag and sitting down, surveying the room as though he hadn’t already just examined it thoroughly, rather than studying the pretty face of the witness again.

“I hope you’re not as talkative as your partner. I want a quiet night. I’ve got a fucking headache.”

Mason’s gaze jerked to his. Hadn’t Mickey said the witness was the one with the big mouth? The thing was, Mason knew his partner could be motor-mouthed when tedium overcame him. He shot Kayden a cool look. “You won’t hear a peep out of me.”

“Just great.” Kayden disappeared into the bathroom. Mason heard the lock click into place.

He relaxed back, shaking his head. The witness really needed to lock the door? Sure, he was hot in a curious, geeky kind of way, like some stamp collector who had never been laid, but Mason was hardly going to burst in during his shower and take him up against the wall now, was he? The idea spun around a little in his head though, then germinated, and his cock swelled inside his jeans. Christ, what was the matter with him? He couldn’t be trapped for twelve hours in this shoebox of a room with a man who made him hot, for God’s sake. He rooted around in his bag and pulled out a novel. Something light that wouldn’t make him nod off on the job.

Mason sat down on an uncomfortable upright chair against the wall next to the door and opened the book to the first page. He managed a paragraph before his gaze wandered to the bathroom door as he heard water running. He imagined the witness naked beneath the spray. He still couldn’t understand his attraction. Was it just a culmination of sexual frustration that had him acting this way? Would an overnight stay with any man have resulted in this kind of longing? Hardly. He’d taken on plenty of witness protection cases in the past, and none had aroused him quite as suddenly as this man. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time attraction had grabbed him like this.

But he needn’t worry. It wasn’t as if he would ever risk his job to do anything quite so foolish. A hard-on was a hard-on and could be taken care of in time. Perhaps he could rub one out in the bathroom once the witness was asleep. Mason put his book down and stood, stalking to the window and back.

His gaze fell to the sweater on Kayden’s bed. Why the man needed a sweater during spring in Florida was anybody’s guess. Maybe it was the lack of meat on his bones. Glancing at the bathroom door, he lifted the clothing and fondled the soft wool a moment. Then, with another guilty look toward the bathroom, he brought it to his nose, inhaling the smell of cologne lingering around the neck of the garment.

He dropped it in a flash as the shower stopped, and when silence reigned, he walked around to the nightstand to peruse the personal items on it. His attention was drawn first to a pair of binoculars in a canvas case. Mason stared. What the hell? Had Kayden been spying on his neighbors with these, or had Mickey been using them to scout for potential trouble? His gaze drifted to a pair of black, narrow-framed glasses, which he guessed would complete Kayden’s geek look just right. Beside them were a peanut and chocolate bar, a small jar of night cream, and a tiny tub of lip balm. Mason touched the latter item with interest. He glanced again toward the bathroom before he scooped up the tub and looked at the writing on the side. Fudge brownie. A bizarre shiver of arousal slid down Mason’s spine.

He shook his head and moved away. He rooted through the bag he’d brought with him to tug free a bottle of flavored water. As he tilted the bottle to his lips, the bathroom door opened and Kayden exited in a cloud of steam, wearing nothing but a towel around his lean hips.

Mason almost choked on his mouthful. Kayden was too thin, but that didn’t stop Mason from running a connoisseur’s eye over his pale, nearly hairless torso. He’d never met a fat junkie, of course, but his keen gaze didn’t find any track marks on the witness’s inner arms. But then, who had ever said Kayden was a drug user? Mason had just assumed. He didn’t actually know anything about this man, courtesy of the secrecy surrounding the US Marshalls’ operation.

The witness bristled visibly under his scrutiny. “See something you like?”

Mason felt his face heat. He curled his lip. “Definitely not. You look like you’ve just done six months in Auschwitz.”

Kayden’s pouty mouth tightened. “That’s offensive.”

Mason shrugged. “Complain to my boss.”

“Asshole.” Kayden stalked to the window.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Kayden threw the curtains back and stood there while the fading light spilled over his milky skin. A sitting target. On the small of his back Mason saw gothic script inscribed in black ink. He was too far away to read the words.

“Get away from the goddamn window,” Mason ground out through his teeth.

“Fuck you.”

Anger surged within him so strongly he was blinded by it. Perhaps he’d rechanneled his lust into the destructive emotion in order to rein in his desire. But not only was the witness a rude son of a bitch, he was also standing there against Mason’s orders waiting to get his fucking head blown off. And hence end Mason’s career.

He strode to the window, wrenched Kayden back by his shoulder, and shoved him against the wall.

Kayden gasped. He grabbed at the towel that was slipping from his hips. Mason pinned him there with a hand against his chest and Kayden squirmed, scrabbling at Mason’s wrist, his face red, and his dark eyes flashing with anger.

Mason stared him down, taller by some inches, using his superior body strength to intimidate the witness. Kayden’s eyes weren’t simply mundane brown close up. Black rings rimmed his dark irises, which sparked with gold and green flecks. Those eyes were glossy, moist, their pupils widening. They were fringed with lush lashes and were like no eyes Mason had ever seen before.

He became aware of the soft skin under his palm, and beyond that, the hard beating of Kayden’s heart, like a frightened rabbit. His grip slackened. He moved his hand from Kayden’s chest to the back of his neck and captured his panting mouth with his own.

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