I have a little excerpt from The Fifth Kingdom for you today! CIA Agent Bill and college professor Deanna have already survived an attack on their lives and in this scene they are getting past their earlier animosity and learning more about each other. Each revelation just heightens the attraction between them. I love the slow burn between them and how emotionally challenged they both are because of the abandonment they’ve suffered in their lives. You can download The Fifth Kingdom for FREE if you have Kindle Unlimited or download it for 99 cents until midnight EST January 6th! Pick up your copy at https://amzn.to/41ItuqK.
Teaser
“I thought I heard you moving around,” she said, one hand braced on the jamb. Her chestnut-colored hair was sleep-tousled. Her hazel-green eyes were slightly swollen. She had been crying. He forced himself not to look below her shoulders because although she wore a modest one-piece sleep shirt, there was no hiding the curvy body or amazing legs peeking from beneath the edge of the shirt.
Locking his gaze on hers to avoid the temptation, he said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
In a husky voice, she said, “I wasn’t sleeping.” After a deep inhalation and the space of a heartbeat, she blurted out, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
Because he remembered one too many times curled up by himself on whatever had passed for his bed, he nodded and motioned to the empty space beside him. “It’s a big bed. Plus, it’ll make it easier for me to keep an eye on you.”
She smiled then and it reached her eyes. “Far be it for me to make your life more difficult,” she replied wryly.
“Now that’s a change,” he said with a chuckle and patted the mattress beside him. “It’s all yours.”
She walked over and slipped beneath the covers and for safety’s sake, he stayed above them. He reached over and shut off the light on the nightstand, plunging the room into semidarkness. Moonlight streamed in from the windows on the far side of the space, providing some illumination. Enough for him to see her face when they turned toward each other in bed.
She had grown serious in those scant few seconds it had taken him to turn off the light.
“How do you do it?” Her arms were wrapped across her body as if she would unravel if she didn’t somehow hold herself together.
“Do what?” he asked, needing further clarification.
“Act so confident and self-assured, like nothing in the world can rock your foundation?”
She’d chosen the right word to start her query. Act. It was what he did every day of his life, hiding the real him. The one that at times was still the scared little boy who wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball to protect himself. She had brought out that fearful side of him more than anyone else ever had. Part of it was that he identified with her. The other part…
It would possibly be too dangerous to acknowledge what that other part was, but he knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with a less-than-honest answer. “My life and the lives of those who depend on me demand that I be in control of everything around me.”
Deanna raised her hand and laid it on his chest. Beneath her palm his heartbeat picked up speed and the way his breath hitched for just a moment confirmed that his restraint was hard-won.
“For a long time, I thought I had things in order. Now I realize just how shallow a veneer that was,” she said.
“There’s no shame in that, Deanna,” he replied and covered her hand with his, his palm rough against the back of her hand. It was the hand of a man whose labors were difficult. The hoary moonlight allowed her to see the silvery line of the scar along the one knuckle. Another sign to add to the others that gave testament to the hard life he had lived up until now.
“For months after she left, I tried to be the perfect child, hoping she’d come back,” she said and rubbed her hand along the crisp hairs on his chest, finding the action somehow soothing.
“But she didn’t and yet you still kept on striving to do more.”
“I think I knew why I was doing it–to please her and yet to punish her by showing her what she was missing,” Deanna admitted, finally acknowledging the conflicting motivations that had been driving her for so long.
“But you still wonder if you couldn’t have done more. Been better. Been more than perfect, but you already were,” he said and raised their joined hands until his lips brushed across her knuckles.
The action sent a shiver through her. His action was filled with not only understanding, but with his own pain. She freed her hand and cradled the strong line of his jaw. Stroked her thumb across his beautiful lips.
“Your parents were fools.”
