He agreed to give her a ride out of town. She never told him someone was coming to kill her.
After three weeks in Manhattan, Kingdom Trahan is ready to get back to bayous, crawfish, and afternoons fishing on the Gulf. But even before he can pull out of the parking garage, he meets a curvy detour. King noticed Cady Kowalski on the photo shoot he just endured—sexy and confident, with a waifish look that belies the way she corralled him into submission using only a can of hairspray. Yet Cady isn’t so confident now. She’s bruised, edgy, and desperate to get out of town.
For years, Cady has been looking over her shoulder, wondering when the gang of drug runners who killed her brother would come after her. She’s grown used to having no one to turn to or trust. But King isn’t walking away—not even when their lives are threatened repeatedly. Drawing Cady’s pursuers out of hiding is the only way to end the nightmare, and it’s also the most reckless thing they can do, short of diving into a red-hot affair from which there’s no turning back.
“I love the hero in the story; he’s strong and street smart. The plot was well built and there was just the right amount of balance between romance and mystery/action.” – Katt, Amazon reviewer
“Cady and King had chemistry and knew how to put it to good use!” – Paige P., Goodreads
A window-shattering explosion of fiery light and booming thunder cut off everything King had been thinking and sent him into survival mode. He knew Cady had bolted upright, and he dived toward her, taking the both of them and all the covers to the floor between the two beds.
She screamed, but she didn’t fight. She ducked as completely beneath his body as she could, leaving him to the brunt of the raining glass and debris. He felt the scatter shot of detritus like bullets pummel the blanket where it draped him, felt shards strike his uncovered shoulders and head.
In seconds it was over, smoke billowing into the room through the frame where the window’s panes had blown out. He tossed off the blankets and urged Cady to her feet, finding her shoes on the extra bed and his boots on the floor then sprinting for the room’s exit.
Coughing against the smoke, Cady grabbed her backpack and laptop and sweatshirt, following him into the hallway and the chaos of half-dressed people, strobing lights, and the hotel’s blaring fire alarm.
“What happened?” she called over the panicked voices and crush of bodies.
Fearing their separation, he took her by the upper arm and pushed their way through the crowd. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Fuck orderly fashion. He wanted out of here and now, because there was something telling him he wasn’t going to like what he was going to find outside, and the sooner he found it, the better.
They reached the end of the hallway in time to see the first fire engine blow into the parking lot. King shoved his way through the knot of hotel guests congregated there and pulled Cady behind him through the door and outside into his worst nightmare.
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
His Hummer was a burning shell. Orange fire licked through what was left of the vehicle. Black smoke rose in foul-smelling columns. The rest of it – including his supplies and all of Cady’s possessions – was strewn around the parking lot in pieces, the result of the blast that had turned their room’s window into similar shrapnel.
“King, you’re bleeding.”
“What?”
“You’re bleeding. You’ve got a piece of glass sticking out of the back of your head.”
Too bad it wasn’t sticking out of his eyeballs so he wouldn’t have to see this. He reached back, nudged the embedded shard. “Ouch. Shit. Ouch.”
“Come on. Sit down.” She led him to the sidewalk and forced him to sit, dropping her bag and computer in his lap before shrugging into her hoodie. “Hold my stuff. I’ll see if there’s an ambulance on the way, or if any of these guys are medics or whatever. Don’t move until I get back.”
He watched her go, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere. Not anytime soon, and not under his own steam or in any vehicle he owned, goddamn Hummer garbage shit blown everywhere.
Soon enough he’d need a ride to the hospital for stitches. And then to the police station to find out who the fucking hell had blown up his truck. But for now, he’d do as she’d told him and sit.
Cady was right. It was hard being King.