Hot Pursuit
A Jupiter Point Novel
Jennifer Bernard
Publication Date: August 29, 2017
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Deputy Will Knight and reporter Merry Warren couldn’t be more different—she’s the queen of questions, he’s the king of no comment. The inquisitive beauty drives Will crazy with her feisty attitude and sassy mouth…the one with the full lips just made for kissing. Not that he’s noticed. Much. He’s too busy working an arson case that may be tied to something bigger, helping his brothers prepare for the opening of their new flight-seeing business, and spending what little free time he has flirting with an online mystery woman.
Merry has enough to deal with without the sexy distraction that is Deputy Knight. She’s currently working undercover on what might be the most important story of her career, avoiding an unwelcome half-brother who’s invaded her life in Jupiter Point, and, oh yeah—her new boss wants her to do a story on a local cold case—the unsolved murder of Will’s father. A painful event he and his brothers are reluctant to relive. And then there’s that online flirtation…
A bossy alpha male with a protective streak a mile wide, and a fiercely independent reporter with a talent for trouble. The sexual tension is three years in the making, and before Will knows it, he’s in hot pursuit of Merry…and they’re both headed straight to danger.
Merry took one of his hands and tucked it under her
cheek like a pillow.
"Feels good," she murmured, sounding half
drunk. "I like your hands. They're very sexy. Do you know hands are the
first thing I look at in a man? If a guy has big hands, that's a good sign,
that's all I'm saying."
Will froze. He clamped down on the laughter trying to
fight its way out of his mouth. Poor Merry didn't know what she was
saying. If she did, she definitely wouldn't be using words like
"sexy." Hands weren't sexy, or at least his weren't. They were big
and calloused and sported a few scars here and there.
She snuggled her cheek against his palm. He was still
reeling with the shock of that move when she did something even more
provocative. She licked the heel of his hand like a cat. The surprise of her
wet tongue on his skin sent shockwaves all the way up his arm.
"Bet you didn't know I think you're hot. I think
you're a little hottie two-shoes," she murmured. "A hotsa-matzoh. A
hot-ten-tot. A hot cross buns, a hottie van winkle, a—"
"Okay, settle down." He shushed her, mostly
because he was afraid he might laugh if she kept going. So Merry Warren thought
he was hot, did she? Or at least she did when she was stoned out of her mind on
some kind of tranquilizer. "Just go back to sleep now." He did what
he'd always wanted to do—tucked a bit of her springy halo of hair behind her
ears. It felt soft and alive under his fingers.
"Don't you think I'm p-pretty?" Merry,
stammering? He'd never heard that before. Usually she spoke at a rapid clip
with barely an um or an er.
"You're very pretty," he told her. Because
it was true. "You're beautiful."
"You're just saying that." She stuck out her
lower lip, so plump and delicious he wanted to lick it.
"I'm not much of a sweet-talker. If I say it, I
mean it. But you should sleep now, you'll feel better after a nice rest…"
"Even my big butt? I got that from my mama."
"Yup, yup. That part's good too. It's all good,
from what I've seen." As soon as those words left his mouth, he wished he
could take them back. They were much too flirtatious for this moment, with
Merry impaired by a tranquilizer.
She immediately struggled to sit up.
"Merry, lie back. You need to sleep."
"You need to see all of me," she
insisted drunkenly. "So you can know for sure."
"That's a bad idea. Jesus, Merry." She was
trying to pull her arm through her sleeve, but her bent elbow got everything
mucked up. Still, he saw enough creamy brown skin to make him want to cry.
"Please leave your clothes on. I beg you."
"See? I knew it!" She jabbed an index finger
at his chest. "You don't like me. You don't want me naked."
"I do, I swear I do. But you're under the
influence and, my God, Merry, please stop this, I'm only a man, I have only so
much willpower—"
"Will! Power!" She burst into giggles.
"You are Will. And you have all the power you want. You got the
power, you got the power…" Now she was waving her arms over her head,
couch-dancing. Jesus, this was a nightmare. Maybe he should just get the hell
away from her before they did something they really regretted.
He was easing away from her, sitting back on his
haunches, when she swung toward him and flung her arms around him. She yanked
him toward her and planted a kiss right on his mouth.
The shock of her soft lips against his reverberated
through his system. With all the fast-talking, quipping and interrogating Merry
did, he'd never imagined her lips would be like this.
Jennifer Bernard is a USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance. Her books have been called “an irresistible reading experience” full of “quick wit and sizzling love scenes.” A graduate of Harvard and former news promo producer, she left big city life in Los Angeles for true love in Alaska, where she now lives with her husband and stepdaughters. She still hasn’t adjusted to the cold, so most often she can be found huddling with her laptop and a cup of tea. No stranger to book success, she also writes erotic romance under the name Juniper Bell.
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