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CHAPTER 1

Day One: Heath

I glance at my watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Turns out it looks just like it did thirty seconds ago, the minute hand not even having the decency to creep up one tick since I last looked. It's eleven thirty-seven, which means Destiny Bridges is now officially thirty-seven — nope, make that thirty-eight — minutes late.

The waiter comes by and fills my coffee cup for the third time since I sat down. This time he doesn't bother to ask if I'm still waiting for my friend. But he does give me a pitying glance, like he knows I've been stood up. I shrug, give him my best what's-aguy-to-do look. Then check my watch again.

Eleven thirty-nine.

I check my phone. Still no text answering the one I sent thirteen minutes ago, asking if we were still on. And still no explanation as to why she isn't here.

I take a long swallow of coffee, ignoring the way it burns all the way down as I contemplate just how much longer I'm supposed to wait.

As long as it takes, I remind myself. Those are the rules of the profession, after all.

I once waited three hours to talk to an NSA whistleblower in the heart of downtown Moscow.

Four hours to speak with an MI6 agent in the middle of war-torn Damascus.

Six hours to question a deposed dictator from South America.

Thirty-nine — no, forty — minutes, is nothing.

Still, there's a big difference between a spy trying to evade detection and a small town glass artist — no matter how successful — who should be ecstatic at the idea of covering the most influential art magazine in the western hemisphere. I figured she would be here half an hour early, chomping at the bit for the publicity and accolades an interview like this could give her. The fact that she isn't — and that she doesn't even care enough to text an explanation — intrigues me as much as it pisses me off.

And it does piss me off. For the most part, if people are late to an interview with me it's because their lives — or someone else's — are in danger. It's because showing up to do a Heath Lewis interview — even if it's in secret — might get them killed.

But Destiny is no deposed politician. And I am a shadow of the interviewer — and the man — I used to be. Maybe that's why this wait is growing more and more unbearable. Because a part of me knows she never would have done this to me ... before.

I cut off that line of thought — like I do everything else I don't want to think about these days — and spend the next nineteen minutes going over my notes about Destiny and the questions I want to ask when she gets here. If she gets here.

The waiter comes back around just as my watch hits twelve o'clock, and I decide to hell with it. Shaking my head no to another cup of coffee, I shove all my shit back in my bag. Then I toss a ten-dollar bill on the table to cover my cup of coffee and head for the door. And my rental car.

If Destiny Bridges won't come to me, then I'll go to her. We were supposed to meet at her studio tomorrow for the second half of the interview anyway. I'm just speeding up the timeline.

It only takes about twenty minutes to get from the diner to Destiny's place on the outskirts of town, and by the time I get there, I'm more determined than ever to get this story. This is only the third freelance story I've chosen to work on since I got out of the hospital and there's no way I'm fucking it up. Because if I have to go back to staring at my office walls for the next nine months I'm going to lose my shit completely.

After turning onto the gravel driveway my GPS says leads to her place, I drive another five minutes through heavy woods before I actually get to a clearing with a building. Two buildings, actually. One a cozy looking cabin with a front porch swing and flower boxes on the window and the other a towering, forbidding looking barn.

My gut tells me the barn — with its black paint and giant no soliciting sign — is where I'll find her. I park in front of it and gather my stuff before climbing out of the car. But my fucking leg has stiffened up on the drive out here, so I take a couple minutes to walk it off. Because Destiny's house and studio are right on a lake, I head that way. After years of being embedded in the heat and sand of the Middle East, I can't help being drawn to the water. Especially when it's so clear and blue.

I round the corner of the barn, telling myself I'm just going to stand there for a minute or two. Just going to soak up the energy from the water before I go beard the artist in her den.

But I only make it one more step before getting stopped in my tracks by the hottest thing I have ever seen.

It's Destiny — I recognize her from the publicity shots I found online — but it's not her face I'm looking at right now. How can it be when she's walking out of the water completely naked, the cool bite of the air pebbling her nipples as the water slides its way down her skin?

My dick gets hard at the sight of her — of course it does. She looks like fucking Circe rising out of the sea, a mystical goddess with rainbow hair and a body made to make a man beg. The thought barely winds through my brain before I'm whirling around, staring straight back at the barn, looking anywhere and everywhere but where I want to. I've done a lot of shitty things in my life, made a lot of fucking mistakes, but ogling a naked woman when she hasn't invited me to has never been one of them. I'm sure as shit not going to start now.

Besides, walking up on my interview subject while she's nude probably isn't the best technique to get her to spill her guts for the interview.

"I'm sorry!" I call over my shoulder without turning around. "I'm Heath Lewis. We had an interview set up for today, and when you didn't make it to the diner, I thought I'd see if I could find you here. I apologize for interrupting your —"

"Swim?" The word is delivered in a low, husky voice that makes me think of whiskey and wickedness and long, leisurely sex.

I close my eyes to block the images, swallow down the need creeping up my throat. "Yeah. Exactly. Your swim." The words are hoarser than I would like, but at least I manage to get them out.

"No worries." This time her voice comes from much closer than I expected. So close, in fact, that I can feel her breath warm against the back of my neck. "I was done anyway."

Then she walks right past me toward the small cabin with the window flower boxes. Her hips are swaying, her shoulders undulating just a little, her long, wet hair sliding back and forth against her shoulders. She's still naked.

Now that I know it doesn't bother her, I can't stop myself from looking. Can't stop myself from skimming my gaze over her long, slender back with its wild phoenix tattoo. Her rounded, heart-shaped ass. Her long, shapely legs that seem to go on forever.

Shit. She's nothing like I was expecting.

I've seen pictures of her — hard not to when I was doing the kind of research that would turn this article from a fluff piece into a tour de force in the art world — and I knew she was beautiful. With her crazy, multi-colored streaked hair, bright blue eyes and classic bone structure, that was never in question. But what didn't come through in the photos, what I didn't see in the straightforward gaze and small smirk that featured in every picture of her, is the sexiness that rolls off her with every move she makes.

Not just because she's naked, although there's certainly that, but because it's innate. Something that is as much a part of her as her ridiculously perfect ass.

I'm trying to decide what to do now — since grabbing her and wrapping those long, gorgeous legs of hers around my waist while I plunge inside her seems out of the question — when she calls out, "Coming?"

Of course, Destiny doesn't wait for my response. Nor does she look back. Instead, she doesn't stop until she gets to the back door of her cabin. "Last chance," she tells me as she slides the glass door open. Then she disappears inside and I'm left staring after her wondering what the fuck I've gotten myself into. She's no deposed dictator, but I'm figuring out that doesn't make her any less dangerous.

Though every cell inside of me is suddenly straining to follow her — and fuck her — I take a different tack. Instead of chasing after her like the horny guy I so obviously am, I make a detour back to my car. I do it partly because I need my laptop and partly because I want to give myself a chance to get a handle on the need ripping through me. It doesn't work. By the time I get back to that sliding glass door, I'm still hot and hard.

And she's still naked.

Oh, by now she's got a robe wrapped around that gorgeous physique, but it's barely belted, hanging wide open from throat to waist, and all I can think about is sucking those cherry red nipples of hers. Sliding a hand between those white, silky thighs. Pushing a couple of fingers inside of her and letting her ride me until she comes.

The image is so real that for a second all I can do is stare at her, eyes hot and hands clenched into fists to stop myself from touching. Considering I've never had trouble getting a woman when I wanted one, it's a hell of a lot harder to control myself than it should be.

And it only gets harder when she asks, "Want something?" in that fucked out voice of hers.

I want a lot of things. The answer slides into my brain so seamlessly that I almost let it come out my mouth. The only thing that stops it is the years of training I've had getting people to admit what they don't want to. Especially when everything inside of me revolts at the idea of giving this woman — giving Destiny — any more power over me.

So instead of telling her I want her on her knees in front of me, all that glorious multicolored hair tangled in my fist as I shove my dick down her throat, I look anywhere but at those glorious tits and say, "Yeah. I want to do the interview we have scheduled."

"Oh, right, the interview. Sorry I forgot about it." Nothing in her voice says she's sorry, but I find that I don't mind. Then again, I've always preferred honesty to lies, irreverent to stuffy.

If there's still a part of me that doubts a normal person could have forgotten the interview, with this woman I'm at least willing to suspend my disbelief. After all, any woman who has hot pink countertops and glass butterflies hanging from her kitchen ceiling has more going on than meets the eye. Even if there's a lot that meets the eye.

"Coffee?" she asks, lifting a carafe decorated with dancing zebras.

"God, yes." At least holding a cup will give me something to do with my hands that doesn't involve making her come several times on her kitchen table.

She pours two cups — then hands me the one that reads, Every Little Thing, Gonna Be All Right in fancy script. Just reading it makes my spine stiffen, even as the ball of cold deep inside me melts just a little.

"Black, right?" she says as she pours a copious amount of cream into her own mug, which simply reads I LOVE YOU.

"Yeah."

"I figured." She crosses the kitchen with her sheer, purple robe billowing behind her, and pulls the refrigerator open. I watch, more fascinated than I want to be, as she pulls out grapes, an apple, a few different kinds of cheeses.

"You know, I'm perfectly happy to take you out to lunch," I tell her. "That's what we originally had planned for the interview."

Destiny rolls her eyes and waves me away. "Restaurants are impersonal. Besides, how are you going to convince me to give up all my secrets in the middle of a crowded dining room?" She pauses in washing the grapes long enough to shoot me a look over her shoulder. "You do want my secrets, don't you?"

"I certainly wouldn't say no to them," I answer, which might be the biggest understatement I've ever uttered. But suddenly I'm a lot less concerned with the secrets that go into the article than the ones I plan on keeping out of it.

She laughs then, and it's a rich, full-bodied sound, as sexy as her voice and her tits and this ridiculously joyful house with its bright watercolor paintings and even brighter color scheme. "Want to know my first secret?" she asks as she slices the apple neatly in half. "I like you more than I thought I would."

"Don't worry about it." I crook a brow as I settle on the surprisingly comfortable chair and pull out my laptop. "The day — and the interview — are still young. Plenty of time left for you to decide to hate me."

"I guess we'll see then, won't we?" She pulls a platter out of the cupboard — a gorgeous clear glass one in shades of dark blue and emerald, that looks more like the ocean than a piece of dishware. The second I see it, I know she made it. "So what's your first question?"

"What's your favorite thing to do?" It's not my first question, not even on my list of questions if I'm being honest. But as I watch her pile fruit on a platter worth thousands of dollars, it's the first one that comes out of my mouth.

"My favorite thing to do?" she asks, dropping a wheel of brie in the center of the plate before carrying it over to the table. "Fuck, obviously. Isn't it everyone's?" And then she drops straight down on my lap, her legs straddling my hips as she drags my mouth to hers.

For a split second, all the reasons this is a bad idea run through my head. But then she's moving her hips against mine and I don't care. Not about my professional objectivity going out the window. Not about the fact that I've prided myself on never using dirty tactics to get a story. And definitely not about the fact that I haven't gotten off with anything but my hand since I was injured.

Then again, maybe that is what I'm thinking about when I pull her lower lip between my teeth and bite down softly. When I clamp my hands to her hips and start lifting and lowering them against me in the same rhythm I like to fuck. When I rub my dick against her hot, wet, bare pussy and relish the low moan she doesn't even try to hold in.

I have big hands, long fingers, and never have I been more grateful for this fact than when all I have to do is stretch my fingers out a little in order to stroke her clit.

Destiny moans, her own fingers tangling in my hair as she presses down harder, moves her hips faster. It feels good — she feels good — and for a second I fear that I'm going to give it up right now. It's been nine months since I fucked a woman, nine months since I've held one against me and smelled the sweet, feminine scent of her. Now that I have a woman back in my lap — and not just any woman, but Destiny freaking Bridges who is talented and sexy and gorgeous as fuck — all I can think about is getting her off.

But then she's moving, sliding off my lap and to her knees on the floor in front of me. I try to grab her, try to pull her back up so I can make her come a time or three, but she just shakes her head. Grins that mysterious grin of hers back up at me. "Let me make you feel good."

What goes unsaid is that she obviously thinks I need it. I hate that, hate that I've fallen so far that this beautiful woman seems to think I need a pity fuck. This time I make sure to catch her arms when I reach for them, make sure to hold on tight enough to get her attention and pull her back up to her feet. "Me first."

And then I'm pushing her robe aside, burying my face against the silky skin of her stomach. Kissing my way down the lightly rounded curve of her belly to the top of her mons. She moans a little, her fingers clutching at my hair, her hips rocking against my mouth. And for a second, just a second, I forget everything I lost in that explosion. I forget it all and let the smell and taste and sound of Destiny fill up the emptiness inside me.

I skim lower, licking my way over her mons to her clit. She moans the second my tongue brushes against it, makes another one of those sexy as fuck sounds of hers. I slide my hands down her arms to her hips and from her hips to her thighs. Then I lift her onto the table, plopping her down right in front of me and spreading her thighs wide.

"Heath." The way she says my name has heat sliding down my spine. Has me wanting to do whatever it takes to hear her say it again.

I press a kiss to her mons, lick gently over her labia. She gasps, clutches at me, and I can't help lifting my head from all that gorgeous skin for just a moment. Can't help looking up into her eyes, already a little wide — a little dazed — and asking, "How do you like it, baby?"

That grounds her a little, and I watch those blue, blue eyes turn just a little wicked. "However you want to give it to me, baby," she answers, just a little bit of mocking on the last word.

It makes me grin. I love that she's trouble. Love even more that she gives as good as she gets. "So, soft and sweet then?" I ask, licking delicately at the top of her clit.

She makes a little sound of discontent, arching her back in an effort to get more pressure.

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Excerpted from "Break Me"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Tracy L. Deebs-Elkenaney.
Excerpted by permission of Harlequin Enterprises Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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