Excerpt: Craved By You

“No,” I say, waving the dossier as I pace in front of my boss’s desk. “This can’t be right.”

Behind the desk, Ryan Hunter leans back, watching me. With his chestnut hair and sky-blue eyes, he could almost be Maxim’s twin. Honestly, that was the hardest thing about coming to work for Stark Security. Because every time I looked at my boss, it was as if someone had thrust a knife straight through my heart.

But time heals the pain from even the vilest betrayals. Within a few weeks, I could talk to Ryan without wanting to curl up into a ball of self-pity. Within a few months, we could carry on an entire conversation without me thinking of Maxim even once.

The day I realized that was the day I knew I was finally healed.

How wrong I was.

I draw a breath and stand even straighter in front of Ryan’s desk. “You can’t ask me to take this assignment.”

For a moment he just sits like that, hands behind his head, his chair tilted as he studies me. I’m well above average at reading people. Their posture, their eyes, the subtle motions of their fingers. Even the smallest thing can help tell the story of a person’s life. Their wants and desires.     Their plans. Their secrets.

But I can’t read Ryan Hunter. I’ve never been able to. Even so, I trust him with my life.

Right now, I wish I didn’t respect him so much. Because that respect is the only thing keeping me from turning around, storming out of his office, and slamming the door behind me.

Instead, I slam the dossier down on his desk, so that the red-stamped Confidential: PGU   Clearance Only is face up. “You can’t possibly expect me to take this assignment.”

“Actually, I can,” he says. “Because you’re the best person for the job, Cami, and you know it.”

I do, of course. Ryan Hunter has one of the best tactical minds I’ve ever run across, so he’s usually right about such things. But that doesn’t mean I have to like this particular reality.

With a grimace, I flop down onto one of his guest chairs. “When I joined Stark Security, I thought I’d be getting away from giant save-the-world missions.”

He chuckles. “Did you remember to mention that to the bad guys?”

“Damn,” I say, with a hard snap of my fingers. “I knew I forgot something.”

Stark Security burst onto the private security scene several years ago, and has since grown into an organization with a worldwide reputation for excellence. I’m proud to work here, but one of the reasons I’d come on board was so that I could take smaller assignments and stick closer to my adopted home of Los Angeles. It’s a nice change from my former job with the SOC—  Sensitive Operations Command—which is a covert, off-the-books government organization with oversight from the NSC.

There, I’d been assigned to huge missions with worldwide repercussions. During my tenure, I helped bring down a hell of a lot of bad guys, and I’m proud of the work I did, but the lifestyle was a bitch. Basically, I’d been a real-life James Bond. Or Ethan Hunt. Or Sydney Bristow.

In other words, I’d had a job that was cool as shit and stressful as hell.

These days, my work is still fascinating and my private sector paycheck rocks. Plus, I have a house in Venice Beach right on the bike path, a chest of drawers instead of a suitcase, and an actual pet, albeit a hamster. I still don’t feel quite settled enough to get a dog, but I’m working on that.

I’ve even joined a book club, and I go to yoga class twice a week.

Domesticity, thy name is Cami.

I’d grown up in the Bronx, and my memories from my childhood aren’t exactly something you’d find on the Hallmark Channel. More like Shudder.

Needless to say, the thought of going back now doesn’t sit well.

None of that, however, is the primary reason that I don’t want this assignment. On the contrary, I don’t want it for the exact reason that Ryan thinks I’m the perfect girl for it.

Maxim Wilder.