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SECRETS VOLUME 11

Trade Paperback

MANHUNT BY KIMBERLY DEAN

TO MY READER 
Those of you who read my story Wanted in Secrets Volume 9 must be thinking that I’ve got fugitives on the brain. Well, you’re right. When I finished Wanted, questions kept running through my head. What if I turned everything around? What if this time, instead of a bad girl/good boy combination, it was the opposite? What if instead of one hunter, the whole world was after him? And what if nobody—absolutely nobody—was running? The answer to all my questions was Manhunt. I hope you enjoy it.

EXCERPT FROM MANHUNT
Chapter One
It was freezing! Taryn felt the bite in the air the moment she stepped out of the shower. Teeth clattering, she reached for her towel.

“The furnace.” She sighed. With the fall air turning from crisp to bitter, she’d meant to turn it on, but with so many other, more important,
things on her mind she’d forgotten. She was tending to do that a lot these days—forgetting things, letting things slide, not caring...
Briskly, she rubbed the terrycloth over her skin, trying to generate some warmth. She felt cold from the inside out. Unfortunately, she knew that had little to do with the lack of heat in her house.

Betrayal could be bitter, too.

Water dripped from her hair, and she shuddered as it ran down her spine. She couldn’t remember a worse day in her career. She’d told the Diazes that it wasn’t necessary for them to show up at the arraignment, but they’d insisted. They’d wanted to look their son’s accused killer in the face as he entered his plea. The entire family had sat in the front row, faces full of pain and fists clenched. Poor little Benny had looked like he could be sick all over his new tennis shoes at any moment.

She’d known how he felt.
Not guilty.

The words were still bouncing around in her head. They sounded right. They rang strong and true. It was what she’d wanted to believe, what she’d been desperate to believe when the accusations had first been made. Not guilty had been the only option…

Until the evidence had convinced her otherwise.

Not guilty. Now the words turned her stomach. She rubbed the towel almost viciously over her dripping hair. She hated drug dealers. Hated their cockiness, their power, their sliminess. They were amongthe vilest creatures she faced—especially those that targeted kids.

But this one…This one had been a coworker. And a friend.

Or so she’d thought.

Her shoulders slumped. She needed to forget about all that and accept that it was going to be a long, difficult trial. The only way she’d ever get through it was to distance herself emotionally. If she was going to be firm, decisive, and dispassionate, she had to pull back. Way back.

And she would, but tonight…Tonight she had to allow herself a little slack.

Dejectedly, she wrapped the towel around her body and opened the bathroom door. First thing, she was going to turn on that heat.
Then she was going to curl up on the couch with a weepy romance novel and a glass of wine.

Maybe a bottle.

A cold whoosh of air hit her skin, and she shivered anew. It was like the Arctic. She stepped into the hallway, but stopped before she’d taken two steps.
The hallway was dark.

She knew she’d left the light on.

Her muscles tensed, but before she could move, an arm circled her waist. A scream leapt into her throat, but a hard hand covered her mouth. Her heart nearly exploded when she was pulled roughly against a big body hidden in the shadows.

“Hello, A.D.A. Swanson.”

Fear swamped Taryn’s system when she heard the low voice. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be! She knew that voice.

Darkness magnified the danger. With a muffled cry, she began to fight. She clawed at her assailant’s face and kicked out, aiming for anything she could hit. She heard a sudden expulsion of breath and felt a second’s worth of success until the man hauled her closer. Hard hands circled her wrists and twisted her arms behind her. The position arched her back and flattened her breasts against the man’s chest. Her
fear took on an edge. He was all around her. His arms encircled her, his belly rubbed against hers, and his legs…They’d gotten tangled with hers during the short struggle.

The forced intimacy was almost sexual.

ANCIENT PLEASURES BY JESS MICHAELS

TO MY READER
A Victorian woman searching for the truth, an American tomb raider looking for treasure, and a tomb with a sensual curse.
The Egyptians never had pleasure this potent…

EXCERPT FROM ANCIENT PLEASURES

Chapter One
Egypt, 1897
Isabella Winslow fingered the artifact in her bag and smiled at her Egyptian maid. “This is it, Anya. This is the place.”
Anya shoved a lock of coal black hair from her shoulder and looked nervously around the barren desert. She’d made it no secret that she didn’t want to leave the safety of Cairo for the wilds of the sand dunes and the unknown adventures of tomb raiding. Or that it was inappropriate for two unmarried ladies to be in the unescorted company of their handsome Egyptian guide.
“Yes, ma’am. This does seem to be the place described on your late husband’s map, but are you sure we have to go inside Merytsat’s tomb?”
Anya glanced at their guide out of the corner of her narrowed eyes. He was standing a few feet away from them at the top of the stone steps that lead to the round tomb door. His arms were folded in waiting, his long silky hair tied back from his face to reveal a black tribal tattoo that curled around the back of his neck. His brown eyes were always focused, though. Mostly on Isabella’s maid.
Anya wrung her hands as her eyes darted away from his pointed stare. “Surai has told me stories about the curses placed on these ancient burial grounds. And I’ve heard the tales about English archeologists who haven’t made it home after their adventures in dark places.”
Isabella laughed at the superstitious drivel. “Surai only tells those stories to make you sit closer to him by the fire.” Though the maid tried to deny it, Isabella had seen the spark between her two servants. It was one she chose not to discourage. She had too many other things on her mind. “If we don’t go inside, we’ll never finish Hiram’s work. Or find out exactly what drove him to the way he behaved after he returned from the dig in this…” She looked around at the two worn, rock statues that guarded the tomb entrance, two half naked women who brandished sharpened spears and wore fox headpieces. “This strange place.”
Anya’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you need to sneak away from polite society and come searching tombs to find out why a man would stray from his wife. Or die in bed with two Egyptian whores.”
Isabella forced her thoughts away from the ugly facts. Facts she’d tried to soften with all her might since that horrible night so many months before, but to no avail.
“That’s enough, Anya,” she snapped. She turned away from her friend and switched from English to Egyptian to address their male companion. “Surai, open the tomb door and lead the way inside.”
He nodded and descended the steps into a shallow, sandy pit where a thick door awaited. The sand storms had long ago turned the identifying hieroglyphics to mere scratches, but the outline of the door was still clear. He crouched to his haunches to run tanned fingers around the edge in order find the best place to pry open the door.
They’d been lucky Hiram had visited here first. He’d not only mapped their journey to the tomb, but his team had done much of the excavation of the site. Still, she knew the door had been resealed when Hiram departed and she expected they might have to stand in the blazing sun and swirling sands for a while before their guide managed to pry it open. But to Isabella’s surprise, the covering opened with ease, as if the gods wanted her to come there, to find the answers she’d sought since she’d been widowed.
“Madam,” Surai whispered in his native tongue. “The door is already open.”
“This is not a good idea, mistress,” Anya said as she clasped Isabella’s arm with both trembling hands. “There is something foul about the tomb being open. Anyone and anything could await us inside.”
Isabella shared her maid’s fear, but shook off her feelings. This wasn’t the time to have the vapors. She needed to go inside. Something called her to enter. And it was something she refused to deny.
“Light the lanterns,” she ordered as she pulled away from Anya. She spoke with far more bravado than she felt. “If you two are afraid, then I shall lead the way.”
Surai opened his mouth as if to protest but Isabella gave him the icy expression her mother had always utilized with servants in London and he grew quiet. After a few moments of shuffling, he handed her a glowing torch and let her take the first few steps into the tomb of Merytsat.
The air was hot and dry, dusty from millenniums of being shut up. As far as she knew, only her husband had entered this place with his men since it had been sealed thousands of years before. The idea gave Isabella a shiver. The last man who had entered here was now dead.
With slow steps, she made her way inside. The low glow of the torch allowed her to see the intricate carvings on the walls. Prayers for the dead.
She had gone into the dim tomb about a hundred yards when a sound made her stop in her tracks. Had that been a laugh? And not just any laugh, but the sultry laugh of a woman? No. She had to be imagining things. No one should be in this place but her and her servants. No one else even knew it existed.
When only silence met her waiting ears, Isabella took another step. The dim corridor before her split in two directions and she hesitated as she lifted the light to peer down each one. Which way to go? Which way had Hiram gone?
“Who the hell are you?”
With a start, Isabella pivoted and found herself looking down the short barrel of a pistol. It was aimed at her by the most handsome man she’d ever seen. He had tousled brown hair and stubble that indicated he hadn’t shaved for at least two days. His eyes glittered in the torchlight, reflecting back an intense blue fire that almost had her turning away. Only she found she couldn’t. She was too drawn in, despite the threat he posed.
Swallowing, she managed to find her voice. “Who the hell am I?” she asked. “I think a better question is who the hell are you?”
“I’m the guy who’s laying claim to this place, lady,” he said in a decidedly American drawl. He inched the gun away from her face, though he didn’t holster it as he shot a side-glance toward Surai.
“Laying claim?” she repeated as shock and anger wiped away some of the sharp desire she’d felt when she first met this stranger’s gaze. “You have no right, sir. My husband found this tomb and it is rightfully his to harvest its findings for the British Museum.”
The man motioned his head toward Surai, who had taken up a battle stance in front of Anya. He looked every inch the ancient warrior. “That your husband?”
She blinked. “No. My husband is-well, he’s dead.”
The blue eyes widened and then the man had the audacity to laugh. And not a chuckle, either, but a low belly laugh that seemed to fill and shake the narrow corridor in which they stood.
“And just what is funny about that, sir?” she asked with as much dignity as she could muster when her cheeks were flaming with a blush.
“If your husband is dead, then he has no claim to anything in this world.” The man’s intense gaze lingered on her for a long moment. “Anything at all.”
The knot that had closed Isabella’s throat when she’d first seen this rude stranger now filled it again. She knew a man’s desire when she saw it, and it was clear in every part of the unknown outsider before her. Worse was that her nipples hardened in answer to his pointed stare and her thighs clenched.
Obviously she’d been too long without a man’s touch if she was considering this… this lout to be an object of lust.
“You still haven’t told me your name,” she said coolly.
He grinned as another man appeared from the narrow corridor behind him. Now the odds were worse for her party, though she strangely felt no fear. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew without a doubt that these men wouldn’t hurt her or her servants.
“Jake Turner at your service, my British lady.” He jerked his head toward his friend. In the lamplight she could see he had blonde hair and coal gray eyes. Eyes that were focused not on her, but behind her at Anya and Surai. “And this is my partner in crime, Rafe Christian.”
“Very nice.” She thinned her lips to a frown. “Now, Mr. Turner, Mr. Christian, I’m going to have to ask you again to leave. This tomb is under the jurisdiction of the British Museum. Marauders are not allowed.”
Turner gave his partner a look before let out another low laugh. This one raked over her senses and made her ever more aware of her reacting body. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like she’d never seen a handsome man before. Or heard a deep, throaty chuckle like his. But her body was behaving like a sex-starved wanton. She hadn’t been so wet in… well… ever.
“Are you a representative of the British Museum now?” he asked. He leaned closer and the heat of his breath warmed her skin. “Because I’d like to see your papers.”
She opened her mouth in outrage, but he held up a hand to silence her. “I’m sorry, lady, but this tomb is free to the public now. And my friend and I have our own plans for it. You and your crew are certainly welcome to whatever spoils it is you’re looking for. I’m sure there’s more than enough booty to go around.”
He turned to walk away, but she caught his arm. Instantly heat and electricity shot between them. With a gasp, she yanked her hand away and he reeled back a few steps as if he’d felt the same reaction.
She struggled for equilibrium. “You mean to raid the tomb?”
“That’s what treasure hunters do,” he said, though his eyes moved over her again. “We ravage and pillage.”
She shut her eyes as an image of this man ravaging her entered her mind. His broad shoulders gleaming in the pale lamplight as he entered her inch by inch. Though she shook the fantasy away, she couldn’t pretend that a telltale tingle hadn’t begun between her heated thighs.
“You know.” He stepped closer. “You never told me your name.”
She stiffened at the reduced proximity between them. He was invading her personal space, trying to intimidate her with his presence. It was working, too, though she’d be damned if she’d allow him to know it.
She straightened her spine and used her most proper and refined tone. “My name is Isabella Winslow. My husband was the late archeologist-”
“Hiram Winslow.”
She jerked back in surprise. Her husband’s death had been chronicled in the newspapers, but she was still stunned that a man like this would know Hiram’s name.
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “I’d heard of the circumstances of his death. I am sorry, Mrs. Winslow. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t accept your claim to this tomb. As far as I’m concerned we have equal right to the spoils here. So why don’t we just try to stay out of each other’s way.”
“Mr. Turner!” she cried in outrage.
“Mistress,” Anya snapped from behind her. “The walls!”
Isabella turned around. She’d been so caught up in arguing with the handsome tomb raider she hadn’t noticed that the corridor was shaking.
“Oh my God!” she cried out as she stumbled back. She came in hard contact with Jake Turner’s solid chest.
Clasping her arm, he began to drag her through the dim hallways away from the entrance. She pulled back against him, but he refused to let her go as he ran. “The tomb isn’t stable. We must get closer to the center!”
“But the door!” she screamed as dust and years of cobwebs clouded her eyes and blocked her throat.
“It’s the most unstable place of all!” he insisted just as a loud, ugly crash echoed through the passageways around them. Throwing all his weight on top of her, Jake hurtled Isabella to the floor and covered her with his body as a hail of stones and dirt settled around and on top of them.
Followed by a dark and sinister silence.
***
Isabella Winslow was yielding and warm beneath Jake’s hard body. Though rationally he knew that was the last thought he should have been having, he couldn’t help that he was a virile man and the supple body pinned beneath his own made his cock throb with powerful need.
But virile or not, the dust was settling in the total darkness and he had to get up to investigate how much damage had been done to the structure. And ascertain if anyone in either party had been hurt by flying debris.
As he shifted his weight in preparation to rise off Isabella, she let out a low moan. The sound was rich and throaty and made his blood run even hotter than it had been.
“You all right?” he asked quietly as he reluctantly shifted off of her and got to his knees at her side. He wished he could see her, but without the torch lights and the sliver of daylight from outside of the tomb door, he could only tell her location by touch and sense.
Still, he was sure if he could see her that her wide, brown eyes would be glazed with fear.
“I’m fine except for being crushed by you,” she said, though her voice trembled and lacked the heat of her sarcastic quip.
“Well, better me than the walls,” he answered as he pawed around on the ground for the torch he’d been holding when the tomb collapsed around them. He smelled the sharp tang of kerosene on the torch’s rag nearby and finally managed to grasp the end. Using his cigarette lighter, he set it to flame again and held it up to look at her in the wavering circle of light.
She’d risen to her knees beside him, mere inches separating them. With a gasp, she skirted away, but not before he saw the fear he had predicted in her stare. Along with a surprising amount of desire. Isabella Winslow wanted him.
With a triumphant smile, he stood and dragged her up by her elbows. Immediately, she snatched her arms away and stumbled back a few steps. He frowned as he looked around through the dust. Everyone seemed to be getting to their feet. “Was anyone hurt?”
One by one Isabella’s two servants and Rafe all answered in the negative. Mopping dirt from his face on his shirtsleeve, Jake surveyed the damage done in the tomb. In the dim glow of the torch, he couldn’t see much of anything, but the walls around them seemed to have remained solid, despite all the dust and rubble that now littered the floor at their feet. Still, the deafening rumbling they’d heard indicted far worse should have befallen them.
What had set off the avalanche of debris? He’d been arguing loudly with Isabella, yes, but that shouldn’t have been enough to make the very walls shake. Jake had raided plenty of tombs that were far older and in worse shape than this one. None had ever threatened to bury him with the long-dead mummies and their priceless treasures.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” Isabella said as she crossed her arms. The action forced Jake’s gaze to her breasts. Even under the loose fitting man’s shirt she wore, it was obvious they were round and perfect. They’d probably overflow his hands when he cupped them. He wondered what color were her nipples.
He shook his head. What the hell? Where had those thoughts come from? And why did the corridor seem to be growing ever hotter and closer.
“Come on,” he whispered in a voice made harsh by desire. “We need to go back to the entrance. If the tomb isn’t stable, we should go outside. At least until we can get a crew to reinforce the walls.”
Her brown eyes grew wide. “Go? No, I have to stay. I must find out-” She broke off the sentence with a suddenly panicked stare. “I just can’t leave, that’s all.”
“Whatever it is you need to find here, it isn’t worth your life,” Jake barked out. “Now, come on.”
When she shook her head in protest, Jake reached out to grasp her arm. Heat whooshed through him and set him off balance. She seemed to feel it too, for she pulled away from him with a squeal of protest.
“Surai!” she cried.
Jake turned to ready himself for battle against the large and menacing Egyptian guide, but was surprised to see that the two of them were now alone in the corridor.
“Rafe?” he called into the misty dark. “Where the hell are you?”
He waited for a response, but only his own voice answered him as it bounced along the walls in the maze of the tomb’s many twisting corridors. It rang back at him, distorted from ricocheting off countless doors and around corners.
“What did your man do to my guide and maid?” Isabella asked with all the haughty attitude of a British aristocrat. It set Jake’s teeth on edge.
“Look, lady, I have no idea where any of our friends are. But if they’re smart, they aren’t arguing in the corridor. They’re heading toward the entryway and safety.” With a growl, he pulled her closer and caught a whiff of the rich spicy scent of her hair and skin. It dizzied his mind. “Come on, your highness, let’s go.”
Her protests died on her lips as she stared up into his eyes. But then she shook away his hand and said, “Fine. But don’t think that just because I’m going with you means I agree with you.”
He rolled his eyes and used the flickering light from his own torch to find another for Isabella. With a curse, he brushed it free of dirt and lit it. Dim, sickly light finally emanated and Jake shoved the torch into her hand as he motioned for her to follow him.
“Stay close,” he ordered. “We don’t know what kind of debris may be in the path now and the torches have very weak light.”
She muttered a smart-ass response, but did as he’d ordered and slipped up behind him. Her body heat warmed him through his shirt and he could have sworn he felt the brush of those full, lush breasts pressed against the plane of his back. With a shiver, he headed toward the entrance. Once they were out of the tomb, he hoped these strange desires would go with them. He didn’t think he’d ever been so full of a need for a woman in his life. Especially a woman like this.
“It’s so quiet,” Isabella whispered. “Why can’t we hear the others?”
Jake shook his head. That was what he wondered, too. If their friends were anywhere close by, they would have heard their echoing voices and footfalls.
“Maybe they’ve already gone into the desert and are waiting for us,” he offered though he didn’t believe it himself. Still, there was no use getting her even more upset than she already was.
“Anya wouldn’t leave me alone,” she answered quietly.
Jake was silent. Neither would Rafe. The two of them had been friends for over five years. They’d raided tombs and avoided authorities and enemies alike. Rafe had never left him before.
“What if they were hurt in the accident?” she muttered with a tiny catch in her voice.
Jake stopped in his spot and turned back to her. The tough woman she’d tried to portray since he’d first leveled his pistol in her face was gone, replaced by a fragile beauty. He set the torch in a sconce on the wall and drew her against his chest.
She stiffened at first, but within moments she relaxed in his arms. Her chest flattened against his, her legs molded to his own. Every tantalizing inch of her splayed across him like out of some erotic dream. But this wasn’t a dream. It felt too good.
He struggled for words. “They each said they weren’t hurt,” he reminded her as his erection inched harder and longer. There was no way she couldn’t feel him pressed against her thigh, yet she didn’t pull away. “They just roamed off.”
She looked up at him with cloudy, unfocused eyes. Her tongue came out pink and wet to slide across dusty rose lips. With a groan, Jake pulled her closer and slammed his mouth down on hers.
He half expected her to pull back and give him the slap of his life. Instead, she wound her arms around his back and returned his kiss with an equal intensity. He drove his tongue between her lips and she sucked it. His cock twitched. He was going to have this woman. One way or another he was going to enter her heat.
In a few long steps, he crushed her back against the nearest wall and pushed her legs apart with his thighs. All the while he continued to plunder her mouth, bruising her with his out of control need. Yet she whimpered in desire, not a request for him to stop. Already her nails raked along his back and he felt her hard nipples through several layers of fabric.
“Yes,” she moaned as he grasped a handful of her skirt and thin silky underskirt. He yanked them up in jerky movements. She arched against him until her pelvis ground against his cock and he nearly spent himself there and then. But just as she pried a hand between them and found the top button of his trousers, a sound pierced the echoing silence around them. A sound that brought them both up short.
A woman’s moan.
For a brief moment, Jake thought it must have been a trick of the corridor that had sent Isabella’s cries of encouragement back to them on the hot, dry air, but then the moan came again, this time even louder.
“Is that Anya?” Isabella whispered as she shoved back against Jake’s chest. “Is she hurt?”
Jake cocked an eyebrow at her. That was not the sound of an injured woman. It was the sound of a woman climaxing. The sound of a woman being well pleasured. Isabella’s cheeks darkened as she met his gaze. She knew it as well as he did.
“We need to… go,” she choked out as she turned away from his scrutiny with a red face. “We need to find our friends and get out of this place.”
His erection jolted in protest, but Jake managed to nod. “This way,” he muttered as he grasped the torch from the wall.
The outer door to the tomb was only a few hundred feet away, but with the moans and cries echoing around them in the oppressive darkness, it seemed to take an age to reach it. The sounds taunted him, reminding him that he could have been plunging inside Isabella’s willing body right now if they hadn’t been interrupted.
They rounded the last corner, but instead of being greeted by the filtered sunlight of the desert streaming in through the doorway, they were met by ominous darkness. The cavern door was shut, blocked by a pile of debris.
“Damn it!” Jake cried as he hurried toward the entrance. He thrust his torch in Isabella’s direction and she took it wordlessly, then watched as he dug at the rocks and dust. Despite his best efforts, he was only able to free a few smaller rocks.
“We’re trapped,” she said behind him in a strange, low voice that made him turn. Her face had paled two shades and her eyes glazed with tears she was fighting to control.
He straightened up and tried to look optimistic. “For now. But you know that many of these tombs had more than one entrance. If we can’t find another way out, I’m sure Rafe, Surai and I can dig our way out of the main corridor.”
“But we can’t find the others,” Isabella whispered.
He reached out to her and was surprised when she took his hand without argument. “Well, we will. Come on, let’s go back the way we came and see if we can work our way out of this maze.”


MASQUERADE BY JENNIFER PROBST

 TO MY READER