From New York Times bestselling author Cindy Deesa thrilling new romance with a sinister edge
Lover. Trickster. Villain. Hero. Which of these is undercover spy Max Kuznetsov? Despite her psychic gifts, Lissa Clearmont isnt sure. All she knows is the gorgeous guy saved her life outside her New Orleans curio shop. And now theyre fighting brutal Russian mobstersand feeling extrasensual passion.
Although hes protecting her, Lissa knows Max keeps his darkest selfand true missionhidden. It pains her when Max doubts the powers that have already cost her a normal life. But when Lissa foretells inescapable danger, Max and his team of SEALs must believe in heror the dead people she sees will be all of them.
About that kiss last night
Max leaned forward curiously. What happened? Is that what its always like to kiss you?
I wouldnt know. Ive never kissed myself.
Something happened when you kissed me, Lissa.
You mean the earth moved under your feet? she joked.
He frowned across the table at her. Im serious.
She really wished he would drop the line of questioning, but she sensed there wasnt a chance in hell he would do that. Instead she asked a shade shortly, Describe something.
It was like my imagination went crazy. I saw all kinds of images and felt all kinds of feelings. But it all happened in, like, a millisecond.
She swore under her breath. Did he have a gift of his own, then? Has anyone ever told you youre an empath?
He leaned back hard in his chair. I have some experience in watching other peoples body language. But that doesnt make me some kind of psychic.
He said the word as if it was filthy. A momentary knife of pain twisted in her gut.
* * *
Dear Reader,
It seems fitting that, ten years after Hurricane Katrina, you and I should return to New Orleans for a steamy story of intrigue, magic and love. In the next installment of my Code: Warrior SEALs series, the team receives some unexpected help from Eve Hankovas older brother, Max, and from the strange and wonderful fortune teller he meets while performing surveillance on her shop. The Warrior SEAL net is tightening around the shadowy Russian spy running a mob ring in New Orleans, and their foe is more dangerous than ever as they close in on learning his true identity.
Ive long been fascinated by the role of intuition in special operations situations. Soldiers rely heavily on gut feelings to warn them of unseen danger and approaching threats. But exactly how far will a warrior trust not only his own intuition, but the intuition of a woman who may be working for the enemy?
Lets find out as Max and Lissa run for their lives and run for love
Happy reading!
Cindy
Her Secret Spy
Cindy Dees
www.millsandboon.co.uk
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author CINDY DEES started flying airplanes while sitting in her dads lap at the age of three and got a pilots license before she got a drivers license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan, where she grew up, to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European Studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the worlds largest airplane. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War, and amassed a lifetimes worth of war stories.
Her hobbies include medieval reenacting, professional Middle Eastern dancing and Japanese gardening.
This RITA® Award-winning authors first book was published in 2002 and since then she has published more than twenty-five bestselling and award-winning novels. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.
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This book is for all the brave and resilient residents of southern Louisiana and Mississippi who survived and bounced back from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. You remind us all of the best of the human spirit. Let the good times roll!
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
Dear Reader
Title Page
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Extract
Copyright
Chapter 1
Lissa Clearmont looked around her aunt Callistas shopher shop nowtorn between both affection and dismay. The purple string lights hanging all around the ceiling cast a spooky light on the eclectic inventory of Callistas Curiosities of the Magical and Macabre. An inventory that was hers to replenish and grow now, ideally by embracing the inner weirdo shed spent years doing her best to deny.
Until last month her world had been thoroughly cleaned out of both the magical and the macabre. But then her peculiar aunt called to announce that shed had a vision and was going to die any day. And, oh, by the way, shed willed everything she owned, including her wacky store in New Orleans, to her favorite niece.
She hadnt taken Auntie Callista seriously at first, but the woman had been adamant that the end was near and she had to get her affairs in order immediately. The curiosity shop was infamous within the Clearmont clan, which was populated by generations of rational, logical, scientific souls who saw anything having to with the unexplained, prophetic, occultor heaven forbid, magicto be rubbish of the first water. The family grudgingly gave Callista credit for managing to sell her crystals, tarot cards, talismans, spells and palm readings to a gullible public and making what was, by all accounts, a decent living at it. But their patience for her eccentricities ended there.
Lissa, named loosely after her aunt, had been the only family member to take Callistas startling announcement of her forthcoming demise seriously. Shed questioned her aunt in alarm over any diagnoses or heretofore unknown health issues, and Callista had responded firmly that she was in the bloom of fine health. Nonetheless, the spirits had spoken, and she was about to die. Of course, Callista had snorted at the mere mention of visiting a traditional medical doctor.
If only her aunt had been more specific about how shed expected to die and why. Maybe then Lissa wouldnt have this nagging feeling that something was very wrong with the circumstances of Callistas abrupt death two days after that phone call.
Frustrated, Lissa turned off the bronze lamp by the antique cash register, pausing for a moment to admire the deep rose silk shade with its beaded fringe and black lace edging. It was a pretty little thing in spite of its uselessness at actually emitting light. She trailed her fingertips wistfully through the cool fringe.
Sometimes she felt like the little lamp. Pretty and useless. The only thing in life she was good at was the one thing she was determined to leave behind in this cross-country move to New Orleans. Not that her parents hadnt tried to suppress her talent for years before now. In fact, theyd done everything in their power shy of trying to pray it away to eliminate her gift for seeing past and future events, and, worse, seeing into peoples souls.
Shed kept the shop open late tonight for a coven of witches whod come in to buy supplies for an upcoming Imbolc ritual. The holiday coincided with a full moon this year, and they were planning to throw a big shindig to celebrate the conjunction. The group couldnt agree quickly on anything, and theyd lingered a full hour after her usual closing time at seven oclock. She barely had time to rush out and grab some cat food for Mr. Jackson, Callistas entirely cliché black cat, before the convenience store two blocks away closed for the night.
The women had just left in a joyous cluster, taking with them their noise and laughter and leaving her alone. Worse, night had fallen while the customers browsed the shop. To say that the store turned creepy after dark would be like saying the sun was hot. She peered into the dim corners and to the back of dark shelves in an effort to find the source of her unease. Yet again, she failed to spot whatever it was that made her so blasted nervous. It was as if she was being watched by some foreign, and possibly malevolent, force.
Shuddering a little, she wrapped herself in her favorite vintage wool coat, locked the iron grillwork over the glass door behind her and hurried away from the store into the bowels of the night. It was a sorry thing when a dark, deserted street in a dodgy neighborhood in a sometimes violent city felt safer to her than her own store did. Aunt Callista would have told her to do some sort of exorcism or cleaning ritual to the curiosity shop and see if she could improve the places vibe. A white sage smudge probably wouldnt be enough. No, a full spell, complete with a ritual circle, libations, candles
Stop whispering into my brain, Aunt Callista! Youre gone. Ill make my own decisions. She didnt do that kind of woo-woo stuff anymore. Immersing herself in the mystical world had cost her too much. Brought her too much pain. No more. Henceforth, she would live life as a normal, mundane human being.
A warning vibrated somewhere in the back of her mind, and she scoffed at it. Nope. She didnt pay attention to baseless intuitions and vibes anymore. She could handle life entirely on her own. The powers that be could just get over it.
Something big slammed into her from behind as a hand slapped over her mouth, yanking her back against what turned out to be a powerful body. Dont fight. Dont make a sound, or else Ill mess you up right here.
Son of a Stupid warning intuition had to go and be right, didnt it? But then panic and terror rolled through her, and all else disappeared in the face of certainty that this man was intent on doing something terrible to her.
The voice vibrated with malice. Urgency. Accent: local. Smell: cigarette smoke and cheap strip club. This assailant clearly planned to harm her or worse.
His plan roared through her mind, projected so loudly he might as well have spoken the words. He was going to drag her into an abandoned spacebig, open, drafty like a warehouse of some kindtear off her clothes, beat her up, cow her into submission and then do unspeakable things to her before finally strangling her.
She fought then. For her life. With all the violence and desperation her five-foot-two frame could muster. Which wasnt enough, of course. But she gave it her best shot. Her attacker merely tightened his arms around her in a vise that crushed her ribs and made breathing nigh unto impossible, and then he waited out the expenditure of her remaining oxygen. This obviously wasnt the first time the man had done this.
An image of another girls face, bloody, scared and pleading for her life, flashed into Lissas head. She froze, arrested momentarily by the image, memorizing the face carefully.
Lifting her slight frame mostly off her feet, the man dragged her backward toward an alley even darker than the street they currently wrestled on. If only he would take his hand away from her mouth and nose and let her draw a proper breath. Then she could scream. Or fight some more. Or do something to save herself.
She felt herself dropping into a state of shock. This must be what it was like to be a gazelle in the moments after a lioness caught its neck in her mighty jaws and crunched into it. Paralysis first and then blessedly numbing shock. The gazelle wouldnt even be aware of its bleeding muscles being ripped away by razor-sharp teeth, its living organs being torn from its warm belly. There would be just the shock. The blessed, detached, distant awareness of encroaching death. Warmth. Quiet. Calm. She was going to die, if not right now, then soon, at this mans hands.