Excerpt from Wanted

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Finalist in the 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense contest

Excerpt

Kat was just about to step into a tub of bubbles when the doorbell rang. Her mother always forgot something. She smiled as she pulled the terry robe off the hook on the door and slipped it on.

“What’d you forget this time?” she said as she opened the front door.

A man stood several feet away, out of the glow from the porch light, partially hidden in the shadows, intensity rolling off him in waves. Tall. Muscular. Broad shoulders. Narrow hips. A shock of black hair hanging on his forehead and the hunger of a wolf glistening in his blue eyes. His handsome-as-hell image slammed into her, stealing her breath.

“Dillon.” The name left her lips like a whispered prayer.

“Kat.” A sound like a slap in response.

She clutched the edge of the door. She needed to hang on for two reasons: Her knees had gone weak at the sight of him, and if she didn’t cling to the door, she’d throw herself into his arms and beg him to forgive her.

All the love she’d buried for the past two years swelled inside her heart and then rose to the surface to steal her voice. She still loved this man more than she could bear. She loved him so much that she’d given him up so he could live his life as he had always wanted. As he needed. Letting him go had cost her dearly, more than she’d ever imagined. Now he stood staring at her, accusation and agony so strong in his eyes that she couldn’t look away.

A hundred questions popped into her head. How could he be standing here when he didn’t know where she lived? Why had he talked to her on the phone yesterday for the first time in two years and shown up at her door today? The shock of seeing him was so overwhelming that she couldn’t put the pieces together coherently.

“How d-did you f-find…?” she stammered.

His eyebrows arched in an expression that said Get real: I’m an FBI agent.

“How d-did you get here?”

He frowned. “Drove.”

She shook her head. That wasn’t what she meant. “From…from where?”

“Carlsbad.”

She blinked. “New Mexico?”

He snorted. “California.”

Her fingers tightened on the door. Oh dear God. Carlsbad was the next town to the south, no more than ten minutes away. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed to see with my own eyes that you’re all right. May I come in?” His voice sounded thick with longing.

“I-I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She pulled the robe tighter around her, feeling vulnerable for being naked beneath it. Dillon’s gaze dropped to the robe and then farther down to her bare legs and feet. He gulped, and his eyes darkened. She remembered his large, warm hands roaming all over her body and him thrusting inside her. Heat crept up her cheeks. Even worse was the heat settling between her thighs.

He studied her with those piercing blue eyes as if he could see into her soul. “Yeah, you’re definitely right.”

His gaze traveled up and down the length of her body until she swore his fingers were caressing her beneath the terrycloth. She bit back a whimper of need. She hadn’t let a man touch her intimately since she fled from the church, since she ran away from Dillon. She had destroyed their relationship, but somehow, she still belonged to him. Maybe she always would.

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Why didn’t he yell at her? Why didn’t he demand an explanation of her outrageous behavior two years ago? Why didn’t he ask…why?

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