I hope you liked last week’s teaser excerpt for Bare Facts. This week I have another teaser but this time in Daniel’s point of view so you can get to know him. I love Daniel. He has all the elements I like in heroes and in men. He’s a bit dark because his upbringing was tough and he is flawed. He’s not perfect at all which I really like about him.

Here’s the teaser…

***

This post is PG-13.

Daniel watched the ambulance pull away with another one of his people in it. Another one of his people had been injured in his war that Sekijima had started. And it could be nothing else. Sekijima was coming after him old school style striking at his family and weakening him.

He needed to kick something or strangle someone–preferably that bitch that had tried to kill him. He felt a soft touch on his shoulder and turned around with a glare.

Charity didn’t back off but he saw her guard come up. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” He fucking wasn’t going to tell her that he was angry because this was twice that he’d been struck in his own house so to speak. He wasn’t going to start talking because he knew that expletives and impotent rage weren’t meant to be expressed vocally. They needed to be channeled into a single focus. And now she was in danger. He knew the assassin that Sekijima had sent had gotten a good look at Charity.

Hell she was impossible to miss with her blonde hair and knock-out body but more than that the other woman would have recognized the trained fighter that Charity was. She’d almost caught the assassin and that would be the first thing that Sekijima would be told about Charity.

He was going to fucking find Sekijima and ring his God damned neck. But first he had to find a way to protect her. He figured he’d have to keep her with him if he was going to keep her safe.

“Take a deep breath, Daniel.”

“Why?” he asked, his mind racing over the possibilities.

“Because you look like you’re about to do something crazy and the cops are still here.”

“I’m not worried about the cops.” And he wasn’t. He could handle them if he had to. He’d made friends in high places since leaving the streets.

She drew him away from the cops processing the scene and looking for evidence. He noticed almost absently that she still protected him with her body and kept the wall at his back. She was really top notch at what she did.

Without a second thought, he drew her to him and claimed the kiss he’d wanted in the elevator. He knew it was a piss-poor decision but he needed to taste her. Wanted to feel her tongue moving against his. He groaned in the back of his throat as her hands came up around his neck. She arched into him and then slowly drew back.

He let her go because he knew he had too. But that one taste wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him. He wanted more of this woman. And now he’d endangered her life.

“Daniel,” she said. Just his name falling from her lips and he knew he wanted to hear it again. Hear it when they were both naked and he was buried hilt deep in her silky body.

“I can’t believe that bitch got away,” he said, forcing his mind off the images of the Charity in his arms.

“We’ll find her. I got the tag and Anna’s already running the plates.”

“It’ll be a dead end.”

“Even dead ends have clues,” she said.

Her voice was firm and he felt her resolve. “I’m firing you, remember? Why do you care?”

“It’s what I do. It’s what we do for all of our clients,” she said.

“Is that all I am to you? Another client?”

“We hardly know each other.”

“I guess that’s my answer.”

“What do you want me to say, Daniel? You intrigue me, but this isn’t going anywhere. Right now you’re looking for something to channel your rage into.”

He hated how clearly she saw him. So many people were content to just see the surface man. The quasi-civilized façade he presented to the world. But not Charity. He suspected that was because she had her mask she wore.

But didn’t really care why. He didn’t like anyone to see the parts of himself he hid. And he knew just the way to drive her away. And he needed to drive her away. He needed her angry and walking out of his life. Because a split second before she’d shoved him to the ground, he realized that she’d take a bullet for him.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Katherine Garbera

Happy Reading!!!

Kathy