Blurb:

One touch is never enough.

Her freedom depends on one man. A criminal to his realm…

One minute, Paige Ross is outside a Seattle bar, grieving a failed engagement. The next, she jerks awake in a weird, candlelit room with velvet walls, black silk sheets, and a man who motions for silence.

Paige has little choice but to trust the powerful stranger who promises a way out of what looks like Satan’s brothel. And pray his promise to keep her safe is as real as the heat burning in his eyes.

Banished from E2’s ruling elite for supposed crimes against the realm, Zekin risks everything to rescue those brought to E5 for the guards’ carnal pleasure. Paige will be leaving this inhospitable realm of fire and ice—if he can somehow forget the way she melts in his arms.

Safe—temporarily—in an underwater world populated by strange creatures, Paige’s sexual awakening explodes into an unquenchable need that consumes them both. But the guards will be looking for her. And Zekin’s plan to send her home is a dangerous journey she cannot—will not—take without him.

Available from: Amazon UK | Amazon US

*****

Excerpt:

He struggled then glanced to the side. The pod Paige was in.

Their eyes met.

Shocking desire consumed him, tangling his thoughts, making him more uncertain than he’d ever been. Yearning flooded her face, the same she’d shown before their kiss.

Her response to him then hadn’t lasted. She’d backed away, confusion and possibly dismay coloring her features.

She wore the same emotions now, uncertain about her feelings.

He suspected she didn’t want to watch him and Eeete but couldn’t help herself.

Eeete made a compliant sound laced with lust, urging him to do whatever he willed.

Their coupling would never be enough for him. This was still a prison. He could never leave it. Nor could she or the others here. Only Paige.

Refusing to think about the sorry future, he turned from Paige and entered Eeete in a powerful thrust, sinking into her completely. He trembled and tightened his jaw. She was extraordinarily tight and indescribably warm—designed that way by geneticists who’d created her.

She was also sweet and giving.

Affection filled him, crowding out coarse male need. He wanted his feelings to evolve into love for her, but they never would.

He should have pulled out and left the pod but couldn’t. To abandon her at this point would wound her more than if he simply used her. No matter how he’d tried to explain himself in the past, she didn’t comprehend a man’s need for honor, to do the right thing.

She knew only this. To her, sex had been her one connection with others in a relentlessly lonely and cruel existence.

No, he couldn’t leave her now. She wouldn’t understand. Nor would he ever have Paige in the way he wanted.

He gripped Eeete’s hips and thrust repeatedly, telling himself to be grateful for this moment, warning himself not to consider anything else. Anything more.

Paige couldn’t turn away. She didn’t want to. Zekin’s meaty cock burrowing into Eeete’s sheath transfixed her. Moisture from Eeete’s arousal glistened on his thick shaft.

He stroked her clit.

Her mouth sagged open. She gripped the rough linen then gritted her teeth. Her color deepened.

She was fighting her orgasm.

He stroked her nub repeatedly, coaxing her over the edge.

She didn’t fall, another defiant act in a lifetime of yielding.

Paige figured Eeete’s rebellion had nothing to do with her desires and everything with his pleasure. She wanted his enjoyment above all else.

He rode her fast then slow, alternating his pace. His shoulders bunched. Perspiration dotted his chest and forehead, the thin sheen a bluish shade from the water, the tint accentuating his bristly cheeks.

Paige lost her breath. She imagined his stubble rasping her inner thighs as he licked her cleft. The thrill in having him taste her, tonguing her clit, wrapping his arms around her legs so she couldn’t move them or deny him.

She never would. She owed him for rescuing her from the horrible junk they’d been through and the stuff they’d yet to face. However, her feelings for him went deeper. She longed to touch and smell him, lose herself in his embrace. There was no way she could deny her emotions any longer. It was crazy, given who he was and wherever they were.

Escaping the awful room she’d awakened in, the ice tsunami, and the bizarre creatures in this place had brushed the cobwebs from her brain. For the first time ever, she needed to live for the moment, enjoying what she could before it ended.

It would.

He’d promised to do everything he could to bring her home. Given what he’d already done on her behalf, he’d proved he was a man who kept his word. She figured he might be waiting for the monsters outside these pods to fall asleep and stop being a threat so he could take her back.

If the creatures ever rested.

If they didn’t, he and his men would have to devise a workable plan.

He tensed in climax, his Adam’s apple bobbing from his quick swallows, ragged breaths heaving his chest.

Eeete released the linen, her fingers limp, contentment glazing her eyes.

They remained joined.

At last, he rested his cheek against her back, his attention on the pod wall, the coral and creatures beyond, and finally Paige.

Held by him, stirred beyond anything she’d known, she was unable and unwilling to glance away.

*****

About Tina:

Tina’s an Amazon and international bestselling novelist who writes passionate romance for every taste – ‘heat with heart’ – for traditional publishers and indie. Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, Romantic Times and numerous online sites have praised her work. She’s won Readers’ Choice Awards, was named a finalist in the EPIC competition, received a Book of the Year award, The Golden Nib Award, awards of merit in the RWA Holt Medallion competitions, and second place in the NEC RWA contests. She’s featured in the Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. Before penning romances, she worked at a major Hollywood production company in Story Direction.

On a less serious note: she’s an admitted and unrepentant chocoholic, brakes for Mexican restaurants, and has been known to moan like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally while wolfing down tostadas. She’s flown a single-engine airplane (freaking scary), rewired an old house using an ‘electricity for dummies’ book, and is horribly shy despite the hot romances she writes.

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