Jamie Sobrato - Too Wild

“Far from it.” Travis almost groaned the answer to Jenna’s question.

Her lips were swollen and her eyes half-lidded as she smiled up at him. “Guess I’ll have to try a little harder, then.”

“If you try any harder, the last thing I’ll be is relaxed.”

She bit her lower lip, then slowly released it and sighed. “We’d better be going, hmm?”

Going where? Oh, right, to the country house. Travis tore his gaze away from Jenna.

“Yeah, we’d better. I think we’re still a half hour away.” But if they happened to pass a hotel along the way, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep himself from screeching into the lot and dragging Jenna to the nearest available room.

An image of making love to her on a cheap bedspread in a sleazy motel room flashed in his mind, and he banished it. How had he gone so quickly from respectable businessman to crazed guy who got in bar fights and fantasized about frenzied motel sex?

He looked back at Jenna, and he knew in an instant.

Dear Reader,

I’ve always admired women who aren’t afraid to take risks to get what they want. With this book, I’ve had the pleasure of writing about just such a woman. Jenna Calvert is a journalist who isn’t afraid of much—except the stalker trying to stop her from writing the story of her career. I only wish I were half as bold as Jenna.

I can relate more easily to the hero, Travis Roth, who finds his perfectly planned life shaken up by wild, unpredictable Jenna. When these two come together, they illustrate why opposites can make the very best lovers.

I hope you love reading Travis and Jenna’s wild journey as much as I loved writing it. You can drop me a note to let me know what you think of the story at jamie@jamiesobrato.com or visit my Web site, www.jamiesobrato.com, to find out more about my upcoming books.

Sincerely,

Jamie Sobrato

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

911—SOME LIKE IT SIZZLING

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

84—PLEASURE FOR PLEASURE

116—WHAT A GIRL WANTS

133—SOME KIND OF SEXY

Too Wild

Jamie Sobrato

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To The Wild Writers, who’ve been there for me from the start. I’m blessed to have the friendship and support of such a wild, wonderful group of women.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

WHAT JENNA CALVERT NEEDED was a large, tattooed man with a look of death in his eyes. Perhaps someone with a prison record and an intimate knowledge of firearms. Some guy named Spike or Duff.

But even Bodyguards for Less was out of her price range. Jenna listened a second time to the phone recording that described the business’s services. No way could she swing the eighty dollars per hour the burly voice on the recording stated was the base price without additional services—and what additional services could a bodyguard provide, anyway?

She hung up and exhaled a ragged breath.

Without a bodyguard, the only protection she had was Guard-Dog-In-A-Box. For twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, she’d purchased as much peace of mind as she could afford—a sorry amount indeed. Thirty bucks had bought her a motion-sensing device that simulated the sounds of killer dogs barking at any unsuspecting intruders.

Unfortunately, it also barked at neighbors passing in the hallway, at pizza delivery men and at Mrs. Lupinski’s many elderly lovers traipsing in and out of the building at all hours of the day and night.

Jenna hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a week, and everyone else in the building was getting tired of her canned guard dogs, too. Even Mrs. Lupinski, who was normally otherwise engaged, had yelled obscenities out her door at Jenna last night when she had heard her in the stairwell.

Guard-Dog-In-A-Box had looked so promising there on the shelf at the store, but now that she’d lived with her faux protection for a week, she saw just how desperate she’d become to even buy it.

She was cooked meat.

She never should have started researching the underbelly of the beauty-pageant industry. Ever since she’d begun the research a month ago, her life had been turned upside down by someone who didn’t want her writing the story. Jenna had racked her brain trying to figure out who among the people she’d interviewed or spoken with might wish her harm, but no one jumped out as a likely culprit. She hadn’t even uncovered any information that seemed worthy of death threats. But the voice-altered phone calls and the threatening mail had included comments like “back off the story” and “you’re risking your life if you write it.”

Jenna surveyed her apartment, wishing now that she had a roommate, or at least a parakeet. Someone to comfort her and tell her that it wasn’t such a bad thing to get three death threats in the past month. Someone who could also remind her that it was really quite normal to nearly get run down by a car in San Francisco. Two days in a row.

Yes, a roommate would be nice right about now. A roommate, a bodyguard and a really big weapon. But all Jenna had was Guard-Dog-In-A-Box. She resisted the urge to hurl the waste of money across the room and eyed the double locks on the apartment door. If anyone really wanted to get in, they wouldn’t have much trouble. The wood of the door frame was rotting away in places, and the locks looked as if they’d been installed before Jenna was born.

Sure, the front door of her apartment building was supposed to remain locked to nonresidents, but Mrs. Lupinski liked to prop it open for her lovers and the ever anticipated sweepstakes-prize delivery people. Getting buzzed in on the rare occasions it was locked was as easy as claiming to be a pizza delivery guy.

Jenna leaned against the decrepit door and closed her eyes. She let her mind drift to happier days, when home security was the least of her concerns. Only two months ago she’d been a relatively carefree journalist who’d made a decent career of writing for women’s magazines, and she was embarking on the story she was sure would finally turn her career from decent to well paying. No more squeaking by on a paltry freelance income that barely paid the high rent in the city. The beauty-pageant exposé was supposed to be her ticket to success.

When the buzzer on the door sounded, she jumped so hard that Guard-Dog-In-A-Box clattered to the floor and began barking. It sounded about as menacing as tin-can recorded dog barks could sound—that is, not menacing at all.

Her hand shook as she pressed the intercom button and said, “Who is it?”

“Ms. Calvert? My name is Travis Roth. I need to talk to you about your sister, Kathryn. May I come up?”

Kathryn? Jenna stared at the intercom, dumbfounded. She hadn’t heard from or spoken to her twin sister in years. Could this be a ploy someone was using to get inside the building?