Jamie Denton - Under Fire

“It’ll never work, Jana,”

Ben said with renewed confidence.

“Yes, it will.”

Her strictly professional argument crumbled like dust the instant he dipped his head to nuzzle her ear. He slid his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply. She issued a sexy little moan and wrapped her arms around his neck. Victory had never tasted sweeter.

“Couldn’t this be construed as sexual harassment?” Jana whispered.

“Nope, you kissed me back.”

“I admit working together won’t be easy,” she said. “But I won’t reassign the case. Business and pleasure can’t mix—that much is obvious. Once I file my report, we’ll see what happens. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” He knew business and pleasure shouldn’t coexist, but no way was he going to wait until she concluded her investigation to have her in his bed. In fact, Ben believed that once he proved his point—that work was nowhere near as gratifying as their mutual satisfaction—she’d wing the case off to another investigator pronto.

His smile widened at the thought of all the tantalizing possibilities and pleasures ahead.

Dear Reader,

When I started writing the SOME LIKE IT HOT trilogy I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have my head examined. Could I really handle such a daunting task? For months I would be living with these characters and no others. By the time this month’s sexy installment was near completion, I was deeply saddened to see these people leave. The Perry brothers had been with me for such a long time and were such an integral part of my writing life, it was almost impossible to say goodbye to Cale, Drew and Ben.

This month I give you Under Fire, and our final hero, Ben, in my sexiest Temptation novel to date. Not only do Ben and Jana heat up the pages, but Ben has definitely met his match when he’s faced with someone even more strong willed than himself—the woman he learns a little too late is about to change his life.

I hope you’ll join me again in December for my first novella in a very special Harlequin Blaze release, Stroke of Midnight (#114), a supersexy anthology with talented friends and fellow Blaze authors Carrie Alexander and Nancy Warren.

I would love to hear from you and know what you thought of the SOME LIKE IT HOT books. Please write to me at jamie@jamiedenton.net or P.O. Box 224, Mohall, ND 58761.

Happy holidays,

Jamie Denton

Books by Jamie Denton

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

942—SLOW BURN*

946—HEATWAVE*

Under Fire

Jamie Denton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Melissa

The joy you bring our family is truly a treasure.

You will always hold a special place in our hearts.

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

“YOU’VE NEVER had a what?”

Jana Linney sank lower in her chair. What was the big deal? It wasn’t as if she’d told her two closest friends she was a virgin, for crying out loud.

She glanced toward the back of the bar, praying the drop-dead gorgeous hunks seated around the table in the far corner of the Ivory Turtle hadn’t heard Chloe Montgomery’s astonished outburst. “I don’t think they heard you over at the pool tables,” Jana muttered.

She should have known better than to order something other than her usual glass of white wine. Bucking tradition wasn’t her style, but the new case she’d been assigned prior to leaving the office for the weekend had her as tense as a bowstring. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t sweat the assignment, but on the heels of her recent promotion, the stakes had been raised.

One glass of wine and she easily maintained and enjoyed the barest hint of a buzz. One Screaming Orgasm with an overdose of vodka and she might as well have shot herself full of sodium Pentothal. Whenever she opened her mouth tonight, just about anything came out…very personal anythings, too.

“Oh, forget the crowd at the pool tables,” Lauren Hudson, a voice-over actress, chided with a dismissive wave of her perfectly manicured hand. “I want to know how you’ve managed never to experience an orgasm?”

Not for lack of trying.

“I just had one.” Jana giggled at her own joke. “A screaming one, too.”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “Eighty-proof,” she said, tapping a hot-pink, dragon-lady fingernail on the rim of Jana’s glass, “does not count.”

“You’re not a…” A pained expression entered Chloe’s lavender eyes. Today at least her eyes were lavender. Tomorrow they might be green or even a dark chocolate-brown, depending on Chloe’s mood and which shade of colored contacts the corporate attorney chose to wear. “Good Lord, Jana. Please tell me you’re not a virgin.”

Jana sighed dramatically, then took a very long sip of her drink. She might as well have been, considering her inexperience in the sexual revolution. “I’ve had sex,” she said defensively.

“Obviously not good sex.” Lauren’s bluntness usually amused Jana. Tonight that honesty irritated her. Especially since her two dearest friends were closing in on a very personal, and way too sensitive subject.

She and Lauren had been best friends since elementary school, but they hadn’t met Chloe until their first year at Beverly Hills High. Since then, the three of them had formed a tight-knit circle that spanned braces, boys and good ideas gone bad which had often landed them in minor scrapes.

The sound of male laughter drew Jana’s gaze back to the group of incredibly handsome hunks at the round table near the rear of the bar. One of them stood, the one with raven-black hair, broad shoulders and lean hips. Even from a distance she could see he had the kind of body advertisers clamored for in those abs-of-granite-type commercials.

Ooh, flex for me, baby!

He glanced her way, his ice-blue gaze meeting hers for the space of a heartbeat before he said something to his buddies. Her stomach dipped and swirled, and she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the type of alcohol she’d consumed during her Friday-night happy hour ritual with Chloe and Lauren. Unfortunately, the spell was nowhere near broken when he walked away from the table and headed in her direction.

Somewhere in the distance, she heard the rattle of Lauren’s bangle bracelets followed by her perfectly pitched voice, but Mr. Tall, Dark and Wonderful had Jana’s full attention as he wound his way around the crowded tables, drawing closer. He wore a dark hunter-green banded-collar shirt which clung to his wide chest, and tapered down to a flat stomach she had no trouble imagining was washboard lean. The rolled-up sleeves emphasized luscious, muscular forearms, causing her to wonder what it’d be like to have him hold her close.

He strolled past, awarding her with a view of his backside, hugged quite nicely by a pair of tan khakis. She sucked hard on her straw. The man’s rear end was sheer perfection.

It was the alcohol, she reminded herself. She’d obviously had far too much to drink if she were ogling a man. Except she couldn’t pass off the sudden increase in her pulse rate on a single Screaming Orgasm. She stifled a giggle. At least not from the kind served in a glass by a harried cocktail waitress.