Julie Miller: Carnal Innocence

“I hadn’t thought about it before.” Caitlin ran her hand along her arm, sliding across the droplets that left her skin smooth to the touch. “The rain is so fresh and invigorating. And I guess it would make things kind of slippery.” She shivered. “There’s something about having water run across your body that makes you think of…”

Her voice trailed off as the innocence of it all faded. The water might be cool, but her skin was suddenly hot and flushed. Caitlin could feel Sean’s gaze on her lips, her breasts. Narrowed. Piercing. She squeezed her eyes shut and shivered.

She felt as if she’d been transported to another place. She could almost hear the sound of the rain, hushing the rest of the world and leaving her with the desperate agent who had kidnapped her and carried her away with him. She could almost feel his hot, wet kiss, his hands on her body, his mouth upon her straining breast. The heavy heat between her thighs became almost unbearable….

She wanted this. She wanted him.

Almost as much as she’d wanted her adventure in the first place.

Dear Reader,

When I was a kid, fairy tales and fantasy were a big part of my life. Lucky for me, they still are. After all, one of the best things about being a writer is that it gives me the chance to revisit my favorite themes. And in my opinion, you can’t beat Beauty and the Beast for being the perfect love story. Only for Blaze, I got the chance to take that theme in a whole new, sizzling direction!

My heroine, Caitlin McCormick, is a dreamer, too. Like me, she uses her imagination and creates exciting, adventurous fantasies to compensate for the mundane lack of adventure in her life. Until adventure comes walking through her front door in the form of a bad-tempered FBI agent with a tantalizing proposition. Animal magnetism aside, Agent Sean Maddox has the heart of a prince—if only the beauty he kidnaps for the weekend can help him find it….

This isn’t your average fairy tale—but I hope you’ll enjoy it! Let me know what you think about Caitlin’s fantasy-filled adventure. I love to hear from my readers. You may contact me at P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, or check out my Web site at www.juliemiller.org.

Enjoy,

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the Fulton Public Library in Fulton, Missouri—for having a wall full of fairy tales and fantasies for me to read over and over again.

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

Chapter 16

“GO HOME, Maddox. This case is washed up.”

Special Agent Sean Maddox took the letter from his partner, Thomas Hall, and angrily crushed it in his fist. “Two months of an airtight investigation shot to hell because one state court judge can’t keep it in his pants.”

“Even the high mucky-mucks of society are entitled to a vacation now and then.” Leave it to Thomas to try to reason this thing out.

“Is that what he called it? A vacation?” Sean spat out.

The whole case was slipping through his fingers, and Sean felt responsible. He’d promised Alicia Reyes he’d nail her kidnapper. She was just a kid—a sweet little thing the same age his sister had been when he’d started taking care of her all those years ago.

But the longer it took to get a judge’s ruling on critical evidence, the less likely it was they’d make their case against Marquez stick. And if that sleazebag walked…“Damn!” He wanted to say worse.

Special Agent Thomas Hall pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his reaction to the bad news as coolly reticent as Sean’s had been hot-tempered. “There’s no proof that Justice Rossini had an affair. His resignation letter states that the mere rumor of infidelity is enough to harm his family’s reputation. He’s resigning from the state bench effective immediately to keep the Rossini name out of the papers and go home to Roanoke to work on his marriage.”

“Did he honestly think an island getaway with his secretary tagging along to take notes wouldn’t raise a few eyebrows? We waited all last weekend for this guy to get back to Virginia. He’s been stonewalling us since Monday.” Sean shot the wad of paper onto the scattered files that littered his desktop. “He couldn’t have given us a ruling on that forensic evidence before he went on permanent vacation?”

But the rumors sounded all too familiar. Sean knew first-hand how gossip and separations and rampant libidos could tear a family apart. He’d watched his parents’ marriage go up in smoke when his British father’s military career kept him away from home for months at a time. Not even the unexpected arrival of Sean’s baby sister, Sabrina, could convince Admiral Roland Maddox to stay put in England.

Sean remembered encouraging his mother to move back across the Atlantic to her home in Nebraska—to be near her family while his father was abroad. He’d grown up thinking his mother was the one who was suffering. But Sean’s sympathy faded the day he discovered her trips to town for a college class had been to see the professor himself. In a hotel room.

As if that wasn’t enough, Sabrina had barely made it into third grade when a picture of the admiral with his female aide-de-camp had graced the London Times. Sean’s father hadn’t even bothered to deny the affair; the damage had been done. His mother had retaliated by announcing that she’d been discreet by comparison. The sparks flew. Sean had tucked Sabrina under his arm and faded into the background while their parents duked it out.

The divorce dragged on for two years. When those affairs ended, new partners quickly filled the empty spaces in their parents’ lives, but commitment was never part of the scenario. And the children were never more than an afterthought.

With that stellar example to learn from, Sean planned to do better. He’d found his most enduring relationship to be with the Bureau. But women were another matter altogether. Other than his relationship with his sister, whom he still called once a week at college, his longest relationship with a woman had been eight months, two weeks and a day.

It had taken him that long to notice Elise’s roving eye.

Elise had initially been turned on by the badge and the gun. She’d gotten a thrill from dating a real-life hero. But after the fun had worn off—about the time Sean was thinking about getting serious—he’d found her recent correspondence with her old college sweetheart. When he’d seen Elise and Frat Boy meet for dinner and had caught them kissing, Sean had known it was over with her.

Thank God he’d had the Bureau to return to the next morning. For eight years now, the job had never let him down.