Page Turning Books: Bulletproof by Regan Black @ReganBlack

Bulletproof by Regan Black @ReganBlack

Thanks for being part of the Bulletproof excitement! It’s a pleasure to visit so many wonderful bloggers courtesy of Orangeberry Book Tours. Today I have a treat for readers – an excerpt from Bulletproof, the first novel in Unknown Identities, my new paranormal romantic suspense series.

John Noble hasn’t had an easy life and a few years back, a reporter’s lies nearly got him killed, so protecting Amelia Bennett, a tough, controversial reporter in Boston isn’t his ideal assignment. The story she’s working on could make her career, but only if his skills can keep her alive long enough to tell it. In this excerpt, what should have been a simple meeting with her source quickly goes awry:

John set a hand on her shoulder, preventing her next maneuver. “Stay put for a minute.”

Exasperated, she spun around and found her view full of his dark shirt and tie. Slowly her eyes traced up across the freshly shaved terrain of his throat and over the trim beard accenting his jaw until her gaze was locked with his. She stared into those hard, green depths, heedless of the rain catching in her eyelashes. The ability to breathe deserted her.

There had to be a remedy for this strange, magnetic pull he held over her. Her melting mascara might have been enough to break the spell, if he hadn’t dropped his gaze to watch her lick a raindrop from her lips.

Something deep inside her wanted to reach out and capitalize on his distraction. To discover if the rain tasted different after trailing across his skin.

Blinking away the peculiar thought, she cleared her throat. He wasn’t here to fulfill some long-buried fantasy, he was here because her boss insisted she was in danger. “This meeting is essential,” she managed to squeeze out between gritted teeth.

“So is your safety.”

“I have to get across the street.”

“Can’t get the story to your readers from the grave.”

The hair prickled on the back of her neck. For a bodyguard offering protection, he gave considerable voice to her imminent demise. There was no arguing with the statement or with him, based on the implacable expression he was sporting.

Frustrated on more levels than she cared to analyze, she turned back toward the street. “That’s my meeting place.” She tilted her head toward the Revolutionary Cemetery shrouded in rain, the old grave markers splashed with red and blue from the emergency lights. “Do you see anyone?”

She started to work her way closer, but before she’d managed a few paces, she felt his hand on her shoulder again. “Wait here.”

“No.” Her source had surely run from all this commotion, but she needed to see for herself. She understood people and though they’d never met, she knew she could recognize her source by the body language if given half a chance. Around her, people in the crowd murmured but no one wept or mentioned names. In a community the size of Sudbury that meant the problem in the street involved strangers, but this seemed like a big crowd for a distracted tourist induced accident.

Please, don’t let it be my contact. It couldn’t be, she decided. A thought like that was simply a paranoid side effect having a bodyguard. She and her source had been too careful in light of the careers and lives on the line with this story.

“Let me do my job,” he growled at her ear.

“You’re here to enable me to do mine.” She studied his features, noticed the wariness in his eyes as he studied the cemetery across the street. Had he noticed a threat she’d missed? “What happened to keeping me in sight?”

The glare he leveled on her made her think twice. She couldn’t let him intimidate her or having him around would derail her story anyway. Holding her ground, she folded her arms across her chest and glared right back.

I hope you enjoyed meeting Amelia and John today as much as I enjoyed writing them. From the moment they arrived in the same scene, they were butting heads and dodging the flying sparks of attraction. As their story progressed, a grudging respect turned into a valuable team effort to stay alive and dare something completely new – lasting love.

Live the adventure!

Regan