3 Romantic Suspense Excerpts: Don’t Lie to Me, Final Exit, Versions

Today, I’m pleased to share excerpts from the following romantic suspense books:

These are romantic suspense excerpts we shared during tours when we were on Books That Hook. Because that website got deleted, we are trying to restore all of our content, in some fashion. Instead of posting the entire tour for each, which would no longer be relevant, we decided to just retain the excerpts for our readers to continue enjoying.

Some of the excerpts are long, so click the SHOW MORE button if you want to continue reading.

Excerpt from VERSIONS by Megan Mitcham

“Evening, gentlemen. Ladies.” The silken honey of the unfamiliar voice coated her nakedness in a soothing balm. The waiter cleared his throat. The low rumble vibrated very near her ear. “What can I get you, miss?”

She canted her head in his direction. Surprise smacked her square in the face. Smoldering bedroom eyes gazed into hers. The crystal blue orbs pierced through a strong brow and straight into her soul. Rin stepped back, stumbling over Nate’s feet. A thud sounded her landing against her boyfriend’s hard chest.

“Whoa, there,” the waiter said, maintaining an invisible grip on Rin that made it impossible to look away.

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Blond hair only a shade darker than her own sat in disarray across his forehead, but was shorn close around his ears. The hint of a beard hugged the strongest jaw she’d ever seen. Lips the perfect shape and fullness for hours and hours of kissing would have softened the blow his appearance delivered, if he’d only smile.

“You startled me,” she said by way of explanation for her odd behavior.

“Wasn’t my intention.” He said the words, but his head ticked to the side and his eyes flared in a way that opposed them.

“What’s your name, gorgeous?” Jen asked.

“Call me Luck,” the waiter said, holding Rin’s befuddled gaze.

Nate steadied her and shifted to place himself between her and the…her and Luck, but a massive party of suits poured in to their left. They crowded the walkway with banter and briefcases. The man screwing with her head—more than her shrink ever had—could have stepped to the side of the table toward Zach. Instead, he stepped forward, crowding her with his sharply muscled chest tucked neatly into a waiter’s white button down. Chiseled forearms and lightly sun-kissed skin shown at his rolled sleeves.

Whether someone shoved him or he took a dive she wasn’t sure, but his sinewy chest suddenly plastered her front. One arm wrapped around her waist, catching her in a subtle dip. His other shot out to the chair back to steady them. She swore she heard Gregory moan. Luck’s muscles in action did something sinful to her psyche.

“Jackass, I’m not into threesomes,” Nate blustered just behind her head. She’d see him, if she’d tear her gaze off Luck. But she couldn’t.

Luck lifted his heavy blue gaze from her for the first time and squared it on Nate. “Me neither.”

Until that moment, she’d been sure Nate could have defended her honor or his ego against any man. He probably outweighed Luck by fifty muscle-dense pounds. Luck had a foot of height on him, but his calm voice and confident demeanor had her more than second guessing the outcome. Then again, Nate had a gun.

For the oddest reason, she didn’t think that would matter if the two got into it.

“Luck,” Rin said, “how about you tip a girl upright and bring her a Peroni, a glass of Casarena cabernet, a Goose Island, a Bourbon Spice Rack, and a Hot Delilah…make that two Delilah’s.” The first impression of a smile lightened the corner of his mouth. He straightened and released her, his hand sweeping firmly over the sway of her waist. The touch lingered for far too long. “Anyone else feeling a double?”

Excerpt from FINAL EXIT by Lena Diaz

Friday, 11:55 p.m.

It was a perfect night to catch a killer. A warm breeze blew out of the south at about six miles per hour. Rain-heavy clouds covered the half-moon, plunging the cliff where Special Agent Kade Quinn stood into darkness. He was betting on the old cliché, third time’s a charm. And also betting on the numbers—that his six, shiny new special agents could take down one highly skilled, remarkably cunning, experienced assassin.

Not the kind of odds to go to Vegas over. But he had to work with what he had. If things went as planned, Bailey Stark would soon be in custody like the dozens of other EXIT Inc. Enforcers that his team had managed to capture. The now-defunct company could never again fool the public into believing that all it did was offer vacation packages, so-called “EXtreme International Tours.” The clandestine organization’s true legacy as a corrupt front for government-sanctioned murder would end with the capture of the last few Enforcers. By the time his mission was over, every last one functioning members of society.

And innocents like Abby would never again become the victims of killers like Bailey. 

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Between the nightmare of his wife’s death and the near-constant ache in his ruined left leg, Kade had his own, very personal, debt with EXIT. And he planned on collecting. He scanned the tree line. Past the red oak and Ponderosa pines, the Colorado Rockies squatted like dark sentinels watching over tonight’s operation. Below him, in the middle of a wide, nearly treeless valley, was ground zero, the two-story cottage that Bailey believed would be her sanctuary. Instead, it would become her last stand. A quarter-mile-long driveway connected a two-lane highway to this remote property. At close to midnight and an hour’s drive from Boulder, the road was essentially deserted. Kade couldn’t have asked for a better place to launch an ambush. And if his intel was correct, Bailey should arrive within the next half hour.

Only a few minutes later the two-way radio on his belt crackled to life. “Big Bear to Lone Wolf. Come in.”

Kade rolled his eyes and pressed the transmit button. “Kade here. What’s the situation report, Nichols?”

“You’re ruining my fun, boss.” He shook his head but played along. He had to pick his battles. “Lone Wolf to Big Bear. What’s the sitrep?”

“Much better.” A chuckle sounded through the radio. “A beat-up, dark blue Camaro just turned off the highway. One occupant. Looks to be our target. She’s heading toward the cottage.”

“Use the SUV to block the road behind her. If she gets spooked, I don’t want her doing a one-eighty and making it to the highway.”

“Affirmative. Big Bear out.”

Kade clicked off the mic and belatedly wished he’d downed a handful of antacids before driving out here. Being assigned these eager, raw newbies had to be his penance for his breakdown after the accident. They were also the reason he was here in person rather than monitoring the mission remotely per the usual protocol. Tonight’s target had already tricked his team and gotten away—twice. Kade was here to make sure that didn’t happen again.

“Cord,” he said through the two-way. “Sitrep.”

“You mean you aren’t going to call me Little Bear?”

“Do you want me to?” He was half-afraid of the answer.

“Hell no. I’m not in junior high.”

“You guys know I can hear you, right?” Nichols chimed in.

“Sitrep,” Kade growled.

“She just passed my ten o’clock,” Cord announced. “Dom should have her in his sights in a few seconds.”

“Already do,” Dominic confirmed. “The car is pulling up to the house. We’re all set.”

“Radio silence in three, two, one.” Kade clicked off the transmitter.

They couldn’t risk the sound of static or a mistimed transmission alerting their target. Or at least, that was the official reason for breaking communications. Unofficially, he needed a few moments of silence to get his impatience under control. What had happened to the bureau’s standards? Big Bear, Little Bear? Hell, two of his agents—Dom and Jack—had tattoos. Since when had the FBI allowed tats? Quantico was going soft.

He looked through the binoculars. Instead of driving into the attached garage as expected, Bailey did a three-point turn and parked the Camaro pointing down the driveway. Was she suspicious? Had she purposely positioned her vehicle for a quick getaway? His hands tightened around the binoculars. The driver’s door opened. A petite woman in dark-colored shorts and a white T-shirt emerged. A pistol was holstered at her waist and her shoulder-length, curly red hair reflected like flames in the soft glow of the porch light. Even at this distance she had the kinds of curves that made men pay attention—including Kade, much to his chagrin.

He had more reason than most to despise Enforcers, and yet his breath caught every time he looked at one of her photographs in the case file. He couldn’t imagine the effect she’d have on him if he ever got within a few feet of her in person. It was bad enough that his pulse quickened whenever those deep green eyes gazed back at him from her pictures. But what he hated the most was the odd feeling of kinship he felt toward her, a tug of empathy when he saw the shadows in her eyes, the same shadows he saw every time he looked in a mirror. He couldn’t help wondering what had happened to harden her and make her look so lost, so sad, so incredibly . . . alone.

Excerpt from DON’T LIE TO ME by Amber Bardan

I caught sight of his traveling jaw—and my own fell open because this was not the right jaw. This jaw wasn’t Kal-El on the front of a comic book, it was sharper, the cheeks above it hollow.

My hand fell away.

His body followed the turn of his head. His cologne hit me like a jolt of static. Spicy, and so musky and male, maybe some of that scent was actually him. I blinked at the open shirt collar suddenly in front of my face. Most of the time I came level with men, a balance I adored. But today I stared at a collarbone. A deep biting groove at the base of a long, wide neck. Twin tendons rose up in a V on either side of a prominent Adam’s apple I could lean forward and sink my teeth right into. The thrill of being stood over struck some place deep in my core. Flipped the mechanics of how I preferred this male/female thing to be. Like maybe if I went to his room—and I knew right then without having seen his face that I would be going to this man’s room—I might actually let him be on top.

Pure lunacy. The top was my spot. I tilted my chin and met a dark gaze. His brown eyes shone down at me, flecked with yellow like they were lit from behind. He smiled, and grooves made crescents on either side of his mouth. Mischief sprawled across his features so catastrophic that I could almost hear a chorus of hallelujahs.

This is going to be fun.

He smiled wider.

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My womb panged. Yep, so much fun would be happening. So much fun. Laughter bubbled out of my lips, because really all I could do was laugh. His brows shifted, his gaze moving over me as though he’d never seen a person laugh before. Then his chest rumbled and the sound he released rushed straight between my thighs.

My cheeks burned from grinning.

“Buona sera,” he said.

The words were familiar, but I no longer remembered what they meant. In fact, I’d lost all languages. His lips parted, and he spoke again. My gaze was sucked to his mouth. To the way his lips curved up so completely, every tooth revealed all the way to his molars.

I was going to have awesome sex very, very soon. I felt it in my bones—the amazingness of the impending sex. Actually I felt it in my cunt, but whatever. I love my life. His lips shuffled across his teeth as he talked, words smooth and almost creamy compared to when he spoke Arabic on the phone. The tone was the same, husky and low. I had no idea what he said, but I kept on smiling.

I hope you enjoyed reading these excerpts. If you’d like to read more excerpts, there are some author pages that have them, and all of our posts with excerpts can be found in our main menu under ‘Features’ and ‘Excerpts.’
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