Praise for the novels of New York Timesbestselling author
SUZANNE BROCKMANN
âZingy dialogue, a great sense of drama, and a pair of lovers who generate enough steam heat to power a whole city.â
âRT Book Reviews on Hero Under Cover
âBrockmann deftly delivers another testosterone-drenched, adrenaline-fuelled tale of danger and desire that brilliantly combines superbly crafted, realistically complex characters with white-knuckle plotting.â
âBooklist on Force of Nature
âReaders will be on the edge of their seats.â
âLibrary Journal on Breaking Point
âAnother excellently paced, action-filled read.
Brockmann delivers yet again!â
âRT Book Reviews on Into the Storm
âFunny, sexy, suspenseful, and superb.â
âBooklist on Hot Target
âSizzling with military intrigue and sexual tension, with characters so vivid they leap right off the page, Gone Too Far is a bold, brassy read with a momentum that just doesnât quit.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen
âAn unusual and compelling romance.â
âAffaire de Coeur on No Ordinary Man
âSensational sizzle, powerful emotion and sheer fun.â
âRT Book Reviews on Body Language
IT WAS LIKE BEING HIT by a professional linebacker.
The man barreled down the stairs and bulldozed right into Sydney, nearly knocking her onto her rear end.
To add insult to injury, he mistook her for a man.
âSorry, bud,â he tossed back over his shoulder as he kept going down the stairs.
She heard the front door of the apartment building open and then slam shut.
It was the perfect end to the evening. Girlsâ night outâpluralâhad turned into girlâs night outâsingular. Bette had left a message on Sydâs answering machine announcing that she couldnât make it to the movies tonight. Something had come up. Something that was no doubt, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, wearing a cowboy hat and named Scott or Brad or Wayne.
And Syd had received a call from Hilary on her cell phone as she was pulling into the multiplex parking lot. Her excuse for cancelling was a kid with a fever of one hundred and two.
Turning around and going home would have been too depressing. So Syd had gone to the movie alone. And ended up even more depressed.
The show had been interminably long and pointless, with buff young actors flexing their way across the screen. Sheâd alternately been bored by the story and embarrassed, both for the actors and for herself, for being fascinated by the sheer breathtaking perfection of their bodies.
Men like thatâor like the football player whoâd nearly knocked her overâdidnât date women like Sydney Jameson.
It wasnât that she wasnât physically attractive, because she was. Or at least she could be when she bothered to do more than run a quick comb through her hair. Or when she bothered to dress in something other than the baggy shirts and loose-fitting, comfortable jeans that were her standard apparelâand that allowed the average Neanderthal rushing past her down the stairs to mistake her for a man. Of course, she comforted herself, the dimness of the 25-watt bulbs that the landlord, Mr. El Cheap-o Thompkins, had installed in the hallway light fixtures hadnât helped.
Syd trudged up the stairs to the third floor. This old house had been converted to apartments in the late 1950s. The top floorâformerly the atticâhad been made into two units, both of which were far more spacious than anyone would have thought from looking at the outside of the building.
She stopped on the landing.
The door to her neighborâs apartment was ajar.
Gina Sokoloski. Syd didnât know her next-door neighbor that well. Theyâd passed on the stairs now and then, signed for packages when the other wasnât home, had brief conversations about such thrilling topics as the best time of year for cantaloupe.
Gina was young and shyânot yet twenty years oldâand a student at the junior college. She was plain and quiet and rarely had visitors, which suited Syd just fine after living for eight months next door to the frat boys from hell.
Ginaâs mother had come by once or twiceâone of those tidy, quietly rich women who wore a giant diamond ring and drove a car that cost more than Syd could make in three very good years as a freelance journalist.
The he-man whoâd barrelled down the stairs wasnât what Syd would have expected a boyfriend of Ginaâs to look like. He was older than Gina by about ten years, too, but this could well be more proof that opposites did, indeed, attract.
This old building made so many weird noises during the night. Still, she couldâve sworn sheâd heard a distinctly human sound coming from Ginaâs apartment. Syd stepped closer to the open door and peeked in, but the apartment was completely dark. âGina?â
She listened harder. There it was again. A definite sob. No doubt the son of a bitch whoâd nearly knocked her over had just broken up with Gina. Leave it to a man to be in such a hurry to be gone that heâd leave the door wide open.