Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Lori Foster
âFoster writes smart, sexy, engaging characters.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan
âKnown for her funny, sexy writingâ
âBooklist
âFosterâs latest is pure entertainment and a joy to read.â
âRT Book Reviews on Back in Black
âFoster outwrites most of her peers.â
âLibrary Journal
âIntense, edgy and hot. Lori Foster delivers everything
youâre looking for in a romance.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann
Krentz on Hard to Handle
âLori Foster delivers the goods.â
âPublishers Weekly
âTension, temptation, hot action, and hotter romanceâ
Lori Foster has it all! Hard to Handle is a knockout!â
âNew York Times bestselling author
Elizabeth Lowell
Dear Readers,
Iâve launched into a new series of über-Alpha hunks. The men are similar to private mercenaries, so theyâre big, capable, a little dangerous and oh-so-sexy. When it comes to rescuing the innocent, they do what has to be done, however it has to be done. I like to call them my men who âwalk the edge of honour.â
Stay tuned for the next two books in the series, Trace of Fever and Savour the Danger, coming soon.
To see more about the books, visit my website at www.LoriFoster.com. And feel free to chat with me on my Facebook fanpage: www.facebook.com/pages/LoriFoster/233405457965.
Iâm very excited about this new series, and I hope you will be, too!
MIDNIGHT CAME AND went with only the quiet buzz of meager traffic along the beach. An occasional horn blew or tires squealed. Two people exited a bar nearby, laughing too loud before piling into an SUV and steering drunkenly onto the road.
In the shadows of a weed-ridden parking lot at the back of the rundown motel, no one noticed them. Avoiding the glow of the full yellow moon, they stood behind the south wall beneath a broken security lamp.
A lamp Dare Macintosh had broken.
Ocean breezes stirred the air and heightened his senses. While scanning the area and repeatedly peering at the black van heâd rented when first arriving in San Diego, Dare waited. His friend, Trace Rivers, embraced his younger sister with choking emotion.
It had been a long two days filled with frantic preparation, little sleep, less food and loads of pumping adrenaline: the conditions in which Dare operated best.
With the job done, and then some, he desperately wanted something to eat and a place to sleep. Even more than that, he wanted to check on the skinny, abused woman still out cold in the backseat of the van.
âTell me,â Trace said, not to Alani, whom he kept crushed close, but to Dare.
After again glancing at the van, Dare nodded. Heâd found Alani and returned her to Trace as heâd sworn to, but neither man knew yet what she had suffered.
âShe was in Tijuana, as you said. Locked in a trailer with some other women in an isolated area.â
âHeavily guarded?â
âYes.â
Trace drew a strained breath, and uttered what they both had known: âHuman traffickers.â
Dare nodded. âNot much in the way of food or drinks. Dirty, airless with the windows screwed shut. They had the women â¦â He hesitated, knowing how Trace would take it, but he needed to know. âThey were leashed, chained to grommets in the floor, with just enough chain to reach a toilet. No sink.â
âFuckers.â Overcome with rage, Trace knotted his hand in his sisterâs hair and squeezed her tighter, protectively.
She didnât complain.
Trace never used coarse language in front of his sister, which meant he was on the ragged edge, barely aware of what he said or did. Dare looked away from them, understanding the lack of control.
He focused on the rented van. âI had to go through several lookouts and a few armed guards to get her out of there.â
âQuietly.â Trace made it a statement, not a question.
âThere wasnât much fuss.â Dare always worked in efficient silence; an alarm would have brought more armed guards, possibly too many for him to combat. As much as he wanted to kill them all, he hadnât.
Only those most responsible.
By the time the empty trailer was discovered, Dare was already heading over the border into San Diegoâwhere Trace waited. Over the years heâd built up alliances everywhere, and sometimes worked with the coyotes who made a living taking people back and forth over the border.
Thanks to those contacts, even with the extra cargo slumped in his backseat, no one had stopped him as he went through the border checkpoint. The van had been given only a cursory inspection, his weapons ignored, and the excuse of the women being tiredânever mind that one was beaten and haggard, only half-dressedâhad satisfied all questions.
Both men were damn good at what they did. But Trace couldnât go after his sister himself as heâd wanted, because the men holding her knew what he looked like. Before heâd have even gotten close to Tijuana, Trace would have been spotted by lookouts.