Kathleen
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About
the Book
A
desperate competition and sizzling attraction leads to dangerous
desire.
New
York Marine biologist Veronica “Roni” Keane is attending the
Havana Bay Conference in Cuba. Tomorrow only one grant will be
awarded which will provide the winner with professional recognition,
resources for a project, and living expenses for two years. She hopes
to continue her deceased father’s work, but smooth operator, Carlos
Montoya, has won many grants in the past.
Carlos,
a freelancer for the Havana Port Authority, works to help protect
Havana’s reputation as a bastion of safety. As international
travelers flock to the island, attracted by its 1950’s time-warp
and colonial architecture, the drug business is running rampant,
particularly on Roni’s cruise ship. Something’s not right, and
when her scuba tanks are tampered with, Carlos brings in the military
police to investigate. For her safety, he keeps her close, but he
craves her body.
Their
attraction leads to a fun night with a bit of kink. But Roni finds
herself in more trouble than she bargained for when the criminals
blame her for alerting the military police and come looking for her.
Can Roni trust Carlos to protect her? Will she stay in Havana if
Carlos wins the coveted grant, or kiss her lover goodbye?
An
erotic romance with mystery.
Excerpt
--
Chapter One
“Why,
Veronica Keane.” A voice heavy with a Spanish accent drawled from
behind her. “A dive bar?” A taunting tsk. “What do we have? A
slumming New Yorker?”
She
stiffened and closed her eyes. She knew that voice and its owner, Dr.
Carlos Montoya, a finalist like her, competing for the same damn
grant at the biggest Cephalopoda conference of the decade. Her heart
pitter-pattered against her ribs.
To
turn toward him would intimate distress, or worse yet, weakness. She
wouldn’t fail to win this grant, not when she was a final
contender. “I like this funky little place.” Sia Macario Café,
smack in the center of Havana, allowed her to observe locals and
their daily lives.
“You
need to eat with all the mojitos you’ve downed.” The big tease
wasn’t counting. This was her first drink, but his rumbling, sexy
timbre hinted at all kinds of dark, hot promises. She’d rubbed
shoulders with the Cuban scientist all week. This splendid specimen
of Latin male brought on a physical ache that punched low.
A
flare-up stirred fear. For her own good, she needed to resist. “I
ordered camarones enchiladas.” By now she knew the menu on the
chalkboard by heart. She tipped her head back to whiff grilled shrimp
soon to arrive in sofrito sauce with fried sweet plantains.
“The
flan is good. Just like my abuela makes.”
“I
bet. Your grandmother would be happy to hear that,” she said,
knowing he brought out the best in most people. Two days ago he'd
invited her and a handful of others scuba diving. The chance to ogle
him had been one of the perks. He’d worn nothing but swim trunks,
his bare chest on display. Every glistening muscle was finely etched.
Not a drop of fat on him. Since he’d not given her the time of day,
she’d checked him out without him noticing.
The
hard-bodied host had led the way toward habitats of soft-bodied
creatures. To find where invertebrates lived was never an easy task.
Octopuses squeezed into narrow passages of coral for protection and
gave females a place to keep their eggs. She’d discovered the
remains of a few meals nearby. Octopuses scattered rocks and shells
to help them hide.
This
grant meant so much to her and no doubt to him as well. Veronica
mindlessly toyed with the gold necklace around her neck, but anxiety
crackled through her brain. Unlike this man of action, she lacked the
flamboyant personality necessary to talk people into things. Carlos
had that ability. He'd made friends with judges on board while she’d
conversed with an older woman about a box of scones made with Cuban
vanilla cream.
That
day the wind had picked up to a gale force, and this woman named Bela
with Lucille Ball red hair needed help walking to her home. The half
mile down the seaside promenade, The Malecón, had provided her with
time to practice her Spanish. Turned out Bela was Carlos’s
grandmother. She’d worked as a maid when the Castro government came
to power. When private homes were nationalized, titles were handed
over to the dwelling occupants. Bela owned a crumbling home in the
respected Verdado district and rented out rooms.
What
Veronica detested about Carlos was his abnormal level of talent for
schmoozing. Not that he wasn't charismatic; he drew her like a
powerful magnet with emotions hard to untangle. Why was a
self-assured woman who ran her own life thinking about a man who
commanded everyone around him?
She
inhaled a breath and turned around on the barstool, caught fast by a
gut punch of Carlos Montoya in the flesh. She sighed and surrendered
to the tendrils of want sliding up between her thighs.
Tall
and muscular, his lush dark hair curled to his collar giving him a
wild, roguish appearance. His face was lean and chiseled. His mouth
full and tempting. His eyes the smoky-gray of a grass fire and
fringed with black lashes as dense as paintbrushes. He smiled. A
faint hint of mockery curved his mouth, a sensual mouth she imagined
to be either inviting or cruel. Or both at the same time when he
leaned over a woman with a diamond-hard gleam in his dark eyes while
she drowned with pleasure. She fought a fierce desire to run her hand
across his broad chest, tip her face upward, and…
His
breath tickled her face.
Not
going there. She blinked and forced her mind to focus. Carlos Montoya
was not the kind of man you lost focus around. But that image of
putting her mouth full on his and peeling away his shirt once
introduced in her mind was impossible to expunge. Pointless even to
try.
He
was an intimidating blend of intellect and sexy danger. Both
qualities had her leaning back against the bar’s edge. If it
weren’t for him, she’d have a chance at winning the grant.
His
lips twitched. “You’re staying on one of the cruise ships, am I
right?” He rolled up the sleeves of his linen jacket to reveal a
dusting of manly hair.
”Yes."
Her cabin served as her hotel room while attending the January
meetings with perfect high-seventies temperatures. His eyes locked
with hers. She willed herself to move and yet she remained seated,
clutching heat between her legs, a wetness so intense that her breath
stalled in her chest while her heart hammered faster. Soon she’d
return to freezing New York City.
“So,
Bonita, give.” He slid onto the bar stool next to her. “What
brings you down from a lofty ship to grace us lowly Cubans with your
presence?”
Bonita.
Pretty lady was not an endearment coming from the mouth curved in a
taunting smile, but not a slight either. Not with his deep, melodic
voice speaking words as if he knew secrets about her. What secrets
did he know? Would he pry into her personal life? She doubted this
bad-boy college professor acknowledged boundaries.
“Just
drinks and dinner.” She scrambled for composure. “Aren’t we
attending a world-class conference? I find the local population to be
friendly and kind. That’s not slumming.”
The
bartender set down a saoco. “Hope you like it, senorita.”
“Gracias,”
she said. “Very nice, served in a coconut.”
“Ah,
the saoco,” Carlos said. “Rum, lime juice, sugar, and ice. The
saoco,” he repeated, disbelief heavy in his words. “Um. Wow. Once
used as a tonic for prisoners of the revolution.”
“Medicinal?”
She couldn’t help it. She chuckled and sounded as if a rusty spoon
had scraped her throat raw, but it was genuine. The warm glow in its
wake was welcome and needed. .
He
leaned an elbow on the bar, his beer bottle with the green-and-red
Cristal label dangling between his fingers. “Be careful with that
one.” He dipped his head toward the front door as if he needed to
go somewhere soon.
That
fast, the glow snuffed out. She cleared her throat and gripped the
fuzzy surface of the coconut container.
He
placed a five-peso coin with a brass plug on the counter and whirled
it. The spinning motion mirrored a dizzying attraction going on in
low parts of her belly.
She
cleared her wayward mind and nodded toward artwork on the opposite
wall. “I plan to buy a painting tonight.”
“Don’t
buy anything unless the seller gives you a certificate. You’ll need
one to take art from Cuba. Artists deal in euros in case you don’t
have pesos.”
She’d
come prepared but said, “Thanks for the info.”
His
coal-black eyes widened as he gazed from her head down to the tiny
straps around her ankles as if she wore high heels and nothing else.
“You give off a Barbie doll image,” he replied and stood up.
“Huh?”
“Where’s
Ken, anyway? Kenneth Morton. He came with you to the talks in
Antarctica. Five years ago.” He grinned, and the mortification in
her belly gave way to a longing which she had no business feeling
toward her competitor.
“Ken
and I broke up.” She hesitated for a moment. “You have a gift for
remembering names. Like a salesman.”
“A
person’s name is, to that person, the most important and sweetest
sound. Back then I introduced myself to Ken in the men’s room.”
“I
remember now. Didn’t you give a talk on a specialized pigment in
the octopus?”
“Ahh,
si.” He splayed his fingers over his chest. “A pigment in their
blood is—”
“—called
hemocyanin. Turns their blood blue and helps them survive subfreezing
temperatures. Were you awarded something?”
“The
antifreeze protein grant? No. It went to a deep-diving photographer.
He wasn’t chicken about getting lost or trapped under the ice.”
She
slid from her stool and strutted around, jutting her chin in and out
like a chicken. “Bock, bock, bock, bock, bock, begowwwwk.”
He
chuckled. “Cute chicken dance. Very cute in that skimpy black
dress.”
Her
cheeks heated, and she clutched her necklace. He’d seen plenty of
women in body-fitting attire. In Cuba, women wore dresses to
meetings. If she'd harnessed sexier mojo, she’d have livened up
presentations. Her presentations with an abundance of dull data went
south. She slid back against her stool and clutched her purse to her
stomach as if the small satin bag could calm the nerves playing deep
down kickball. She belonged in her tidy New York office filled with
computers, modems, and research manuals. Not in this softly lit café
where passion oozed from a man’s pores, and artists displayed their
canvases. Here was where Havana’s trendsetters congregated, and
Ernest Hemingway wrote about desire.
“Good
luck with your purchases, Veronica Keane.”
Okay,
so they weren’t going to pretend they were going head to head for
the grant.
As
if he had more to say, he grinned at her, his perfect white teeth
flashing.. “Do you find us different, like apples and oranges?”
“What
am I, an apple or an orange?”
“Hmm.
You’re an apple.” He was doing that sexy voice thing which made
her brain shut down. Heady.
It
started with an unexpected spark, an instant attraction, the jolting
jab of oh-I’m-feeling-something. Something like a flashfire in her
belly, but now they were talking.
“Am
I the apple of desire? Want to take a bite out of me?” She pulled
in a breath.
Had
she really said that?
“Bonita,
do I ever.”
“Tomorrow
is the final ceremony.” Would she watch him walk to the podium to
accept the grant?
About
the Author
Book
Buyers Best finalist Kathleen Rowland is devoted to giving her
readers fast-paced, high-stakes suspense with an erotic love story
sure to melt their hearts. Her latest release is One Night in
Havana, #34 in the City Nights series.
Kathleen
also has a steamy romantic suspense series with Tirgearr Publishing,
Deadly Alliance is followed by Unholy Alliance. Keep an
icy drink handy while reading these sizzling stories.
Kathleen
used to write computer programs but now writes novels. She grew up
in Iowa where she caught lightning bugs, ran barefoot, and raced her
sailboat on Lake Okoboji. Now she wears flip-flops and sails with
her husband, Gerry, on Newport Harbor but wishes there were lightning
bugs in California.
Kathleen
exists happily with her witty CPA husband, Gerry, in their 70’s
poolside retreat in Southern California where she adores time spent
with visiting grandchildren, dogs, one bunny, and noisy neighbors.
While proud of their five children who’ve flown the coop, she
appreciates the luxury of time to write.
If
you’d enjoy news, sign up for Kathleen’s newsletter at
http://www.kathleenrowland.com/
5 comments:
Welcome to Beyond Romance, Kathleen!
I like the sound of this book! Happy Blog Tour!
A very enticing excerpt! :)
One Night In Havanna sounds great.
Thank you for the wonderful contest.
Thank you so much for sharing :)
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