DANGEROUS
ANGEL releases 8 weeks from now! WHEEEEE!
From the beginning,
the hero of DA—Kyle Beaudecker—has been unconventional. He likes cracking jokes even when a demonic
apocalypse is staring him right in the face, and Sara of SAVAGE ANGEL usually
has to beg him to shut up. Most heroes
are the strong, silent type, but not Kyle. That’s why I love him—everything about
this hero is unexpected. Here’s one of
my favorite conversations in DANGEROUS ANGEL, because it underscores just how,
er… different his brain works. :D
*
“Yo!
Nikita! You home?”
With a snarl she bolted upright, only to
remember the bikini top in her favorite neon yellow was somewhere off to her
right. She wasted a few precious seconds tying it back in place over her
oil-slick breasts, all the while cursing under her breath. What the hell was
Kyle doing in her private heaven when he knew she hated visitors? He’d be lucky
to hop away from here with only one broken leg.
“Yo, Nikita! Wakey, wakey.” He pounded
on the door hard enough for her to feel each impact.
“I am
awake, you idiot.” With full-blown murder in her eyes, she gripped the
foot-high metal railing that ringed the top of the silver Airstream and glared
down at the man on her doorstep. Though a simple metal pull-out step wasn’t
much of a doorstep, she’d be the first to admit, but it didn’t matter. She
adored her chrome-shiny silver bullet of a trailer, a vintage ’60s camper fully
refurbished with all the twenty-first-century bells and whistles. Its greatest
asset, however, was that her tiny, compact home on wheels could be parked
wherever the best surfing was. The only problem with where it was parked now
was that it was obviously too accessible. For a moment she glared back up
toward where she’d parked her SUV. Another reason she had such a big vehicle
was to haul her home in and out of its various spaces without getting stuck,
but she never took chances when she was on this particular property. Maybe it
had been a bad idea to build a simple slab for her portable home so close to
the water, only to leave the actual parking for vehicles—like Kyle’s muscle
car—a good hundred feet away on the hard-packed, unpaved road. At that distance
she was almost guaranteed not to hear anyone approach. Definitely not the
greatest setup for a bounty hunter, now that she thought about it.
Dressed in casual navy plaid shorts and
a cotton gauze shirt buttoned just to his sternum, Kyle shaded his eyes and
squinted up at her. “Oh, there you are. With your board leaning against the
trailer, I figured you’d be around here somewhere. Glad I didn’t wake you.”
Any pissed-off cat would have been proud
of the hiss she unleashed. “Why would I be asleep at this time of day? It’s after
noon.”
“Don’t you believe in naps? Wow, I don’t
know if we can be friends if you don’t believe in naps. What are your thoughts
on naps, now that we’re on the subject?”
She dragged a hand through the wild
tangle of her ocean-salted, now-dry hair. When Kyle was in this bouncy-playful
kind of mood, he was too delicious to be resisted. Her last line of defense
against losing control over the situation could only be one thing—making death
threats. “Don’t make me come down there and kill you, cabrón.”
“Did you know that with your hair
flowing all over the place like that, you sort of look like my idea of a Cuban
Rapunzel?”
ADHD,
thy name is Kyle. “You
know I don’t like to be disturbed. Remember that night when you knocked on my
window to bug me about catching that slimy wife-beating jump? Remember how I Tased
you for your efforts?”
“Yeah, that was a lovely jolt of
electricity you gifted me with. Made me so tingly I felt like I was walking on
air. Or maybe that was just seeing you in a nightie.”
“I don’t wear nighties, I wear big
T-shirts to bed.” Or nothing at all, but no way in hell was she going to let
that cat out of the bag.
“Are you sure?” His brows drew together
doubtfully. “I distinctly remember a nightie with lots of frills and lace. You
looked great in it, by the way.”
Oh,
my God. “The
way your brain works is one of the great mysteries of life.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment. What are you
doing here?”
He pouted. “You say that like you’re not
happy to see me. I’m always happy to see you, especially when there’s so much
of you to see. Is your top coming off? That’s so awesome.”
She shot away from the camper’s edge and
out of sight, cursing again as she retied her top before clambering down the
ladder at the back. “This is my happy place, cabrón,” she said, trying to appear imposing. But that was
difficult to do when her daisy-covered flip-flops smacked against her heels as
she closed in on him. “You’re messing it up with all your cuckoo Hurricane-Kyle
vibes.”
“You’re just as crazy as I am, Sparkle,
and stop calling me an asshole. If you’re not careful I’m going to start
thinking you don’t worship the ground I walk on.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we wouldn’t
want that, now would we?”
“I know I wouldn’t.”
She would not face-palm. She would not
face-palm... “How did you know where I’d decided to park my house?”
“You own three properties in Florida—one
north of Jacksonville, one close to your aunt’s place, and this little spit of
land here. After I checked with the weather service and found out the waves
were six feet here after yesterday’s storm, I deduced you’d be closest to the
best surfing.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s…actually
pretty impressive detective work.”
“That, and I called your aunt to see
where you were.”
The smack of her palm hitting her face was louder than she’d
expected.
*
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