Samhain Publishing

Love is the only thing she can’t escape…

Forbidden Passions, Book 3

Ecstatic that she’s found a place to hide—and a job—at Refuge Resort, Cleo Nemean toasts her escape a few too many times and ends up having a one-night stand with a seriously hot leopard shifter. The catch? It’s Adrian Leonidas, her new boss…and they accidentally mark each other as mates.

Nothing could be worse than losing her hard-won freedom. Until her werebear ex, Trevor, tracks her down. His obsession has already cost one life. Determined to never again be the cause of another death—especially Adrian’s—she flees the safety of the refuge. And her new mate’s protection.

Only Cleo has ever caused Adrian to lose his formidable control. Accidental or not, the lovely lion shifter is now his woman. He’s not about to let anything harm her before they’ve explored the undeniable heat between them. There’s only one way to eliminate the threat to her life: use her as bait to lure Trevor into a trap.

When the trap is sprung too soon, however, there’s no time to wonder if whoever tipped Trevor off is tied to his father’s disappearance. Not when there’s a gun pointed at Cleo’s head…

This book has been previously published and has been revised from its original release.

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Copyright © 2011 Crystal Jordan
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication 

A mate. What a nightmare.

Oh, God. Oh, God. What had she done? Cleo hadn’t bothered to dress, she’d just dumped her clothes on Adrian’s living room floor, shifted into her lion form, and made a beeline for the door. Her golden forelegs stretched before her, claws digging deep into the sandy earth as she raced toward her bungalow in the early dawn light. The chill of the desert morning swirled around her body as she moved, and the crisp air cleared the last dregs of alcohol from her mind.

And then she panicked.

Oh, holy Jesus. She’d never intended to mate with anyone after she left Trevor. How could she have bound herself to a stranger for the rest of her life?

No matter how safe she felt at Refuge, it was superficial. Trevor would come for her. It wasn’t a matter of if—it was a matter of when. How long would she get to pretend normalcy before he ripped her life apart once more and she had to run, to hide, to start over again? Fear skittered down her spine.

And now she was mated to Adrian Leonidas. Her stomach clenched at the thought, but the rest of her body loosened, heated. She shuddered, and a slow ripple of sweet desire filled her. Her cream-colored stucco house came into view, haloed by the morning sunlight, and she fled toward it as though her life depended on it. She’d just run from Trevor. Was she insane to want Adrian so much, so quickly? Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

Matings among the werekind couldn’t be undone. Not ever.

She slammed the door shut to her bungalow and slumped to the floor in the entryway. The doors had been specially designed for the resort to let shifters in their animal form get in.

Her heart raced, and her chest bellowed as if she’d sprinted a marathon instead of across the resort grounds.

She didn’t think anyone had seen her. She hoped no one had. What was she going to do? She didn’t know.

Shifting back into her human form—the hair retracting, her bones molding into human formations—she walked into the bathroom for a hasty shower. She had about thirty minutes until she needed to be in her office. She and her assistant both started work at seven. Stepping under the heated spray, she shivered as the water hit the mark on her collarbone. Her nipples crested as though fingers brushed over them in the lightest of caresses. Her breath caught. She’d never guessed a mated mark could be so sensitive. Heat flooded her sex, and she grew wet with want.

Adrian’s face flashed through her mind, his jaw clenched, his features flushed, passion in his pale green eyes. She wanted him. Right now. Would he try to touch her at dinner? Could she resist something that pulled at her very soul? Should she try to get out of it?

Somehow she doubted he would tolerate it. And, unlike with Trevor, the possession in his gaze didn’t scare her. It comforted her, wrapped her in a feeling of belonging. How was that even possible? The total acceptance that filled her scared her to death. She’d been with Trevor for almost a decade and had never felt this way.

What was she going to do? The question nagged at her again.

Act as if nothing was wrong, as if nothing had changed. She was desperate to keep a low profile, to regain her balance. Last night was not going to help her with that. Refuge was a world-renowned resort. The Leonidases were public figures in the were community. Mating into that family was not a way to fly under the radar.

She was doomed.

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