There’s always a loophole. Just don’t let it close around your neck.
The Fringe, Book 3
Bounty hunter Foster Nash is a ruthless bastard—just ask him. Thanks to an ex-girlfriend who robbed him blind, and another who nearly bit off his trigger finger, he’s not too high on women in general right now.
Desperate for funds to refill his retirement coffers, he jumps at a very lucrative contract: to bring in the doctor who created the Tyaa plague. Except his voluptuous target doesn’t behave like a criminal. Instead of rattling the bars, she accepts her fate with cool, cultured aplomb.
Jynx Brennan toiled for three years to save humanity from a disease she’s now blamed for creating. Since she refuses to use her psi ability as a weapon, it doesn’t help her escape Never-Fail Nash. In a moment of clarity, she decides there’s no point in denying herself a last fling with a living, breathing erotic fantasy.
After he recovers his surprise, Nash indulges the full depth of his physical needs upon her body—often, and to their mutual pleasure. But when it leads to unexpected emotional intimacy, he finds himself willing to risk everything to break a contract that will force him to deliver her to certain execution.
Product Warnings
This futuristic romance contains one bad-ass bounty hunter, a refined lady doctor, a ship with a vile history, a villain with a viler history, and a wide black leather belt, slung low. Copyright © 2012 Anitra Lynn McLeod
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
Never-Fail Nash peered through a rip in the ratty motel curtains. Visual implants allowed him to see one person curled up in the lone bed. He found it odd that apprehension gripped him even after twenty years as a bounty hunter. Adrenaline surged from the moment he located his target to the moment he tossed them into a cell on his ship.
Hyperaware senses and attention to detail ensured his survival. That, and the fact he didn’t trust anybody. He didn’t become a triple-platinum Runner by being a nice guy. Or an idiot.
Slipping the illegally acquired and therefore outrageously expensive keycard into the holodoor, he passed through the deactivated field and reactivated it behind him.
The room smelled musty and stale from old smoke and sweat. All of the furniture was beat-up-dusty. Typical cheap Fringe motel with craptacular decor beyond expensive holodoors. It took a nanosecond to orient himself to the layout of the room. He approached the narrow bed.
Wow.
Jynx Brennan looked way better in real life. He checked his palm unit again and shook his head. His package looked about as dangerous as a hangnail.
Looks could be deceiving.
Razor-sharp, his enhanced gaze scanned the body below the threadbare covers. Despite x-ray and infrared, all he could see was a wicked dream personified. The blankets clung to a voluptuous female form, leaving no place to hide a weapon.
Except between her legs.
He frowned and took a step back.
His last package flashed in his head. Scary Mary had looked like a wayward kitten, but she’d turned out to be the most dangerous criminal he’d ever captured. Scary Mary almost shattered his balls, then attempted to amputate his finger with her teeth. Jynx Brennan looked twenty times more harmless.
Won’t be fooled again.
Favoring his injured finger, Foster readied his Shantun stunner, flipped on the light and hauled his alluring package out of bed.
“Hands up.”
Groggy, sleep deprived and suddenly vertical, Jynx struggled to awareness. Cold metal settling against the back of her head brought her instantly awake, but terror held her immobile.
“Hands in the air or I blow your head off.”
The voice behind her, clearly male, rumbled with authority, uncompromising yet oddly seductive. She trembled as she lifted her hands. With a no-nonsense grumble, he pulled her wrists down behind her back and then slapped on a pair of plastimetal cuffs.
“For a medic, you’ve given the IWOG a good run for their money.” He checked her restraints by yanking them hard.
She yelped. Her whole body hurt in ways she’d never known. Three weeks of little food and less sleep blurred her mind.
“Please, let me go.” She tried to turn her head, but he wouldn’t let her.
He grunted as he slipped shackles on her ankles.
“I’m not the local law’s problem, am I?” She paused. “Processing me will take up a large percentage of your budget, especially if you must transport me off-world.” How far had reports of her gotten? What had he heard? Silence stretched past her words, driving her to desperation. “I’m not your problem, am I?”
Still he said nothing.
She couldn’t help herself. She spoke again, knowing her quavering voice gave away her growing fear. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you and your government to just let me go?” Not a chance the OuterWorld Alliance Group, WAG, wanted anything to do with a fugitive of the InnerWorld Government.
The man behind her uttered a bored sigh.
Just when she opened her mouth to say more, he snarled, “I’ve never lost a package, Sweets. Why in the Void would I start with you?”
Adrenaline surged when he called her a package, not a prisoner. “You’re a Runner!”
He spun her around.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw his face.
Expecting a grizzled monster, she found instead a man about her own age with sandy blond hair and wicked azure eyes. Definitely not the local law. The Runner looked like any boy-next-door grown up. Way grown up. Into a very big man. He didn’t look like a monster, but then again, neither did Roberts, the one who’d orchestrated her capture.
“Roberts will kill me,” she blurted.
“That’s your problem.” He nodded and winked. “I’m strictly the delivery man.”
“You’re no delivery man.” Jynx made her breathless words part observation and part plea. He was huge. Not only tall but wide as a door. Rippling muscles were barely confined by a pale blue strex shirt that matched his faded motton jeans. He also wore a frightening array of weapons around a wide black leather belt, slung low, drawing attention to the fact he was a very big man in many ways. His eyes did not match the rest of him, nor did that boyish, biting grin.
“I could pay you.” Barely were the words out of her mouth when he rolled his eyes and laughed.
“You couldn’t even afford a decent room.” He glanced around the ratty room he’d found her in.
She followed his gaze.
A single dim bulb dangled from a wire in the center of the stained ceiling above them. Against the tightly shut, threadbare drapes, the bulb cast a meager pool of light on tattered wallpaper and filthy carpets. A kindness, really, as the dim light helped to hide the stains on the carpet, bed and walls. Sadly, it glaringly illuminated the stains on the ceiling, whose origins were better left uncontemplated. The only modern amenity was the holodoor, and clearly, that had not kept him at bay. Renting the tacky room had taken the last of her script. She thought she’d be safe for at least one night. Just one night of sleep.
“I could match what Roberts is paying you.”
He laughed again with a softer roll of his intense azure eyes. “You couldn’t even get yourself off-world.” Silky hair fell into his eyes when he shook his head. He brushed the seductive strands away with an impatient swipe of his hand.
She opened her mouth, but he spoke again before she could say anything.
“Save it, Sweets.” He winked. “I’ve heard it all.” He lowered his hand to his gun. “You’re dead in the Void. Whatever you had in the bank is frozen. Your bonafides are locked. You don’t exist but for me.”
“Who are you?”
He bowed without taking his eyes off her face. “Foster Nash, at your service.”
Heaven help her, she knew that name. “Never-Fail Nash.”
He nodded, saying nothing, his hand on his gun.
Jynx not only knew him but feared him. “You are one of only six triple-platinum Runners in the universe.”
He nodded again and offered her a smile so menacing she gulped.
Before her stood a living legend from a thousand IWOG tales. He always delivered his package. He had a reputation for being ruthless, brutal and vicious. Her heart sank. Even if she had the money in her hand and offered it to him on a platinum platter, he wouldn’t take it. Never-Fail Nash would deliver her or die trying.
View Cart
Checkout
