Lords of the Deep (36 page)

She lifted her head and gazed at him blankly. “What?”

Feeling more than a little abused, Basil released a pent up breath. “I tell you I love you and all I get is mmmhmm?”

Angie finally gave up on studying the slide she had under the microscope. Grasping Basil’s cock, she yanked it out from under her and turned on the stool to face him. After studying his pained expression for a moment, she released his cock. It immediately shot toward her mound and began to burrow determinedly toward her pussy.

Squeezing her legs a little more tightly together, she ignored it, studying his face, and realized with a touch surprise and warmth that there was as much love in his eyes as lust. Abruptly, she remembered something Millicent had said to her long ago, when she’d been trying to decide whether to stay or go—
the okean male is untamable
. Maybe not completely, she thought a little whimsically, but her males gave every indication of adoring her—even when they weren’t in bed together.

She’d certainly never regretted her decision to stay. Where else could a woman find so many adorable, adoring males that were perfectly willing to wow her in bed and then get out of her way and let her work?

At least most of the time.

It was heaven—really.

Narrowing her eyes as she felt warmth curl in her belly, she leaned her elbows on the desk behind her, spreading her legs wider and curling her hips to allow his cock access.

Basil gasped hoarsely as the head burrowed into her. Grabbing her with his free arm, he lifted her from the stool. She locked her legs around his waist, groaning as he strained against her resistant flesh until he slid deeply inside of her and pleasure instantly radiated through her.

He answered her groan with one of his own, trying to bounce her up and down his shaft for a moment and then bracing the edge of her buttocks against the stool and pumping his hips.

Andrian was giggling by the time they both hit their peak, shuddered, and then leaned together, enjoying the pleasant aftershocks, gasping for breath.

Angie chuckled after a moment. “I think he enjoyed the ride.”

“Wait until he’s a little older,” Basil murmured huskily, dipping his head to kiss her.

He straightened when he heard the airlock open, sent her a smug look, and headed for the door. “Tell mommy bye, Andrian,” he called as he met Damien in the doorway.

“Tell your mother I said hi,” Angie responded.

Damien stopped him for a moment and nuzzled Andrian’s neck playfully until the baby started laughing.

He was smiling as he glanced from Andrian to Angie but the smile flat lined. “Somebody’s been in my fucking cookie jar!” he leaned back out of the door way and bellowed at Basil’s retreating back.

Basil gave him a three fingered salute without turning. “It’s my gods damned cookie jar!”

Angie rolled her eyes and headed to the bathroom for a shower. “It’s my gods damned cookie jar … and don’t forget it!”

The End.

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Below is a short excerpt from Madelaine Montague’s novel, Call of the Wolf, followed by excerpts of other exciting books from New Concepts Publishing.

By

Chapter One

“Abby. Abby!”

Abigail Winthrop jerked her gaze from the countryside and stared blankly at the man who’d spoken to her.

His lips tightened. She could see impatience in his hard gray eyes. Dragging in a deep breath, he released it slowly, as if mentally counting to ten. “You’re going to have to get used to responding to that name or you’ll be in serious trouble, Ms. Winthrop.”

Abby felt her face heat and then, as rapidly as her face had flushed with embarrassment, the blood drained away and she went cold all over. “I’m sorry. I had something on my mind,” she muttered.

She could tell from the look he gave her that he didn’t believe it for a minute. Anger replaced the fear after a moment. She’d just had her entire life turned upside down—ceased to exist as the person she’d been since birth—become someone else. She was trying to adjust. She knew just as well as he did that her life depended on it. She was no idiot! “What were you saying?”

“Maybe we should go over your background one more time?”

Abby chewed her bottom lip to keep from screaming at him. They’d done nothing since the trial
but
go over it—weeks of going over and over it until she felt as if they were trying to brainwash her, shatter her hold on her identity, rather than coach her into remembering the new one. “Sure.”

He began firing questions at her like a machine gun. Where were you born? What’s your mother’s name? Where did you go to school? When were you born? Mother’s maiden name? Ex-husband’s name?

Abby managed to answer each one with barely a blink and the agent relaxed fractionally. “We’re coming up on Ajax.”

Abby nodded nonchalantly, but her heart leapt at the announcement and began to beat a little faster tattoo against her chest wall.

It was her new home, her new life and, like her name, she’d had nothing to do with the choices made for her. It wasn’t excitement making her heart hammer painfully in her chest. It was dread … every bit as much fear as she’d faced in the courtroom when she’d testified.

Where was the justice, she thought bitterly, in a witness being condemned to life on the run, or death, when the criminal they’d helped put behind bars carried on inside jail as if nothing had happened to interrupt their life and would probably be going home again before she reached middle age? Granted, it hadn’t been that grand a life, but it was
hers
. She’d put it together. She’d guided her own feet down the path she wanted to take. She’d made her own choices.

She hadn’t even
chosen
to be a federal witness. They’d bullied and threatened her in to it, making promises they knew damned well they probably couldn’t keep, and now she was going to be a school teacher in bum-fuck nowhere, U.S.A., surrounded by strangers and she couldn’t even
contact
the pathetic number of friends and family she’d had before her life had gone down the toilet.

She’d never felt so completely alone in her life.

It was odd that she could feel that way when she’d actually had so little contact with family members and friends in the past several years, been too caught up in her own life to spare a lot of time or thought for it. And yet, she’d known she could. She’d known they were there in the fringes of her life, going about their own lives, and she could reach out any time she wanted to.

Now she couldn’t.

Agent Milner slowed the car, dragging her from her unpleasant thoughts, and she glanced around in time to catch a glimpse of a tall, white sign with fancy lettering and decorative curlicues proclaiming the town. Beneath the town’s name was the announcement that it was incorporated—whoohoo!—and the population—which she didn’t catch. She didn’t need to. Any town that posted their population didn’t have much of a population to boast about.

Rounding a bend on the narrow highway they’d been following, Abby saw a smattering of houses and businesses and then a wide banner above the highway, which had become main street.

Oddly enough, it was
named
Main Street!

The legend on the banner was an announcement of the town’s Harvest Moon Festival.

Now
there
was something to get worked up about, Abby thought sarcastically.

Milner slowed the car even more. Abby wondered if it was to allow her to get a really good look at her new ‘home’ until she noticed the speed limit sign of twenty five mph.
Good god!

Struggling with her negative thoughts, Abby focused on studying the ‘commercial district’ as they crept along Main Street, following a couple of other cars that seemed to think
twenty
mph was fast enough. It was Saturday, and cars lined the street on both sides. They had to stop a half a dozen times in the three blocks they traversed for cars backing out of parking spaces—no, they didn’t have parallel parking!

Milner stopped at what appeared to be the only traffic light the town boasted, glancing around with interest. “Looks like a nice little town.”

“You’re only saying that because you won’t be living here,” Abby said dryly.

He sent her a frowning glance. “Attitude can make the difference in whether you enjoy your new life or not,” he said like the prick he was.

“Bite me,” Abby muttered.

His lips tightened. “You’ll want to watch the language. You’re an elementary school teacher now.”

Abby sent him a fulminating glare. “And whose bright fucking idea was that?”

“The position was open.”

“And I’ll bet it was the
only
position open here.”

“It was. She died.”

Abby sent him a sharp look. “Joy, joy! They have a hell of a retirement plan … or did the little darlings give the poor thing a heart attack?”

“Look, Ben … Ms. Winthrop, you’re alive and you have an entire life all set up for you here … on the government tab. A new job, a house … everything you’ll need to start over.”

Abby narrowed her eyes at him. “I
liked
the life I had,” she said tightly, “so don’t take this ‘we did you a favor’ attitude with me!”

“Chances are you’d be dead now if we hadn’t. Maybe you should consider being more careful about the boyfriends you pick in the future?”

Abby clenched and unclenched her fists a few times, wrestling with her temper. It was a waste of time to strike out at Milner, even though she suspected he was the bastard behind her being pulled in as a witness to start with. Of course, it might have made her feel better to knock his head off—if she’d been capable of it—but it wouldn’t change anything. “I hadn’t had but three dates with Mikhail,” she pointed out tightly. “If y’all hadn’t bullied me into wearing that damned wire, my life wouldn’t have been in danger to start with!”

The bastard didn’t even have the grace to look guilty about fucking up her entire life. He shrugged, turning the corner as the light finally changed. “If it makes you feel better to blame everybody else ….”

Exactly how the hell he figured it was
her
fault escaped her. How many women ran criminal background checks on the men they dated, she’d like to know! It wasn’t as if Mikhail either looked like, or behaved like, a thug, damn it! He’d behaved and dressed like a well-to-do gentleman. He’d been young, handsome—sexy with his thick accent. Half the women in the office had been panting after him!

She was supposed to be able to just
look
at him and tell he was the crime boss of some huge Russian mob that dabbled in everything from gun running, to drugs, to prostitution?

If he’d seemed extremely wealthy,
maybe
she would’ve been suspicious … and maybe she would’ve just been even
more
dazzled.

Truthfully, she’d begun to feel just a little uneasy about Mikhail—some things had just seemed a little off—but she’d only been out with him a couple of times and he was a suave son-of-a-bitch. How was she supposed to have guessed he was grooming her to use her connections?

She shook her unpleasant thoughts off as Milner pulled to the curb in front of a tidy little one story Victorian house with enough gingerbread to look like something out of a fairytale. The neat yard was surrounded by a white picket fence in the front and she could see a taller privacy fence surrounding the back yard beyond the private driveway that curved past the right side of the house.

Shutting the car off, Milner unfastened his seatbelt, glanced up and down the street and opened the door. Taking that as her cue, Abby unfastened her own belt and got out, scanning the neighborhood. Everything was neat and tidy from one end of the street to the other, as far as she could see. Not one house looked to be less than a hundred years old and they were probably older than that given the fact that all of them had the deep porches, enormous roofs, and the elevations of houses built more than a century earlier. Several of them looked as if they dated back to the civil war or earlier.

She caught a glimpse of a few people up and down the street, mowing or working on flowerbeds, and a handful of children. Realizing most of them had stopped what they were doing to stare at the strangers in their midst, she nodded a little uncomfortably and turned as Milner joined her, following the paved walkway up to her front door.

A sign at the edge of the lawn of the house to her right caught her eye as she scanned the yard of her own house.
Shady Rest Bed and Breakfast.