The Duality Principle Read online

  “You did,” Jax acknowledged, pushing aside his desk diversion to cross his forearms over the blotter. He wasn’t hiding the picture of his ma, despite the fact that more than one of the women who’d visited him at the agency had made a sickeningly sweet comment about him being a mama’s boy. He wasn’t. In fact, his mom didn’t even know he was seeing anyone. Or everyone, if town gossip was to be believed. “So what’s with the cloak and dagger, Ms. Mysterious? You trying out your Halloween costume five months early?”

  Cass shed her raincoat and let it slouch behind her, then pushed her massive glasses on top of her head. The virulent purple smudges under her startlingly green eyes grabbed his attention first, but the tension pinching her generous lips followed a close second. “I’m here on official business and I didn’t want anyone in town to know.”

  “Official business, hmm?” Another niggle of worry chilled his spine. “And somehow people would realize that if you weren’t suitably disguised? You do realize your brother owns this agency. I don’t think it would be out of the realm for you to visit him without calling the Feds.”

  “Chase isn’t here right now, remember?”

  How could he forget? Jax had been on his own for a good part of the first five months of their bodyguard agency, though they’d brought Sterling on board part-time after the first of the year. Very part-time at first, because their, ahem, current lack of business hadn’t exactly necessitated lots of help. But they had picked up a few clients, some long-term, some short, and Sterling had proven himself adept at pounding the pavement in getting the word out about their agency. Being a bodyguard wasn’t the easiest job to advertise. It wasn’t as if they could hang up a sign somewhere that anyone with a stalker should call them.

  That hadn’t worked at all.

  “No, but I am. You think people would think it’s that strange that you’d stop in to say hello to an old friend?”

  Cass’s eye roll didn’t make him feel confident she viewed him that way. Old annoyance, maybe. Old nuisance. He wasn’t sure how he’d gotten slotted in that particular category in her mind, but he didn’t like it one bit.

  Oh, who the hell was he kidding? He knew exactly when she’d pegged him that way, at least for good. It had happened last summer when he’d been the bearer of bad news and informed her that her piece of shit boyfriend liked to stick his tongue in other women’s mouths. Since then, Cass had acted like he was two steps up from a communicable disease, and that was only because she hadn’t had her flu shot. Otherwise he and the disease would’ve been running dead even.

  “I might say hello to you, but I’d do it when you swaggered into my shop on your daily ice cream run. Why would I bother to come here to speed up the process?” she asked, proving his point.

  “Swaggered? I don’t swagger.” He wanted to be offended but it was hard to be when she looked so damn tired. She was always pale but right now the white curtains had more pigment than she did. She was practically translucent. “And I also don’t stop by every day.”

  “Yes you do.” She sounded smug. “Ever since I hooked you with those Moose Tracks...”

  The Moose Tracks ice cream was pretty good, he had to admit, but that wasn’t why he stopped by often enough for her to tease him about it. Though it was a handy excuse.

  Too bad he was hooked on something—someone—else who happened to be smirking at him with those slick pink lips and making him wish he’d worn looser jeans. Wish he owned looser jeans, because seriously, good fucking hell.

  “You know me and my ice cream.” He played it off because it wasn’t as if he could tell the truth.

  The only way ice cream could interest me as much as you is if you were naked and writhing in a vat of it.

  “I do. And if you help me out, I’ll give you a lifetime supply, on the house. As long as you keep this between us for now.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. “Help worthy of a lifetime’s supply of ice cream?” He wondered what she’d say if he suggested a non-traditional serving cup.

  Sometimes following your ambitions means losing your heart.

  Never Let Me Go

  © 2014 Jennifer Haymore

  When Celeste McMillan graduated from college, she hit the ground running, prepared to overcome every challenge and climb the corporate ladder at record-breaking speed. But then a client assaults her, and her boss forces her to take a ten-day “vacation” in Hawaii.

  Kanoe Anakalea is intrigued when he meets the pale-skinned, redheaded haole on his favorite surfing beach. Celeste is intelligent and adventurous, sexy and sweet. Even though sun, sand and sexy surfers are as foreign to Celeste as the L.A. corporate world is to Kanoe, their sexual chemistry sizzles.

  As they spend sun-warmed days and plumeria-scented nights in each other’s arms, they find themselves falling hard. Yet love is out of the question. Kanoe is rooted in his island home, and Celeste’s future beckons in L.A. As the clock ticks down, Celeste realizes that letting go might be the greatest challenge she’s ever had to face.

  Warning: Contains a combustible situation near a volcano; steamy scenes on beaches and in lava pools; hints of voyeurism, exhibitionism and bondage; and some very creative uses of a surfboard.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Never Let Me Go:

  Celeste picked her way across the cool lava a few yards from the shoreline, admiring Kanoe’s perfect butt as he climbed over a hunk of black rock.

  “There,” he said triumphantly, moving beside her and gesturing forward.

  “Wow.” She couldn’t come up with any better response. Ahead of them a depression in the lava formed what looked like a tide pool as big as one of LBG’s billionaire clients’ swimming pools. Moonlight glinted silver off the surface of the water. A wave crested over the rocks separating the ocean from the pool, and a skin of white water washed over it, its force rippling the surface to the far end.

  They maneuvered their way over the lava, finally stepping onto an enormous, somewhat flat rock slightly angled to the water’s edge.

  They stood there for a moment, and she tipped her head up to him, ready to tell him how amazing this was, when Kanoe dropped the towels and pulled her to him. Just before his mouth collided with hers, he whispered, “I’ve wanted to do this all day.”

  She reveled in his tropical, sun-kissed taste as he led the dance between their tongues. She slid her hands up his arms and beneath the sleeves of his shirt, stroking his hard biceps. His mouth moved to her jaw, and he grasped the hem of her shirt, hiking it up over her belly until it snagged on the undersides of her breasts. He took a small step back, a question in his eyes.

  She hesitated, glancing back in the direction they’d come from. Moonlight shimmered over the lava, but nobody was there.

  Fixing her gaze on him, she dragged in a deep breath and lifted her arms. He tugged the shirt over her head and dropped it on the rock beside them. With trembling fingers, she reached between her breasts to release the clasp of her bra.

  A low sound came from his throat as the bra fell at her heels.

  “Your turn,” she murmured as he raked his gaze over her upper body. She never behaved like this. Getting naked from the waist up, out in the open with the stars staring down at her, for a man she hardly knew? This was a version of Celeste she’d never met before. And right now, she liked her very much.

  She felt crazy, reckless, wild. She wanted to go skinny-dipping with him, out here, tonight.

  He yanked his shirt off, and she gazed at his bare chest. Hard. Solid. So close she could feel the heat radiating from it. The tattoo made dark, sexy slashes over the front of his chest and down his arm.

  He didn’t touch her; instead he knelt before her and untied her sneakers. Now she understood why he’d asked her to wear them—for the hike out here. Though he’d only worn flip-flops, he definitely had a much better handle on walking over the rugged landscape.

&nbs
p; She gazed down at his black hair and then his shoulder. The lines of his tattoo rippled as he moved one of her shoes aside.

  He had this all planned out. A stab of some foreign emotion surged through her, and before she could think to censor her thoughts, she asked, “How many women have you brought out here?”

  She nearly groaned aloud. Good one. Way to ruin the moment.

  He froze and then rose to his feet, his face dark, his mouth flat at the corners, and growled, “You think I bring all the nani haole chicks out here to go puinsai with them?”

  “Um…er…” She might’ve been able to answer the question had she understood it. At times, his accent and the words he used were completely undecipherable. At other times, he spoke like one of her colleagues back at home. It had never occurred to her that she wouldn’t understand the pidgin English they spoke here.

  Speaking through his teeth, he said, “You don’t like pidgin? You want me to speak like a haole? I can do that too. I said, do you think I bring all the beautiful mainland tourists out here to fuck them?”

  Her first response was a warm flush that rushed through her. He’d called her beautiful.

  Her second response was awareness that she’d pissed him off. For some reason, his narrowed eyes, the tension in his muscles, the sheer power radiating from him didn’t scare her, or make her angry or defensive. It thrilled her. Made her hotter for him.

  Holding her ground, she asked, “Do you?”

  He stilled, then closed his eyes for a long moment. “No.”

  She inched closer to him until her nipples brushed his chest and his pelvis pressed against her lower stomach. She could feel the ridge of his erection, and she shuddered.

  “What about local girls?” she asked, but her voice emerged as a hoarse whisper rather than the challenge she’d meant it to be.

  He gripped her wrists, pinning them to her sides. “I’ve never brought a woman here. Any woman. Ever.”

  Her blood sped through her veins. Her nipples pushed against his pecs. His fingers curled around the tender flesh of her wrists. No man had ever held her this hard.

  She liked it.

  The muscles in her body clenched involuntarily, and she let out a little moan. The way he pressed to her, the way his hands held her wrists—God, she could feel an orgasm rising already.

  He dropped her wrists instantly, misinterpreting her moan as one of pain. Drawing away from her, he mumbled, “Sorry.”

  She gazed at him straight-on. “I want to see you naked. Please.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  He stared at her for a second, then nodded. Keeping his eyes locked on her, he slid his flip-flops off and reached between them to push his shorts over his hips.

  Celeste tugged the shorts the rest of the way down, kneeling as she reached his ankles. He stepped out of them.

  She looked up at his cock. It was darker than his tanned skin, hard yet so smooth. Like the rock they stood on, but pulsing warm and silky. Human. She tentatively reached up to stroke him, and a wave of anticipation vibrated through her body.

  Gently pushing her hand away, he knelt to face her. “Your turn.” That dark look passed over his face again, but it wasn’t anger this time. He shook out one of the towels, then gestured to it. “Lie back.”

  He moved the second towel so she could use it as a pillow. As soon as she lay down, he unbuttoned her shorts, then pulled them and her panties down her legs and over her feet in one smooth movement.

  She gazed at Kanoe as his hand traced the outside of one of her breasts, and he brought his mouth down over her nipple, licking, teasing. Jolts of heat rocketed through her body, centering between her legs, opening a void, an ache begging to be filled.

  This wasn’t just going to be skinny-dipping.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  The Duality Principle

  Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Grace Allen

  ISBN: 978-1-61922-370-7

  Edited by Christa Soule

  Cover by Kanaxa

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2014

  www.samhainpublishing.com