Decadent Divas: Final Surrender Exclusive Excerpt by Jennifer Kacey

After just one night, the only man she’s ever loved pushes her away…
Painful secrets have kept Angela Meyers running for more than a decade. She’s fought her way to the top of the fashion world but hidden scars run soul deep. Now a stalker has resurfaced, threatening to destroy everything she’s sacrificed for, and the only person able to protect her is the one man she vowed would never get close enough to crush her heart again. The same man that she still loves and hates and needs with every breath she takes. Can she allow him in to keep her safe while protecting the secrets destined to rip them apart again?

Now to save her, he must convince her, their love is worth a second chance...

Clay Waters must break down the barriers surrounding Angela’s heart while discovering who the voice in the shadows belongs to. Convincing her to trust him and surrendering his heart to a love he never believed in will be the only way to save the two lives hanging in the balance. He couldn’t allow himself to love her then, but now he must help her accept their past and fight for a future she thought lost forever…

A contemporary romantic suspense from Samhain Publishing
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Exclusive Excerpt!!!

Angela padded lightly down the hallway past the bathroom door. She heard the shower running and tried not to think of the path the water was traveling to get to the drain. Then she tripped over her own feet and had to catch herself on the archway leading into the living room.

“Focus,” she reminded herself with a small shake of her head, as she made her way into the kitchen and went straight to the freezer, after hesitantly depositing her extra key on the kitchen table. She’d never had reason to pull the key from the safe in her closet before and she glanced at it one more time.

She grabbed her favorite double chocolate ice cream, scooping some out.

“Think you got enough?” a sexy voice asked from behind.

She turned to find Clay leaning against the entry to the kitchen with his arms crossed in front of his bare chest. The scar on his cheek traveled all the way down his left side. Her nipples beaded at the sight and she wished she’d had the foresight to leave her hair down to cover it.

His dark hair, still wet from the shower, was darker than she remembered, and he had Snoopy and Woodstock sleep pants on, tied loosely around his waist.

The scar disappeared behind his waistband, and when her gaze finally made it back up to his face, she frowned at the smirk there.

“What did you say?” Angela questioned quickly.

“Did you get enough…” Her gaze traveled to his chest again. “Ice cream, I mean?” he amended.

Now red in the face, she snapped her head back around to find her bowl full of enough ice cream for more than two people.

A self-conscious laugh escaped her lips as she tried to figure out what to do with all of it. Then realized she had ice cream dripping onto her hand from the scoop she held.

“Guess I got a little distracted,” she answered honestly as she licked the melted chocolate off her hand.

“By what?”

She grabbed another bowl from the cupboard, scooping ice cream into it and replied, “The day in general.”

“Want to talk about it?” he asked as he moved into the kitchen.

“No,” she quipped as she put the ice cream back in the freezer and grabbed two spoons from the drawer, and a glass jar of cherries out of the fridge.

“There’s a key for you on the table for the front door. I figured you would need it.” She added a cherry to both bowls. “Hope you’re in the mood for ice cream. Want to eat in here or in the living room?”

He came forward, took one of the bowls from her and retorted, “Living room, thanks. I need to talk to you anyway.”

“That sounds scary,” she admitted as they made their way onto opposite ends of the couch.

Angela licked ice cream from her spoon and shivered. She didn’t even try to lie to herself and say it was from the cold.

Clay stared at the photograph above her mantel, a black-and-white photo that seemed to capture him in some way. He paused before turning to Angela.

“I want to know what has been happening to you the past year. If you have any idea who this fucker is that’s stalking you?”

Never one to beat around the bush.

She set her bowl down and got up to retrieve a file from her hall closet. “I can’t imagine who’s behind any of this. It still seems quite surreal that someone would do this. Or…care enough to spend so much time on this stuff.”

She placed the large manila envelope on the coffee table and opened the flap before sitting back on the couch, tucking her feet beneath her legs. It was no larger than a regular folder holding tax returns or medical records. But it seemed larger than life because she knew what it contained. She resumed eating her ice cream and let the simple pleasure ease her sudden fears.

“That’s everything. All of the weird letters and threatening pictures, transcripts of the tapes from my phones being wired. Copies of my full case file. Lot of good any of it has done me or the detective assigned to try to help me. I hate feeling like I have to keep any of it, but I thought maybe it would help…someday.”

Clay set his empty bowl on the table and pulled out the contents. He re-adjusted himself on the couch closer to Angela. It wasn’t supposed to make her heart spike in rhythm or her breathing catch.

Those were just added bonuses, she thought, as she tied a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue.

Clay pulled letters out, commenting on reading them the following day when his brain was more functional. “The transcripts I’ve already read from Mark and the collages seem odd, but I can’t put my finger on why yet, other than the fact that someone took lots of magazine pictures and cut them up to form your face or your name.”

Always on blank, white non-traceable paper and envelopes with standard black-and-white printed labels. And always from a different post office, according to the police report.

There were also pictures. Full eight-by-ten pictures of her out and about town, grocery shopping, or on Fashion Avenue.

“It wouldn’t be so creepy if I had an idea who it was. The thought of someone watching me is…”

“Disconcerting,” he finished for her.

“Yes,” she accepted, as a shiver from the cold ice cream crawled up her back again. So much for the hot shower.

“How are you holding up?” he asked as he turned to stare at her. He reached up and swept a few stray hairs off her shoulder.

Almost positive the beating of her heart could be heard across the room, much less two feet away to her, she swallowed and said, “Fine,” in a breathless whisper.

“You don’t look fine, Angela.”

“I don’t think that has anything to do with the stalker.”

“Then what does it have to do with?”

His fingers grazed her shoulder and she wanted to lean into his touch. She craved his caress and his lips that were so close.

“Something I can’t have,” she admitted on a shaky breath, standing on even shakier legs.

Quickly, she gathered their dirty dishes and escaped to the kitchen.

She froze by the sink as cold breath touched her ear a second before he ground out, “What can’t you have?”

He had been so quiet, she never heard him approach. Now she felt him everywhere. Surrounding her.

He pinned her between his almost naked body and the countertop then ran his fingers down her arm to turn off the water.

He wrapped his protective arms around her, rendering her speechless. His lips trailed along her shoulder and she leaned her head away to give him better access as a sigh escaped her lips.

Somewhere between heaven and hell was where she now found herself.

His warmth heated her backside as she shivered at the cold of the counter in front of her.

“I can’t have you,” she said, trying to convince them both.

His fingertips slid over her silky skin as he pulled the strap on her tank top down her arm.

A moan left her lips and he ground his erection into her backside, her knees almost buckling from the temptation standing behind her.

“Turn around,” he demanded.

Her fingers dug into the sink as she tried to stand her ground. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” he debated as he took love bites out of her neck. Nibbling the skin softly, just how she remembered him licking her pussy so many years before. A little bit of teeth, sweet and hard all wrapped into one mind-numbing orgasm…

She tried to step away but he caught her, twisted her around and trapped her again.

This time she didn’t have the safety of the cold metal sink to hold on to. This time her hands settled on his warm chest that tightened under her fingers. From the cold or her fingers, she didn’t care.

He groaned as his hands finally found her lower back beneath her tank top.

“You feel even better than I remember, Angela. I’ve wanted you so fucking bad. I was hoping it would lessen, that I could just let you leave and go back to my life, but it hasn’t worked out that way.”

Angela listened to him, but didn’t really hear what he was saying. Her hands were on a mission, to feel every inch of his exposed skin.

The scars mesmerized her. They were sexy and fascinating and they held a story that she’d had no right to hear earlier. She could tell he didn’t like them, but he never retreated from her touch.

She took her time, memorizing the feel of him and saved the best for last.

His face.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” she admitted in a dazed tone, as she ran her fingertips over his jaw and lips then finally, his scar. He stiffened and his breath caught when she touched it.

She knew he didn’t want her pity, but it wasn’t pity that made her lean closer, on tiptoes, to brush her lips against the scar tissue.

Down his chest, she left a trail of kisses, until he gently pulled her back up to him.

Dark eyes filled with lust awaited her when she looked up from beneath lashes heavy with desire.

He captured her chin with his fingers and leaned down to within a breath’s distance from her lips. “What have you dreamed of, Angela?”

“You,” she answered simply before he captured her mouth with his.

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