Title: Claiming Felicity
Series: Ace Security Book 4
Author: Susan Stoker
★ Release Date February 27, 2017 ★
Blurb: Falling in love could expose a woman in hiding, in the fourth Ace Security novel from New York Times bestselling author Susan Stoker.
Former mercenary Ryder Sinclair’s stunning discovery that he has three half brothers in Castle Rock, Colorado, is giving them all the chance to color in the spaces of their tragic pasts. For Ryder, establishing roots is made all the more desirable by Felicity Jones. But if Ryder’s instincts are correct, this breathtaking beauty is in trouble.
Castle Rock isn’t Felicity’s home. Like her false identity, it’s just a cover. All she wants is enough cash to keep moving to another temporary hideaway—to stay on the run from a secret that’s haunted her for years. As safe as Ryder’s strong embrace makes her feel, she fears that falling for him, and staying in Colorado, will put everyone she’s come to love in danger.
The more Ryder learns about Felicity, the more determined he is not to let her go. It’s time for her to stop running—even as a relentless danger closes in, threatening their love and their lives.
Excerpt
Ryder stood behind Felicity as she nervously fumbled with the lock at her apartment door and frowned. There were so many things that were security issues, his fingers twitched with the need to fix them. Her door wasn’t terribly sturdy, as it was simply another door in the interior of the gym. There was a stairwell in the back hall of the gym that led to a skinny hallway on the second floor of the building that needed more lighting. Felicity explained that the other rooms were used for storage, for the most part, which someone could easily hide in. She’d explained that a small apartment was built into the space when the blueprints were drawn up.
It was obvious Felicity wasn’t comfortable having Ryder in her apartment, but she’d just have to get over it. She didn’t know it, but letting him into her private space was akin to agreeing to be his. She wasn’t a woman who trusted easily, and being invited into her apartment seemed intimate. It shouldn’t have felt so right to step inside her place, but it did.
He could smell her scent stronger here. She always smelled good, especially when he’d held her in his arms in the middle of the grocery store, but here it was ten times stronger. Lilacs. It was just one more thing about her that didn’t “fit” her outward appearance.
As he’d pointed out to Logan, she wasn’t tough at all. She was broken. And Ryder knew it because he’d been just like her at one point. The first time he’d killed a man, he fell into a pit of despair so deep he didn’t think he’d ever be able to pull himself out. And to compensate, he’d put on a mask and created a new persona, just as Felicity had.
But he’d only worn his tough-guy image for a year before he’d shed it around his teammates and friends. Friends who truly understood what he was feeling. Felicity had been wearing her take-no-shit exterior so long, there were only glimpses of the tender woman underneath. But Ryder had seen them. Loud and clear. And it was that woman he wanted to know. Wanted to be his. He just needed to chip away at her tough outer shell one bad memory at a time.
They brought the grocery bags into the kitchen, and he handed her items as she put them away. They worked together in a companionable silence. After everything was stowed in its proper spot, she turned and waved her arm around the small apartment, which could be seen from the galley kitchen. “It’s not much.”
And it wasn’t.
It was clinical.
Depressing.
There wasn’t one personal touch in the small space.
Review: Loved it! Can no wait to see more of the mercenaries. Can not remember if the firehouse is a established location in any of her other stories, I have read so many of hers I do not recall. I do hope we see the young lady again maybe rex’s match?
This is a voluntary review and I do not get paid for this review.
About the Author:
New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author, Susan Stoker has a heart as big as the state of Texas where she lives, but this all-American girl has also spent the last fourteen years living in Missouri, California, Colorado, and Indiana. She’s married to a retired Army man who now gets to follow her around the country.
She debuted her first series in 2014 and quickly followed that up with the SEAL of Protection Series, which solidified her love of writing and creating stories readers can get lost in.
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