Stranger Mine by Megan Mitcham
Publisher: Megan Mitcham (10/1/2014)
Series: Base Branch, book 3
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Purchased, Tour brought to you by Xpresso Book Tours
Purchase links || amazon | bn || add to goodreads
Rating: ★★★★★
One takes control. One finds balance in letting go.
Base Branch operative, Ryan Noble is accustomed to taking orders whether from his commander or his overbearing mother. His best friend urged him to take control of his life, but the only thing worse than an angry woman is a teary one. He has no desire to upset his mother’s fragile emotions. Losing his sister was hard enough, his mom couldn’t bear losing another child. Even if it is to the other side of D.C. It’s a damn good thing she doesn’t know what he does for a living.
On a routine mission to destroy a cargo free human trafficking facility and exterminate it’s operators, Ryan blows his extraction to rescue a woman he finds chained inside.
Piper Vega is caught between metal and a hard place. She needs information and it has taken far too long to cull it from her leads, also known as her captors. She finally has the facts she needs to complete her task, but it’ll take a miracle to set her free and see it achieved. Santo Padre knows she never expected her good favor to come in the form of a man.
Through intense battles of will, Ryan takes the reins of life in his sturdy grip while Piper discovers balance in loosening hers and both find unexpected love.
about Megan || Megan was born and raised among the live oaks and shrimp boats of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where her enormous family still calls home. She attended college at the University of Southern Mississippi where she received a bachelor's degree in curriculum, instruction, and special education. For several years Megan worked as a teacher in Mississippi. She married and moved to South Carolina and worked for an international non-profit organization as an instructor and co-director.
In 2009 Megan fell in love with books. Until then, books had been a source for research or the topic of tests. But one day she read Mercy by Julie Garwood. And Oh Mercy, she was hooked!
Megan lives in Southern Arkansas where she pens sizzling suspense novels.
{ just a tease } .
{ excerpt } .
“No dead bodies?” Piper arched a brow and made a show of
peering around the chunky wood island and the table nestled in the breakfast
nook. “I’m amazed.”
“Keep on pushing me. I could
add another.” Ryan deposited the first aid kit he’d snagged from the hallway
bathroom and narrowed his gaze at her.
“No, you couldn’t.”
“Cocky aren’t you?”
“Confident. You’re cocky.” She dropped her gaze to his crotch.
Her head tilted and her thin lips pursed.
“Here I was trying to be
gentlemanly and discreet. You stomp all over tradition, don’t you?”
“Meaning?”
He crooked a finger at her.
“Come here before you get angry and try breaking my nose again.”
“You might want to check it. I
see blood and a hump at the base.”
“The hump is courtesy of the
last guy who tried and succeeded. The blood will wash away.”
“All of it?” Her lips formed a
grim line. “Seems you have a penchant for taking lives.”
“I have a duty. Now get over
here,” he snapped.
When she didn’t budge, he
jangled the keys he’d confiscated from one of the dead men along the way. Piper
curbed her urge to stomp her feet like an agitated bull. She settled for a
huff, crossed the kitchen, and offered him her cuff.
“You chose a male-dominated
profession in one of the toughest precincts in the States. If you’re ever in
distress, there’s no damsel in it. Just one pissed lady. You’ve probably never
needed a man for anything. Not even to get you off. And you’d probably spit in
any guy’s face who had the cajones to ask for your hand in marriage.”
He was already too damn close
to the mark, to her body. The thick pads of his fingers warmed her forearm,
while his eyes warmed her everywhere else.
“Who was dumb enough to hurt
you? Father? Lover?”
Piper snapped her jaw closed
the moment she realized the damn thing dangled open like an anglerfish on the
hunt. She snatched the keys from his blood-crusted hands and green-stained
fingers. He let her retreat to the other side of the island without a word. She
longed to turn away from his knowing gaze. The azure-blue orbs with their
reflective, nearly white flecks saw too much and reflected back her flaws.
Pinning the latch to the
counter with her wrist and hip, Piper unlocked the crude accessory, removed her
arm, and watched the heavy links tug from the shiny surface.
It thwacked atop the pile. Freedom lightened her mood and body like
the Lord above flipped a switch. Piper raised her chin.
“No one has ever hurt me. Not
a father or lover.
“My dad was donor number
489760 from The Sperm Bank of California. I’ve never needed a man for anything.
Neither did my mother, who raised three daughters on her own. I like men to get
me off. I just don’t like them to hang around long after.”
His head canted and his
studying eyes shone bright, surrounded by the dull gray and green of combat
paint. Piper mapped the contours of his face. His wide-muscled jaw. The
depression of dimples below his high cheeks and the lickable one at the brunt
of his chin. Lips thicker than her own. A gently sloping brow pinched in
thought. And damn that smile. She’d only seen a flash of it and knew she
couldn’t take any more.
Sure, the stranger was crazy
handsome, but something below the All-American exterior pulled her deep. A
quiet pain hid behind his blinding smile. When he turned away and stepped to
the sink, Piper released the breath she hadn’t noticed she’d been holding. He
turned the water to steaming and went to work rolling the sleeves of his BDU’s.
With copious amounts of soap he scrubbed the paint and life force of several
men from his hands.
But damn, she couldn’t rip her
gaze from his forearms. Tanned skin stretched over fibrous cords of muscle
stacked in a thick pile. A pathway of veins coursed over them and disappeared
beneath his cuffed sleeve. Most surprising of all was the thatch of golden
blond hair sprinkling the expanse. She hadn’t paid much attention to the hair
slicked atop his head. Now she saw the blackness for what it was, black grease
to hide the shine of his boyishly light hair.
When he called her over with a
tilt of his head she moved her ass, unprepared for another battle or to see
those arms in action. The roller coaster of emotions over the last thirty
minutes left her bone weary. As she cleared the island, her steps slowed and
renewed energy coursed through her body. Saliva pooled in her mouth, better
used exploring his body. The lips of her sex bloomed an invitation. The beat of
her heart accelerated to the point of pain. Every gauge in her body blinked
red. Warning. Danger. Run. Never before had she approached a man who saw
through her as though she were his personal looking glass.
He held a clean, tanned hand
out for her injury. Her eyes riveted on thick scar tissue bisecting the girth
of his palm. It splayed like a red spider, a lump at the center with fissures
sprawling in nearly every direction. She found his gaze and stilled her hand
inches from his.
“It’s okay.”
Piper didn’t know what he
referred to, but the reassurance gave her the muster to move again. Before she
could stop herself, the tips of her fingers skimmed the dune of pink marring
his wide, callused hand. She slid along the scar until it ran over the edge and
their palms met in an intimate handshake.
The shock of contact
reverberated around the room like the concussive waves of detonation. His Adam’s
apple bobbed on a deep swallow, telling her he felt it too. The pad of his
thumb danced over the back of her hand. Her nerve endings wept at the
tenderness. The heat she could handle, but the care speared too close to the
center of her heart.
“I can’t…I can clean it
myself,” she fumbled.
He tugged her against his
side. “You’re right handed and probably wouldn’t clean it well enough to stave
off infection. It’d be a shame to lose your shooting hand.”
“It hasn’t gotten infected
yet.”
“How long has it been like
this?”
“Two months. Give or take a
couple of weeks.”
The pack of weapons and ammo
strapped to his torso gave a few inches of cushion. Still, the closeness pinged
out her sensors, until he put her wrist under the water. The irritating sting
she’d lived with over the course of her captivity was a gnat bite compared to
this rattlesnake strike. Her eyes watered of their own volition. She tried to
blink the tears away, but the bastards rolled down her cheek.
“How’d you manage to keep it
clean for so long?”
“Gabrone took care of me.”
“I’ll bet he did.” The words
growled from his throat.
“Not like that. He had a weird
fixation and wanted me willingly. He didn’t want anyone else to have me either.
It worked to my advantage.”
“What’s an LA cop doing in the
middle of a Mexican cartel’s human trafficking ring?” The slanted gaze he
flashed over his shoulder ruffled her already disheveled feathers.
“I’m not dirty, if that’s what
your expression implies.”
Ryan placed her raw wrist back
under the flowing water and scrubbed.
“Son of a puta. Que
te den.” She screamed the insults and clamped onto the thick base of his bicep
with her free hand.
“If you keep talking like that,
when I’m done here I’ll have to scrub your mouth out.”
Piper clamped her lips between
her teeth and howled at the ceiling. When she ran out of breath she refueled.
“Sadomasochist.”
“I take no pleasure in your
pain. Or my own.” His gaze found hers then dropped to his arm where her nails
bit into his skin. “You know, the absence of something, a father, a lover,
doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.”
Piper struggled at his
gut-twisting words, pushing against the hulking rounds of his shoulders with
all her might. His hands twisted in her hair and firmed on her arm in a latch
similar to that of a mating lion. Her nipples peaked beneath the fabric of her
cotton tank, and she hated her traitorous body as much as the man inciting the
reaction.
“Shhh,” he crooned.
{ review } .
I have loved Ryan from book one, even knowing he wasn't the one for Sloan and would forever be her best friend.
But damn, Megan sure knows how to open a book and make you like the man more, crude as it may be... (Hey, at least he has an honest mind..)!
A rock-hard boner sure as shit made running difficult. Ryan hustled from the center-console Wellcraft, his boots creating thunder across the sun-bleached wood. He bounded from the dock over a three-foot sea wall. The tarmac sucked at his soles. He pushed harder across the private airfield to a waiting bird. The loaded plate carrier, battle belt, ruck, M4, and assorted weaponry strapped to every part of his body hugged him like an old friend. Its weight and the adrenaline triple shot of mission readiness provided the minuscule provocation his sex soldier needed to stand at attention and salute.
Yep, still like Ryan. And oh! The man has a sassy, kinky side....
As with the other men we've met with Base Branch, he's damn good at his job. He's stealthy, quick on his feet, and thinks with the mind of a warrior.
That's not to say he doesn't have weak spots -- his mother, his childhood, the acts that he helps uncover and therefore the people he saves. Additionally, I don't think he ever would have fathomed love would hit him squarely between the eyes.
But on top of these fine male qualities... He's also honest.
...and not just silently. He TELLS Piper that he's not a one night and goodbye kind of guy. He's over that stage of life. Have to respect an honest man.
When we meet Piper, she's bound to a cinder block wall....
...and making a gym out of it.
If that doesn't speak to her character, I'm not sure what does.
She is strong and determined. She refuses to be a victim -- especially in a situation she purposefully put herself in. When the men have come for her, she breaksdidn't't, cartilage... Even considers biting off important appendages. When Ryan comes barreling in, unknowingly rescuing her, she head butts him.
She will be no one's victim.
In fact, she gives as good as she gets right from the beginning with Ryan -- in addition to the sexual tension, the verbal sparring is spot on.
I love when authors write WELL into the man's psyche, and that is certainly the case in STRANGER MINE. Whenever we as readers hear Ryan's thoughts, they're very much a man's thoughts -- swearing, sex, women. Discomfort or arousal. The thoughts are all man.
Equally so, I love that Piper is written as a strong lead female (has to be in her chosen profession), but even in her weaker, more vulnerable moments, you still get a sense of how strong she truly is.
I had been excited for Ryan's book and it certainly didn't disappoint. While I'm not sure how I feel about Commander Tucker's book, I have to admit the last line of STRANGER MINE makes a person at least slightly curious. I am, however, extremely excited for Khani's story.
{ giveaway } .
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