Excerpt from "Pitch Dark" by Brooke London

Alyssa must protect her grandfather’s cutting-edge, environmentally friendly oil sands extraction technology—and his life. Forced into dealing with her grandfather’s chosen partner, Connor, a wild card business mogul and ex-CIA spy, she knows she can’t trust him.

Connor resents that Alyssa has the final say on his multimillion dollar partnership. When someone tries to kill them both, they are thrust together and their mutual attraction sparks hot enough to heat the sheets to searing intensity, despite their mutual distrust.

Together they race between his headquarters in Colorado and the oil sands of Alberta to stay one step ahead of the terrorists who are determined to stop them at any cost. It will take their combined cunning and courage to survive the explosive and treacherous covert world of espionage, betrayal, terrorists and spies. But even if they do, can they survive the secrets they are keeping from each other?

An Excerpt From: PITCH DARK
Copyright © BROOKE LONDON, 2009
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Connor had been waiting for Alyssa to arrive. He was surprised, to say the least. None of the technical people, or techies, that worked for him looked like she did. Well, first of all, most of them were men, and second, she was about five-foot-five, with a well-proportioned and shapely hourglass figure.

He didn’t like bony women. He wanted a woman to look like a woman and this one definitely fit the description. He’d actually had to remind himself to go and greet her. One look at her had been enough to make every male neuron in his brain spontaneously combust.

At any other time and place, he would not have thought that the woman standing beside his house would have had anything to do with computers, let alone be a top notch technology security expert. The word “geek” and this woman did not compute.

Appearances are deceiving, he reminded himself as he approached. He got about ten feet from her when their eyes locked. He saw her eyes widen fractionally before she broke eye contact and looked down momentarily before suddenly looking back up again, her hazel-green eyes neutral.

“Ms. Tiernan, I’m Connor Donnelly, you can call me Connor. It’s a pleasure to have you here.” Connor held out his hand and smiled.

Connor noticed that Alyssa hesitated for a split second before extending her hand to grasp his and her hand trembled almost imperceptibly, her face a polite mask. “Mr. Donnelly, uh, Connor, it’s a pleasure to be here. You have a lovely home. But it wasn’t really necessary to put me up here. I would have been quite comfortable in a hotel.”

“Nonsense. I promised your grandfather I would take care of you and that’s what I intend to do.” He looked at William and smiled. “Could you take Ms. Tiernan’s luggage and put it into her cottage? I’ll take it from here. Thank you, William.”

William nodded at Connor, smiled at Alyssa and climbed back into the car. He drove around them and headed for one of the smaller chalets. Connor came up beside Alyssa and, with a light hand guiding her elbow, walked toward the front of the main house.

“You … you can call me Alyssa,” she said breathlessly, the words spilling out as she twisted her hands together into a knot.

Connor gave her a sidelong glance and narrowly avoided raising a quizzical eyebrow at her. Hmmm, something’s wrong with this picture—gorgeous woman who looks like she wants to be anywhere but here with me. He shrugged it off. Any number of things could be the problem—fatigue, hereditary insanity, who knew? “Alyssa, then,” he said gently. “You must be tired after your flight. It’s nearly eight. It’s too bad you couldn’t make it until late in the day. Why was it that you couldn’t come earlier?”

“I was in rehearsal until late afternoon.”

“That’s right, your grandfather mentioned that to me yesterday,” he said. It hadn’t slipped his mind—he had been casting about for a topic to ease the tension vibrating around her. “Your grandfather tells me that you’re quite talented.”

“My grandfather is overly enthusiastic,” she said with a lopsided grin. “I could dance down the streets ofCalgary with a bucket over my head and he’d still say it was wonderful.” Taking a deep breath, she added, “I hope that you don’t mind my being here to look at your systems. Grand is extremely cautious about anything that comes into contact with his stuff.”

“No, of course not. I hope our security will stand up to whatever you can throw at it. We have some very good people,” Connor said with pride. “But I guess we’ll see tomorrow when we go down to headquarters. I understand you have specialized experience with security systems.”

“Well, I do what I can,” Alyssa said breezily as they trekked up the gravel path to the guest chalet nearest the main house. Connor released Alyssa’s elbow and stepped up to the front door of the cottage. “Here we are. I hope you’ll be comfortable.” Opening the door, he reached around the door frame and flicked the light switch on. He stepped back and motioned for her to enter the cottage.

Alyssa stepped into the house and Connor followed closely behind. Her luggage already stood beside the door. Connor watched Alyssa as her eyes scanned the open-concept living area, pausing at the view of the lake framed in the floor-to-ceiling windows before sliding to the stone fireplace.

The softly burnished pine plank flooring glowed in the dwindling sunlight. Rustically furnished, the chalet was a warm, inviting retreat. At the far end of the cottage was a gleaming, black, baby grand piano. He smiled when he heard her gasp—her eyes had found the instrument.

“Do you always have a piano in here?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“No, but I thought that you might enjoy playing while you’re here. One of my younger brothers plays a little piano, but mostly we only use it when we have dinner parties and hire a pianist to play. I’ve just had it tuned. Do you like it?” Connor asked.

Alyssa stared at the instrument, as if unsure how to react. “It’s beautiful,” she said finally before giving him a sidelong glance, biting one edge of her full bottom lip. Connor felt himself slip a little emotionally—she was absolutely adorable. “Do you mind if I give it a whirl?”

“Go ahead.” Connor felt some of the tension drain away from her. Definitely the right thing to put her at ease. He gave himself a mental pat on the back.

Alyssa walked with fluid grace across the polished wood floors toward the piano while Connor watched in appreciation as her hips swayed. An hourglass figure—his mouth almost watered, pulled into the orbit of her femininity. She ran her long fingers lovingly along the piano’s curved black side and drew out the bench. Sliding onto it, she shook her hands out and placed her fingers lightly on the keys. Closing her eyes, she took a breath and slowly released it.

Alyssa began to play the haunting strains of the adagio from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. As her head tipped slowly from side to side in time with the music, Connor saw the tension in her body release as she drifted into the music, note by note. She swayed faintly in time with the waves of poetry emanating from the taut strings of the instrument.

She ended the piece with a sigh, her head tipped back, eyes closed. She took a deep breath and slowly opened her eyes, pupils dilated. She almost seemed surprised to see Connor still there, staring at her.

“It’s a lovely instrument,” Alyssa said in a husky voice. She flushed slightly before she cleared her throat and said in a more normal tone of voice, “It was very nice of you to arrange for it to be here.”

“That was amazing,” Connor responded in a level tone of voice as he stared at her, unsure that the woman in front of him now was the same person he’d met not fifteen minutes earlier. His fingers itched to grab her and stroke her lovely body.

His gaze flicked to the slim digits that had so recently caressed the piano keys. Connor managed to tear his eyes away from her graceful fingers. He could only imagine what it would feel like to have those hands play himlike an instrument. He could feel himself harden. Stupid, get your mind off your dick already. He had the feeling that if she knew about the detour his mind and body had followed, she would turn tail and run. And he couldn’t afford for that to happen.