This is definitely an intense, emotional story. A romantic suspense with several twists and turns and sometimes, a little bit confusing story-line. ~ Kitty, Guilty Pleasures
My lover is dead.And they think I killed him.
I’m running rogue. Hell bent on both revenge and redemption. Whatever it takes, I’m going to finish a job that began nine months ago. An unauthorized assignment that turned horribly, devastatingly wrong.
My miscalculation.
My fault.
My heart left shattered into incomplete pieces which will never wholly fit back together again.But first I have to outsmart my former organization and the hired killer they’ve sent after me; a ghost from my past who knows my every move, who’s been inside my head, my heart, my dreams and memories: Jaxson.
I’m the traitor, Kylie. The rogue mercenary, Jaxson’s newest assignment.
And this is our love story.
Review copy provided for an honest review
This is definitely an intense, emotional story. A romantic suspense with several twists and turns and sometimes, a little bit confusing story-line. But, once I got into the writing style of Michelle Mannon, the way she was bringing the story, I was really interested to find out exactly what game was being played and who the major players were.
Kylie did not grab me at all. I was actually starting to get disgusted with her, her attitude, her way of looking at things. She’s out for revenge and she’ll take down the Pricks that took her family away from her and left her to care for her dying mother and younger sister. But, in trying to get the proof she needs, she’s side-tracked by a man, built for sin and letting her know that he’s hell-bent on sinning with her. Jaxson … the bane of her current existence and the love of her life. If it wasn’t for TORC, she would have never met him, she would have never become a fighting machine, she would have never had the chance to truly take down Novak, she would never have had the money to get her mother treatments or send her sister off to school. Then again, she would never had had the chance to get her lover killed, or so she thinks.
Jaxson came off as a fun-loving, not a serious bone in his body kind of guy. But, he’s definitely a killing machine … both with a gun and with the ladies. He makes it his mission to get into Kylie and he descriptively tells her every chance he gets. From the sparring ring, to the gymnasium, to the fallen tree … he lets her know exactly what he’s going to do to her when he gets the chance. But, one person is standing in his way and there’s nothing short of insubordination that he can do about it. To hell with everything … he claims her and promises to keep her safe. Until that fatal day when she betrays him, TORC and everything that they worked so hard to achieve. Or, did she?
There were several other characters in this book that played important roles. Hayden, Francis, Diego, Declan and then Novak, Franco and the Pricks. Sometimes, there were so many, that I got confused and had to go back to put them all in order. I was also a little confused with the timeline. The story would jump back and forth between the past and the present, from Shelby, Oklahoma to Paris, France. Everything seemed to be pointing towards drug-running then switched to gun-running. Madelyn, her sister, was packing to go to school in California then, a few months later, she was living in Florida. I am still not sure what happened to Franco … what TORC stands for … where Declan is or his role with Madelyn.
So, even though I got invested in how the story was going to play out, I wasn’t totally enthralled with it. I felt that there were things that could have been explained more, that the characters could have had a little more depth and the time-line could have been a little more realistic. I enjoyed the banter between Jaxson and Kylie but didn’t understand the hatred that just bled off the other men on the team. Rogue was an intense read, had a lot of moving parts to it and had a wonderful ending.
3.5 stars
Excerpt
Kylie and Jaxson are on the run and things get a bit wild. Terrific. He’s going to flirt with me and tease me to death.
“You up for a challenge?”
“It depends on what it is.”
“Smart girl. How about I give you a play by play? Then you can either tell me to fuck off or to go for it.”
“What if I tell you to fuck off right now?” I sweetly ask.
He chuckles. “It’s your dime, fireball. Your call.”
I arch my eyebrows. He’s got this naughty, devilish look in his eyes and, God knows, not only should I resist him but I should roll myself out of our hiding place and run as fast as my legs will carry me into the woods.
“If this will help me survive Hell Camp, I’m up for a challenge,” I hear myself say.
“Believe me, it’s going to be a lesson in restraint for me as well. So here’s the deal. I wanna tease that sweet pussy of yours. Fuck you with my fingers. See how quiet you can be, how still you can be, how in control you can be when all hell is breaking loose around you. A shame I can’t lick you like I want. We’ll save that for a better time.
What do you say?”
What do I say? I open, close then open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Not “Yes, make me come beneath this decomposing tree while Hayden’s hellions run amuck around us.” Not “No, how about courting me with a few flowers first? Or at the very least, getting me tipsy on a bottle of good wine?”
I swallow hard. “I say this is you being unpredictable. Go figure.”
His hand slides downward and across my belly.
“Don’t you dare,” I whisper.
“Oh, I dare. But . . . do you?”
“Seriously?”
“I’ve been thinking about this for days. Fuck, since you sank that knife into my thigh.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Hating that memory.
Jesus. He’s lost his freaking mind right along with me losing mine.
“Listen. You think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been eye-fucking me? Damn, I love the way you bite then lick your lip while you think I don’t know that you’re watching me.” His hand moves across my lower abdomen, the tips of his fingers sliding beneath the waistband of my sweatpants and my panties.
“Jaxson who?” I reply. Yeah, right. I’ve had eye-gasms over him for weeks.
This is crazy. Beyond crazy . . . insane. My whole experience at Hell Camp, the fights, the knives, is surreal. One adventure after another. Nothing prepared me for him. The pad of his pointer finger flickers over my nub, tempting me. I think, Why not give into this wild need to go a little nuts? Besides, I’m with the right man to push me over the edge—literally. Just looking at him . . . oh my . . .
He’s curled a finger inside my folds.
The bony part of his palm rubs across my sensitive hood.
And I’m wet, and growing wetter with each subtle caress.
“Bend your leg and put it up on my outer thigh.”
I stare at him like he’s talking gibberish.
“I need this as much as you do.” He grins like a madman, a daredevil, a man who can steal your breath away then have you begging he steal more of it. And just like that, I’m a goner.
I bend, lift my leg, and anchor it on top of his thigh. “Stop . . . talking. Or they’ll hear you,” I whisper, my tone hoarse with excitement.
Naughty. Oh so naughty, and I want it.
“Fireball,” he murmurs, “I’m going to be struggling right along with you not to give our hiding spot away. I promise you that.”
“Misery loves company,” I add, then moan as he thrusts a digit into my slick channel.
“The best kind of misery.”
Slowly, so very slowly, he slides his finger in and out, and I’m in heaven. I feel his thumb pressing into my nub as his finger drags along the walls of my channel.
“You’re wet but tight,” he breathes into my ear, “I’m going to work another finger inside. Nod if that’s okay.”
“Do it,” I demand.
As promised, he pushes a second in alongside the first. Slowly at first, then quickening the pace. I can’t help but tilt my hips along with each stroke. It’s not long before I feel the climax building up inside me.
I moan.
“Coming,” he whispers so quietly, I barely catch his question.
“Almost. Sweet Mary . . .”
“No. They’re coming. Footsteps.” He winks at me, rolling his thumb once again over my sensitive hood while his fingers plunge into me and withdraw. Once. Twice. Three times. Until my body is shaking with need.
I jerk at the sound of a voice close by. “The trail Jaxson left behind was goddamn amateurish. Like he wants us to find him. He’s around here somewhere.”
My eyebrows lift high enough to touch the tree overhead.
His smirk is full of mischief.
And, holy sweet Mary, if his tongue is anything like his fingers . . . I clamp my lips shut, holding back my moan. Yes, oh yes.
“Check around.”
No, oh no.
“Over here,” someone shouts at the same time I arch my hips toward Jaxson and pray that the mewing sound going off in my head doesn’t work its way out of my mouth.
I struggle to keep quiet, to still my movements, to not give us away. And I curse Jaxson for putting me in this situation, for masterfully bringing me to the edge, to make me want to shout out my climax, only to have to dig deep not to do so.
My eyes meet his, and without my making a sound, I crest. My pleasure clear as day in what has to be the most blissful expression known to womankind. Which, I silently gasp, is reflected in the hottest look known to mankind that crosses over his face.
Sweet mother of God. This man is going to be the death of me.
“That was fucking beautiful.”
I blush. “Shhh. They’ll hear you.”
“They’re gone, off on a wild-goose chase. I ran ahead and planted a few less-than-subtle trail marks. Still, we better head back.” He removes his hand from beneath my sweatpants, shifts my leg off his thigh, and rolls out from beneath the tree. I squeeze my eyes shut, briefly, disbelieving what I’ve just done, then slide out after him.
He offers me a hand up.
“You’re insane,” I mumble.“And you’re beautiful.”
Michele Mannon creates characters who are far from perfect; who are likely to be knee-deep in trouble, heart-first in love and at wits’ end when life unexpectedly, unequivocally turns to hell. Her debut series, Worth the Fight, received two Romantic Times Magazine Top Picks.
Her new sexy romantic suspense series with St. Martin’s Press, Deadliest Lies, releases in August 2016, beginning with ROGUE, a story about what happens when your own organization sends a hit man after you mistakenly, heart-wrenchingly kill your lover.
Michele lives in Pennsylvania but likes traveling to exotic places, including the NJ shore. She’s fond of Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Lattes, quick-witted, Irish-accented men, a good story, and lots and lots of laughter.
Thanks for the review Kitty