Until you take into account that my brother finally proposed to his girlfriend, so Nonna is on a warpath—and the crazy old bat has Cupid by the balls.
The upcoming mayoral elections has everyone running on full speed, and while I couldn’t give any less craps about the corrupt Holly Woods mayor’s office, a dead body in the middle of a campaign speech has me thrown right into the middle of it. The victim is close to the mayor, but all he cares about is minimizing the damage to his campaign, so he hires me to work alongside Drake to close the case as quickly as possible.
Bad news for our tentative relationship.
We disagree far more than we agree, but being at loggerheads won’t get this murder solved… Or deal with the arrival of someone from his past.
The mysteries behind the murder aren’t the only things unraveling, and despite being knee-deep in lies and corruption and bonds so tangled they’re almost indecipherable, I have to figure out if I’m willing to fight for Drake the way I do justice…
Or if he’ll be my one who gets away.
★★★★★
After
reading Twisted Bond I was SURE that Emma couldn't raise the bar any
higher, but time and time again she proves me wrong and I've NEVER
been more happy to be wrong in my life!!
Drake
and Noelle's ice and fire relationship is quite possibly one of the
best things I have read so far this year and if I thought I loved
them before, it's nothing compared to how much I adore them now. They
have such explosive chemistry, it jumps off the page and wraps itself
around you until you are consumed by it and them, I am addicted to
this series in the best possible way.
The
whodunit storyline is crazily unpredictable, there's always that one
little thing that you overlook that is, in fact, the biggest piece to
the puzzle! I honestly have no idea how Emma does it, you'd think
that something SO unpredictable wouldn't work but when I sat back and
thought about it all the links are there you just don't make the
connection.
These
characters have a special place in my heart and I think Droelle might
just be my new favourite Hart couple! The Bond boys are their usual
overprotective selves and Nonna was on top form as always, the Bond
family dynamic is truly amazing!!
Thank
you for another sensational read Emma!! <3
EXCERPT #1
“Take a seat, Detective, and tell me all about your official business with your warrant.”
“I prefer to have my discussions standing.” He grasps my arm—not tightly, but strongly enough that I’d have to insert my Louboutin into his ballsac to get him to release me.
“From experience, you prefer most things upright.”
Slowly, his lips curve to one side, his smirk both sexy and infuriating. His eyes flash with the memory. “Especially where you’re concerned, Ms. Bond.”
I drop my eyes to his belt, allowing them to linger on the buckle before falling another inch or two to his crotch. “Don’t tell me you dropped in for a midday booty call.”
“Are you offerin’? Since you’re holdin’ out on me, I think you owe me.”
“Excuse me?” My eyes snap up to his, and the smugness reflecting in his gaze tells me that I fell for his trick.
Son of a bitch.
“Our date? It’s been two weeks since you agreed to go out with me, and call me obsessive, but I’m counting nine missed calls, ten missed texts, and five missed visits to your office.”
“You counted? Hell yeah, that’s obsessive.”
“Maybe I just really want to date you.”
“Or you want to return the favor of a bullet through the foot.”
His arm rests on the weapon at his hip. “That can be arranged right now, if you’d like to call it even.”
My fingers curl around the handle of the one at his other hip. “And I’ll up the score just as quickly.”
Drake laughs, his anger seemingly gone, and leans in. “Go ahead. It’ll give me the reason to get you in cuffs I’ve been waiting for.”
I’m ninety-nine percent sure my blood pressure has gone batshit crazy at his words. Hell, my pulse is much stronger than it was thirty seconds ago.
“Five minutes ago, you were yelling about a warrant,” I breathe, swallowing the burst of desire bolting through me. “Your official business seems far more personal, though, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Not at all,” he replies. He takes my hand from his weapon, but instead of releasing it, he keeps his grip. “I’m surprised you didn’t reach for your own gun.”
“And tell you where it is? I’m no amateur, Drake.”
“And still, I underestimate you.”
“Rightly so.” I remove my hand from his and reach up my skirt. Then I pull my favorite Tiffany-blue Glock from my thigh holster. The muzzle presses against his upper thigh, but to his credit, he doesn’t even flinch at the contact.
“I underestimate you,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing my waist. “But I don’t take you for stupid. You won’t pull that trigger. Not there. It’s too close to the part of me you like.”
“You assume far too much, Detective.” I drop the gun anyway and dart around him, strolling to my desk and setting it down softly on top of my latest case folder.
Drake comes up behind me, reaches around me, and rests his hands next to mine on the desk. I briefly close my eyes as his hard body melds against mine, because the man has one fine fucking body. I can feel it now—all muscle and tone and pure, hard strength. His biceps brush mine, except his are way more…bicep…than mine. Like, seriously, how does he fit those into that hot-as-hell white shirt?
This is what happens when he touches me. I go all giggly schoolgirl. Sweet Jesus though. It’s hard not to.
I know what that body looks like and feels like and acts like, and those memories can’t be erased. I can’t erase the memory of his body, slick with sweat, tensed with determined pleasure, moving against mine as I took everything he had to give me.
I take a deep breath, but despite my efforts to inhale slowly, it fills my lungs in a rush that jolts me. Drake feels it, because he drops his face to the curve of my neck exposed by my sleek topknot. Every part of me wishes I could unravel the hairbands and pins, but still, his lips against my collarbone… Oh, hell. They feel so good. So sweet and hot.
“This is highly unprofessional,” I manage, unwillingly tilting my head to the side and exposing my neck to him. “For your official business, I mean.”
He trails his lips up to my ear, where they brush the lobe, curving into a smile. “You are my official business, Ms. Bond.”
EXCERPT #2
“So,” she says to us, turning back to her cooking. “You come-a together?”
I choke on my water and thump my fist into my chest. “Excuse me?”
“Dinner. You come-a together?”
Unfortunately, I catch Drake’s eye. He’s grinning at me. Bastard.
“Yes,” he tells Nonna. Double bastard. “We came together.”
“So you-a dating? Noella! You-a dating?” She spins around quickly, the spoon still in her hand. White sauce splatters across the cupboards. “You-a really-a dating?”
“Dating is a strong word,” I hedge, shooting a fuck-you look to Drake over the top of Nonna’s head. “We are…trying not to kill each other every time we see each other.”
“So you-a dating.”
“Not every relationship has to be defined, you know.”
“So you-a admit-a it is-a a relationship?”
“Not all relationships are romantic ones. Some of them really do come with murderous tendencies.” I scowl at her, but it goes right over her head.
“Oh! Noella, you-a dating!” She drops the spoon and shuffles into the front room. “Antonio! Noella is-a dating!”
“You’re dating?” Dad and Trent ask at the same time.
“You’re taking the word of this crazy old woman? I’m already married inside her head!” Seeing her hopeful grin, I point my finger at her. “No. No. Put those wedding bells down, Nonna!”
“You’re dating?” Trent repeats, turning on the sofa so he’s facing us. “Really?”
“No!” I protest.
“We’re apparently tryin’ not to kill each other,” Drake adds. “Which is a good start, I reckon.”
“Well, if that’s what you’re callin’ it,” Mom sighs, “then no wonder she thinks you’re dating. Her whole marriage was spent trying not to kill Nonno.”
“She’s crazy,” I tell her. “Look at her. She can’t walk to the car without her cane, but she’s dancing—why is she dancing? Dad, make her stop dancing. That ain’t right.”
I fill one mug and smile sweetly over my shoulder. Then I slide the cup along the counter to him. He picks it up and sniffs.
“Hey,” I say to him, “Normal coffee, no cream or sugar.”
His smile reflects in his eyes. “We already know how the other takes their coffee. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.”
I purse my lips, but he winks, exaggerating his smile, and I laugh at him. To be fair, Trent and Alison never really got it right until he finally learned how she takes her coffee on a morning before her shifts…and that took him eighteen months. So Drake does have a point there.
“What if one of us didn’t drink coffee? Then what?” I ask, fitting the lid on my cup.
“Let’s be honest here. You’d never be the one to not drink coffee, and if I didn’t drink coffee, I wouldn’t come near you before four in the afternoon. I wouldn’t be brave enough to face you until you were falling asleep.”
“I could so go without coffee,” I argue, grabbing a muffin and shoving it at him. “I’m not that much of a bitch without it.”
“Sweetheart, don’t take this the wrong way, but you can be that much of a bitch with coffee.”
I glance at the clock on my fireplace before I step outside. “Fifteen minutes into the day. I’m going to count myself as the bigger person here and not respond to that asinine comment.”
“Oooh, asinine. Big word for this early.”
I spin on the balls of my feet by his car. “Keep that sass up, Detective Nash…”
“And you’ll shoot me?” His eyes twinkle.
“No,” I say with a sassy half smile. “I can implicate a sex ban now. That’s way more threatening than shooting you.”
Drake snorts, getting back into the truck and putting his cup and muffin in the center console. “A sex ban? Yeah, all right, cupcake.”
“I’m dead serious.”
“Noelle, if you think your dumbass sex bans can stop me from touching you and turning you the fuck on whenever I want to, then clearly I need to fuck you again—and harder this time.” He lifts one eyebrow, almost running a red light.
“You need to pay attention to the road,” I scold him, but my mouth is dry.
Holy shit, and I thought I had no brain-to-mouth filter. Does Drake Nash spit out every sexy thought in that delightful little mind of his without a second thought?
Wait—delightful little mind? What kind of voodoo is this prick pulling on me?
Handsome, part Italian, a Catholic in theory, killer eyes, deadly kiss… Oh, that voodoo.
New Orleans, I need a cure, please and thank you.
TWISTED BOND
I’m an Italian-Texan woman in a family full of cops. I’m passionate and shoot before I think. You only f*ck with me if you’re stupid.
Photograph cheating spouses. Hand over the evidence. Cash my check.
That was my plan when I returned home to Holly Woods, Texas, and became a private investigator.
Finding the dead body in my dumpster? Yeah… Given the choice, I think I would have opted out of that little discovery, especially since all three of my brothers are cops. And my Italian grandmother is sure the reason I’m single is because of my job.
Of course, my connection to the victim is entirely coincidental. Until I’m hired by her husband to investigate her murder and shoved bang-smack into the path of Detective Drake Nash.
My nemesis, a persistent pain in my ass, and one hell of a sexy son of a bitch.
Shame he still holds a grudge from that time I shot him in the foot twelve years ago, or we could have something. In another life.
So now all I have to do is avoid my nonna’s blind dates, try not to blackmail my brothers into giving me confidential police files, and absolutely do not point my gun at Drake Nash. Or kiss him. Or jump his bones.
All while I hunt down the killer.
Sounds totally simple—until a second body proves that sometimes things that start as coincidences don’t always end up that way…
(Twisted Bond is book one of the Holly Woods Files series and while it does not end in a cliffhanger, it is not a standalone.)
By day, New York Times and USA Today bestselling New Adult author Emma Hart dons a cape and calls herself Super Mum to two beautiful little monsters. By night, she drops the cape, pours a glass of whatever she fancies - usually wine - and writes books.
Emma is working on Top Secret projects she will share with her followers and fans at every available opportunity. Naturally, all Top Secret projects involve a dashingly hot guy who likes to forget to wear a shirt, a sprinkling (or several) of hold-onto-your-panties hot scenes, and a whole lotta love.
She likes to be busy - unless busy involves doing the dishes, but that seems to be when all the ideas come to life.
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