Time for Excerpt Monday again! My favorite Monday of the month. *g*

This month’s excerpt is from my Golden Heart finaling manuscript, Intrusion. I love strong willed characters, and Cam and Audra are probably two of my most stubborn. This is their first meet.

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Audra slammed the vault shut, spun—and nearly collided with a solid wall of male chest.  She pulled up short.  Her eyes jerked to the man’s obstinate gray ones.  A lock of thick brown hair edged across his furrowed brow, his sharp jaw pulled taut.

Unease snaked through her stomach and wound its way up her throat until she had to breathe in short, choppy bursts.

“Why didn’t he grab the armor?” Though his question was muttered between tense lips, she caught the perplexity in his words and hesitated.

Who was he? The man’s accomplice?

His gaze narrowed and he reached for her.  Her eyes widened as his rough hand drew closer and her heart leapt into her seized esophagus, jarring a high-pitched scream from her voice box.

“Be quiet, damn it!” he hissed.

But she was through listening to anything he had to say.  Her adrenaline spiked, she shoved his hand aside and twisted her body to duck past him.  All she had to do was make it to her desk and call security.  Her shoes squeaked against the tile with every footfall, closing the distance between her and the phone.

She was almost there.  Almost—

The man’s muscled arm wrapped around her shoulders, his hard chest pressed against her back.  “Damn it. Would you wait a minute?” His warm breath grazed her ear and sent a shiver down her spine. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Wasn’t that what all the bad guys said moments before they strangled the life out of you?

She wasn’t going to fall for it.  She pitched forward in an effort to break the man’s hold, but his muscles barely tightened against her frantic movements.  Struggling wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She needed a weapon—the sharper the better.

She shot out her hand over her immaculate desk.  No stapler or letter opener in sight.  Damn it, why did she have to be so organized? Her fingers wiggled, reaching, reaching for anything—

“Take it easy—”

—and connected with the handle of her ceramic mug.  She closed it in her grasp, swung the cup off her desk in the direction of what she hoped was the man’s head.

His arm fell away from her shoulders and darted upward to block the quasi-weapon from connecting with his skull.  He closed his hand around the mug and wrenched it from her grip.

“What’s with all the aggressive shit?” His eyes slid over her like molten steel. “I said I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Like I’m supposed to believe that.” Her chest heaved and she stiffened against the desk.

“I’m a man of my word.” From the way his gaze bored into hers and his jaw pulled tight into a serious kink, she could see he was telling the truth.  But he ruined the effect with a scowl. “No need to go all PMS ninja on me.”

“You were attacking me—”

“I wasn’t attacking you.  I was trying to keep you from doing something stupid.” He glanced at her mug and a short chuckle burst past his lips as he read the caption. “Nice.”

Heat crawled up her cheeks.  She held out her hand.  “Give that to me.”

“Scientists,” he read out loud in a voice dripping with laughter, “just regular people…who are way smarter than you.”

She notched her chin in the air.  And because she was smarter than him, she refused to let herself get sucked in by the intriguing twinkle in those smiling eyes.  “I’m calling security.”

The cocky bastard had the gall to grin at her pronouncement.

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