Skin Deep
by Kimberly Kincaid
Series: Station Seventeen, #1
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release Date: September 20, 2016
Where there’s smoke…
For firefighter Kellan Walker, checking his emotions at the door doesn’t just keep him on the level. It keeps him alive. A gut-wrenching find at the scene of a blaze threatens to blow his ironclad composure, but when the detective assigned to the case is the same woman who put his sister’s life at risk three months ago, all bets for Kellan being calm, cool, or collected are definitely off.
There’s bound to be fire…
Keeping people safe is Isabella Moreno’s number one priority, no matter how tough the case. Working without solid leads and with the gorgeous, broody firefighter who believes she’s responsible for endangering his sister on a previous case isn’t ideal. But someone is hurting women in the here and now. Isabella will do whatever it takes to find justice.
As Kellan and Isabella reluctantly team up to catch a criminal, they realize they have more in common than they’d ever imagined. With every move, the stakes grow higher and the passion sizzles hotter, but can they race against the clock and the odds to catch a killer? Or will they lose their hearts—and their lives?
Kellan took a step back on the pavement. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Moreno was safe at her car. The scene around them was secure. He needed to go before he did something stupid. “I guess I should get out of here. I called in for the first couple hours of my shift tomorrow, but I still have to punch the clock at oh nine-hundred.”
“Oh.” Isabella swiveled a glance over the quiet street. “Did you park nearby?”
Ah, hell. “No, I…walked.”
“I was in the Army. I’m used to humping it places. Anyway, the trip’s not too far.”
At Moreno’s lifted brows, he caved the rest of the way. “Okay, okay. My apartment is six miles from here. But the walking clears my head.”
It would have to do for an explanation, because if she thought the walking part was nuts, he was pretty certain the whole I walk to get my emotions in check otherwise there’s a decent chance I’d fucking self-destruct thing would go over like a two-ton boulder.
“If you say so.” Isabella laughed, the soft, throaty sound hitting him right in the center of his chest. “Six miles is kind of a lot, though, and you’ve already done it once tonight. Do you want a ride?”
Kellan realized in that moment that she’d stepped toward him to regain the space he’d given her; that suddenly, her body was very much within touching distance, and that despite the warning coming from the small corner of his brain still allowing rational thought, the darker, baser rest of him wanted nothing more than to make their earlier kiss a prelude to better things. Hotter things.
Naked things.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said, the roughness in his voice spotlighting the words as a lie. But the hungry look in her eyes, along with the current of want burning in his veins at the sight of it, was the product of circumstance and nothing more. They’d just snuck into a sex party thrown by a highly dangerous criminal and garnered a lead that would blow Isabella’s case wide open. Of course they were wired. They probably had more adrenaline winging through their bodies than blood right now. But Kellan of all people knew that actually acting on those keyed-up endorphins was dangerous as hell.
Fuck, he wanted her anyway.
Isabella’s catlike smile—this one genuine, sweet and sexy and shared like a naughty secret—ensured he wouldn’t get a blink of sleep tonight, even after the six-mile haul home. “Not a good idea,” she repeated. “Because?”
He weighed his options. Saw that he had no good ones. And went with the truth.
“Because if you give me a ride back to my apartment, I’ll be tempted to ask you to come upstairs.”
“Ah.” But rather than retreating or clamming up in awkward silence, Moreno tilted her head to bring her mouth mere inches from his. “Is that what you want? For me to come upstairs with you?”
“Yes.” His honesty flew out, hot and unchecked.
Isabella met it with a twist of her lips that made his cock go hard and his pulse rush fast against his throat.
“Get in the car and ask me upstairs, Walker. My answer’s not no.”
Kimberly's writing journey has led down some bumpy roads (that first manuscript is under the bed, where it is very likely to stay), but there has been some fresh pavement too (her second manuscript earned her very first contest final, and landed the fantastic Maureen Walters at the Curtis Brown Literary Agency). One thing is certain -- the wild ride of being a writer is a lot richer in both its ups and downs because of friends and readers along the path.
When Kimberly's not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as "The Pleather Bomber", she can be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to eclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. She resides in northern Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters.
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