Unexpected Places

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You can purchase Unexpected Places  by visiting Escape Publishing. They have all the links (Amazon, Nook, Kobo, etc).

Unexpected Places is a sexy action adventure romance, where a gorgeous, hot-headed treasure hunter battles a sweet, but equally hot-tempered heroine for the possession of two priceless emeralds. Beautiful locations, a treasure map, and an exciting journey through a series of tunnels deep within a mountain – what more can you want? Oh, okay, lots of sexy love and humour. (I’m Australian, so I spell it that way!)

Blurb:

One treasure map; a pair of priceless emeralds; two very keen hunters — only one can win, but who says that competition can’t be a little fun?

When sweet, pretty Ariana Noonan knocks out treasure hunter Luke Donahue with a champagne bottle and steals his treasure map, he vows to get his map back, find the missing priceless emeralds…and exact a fitting revenge. When Luke finally discovers Ariana in a dingy hotel on a remote tropical island, she’s in desperate straits and he finally gains the upper hand. Of course he will rescue her. His price? They act on the attraction that’s been simmering between them from the very beginning.

But all is not as it seems, and Luke’s sexy bargain turns up not only an unbelievable secret, but Ariana’s reasons for wanting the emerald. Suddenly, nothing is clear-cut anymore, and map or no map, Luke and Ariana are sailing into uncharted territory.

Excerpt

(This excerpt is from early in the first chapter, where Luke is about to meet Ariana.)

Luke watched with interest as she approached him. He’d noticed her earlier, when he’d been chatting with his dad’s old secretary. A tiny, pretty little thing—the approaching blonde, not Mrs Abercrombie. She’d been standing all alone, gulping her wine. Then her attention had suddenly fixed on him. She’d started on the long approach, unaware, he was sure, that he knew she was coming.

There’d been the noise at Bob’s door last week. Someone had been listening, he was sure of it, and that person knew all about the missing emeralds and the map. He’d been expecting a stranger to approach him at some point, all week. And well, well, here she was. Another girl. Another one of Changpu’s little off-siders.

Of course, he could be misjudging her. Maybe she was a pretty girl who wanted sex badly, and had lousy timing. But he didn’t think so. There was a steely purpose behind the way she was currently stalking him.

Again, an unfamiliar fury rose within him. For Changpu to follow him into his own company was the final straw. He’d played nice up until now. He’d been a perfect gentleman to Mai Ling. But no more. Neither the old man nor this little employee of his could expect any mercy. Luke traced the still-painful line of his scar beneath his shirt.

His eyes roved leisurely over her sweet curves, enjoying the enticing bounce of her white breasts revealed by her sexy black dress. It hugged her trim little body and came to rest at her knees. Her femininely curved hips swayed with the help of heels that must be adding inches to her height. Pretty green eyes fixed on his face. Her cute half-smile, half pout drew her lovely full lips up at their corners.

Clenching his teeth, Luke felt the muscle tick at his jaw. His stomach tightened for battle. But, to his surprise, his cock rose in enthusiastic greeting. Luke smiled, enjoying the widening wariness of her eyes, enjoying how his fury and desire for revenge had mixed into a heady, potent cocktail of lust. Grabbing a glass of the cheap champagne they were serving tonight, he stepped toward her, crowding her.

He smiled again. Or at least did his best, forcing his lips to curl up into something approximating genuine warmth. “Hi. I’m Luke. Would you care for a glass of champagne?”

Review:

Heather andrews‘s review

Nov 11, 14

5 of 5 stars

Read from November 10 to 11, 2014

I loved this book. Luke – that boy was something else:

His shirt had fallen open to reveal his chest, with it’s long, jagged, stitched-scar. Luke shook his head in wonder. “What is it with your vocabulary? ‘Mr. Donahue’?, ‘Mary Mother of God’?” Furious as he was, he smiled. She was kind of cute. “Do you ever say ‘eff’, Moonbeam?”

He can be crude but in a sexy way. “You’re going to get even sweatier in a minute, little Ariana. We’ll have a bath afterwards and we can eff in there too. You know, I think it’s this revenge sex. It’s kinky. The whole idea of you effing me as payback is sexy.”

He’s not one for pleasantries either. “We’ve just effed-” She opened her mouth again. “- and very nice it was too, don’t think I’m complaining, but you’re still calling me ‘Mr. Donahue’, for crying out loud. Don’t you think we should be on first name basis by now?”

As I said I loved this book.

Georgina Penney‘s review

Jan 01, 15

5 of 5 stars

Read from December 10 to 31, 2014

This was such a fun romp. It had the feel of the old school romances I grew up reading, the sort where you just go with the story and the characters and have a ripper of a good time. That’s precisely what I did and I had such a good time reading Unexpected Places that V.K. Black will definitely be my go-to author from now on when things in the real world are just that bit too busy and I want to escape off into romancelandia… (or maybe hottielandia is more appropriate) definite five stars just for the fun alone. Perfect holiday read.

Dísir‘s review

Dec 01, 14

3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: chick-lit, contemporary-romance, smutty, unbelievable-or-ick, i-actually-laughed

Read on December 01, 2014

Crazy, funny and entirely unbelievable, but I had a side-splitting time going through this somehow.