Author: Vivien
Jackson
Series:
Tether, #1
ISBN: 9781492648161
Pubdate:
April 4, 2017
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
A
rip-roarin’ new snarky, sexy sci-fi paranormal romance series with the perfect
balance of humor, heat, and heart. Now that Texas has seceded and the world is
spiraling into chaos, good guys come in unlikely packages and love ignites in
the most inconvenient places…
Rogue scientist •
technologically enhanced • deliciously attractive
Heron
Farad should be dead. But technology has made him the man he is today. Now he
heads a crew of uniquely skilled outsiders who fight to salvage what’s left of
humanity: art, artifacts, books, ideas—sometimes even people. People like Mari
Vallejo.
Gun for hire • Texan rebel •
always hits her mark
Mari
has been lusting after her mysterious handler for months. But when a
by-the-book hit goes horribly sideways, she and Heron land on the universal
most wanted list. Someone set them up. Desperate and on the run, they must
trust each other to survive, while hiding devastating secrets. As their
explosive chemistry heats up, it’s the perfect storm…
To Buy:
Enjoy this excerpt!
Outside the shower, Heron still looked tense. He must have read
something bad on the smartsurface, because he stood and stalked to the far end
of the living unit, over by the bed. Something in his posture made her nervous.
Or nervouser.
She reached back and palmed the cracked ceramic knob. It slid back
into the wall, and the stream of water trickled to a stop.
“Everything okay?” she called, leaning head and shoulders out of the
stall.
He turned his face toward her—damp and naked and
just-out-of-the-shower her—then slid it right past without so much as a hitch.
A lesser man might have made a comment. Or pushed her ass-first up against the
glass-block wall.
Heron, on the other hand, was the picture of professionalism. “Law
enforcement still hasn’t found us, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Mentally sighing, Mari snagged a thin towel from the post by the
commode niche and wrapped it around her body as she stepped out of the shower
cube. “Good thinkin’, then, bringing us here. Thanks, partner.”
He didn’t reply, but his eyes tracked her movements like she was a
radar target, the subject of intense interest for a fraction of a moment but
not much longer. No emotion there, no clue to his thoughts.
She bent to dry her legs. She had fresh clothes folded neatly in her
duffel by the door, but her just-scrubbed skin felt raw, hot. Instead of
reaching for her clothes, she donned a cheap terry bathrobe that had been
hanging on a peg by the towel rack. Big one. Its hem dragged the floor, and the
sleeves more than covered her hands, but Mari didn’t mind. There was something
yummy about wearing his clothes. She tied the sash and wrapped her hair in the
already-damp towel.
When she looked up, he was still paying attention to anything but
her. Dangit.
She wrung her hair with the towel and watched him fiddle around in
the kitchenette. Tea. He was making tea. She reached for her com and held it
against her throat, counting her pulse. The pinch of the embeds flared along
her skin.
“Hey,” she said, heading to his end of the narrow apartment. She
plopped down on the bed, within touching distance. “I probably ought to let
Aunt Boo know I’m still breathing, in case she sees vid saying otherwise. You
got a security code to log in?”
This close, it was everything she could manage not to grab him and
pull him down here with her. Her hand might have even moved in his general
direction, but the floppy sleeve disguised it.
“Um, no.” Frowning slightly, he went back to the kitchenette.
Maybe the sight of a mostly naked her sitting on his bed was just
too much for him. Nah, not likely. Though a girl could hope.
The conk of ceramic and the scuff of his boots on linoleum: things
that were supposed to settle and comfort. But Mari knew nothing was going to
settle her right now. At least, nothing short of an orgasm so intense, she
passed out.
“I don’t log in to the cloud here, not directly,” he said, “The
Pentarc system is closed and only interfaces with the world outside at
intervals. It’s inconvenient sometimes but provides a buffer between the cloud
and…me.” As if one was a danger to the other, though between the two, Mari would
put her money on Heron. “But you can give me your message, and I will send it
along to your aunt.”
He put the tea things aside, and Mari told him her Aunt Boo’s handle
and dictated a short note: “Am fine. Did a bad thing, though. Running. Like it
or not, you’re connected to me, so it’s probably a good idea for you to hide
out a while. Sorry, Auntie B. Love you.”
Heron removed his gloves and pressed his palms against the kitchen
counter. Casual, like he was just leaning there. Nothing lit beneath his hands,
no navigation display, and his posture looked more like meditation than a
brain-machine interface. It occurred to her right then that this interaction
might not be. Human, that is.
Heron wasn’t a mech-clone; he had been born a whole-organic and
lived at least part of his life without implants. But he’d been altered along
the way so much that she might well have been watching one machine brain speak
to another, straight through that kitchen counter.
Straight through his hands. Sharp knuckles, long, tapered fingers with
a glint of sense-tips on the ends. Wires probably augmented his reflexes, aided
in the transmission of instructions from neural to muscles, and sensory inputs
ran back up to command and control. That was all pretty standard. But most
post-human alterations included comprehensive rebuilds, which covered over the
metal and obvious bits. He must have kept the sensors on the ends of his
fingers bare for a reason. Either that, or he hadn’t gone through a
government-licensed clinic.
Like so much of him, though, the things that she would have once
considered off-putting or creepifying were just…him. Confident, capable, badass
him. Her partner. She ached to feel those long hands, tipped in quicksilver, on
her skin, every contour and crease. She wanted to kiss them and look at them
and tell him they were beautiful. That he was. To her.
She didn’t move.
About the author:
VIVIEN JACKSON is still waiting for
her Hogwarts letter. In the meantime, she writes, mostly fantastical or
futuristic or kissing-related stories. When she isn’t writing, she’s performing
a sacred duty nurturing the next generation of Whovian Browncoat Sindarin Jedi gamers,
and their little dogs too. With her similarly geeky partner, she lives in
Austin, Texas, and watches a lot of football.
Social Networking Links
Website: http://www.vivienjackson.com/
Twitter: @Vivien_Jackson
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