In the
explosive new Hitman novel from the bestselling authors of
Last Kiss and Last Hit a jungle mercenary
and a
female target find love on the run...
PRE-ORDER LAST HOPE NOW!
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1Kf53li
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1QkhdgL
LAST HOPE
EXCERPT
Ava
I wake up with my face pressed against a warm, broad chest
and my legs tangled in the leaves of a tree. Somewhere close by, I hear birds
chirping. There’s sunlight dappling my face and everything feels damp.
Everything also hurts.
I’m dazed and my head is ringing with pain, and the sun is
beaming right into my eyes, which is freaking annoying as hell. I rub a hand
across my face and it takes me a few moments to realize that I shouldn’t see
the sun at all if I’m inside an airplane.
Then I remember the storm. The thunderous boom as the
plane was hit by lightning. Screams. The wing catching fire. The chaos of
Afonso with his gun. Free-falling through the cabin, my grip on the seats the
only thing keeping me from flying through six thousand feet of empty air.
Mendoza’s hand ripping out of mine when the cabin
depressurized. The screams of people going silent.
Mendoza.
I remember him, too.
A noise from somewhere nearby catches my attention. It
sounds like heavy breathing. I open my eyes and look around.
I’m still strapped to my seat. There’s a portion of the
plane underneath me, and the two seats Mendoza and I buckled into are still
together.
He’s next to me, the broad chest I’m currently draped
across. His eyes are closed, dried, crusted blood around the injured one. He’s
got an enormous bruise on his forehead and his arms are around me, as if he was
trying to protect me even as we fell.
“Mendoza?” I ask, sitting upright and pulling out of his
arms. Sitting up makes everything in my body scream with pain. My ankles hurt,
but I don’t know if it’s because they’re seriously injured or because they were
tucked under the seat in front of me, which is also still attached. I test my
legs, untangling them from his longer ones, and wince at the pain shooting through
my body. It feels like I’ve been trampled in my sleep. My ribs hurt, and my
right arm radiates agony.
But . . . I’m alive. I sit up a bit straighter and look at
my right arm. The purse I’ve carried for days is gone. The skin is puffy and
turning purple. When I flex my fingers, the pain brings tears to my eyes. I
look away from it, faint and sick to my stomach at the sight. It’s not just the
pain but what it represents. I’m a hand model. I can’t do a thing if my hands
are jacked up.
Not that it matters right now.
“Mendoza,” I say again, because I’m about to panic, and
panic hard. “Wake up. Please.”
He doesn’t stir.
Fear clutches me, and I grab his shirt with my good hand
and give him a shake. “Mendoza?”
That doesn’t wake him, either. I press my cheek to his
chest and listen for a heartbeat.
It’s slow and steady. Whew. I sit up and examine him
again. The knot on his forehead is huge. Maybe he just got knocked out. I’ll
have to figure out how to wake him up once I figure out where we are. It looks
like our section of the plane somehow separated from the rest of the wreckage,
which is why we’re alive and not a skidmark on the ground.
I shift in my seat and the world tilts. My eyes go wide
and I freeze in place, then look around.
I can see trees overhead, and sunshine, but it’s just now
occurred to me that we’re not on the ground. The chairs are tilted and
everything shakes when I move.
I’m pretty sure we’re in a tree. Clutching at the arm of
the chair, I sit up carefully and look around.
I see nothing but air and leaves, green vines and dappled
shadows. In the distance, I hear the sound like heavy breathing again. I look
at Mendoza, but it’s not him. Oh God. Is it Afonso? Is he still here? Biting my
lip, I crane my neck and try to peer down below. We’re at least twenty feet off
the ground.
It’s like the wreckage has been swallowed up by a wall of
green. Green and wet. On the jungle floor, there’s more greenery and what looks
like smoking wreckage. Pieces of the plane are scattered all over the forest
floor, along with a few scattered suitcases. In the distance I see another row
of chairs, this one facedown in the dirt. The heavy breathing starts again, and
this time I see the source: a jaguar, stalking through the wreckage.
My eyes widen and I go very still.
A heavy rain begins to fall, spattering me from above. I
don’t move. My gaze is on that jungle cat as it sniffs through things. If it
notices us, I don’t know what we’ll do. Mendoza is unconscious and if I try to
move him, we might both fall out of the tree . . . and land right in front of
the cat.
The situation hits me and I start to cry. I’m alone. I’m
really fucking alone. I’ve never camped a day in my life, much less been in a
jungle. I look down at my hands. They’re my livelihood. My way to earn a
living. My income depends on them being soft and perfect, my nails elegant
ovals.
I have a long gouge down the back of one hand, and my
pinky is bruised and swollen. My wrist looks like an elephant’s leg, if
elephants were black and blue. Not gonna be hand modeling for a long while
after I get out of here.
If I get out of here.
I’m sorry, Rose. I’m
trying. I’m trying so hard. I shudder back a sob as
the cat slinks into the underbrush, something dangling and arm-sized in its
mouth. I’m in the jungle with a busted hand and a stranger that just wants the
information I’m carrying . . .
And I don’t even have the information anymore. The purse
is gone. I sniff hard, trying to fight back another sob that’s threatening to
break free.
“Don’t cry,” a voice says softly.
I turn and look at Mendoza. His shirt is sticking to his
big body, wet raindrops splatting down his face. He looks at me and smiles
crookedly, and lifts a hand to try to touch my face. “Don’t cry.”
Blurb
Mendoza: I grew
up in the slums and lost everything I loved to poverty, illness, and death. I
had only one skill to leverage myself out of my circumstances—violence. Being
hired out as a mercenary hitman brought me money and built an empire. But all
that I've fought for is in jeopardy. My next job: Steal secret information that
could bring down world governments. Find my target. Destroy it. But then, I
meet her.
Ava:
Karma hates me. When my best friend Rose is kidnapped, I have no choice but to
take a job as a mule for a pair of criminals intent on selling top-secret
information to the highest bidder. I should have known that bad luck tends to
cling, because the plane I'm on goes down. That I survived a crash-landing was
a miracle. And so was being rescued by Rafe Mendoza—hot, sexy, dangerous. The
thing is, he wants the information that I need to free Rose. I can't let him
have it, but I need his help. And I need to fight this crazy attraction for
this mercenary with hungry eyes. Rose is depending on me, and I won't let her
down, no matter how appealing Rafe is.
Hitman
Series Reading Order
Last Hit (bk 1)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1y9t61Q
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1CzTiCs
Last
Breath (bk 2)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1EaGROH
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1zojXnW
Last
Hit: Reloaded (bk 2.5)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1INVvxW
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1ypyLTu
GooglePlay: http://bit.ly/14OcVuX
Last Kiss (bk 3)
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1GdjXed
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1EaI6xg
Last Hope (bk 4)
Pre-order
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1Kf53li
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1QkhdgL
Meet Jen & Jessica:
Jen
Frederick lives with her husband, child, and one rambunctious dog. She's been reading stories all her life but
never imagined writing one of her own. Jen loves to hear from readers so drop
her a line at jensfrederick@gmail.com.
Website: http://jenfrederick.com/blog/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jensfred
Goodreads: http://tinyurl.com/p3ptasx
Author Jessica Claire
Jill Myles has been an incurable romantic since childhood.
She reads all the 'naughty parts' of books first, looks for a dirty joke in
just about everything, and thinks to this day that the Little House on the
Prairie books should have been steamier.
After devouring hundreds of paperback romances, mythology
books, and archaeological tomes, she decided to write a few books of her own -
stories with a wild adventure, sharp banter, and lots of super-sexy situations.
She prefers her heroes alpha and half-dressed, her heroines witty, and she
loves nothing more than watching them overcome adversity to fall into bed
together.
Website: http://jillmyles.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_JessicaClare
Goodreads:
http://tinyurl.com/q4272wf
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