Maryse's Book Blog

I have a teaser!!! A substantial one for “T.E. Sivec’s” upcoming, seemingly intense book “A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire, #1)“.

Sivec… Sivec… where have you heard that before? 😉 You know…. Tara Sivec of the popular “Chocolate Lovers series“. This is hers too, under a slightly different pen name. An unrelated book expected to be released on January 3rd 2013, and this one is not considered comedy romance but will be a “romantic suspense”. And after reading the synopsis, I have a feeling it’ll be right up our alley!

He saw her first, but his friend made the move. She settled for the safer choice, but her heart knew the truth. They love, they crave, they lie.

Garrett McCarthy, Annabelle Parker, and Milo Roberts were as close as friends could get. They shared in each other’s joy during graduations, promotions, and engagements. They consoled one another through heartache and loss. When one of the friend’s life is tragically cut short, it’s up to the two left behind to pick up the pieces and find out the truth – no matter the cost. As they slowly start to uncover the nature of his deception, and the very powerful people behind it, they begin to question everyone and everything, even themselves.

Everyone has secrets – some do it for love while others do it for power. Those secrets can change perceptions, alter reality and sometimes destroy lives. What do you do when you find out your whole life has been a lie?

Oooooooooh!!! Yep, I wanna read this!

Ready for the teaser? Here it is, below!

 “I’m a little concerned with your ability to handle this though, Garrett,” she said softly.  He had to swallow roughly at the sound of his name on her lips.  She always made it sound sensual, and his mind usually conjured up images of her naked and pinned beneath him, moaning his name.

This time was no exception.

Her face inched closer to his and when she spoke next, he felt her breath on his lips.

“Are you going to be able to hold my hand when we walk through the streets and look me in the eyes like I’m all you’ve ever wanted?” she asked breathlessly as she placed her hand on his stomach and slid it up to his chest.  “Will you be able to touch me like you’ve done it a thousand times before, pretend that you know the spot on my neck that makes me sigh and where to graze your fingertips to make me moan?” she whispered as she traced lazy circles on his chest with her fingertips.

Garrett stared at her lips while she spoke and tried to keep his hand away from his dick when she talked about sighs and moans and let her tongue dart out to slide across her top lip.  He wondered what the hell she was doing right now with her voice.  He had never heard her talk that way, all breathy and seductive—at least not with him.  Garrett needed to get his head and his dick out of the gutter pronto before he did something really stupid like ask his best friend to join the Mile High Club with him.  Thoughts of bending Parker over the sink in the bathroom at the back of the plane and lifting her skirt up so he could run his hands over her smooth, heart-shaped ass before sliding into her, temporarily took over his brain.  He needed to get back on track so he moved a few inches away from her.

“I’m pretty sure I can handle that, Parker.  But what are you going to do when we’re walking down an alley and a group of three armed men ambush us and point their guns at your head?” he asked seriously.

Garrett had to swallow back the revulsion he felt picturing Parker with a gun pointed at her.  He would do everything in his power to make sure they were never in that kind of situation during this mission.  His heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

Parker confidently reached up and popped the first three buttons of her shirt until her cleavage and the edges of her red lace bra were visible.  Garrett’s eyes immediately flew to her exposed skin, watching her chest heave with every breath she took, her breasts straining against the thin lacey fabric covering them.

“Distract man number one long enough to disarm him,” she said softly as she removed her hand from inside his coat, carefully palming the 9mm SIG M11 she slid from his shoulder holster while his eyes were otherwise occupied.  With a straight face she mimed the action of shooting him in the chest.

“When number two comes to the rescue, a double roundhouse kick to the wrist will force his gun out, allowing me to incapacitate him with a jab cross right elbow to the sternum, knocking the wind out of him long enough for the shot,” Parker explained easily, raising the gun a little higher so it was aimed directly at his heart and pretended to fire.

“Shock will be on my side for number three,” Parker continued.  “A double sweep kick should drop him where he stands, allowing for the final kill shot right between the eyes,” she said, aiming the gun higher so the barrel pointed to the middle of Garrett’s forehead.

“Bang,” she whispered.

Garrett hadn’t blinked or spoken in the last couple of minutes, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever recover the ability to do so. His brain was at war with his libido, and he wasn’t positive which would win or which he wanted to win for that matter.  Watching Parker hold his gun turned him on and horrified him equally.  Listening to her talk about disarming gun-toting killers with such casual nonchalance made his dick hard and baffled him at the same time.

Parker lowered the gun to her lap and watched all of the emotions play on Garrett’s face.  Some of them confused her, and if she didn’t know him better, she might have suspected that her display turned him on.  She almost laughed at that idea.

She’d once stood before him in her underwear, practically begging him to sleep with her, and he was completely unaffected.  Parker had been upset and drunk at the time though, so her memory might have been a little off.

“Say something,” Parker whispered.

Garrett had no idea what he was supposed to say.  This was Parker, one of his best friends, the woman who cried when she hit a squirrel with her car, squealed when you gave her a present, and cursed a blue streak when she broke a nail or had to wear pants because they made her feel like a guy.

This woman who sat in front of him right now was not that same person.

“You could have shot me,” Garrett protested lamely, unable to come up with anything more intelligent to say.

Parker rolled her eyes at him.

“Don’t be so dramatic.  The safety is on.  At least I didn’t grab the loaded Beretta Jetfire in your ankle holster.”

Garrett didn’t bother to try and stop his jaw from dropping.

A few years ago Garrett and Milo had forced Parker to accompany them to the shooting range.  She bitched and complained the whole way there, stating quite firmly that you couldn’t pay her enough to hold one of those “shotgun thingies” and fire it. Milo and Garrett both thought it was quite funny that Parker was raised by a cop and had such an aversion to guns.  And the fact that she had thought the small handgun they used was called a shotgun kept them in fits of laughter for the rest of the day.  Obviously, the joke was on them.

“What kind of weapon is this?” Garrett tested her, pointing to his other side arm that was carefully placed on the seat across from him. He had a brief moment of hope that maybe he just imagined what happened a moment ago.

“It’s an MK23 SOCOM pistol.”  Parker replied without missing a beat, lifting the gun up to inspect it.  “It uses a polygonal barrel design, which improves accuracy and durability. It also features an ambidextrous safety and magazine release on both sides of the frame,” she explained as she held the gun with her right hand, flipped off the safety with her thumb, and used her index finger to click the magazine release, letting it drop into her left hand so she could check the rounds.

Parker smacked the magazine back in place and put the safety back on, turned the gun around so it wasn’t facing him, and handed it calmly to Garrett.  Her arm remained suspended in air as he stared at her with his mouth open.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asked her.