Get to know Nico and Paige in Hard
Limits by Elle Aycart!
NOW LIVE!
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2nZMIXT
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2n5zPbm
Full Blurb
Nico
Grabar, head of one of the most ruthless cartels in the world, is in the last
stretch of a two-year nightmare, his agenda extremely busy. He has a criminal
organization to run. A cover to maintain. A promise to fulfill. Too bad he’s
bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere, about to meet his maker on a
deserted street. A fitting ending to a bleak existence, really. When a
beautiful Vintage bride with racoon eyes and a choke collar, covered from head
to military boots in blood, came to him. It looked like the Grim Reaper had
gotten a makeover just for him. What an honor.
Who finds
a frigging drug lord in serious need of resuscitation while coming back from a
bachelorette party at the wee hours? Paige, aka magnet for psychopaths, of
course.
The Goth waitress
at Rosita’s has already survived a major asshole, narrowly escaping with her
life. The last she needs is to have to play Nightingale to a dangerous kingpin.
What if he dies on her? Or worse; what if he doesn’t?
Excerpt
ps on us,” Ronnie said, glancing through
the window and waving.
Paige leaned against the steering wheel
and smiled innocently at the driver in the next car, but it didn’t help. Eyes
about to bug out of their sockets, he spoke even faster into his phone, while
automatically locking the doors. “We are sooo ending up in jail.”
Who would have guessed people would be
more scared of her clad in white than in her normal Goth clothes? Then again,
she was wearing a wedding dress splattered with red, Carrie style, and Ronnie
was too, so yeah, she could understand the horrified expression in the
neighboring car. That they were driving at three o’clock in the morning through
the Boston suburbs—makeup all smudged and hair in messy snarls of paint and
party—didn’t improve matters.
“Probably,” Ronnie conceded, trying to
pat her frizzy curls down. “You better floor it.”
No shit. When the light changed, Paige
put the pedal to the metal and soon lost the spooked driver. Whichever came
next, the arrest or the speeding ticket, she would let her lovely lunatic of a
boss deal with it.
After all, their current predicament was
entirely Elle’s fault. She’d declared her bachelorette party would happen in
stages over a whole month, the coed paintball game being the first installment.
As if the women hadn’t already been an easy mark for those testosterone-ridden,
military-trained guys, Elle had made them wear thrift-store wedding gowns over
the protective gear. Wrong move. Not even leveling the odds by mixing the teams
had helped.
After the shooting fest, looking like
vampire gore brides, they’d gone partying downtown. How Elle had gotten them
into the club dressed like that, Paige didn’t know, although it shouldn’t have
been a surprise. Elle always got her way. Now, with that ominous weapon of mass
destruction called Jack shadowing her 24/7, it was a miracle anyone dared blink
at her, regardless of how nuts her requests were.
All in all, a memorable first
installment. Paige couldn’t wait to see what was to come. By Jack’s aggrieved looks,
he couldn’t either.
Paige glanced at the rear view mirror. No
spooked driver, no police cars chasing them. Just empty, quiet road. “We might
avoid jail after all.”
“Jail would have been a fitting ending
for the night. Can’t believe it didn’t happen before, at the club.”
“You seemed to hit it off with Kai,”
Paige said. “How come I’m driving you home and he’s not? Not that I mind. Just
curious.”
Ronnie laughed. “Didn’t you see the way
Jack looked at him when we were talking? I didn’t want to give my brother a
coronary. Besides, better not jinx it now that he’s more relaxed and all that
crazy stuff about the drug cartel is over.”
And thank God for that. At the time, when
Jack had suddenly started following Elle everywhere, Paige had not known what
was going on. Then Elle had gone underground, and James Bowen, Elle’s
brother-in-law, had gathered the staff of Rosita’s and informed them he was
taking over management of the restaurant temporarily. From then on, there were
250-pound, heavily tattooed bodyguard types on the premises at all hours. In
hindsight, no frigging wonder. It was not every day that you had a South
American cartel gunning for you.
When all was said and done, Jack had
almost lost his life rescuing Elle. Now, though, they were happily in love and
about to get married. If the groom or the guests could survive the bachelorette
party, that was.
“What about you?” Ronnie asked. “How come
you’re driving me home and not with some sexy stranger? You were by far the
prettiest bride, the way you Goth-customized the outfit.”
She shrugged. “No one tickled my fancy.”
The last guy who managed that feat had
been one of the enforcers for said cartel. The second in command, as she later
found out. He had come to Rosita’s to scout the place and had struck up a
conversation with her. Nick, oil-rig worker, a reluctant participant on a blind
date gone wrong. Extremely handsome, interesting, and easy-going, with a
fascinating wit and a deep, husky voice, the man had almost convinced Paige to
go out with him.
It figured that the lying psychopath
would zero in on her. They always did.
Worst of all? She could still feel how
badly she’d wanted him.
“You need to give them a chance,” Ronnie
insisted, distracting Paige from her gloomy thoughts. “Talk to them at least.
Like that cute guy who kept sending drinks your way even though you kept
turning them down.”
A frat boy interested in taking a stroll
on the kinky side. No, thank you. Either they ended up disappointed or she
freaked out. Both options were unacceptable, really. And unpleasant. Not to
mention totally unsexy.
“You need more than drinks to impress a
bartender,” Paige answered with a wink.
“So that’s me,” Ronnie said as they
turned onto her street, and she pointed at a building. “Thanks for getting me
home.”
“No problem. It was on my way.”
Paige would have gone straight home
because she was dead on her feet, but she was about to have three days off in a
row. She needed to make sure all was in order at Rosita’s, especially as she
had been the one closing and at the moment couldn’t recall if she’d verified
the lock. Besides, Paige’s colorful roommate was having her boyfriend over. The
only thing they did more than fuck was fight, so she was not in too much of a
hurry to get into that mess.
She parked in front of the restaurant.
Time to make her OCD proud.
The lock on the roller shutter was
closed. She opened and closed it again, fixing the moment in her mind, and
pulled at it three times to ensure she wouldn’t forget.
Then from the corner of her eye, she
detected movement in a nearby parked car, the door ajar.
There was a man inside, hunched over, one
leg out.
Probably one of those inebriated morons
who thought they drove better intoxicated. She’d met her fair share of those.
He didn’t make a sound. No drunken babble or dribble, but it was cold outside.
Maybe he was freezing. Or choking on his own vomit.
Paige approached. “Yo, buddy, you okay?”
No answer. The guy wasn’t moving, his
head still flung forward. She couldn’t see properly through the window, so she
opened the door a bit more, and the huddled figure tipped sideways until his
face was half-buried in her stomach. Not cool. At all. She took a step backward
and noticed a fresh splotch on her dress. Oh, God. That was blood. Real blood.
Thick. Sticky. Dripping from the side of his abdomen too.
She reached for him, and the second she
touched him, a strong hand clamped on her forearm.
The man lifted his bloody face to her,
his expression a snarl, his deep-blue eyes cold and murderous. Suddenly, he
shoved a gun against Paige’s neck.
Oh, shit. She knew that man. “Nick?”
NICO HAD TROUBLE focusing. Everything was
blurry. Distorted. He narrowed his eyes, his trigger finger twitching. The
image in front of him sharpened little by little: a bride covered in blood.
Looked like the Grim Reaper had gotten a makeover just for him. What an honor.
Or maybe he was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time tonight.
“It’s me. Paige,” the bride blurted.
Who? He couldn’t recognize the face, but
her eyes were strangely familiar. Not sensing any immediate danger, he lowered
his gun. It must have been the right call because the bride didn’t grab his
weapon and shoot him with it.
He let her go and put pressure on the
wound beneath his ribs, his hand sinking into warm blood. How he had any left,
he didn’t know.
“You’re bleeding,” he heard her say.
“Have you been shot?”
And drugged. Or poisoned. Hell, both
probably. He wasn’t sure he could articulate so many words, so he just nodded.
“You need a doctor. A hospital,” she
continued.
“No hospital,” he choked out. A hospital
meant police. Too many questions. If by any miracle he managed to survive, he
didn’t want to wake up in a government black site. Or in a hole in the jungle,
compliments of the cartel.
The bride hesitated for a second. “Okay.
No hospital. But you can’t stay here.”
That was true. Remaining in the open was
a sure death sentence.
Without waiting for his response, she
sprinted around the car. Then he heard the door of the passenger side open and
felt her beside him.
“Lift your ass when I tell you to,” she
ordered, grabbing him by his armpits and taking a deep breath. “Now.”
With the last of his strength, Nico
obeyed, gritting his teeth, almost blacking out from the agonizing pain in his
side. She was small, but damn if she didn’t manage to drag him over the console
onto the passenger seat.
“Sorry,” she whispered, flinching as she
helped him bend his knees over the gear shift. Then she ran to the driver’s
side, jumped in, and revved the engine.
Nico struggled to keep conscious, but his
vision became fuzzy again. Fuck, not now. He had to get to a safe location
before he passed out completely. “Where are we going?” Hopefully she was not
turning him in, because he was too weak to mount any substantial resistance.
She didn’t answer, just continued
driving, throwing furtive glances his way.
He tried to fight the blackness, but he
couldn’t. He was drifting away. Resignation blanketed him, dulling his senses
as his body started shutting down. He looked at his driver. Vintage wedding
dress, covered in blood. Military boots. Spiked choke collar. Crazy hair. Black
lips. Weirdly pretty raccoon eyes. He’d always thought the last thing he would
see in this world was the snarl of the guy sending him to hell.
If a beautiful Goth bride was the last
image he witnessed before biting the big one, he was happy. Considering the
life he’d led, it was more than he deserved.
About the Author
After a colorful array of jobs all
over Europe ranging from translator to chocolatier to travel agent to sushi
chef to flight dispatcher, Elle Aycart is certain of one thing and one thing
only: aside from writing romances, she has abso-frigging-lutely no clue what
she wants to do when she grows up. Not that it stops her from trying all sorts
of crazy stuff. While she is probably now thinking of a new profession, her
head never stops churning new plots for her romances. She lives currently in
Barcelona, Spain, with her husband and two daughters, although who knows, in no
time she could be living at the Arctic Circle in Finland, breeding reindeer.
Elle loves to hear from readers!
elleaycart@gmail.com
THANK YOU!
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