Love is not supposed to enter the equation.
Billionaire businessman Roman Noone is a bit ruthless, increasingly bored and not interested in being tied down with any man. When the FBI asks for his help in catching an arms dealer, he reluctantly agrees out of civic duty but also because it would be a new and exciting adventure. He questions his decision, however, when the FBI provides him with an agent who will go with him under the guise of being a sex slave. This was not what he signed up for. His doubts begin to evaporate when he sees who this agent is.
Cole Spencer is a dedicated and successful FBI agent. His secret weapon is how little he looks like one. Young, slight and pretty, he looks exactly as a sex slave should, but his skills as an agent also make him perfect for the job. He does not think much of the cool, snobby-seeming Roman but he will do anything to bring the death merchant down.
Roman and Cole head to Monte Carlo, where Roman ingratiates himself with their quarry. They are invited to join the man on his yacht. Because Cole knows they are under constant surveillance, he insists that they act the part of master and slave even in private. Roman finds that Cole is the perfect bedmate for him. Cole thinks of it as a job, but Roman gets under his skin. Soon they are no longer simply acting the part of lovers.
Time is running out for them to find the information they need to bust their deadly host. With the passion and growing love between them, Roman and Cole must cling together to save themselves.
General Release Date: 4th March 2025
Special Agent Cole Cooper stared at the bloody, mangled bodies of teenagers strewn over the concrete floor of the warehouse. What a fucking waste. Most of these boys had been headed for long stretches in the maximum-security facility in Menard and a few were never going to make it to their thirties anyway. Still, the sight of the effect of having so much firepower at their fingertips when the turf war had gone down was stomach-churning.
The sound of his boss’s light tread had him briefly closing his eyes. “I should have found out about this sooner.”
“You’re not a rookie anymore, Cooper. You ought to know by now that you can’t save everyone and you can’t stop every bad thing that’s going to happen. As it is, you got us here fast enough to round up a couple of dozen gang members and keep about a million dollars’ worth of heroin off the street. From where I’m standing, that’s a good night’s work.”
He turned away from the carnage to stare at the Special Agent in Charge’s concerned face. The woman had grown up on the South Side of Chicago and what she hadn’t seen in her childhood, she’d most certainly experienced in her twenty years as an FBI agent. She was right, of course. Still…
“If they hadn’t had these weapons, the fallout would have been less.” He tugged at the mop of too-long hair he’d grown for his undercover work. “I know I’m preaching to the choir, ma’am, but we’ve got to find a way to choke off at least this one source of illegal arms.”
His boss grimaced and, patting him on the shoulder, deftly steered him out of the building and into the cool night air. Spring in Chicago held a nip in the air. He hunched into his ratty jacket as he took in the scene of federal agents, local police and morgue personnel working to clean up the aftermath of the firefight.
His boss waited until they’d closed in on her car before speaking again.
“Go home, take a few days off. This has been a long assignment and you’ve had pretty much non-stop ones since coming out of Quantico. You need the down time.”
Cole knew she was right. He’d been undercover in multiple places in the year since he’d earned his badge. He’d barely seen his family during that time. But there was a reason for the using him so much. The boyish face that made him a believable teenager in high schools wasn’t going to last much longer. Already, he could see a maturity—a hardness—setting in around his eyes. He was never going to get taller and was probably going to keep his slender frame, if his father was any indication of his future self. His face, though, wasn’t going to hold its youthful appearance forever. Once it was gone, his usefulness in this kind of street-level undercover work was going to end. He had to make the most of it while it lasted.
The boss gestured toward the agent who drove her around. “Andre, take Cole home. His real one,” she added unnecessarily because this assignment was over.
“Thank you, ma’am. He doesn’t have to do that. I can take the L.”
She gave him the side-eye. “Did I ask you?”
Cole grimaced. “No, ma’am.”
“Then get in the damn car.”
The woman shot him a look of irritation before turning back to oversee the clean-up of the worst gangland war the city had seen in years.
Cole dutifully rounded the car and slid into the passenger seat. With his ass down, the weariness that had threatened to overtake him gained traction. He closed his eyes and laid his head back as he fumbled blindly to fasten his seatbelt.
“Tough night,” Andre commented as he started up the car. “I’m sure you feel like shit right now, but you did good, dude.”
“Eight guys cut to ribbons. Christ, Sean Finch’s head was blown off.” Because the image of the carnage rose vividly in his mind, he popped his eyes open to stare at the city lights.
“Yeah well, that’s what happens with assault weapons. Every one of those dead boys knew what they were getting into. Or should have, anyway. That’s a lot of firepower to play with.”
“I know.” Cole rubbed his forehead. It was throbbing from tension and lack of sleep. “And a handgun or a switchblade can make you just as dead.” He pounded his thigh with a clenched fist. “If I’d had more time, I could have found out the name of their arms dealer. Maybe we could have intercepted the shipment.”
Andre tsked as he shook his head. “That was secondary to the assignment. The drugs were paramount and you did your job there. Not your fault that a rival gang had decided to horn in on this territory.”
“Right.” He understood all of this and still couldn’t shake his sense of failure. “If we could only stop the main source of the guns coming into this city, that would go a long way to keeping everyone a little safer.”
“Above our pay grade, dude.” Andre pulled over to the curb.
It took a moment for Cole’s exhausted brain to recognize his own building. No real surprise there. He spent very little time living in his apartment.
He unbuckled himself and opened his door. “Thanks, man.”
“Any time.”
Andre waited until Cole keyed into the lobby before taking off. As if he was bringing a date safely home, or something. Not that any of Cole’s dates ever ended up simply dropping him off. He was pretty basic when it came to sex. If he went out with a guy, it was because he wanted to fuck him. If it turned into something more, great. The idea of marriage and even kids was something he believed in. It just wasn’t in the cards for him just yet. It might never be, he knew. There weren’t many happily married FBI agents in his acquaintance. Divorce was rampant because the demands of the job put a hell of a lot of stress on a relationship. Getting laid once in a while was the best he could hope for at this point in his career.
He took the elevator to the second floor, testament to how worn out he truly was. When he entered his apartment, it was almost like being in a foreign land. The place was so still, as if nothing lived there. A coat of dust testified to his absence. He kicked off the designer high-tops his undercover role had demanded and continued to shed every article of clothing he’d been given specifically for this job. By the time he entered his bedroom, he was down to his skin. For the first time in weeks, he felt like himself. There was enough light coming in from the street that he didn’t bother turning on any lights.
As much as he wanted sleep, he wanted to wash the grime of his assignment off first. He turned the temperature of the shower to as hot as he could stand it, and stood braced against the tiled wall, letting the water cascade over him. Fear of falling asleep right where he was had him forcing his body to move. He washed his too-long hair and scrubbed his skin until it screamed at him to stop. When he stepped out of the shower, he wiped the fog from the mirror over the sink and stared long and hard at the image. Naked and wet or dry and clothed, he still looked like a kid—a very pretty one. It both made him very good at both his job and picking up men. No one took him seriously. A party boy. A twink. God, he hated that term, yet here he was, exploiting his image. Sometimes for the greater good and others as a way to not be lonely for a few hours.
“Now you’re just being maudlin,” he told his image.
Swiping the towel across his skin and hair, he went to his dresser. He pulled out a pair of boxer briefs and an old T-shirt. Settling down under the covers, he closed his eyes. But as soon as he did, visions of blood and gore and wasted lives flooded in. His whole body tensed and the effects of his shower evaporated faster than the water droplets had. With a muted cry of frustration, he sat up, rubbing his face. Then he yanked open the nightstand drawer and pulled out his laptop.
He didn’t have any official files on it, naturally. But he’d done research on his own, the kind the internet allowed anyone to access. He opened the file labelled Volpe and stared at a face he knew almost as well as his own. Enzo Volpe. The asshole had become the largest arms dealer in the world. Based on a yacht, the guy moved around a lot, never within the jurisdiction of any one country for very long. No one knew where he’d come from. His name implied he was Italian and his dark, almost sultry, good looks also suggested he was. But no one had been able to trace him back to his origins. And his fluency in the language meant nothing. He was equally skilled in five other languages, including English. The man could have been raised right here in Chicago for all his accent betrayed.
All Cole, or anyone, really knew was that countless people around the world were dead because of this man’s immoral trade. The gang members in the warehouse were merely the most recent that he knew of. Dozens, hundreds probably, more were dying as he lay there in his cozy little apartment. That was the problem with Volpe. He caused death around the clock, no matter where he was or what he was doing. Probably lapping champagne off some model’s abs. The man was a hedonist and his dirty money could pay for a lot. Other than well-paid goons and servants, no one got close to him. A few global agencies had tried and everyone they’d sent in undercover had disappeared. When you lived on a boat, disposing of enemies was easy.
Because dwelling on the arms dealer made him sicker to his stomach than he already was, Cole forced himself to shut the laptop down and settle back into his pillow. Then he went through the relaxation techniques that a Quantico buddy had taught him and slipped into oblivion.
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