Sex Bomb
Harlequin Blaze
November 2007
ISBN-10: 0373793618
ISBN-13: 978-0373793617

Ellie Jameson is more than a pretty face. With enough
self-defense and weapons training to be her own covert
agency, she's ready for all the bad guys of the world.
And when gorgeous assassin Christian Navarro breaks in
to her bedroom to request her help, she finally gets
her chance. There's even a bonus—she has to pretend to
be his lover.

It doesn't take long for fake sex to become real. In
fact, their bedroom recreation is so steamy, she
doesn't want it to end. As the stakes on this mission
rise, Ellie fears losing Christian more than taking out any villain. Is a career as a superspy worth giving up the hottest sex of her life?

Excerpt

Blood red lipstick, a hot pair of heels and a sweet
little .38 Special—these were Ellie Jameson's favorite
weapons.

She strode down the long corridor, metal briefcase in
hand, her black skirt swishing at her knees over a
pair of stiletto boots. Up ahead, through the door,
she could hear the voices of the students waiting for
her. Waiting to learn the wisdom she had to impart.

She liked to think of herself as a modern girl Sun
Tzu, teaching The Art of War as it applied to women in
the twenty-first century. Waging War, Offensive
Strategies, Weaknesses and Strengths— these would not
have been inappropriate names for her courses. But the
powers that be at Vegas Top Models and Talent lacked
vision when it came to course titles. So as much as it
annoyed her to admit it, Ellie was about to act the
fearless leader of the mundanely named Makeup 101.

Other people probably didn't see her makeup artist and
instructor position at the second-rate modeling school
as a chance to teach young women about the art of
modern warfare. But those same people weren't the ones
who had to endure talking a bunch of self-centered
girls through proper application of lip liner, bronzer
and an array of other baffling but necessary beauty
products. Those same people also weren't the ones who
had to pretend they took seriously their students'
modeling dreams, when really, Ellie couldn't think of
a more senseless career.

So she did what she could with the resources she had.
She believed in the power of transformation— having
been forced to transform herself more than a few times
in her life. And she believed that a woman's most
useful skills were her ability to think and her
ability to wield her sex appeal like a machete.

These were the most valuable lessons she'd learned
from her mother, and she could, at least, teach a
little of that to her starry-eyed students. Whether
they wanted to listen or not.

Still, she harbored the urge to put her more lethal
training to good use.

As she switched hands on her makeup case, she secretly
loved the way the shiny silver number looked as if it
might contain more conventional weapons than a full
array of MAC cosmetics.

Sometimes she liked to imagine herself as an
undercover agent, disguised as an everyday working
girl, on her way to extract information from some
gorgeous but despicable criminal by whatever means
necessary.

Ellie, admittedly, had an overactive imagination. Of
course, thanks to her unconventional up-bringing, she
actually had the necessary skills to bring down those
despicable criminals should the need arise. Her skill
with a semiautomatic rifle was at least as impressive
as her skill at eliminating under-eye circles with
concealer.

Sadly, the corridors that housed Vegas Top Models and
Talent provided little opportunity to use her more
lethal skills. No, the white office building—a boxy
thing with big square windows tinted metallic
brown—located five blocks off the strip, was void of
threat or peril. Unless one considered dodging wannabe
models toppling from stilettos or ducking brandished
mascara wands particularly treacherous. Ellie did not.

So her .38 Special stayed tucked away in her
nightstand, under an issue of Cosmo, brought out only
for an occasional pose in front of the mirror
Charlie's Angels style. And her Remington assault
rifle—a graduation gift from her father—hadn't seen
the inside of a gun range for target practice in over
a year.

When had her life become so, well, boring? When had
she given up on becoming the kick-ass superheroine she
often fantasized about being? For all her attempts to
inject strategy and thrills into her job, it was still
a dull position. Somewhere along the way, she'd chosen
the safe path—the apartment-dwelling, bill-paying,
lousy-job-having path. Her mother, an enemy of the
word boring, would have been ashamed. Ellie was
halfway there herself.

Just as she reached the classroom, her cell phone rang
and she paused to answer it. The LCD displayed her
home phone number, which instantly gave Ellie an
uneasy feeling. It meant her cousin and not-so-welcome
roommate, Destiny, was calling.

She never called to chat. Instead her conversations
usually started with statements such as, "Please tell
me you still have car insurance," or "Don't be mad at
me, but…" At the rate she was going, all of Ellie's
stuff would be destroyed before Destiny decided to
move on to greener housing pastures.

"What is it?" Ellie answered.

"God, you're suspicious. Why do you automatically
assume something's wrong?"

"I'm late for work," Ellie said as she glanced at her
watch, a sweet little black Gucci she'd bought on eBay
from a seller who'd promised it was authentic. She'd
chosen to believe him mainly because the price was
right and her dangerous alter ego would not be caught
dead wearing a Timex.

"Did you see the news?"

"What news?"

"CNN did a story about domestic terrorism threats, and
they talked about your dad and his friend Ray like
they were some kind of lunatics."

Ellie didn't hear what Destiny said next. Later she'd
overcome the shock that her cousin was watching
something besides an E! True Hollywood Story. For now
Ellie was occupied calculating how long she had before
the FBI showed up to question her about dear old Dad.
They'd want to know where her father was. Want to know
what his connection to Raymond Riddell was. As if she
knew anything helpful. It had been years since she'd
seen her father. But despite the distance she'd put
between herself and her not-so-squeaky-clean past,
there was no way to erase the fact that she was Harlan
Jameson's daughter.

Her stomach churned and a film of sweat formed on her
upper lip. Suddenly her boring life seemed infinitely
preferable to going another round with the Feds. No
matter how much proof that she no longer communicated
with Harlan she gave them, they always took their
sweet-ass time determining the truth of her
statements. And the investigations they conducted
inevitably tore her life apart.

"I've got to go," Ellie said. God, she hoped they
waited until she finished teaching this class. She
could only imagine how her boss would react if she got
dragged out of the room in the midst of
foundation-application basics by a bunch of G-man
thugs. If the Feds didn't destroy her career, her boss
would.

Surely there were things that sucked more than being
Harlan's daughter, but Ellie would have been
hard-pressed to name them at the moment.

What would have become of her if she'd joined the
Western Alliance instead of getting the hell away from
home as soon as she'd turned eighteen? She would have
gotten married young, popped out a platoon's worth of
kids by now, and found herself living a fulfilling
life of lunacy and paranoid radicalism. Oh, and the
Feds would harass her much more frequently.

Yep, boring was looking better and better by the
second.

"Wait, Ellie! Ellie? Are you still there?" Destiny was
saying. "Listen, I know this is a shock and all, but
I've got some good news, too."

Ellie mentally kicked her own butt for not having hung
up the phone yet. You'd think she would have learned
to cut short calls from Destiny by now. "What?"

"If the Thong Fits is in town for a casting call!"
Ellie blinked, her brain scrambling for the
significance of her cousin's excitement. Why were they
talking about underwear when there was an appointment
with an interrogator in her near future?

"If the thong fits?"

"This is my big chance! Don't you get it?"

"Is this that new lingerie-model reality show?" This
was the latest scheme in Destiny's big dream to take
the porn industry by storm. Since she'd gotten fired
from her stripping job, she'd spent her days planning
her career—to the casual observer it looked a lot like
freeloading. Destiny figured that winning a spot on TV
would put her in front of the key players in the
business. On the outside chance she didn't win, the
exposure she'd get participating would net her enough
money to pay for acting lessons. And a reliable means
of transportation to L.A.

"Yes! And I need you to do my makeup."

"When?"

"As soon as I can drive down there."

Ellie resisted the urge to flush her cell phone down
the nearest toilet. If she had to endure another
conversation with Destiny about her future as
America's next top porn star…

"I'm supposed to be working here, not doing your
makeup. You remember work, right? It's that thing you
do for a paycheck?"

"So take a break to do me this one favor. Pleeaase? I
just need ten minutes, fifteen tops."

Destiny, at twenty-two, was gorgeous and really didn't
need more than fifteen minutes of makeup on even the
most special occasions. And maybe if she landed a part
on the thong show, she'd move out of Ellie's house for
good. Maybe even pay back some of the money she owed
her.

No, that was hoping for too much. "Okay, I'll do it,
but don't make a scene when you get here. And no
trying to get the attention of the owner."

In typical Destiny fashion she'd already managed to
rub Ellie's boss the wrong way on previous visits to
the school. He'd warned Ellie that if he caught
Destiny on the premises again, she could kiss her job
goodbye. Ellie knew he was serious and ordinarily she
wouldn't let Destiny within fifty feet of the place.
But, frankly, with the possibility of federal agents
making an imminent appearance, her job didn't seem
that secure.

And the promise of getting Destiny to move out was too
tempting.

"I'll be good, I swear. See you in a few!" And with
that, Destiny hung up, leaving Ellie to attend to the
other shallow, self-centered girls who occupied her
life.

How was she supposed to teach when thoughts of her
father being labeled a domestic terrorist threat on
national TV crowded her brain? She'd carefully
constructed her current life around the premise that
Harlan simply did not exist. Apparently her efforts
were for naught because his craziness was about to
take center stage.

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