Officer Off Limits Review and Excerpt

His need to possess her is non-negotiable.

Story Brooks’ fiancé just called off their wedding two weeks before the happy day. As if that isn’t bad enough, her semi-estranged father, an infamous NYPD hostage negotiator, has suffered a heart attack. Not wanting to examine her lack of emotion over the broken engagement, she hops on a plane to reconnect with her father before it’s too late.

Playboy hostage negotiator Daniel Chase has never, not once, been refused by a woman, so when a debate over hospital snack foods with a delectable kindergarten teacher ends in flat-out rejection, he makes it his mission to seduce her. His only obstacle? She’s the daughter of his mentor who implicitly forbade Daniel from pursuing her.

Despite her father’s warnings and Daniel’s troubled past, Daniel and Story can’t resist their intense attraction to one another. But when the reason for her fiancé’s abrupt wedding cancellation comes to light, can Story and Daniel’s already forbidden relationship survive?

Title: Officer Off Limits (Line of Duty, #3)
Author: Tessa Bailey
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 273
Release Date: June 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62266-219-7
Imprint: Brazen
 

“A super-sexy fan-yourself read, underpinned by humour and emotion that’ll blow you away. Tessa Bailey is defintely one to watch out for!”
- Maya Blake, author of The Sinful Art of Revenge

“Scorching hot, and laugh out loud funny! You’ll want to read this book again and again.”
- New York Times Bestselling Author Katee Robert

★★★★ stars. “Derek is rugged, tough, and so very naughty. How he talks to Ginger is guaranteed to thrill and she gives as good as she gets. The sexy banter between the couple is hot enough to singe the pages, but the emotions remain genuine and real. Derek gives Ginger so much more than incredibly hot sex, which makes his possessiveness tolerable because it’s based on emotional need, not ownership. He also cares a great deal about her younger sister, Willa, something that means the world to Ginger.
- RT Magazine

“This book has everything I want from a story: snark, sex, suspense, and more sex. But it’s not just alliteration that got my rocks off; it was how all of those things were put together into a book that was fun to read, well written, and easy to recommend. A must-read!”
- Smut Book Club

© 2013 Tessa Bailey
 

Chapter One

He’s breaking our engagement in a seafood restaurant.

Clinking ice cubes, silverware scraping against china, and soft laughter all faded into a tornado of sound, numbing Story Brooks to her surroundings. She suspected Fisher brought her here specifically, one of San Diego’s finest seafood restaurants, to dump her in style, because he suspected she wouldn’t make a scene in such a lavish setting. Fisher hated making a scene.

A steakhouse would have been so much more appropriate. More sharp metal objects with which to stab me in the heart.

For once, Story welcomed her rambling inner monologue. It served to block out Fisher’s decidedlyunwelcome words as he spoke to her from across the candlelit table, using sweeping hand gestures to make his point. She should be listening, but she’d pretty much tuned out after hearing the words,I’m calling off the wedding.

Searching for something to focus on, her eyes dropped to his empty plate, finding it a little odd that he’d managed to keep his appetite while cutting her loose. In addition to hating scenes, Fisheradored lobster, probably another reason for the elegant venue.

He’s killing two birds with one stone. And you almost married this asshole. 

At that point in Story’s reverie, everything in her present snapped back into sharp focus. Fiancé breaking engagement. Right.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen, Story. We work closely together and things just kind of…progressed.”

“Hold up. What?”

Visibly flustered, Fisher took a sip of water. “This isn’t easy for me, you know. Can you please try and tune in?” He slumped back in his chair. “I was explaining to you that Diana and I didn’t seek out a relationship with each other, it simply developed into something more over time.”

Whoops. Looks like she’d missed out on some important details during her little trip to outer headspace. So he’d met someone else. She registered the information calmly, as if he’d told her they were out of milk. Maybe she was simply in shock. Or dealing with the effects of three glasses of wine and no food in her stomach. She couldn’t tell. “Which one is Diana, again?”

He released a long-suffering sigh. “The oncologist.” She showed no reaction. “From Boston…?”

Story tilted her head. “The one with the bob haircut?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Story recalled meeting her apparent replacement, Diana, at a dinner party a month prior. Had they already been seeing each other? Did she even want to know? Their destination wedding in Maui wouldn’t be taking place either way.

The white noise of the dining room combined with the over-the-top nautical decor transported Story to the ocean and the time she almost drowned. Sipping her sparkling water, she recalled the day with perfect clarity.

Ignoring her mother’s caution and the signs warning of a dangerous undertow, twelve-year-old Story swam out much too far, only to be pulled under by a massive wave. As her arms and legs pinwheeled in every direction, breath whooshing from her lungs, she could still remember her brain registering the thought, maybe it’s better to just die now than have to deal with my mother saying “I told you so.” But somehow, she’d finally managed to make it to the surface, sucking in air and blinking saltwater from her eyes.

Then she’d grabbed her board and paddled out ever farther.

What happened to that girl? The brave girl who refused to sit still for lectures. Or let people force her into eating seafood. She used to be fearless. With regularity, her grade school teachers used to throw up their hands in resignation, muttering, “She has a mind of her own.”

At some point between graduating from college three years earlier and now, she’d lost her pluck. Her moxie. Her chutzpah. She’d met the slightly older, ambitious Fisher as a young postgrad and could admit now that she’d been more than a little dazzled by the attention he paid her—especially after being surrounded for four years by inexperienced college boys.

While trying to fit into his world of sophisticated dinner parties and foreign films, had she let little parts of herself chip away in the process? Obviously. The old Story, the one who’d regarded her near-drowning as an adventure, would not approve of the girl who listened politely while someone made her feel two inches tall.

That Story would kick ass and take names.

If you read the excerpt above then you are probably just as jazzed as I am about this book. It is hot, pure and simple. The humor, chemistry and voice of the book grabbed me immediately. Story is a character that I was drawn to. Her spark and spice sucked me in and before I knew it, my lunch was over and I was snorting into my hand. The opening scene where Story gets dumped over her dinner (which she hates) at a seafood restaurant is priceless and it just gets better from there. Tessa Bailey writes like a rock star and I can't help but melt into her characters, humor and wit. (And that's before any of the sex scenes)

I am still reading this blazing hot summer book, and my fingers are itching to get back to the e-reader. If you love a story that will suck you in, no holds bared, then this one is for you.

5/5