In the explosive new Hitman novel from the bestselling authors of
Last Kiss and Last Hit a jungle mercenary
and a female target find love on the run...
LAST HOPE IS NOW LIVE!
Blurb
Mendoza: I grew up in the slums and lost everything I loved to poverty, illness, and death. I had only one skill to leverage myself out of my circumstances—violence. Being hired out as a mercenary hitman brought me money and built an empire. But all that I've fought for is in jeopardy. My next job: Steal secret information that could bring down world governments. Find my target. Destroy it. But then, I meet her.
Ava: Karma hates me. When my best friend Rose is kidnapped, I have no choice but to take a job as a mule for a pair of criminals intent on selling top-secret information to the highest bidder. I should have known that bad luck tends to cling, because the plane I'm on goes down. That I survived a crash-landing was a miracle. And so was being rescued by Rafe Mendoza—hot, sexy, dangerous. The thing is, he wants the information that I need to free Rose. I can't let him have it, but I need his help. And I need to fight this crazy attraction for this mercenary with hungry eyes. Rose is depending on me, and I won't let her down, no matter how appealing Rafe is.
LAST HOPE EXCERPT (New to Tour)
The ricochet of the bullet has swollen my eye shut. I might be slightly concussed from the free fall from six thousand feet into the jungle. I’ve no clue where we are and we have no supplies, but I’ve never been happier than when Ava stuck her tits into my face. Those babies felt like the softest pillows ever created and I would’ve been happy to suffocate in damp valley of cleavage. Maybe I’d even get the chance to lick her sweat away.
I might have groaned and pretended my injury was worse to lengthen the moment. Her delicate hands smoothed over my forehead and, it may have been my imagination, but it seemed liked she might’ve lingered over my hair. Dig in, I want to grunt.
“What the heck is that sound?” Ava clutches me to her.
If I don’t answer, does that mean I can stay in this position forever? Because I want to. Actually, no, I’d like to move over and suck one fat tit into my mouth until it’s hard as a diamond. Then I’d like to slide down until my mouth is level with her pussy and see how salty sweet she tastes between her legs. The beast between my legs roars to life and it’s a good thing that the monkeys above us scream again, causing her to jump and strike my good eye with her elbow. The pain serves as a reminder of where we are, who I am, and what the fuck I should be paying attention to.
“It’s the howler monkey. They sound like humans screaming or sometimes like the jaguar. They’re kind of dumb and if we found Afonso’s gun, we’d be able to kill one and have meat every night for a week.”
She shudders. “I don’t want to eat monkey.”
The jungle is hot and wet during the day and cold at night. If the mosquitos don’t eat you alive, the jaguars and anacondas might. Not very many people can crash-land into the middle of the Amazon and make it out alive, but I’m upping our odds from around 20 percent to 50 percent based on Ava’s positive attitude. Unless my eye heals up, I’m not giving us more than that. If we could find the Boy Scout bag, though, we could bring our odds up significantly.
“There’s plenty of food in the Amazon from plantains to fish, so if you don’t like monkey, we won’t eat it.”
She shudders again. “Thank you.”
“You a vegetarian?”
No, that couldn’t be right. Didn’t she eat some prosciutto at the café? But I want to hear it from her. I want to know everything about her.
“No, but for some reason eating something that screams like a human freaks me out.”
“Monkey is off the menu,” I say, making no attempt to move away from her rack. “I have a knife in my belt.”
“Do you have anything else besides the knife?” she asks. Her tone is accusatory like I’m holding out on her.
“No,” I say slowly. “Just the knife.”
She narrows her eyes and then reaches out with her good hand and pokes my waistline. “What about that?”
“My pants? I don’t think that they’d fit you or they’d be a good weapon. Besides, I’d rather my legs didn’t get eaten by mosquitos.”
“Look, if you just plan on leaving me behind, then do it now. Don’t string me along.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Just my luck to perv on a crazy woman.
“That!” she spits out, and this time her finger jabs lower, right into the meat of my dick. I flinch back. “I can tell you’re packing something. What’s that thing in your pocket?”
“None of your fucking business,” I growl out, my happy feeling sucked away. I can feel the heat rising in my face that has nothing to do with the humidity. I will my erection to subside but as she stares at it, it does nothing but grow.
“Oh my god. Is that a . . . that’s not a gun, is it?” Her lips part in shock.
“No.” The erection isn’t going to go down anytime soon. Not with her eyes wide with wonder. She raises her gaze to me and then drops back down again, and hell if she doesn’t lick her fucking lips. I turn away, unzip, and then pull the shaft straight up behind the waistband of my cargo pants. I fasten the zipper, carefully, and then pull my T-shirt down over the top. It hides most of the problem. “Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.
I surge to my feet, catching her off guard. She stumbles back and thankfully stops staring at my junk. “Enough,” I growl more roughly than I intend. “We have important things to concentrate on, like where are we going to sleep for the night.”
She looks stricken and nods in agreement. “Sorry, I just was taken by surprise. You don’t have to tell me what’s in your pocket if you don’t want to. But I need to remind you that we’re in this together.”
I feel like an ass. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that she thinks my dick is fake. That’s a new one.
LAST HOPE EXCERPT (Previously Posted)
Ava
I wake up with my face pressed against a warm, broad chest and my legs tangled in the leaves of a tree. Somewhere close by, I hear birds chirping. There’s sunlight dappling my face and everything feels damp.
Everything also hurts.
I’m dazed and my head is ringing with pain, and the sun is beaming right into my eyes, which is freaking annoying as hell. I rub a hand across my face and it takes me a few moments to realize that I shouldn’t see the sun at all if I’m inside an airplane.
Then I remember the storm. The thunderous boom as the plane was hit by lightning. Screams. The wing catching fire. The chaos of Afonso with his gun. Free-falling through the cabin, my grip on the seats the only thing keeping me from flying through six thousand feet of empty air.
Mendoza’s hand ripping out of mine when the cabin depressurized. The screams of people going silent.
Mendoza.
I remember him, too.
A noise from somewhere nearby catches my attention. It sounds like heavy breathing. I open my eyes and look around.
I’m still strapped to my seat. There’s a portion of the plane underneath me, and the two seats Mendoza and I buckled into are still together.
He’s next to me, the broad chest I’m currently draped across. His eyes are closed, dried, crusted blood around the injured one. He’s got an enormous bruise on his forehead and his arms are around me, as if he was trying to protect me even as we fell.
“Mendoza?” I ask, sitting upright and pulling out of his arms. Sitting up makes everything in my body scream with pain. My ankles hurt, but I don’t know if it’s because they’re seriously injured or because they were tucked under the seat in front of me, which is also still attached. I test my legs, untangling them from his longer ones, and wince at the pain shooting through my body. It feels like I’ve been trampled in my sleep. My ribs hurt, and my right arm radiates agony.
But . . . I’m alive. I sit up a bit straighter and look at my right arm. The purse I’ve carried for days is gone. The skin is puffy and turning purple. When I flex my fingers, the pain brings tears to my eyes. I look away from it, faint and sick to my stomach at the sight. It’s not just the pain but what it represents. I’m a hand model. I can’t do a thing if my hands are jacked up.
Not that it matters right now.
“Mendoza,” I say again, because I’m about to panic, and panic hard. “Wake up. Please.”
He doesn’t stir.
Fear clutches me, and I grab his shirt with my good hand and give him a shake. “Mendoza?”
That doesn’t wake him, either. I press my cheek to his chest and listen for a heartbeat.
It’s slow and steady. Whew. I sit up and examine him again. The knot on his forehead is huge. Maybe he just got knocked out. I’ll have to figure out how to wake him up once I figure out where we are. It looks like our section of the plane somehow separated from the rest of the wreckage, which is why we’re alive and not a skidmark on the ground.
I shift in my seat and the world tilts. My eyes go wide and I freeze in place, then look around.
I can see trees overhead, and sunshine, but it’s just now occurred to me that we’re not on the ground. The chairs are tilted and everything shakes when I move.
I’m pretty sure we’re in a tree. Clutching at the arm of the chair, I sit up carefully and look around.
I see nothing but air and leaves, green vines and dappled shadows. In the distance, I hear the sound like heavy breathing again. I look at Mendoza, but it’s not him. Oh God. Is it Afonso? Is he still here? Biting my lip, I crane my neck and try to peer down below. We’re at least twenty feet off the ground.
It’s like the wreckage has been swallowed up by a wall of green. Green and wet. On the jungle floor, there’s more greenery and what looks like smoking wreckage. Pieces of the plane are scattered all over the forest floor, along with a few scattered suitcases. In the distance I see another row of chairs, this one facedown in the dirt. The heavy breathing starts again, and this time I see the source: a jaguar, stalking through the wreckage.
My eyes widen and I go very still.
A heavy rain begins to fall, spattering me from above. I don’t move. My gaze is on that jungle cat as it sniffs through things. If it notices us, I don’t know what we’ll do. Mendoza is unconscious and if I try to move him, we might both fall out of the tree . . . and land right in front of the cat.
The situation hits me and I start to cry. I’m alone. I’m really fucking alone. I’ve never camped a day in my life, much less been in a jungle. I look down at my hands. They’re my livelihood. My way to earn a living. My income depends on them being soft and perfect, my nails elegant ovals.
I have a long gouge down the back of one hand, and my pinky is bruised and swollen. My wrist looks like an elephant’s leg, if elephants were black and blue. Not gonna be hand modeling for a long while after I get out of here.
If I get out of here.
I’m sorry, Rose. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard. I shudder back a sob as the cat slinks into the underbrush, something dangling and arm-sized in its mouth. I’m in the jungle with a busted hand and a stranger that just wants the information I’m carrying . . .
And I don’t even have the information anymore. The purse is gone. I sniff hard, trying to fight back another sob that’s threatening to break free.
“Don’t cry,” a voice says softly.
I turn and look at Mendoza. His shirt is sticking to his big body, wet raindrops splatting down his face. He looks at me and smiles crookedly, and lifts a hand to try to touch my face. “Don’t cry.”
Hitman Series Reading Order
Last Hit (bk 1)
Last Breath (bk 2)
Last Hit: Reloaded (bk 2.5)
Last Kiss (bk 3)
Last Hope (bk 4)
Meet Jen & Jessica
Jen Frederick lives with her husband, child, and one rambunctious dog. She's been reading stories all her life but never imagined writing one of her own. Jen loves to hear from readers so drop her a line atjensfrederick@gmail.com.
Author Jessica Claire
Jill Myles has been an incurable romantic since childhood. She reads all the 'naughty parts' of books first, looks for a dirty joke in just about everything, and thinks to this day that the Little House on the Prairie books should have been steamier.
After devouring hundreds of paperback romances, mythology books, and archaeological tomes, she decided to write a few books of her own - stories with a wild adventure, sharp banter, and lots of super-sexy situations. She prefers her heroes alpha and half-dressed, her heroines witty, and she loves nothing more than watching them overcome adversity to fall into bed together.
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I don't understand why Ava would need to apologize, I mean isn't it every man's dream to have their women compliment their goods, “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings by calling it Godzilla. I guess I figured guys just love to brag about their p***s size and that it would be funny, but it wasn’t and I’m sorry.” Ava is strong, independent, and she has a heart of gold, “I am,” I say, and lift my chin. “A lot of them have been abused in the past and they’re afraid to ask for basic stuff or to tell you that you’re buying a crap brand. They feel more comfortable coming to someone like me.” Although Rafe doesn't have a sexy mafia accent, he's still one sexy beefcake. I loved this book.
