Poison Kisses: Part 2 Read online

  Copyright © 2018 Lisa Renee Jones

  Cover photographs © kiuikson/Shutterstock. Cover adapted from a design by Crystal Ben

  Author photograph © Teresa Lee Photography

  The right of Lisa Renee Jones to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in this Ebook edition in 2018

  by HEADLINE ETERNAL

  An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by arrangement with St Martin’s Press

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978 1 4722 3815 3

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

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  50 Victoria Embankment

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About the Author

  Praise for Lisa Renee Jones

  By Lisa Renee Jones

  About the Book

  Character Profiles

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Poison Kisses continues . . .

  Have you read the Dirty Money series?

  Find out more about Headline Eternal

  About the Author

  New York Times bestseller Lisa Renee Jones is the author of the highly acclaimed Inside Out series, which is now in development for a cable television show to be produced by Suzanne Todd (Alice in Wonderland). In addition, her Tall, Dark, and Deadly series and The Secret Life of Amy Bensen series both spent several months on the New York Times and USA Today lists. Since beginning her publishing career in 2007, Lisa has published more than forty books translated around the world.

  Lisa loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at www.lisareneejones.com, or find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorLisaReneeJones and on Twitter @LisaReneeJones.

  Praise for Lisa Renee Jones’s stunningly sexy romance:

  ‘Edgy, brilliant and all-consuming, Dirty Money is THE series of the year! Lies, danger, secrets, and a hero you will fall HARD for. A must read!’ Katy Evans, New York Times Bestselling Author

  ‘Lisa Renee Jones excels at creating powerful men and women who are determined to live life on their own terms, and fans will be immediately drawn to the dangerous world of Brandon Enterprises’ Romantic Times

  ‘High-octane romance set above the glittering lights of Denver is enhanced by the dominance of a powerful man and the cunning sweetness of a woman who isn’t cowed or swayed by his wealth… a fascinating mystery and characters with distinct voices’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘Angst-y, sexy contemporary romance with big emotional and financial stakes set against the backdrop of two dynamic families. Sure to leave readers desperate for the next installment’ Kirkus Reviews

  ‘Holy smokes what a ride! Lisa completely nails yet another kick ass read. I loved this book! It’s the beginning to a new series and I am already nearly begging for book two since the ending of book one was completely effed up! What a cliffhanger! … Once again I’m reeling from another Lisa book and I couldn’t be happier about it’

  Christina Gobin, NetGalley & Goodreads

  ‘Amazing book could hardly put it down. I love how it jumps from character perspective so you get to see things from everyone’s point of view. Emily and Shane are great together the energy and attraction you can just feel it through the book. Completely enjoyed this read!’ Stephanie D’Amico, NetGalley & Goodreads

  ‘This was my first book by this author, and it definitely won’t be my last! I was hooked from the start and ready to drop everything to keep reading’

  Belinda Scott, NetGalley & Goodreads

  ‘Wow!!! This story was like a chess game, clearly waiting for a checkmate move and that created a lot of suspense and the same time keeping your breath for something big to happen’ Nicole Th, NetGalley & Goodreads

  ‘This book is another 5 stars by Lisa Renee Jones. This book is different from the others that I have read and wow I think this is her best of all. You will fall in love with the characters of this book. I can’t to read the next book’

  Elaine Kelly, NetGalley & Goodreads

  ‘This was my first Lisa Renee Jones book but it will not be my last. This book has the mob, the Feds, too many manipulative people to count, lies, deceit, intrigue and a few good people attempting to clean up the mess that is Brandon Enterprises. Jones weaves an intriguing, suspenseful story full of well-defined characters and just the right amount of really hot sex’ Vanessa Romano, NetGalley & Goodreads

  By Lisa Renee Jones

  The Dirty Money Series

  Hard Rules

  Damage Control

  Bad Deeds

  End Game

  Poison Kisses

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  About the Book

  Sexy. Dark. Edgy. Part Two of the sexy, thrilling three-part Poison Kisses serial.

  I loved her. She left me. She betrayed me but now it’s time to open the closed doors.

  I’ll tell her my secret if she tells me hers.

  Our history is more than lies. It’s our story, and I will do whatever it takes to reveal it all. I’m the Assassin, She’s the Poison Princess. We’re going to kill the bad guys, but we’re still deciding if we’re enemies. The one thing for certain, is we’re both going to strip down and get bare.

  Are you ready to play by the hard rules of the Brandon family empire? Look for the enthralling Dirty Money series: Hard Rules, Damage Control, Bad Deeds and End Game.

  Character Profiles

  Amanda Skye—31, blonde, used to be brunette. Former CIA agent and scientist. Her poison of choice is . . . poison. She’s the Poison Princess. Seth’s former lover and undercover partner. Has been on the run for three years until the CIA and Seth find her to track down a terrorist, Franklin Ross. Amanda is the only scientist left in the world who can deconstruct the toxin that Franklin works with. During their undercover operation, Amanda gets word from her mother that there is a kill order on her and her parents’ heads which may have been ordered to Seth “the Assassin”.

  Seth Cage—“the Assassin”—35, blond, close-cropped hair. Former CIA agent, now head of security at Brandon Enterprises. He is on contract for the CIA to go after Amanda, his former partner in an undercover op where they fell in love. Seth was betrayed by Amanda when she ran from him, and inadvertently caused their handler Danny’s death.

  Franklin Ross—Former CIA agent, turned terrorist. He works with chemical agents to destroy who he sees fit. Amanda almost took him down in China years ago, but when she failed, he fled. He is now back on the CIA’s radar and is about to launch a massive toxin attack through the US water systems.

  Danny—Seth and Amanda’s handler in that fateful operation three years ago. When Amanda ran from Seth, she was the
inadvertent reason for Danny’s death when he was captured by the bad guy (Ming) on the mission. Seth was told that if Amanda didn’t show back up and reveal everything that was known about Ming’s operation and plans Danny would die. Amanda didn’t come back . . .

  Bear—35, goatee, built like a linebacker. Seth and Amanda’s handler on their current mission going after Franklin.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader:

  This is Poison Kisses Part Two, which starts the moment after Part One ended. First, let me recap Poison Kisses Part One.

  We catch up with Seth Cage, from the Dirty Money series, when he is pulled back into his CIA days. The woman he has been searching for, to kill, to love, to destroy, is back on the map. But he can’t kill Amanda just yet. He, and the agency, need her to help track down the terrorist, Franklin Ross, who uses toxin agents to kill mass crowds. Amanda is the woman who sent Seth’s life spinning on its axis. And she happens to be the only one who can deconstruct the toxin that Franklin uses. Well, the only scientist that can do it after her parents were murdered three years ago on a fateful night, during one fateful mission.

  During said mission, Amanda and Seth were sent undercover for the CIA, though their cover as a married couple became a little too realistic. They fell for each other. They found a solace in one another. But the night the mission was coming to a head Amanda got a call from her mother saying there was a kill order from the CIA on her and her parents’ heads and that Seth Cage is known as “the Assassin.” This information spooks Amanda into running. She assumes she is Seth’s target and he’s been after her from the get-go.

  In Amanda’s absence, her and Seth’s handler, Danny, is captured and killed because she does not return. Seth holds that against her. That apparent guilt, along with her decision to flee from the scene, and the kill order on her all looks very incriminating. Flash forward to the present and Amanda has been found, Franklin Ross has an impending attack, and the CIA needs Amanda on this op. Seth is tasked to go after her. But he wants her for his own reasons . . . to kill her. But when they are in each other’s sights again the old familiar tug is still there. The passion. The intensity. But can Seth and Amanda both find the trust that was completely shattered back in New York three years ago? They can sure as hell try, for the greater good of the country. They’re partnered back up and through one scene of bullets flying and car chases, they’re off to Texas by means of driving to Vegas and hopping a plane to their destination, with Amanda’s kitty, Julie, in tow. But it’s time to lay their cards out if they’re going to capture or kill Franklin Ross. Their past needs to be on the back burner and the only way to do that is to know exactly what happened the night that Danny died . . .

  In a flashback from three years ago we know that Seth and Amanda both got a call right before Amanda disappeared. Seth’s from the agency to receive orders, which we know are related to Amanda, but nothing more. Amanda’s from her mother. We learn that Amanda’s mother left her a message and she plays that message for Seth at the end of Poison Kisses Part One. And let me leave you with the message Amanda has just played for Seth:

  Amanda, a woman’s calm voice says. Listen carefully. There’s a death order on our heads. Mine. Your father’s and yours. Someone in the agency is behind it. We’re going underground and you need to do the same. Ghost protocol. And sweetheart. Seth Cage, the man you’re on assignment with. They call him “the Assassin” in the agency.

  And so we begin after that damning message . . .

  Chapter One

  Seth

  Amanda and I sit in the lounge of the private jet carrying us from Vegas to Texas, facing each other, Amanda’s Oriental Shorthair cat, Julie, in a carrier that is buckled into the seat next to her. The end of that damning voice mail from Amanda’s dead mother lingers in the air between us now, echoing in the hum of the engines. Hours of running from our enemies is apparent on my blood-stained jeans and a borrowed T-shirt that covers the bandage on my arm, the wound beneath it left by a bullet. Amanda is not much better for the wear, having replaced her skirt and blouse for a pair of souvenir store sweats, her long blonde hair wind-blown and tangled. The craziness of the past eight hours led us here, to this plane, to that call that takes us back to the past, to three years ago when we’d both received a phone message at almost the same moment. My call had been directly related to Amanda. Her call, the one that she just played for me, was a warning about a kill order on Amanda’s head, which named her assassin as me.

  “What were your orders?” Amanda asks, repeating a question she’s already asked but I have yet to answer.

  I stand, and by the time I’m on my feet, Amanda is on hers as well. Our actions and skills are not what pit us against each other as trained killer to trained killer, but rather, the circumstances do. Instinctively, I know she does not want to kill me, at least not now, and I have no doubt she knows the same of me. We both want answers. We both want to fuck again, and we both wish like hell we didn’t. My hands come down on her waist, and I use my bigger body to turn her. In a few steps, I have us in the tiny hallway behind the seating area, her pressed between me and the wall.

  “My orders mean nothing,” I say. “You leaving, you running instead of trusting me, does.” Her hand closes down on the butt of my gun and my hand immediately covers hers. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “Don’t I? Because I’m really thinking I do. When did you accept my kill order? Before or after you fucked me night and day for three straight months?”

  Anger ripples through me and I shackle her wrists and not gently, pulling them between us and pulling her to me. “If you believed we were a lie, then that’s about guilt and a crime. That’s not me. That’s not who we were.”

  “My mother named you, Seth Cage. You. No one else. Just the man in my bed.”

  “Someone inside the CIA leaked my identity as the intended contract holder before I ever got the call. That means nothing.”

  “But you taking the order means everything and we both know you took it.”

  “If I didn’t take that order someone else would have. And I would have told you I held it. You should have come to me.”

  “So that you could kiss me, and make me believe you loved me, long enough to kill me?”

  “I would have kissed you and proven that I loved you.”

  “Love,” she says dryly. “Right. You said you loved me and that makes it all better.” She doesn’t give me time to respond. “Why did the agency tell you to fuck me? What did they want?”

  “You were never my assignment. Ming was, just like he was yours.”

  “You keep forgetting that I now know that you were always the Assassin. You can’t tell me that I wasn’t paired with you without the intent of you killing me.”

  “Exactly my thought when I got that call. Why did the agency turn on you? And what happened to make them do it when we had Ming within a hair’s reach?”

  “I have no idea. I did nothing but serve my country from the day I was born.”

  “And yet, when you were in trouble, you ran from me.”

  “You held my kill order.”

  “And I seem to remember you once telling me you’d trust me with your life.”

  “You, Seth. Not the secret assassin I didn’t know you to be.”

  “If you really believed I betrayed you, you would have come at me.”

  “You had months to plan my murder. I had moments to digest the fact that you not only betrayed me, and fucked me over and over, quite literally, but you also held the kill order for me and my parents.”

  “I told you, I took that order so no one else would get it. And they didn’t offer me your parents’ order. I called in after I dealt with Ming, and tried to get it, but they said they were already dead.”

  “Wait. You’re telling me that my parents died the night I left you?”

  “Yes. They did.”

  “Then no. They are not dead. My mother left me another message seventy-two hours after that ord
er was issued. I have the recording.”

  “Have you talked to her since?”

  “No, but I expected that. Ghost protocol means we fake our deaths.”

  “But you didn’t fake yours,” I point out.

  Her chin lifts, her gaze colliding with mine. “Maybe I wanted my would-be assassin to show up so I could face him. So he had to face me.”

  Something sharp and hard cuts through me. “I would have been here sooner, sweetheart,” I say, my hand sliding under her hair, to cup her neck and drag her mouth to mine, “if you wouldn’t have hidden so damn well.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t ready for you. Maybe I am now and I sent you an invitation.”

  “Invitation accepted, Poison Princess. I’m right here. What are you going to do with me now?”

  “Nothing until Franklin’s dealt with. Then, we face off. Then we conclude our story.”

  “Until then?”

  “Until then, we tolerate each other.”

  My mouth lowers, lingering a breath from hers. “And how do you suggest we do that? By fucking?”

  Her fingers curls around my shirt. “As long as you know your kisses will never make me trust you again.”

  I kiss her, a deep stroke of tongue against tongue before I say, “And your kisses will never make me trust you again.”

  I kiss her again, the same deep stroke of tongue before I pull back, letting the taste of her linger on my lips, our breaths mingling. “Did we ever trust each other?” she whispers.

  I pull back, my gaze meeting hers. “Yes. We did.”

  “And now there is none. Now we’re enemies. And you—”

  “Loved you,” I say, my lips brushing hers. “I loved you, Amanda.” And with that gut-wrenching confession, my mouth closes over hers once more, and while I don’t normally allow myself the dangerous luxury of anger, or hate, I feel those things now. I kiss her with those things in my mind, and on my tongue. I let them bleed into her mouth, bitter and harsh. She betrayed me. She betrayed Danny. She may well have betrayed her country and still, I fucking love her as much as I hate her.