Body Checked
by Katherine Stark
Publication
date: August 18th 2015
Genres: New
Adult, Romance, Suspense
Synopsis
SERGEI
DRAKONOV. The newest left wing for the Washington Eagles hockey team is a triple
threat: muscle, roughed-up good looks, and a dangerous tabloid reputation. Not
the kind of guy who fits into Jael Pereira’s five-year plan. Jael doesn’t have
time for a relationship, between her challenging senior-year course load and
her stiflingly dull internship at the FBI. But for one steamy night, she gives
in to Sergei and his smooth-talking ways.
Sergei
wants more than just another one-night stand. But his brother—a high-ranking
member of the Russian mob—wants him to help the family business. He can use
Sergei as an easy way to launder money, or to smuggle drugs on the Eagles team
plane. And if Sergei doesn’t agree, he can kiss his skating career goodbye.
The
FBI’s been watching Sergei. When they learn about Jael’s fling, they want her
to persuade him to inform on his brother. But the more Jael sees the real
Sergei, beyond the role he plays on the ice and in front of the cameras, the
more she wants him in her life. How can she win his trust, though, when she’s
playing a role of her own? And how can she protect him from his mobster brother
when she can’t even protect her own heart?
Body
Checked is a standalone HEA sports romance (m/f) in the Center Ice series of
interconnected hockey athlete stories. It contains explicit language and sexual
content between consenting adults.
Excerpt
Special Agent Frederica
Monteverdi smiles, but it’s all frost, not even close to touching her eyes.
“Very well. This is what I’d like to do.”
I lean forward in my
seat.
“I would like you to
serve as an informant for me in our ongoing investigation of the Bratva
criminal organization, led here on the East Coast by Vladimir Drakonov. I
expect you to use your, ah, unique access to his brother, Sergei, to gather
information on the Bratva’s plans. You will be acting as a confidential
informant, not as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations,
understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I nod.
“Your duties in your
internship will be the same as they’ve been before. I will try to limit the
number of agents who are aware of your identity, but I must tell the chief of
the Organized Crimes Unit, of course, and a few others.”
I grimace.
“In the course of your
work as a confidential informant, I may call on you to snoop on the Drakonovs,
to include allowing our surveillance teams to access their private homes to
install bugs, should we receive warrants to do so. Are you amenable to this?”
Ex-fucking-scuse me? She
wants me to bug his house? “Persuading Sergei to inform on his brother is one
thing,” I say. “But I’m not—I shouldn’t be the one snooping on him—”
“It can be you, or it can
be another member of our team. But I’d hate to tell your internship coordinator
that you’ve been uncooperative. I’d certainly hate for you to do anything that
might appear like obstruction of justice.”
My head is spinning; I
can’t see straight. No. I can’t lose my internship—my job prospects. I’ve spent
the past three years of my life building toward this—a career with the FBI. Oh,
my god. I am so far in over my head. Damn me and my need to be honest with
Frederica. Damn Sergei and his stupid, hot, mesmerizing ways.
“Let’s hope it won’t come
to that. Do a good job persuading him to tell you what we need to know, and it
won’t be necessary. Are we understood?” Frederica asks.
“Perfectly,” I spit out.
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AUTHOR BIO
Katherine
Stark is the pseudonym for an author of novels in a variety of genres for
children and adults. She can nearly always be found buried underneath
a pile of story notes. If she isn't writing, she's probably reading,
playing video games with her husband, watching hockey, or eating her
way across the East Coast.
Author links
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