Feel the Heat (Thorndike Basic) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Cindy Gerard (Author)

Book Description

Series: Thorndike Basic | Publication Date: February 3, 2010

The newest novel in Cindy Gerard’s bestselling Black Ops‚ Inc. series is filled with action‚ suspense‚ and steamy romance…

Tough‚ beautiful‚ and blonde‚ covert operative B. J. Chase is assigned to f

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

CINDY GERARD's New York Times bestselling Black Ops, Inc. series also includes SHOW NO MERCY, TAKE NO PRISONERS, winner of the RITA Award for Best Romantic Suspense novel, WHISPER NO LIES, and FEEL THE HEAT. She is the author of the bestselling Bodyguards series and thirty contemporary romance novels. She lives in the Midwest with her husband. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

B. J. Chase had worn her black tank top and khaki shorts for too many hours to count in the Venezuelan climate, where the heat and humidity were often measured in terms of ripe, riper, and "for God's sake, take a shower."

Restless and on edge, she tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel of a rusted-out red Jeep Cherokee, circa 1990. She felt a trail of perspiration trickle down her back. No time to worry about her deodorant letting her down now. Weeks of surveillance, back alley connections, and righteous fieldwork were finally going to pay off. The deal was going down and it was going down tonight, right here in this dark, garbage-littered back alley in Caracas.

"Provided Eduardo actually shows up," B.J. reminded herself under her breath.

Oh, yeah...and she had to get out of here alive once he did.

Somewhere in the distance, the feral snarls of a catfight rose above the rough idle of the Jeep's motor. The driver's seat creaked and groaned when she shifted behind the wheel. She'd bought the Jeep at a used car lot three weeks ago when she and three other DIA agents had first arrived in Caracas. The seat was sprung; the fenders were rusted out. Some genius had hacked off the top at some point and done a sloppy job of welding a roll bar to the frame. A spiderweb of cracks burst away from a bullet hole on the passenger-side windshield. Beneath the pitted hood, the engine knocked like a Jehovah's Witness rapping on a front door but the guys in the motor pool at the U.S. embassy had done a little tinkering and pronounced it sound. A luxury ride it was not. B.J. didn't need luxury. She needed speed and reliability and that's what the Jeep would give her if this meet went sour and she had to burn rubber out of here.

She checked her watch and frowned. It was nearly three a.m. Eduardo was late.

"Where the hell is he?" she muttered into the commo mike hidden in the center of the Celtic cross that nestled between her breasts.

"Cool your jets," Maynard's voice whispered sharply in her earpiece.

Like Hogan and Collins, Maynard wasn't exactly thrilled that this was her show. They were older, had more seniority, and were openly unimpressed with her military background, her education, and the fact that she'd spearheaded this DIA operation from its inception back in D.C. nearly six months ago.

Nope, the boys didn't like that she'd drawn team leader assignment. That was fine. They didn't have to like it, just like they didn't have to be impressed. They just had to do their job, which was guard her back. And regardless of the crude message implied by the set of brass balls that had mysteriously appeared on her desk the day after her immediate supervisor, Dale Sherwood, had put her in charge, she knew they would do it.

She tamped down her impatience, then made herself draw a settling breath. She wished she had a piece of chocolate. It always calmed her but in this heat, chocolate was off the table. So was breathing easy.

She felt more jumpy by the minute. Eduardo had set up the time and place. He'd told her to come alone. Yeah, right. The three other DIA officers lurked in the shadows with a little insurance in the form of M-4s with night scopes. She had, however, followed Eduardo's instructions to park, flick the headlights three times, then kill them. Now she waited in the dark, heat pulsing from the potholed alley, sweat trickling between her shoulder blades and her breasts and soaking her shirt while her heart tripped at double time.

She had to believe he would show. Men like him -- parasites without conscience or scruples -- would sell out their own mothers for a helluva lot less than the twenty thousand dollars she'd already paid him for partial information. No way was Eduardo going to miss out on the other half of his forty grand, which she would trade him tonight for the rest of the info he'd promised to deliver.

Yet when she searched the darkness ahead of her all she saw were shadows. The alley was narrow and winding, flanked on both sides by an endless row of three- and four-story adobe and brick buildings. Some, she assumed, housed businesses, some residences. All but one were dark. A pale light spilled out of a firststory window several yards ahead of her. It was the only light other than the dim, pale green glow of the gauges on the Jeep's dashboard.

She lifted damp blond hair off her neck and swiped at the perspiration coating her nape. Her hair and humidity were not friends. Even though she'd used a scrunchie to wrestle the unruly mass of it into a tail, some of the thick, springy curls had escaped around her face.

"Heads up." Hogan's voice sounded in her earpiece. "There's movement, your twelve o'clock."

All of her senses slammed into overdrive. It was showtime. They were finally going to get what they'd come for. Last March a cache of controversial computer files had been recovered in Colombia tying Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez to FARC -- the communist rebel group intent on ousting the U.S.-friendly Colombian government from power. The treasure trove -- found on a dead guerrilla leader's laptop during a military raid -- had been just the tip of the iceberg. Since then, B.J. had been setting things in motion, ferreting out contacts, paring down informants, and finally scoring tonight's meet with Eduardo of no last name. He was supposed to provide enough additional intel to make it possible for the U.S. to ratchet up the pressure on Venezuela to stop aiding FARC without having to impose sanctions on one of America's most important oil suppliers.

"Come on, come on," she muttered under her breath, then damn near jumped out of her skin when she heard the sound of footsteps on the gritty pavement.

A man appeared out of the shadows: Eduardo. Short, swarthy, black hair hanging in a long braid down the middle of his back, a gold hoop in his left ear. If he had a conscience, or if a heart beat within his chest, both were buried so deep neither had seen the light of day in a very long while.

Now it would get dicey. This is what she got paid the little bucks to do.

Her Glock 19 pressed against her right kidney where she'd tucked it into the waistband of her khaki shorts. The weight and pressure were both comforting and reassuring. So was the sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun lying lengthwise at her feet on the floor of the Jeep, stock facing the driver's door.

She pulled up on the door handle, put her shoulder into it, and pushed. The rusted hinges squawked but finally swung open. Her sandaled foot hit the pocked pavement. Mindful of both the position of the shotgun and her distance from it, she left the door open. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to sho -- "

Snick-click.

The distinctive metallic click of a safety on an AK-47 assault rifle had her freezing mid-sentence. Her heart rate ratcheted up to triple time as Eduardo stopped abruptly about three yards in front of her, slowly lifting his hands above his head.

A man dressed in a black wife-beater and dark camo cargo pants and wielding the AK stepped out from behind him. He gestured with the business end of the rifle for her to raise her hands, too. "Up high. Let's see 'em, cara."

The look on Eduardo's face told her that he was as surprised as she was. And that they were both as good as dead if she didn't do what she was told.

Stall, she thought, as adrenaline zipped through her blood like rocket fuel. She needed to make something happen until her backup took charge of the situation.

Very slowly, she lifted her hands, all the while inching closer to the open door of the Jeep and the shotgun that lay just out of reach on the floor.

Where were they -- ?

Oh God. Her runaway heart rate plummeted when she saw Maynard, Hogan, and Collins suddenly illuminated by the beams of three powerful Maglites, marching slowly toward her.

Their hands were linked on top of their heads. Three men walking behind them pointed assault rifles at their backs, prodding them forward. The lot of them looked ready to chew nails. They were pissed and embarrassed that they'd been caught with their pants down. Join the club.

What kind of men were they dealing with that they could get the drop on experienced DIA field officers? She quickly decided the men either had known they were coming or had skills the DIA officers lacked.

She cut a cautious glance toward the Jeep. Knew that if she was going to make a move, it had to be now.

She dove toward the 12-gauge.

The man with the AK struck like a viper. He grabbed her arm, yanked her away from the door, then slammed her up against the vehicle.

"Not smart." He pinned her against the Jeep with the weight of his body. "Now I'll tell you again. Keep your hands where I can see them. That way no one gets hurt."

He could hurt her, she had no doubt about that. Hell, he could have killed her by now, she thought as he turned Eduardo over to one of his men. One bullet. Close range. Clean and simple.

For whatever reason, she was still fit and fine. The others were fine, too, which gave her reason to hope that they still had a prayer of getting out of this alive. To do that, she had to play heads-up ball, which meant she had to work through the adrenaline rush that mixed with fear and made her shaky, and quickly assess her adversary.

This close, it wasn't that difficult. The face that was mere inches away from hers was not a face she would expect to meet in a dark alley on the wrong side of a mission that was rapidly heading south. Wholesome was the word that came to mind. Altar-boy angelic -- providing she overlooked the assault rifle.

She'd caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his upper arm that appeared to be a cross of some sort. It did not, however, put her in mind of altars or boys. Neither did the gold crucifix that hung from his neck and lay against a broad chest so smooth it could have been waxed.

The bright beams of the Maglites lit up the alley. She could see that his eyes were dark, almost black, like the hair that he ... --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 444 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (February 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1410423409
• ISBN-13: 978-1410423405
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,775,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Cindy Gerard has forty plus titles in print. In addition to 6 RITA nominations and 2 Rita wins, Cindy has numerous RT nominations and various awards to her credit. Each book of her single title romantic suspense series, Black Ops Inc, has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller top 20 list. Cindy writes sexy, heart-pounding romantic suspense and has had her work twice featured in COSMOPOLITAN Magazine as Red Hot Reads.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling Black Ops, Inc. story, September 30, 2009

By 

A. Richard (NC, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feel the Heat (Black Ops, Inc.) (Mass Market Paperback)

Adrenaline surging action keeps one riveted to every daringly risky scenario in FEEL THE HEAT, while romantic thoughts turn from compassionate to desirous. The fourth book in the winning Black Ops, Inc series begins with an undercover mission filled with suspenseful danger, an uncertain outcome and teasingly snarky dialogue. As Cindy Gerard manages to up the peril in each following development, especially when closely guarded feelings become involved, FEEL THE HEAT will keep you engrossed as new and often terrifying details are revealed.

When B.J. Chase and Raphael Mendoza met undercover, they at first pointed guns at each other and their parting was not on good terms. With B.J. working for the Defense Intelligence Agency and Rafe being a Black Ops, Inc. member, their approach to any assignment is handled by following different rules. When it is discovered some highly classified weapons technology has been found in the possession of terrorist, she is covertly sent to the U.S. agency from where the information might have been leaked. This leads to unexpected revelations and another meeting with Rafe, guns drawn again.

Although Rafe and B.J. are basically on the same side, she does not like when her boss assigns her to work with the Black Ops, Inc. members, as she feels their methods are too different from her own. As facts are shared, they quickly realize the situation could be exceedingly disastrous if the terrorist plot is actually carried out. When a target date is uncovered, all involved know they must swiftly find answers and Rafe believes he might have the means. He was originally from Colombia and is related to those who are possibly holding vital information about the plans, so he and B.J. are to pretend they are an engaged couple and visit his uncle to hopefully learn what this drug dealer knows. When they go to Columbia in order to stop a disruptive disaster from occurring, Rafe and B.J. will face some dangerous dilemmas, while threats to their hearts are just as worrisome.

Grippingly enthralling with insightful emotions describes a romantic suspense story by Cindy Gerard. This talented author masterfully builds tension in her books as every second passes, and the result is always captivatingly spellbinding. With no idea of when a situation may turn deadly in FEEL THE HEAT, the reader is frequently caught unaware, thus mounting the eagerness for reading the next page. There are enough mysteries to keep you guessing, while the danger surrounding many of these unknowns just continues to escalate. The premise for this story is cleverly innovative, and the plausible threat is all too conceivable and causes chills with its possibility. There are a multitude of irresistible heroes in this book, where you only get to enjoy their delightful outer personalities, except when their own personal story is being told and then some of their innermost secrets are exposed. Discovering more about Rafe is skilling interwoven into the plot, and I found myself loving him even more for what he has endured. B.J. is definitely a feisty heroine, and seeing her interact with all the Black Ops warriors made for some entertaining moments. These two are written with strong characterizations, as they are depicted as being courageous when needed yet also finding it difficult to control their caring sides when it comes to each other. The passion between Rafe and B.J. starts simmering from their very first meeting, and the encounter is blazingly steamy when these feelings turn combustible. Whatever emotion is felt by these two characters during a scene, the sentiment is expressed with much heartfelt earnestness, though often shown by actions and not in words. With numerous secondary characters whose stories still need to be told, I am looking forward to many more Black Ops books. FEEL THE HEAT has danger, romance and even some laughter, where emotions are sincerely conveyed and confrontations constantly arise.

SingleTitles review

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2+ stars...another great one in the series!, October 2, 2009

By 

Laura B (San Jose, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feel the Heat (Black Ops, Inc.) (Mass Market Paperback)

4 1/2+ stars (closer to 5 than 4)
This is the fourth in Gerard's Black Ops series.

Rafael "Choirboy" Mendoza meets B.J. Chase on an op in Venezuela when their missions cross paths. The sparks begin to heat up from their first touch, but anger keeps them separated.
Three months later their objectives cross paths again. Only this time they are on the same side. There is a traitor selling US secrets and they need to find out who and how to stop it.

Like all the other books in the series, this one gets into the action right from the very beginning. The story moves along quickly with no dragging in the plot.

B.J. concerned me at first because she was such a stiff, cold character. So many female characters who are written like this end up not being likable. No so with B.J. I actually liked her. She had a softer side and the history as to why she was so cold was well explained.

I also think that Rafe was a well developed character, though no as well as B.J. His family history played an important role in the story, but at the same time I didn't feel like I got into his head enough with it. I didn't sympathize with him as much as I did with B.J.

The romance blends well into the story and I didn't feel overwhelmed with too much of the push-pull of the romance. It fit well and made a great romantic suspense story.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. I'm looking forward to more from the BOIs and also more from Stephanie. I'm hoping that is the next book...whatever it is, I am sure it will be an auto-buy for me!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ANOTHER GREAT HIGH SPEED ADVENTURE WITH THE BOI's, March 10, 2010

By 

Buggy "SUNNIE Day reader" (British Columbia, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Feel the Heat (Black Ops, Inc.) (Mass Market Paperback)

FEEL THE HEAT is the forth instalment in Cindy Gerard's fast paced and super-sexy Black-Ops series and fans won't be disappointed. This is yet another great ride, filled with action, adventure, exotic locations, sweet lovin and top notch writing. Although for some reason I never felt as connected to B.J and Raphael as past couples I still enjoyed their story and with the entire wise-cracking team back for this particular mission (loved catching up with them) and a sweet secondary romance there was plenty going on here to hold my interest. My only gripe would be that about halfway in it all started to feel very familiar and I realized with disappointment that I had already read this exact plotline in one of Lora Leigh's Tempting Seals books. However I still enjoyed Cindy's version and she remains a definite auto-buy for me.

B.J Chase is a brash, somewhat emotionally cold Defence Intelligence Officer who first meets bad boy Raphael Mendoza while they're both undercover in Venezuela. It's not a great meeting for our future couple what with the guns they have pointed at each other, it does however leave a lasting impression.

Back in the States B.J is assigned to work with the Black Op's and she's not exactly thrilled, these boys are a very tight team who play by their own rules and B.J is used to working alone. Of course this book starts out with a bang and just keeps going, with multiple shoot outs, car chases and a general feeling of suspense. Gerard gives us a clever storyline, oozes the sexual tension and in the second half manages to put our couple in close quarters as they pose as a newly engaged couple and go deep undercover in Columbia.

This is where Rafe gets reacquainted with his long lost (drug cartel) family and in BJ's case she takes on the hilarious alter ego of `Brittany.' A fluffy, gum cracking, money digging, true blonde that Rafael can`t keep his Latin lovin hands off (I actually preferred Brittany to B.J) Anyways, from here things really start to steam up and emotions neither of them expected come out to play. Along with some serious explosions, a runaway train and several more hair raising shootouts where BJ proves her worth to the team, they try to stop an armed submarine and Raphael finally learns what B.J (!) stands for.

All in all this is another great read, complete with Gerard's signature ending and while it could be read as a stand alone I highly recommend the entire romantic-suspense filled series. Now the wait begins for the next instalment begins. Cheers!