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excerpt from the lilah love series

By the time I’m in the garage at the house, Kane is waiting for me at the door. He studies me with intensity, intensely unreadable. He’s assessing, questioning, but not talking. God love him and his understanding of how I operate.
 
I’m in my head.
 
I need to stay there right now.
 
He backs up to allow me to enter the back hallway and I’m quick to do just that. Once we’re both inside the warm house, I strip off my wet boots and he takes my coat before I follow him to the kitchen. I settle onto a barstool in front of the marbled island, while he prepares, and then hands me a hot Bailey’s coffee with whipped cream. Yes, the dark, dangerous Kane Mendez put whipped cream on my coffee. And still, we haven’t spoken a word.
 
He joins me, claiming the spot next to me while I sip my coffee, the warm, sweet liquid sliding down my throat and helping me come down about two notches.
 
Ready now, for more than my own mental ping-ponging of thoughts, I grab my phone, thumbing through photos until I find the image of the jar of blood. I set it in front of Kane.
 
“That was left for me in the refrigerator of the crime scene.”
 
He glances at it and then me, arching his dark brow. “The victim’s blood?”
 
“Pig’s blood,” I say matter-of-factly. “That’s not confirmed, but it’s going to be pig’s blood. I know it.”
 
He doesn’t freak out but then I don’t expect anything but calm, thoughtful contemplation from Kane. He doesn’t even ask why I make that assessment. He simply asks, “Is this Pocher or a Roger protégé?”
 
Just that easily he’s already in my headspace. And the question spoken at just the right time grounds me in logic rather than the emotion that had me storming out of Emma’s kitchen ready to kill Pocher.
 
“Logically,” I say, “the dress and the jar could point to either. Of course, my first reaction was Pocher. We just found out he came back. And when I saw that dead woman and then saw the jar of blood, I was ready to kill him.”
 
“Andrew influenced that. He already believed it was Pocher when he called you to the scene.”
 
“True. And it could be Pocher.”
 
“But your gut isn’t reading it that way. I can tell.”
 
I sip my coffee and add, “With the dress, and without the jar of blood, this would have read like a classic jealousy crime. The groom was already neglecting the bride and she had a side dude. And yet, it wasn’t a crime of rage. We’re not even sure how the woman died.”
 
“Meaning what?”
 
“She seemed to have a rupture from her throat, but there was no obvious cut.”
 
“Poison?” he asks.
 
“The new medical examiner doesn’t think so.” My cellphone rings with Lucas’s number where it still lays between me and Kane. His jaw clenches.
 
“I called him to hack for me, and he’s coming to dinner. And before you scowl, he was going to be alone, Kane.”
 
He downs his coffee, every last drop, and stands up, his spine stiff. Fuck. I answer the call on speaker. It’s better that way, with Kane’s ear where my ears are right now. “Lucas,” I say, and I don’t warn him that Kane is in the room. If he’s not smart enough to figure that out, he deserves whatever he gets. “What do you have for me?”
 
“I pulled Danica and North’s records. I’m sending them in a secure file by maildrop for you to accept. But there’s nothing exceptional there to see. And before you bitch, I’m digging deeper, but that will take time.”
 
“What about the victim and the men in her life?”
 
“Both her dead husband and her fiancé have donated to various Pocher-driven campaigns. That was easy to pull. Her fiancé has actually donated to your father’s campaign. But Lilah, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this town who hasn’t pandered to Pocher’s power. And that’s all I have now. I’m drunk. I’m still drinking. No more updates tonight.”
 
“Yes, but—”
 
“No,” he says, “and I’m hanging up.” He disconnects.
 
I grimace and I’d call him back, but I decide better.
 
Kane at this point has filled a whiskey glass and is leaning on the counter in front of the sink. I stand up and close the space between us. I step directly in front of him and he downs his drink and sets the glass down. His hands are on the counter behind him. He doesn’t even think about touching me and I know it’s about Lucas. Which is exactly why I want him to know that I’m not thinking about Lucas, but rather those donations that connect Emma’s fiancé to my father. And I’m thinking about his words, his declaration that we’re dangerous to the Society. “What if—”
 
He grabs me and pulls me to him. “If you say that woman died because we’re together, and turn this into another reason to take off my ring, I swear to God, Lilah, I’m done.”
 
I can be hard. I can be cold. I can apparently be a killer. But I love Kane Mendez. He’s hard, too. He’s cold as ice. He’s forever in control. But he’s not those things with me. And it’s in this moment, for the first time ever, I realize how much I hurt him when I left him. Just how much I cut him.
 
“I regret every moment we were apart more than you can know. I’m not taking off the ring, Kane.” My hands settle on his chest. “Not ever. I’m not—”
 
His mouth closes down on mine, his hand on the back of my head, and just that easily, he reminds me I’m human again, capable of wanting, loving, needing, and forgetting all but the moment. But more so, he reminds me that he’s human. He isn’t always in control. He has emotions, torment I can taste on his tongue, even desperation he’d allow no other human to know he’s capable of feeling. I’ve pushed him away. I’ve hurt him. But I’ve always loved him and he doesn’t yet know that I’m done fighting against this, against us.
 
He just doesn’t know that.
 
And that’s a problem.
 
Kane picks me up and I don’t fight him. He has this thing about taking me to his bed, now our bed, as if that establishes some sort of ownership of me and us. Not that I could ever be owned, but deep down, I know we own each other. We always have. We always will. And if that’s what he needs, to feel that ownership, I’m not at war with him. I’m at war with Pocher and the Society. But he doesn’t take me upstairs and to the bedroom. He walks to the living room, neutral territory, and I understand his message. The tide has shifted. The demands have changed. Either I’m in this as his equal or I’m not in this at all. And neither is he. 

 

murder notes (book one)

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As an FBI profiler, it’s Lilah Love’s job to think like a killer. And she is very good at her job. When a series of murders surface—the victims all stripped naked and shot in the head—Lilah’s instincts tell her it’s the work of an assassin, not a serial killer. But when the case takes her back to her hometown in the Hamptons and a mysterious but unmistakable connection to her own life, all her assumptions are shaken to the core.

​Thrust into a troubled past she’s tried to shut the door on, Lilah’s back in the town where her father is mayor, her brother is police chief, and she has an intimate history with the local crime lord’s son, Kane Mendez. The two share a devastating secret, and only Kane understands Lilah’s own darkest impulses. As more corpses surface, so does a series of anonymous notes to Lilah, threatening to expose her. Is the killer someone in her own circle? And is she the next target?

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murder girl (book two)

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It’s Lilah Love’s job to inhabit a killer’s mind. The unapologetically tough FBI profiler is very comfortable there. But her latest case is making her head spin. It’s a string of brutal assassinations carried out across the country, each tied to a mysterious tattoo. Body by body, she’s followed the clues all the way back to her hometown. And every step of the way, the killer has been following her.
​
Here, beneath the glamour of the privileged Hamptons community, is a secret long buried but never forgotten. It’s bigger than Lilah. It’s powerful enough to escape the reach of the FBI. And it’s more personal than anyone can imagine. Because it’s hiding in Lilah’s own past. To fight it, she’s forced to turn to her lethally tempting ex, Kane Mendez. He’s an expert at bringing out Lilah’s darkest impulses. If she plans to survive, she’s going to need them.

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love me dead (book three)

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Women are dying.

The killer wants to play a game with Lilah Love. Lilah doesn't play games, she doesn't submit to demands. The love of her life, her ex-lover, that isn't so ex at all, Kane Mendez, knows that all too well, but like the hero, or perhaps criminal that he is, he'll try to play the game for her.

​But this killer isn't playing with Kane, demanding Lilah step up or more blood will be shed. Lilah claims her role on the game board, and she'll do it to save lives, but she isn't happy. And when Lilah isn't happy, someone is going to die alright, and it won't be her fault. It will, however, be her duty.

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love kills (book four)

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They call him Umbrella Man because he makes it rain blood. He wants to play with Lilah Love. What he doesn't know is that Lilah is a killer too, and games just piss her off.

​The conclusion to the second duet in the Lilah Love series. Love Kills concludes where Love Me Dead left off.

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bloody VOWS (book five)

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FBI agent Lilah Love leads a complicated life. She's engaged to Kane Mendez, a man most call dangerous, but hey birds of a feather, do flock together. She's dangerous, too, and in ways only Kane understands. As for their happily ever after, well that might have to wait. Right now, an old enemy who should be dead is still living, Junior, her mystery letter writer, is stirring up trouble, and her family is trying to prove they're crazier than her. On top of that she has a new case: a dead woman in a bloody wedding dress. And since Lilah knows all too well there is no such thing as coincidence, clearly someone is sending her yet another message.

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bloody LOVE (book six)

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One.
Two.
Three.
The cat is in the tree.

As far as Lilah's concerned, her note writing stalker just gets more stupid everyday. One, two, three, the cat is in the tree? What is that? And what does it have to do with a wedding turned bloody?

Lilah continues to hunt for the monster who killed a bride-to-be while she awaits news on Kane's chopper that emergency landed in the ocean. She's angry. She's worried. She's ready to kill the man she knows is responsible for Kane's crash: Pocher. 

It's a race against the clock to save Kane and catch a killer.

Everyone won't survive.

Bloody Love is the sixth book in the Lilah Love series.

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HAPPY DEATH DAY (book sEVEN)

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Kane Mendez.
The son of a drug lord, who is not his father's son, and yet, he has enemies. Too many enemies.

Lilah Love.
The FBI agent who perhaps kills a little too easily. Or does she? As she's called in to consult on a case, and catch a killer, her troubles back home don't go away. People want her dead. She simply wants them dead first.

Kane and Lilah. Lilah and Kane. War is on the horizon. And everyone won't survive.

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THE PARTY IS OVER (book EIGHT)

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Sometimes a girl just has to get stabby...

Lilah has sworn she's done with that side of her personality.

​Then again, maybe not.

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  • Home
  • Books
    • A Perfect Lie
    • The Lilah Love Series
    • The Poet >
      • The Poet Chapters One and Two
    • You Look Beautiful Tonight
    • Murder and Lies
  • Latest News
  • Join My Newsletter
  • About Lisa
  • GO TO LISA'S ROMANCES