To Protect and ... Seduce

By Deirdre O'Dare

With her young son, Amy has fled an abusive relationship. The thought that her ex and his crime-focused family will find her, terrifies her. A remote mining town in Arizona provides temporary refuge. Then she learns her next door neighbor is a cop, and what a cop! He's a gorgeous single father. But back home most of the police officers were in the Stavros family's pockets. Will Arizona cops be different enough to trust?

Jack is struggling to raise his motherless daughter and uphold the law in Azurite, Arizona. His new neighbor stirs his libido but she seems to have some fearsome secrets as well as a son about his daughter's age. When the children form a friendship, Jack and Amy's worlds begin to converge. Can he put an end to her nightmare and also be the man she needs?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Oct 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685502829

Deirdre O'Dare

Deirdre writes gay romance channeling a prior life’s gay male twin she calls Danny. Fascinated by love’s diverse shades and guises, she explores and experiences a range of attachments. She still believes in happily ever after, that Love is the One True Thing and genuine Love is never wrong. For more information, visit deirdredares.blogspot.com.

Book preview

To Protect…and Seduce

By Deirdre O’Dare

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2022 Deirdre O’Dare

ISBN 9781685502829

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission from the publisher, with the exception of excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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I have to dedicate this one to my own cop next door and to another Jennifer who chose me for her stepmom. That was long ago but still vivid in my memory. Thank you, Great Scot for many years of inspiration. A Celt, cop, and cowboy all rolled into one, every hero I write has a bit of you in his makeup.

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To Protect…and Seduce

By Deirdre O’Dare

Chapter 1

Amy let the last box slip from her weary hands. It landed on the floor with a dull thud. In a remote corner of her mind, she prayed it held nothing breakable. Nine-year-old C.S. came up behind her, scuffing worn tennies on the dusty wood floor.

This is an awful funky place, Mom. Are we really going to live here?

We are for now. She exhaled a gusty sigh. To term the apartment quaint was being kind. The building was probably five times her age, if not more. A structure that had once been a single opulent home was now split up into several apartments. From the odd angles and corners, she could tell they’d been notched together in a hodge-podge. Whether this was to link into existing pipes for kitchens and baths, to connect to a central furnace or maybe just to satisfy some madman’s idea of architecture, she had no idea.

Cleaned up, with some bright throw rugs, curtains on the tall windows to hide the ancient roller shades, and some of her familiar trinkets on display, it might have a certain charm. The biggest point in the place’s favor was that it was some eighteen hundred miles from Newark, New Jersey. That was home to the man who’d made her life hell for the past eight years. It was not likely he’d look for her in a remote Arizona mining town, at least for a while.

Amy’s thoughts drifted back in time. Constantine Socrates Stavros III was proud of his Greek heritage. He was even more proud of the fact his late great-grandfather, Socksie Stavros, had made it big in bootlegging back in the Roaring Twenties.

When she first met Conn, to a green girl of eighteen he had seemed the epitome of suave sophistication. A prince with sex appeal robed in the glamour of wickedness, he’d courted her with candy and flowers. He took her for dates in New York City to dine at the best restaurants and see shows at the best clubs. She’d been swept right off her feet.

It wasn’t until later that