Cara Bristol’s Stranded with
the Cyborg Cover Reveal
Release Date: September 22,
2015
Stranded with the Cyborg
The daughter of the Terran
president, Penelope Aaron resented the restrictions imposed upon her, but that
was no reason to take it out on the man assigned to protect her. She regrets
how she got Agent Brock Mann booted from the security force. But now that she’s
an interplanetary ambassador about to embark on her first diplomatic mission,
she still doesn’t want him tagging
along. Especially since he seems to be stronger, faster, more muscled, and sexier than she remembers. And pretending to be her husband? This mission couldn’t get more impossible!
Ten years ago Penelope Isabella Aaron had been a pain in Brock Mann’s you-know-what. Much has changed in a decade: “PIA” as he code-named her, has grown up and is about to attend her first Alliance of Planets summit conference, and Brock was transformed into a cyborg after a near-fatal attack. Now a secret agent with Cyber Operations, a covert paramilitary organization, Brock gets called in, not when the going gets tough, but when the going gets impossible. So when he’s unexpectedly assigned to escort Penelope to the summit meeting, he balks at babysitting a prissy ambassador. But after a terrorist bombing, a crash landing on a hostile planet, and a growing attraction to his protectee, Operation: PIA may become his most impossible assignment yet.
Ten years ago Penelope Isabella Aaron had been a pain in Brock Mann’s you-know-what. Much has changed in a decade: “PIA” as he code-named her, has grown up and is about to attend her first Alliance of Planets summit conference, and Brock was transformed into a cyborg after a near-fatal attack. Now a secret agent with Cyber Operations, a covert paramilitary organization, Brock gets called in, not when the going gets tough, but when the going gets impossible. So when he’s unexpectedly assigned to escort Penelope to the summit meeting, he balks at babysitting a prissy ambassador. But after a terrorist bombing, a crash landing on a hostile planet, and a growing attraction to his protectee, Operation: PIA may become his most impossible assignment yet.
Stranded with the Cyborg
“What was so urgent it
couldn’t wait until I got back from Darius 4?” Brock flung himself into the
wide sensa-chair, which conformed to the angles and lines of his body to
provide optimal support and comfort. He would have preferred that an android
pleasure worker fit her realistic feminine form around him than a piece of
furniture—as he’d been about to experience when the Cyber Operations director’s
summons had come through. “You’re the one who insisted I take respite time.”
“Drink?” Carter punched a
button on his console, a cabinet slid open, and he removed a decanter. After
pouring two shots of bronze liqueur, he shoved one across the desk.
Brock’s internal warning
system flashed an alert. “What’s the bad news?”
“Why do you assume that?”
“Whenever you break out the Cerinian brandy, you’re either trying to
butter me up or soften the blow.” He eyed the man who’d been his friend since
they served together in the Terran Central Protection Office thirteen years
ago. Carter’s blank expression betrayed nothing, but the brandy sang like a
yellow songbird.
The director knocked back his
shot then thumped his chest with his fist. Cerinian brandy went down smooth
until the afterburn lit your throat on fire. Or it did to one who was
unaltered. Brock swallowed his and felt only a slight warmth.
“I have an assignment for
you,” Carter said, his voice hoarse from the liqueur. “The Association of
Planets Summit is on Malodonus next week. There’s been a threat against…the
Terran ambassador,” he hesitated like he expected Brock to short-circuit a
computer chip.
After five years without a
day off, Brock had been ordered to take R & R or be reassigned to desk
duty. His irritation with the edict had been relieved somewhat when he’d
arrived at the Darius 4 pleasure resort and discovered the android sex workers
were almost lifelike.
First Carter told him to go,
then he recalled him. Brock wouldn’t blow any gaskets, but he was irked. Quit jerking me around. “What government official hasn’t received a
threat? It’s part of the job. What’s so special about this case?” He shifted in
the sensa-chair so its fingers could massage his lower spine.
“According to intel, Lamis-Odg is involved.”
Lamis-Odg had contributed
nothing significant or positive toward the advancement of society in thousands
of years, yet opposed the AOP’s goal to draw the peoples of the galaxy into an
alliance. Historically, the backwater planet had been more bluster than bite,
but in recent years had resorted to terrorism to intimidate its adversaries.
Brock flexed his right
hand. “How certain is the threat?”
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