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eBook Category: Romance/Suspense/Thriller
eBook Description: A newspaper report, followed by a knock on her door, forces Matlin to recall a terrifying time in her past and plunges her right back into that terror.

eBook Publisher: Awe-Struck E-Books/Awe-Struck E-Books, Inc., Published: 2008, 2008
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2008

3 Reader Ratings:

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A real page-turner!!! Ms. Barker tells the story of Matlin Tilney and her terrifying attempts to elude a mad stalker. Her survival depends on the help of a stranger, Andreas Hoffmann. Ms. Barker's tale of spine tingling danger and excitement mixed with a burgeoning romance in beautifully described New Zealand is an excellent read. -Frances Boyle, Fictionwise Recommender

"Laraine Anne Barker pens a story that--hooked me.... Stalker from Her Past has--sex in it, along with a huge blond man to die for, and a twenty-six-year-old virgin who jumps at the slightest touch from a man! Ms. Barker detailed the countryside so vividly I could almost see the trees and shrubbery. Andreas had vowed never to marry after Alma had suckered him in with her lying and hedonistic ways. The woman had left him for some other wealthy victim who succumbed to her acting skills. Maitlin is the polar opposite of Alma, all fiercely guarded independence in contrast to Alma's hunt for a rich man. Great descriptions and a suspenseful plot make this a book readers will enjoy."--Alisha Two Lips Reviews, 5 LIPS

In his panic he unlocked and thrust the door open with unnecessary force: it crashed against the upholstered two-seater. Even as he cursed his clumsiness and took the key from the lock, he heard Matlin's scream. Panic drove everything from his mind but a vision of her being assaulted. He kicked the door shut, slammed on the lights, and rushed for the bedroom, yanking open the door with no thought for any damage he might do.

In the moonlight streaming through the window, and the light that filtered from behind him, Matlin stared at him, frozen terror in her huge dark eyes. She was sitting on her heels in the middle of the tumbled duvet with nothing but the corner of the top sheet--all she'd apparently had time to grab--clutched at her bare breasts. It only just covered her. The sight increased his annoyance. She should have more sense than to sleep in the nude when there was a man around. Surely the previous night's fiasco would have at least taught her that. "Matlin, are you all right?"

"Andreas! Oh ... Andreas! There was a man at the window!" And, much to his consternation, she burst into tears.

Baffled, and with his annoyance increasing as he saw that the drapes were undrawn, he sat on the bed, dropped the keys in a jangling heap and put his arms around her. She had obviously been having another nightmare, he told himself.

With the force of her weeping seeming to threaten to tear her apart, Matlin instantly dropped the sheet and clutched at him. Desperately he tried to ignore what this meant--to hold her as a father would hold a distressed small daughter. But at least the genuineness and intensity of her distress washed away his anger as he tried to comfort her. "It's all right. Shush, now, it's all right. He's not there any more. He's gone now."

To stop his hands from caressing the satiny flesh of her back and shoulders--to stop himself from holding her far enough away from him to enable him to fill his hands with her breasts--he started stroking her hair. Then, before he was aware of what he was doing, he had buried his mouth in its heavy silken strands. Its clean freshness, coupled with the feminine perfume of her warm skin, filled his nostrils, only serving to reinforce the fact that she was naked in his arms. It took him a few moments to grasp that even kissing her hair was too much for his masculine reflexes: he was fast becoming vitally aroused.