Lethal Consequences (Aegis, #2)

by Elisabeth Naughton

[EBookObsessed]

Wounded heroes are my favorite. Landon works for the government taking care of terrorist or other threats to the world. All he wants for himself is the one thing he knows he can’t have, the sweet little schoolteacher from Idaho.
Landon Miller has been on medical leave from the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) since his last mission went bad. He was supposed to take down a chemist who was working on a biotoxin and the whole mission went south. He has been secretly working for Aegis while he was suppose to be on leave. He was part of the team who rescued Eve’s little sister, Olivia, from her kidnappers. Landon knows that he shouldn’t take her phone calls and he shouldn’t answer her e-mails. He tries really hard to ignore them, but he can’t resist the siren call of this sweet little schoolteacher from Boise, Idaho.

The government agency tends to recruit orphans and men and women from abused backgrounds. They don’t want to send people with ties or with consciences into the field to do the dirty work that someone needs to do. Landon knows that DIA will not allow him to get too close to Olivia, and he wouldn’t want to subject her to his life and what he has done for the government. It would also put another bulls-eye on her back. Olivia was already kidnapped to make her sister, a former FBI operative, give up information. Being with Landon would only put her further in danger. But after a long, hard past with no one in his life, it can’t hurt to dream of what it would be like to have a woman like Olivia as his own who could give him a chance for family and a home with a little picket fence. As long as he keeps those dreams to himself.

His final mission for Aegis is over and he will be returning to the DIA in a week’s time. Needing to get his mind off of the one woman he can’t have, Landon picks up a woman in the hotel bar and takes her to his room. He needs to get his head in the game because even having a willing woman in his room isn’t enough to get his body interested. His brain and his body only want Olivia.

Landon isn’t the only one dreaming of a HEA. Olivia takes a leave from her job and empties her savings to hop a plane to Spain to surprise Landon, only to find him in his hotel room with a buxom redhead.

Landon wasn’t wrong when he thought there was something off with the redhead and if he wasn’t so focused on trying to forget Olivia, he would have caught it. She’s with a terrorist organization who wants information about that missing biotoxin, and they don’t have any qualms in using Olivia to get Landon to talk.

Landon and Olivia manage to escape their captors, but they are on the run and have to get in touch in Aegis before the terrorists can find them again. On the run, their emotions go through turmoil while Olivia learns more of the dark secrets of the man who rescued her not once, but twice, and Landon realizes that unless he cuts Olivia lose from his life once and for all, she will never be safe.

THOUGHTS:
I will add this series to my must follow list along with Maya Banks KGI series and the Elle Kennedy’s Killer Instincts. For the first time, though, I am conflicted about reading the first book. Olivia’s original kidnapping and Landon’s part in her rescue would all be there in the book, but I did not like Olivia’s sister Eve at all and have no interest in reading a whole story staring her. I do want to read more about the boss, Jake Ryder, and his lack of interest in his assistant, Marley Addison, at least until she wants to stay on an island wearing a bikini and suddenly Jake needed her back to work ASAP. Hopefully, they will be the next book.

Oh, my wounded hero. You had to feel for Landon. After a life of hard knocks and a dirty job where you try to kill people or they try to kill you, all he can focus on is his dreams of Olivia and what they could have had. When Olivia is dragged into the mess with the terrorists, she starts to realize that Landon isn’t the simple hero who she made him into, and you can almost hear his little heart breaking. Awww. Kudos to Olivia for (mostly) keeping it together and for thinking things through without simply reacting out of hurt or fear, except for that finding the half-naked redhead part which didn’t go so well.

I definitely enjoyed this story and these characters. There are two additional novellas which were part of the Wicked First and Sinful Seconds box sets and I will check those out if I can find the time.

Received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.