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WHAT THE REVIEWERS ARE SAYING

4.5 BLUE RIBBONS! Caitlyn Willows has kept me thoroughly entertained and engrossed in each of the books in her TEAMWORK series and A REAL MAN is no exception. While you don’t need to read the other books in this series to enjoy this one, I do recommend it, they’re all hot, exciting, and full of enough suspense to satisfy any desire you may have for a little something different. I loved getting the chance to delve more into the relationship between Allie and Matt, but I have to admit, I adore Simon Petrocelli and after reading about his reasons for going after Sumner, I desperately wanted him to have his happily-ever-after. ~Chrissy Dionne, Romance Junkies

FIVE STARS! I have enjoyed each book of this thrilling spy series more than the last and A Real Man is no exception. This one involves ménage sex, two men with one woman, as well as the public sex and voyeurism that are the stock and trade of the series. All that sex is really, really hot, too. This book left me primed and ready to try out a few of the imaginative positions. Even the scenes I wasn’t interested in experiencing caused me to break out in a sweat. I fell in love with Matt and Allie long ago and I feel closer to them with every book. In A Real Man, Matt is forced to face his true feelings and he really struggles to overcome his insecurity. If he can’t conquer his jealousy over the things Allie is forced to do to keep them alive with their covers intact and the investigation on-track, is there any hope for the future he wants with her so desperately? With the suspense and sexual tension building from page one, you won’t be able to put this one down. I can’t wait for the next one! ~Karen Haas, Just Erotic Romance Reviews

FIVE HEARTS! A REAL MAN is the fourth book in the Teamwork series by Caitlyn Willows. Being longer than the other books in the series, this one gives readers more time with Matt and Allie and having Simon in the mix shows that the feelings Matt and Allie have for each other are beyond just sexual. This reviewer loved seeing Matt’s jealousy rise to the surface when he had to endure watching Simon with Allie. Not to mention the way Allie’s normally uninhibited sexual nature is nowhere near its normal limits when Matt is not involved. Matt and Allie are a wonderful couple and the Teamwork series has showcased them nicely. ~Mandie, Love Romances and More

FIVE LIPS! Caitlyn Willows gives us yet another spectacular rendition into the lives of Allie and Matt. Great job once again... Rest assured I plan on finishing the series. It would be unconscionable on my part not to! ~Joni, Two Lips Reviews

RRTE Rating: Multiple O’s. Sex, intrigue, danger, and more sex are what's in store for readers when they open up A REAL MAN. ~Sinclair Reid, Romance Reviews Today

FOUR ANGELS! The adrenaline is pumping, stakes are higher, and desire for each other is still soaring within Allie and Matt. Readers will find this story has intense, erotic moments and elements of danger with an unexpected twist or two. As the plot thickens, readers will have fingers crossed that they get their man and find the opportunity to bring their personal mission to a successful conclusion too. Caitlyn Willows has done a good job of adding to the development of Allie and Matt’s undercover work and hot passion. ~Shayley, Fallen Angel Reviews

EXCERPT

Matt Oliver stared at the white ceiling as if he could find the answers he sought etched there. The silence in the hospital was a mixed blessing, giving him both peace and quiet while it also put him on alert for anything out of the ordinary. In his line of work, it paid to be prepared. Too bad he’d let himself lose sight of that fact. It wouldn’t happen again…he hoped.

He’d never been one to let things slide, to let a feeling of complacency settle over him. But that’s what had to have happened tonight. Why else would he be lying in a hospital bed with three stitches closing up a bullet graze?

Matt tried to piece the events together. Not too much made sense. Yes, he’d admit he was emotionally involved with his fellow agent. But those emotions hadn’t been at the forefront of his thoughts before the shooting. He’d been biding his time in the men’s room of Cachet, letting Simon Petrocelli think he was truly debating the man’s offer of protection from Brian Sumner. He’d thought for sure he had the man in the palm of his hand. He’d swung open the door, ready to return to the table and give Petrocelli his answer.

It’d been hard not to smile with the victory, Matt recalled. This was a step the FBI had been striving to achieve for years. They finally had an in. Confident in success, he’d seen the gunman on the other side of the door too late and had barely missed a bullet in the chest. The shot had cut across the top of his shoulder, barely slowed by his suit jacket. The shooter had sped away through the service entrance.

Matt wondered if being too cocky is what had screwed him. Cachet was an upscale restaurant, but he knew that didn’t preclude murder attempts. Hadn’t he even thought to himself that the décor would hide blood well? That should have been his first clue to be extra diligent. His gut had been trying to warn him and he hadn’t listened. Thankfully his survivor instincts took over in time to keep him from getting killed.

But it was raw emotion that swamped him as he lay sprawled against the wall in the hallway outside the restroom, bleeding like a stuck pig. His new suit, bought hours before, was wet with blood, though the dark material hid the red stain well. A chunk gouged from the shoulder pad showed how close he’d come to death. Sulfuric scent of gunpowder merged with the rusty stench of blood. He’d broken out in a sweat. Thought processes ground to a halt. All he could think about was Allie Quinn. Was she safe or a target as well?

Relief had poured through him when she darted into the hall, Petrocelli on her heels. She’d skidded to the floor next to him. Matt never wanted her to leave, was actually afraid to have her do so. He didn’t think about the mission. He didn’t think about the years he’d already invested working undercover to get this far. He didn’t encourage Allie to take the opening and leave with Petrocelli, despite the fact doing so had been their goal. Only one thought was prevalent—don’t leave me. She didn’t.

At least they’d suffered the explosion from their supervisors together. Thanks to Allie, they were also back on track. Using what he presumed was Simon Petrocelli’s attraction to her—which bothered Matt a lot—she’d called and asked for his protection for the two of them. Petrocelli would be sending someone to pick them up mid-morning. Matt was far from elated over the prospect.

He glanced down at the woman curled under his uninjured right arm. Allie’s left hand rested on the plane of his chest. Every once in a while he could feel her eyelashes against his skin when she blinked. Her long, golden brown hair spread over them both like a silk sheet. One leg draped over his tied them further together. Matt had monitored her breathing, thinking she’d fall asleep. She hadn’t. She just lay in his arms, most probably letting her mind puzzle through things as his did.

Allie hadn’t said a word since their bosses left two hours before; neither had Matt. Both Bob James and Herb Walker had spent the hour before that railing at Matt and Allie’s incompetence—hers mostly. They blamed her for not leaving with Petrocelli when the man offered. Then Bob had had the nerve to out their feelings, sneering the word “love” like they were in grade school. It wasn’t something they’d even mentioned to each other. Matt resented Bob doing so, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot he could do about it. Bob and Herb were right—he and Allie had screwed up. Right now Matt wouldn’t have changed a single thing they’d done…except for the whole getting shot aspect.

However…

Matt frowned at the ceiling. He brushed his thumb over the curve of Allie’s shoulder. It helped him think, comforted him, too. Hell, for all he knew it was a subconscious act his body threw out to alert her to something he couldn’t quite put into words. Something wasn’t right.

He’d sensed it earlier in the day when they’d arrived in Las Vegas. Two limos met them—Simon Petrocelli’s and Brian Sumner’s, his initial target in this investigation. Matt had expected the move from both men. What he hadn’t expected was the Sumner driver’s in-your-face tactics. It was out of character for a duplicitous man like Sumner. That left Matt wondering if the second limo had come from Petrocelli, making it look like Sumner was trying to threaten Matt and Allie and use that as leverage to bring them under his wing. Worse yet, had the limo come from his own people in an attempt to help ingratiate Matt and Allie into Petrocelli’s good graces?

Then the shooting… A hired killer would have used a silencer. A hired killer would have shot until the target was dead. There’d been that instant in time when Matt was down and the masked assassin hovered over him—black pin-striped suit, black leather gloves in the August  heat, black ski mask. He had a clear shot, despite the fact the first blast alerted everyone he was there. Matt should be dead right now. But the man took off. Never tried to shoot a second time. People like Brian Sumner didn’t give warnings. If he sent a man to kill, the man killed.

Suspicion swung again to Matt and Allie’s people. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d tried to manipulate events to their liking. After all, wasn’t that how Matt and Allie had been thrown together in the first place? They’d even had them followed during their brief downtime in Hawaii. The fact he was still in the hospital instead of on his way seemed to support his conclusion. He’d needed a couple of stitches. An overnight stay wasn’t necessary. Yet here he was. Bob and Herb had been here waiting for him when he arrived. A private room…also unheard of. Their own people had compromised them. They couldn’t have been more apparent if they’d passed out fliers on the Strip.

Matt shifted his gaze around the small room. It was bugged. No doubt there. Which was probably why Allie hadn’t said a word since their bosses had left. She knew it, too. It was time to wrest control back into their hands.

He spread his fingers over Allie’s shoulder and squeezed it toward him. Her chin lifted with her questioning gaze. He mouthed the words, “Let’s go.” Without an acknowledgement of any kind, she slipped from the bed and retrieved the rest of his clothing from small table where it’d been placed earlier. Matt still wore his trousers and socks. Though ruined and blood-stained, the white shirt was better than nothing. Even in the sweltering Vegas heat, he could wear the dark jacket and hide most of it. Chances of anyone noticing at four in morning were small, especially since they’d be calling a cab from the hospital. The tricky part was going to be leaving the hospital without someone challenging them.

Matt sucked in a sharp breath when he tried to slip his arm into the sleeve. Looked like he wasn’t as good to go as he’d hoped.

“Yes, baby, it does feel good, doesn’t it?” Allie’s sultry words covered them for any electronic eavesdroppers. Her brown eyes told her real concern.

Grabbing the dress shirt, she helped him ease it on, then followed up with a simple kiss and her hot hand splayed across his chest. He wondered if her heart was pounding as hard as his.

“You’re sweating.” She brushed her hand across his forehead. “Are you sure you’re up to this? What if someone catches us?” Anyone listening would still be thinking sex. Damn, she was good. Beat as he was, Matt still felt his cock stirring.

“We’ll just have to be extra quiet.” He hoped he’d managed to sound as sexy as she did. He squeezed his fingers around hers.

A simultaneous nod got them moving again.

Matt braced himself on her shoulder as he shoved his feet into his shoes. She pulled the suit jacket over first one arm and then the other. He patted the pockets, while she ran a comb through his hair, then did the same for hers. Everything for his alter ego of Matteo Lombardi was still there—identification and cell phone.

He passed a gaze down Allie. The blue silk dress was a little crumpled—cuddling two hours in a bed did that to silk—but she still looked drop-dead gorgeous. She hooked her high heels over her fingers and swung open the door. Matt’s rubber soles muffled his steps. Across the threshold, they swiveled their heads toward the stairwell exit and then toward the elevator beyond the nurse’s station. Either way they risked discovery, but on the stairs they wouldn’t be challenged.

They moved in that direction. Their instincts were honed and locked onto each other. This was what he’d liked about Allie from that first moment they met. They played off each other to perfection, instinctively knowing how to act, what to say and do. He never realized a partner would fit him so well, that a woman would meld into his life so sweetly. Matt couldn’t get enough of her. She’d said it best—he couldn’t breathe without her, couldn’t think without her by his side, couldn’t imagine one minute of his life without her in it. She made him hard with a look, a glance, a sigh. One touch of her hand, her lips, her body pressed to his sent fire scorching through his blood. And the last thing—the very last thing—he wanted was to watch another man’s hands on her.

But there was that nasty little business of completing the mission. He’d spent two years undercover investigating Brian Sumner. That had led him to the presumably bigger fish, Simon Petrocelli. They were caught between a rock and a hard place. A very hard place. A place that got harder with every…

Allie eased open the exit door with one hand, while she tugged on her heels with the other. No other sound reached them.

“There’s a fast food place next door,” she said as they trotted down the stairs.

Each jolt reminded him of his injury. The local they’d given him had worn off some time ago.

“I saw it from the window,” she went on. “There’s a pay phone. I’ll call the cab from there. I don’t want to risk using the cells yet. You know they’re monitoring us.”

“At this point I wouldn’t put it past them to have a sniper on a nearby roof waiting to pick us off.”

“No, they need us now that Petrocelli’s taking us in.”

Matt grunted. “What did he say when you offered yourself to him in exchange for our safety?”

Allie kept her gaze focused on the steps. “He said it was an intriguing trade. He made his intentions fairly clear at dinner tonight.”

Job or not, the fact Petrocelli had put the moves on his woman—yeah, his woman—while Matt was in the men’s room pissed him off.

“He’ll expect to sleep with me,” she said.

“I know. And I know we have a job to do. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. In fact, just the thought of him looking at you, much less touching you makes me want to…” He clenched his teeth along with his fist.

Allie glanced his way.

Somehow Matt managed a smirk. “Yeah, who knew. Guess I’m a real man after all.”

She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to a stop. “I never doubted that for a minute.”

Matt cupped her head, stabbing his fingers deep into her thick hair. She rose on tiptoe, lips parted for his kiss.

“God, I want to shove you up against the wall and fuck you hard, just like that first time,” he said on a groan.

Allie swooped her hands around his torso and spanned them against his back. “If you can fuck me like that with a hurt shoulder, you’d be beyond a real man.”

He kissed her then, hard, deep, twisting his tongue with hers until neither of them could catch their breath. He needed this…her. Needed to feel, to celebrate that he was still alive. The animal male in him broke through the surface of reality, demanding he take, he claim her. He wanted his scent soaked into her pores so no other man would dare touch her.

He yanked his head up on a gasp, clutching hers to his chest. “I swear to God, if we get out of this alive—”

“No.” Allie snapped upright and pressed her fingertips to his mouth. “Don’t say it. We both know it’s there. We have to get this done first. Whatever it takes.”

He slipped her hand away. “Whatever it takes.” Matt still didn’t like it one bit. But he also knew they’d never forgive themselves if they let love get in the way of their mission. If they did, at some point down the line it would haunt them and destroy that love.

Anything to stay alive. Anything to finish the job. It was the creed they both had lived by, survived by. A real man would remember that. A special agent working undercover wouldn’t have forgotten it.

A noise from farther up the stairwell spurred them back into motion.