The Loving Daylights (B.L.I.S.S. #3) by Lynsay Sands

There is excitement and adventure with some romance for spice much like those old Flint movies, only with even more tongue-in-cheek humor. Although, with all the stumbling around, but still coming out smelling like roses, you might think of Get Smart. Either one, this is a delicious read for some light entertainment. - Goodreads

Description:

Published: December 30th, 2014

Shy Jane Spyrus loves gadgets. She can build anything B.L.I.S.S. needs in the international organization’s fight against crime-although its agents aren’t exactly lining up at her door.
Some of them think her inventions are a little too . . . well, innovative. Like her shrink-wrap prophylactic constraints, or her spray-on truth serum. 

Of course, you can’t use wacky inventions to fix all your problems; Jane knows that better than anyone. Her neighbor has been kidnapped, driving that point home.

She will have to team up with another human being-and Abel Andretti arrives just in time.

He will help Jane find her neighbor, stop a villain, and most of all he will show Jane to love the daylights out of something without batteries.

EXCERPT

TOUR SCHEDULE

Jane made a face at the very thought of the head of BLISS. Y was a hard as nails ex-agent who came across as all-knowing and all-seeing. She was the most intimidating woman Jane had encountered in her life. She supposed it was the woman’s lack of expression. It left you uncertain as to what she was thinking. It was also probably part of the reason it was so hard to gauge the woman’s age. Her face was remarkably unlined, yet she’d been at BLISS forever according to Jane’s Gran, another ex-agent and a contemporary of Y’s. All of Jane’s family was involved in the intelligence industry in one way or another, most of them in the daring area of spying. That wasn’t Jane’s area, however. She wasn’t the risk-taking type. She preferred dusty old books and tinkering with technology to the adrenaline pumping, life threatening, daring-do of being an actual spy. She liked to think that her job developing innovative new weapons and gizmos in the D & C department at BLISS was just as important though.

Picking up a tiny Phillip’s screwdriver, Jane made the last of the necessary adjustments to one of the prototypes of the BMML It only took her a couple of seconds, then she straightened, removed her glasses and stared down at her creation with a pleased sigh. To the unknowing eye the BMML - or BLISS Mini-Missile Launcher - looked like nothing more threatening than a neon pink vibrator. That was the idea, of course. That was its ‘cover.’

Grinning at that thought, she began to pack things away into her briefcase, then reached over to turn on the radio on the corner of her table. She kept it tuned to an 80's hits station and Whip It by Devo immediately filled the room. The opening beats made her pause and bob her head. There was just something about that song. Jane didn’t particularly care for it overly much, but darned if every time it played, she didn’t find herself stopping what she was doing, cranking up the volume, and moving to the beat. As she did now. With the vibrator-like BMML still in hand, Jane began be-bopping around her workroom. When the chorus started, the only part of the words she knew, she began singing into the BMML as she jerked about to the techno-pop sound.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Jane froze, the neon pink BMML -which bore that uncanny resemblance to a vibrator- still raised to her open mouth...and wished the floor would split open and swallow her whole. It would have to be none other than Dick Hedde, standing in the door to her workroom with a smirk so wide that Jane’s own face ached in sympathy. She would never, ever hear the end of this one.

********

Trying to pretend her face had not just gone as red as a tomato, Jane lowered her would-be microphone, turned off the radio with feigned calm and faced the one person in D & C that she absolutely loathed. “Not at all, I was just t-testing my latest invention.”

It was possibly the stupidest thing Jane had said in her life, and one Dick did not have the grace to let pass. “Truly Jane, I’ve always known you were socially backward, but if you don’t even know the proper way to ‘test’ that thing, you are more hopeless than I thought.”

She hadn’t considered it possible, but Jane actually flushed a deeper crimson at those sarcastic words. Mouth tightening, she put the BMML into her briefcase along with one she’d adjusted earlier. “Is there something you wanted, Dick?”

“Just to remind you that the D & C meeting is in-” He checked his wrist watch. “Five minutes. We wouldn’t want you to be late. Again.”

Jane’s teeth ground together in irritation, but she merely closed her briefcase, picked it up and crossed the room, walking with all the dignity she could muster. “I was just heading that way.”

“Sure you were. After you finished testing your invention, right?” He taunted as she grabbed her jacket off the hook by the door and stepped into the hall. Following her out of the room, Dick pulled the door closed behind them. “By the way, Jane. I hate to burst another bubble, but your little prototype there was invented by someone else years ago. It even has a name. I believe they call it a vibrator.”

“Ha ha.” Jane picked up a little speed in an effort to outstrip the little jerk and avoid any more of his crap. “Thank you for that news break.”

“Anytime,” he assured her and though she couldn’t see his face and refused to turn and look, Jane could tell that he was enjoying this immensely. Dick seemed to enjoy nothing better than humiliating Jane. “Always happy to be of help.”

Muttering some unpleasant descriptive words under her breath, Jane continued along the hall to the conference room. She was most relieved to find the room almost full. It meant Dick would shut up. Temporarily at least.

“Jane!” Lizzy was seated halfway up the left side of the table. Jane moved in her direction at once. Other than Dick, Lizzy was the only member of the D & C department who was near her age. All the rest of the members were older and had been recruited when BLISS was first put into operation. A job in D&C at BLISS was a lifetime job. Anyone who took a job there had it explained quite plainly before they signed on. You did not join D & C at BLISS, then quit taking all their secrets away with you in your head. Jane didn’t know what would happen if anyone tried such a thing, but suspected it wouldn’t be good. As far as she knew, no one had been foolish enough to try or really wanted to. It was a great place to work, with unlimited funds and almost unlimited freedom

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About the author:

LYNSAY SANDS is the nationally bestselling author of the Argeneau/Rogue Hunter vampire series, as well as numerous historicals and anthologies. She’s been writing stories since grade school and considers herself incredibly lucky to be able to make a career out of it. Her hope is that readers can get away from their everyday stress through her stories, and if there’s occasional uncontrollable fits of laughter, that’s just a big bonus. Please visit her on the web at www.lynsaysands.net.

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