Friday, July 10, 2026

Intimate Choice by DC Stone #RomanticSuspense


An Exclusive Interview with My Author

Featuring United States Secret Service Agent Michael “Mike” Gonzalez

 

Mike: So…apparently I’m supposed to be interviewing my author today.

DC: You don’t sound thrilled. *narrows eyes*

Mike: Thrilled? *his eye brows pop up high* You made me relieve the worst day of my life before we were at the halfway point in the book.

DC: It’s called character development. It’ll put hair on your chest. Relax.

Mike: It’s called emotional vandalism.

DC: Readers love emotional depth. Trust me.

Mike: Readers also enjoy sleeping. You kept them up until two in the morning.

DC: That’s the best kind of book. I’ve been in their shoes a time or two. Or ten. *tilts head*

Mike: *huffs* Let’s discuss my love life.

DC: *rubs hands together* Oh goody. Let’s go.

Mike: I lost my first love in a tragic car accident.

DC: Yes.

Mike: Then shortly after that, I have sex for the first time. But that became a whole ordeal the entire school just had to hear about.

DC: *winces*

Mike: And years later, who do you decide I should fall for?

DC: Her sister?

Mike: *waves a finger* Not just her sister. But the same sister who made high school feel like a contact sport.

DC: She grew up. ßsaid weakly and with hope, and unfortunately in the form of a question.

Mike: She had to. Otherwise we’d still be arguing by Chapter Thirty.

DC: Okay, be honest, you admired her determination.

Mike: I admired absolutely nothing.

DC: You admired her courage then.

Mike: *shakes head*

DC: Her intelligence?

Mike: Nope.

DC: The way she refused to quit?

Mike: …

DC: You paused.

Mike: I’m sorry; I was calculating escape routes.  Which, speaking of…why was she constantly trying to get herself killed. What is wrong with you?

DC: She wasn’t trying to.

Mike: Every time I turned around she was walking toward danger like it was offering free coffee.

DC: Did someone say coffee?

Mike: Stick with me here. Why do you hate me?

DC: She was following the evidence.

Mike: That’s your excuse? Okay, let’s count the number of times I had to save her.

DC: I stopped counting.

Mike: Exactly! Do you know how exhausting that is?

DC: You handled it well.

Mike: Occupational hazard.

DC: Did you ever think that she might just save you instead?

Mike: …

DC: Emotionally.

Mike: That’s a cheap interview tactic. Okay, final question

DC: Go ahead.

Mike: Why do you torture your characters?

DC: Because readers don’t remember easy stories. They remember ones where people are broken, challenged, and choose to love anyway.

Mike: That’s…actually a decent answer.

DC: Thank you.

Mike: Don’t get used to it.

DC: My turn. Rapid fire.

Coffee or sleep?

Mike: Coffee

DC: Politics?

Mike: No comment.

DC: Favorite weapon?

Mike: That’s classified.

DC: Biggest regret?

Mike: Not ducking sooner.

DC: Who is the most stubborn person in the book?

Mike: My author.
DC: The second most stubborn?

Mike: The secret service agent.

DC: Did you fall in love despite your better judgement?

Mike: I’m invoking my right to remain silent.

DC: Would you do it all again?

Mike: …

For her?

Yeah.

Don’t tell the author I said that. She’ll make the sequel worse. 

 

 


Intimate Choice
Empire Blue 
Book 7
DC Stone

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Date of Publication: 07/10/26
ISBN: 978-0-3695-1480-6
ASIN: B0GX2VK1HW
Number of pages: 306
Word Count: 87,000
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Tagline: Real world, Real Men, Real Crimes

Book Description: 

Ava Larsen has spent her adult life trying to outrun the shadow of the girl she used to be: a bully whose mistake cost her sister’s life, and one who pushed away a boy they both loved. But her redemption is cut short when her latest investigation into a high-profile money laundering ring turns deadly.

After surviving a brutal kidnapping, Ava’s only hope for survival is Michael Gonzalez, a Secret Service Agent fueled by a decade of bitterness. Mike doesn’t believe Ava has changed, and he certainly hasn’t forgiven her for the accident that killed his first love. But with a corrupt government official determined to silence her, Mike is ordered to protect her at all costs.

From the streets of New York to the corridors of power in Washintong D.C., the two are hunted by an enemy that will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried. As the investigation reaches a breaking point, Mike and Ava must navigate a minefield of political betrayal and personal trauma. In a race against time, they’ll have to trust each other to survive—or let the sins of their past bury them both.

Excerpt:

“Get to the point. What’s up?”

She sighed. “I don’t even know where to start.” The watch on her wrist buzzed with a notification. She checked it, and her mouth tightened into a thin line. “This case looks to be seriously fucked up. Not a whole lot to tell you right now other than there were several, and I mean we’re talking numbers in the teens, bodies found in this old house. Owner is this guy everyone said was super quiet, always kept his yard clean, etcetera, etcetera. From what the neighbors are saying, no one would have thought any of the horrors we’ve found were happening in this house. Talking victims, all women, completely cut up. Sometimes methodically so. As if he had all the time in the world to do the perfect job.”

Mike grimaced. “This is why I do protection and white-collar fraud. I could never sit through those forensic shows you and Dwayne used to watch.”

Charlie threw him a saucy smile, then went serious again. “Early this morning, a woman actually got out of the house. Naked as the day she was born. Ran a few houses down and collapsed on the porch but not before she rang the doorbell.”

The mental image she painted had him wincing. “Jesus. Is she okay?”

Charlie took a deep breath and let it out super slow as if she was preparing for something. He braced, suddenly feeling a sense of foreboding. Whatever she was about to say was going to mess him up entirely. That’s why she’d been taking for-fucking-ever to get to the point. It’s why she was here in person instead of calling him on the phone. It’s why Dwayne had sent her. She’d always had ways of calming Mike down, even under the tensest of situations.

Except for that one time. He shook his head, refusing to think about that now. It’d been years since he’d seen her.

“Who was the woman?” he asked, his voice rough. But he knew. The answer was written all over Charlie’s face, from the grimace to the pity stamped across her faery features.

“The woman was Ava.”

Her name spoken was like someone socked him in the gut. He let out a rush of air, expelling oxygen immediately, as if it needed a place to escape. Kind of like his body was fighting to do, too. It was amazing how one’s body reacted to news or the presence of someone who’d made part of their life hell. That whole fight-or-flight response was true, and as he thought of the Ava of his childhood, and both the sister and the murderer of the first woman he loved, his body was warring with itself, trying to figure out which response it wanted to go with.

The urge to flee was so strong, he actually took a step back. Charlie’s knowing gaze sharpened on him, and she sighed, the sound coming out with a lot of pity he didn’t need. It only served to piss him off.

“Look, maybe we can find someone else,” Charlie said, shaking her head, then did a double take at something over his shoulder and tossed a glare at the women still admiring them from afar. “Those fucking women…”

It was at that moment his mother decided to make an appearance and came storming out of the house having found her shoes. His normally very demure mom looked spitting mad, her red face a mask of irritation and anger.

“Shit,” he said.

Charlie chuckled low, following the path his Ma took to the garden hose, who then bent and turned the water on.

“Shit,” he said again, ignoring Charlie’s outright laughter now. He started toward Ma, intent on intercepting her before she could open the hose up on the neighbors. He knew her plan almost as if she’d put an announcement in the paper. “You could help, you know,” he said to Charlie.

She crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head. “Not a chance. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in ages. Come on, don’t be a spoilsport. Let Karen teach those hens a lesson.”

He picked up his pace to a jog as his Ma started across the lawn, her intent now screamingly clear. That the ladies hadn’t moved and were still watching on with faces of various bemusement was baffling. “Ma,” he called. “Come on now, don’t.”

“Michael James,” she said, and he winced. “Go put a shirt on. I’m about to teach the girls some manners.”

Standing behind her in the doorway was his father in a similar pose as Charlie had been, crossed arms and a smile stamped across his face.

“Pops, come on,” he called. “Don’t just stand there.”

Daniel Gonzalez shook his head, his chest moving with a chuckle Mike couldn’t hear. “I’m not getting in the middle of this. Anyone want some popcorn?”

He reached his mother just as she lifted the hose and pointed, then squeezed the handle, causing a spray of what had to be icy cold water shoot out and over the women sitting along the edge of the lawn. Shrieks and screams lit up the neighborhood before he could grab the nozzle and push it down. The smile on his mother’s face was the loudest of them all.

“That should teach them,” she said, and he sighed.

Approximately thirty minutes later, Mike took a deep breath, calling on patience and strength, the confidence he’d grown as he went through weeks of training at FLETC and the Secret Service Training Academy. His hands were sweating like they normally did when he did any kind of public speaking, something he’d been struggling for years to overcome. If he’d been in the gym he normally went to, he’d be able to put some chalk on his hands to soak up the moisture, but as it was, all he could do was rub them on his light-wash 501s.

After his mother had doused the neighborhood watch ladies with water earlier, he’d gone inside to change and had put on jeans and a pale baby-blue button-down. He was by no means wanting to impress the woman on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t escape the feeling driving inside of him. The one that told him he wasn’t a young teen able to be pushed around anymore. That he couldn’t care less what she thought of him.

But all of that was a lie, and he knew it. He just refused to admit it.

Ava Larsen had an impact on his life and who he’d grown to become.

He was here at the hospital at his brother’s request to consult on a case, apparently. There was nothing saying he had to spend any length of time with her at all. He’d listen to what his brother had to say, would hear her version of events, then he’d make a recommendation for what they should do next. That was it.

With another deep, calling-on-calm breath, he pushed and held the door open for Charlie, keeping his eyes downcast as she entered. He blew out a breath through pursed lips, then stepped inside and lifted his gaze to meet the sky-blue ones of his childhood bully.

 

 

About the Author: 

D.C. “Desi” Stone is a best-selling romance author and full-time fraud investigator. She lives in the northeast with her incredibly supporting husband, two kids, a cat, and the ever-growing family of dogs.

After serving eight years of service with the United States Air Force, she went on to transition into the world of financial crimes and became a lead investigator for many years.

Reading has always been a passion of hers, getting lost in a good, steamy romance is one of her favorite past times. She soon after discovered her own love for writing and recreating stories and characters in her head. Her writing concentrates on romantic with specifics in paranormal, suspense, and erotica.

Now, when she isn’t trying to solve a new puzzle in the world of fraud, she is engulfed with coffee, her laptop, and all those crazy characters in her head. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, Hudson Valley Romance Writers, New Jersey Romance Writers, RomVets, RWA Kiss of Death, and the Liberty State Fiction Writers. She served as the 2014 NJRW Vice President and Conference Chair. Come stop by on Facebook, Twitter, or her website and say hello!








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