RELEASE TOUR – WORTH THE RISK by C F White
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤.
Length: 387 pages Series: Worth It Book 3 Prior Reading: Recommended but not essential Genre: Contemporary, gritty, romantic suspense Tropes: Slow burn to intense heat, Demisexual awakening, Survivor/Protector, Heavy hurt/comfort, Undercover police officer and high stakes gambit, Forbidden attraction, Found family, Interracial romance, Forced proximity/only one bed Trigger/Content Warnings: past sexual abuse Designer: Kelly Martin
The past is never buried. Confronting it, though, that’s the biggest risk.
Jude Ellison thought he’d escaped him. A new town, a quiet job, two years of hard-earned peace. But when his abusive ex walks free on early release, Jude finds himself trapped all over again. Only this time, the bruises are invisible. Callum Reid never needed fists to destroy him. He only needed time. Warren Bailey is the new PE teacher at Worthbridge Secondary. Or so everyone thinks. In truth, he’s an undercover officer sent to dismantle a trafficking network tied to Jude’s ex. Warren’s job is to stay detached. To watch, listen, and wait. But the moment he meets Jude, detachment stops being an option. What starts as surveillance quickly spirals into something far more dangerous: a bond Warren never expected, and a desire he can’t ignore. As Callum tightens his hold, Warren must decide between the mission he’s sworn to uphold and the man he can’t let go. Because Jude isn’t the target. He’s the reason Warren is willing to risk everything. In Worthbridge, tensions are reaching breaking point. And some loves are worth breaking every rule for.Worth the Risk is the third book in the Worth It series—a gritty MM romantic suspense series set in a storm-battered coastal town. Featuring an undercover detective sergeant haunted by past mistakes and a teacher ensnared by his own history, their love story collides with a criminal case that threatens not just the community they serve, but the people they love.
Warren lingered. Then stepped fully into the room, filling it without meaning to. Too broad. Too confident. Too… much. At least for Jude right then.
He grinned, spreading his arms theatrically. “Looks like I’m your knight in shining armour.”
Jude inhaled too fast, caught off guard.
What would he give to have a real knight in shining armour swoop in and save him from the wreck of his life? But that was fantasy. Not reality. And Jude only dealt in facts and truths. Not fiction and hope.
Warren dropped his arms as if picking up on Jude’s hesitation. “I meant…the castle thing, right? The trip. It’s… a castle? Knights and kings and queens stuff.”
Jude cleared his throat. “Yeah. Castles. Very witty.”
Warren’s smile tipped sideways, a little less sure of itself now.
Jude couldn’t handle that look. So he staggered back into his chair, turned on the PC, and focused hard on the boot-up screen.
Warren didn’t leave.
He drifted through the classroom, easy steps carrying him past display boards and laminated posters, leftover remnants of better teaching days. Student essays pinned at odd angles. World War propaganda. Timeline maps. Jude’s carefully chosen quotes tacked across the walls. And Jude watched him from behind the safety of his screen, the glow of the monitor reflecting in his glasses.
Warren bent to read something, close enough to squint at a caption, and nodded as if it meant something to him. Smiled to himself. And Jude’s gaze dipped. Helplessly. Warren was in running shorts. Those clingy, shiny things PE teachers seemed to think passed for professional attire. They hugged his thighs, revealing thick muscle and definition that was utterly unfair for a man who was technically working.
Jude blinked. Once. Twice.
Tried to focus on the keyboard in front of him.
Warren turned. Caught him mid-glance. And Jude dragged his gaze up to meet his face, but that wasn’t much safer. Because he was as handsome as he was broad. And by the look of his smirk, he’d seen where Jude had been looking.
Jude swallowed hard. Brilliant. Just brilliant. He hated himself.
Warren pointed to the quote above the whiteboard behind Jude’s head.
“‘History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it,’” he read aloud, then met Jude’s gaze. “Churchill, right?”
“Yeah. One of his… less problematic moments.”
Warren grinned. “Cocky bastard, though. You’ve got a type.”
Jude arched an eyebrow. “A type?”
Warren gestured around the classroom. “All these quotes. Makes me wonder if you go for men who like to rewrite the ending.”
There it was again. That pull. Subtle. Certain. Dangerous.
Jude looked away. Back to the screen. Pretended he was still typing.
He wasn’t.
His fingers had stilled, but his chest hadn’t. It was too tight, rising and falling too fast since Warren had walked in. Jude couldn’t deny his attraction. It had been there from the start. Probably the moment he first laid eyes on him across the school hall. Then again during that bit of banter at the back of staff training. And every moment since, it had grown. Quietly. Steadily. The pub quiz had cemented it. He’d even berated himself for not accepting that lift home. But caution had always been his shield. His safety net. It had kept him upright. Kept him safe. But he’d never been safe at all.
And this pull he felt towards Warren?
It wasn’t romantic.
It was reckless.
“You took History, then?” he asked, aiming for neutral.
Warren stepped closer. “Er, nah. Geography.”
Jude glanced up. And there he was. Right there. Close enough for Jude to catch the faint scent of him. Clean sweat, something citrus, maybe soap or shampoo. It slid into his senses like a memory he didn’t want to have.
“The geography field trip was to Durdle Door in Dorset.” Warren lifted one leg to casually perch on the edge of Jude’s desk. Half-seated, fully confident. “First time I saw the sea. Grew up in South London. Closest I’d come before that was the EastEnders theme tune.”
Jude let out a quiet breath of amusement.
“And the History lot got stuck with some boring old castle.”
Jude arched an eyebrow.
Warren chuckled. “Which I now fully support, obviously. Love a good drawbridge. Big fan of moat-based learning.”
Jude shook his head, laughter low and unexpected in his throat.
The silence following wasn’t uncomfortable. But it was… charged. Jude kept typing, letting the screen shield him, feeling Warren’s presence wrapping around him like a weighted blanket. Warm. Solid. Unapologetically there.
It was oddly comforting.
On another day, in another life, Jude might have leaned into that. Might’ve tested the air between them. Maybe even found a way to ask, casually, if Warren was sitting there because he wanted to be… or playing polite. If the offer of the lift home on Friday had been because he, too, felt something brewing between them bigger than the classroom walls or if he was simply a decent human being, them having been in short supply of late.
But now Callum was back, and those feelers had to remain firmly retracted.
CF White writes gritty British based stories about imperfect men falling in love against the odds and has been accused of sprinkling a bit of humour into them from time to time too. Because what’s life without sprinkles?
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