Lexxie Couper's Blog, page 19
October 26, 2012
Jess Dee’s The One That Got Away
It’s new release day over at Musa Publishing, which means Jess’s short, erotic story from their Finally Ever After line is now officially available.
The One That Got Away: The Blurb
Sometimes its impossible to know whether he was the one who got away or the one you’re definitely better off without…until he comes back into your life.
Lily Kember never dreamed a causal introduction to a friend’s friend would change her life, but three days after meeting Kai Jettison, she’s fallen deeply and irrevocably in love.
Kai falls just as hard, yet minutes after telling her as much he has no choice but to rip her heart to shreds, leaving whatever has blossomed between them lying in tatters on the ground.
It’s been five months since that fateful day. Five months of no contact. Now Kai is attending the same end of year bash as Lily, and bumping into him seems unavoidable. Lily’s choices are limited: either steel her emotions against Kai or risk losing her heart to him all over again.
The One That Got Away: An Excerpt
It seemed like eons passed before she floated back to earth. Eons before she registered her surroundings again, registered the sated, replete thrumming in her body. Eons before a satisfied smile curved her lips and she happily accepted Kai’s weight as he settled above her, his muscled chest resting against her breasts, his hard cock nestled on her thigh and his hot mouth seeking hers.
His kiss was as wicked as his lovemaking had been. He tasted of him and of her and of carnal sex. She couldn’t get enough.
“Christ, Lil.” Her name emerged as a soft groan. “What have you done to me?”
“Exactly what you’ve done to me, I hope.”
He shook his head. “You…move me,” he breathed. “Shake my world in ways I never knew possible. Never expected.” And then he spoke no more as he took her lips in another stunning kiss.
His cock strained and thumped against her thigh, and she wound her legs around his waist, wanting him inside as much as he seemed to want to get inside her. She rocked against him, inviting him in.
He released her mouth with a growl.
“Make love to me, Kai. Shake my world.”
The brown of his eyes was almost invisible around his huge pupils as he stared down at her, his expression haunted. “Lily…”
He sounded tortured.
“Kai?”
“I…” His body shuddered violently. “Lily… Fuck!”
Instant apprehension hit her in the chest. “W-what’s wrong?”
“I— Shit, I don’t wanna say this.“ His face contorted in self-disgust. “But there’s something you need to know.”
—————————
You can get your copy of The One That Got Away for the bargain price of $0.99.
It’s available now at Musa Publishing and at Amazon.
The book will soon be available from Barnes and Noble, but if you can’t wait til then, you can buy it in .ePub format direct from Musa.
October 18, 2012
The First Five Pages – How to Love Your Dragon
Five for Friday time. Booyah!! Today, it’s How to Love Your Dragon. Trust me, when you meet Yorick “Rick” Hayes, you’ll never recover. Honest 
Chapter One
Sydney, Australia
Yorick “Rick” Hayes knew he was in trouble when the cop didn’t smile back. She was a very sexy cop, with a very sexy mouth, a very sexy throat, very sexy long blonde hair in a very sexy ponytail, and a very sexy body, all wrapped up in a very sexy, authoritarian cop’s uniform—complete with a not-so-sexy but very authoritarian gun on her very sexy hip.
If he weren’t three points away from losing his driver’s license altogether, he’d consider throwing caution to the wind and flirting his arse off. The trouble was, he was three points away from losing his license altogether—three points now hanging perilously in the balance, thanks to his rather childish desire to drive faster than the posted speed limit. And a veterinarian without a license was a veterinarian who couldn’t get to emergencies. Of which there were many, considering Rick was the only vet in North Shore Sydney who specialized in reptiles.
Who knew so many people in the snobby end of the city owned lizards? Not Rick. Not until he’d settled in Sydney and opened his own veterinary practice after finishing his degree. Then it was call-out after call-out after call-out. And so many were for reptiles, he’d seriously started to wonder if he was being pranked by his cousin—she of the Komodo dragon obsession. He wasn’t.
The snobby end of the city just seemed to have more pet lizards and snakes per head than the rest of Sydney, which, considering most pet lizards and snakes cost a small fortune to procure, made sense in a bizarrely financial way. Have ridiculous amounts of money, will spend it.
The snobby end of the city also had its fair share of pet dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets, parakeets and hamsters, so on the whole, Rick was kept busy doing what he loved most—caring for sick and injured animals.
Well, loved almost the most. Loving very fine ladies was what he really loved the most. Ladies like the very fine, very sexy lady cop waiting for him to produce his license.
He stared at her from his place behind the steering wheel of his dilapidated pickup, unable to ignore the delicate subtlety of her top lip and the wicked fullness of her bottom. It was a very kissable mouth. It went perfectly with all her other verys.
Maybe if he smiled again?
He did.
She didn’t.
“You do realize,” she said, her voice smooth and throaty and far too no-nonsense, “you were driving ten kilometers over the limit?” Her sunglasses reflected Rick’s face like a bowed mirror.
Refusing to admit defeat, he smiled one more time, putting all his not inconsiderable, roguish, cheeky charm into it. “And who would have thought this old thing,” he patted the side of his door with his palm, “had it in her?”
His far too no-nonsense, very sexy authoritarian police officer didn’t react. Or respond.
Damn. Maybe he was losing his touch?
“License.”
The one word command, spoken with a slight American accent, of all things, sent a ribbon of equal parts nervousness and excitement twisting through Rick’s belly. The reaction was odd, he had to admit. He got why he was aroused—the cop was sexy, as he’d already noted, her body lush and firm in all the right places, her legs long, her hips curved, her breasts full, and the accent just topped it off—but didn’t understand why his body seemed to be thrumming with what he could only describe as nervous energy. Getting a speeding ticket wasn’t the reason, either. He’d received enough of those to know how that felt. No, this was different. This was…
“License.”
He blinked, the cop’s growled order jerking him back from the weird introspective moment. When in the hell did he get introspective?
Mirrored sunglasses regarded him.
Rick frowned, suddenly feeling flustered. “Err…”
With an exasperated sigh, the cop bent at the waist, raised one hand and removed her sunglasses, staring him hard in the face.
Fuck, he wished she hadn’t.
Her eyes were green. The greenest green eyes he’d ever seen. Thick, honey-blonde lashes and a smidgen of dark brown eyeliner only made them appear greener. They were stunning and mesmerizing and his dick stood instantly at attention.
But not just his dick. It was like every single cell in his body zeroed in on every single cell in hers. The urge to open his door, bury his fingers in her hair, bury his face in the side of her neck and breathe, just breathe, was so overwhelming, he found his hand on the door handle before he could blink.
What the hell?
Jerking his hand back to the steering wheel, Rick stared at the cop, his breath caught in his throat, his cock ramrod straight, his heart smashing against his breastbone.
What in the hell was going on?
The cop looked at him, green eyes holding his stare with unwavering intensity. And then he noticed the slightest shift in her body, and his stomach rolled. She was reaching for her gun.
Oh crap.
“License!” he burst out, squirming in his seat in an attempt to snare his wallet from his back pocket. “Yes, license.”
The cop’s stare dropped to his lap, no doubt to make sure he wasn’t going to produce something nefarious, like his own weapon, and Rick had to bite back a groan. There wasn’t a hope in hell she would miss the wood he was sporting. Not with the way he was thrusting his hips upward in his so-far-utterly-futile attempt to retrieve his wallet. Bloody hell, since when was it so hard to pull a folded rectangle of leather from a pocket?
“Err…” The ridiculous sound vibrated in his throat, his focus fixed firmly on her face as he fought with his wallet. He writhed a bit to the left in an attempt to make more space between his arse and the car seat. Of course, that meant his bloody inconvenient erection whacked against the bottom of the steering wheel. He hissed in a sharp breath.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Her question didn’t help. Damn it, the sound of her voice was like some sort of aural Viagra. His dick got harder, his heart beat faster and that urge to crawl from his truck and…and…do things to her got way urgent. Wickedly horny things. Downright filthy things. Things like lick her cunt until she came on his face…things like bend her over the bonnet of his truck and bury himself up to the balls in her sodden sex…things like riding her back as she soared above the clouds in—
Rick blinked. Above the clouds? Ride her back? What the fuck?
He squirmed some more in his seat, flashing her an apologetic smile. “Just…let me…I can’t seem to get…”
Damn it, why was she still looking at his crotch? It wasn’t helping. Not one little bit.
“I think you’d better get out of your vehicle, sir.”
Rick froze. His heart smashed into his throat. Out of the vehicle? Fuck no. No no no.
“Err…I don’t think—”
The cop’s green stare slid back to his face, her expression unreadable. “Out of the vehicle, sir. Now.”
Oh no, this is not good. Not good.
“Err…”
Her fingers closed around the grip of her Glock. Her nostril flared. “Sir, I’m not asking.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck!
Rick stared at her through the window. He had two options. Do as she ordered and get out of his pickup, or ram his foot on the accelerator and drive.
If he went with option one, if he climbed out of his truck, thus removing the barrier of metal between them, he knew beyond any doubt he would throw himself at her and proceed to do all those things his suddenly psychotic libido was telling him to do. Right up to the point where she pulled her gun, jammed it against his temple and blew his suddenly psychotic brains out. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself. There was something so potent, so compelling, so bloody intoxicating about the female police officer. Even now, still strapped into his seat, his stare locked on her face, every fiber in his body screamed at him to take her, claim her, fuck her, mate with her…
Fuck a duck, he was in trouble.
“Sir?”
Just that single word question passed her lips, and if Rick didn’t know any better, he would have said it was strained. A plea for everything he wanted to do to her.
He knew better.
He planted his foot on the accelerator and took off.
As fast at his old pickup would go, which, given that he liked speed and had spent an inordinate amount of money on the engine, was ridiculously fast.
He floored it, shifting gears with the skill of a frantic fugitive desperate to escape capture. Which he was. But better that than shot trying to hump a cop on the side of the road.
What the hell was going on with him?
Shooting a look in his rearview mirror, he saw the female officer running back to her vehicle. His mouth turned dry. His cock throbbed, still as hard as ever. She was following him.
Of course she was following. What did he think she was going to do? Wave him off? Shrug and chalk him up as “the one that got away”?
Rick’s already rapid heart rate kicked up a notch. Damn it, what the hell did he think he was doing?
“Saving my arse,” he muttered, shifting back a gear before flinging around a corner and flooring it again, just as a siren began wailing behind him. “Hopefully by the time she catches me, this…this thing going on with me will have—”
His cellphone burst to life, the sound of the Beatles singing I Am the Walrus telling him it was his receptionist on the other end of the line.
He snatched the device from the passenger seat where he’d tossed it at the start of his journey, connecting to the call with a jab of his thumb before slamming the phone to his ear. “What’s up, Rose? I’m kinda in a situation here.”
“You’ve got an emergency call-out, Doc. A dog mishap. Pretty bad one by the sound of it. The owner’s close to being hysterical.”
The news was sobering. And had all the effect on his dick that a cold spoon smacked against its engorged head would.
Rick never thought he’d be so happy to lose an erection.
Repeating the address of the patient three times to cement it in his head, he told Rose to prep for surgery then disconnected the call. Gone was the feverish need to flee the cop. All that mattered now getting to the animal who needed him.
Fast.
Ten minutes later, the wail of the siren behind him an inescapable reminder of his pursuer, Rick screeched to a halt in the driveway of a rather massive McMansion.
And saw the emergency straight away.
Oh fuck.
A beagle was hanging facedown from the house’s short wrought-iron fence, its side impaled on one of the ornate spikes.
The second Rick opened the door, the poor animal’s yelps and whines filled his ears, its pain reaching into his heart. A tingle rippled through him, the kind he always experienced when confronted with an animal in torment or agony. It spoke to him on a level he never questioned, an instinctual understanding of the situation and what needed to be done. His heart slowed, his breaths grew deep and, as he alighted from his pickup, his head cleared.
All that existed was the dog and Rick.
Ignoring the elderly woman kneeling by the beagle’s hanging head, her sobs and pleas for help a distant whisper, Rick placed his hands on the dog’s chest. The animal’s tortured yelps quieted immediately. Its heartbeat vibrated through his palms, an erratic, weak beat that sank into Rick’s belly.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The voice yelling at him was from his cop. On a deep level, one he would need to examine later, his body responded to her just as it had when she’d removed her sunglasses. His groin stirred, his pulse quickened, his every nerve ending thrummed. But only for a moment, recognition of her, an awareness of her, before the reason for Rick’s existence—the care of wounded and sick animals—drew his full attention once again.
He lowered his head, drawing his eyes level with those of the impaled beagle. “It’s okay, mate.” He spoke in a low murmur, feeding the dog his calm through slow, gentle strokes of its chest. “I’m going to get you off this.”
He raised his hand to the beagle’s muzzle, smiling as the dog licked the back of his fingers, an acknowledgement of Rick’s presence. “That’s a good boy. I know, I know.”
Lifting his gaze to the woman kneeling beside him, he gave her a reassuring smile. “This is your dog, yes? You are Mrs. Beaumont?”
She nodded, tears wetting cheeks soft and wrinkled with age. “I don’t know what happened. I let him out to do his business and then he was yelping.” She paused, fresh tears chocking her voice. “I rushed out and found him like this.”
Rick touched her shoulder with a steady hand. “He’s going to be okay, Mrs. Beaumont. I promise. What’s his name?”
The old woman’s stare jerked to the hanging animal, her lips moving soundlessly for a second before the answer found its way from her throat. “Barney. His name is Barney.”
Rick stroked her shoulder, studying her face. “Barney will be fine, Mrs. Beaumont, but you have to do something for me, please. I need to move quickly.”
For a moment he was overwhelmed with the tangible scent of her grief. It wrapped around him and streamed through his nose and mouth, a testament to her love for her dog. It wasn’t the first time Rick had experienced such a sensation when dealing with a distressed animal owner. He’d come to expect it, even used it to help soothe the person’s fear, but never had it hit him so hard. For a moment, all he could do was drown in the sour-ash odor—and then it was gone, nothing but the heavy scent of summer jasmine and the copper tinge of the Beagle’s blood flowing through his nose.
Buy the book from Ellora’s Cave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble?
Want more first five pages? Visit…
Mari Carr
Bianca D’Arc
Jambrea Jones
Rhian Cahill
Lila Dubois
October 17, 2012
A Tease from What I’m Working On Next…
October 14, 2012
Doing NaNo WriMo This Year? Here’s A Brilliant Character Questionaire.
Go HERE for even more character-building awesomeness
Section One: Protagonist Questions
1. Name:
2. Age:
3. Height:
4. Eye color:
5. Physical appearance:
6. Strange or unique physical appearance:
7. Hobbies/interests:
8. Where does he or she live? What is it like there?
9. Special skills/abilities:
10. Family (describe):
11. Description of his or her house:
12. Description of his or her bedroom:
13. Favorite bands/songs/type of music:
14. Favorite movies:
15. Favorite TV shows:
16. Favorite books:
17. Favorite foods:
18. Favorite sports/sports teams:
19. Political views:
20. Any interesting philosophies on life?
21. Religion:
22. Physical health:
23. Pet peeves:
Section Two: Supporting Character Questions
1. Relationship to the protagonist:
2. Favorite thing about the protagonist:
3. Similarities to protagonist:
4. Differences from protagonist:
Section Three: Antagonist Questions
1. Why is he or she facing off against the protagonist?
2. Any likeable traits?
3. Sure-fire ways to defeat your antagonist:
Section Four: Bonus Questions!
1. Favorite clothing style/outfit:
2. Special gestures/movements (i.e., curling his or her lip when he or she speaks, always
keeping his or her eyes on the ground, etc.):
3. Things about his or her appearance he or she would most like to change:
4. Speaking style (fast, talkative, monotone, etc.):
5. Fondest memory:
6. Insecurities:
7. Quirks:
8. Temperament (easygoing, easily angered, etc.):
9. Negative traits:
10. Things that upset him or her:
11. Things that embarrass him or her:
12. This character really cares about:
10. Things that make him or her happy:
11. Deepest, darkest secret:
12. Reason he or she kept this secret for so long:
13. Other people’s opinions of this character (What do people like about this character?
What do they dislike about this character?):
14. Dream vacation:
15. Any pets?
16. Best thing that has ever happened to this character:
17. Worst thing that has ever happened to this character:
18. Superstitions:
19. Three words to describe this character:
20. If a song played every time this character walked into the room, what song would it be?
October 12, 2012
It’s the Cover for Muscle for Hire!!!
…well, sorta.
Hee hee hee
Okay, so I can’t show you the cover yet. But I can share the official blurb.
Protecting her was never going to be easy.
After sixteen years as the personal bodyguard to the world’s biggest rock star, ex-SAS commando Aslin Rhodes excels in the role of intimidating protector, oozing threatening menace. Now that the singer has retired, Aslin takes a new assignment as a military consultant on a blockbuster film. But just as he’s getting comfortable in the world of Hollyweird, he faces an unexpectedly immovable object. An American martial arts expert no taller than his chin, who promptly puts him on his arse.
Rowan Hemsworth’s focus is two-fold—keep her famous brother grounded, and never again be a defenseless victim. She has her hands full as the fun police, keeping her brother’s money-sucking entourage at bay. But nothing prepared her for the British mountain of muscle who makes her knees go uncharacteristically weak.
When a string of accidents on set convinces Aslin that Rowan—not her brother—is the target, things get bloody tricky as he tries to convince the stubborn woman she needs his protection. And accept that she belongs with him. In his arms, in his bed…and in his heart.
Warning: The strong, silent type don’t come much more silent and strong than Aslin Rhodes. But when he does speak his British accent will drive you mad with desire. As will his menacing, dominating power. And what he can do to a woman on the back of a motorcycle.
Muscle for Hire will be releasing January 2013.
First Five Pages of Ty the Sexy Dragon
Five for Friday time. Yay! Today, it’s the first of the Fire Mates books, Ty the Sexy Dragon. Ready for some dragon-shifter shenanigans?
[image error]Chapter One
Sydney, Australia
Heartburn sucks. Even when you’re a dragon shifter.
Tyson Conley pressed the heel of his palm to his sternum and rubbed, knowing it would do sweet F.A. to relieve the pain. This is what he got for eating spicy meatball pizza. Every friggin’ time, he ended up in hell. At some stage of the game he was going to learn his lesson.
He could already feel the insidious heat radiating up through his throat from his chest, but whereas a human would pop a Tums or two and be done with it, he was now in for a bloody scorcher of a time. Thankfully he couldn’t blow fire in his human form, but that didn’t stop the inferno in his chest from making him wish he were dead. Or scalding the lining of his digestive tract.
Ty let out a growl, a thoroughly bestial sound that made the old duck sitting at the table next to his flinch. She stared at him, washed-out blue eyes wide behind her thick glasses.
He gave her an apologetic smile, fighting the urge to fidget in his chair. “Sorry.” He pushed the remains of his pizza away. He was done. If Ryan ever turned up, he could eat the rest of the damn thing. As far as Tyson was aware, spicy meatballs only made his younger brother more—
A million pinpricks of fire raced abruptly over Tyson’s flesh. Then another million. His breath caught, his mouth went dry and, despite feeling like he was about to spontaneously combust, he felt frozen.
What the hell!
The old duck beside him glared, thin mouth puckered with disapproving disdain. He must have made a noise. What it was, though, he didn’t have a bloody clue. Another growl? A groan?
Invisible fire swept over his skin again, hotter this time—so much hotter. And purposeful. Shooting over his skin like an inferno until his prick was so fucking hard, he wanted to cry out in pain. And pleasure. Oh God, did he want to cry out in pleasure.
Holy shit…
The mating fire.
Burning up, Tyson twisted in his seat, frantically looking around the beachfront café. No one stared back. No one gazed at him with open hunger. No one stalked toward him with single-minded purpose or made coy goo-goo eyes from afar. The only one paying him any attention was the old duck with the sour-lemon face, and there was nothing hungry or sexual about the way she stared at him. She looked as if she were about to pull an Uzi from her handbag and save the world from a psychopath.
She leaned toward him, eyes narrowing behind her pink glasses. “Are you on drugs, son?” Her lips—painted the same pink as her coke-bottle glasses, Ty noted in a brief moment of surreal detachment—pursed tighter. “Are you tripping?”
Fresh fire scalded his flesh, so hot, so intense, he grit his teeth. His cock throbbed with such impatient insistency he feared he was going to erupt. He blinked at the old woman. Opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat wouldn’t work. His balls felt ready to burst.
Mating fire? How could he be experiencing the mating fire? Since when were there female dragon shifters in Syd—
A woman jogged toward the café, holding the leash of a massive animal that could be a dog but looked more like a hairy…thing…loping beside her. She moved at a leisurely pace, dark-red ponytail flipping behind her head like a dancing flame, slim body radiating energy, breath slipping from her in streams of delicate mist Tyson knew only he could see.
She ran past the café, dog-slash-thing keeping pace, and Tyson’s entire body went up in flames. Heat and lust and want. Need.
Urgent need. Hungry want. Dire lust.
His heart slammed into his throat. His mate. His Fire Mate. Fuck, he’d seen his Fire Mate. And she was—
He bolted to his feet, stare locked on the woman jogging through the crowded footpath. His table went skidding, bumping into the old duck’s. His pizza clattered to the floor, along with his untouched beer, his phone and the old duck’s glass of wine. Beer and wine splashed his ankles, dribbled inside his Reefs, but he didn’t care. He had to catch her. Had to—
“Sonny!” she hissed. “You’re making noises like a—”
Dragon.
The word reverberated through his head, drowning out whatever word the old duck had used just as the crowd swallowed up the jogging woman.
Dragon.
He was making noises like a dragon. A dragon in heat.
He was making noises like a dragon in heat because he was a dragon in heat. And Christ on a pony, his Fire Mate had just jogged by, oblivious to his existence, triggering the mating fire—and she was human.
Human! How the fuck could she be human? Surely he was wrong. True, he didn’t detect the distinct honeyed-sulfur scent all female dragon shifters exuded…but since when did dragon shifters mate with humans?
Since never, that’s when. They may fuck them every now and again, but mate with them?
No. It wasn’t possible.
Of course it isn’t. So tell that to your body.
His body, however, wasn’t listening to logic and millennia-old fact. His body was well and truly on its way to shifting—shifting for fuck’s sake!—and unless he did something soon, something drastic and/or crazy, the busy Bondi Beach esplanade was going to find itself plus one very horny, very large, very medieval mythological dragon.
He stumbled away from his table, trying to find the woman—his mate—in the flow of pedestrians filling the footpath that ran between the café and the beach. He had to get to her. What the hell he was going to say, he didn’t know, but he had to get to her and, if nothing else, kiss her. And hope to all things holy that simple contact would quell the shift.
“Sonny, did you know you have a very large erection?” his ever-informative elderly neighbor asked, hissing again, her voice somehow punching through his stunned disbelief.
Tyson blanched. He jerked his gaze back to her, down to his groin, to the bloody obvious hard-on tenting his cargoes, back to the woman. “Err…”
She smirked, and for an insane moment, she didn’t look old at all. Or duckish.
And then fresh fire razed Tyson’s flesh, licked at his balls, his groin, and he forgot about old ladies. Fresh fire accompanied by a bone-deep shudder, and he knew his Fire Mate had turned around. She was jogging back toward him.
Fast.
He bolted. Vaulting over chairs, tables and the café’s neat row of potted palms. There was a shocked shout from behind him, a few loud “what the hells”, a bray of stunned laughter—and then nothing.
Nothing but the thumping of his heart and the roaring of blood in his ears.
Bloody hell. He was about five minutes away from an uncontrolled and unwanted shift into dragon form, he was still fighting a mean case of heartburn and he was sporting an erection the size of a cricket bat. What a perfect first impression to make on the complete stranger he was going to kiss right here on the busy Bondi Beach foot—
He ran straight into her.
There was an “Oof,” a growl, a warm and firm body pressed to his…an explosion of heat over his flesh, through his body, into his soul.
Two wide, stunned blue eyes stared up at him—and then Tyson crushed her lips with his. He kissed her and invaded her mouth and let the demand pounding through his body be consumed by her sweet, destined blaze.
A stranger’s tongue was in Sera’s mouth. In her mouth.
Holy smack, a stranger’s tongue was in her mouth! Rolling and sliding over her tongue. He was kissing her. No, not just kissing her. He was fucking her mouth. Making goddamn love to her mouth with his tongue while something long and thick and wicked hard that was most likely an impressive erection poked at her belly, and what was she doing?
Now he was cupping her right breast in a strong, kneading caress, teasing her hard nipple—and what the hell was she doing?
Was she fighting him off? Was she pushing him away and kicking him in the balls? Was she letting Hannibal rip said kicked-in balls off?
No. She was standing there like a skanky ho, letting him. His tongue was practically playing with her tonsils and she wasn’t putting up a fight. Far from it. She was kissing him back. Her tongue was stroking his, her lips were parted and she was kissing him back big time. Holy smack, she was even moaning.
What the hell was wrong with her? It was like she had lost control of herself the second the guy smacked into her. Shit, even her hands had strayed to his chest—his broad, hard, smooth chest that seemed to burn under his light-cotton shirt with a heat that should have screamed fever! But instead it made her pulse quicken, her pussy throb and her tongue stroke his some more.
This had to be some random act of impulsive seduction. Like the guy in New York who gave out hugs, except this guy gave out mind-blowing, tonsil-stroking kisses. Had to be.
She had to stop him.
Except she didn’t have to. Someone else did.
****
Buy the eBook now from Ellora’s Cave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Want more first five pages? Visit…
Mari Carr
Bianca D’Arc
Jambrea Jones
Rhian Cahill
Lila Dubois
October 8, 2012
An Honest Trailer for…Prometheus.
Click here to view the embedded video.
(If you didn’t laugh at that, I don’t want to be your friend.)
(Okay, I will be your friend, but we’ll need to spend a lot of time searching YouTube for something for us both to laugh at)
October 5, 2012
The First Five Pages of Triple Dare
Five for Friday is here again. This time, let me introduce to you Rob Thorton and Joseph Hudson from Triple Dare, two very sexy Aussie adventurers.
Chapter One
Joseph Hudson tossed his snowboard aside, threw his goggles over his shoulder and swung a fist at his best mate.
His knuckles, covered as they were by tri-layer insulated gloves, weren’t anywhere near as hard as they would have been if he’d been having this fight back home in Australia. They were, however, still hard enough to produce a satisfying crunch when they hit Robert I-dare-you Thorton’s jaw.
“You right bloody wanker,” Joseph stormed, watching his life-long friend, business partner and travelling companion stagger backward over the firmly compacted snow. “You told me the helicopter was going to pick us up before sunset.”
Robert let out a snorting chuckle, rubbing at his jaw even as he struggled to stay on his feet. That his snowboard was still attached to his left boot wasn’t making the job easier. “Yeah, yeah.” He laughed, his wide grin almost hidden by his own gloved hand. “Sunset tomorrow, Hudo.”
Joseph took a step toward him, the urge to kill him was stronger than it had ever been. Stronger than the time Rob had dared him to hijack the principal’s mini back in their senior year of high school and leave it atop the barbeque pit at the top of the local lookout point. Stronger than the time Rob had dared him to run buck-naked across the cricket pitch during the regional grand final game with the word “Howzat?” scrawled in bright red lipstick on his backside. How was he to know Mrs. Woodcomb’s mini was a rare collectors car on the verge of being bought by a museum for a very, very generous price? How was he to know the national manager of the camping-and-outdoor equipment store Joseph worked at was the umpire of the cricket match that day?
Thanks to Robert bloody Thorton, over the twenty-six years spanning their friendship Joseph had been suspended, sacked, jailed, robbed, handcuffed to a stripper pretending to be a cop, handcuffed to a cop who sure as hell wasn’t a stripper, left stranded on a public beach without a stitch of clothing and almost married to a Russian buy-a-bride at the ripe old age of sixteen. None of those incidents however, could have resulted in Joseph’s untimely demise like this one could.
He ground his teeth, removed his bright orange helmet and dragged his fingers through his hair as he did so. “Fuck a duck, Rob,” he muttered, shaking his head. “We could die up here tonight. Do you have any idea how bloody cold the Rockies get at night? In the winter? We don’t even have a bloody tent!”
“I saw you pitching a tent over that hot little number back in the lodge this morning, Hudo. The same one who caught your eye last night.” Rob grinned wide enough to flash the dimple in his right cheek, an action guaranteed to make any woman forgive him anything. Joseph however, was not a woman. Not even close.
He yanked his gloves from his hands, storming towards his best mate. “Right,” he growled, “that’s it. I’m gonna kill you.”
Rob burst out laughing, holding his still-gloved hands up, palms outward—the closest Joseph would get to an apology. “Uncle, uncle.”
Joseph rolled his eyes and raked his fingers, already starting to tingle from the bitter chill on the winter air, through his hair again. As frustratingly annoying as the tall, lanky professional nuisance could be, Rob knew when he’d pushed too far. Now was one of those times. He’d always been this way. Since day one of kindergarten, Rob had been the instigator, the provoker, challenging Joseph to push himself beyond the boring safety of his conservative, politically correct, cotton-wool, upper-class upbringing. All Rob needed to do was utter the words, “I dare you” and Joseph was a cooked goose. Trouble always followed those words. Trouble and a world of fun.
If it wasn’t for “I dare you”, Joseph never would have started Hudo’s Outdoor Equipment Online at the bright-eyed and bushytailed age of twenty.
If it wasn’t for “I dare you”, he’d never have taken his small online store to the next street-front level.
If it wasn’t for Rob and his “I dare you”, Joseph would probably still be sitting in Hudo’s Outdoor Equipment’s office beside the fridge in his kitchen, wondering where most of his ambition had gone.
“I dare you” had seen them both fly out of Australia to the US to take on the Rockies’ ski slopes without any preparation at all except to pack their snowboards and equipment—and, in Rob’s case, practically a whole backpack of condoms. By the time they’d landed in Colorado, Rob’s blog had received over one hundred comments from women in the US offering to show them the best places to have fun on the snow. Something about those comments told Joseph snowboarding wasn’t exactly the fun they had in mind.
“I dare you” had seem him singing Men At Work’s “Down Under”, the unofficial Australian national anthem, last night in the bar after just two hours in the country, standing atop a not-so-stable table with his Aussie-flag boxers on full and prominent display.
So here you are, Joseph, CEO of Hudo’s Outdoor Equipment, Time Australia’s Businessman of the Year, stuck on the side of a mountain in the Rockies with Hudo’s Marketing Director and all round professional partier and no one back in Australia knows where either of you are. Excellent.
That thought, sarcastic as it was, made Joseph snort. He let out a sigh and looked around for his discarded gloves. “Okay, Thorton,” he threw over his shoulder. “I know you’re not a complete moron. What’s your plan? Where are we staying tonight?”
Rob’s dimple flashed again. “In the hut, Hudo. In the hut.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows. The pristine snow surrounding them, barely marred by tree or rock let alone fellow snowboarders or skiers, didn’t lead him to feel any more relieved. He turned back to Rob. “Hut?”
“Hut.”
“Okay, I’ll give. Where the bloody hell is this hut?”
Rob didn’t try to hide his grin as he dropped his gaze to the slim compass embedded in the nose of his snowboard—a new device he was trialing for Hudo’s Outdoor Equipment. Joseph may be pissed at him, but he’d stopped at one punch. By Rob’s reckoning, that meant Joe had already forgiven him and was about to throw himself into the challenge, albeit begrudgingly, but along for the ride all the same.
Rob studied the small compass, noting the direction it told him was true north. Lifting his head, he gave Joe a wide smirk. “The hut is about forty minutes that way.” He pointed northwest. “As long as you stop belly-aching, we should be settled in and knocking back the first beer before sunset.”
Joseph cocked an eyebrow. “Belly-aching? Hey, I’ve got a right to complain. You may enjoy sleeping starkers in the middle of the Rockies, but I left my favorite boxers back at the lodge. And for the record, I still can’t believe you’re carrying a six-pack in your backpack.”
Rob laughed. Joe’s favorite boxers—a silk pair with an image of the Incredible Hulk printed on the backside—were tucked safely in amongst Rob’s own long johns. “Yeah, yeah,” he reached down and released the mechanism on his snowboard’s binding harness. “You think I’m going to look at your bony arse?”
“No,” Joe shot back. “I’m just worried you’re going to go into a steep spiral of depression when you realize my nuts are bigger than yours.”
Rob threw back his head and laughed. The sound bounced off the pristine white snow-covered hills around them. “I’ve seen ’em, remember, mate.” He patted the front of his padded ski trousers. “These are bigger and made of brass.” He snatched his snowboard from the ground and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m thirsty and the beer is getting warm.”
Joseph snorted. “Of course it is. The fact we’re tromping through a bloody fridge doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”
Rob flashed his teeth at his best friend. “You know I like my beer cold.”
He set off, the crunch of the untouched snow beneath his feet like music from heaven. Growing up in Australia meant two things to Rob. Surf and snow. He and Joseph had spent their childhood either on the waves or the ski slopes. The trouble was, with the planet increasingly getting hotter every year, the Australian snow fields were fast dwindling to snow patches. He pulled at the backpack slung over his shoulder. There wasn’t anything like going on an adventure with his best mate, especially not at the moment.
When the call of the snow had hit him in the belly in the middle of a sweltering Aussie summer day while he and Joseph were in the most boring meeting Rob had ever had the misfortune to be in, he’d dared Joe to jump a 747. Six hours later they were settled into their first-class seats, beers in hand, watching Sydney become a tiny grey smudge thirty-thousand feet below them. Thirty-two hours after that and here they were. In Colorado. On the slopes.
Away from it all.
The hut—a rescuers cabin nestled in the trees at the lowest point of Knife Ridge in Wolf Creek Ski Resort, was the perfect place to force Joe to unwind. And to give him the bad news.
Don’t think about that yet, Robbo. Get a few beers into him and then think about it.
Pulling an icy breath, he shot his best mate a quick look. The man was born for this. Not sitting behind a desk, no matter how expensive the desk was. What was going to happen to him when Rob was gone? Who was going to tear his ass from the chair and make him live his life?
Stop it. Not now.
“You sound out of breath, Hudo,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Too many days and nights power networking?”
“Ha ha.” Joseph rolled his eyes. “I hear you puffing just as much as me. Too many nights partying, mate?”
Rob grinned at him again. “Yeah, that’d be it. And once again, I draw attention to the sexy thing back at the lodge. She was in the bar last night, sitting all alone after you left. She watched you leave, y’know. You could’ve been partying as well, if you hadn’t needed to send off that email.”
“Hey, I didn’t break the rule.” Joseph adjusted his snowboard under his arm, giving Rob an affronted look. Rob’s “rule”—that no one was supposed to know where they were—existed for one reason only—to keep Joseph from working when he should be having fun. “I didn’t mention where we were. I did however, approve your latest marketing push for the Chinese market, so shut up or I’ll cut your expenses.”
“Whoa, hit a man where it hurts, why don’t you?”
Joseph shook his head, the corners of his mouth curling. “Where it hurts with you mate, is in your pants.”
Rob puffed up his chest. “Can’t argue with the truth.”
Joseph shook his head again. “Idiot.”
“Yep.”
They continued farther, Rob checking the compass every few minutes. The undulating hills around them began to grow a little more unpredictable, dropping suddenly here, rising abruptly there. More trees— limbs stooped low under the weight of heavy snow—jutted up from the blinding whiteness, breaking what was otherwise a perfect blanket. He frowned, turning his head a little so Joseph wouldn’t see. Okay, at this point he should be able to see the hut—at least the top of the hut’s roof—somewhere before him.
But he couldn’t. There was nothing. Just trees, snow, rocks and more snow.
“Did I tell you the Japanese consortium made another offer before we left?” Joseph said suddenly, and Rob started before forcing his face into a relaxed smile.
“No. How much this time?”
Joseph let out a sigh. “A stupid amount. Enough to make me think I’m an idiot for saying no.”
Rob paused, giving his best mate a serious look. “Why are you saying no? How many blokes our age get the chance to say, hey, I don’t have to work another day in my life?”
Joseph shook his head, an unreadable tension forming at the edges of his brown eyes. “If I sell up, who is going to keep you under control? Or living the unleashed life you’ve grown accustom to?”
A sharp stab of something very close to pain sank into Rob’s chest, and he turned away and began the trek to the so-far unseen hut. “I’ll be right. I’m super hot, super smart, I have a degree from Sydney Uni— with honors—and every marketing idea I come up with makes the company more money than God. Who’s going to try and control that brilliance?”
“You forgot to add super humble to that list,” Joseph pointed out behind him.
“And super thirsty,” Rob shouted, trudging faster through the snow. Where the bloody hell was this bloody hut?
The crunching of snow under boots told Rob his friend had started walking again. “Hmm. Well, it’s a mute point anyway,” Joe said, his voice carrying over the still silence of the mountain. “I’m not selling and you’re not going anywhere.”
Rob squeezed his eyes shut for a quick second, his fists bunching tight. God, I wish you were right, mate.
The dark thought slithered through his head like a snake and he quickened his pace, searching the never-ending whiteness before him for signs of the rescue cabin.
“Where the bloody hell is this hut of yours, Thorton?” Joseph muttered. “Even I’d kill for a beer right now if it didn’t mean freezing my nuts off out here.”
“Wait your hurry,” Rob shot over his shoulder, a knot of unease beginning to form in his gut. “I know you’re just impatient to get your gear off.”
Something icy cold and rather hard smacked into the back of his head and he turned to see Joseph swipe his snow-dusted hands against the back of his thighs.
“A snowball?” He raised his eyebrows. “Really? I thought I was meant to be the immature one?” Joseph shrugged, a smirk playing with his lips.
“Wasn’t me.”
With a laugh, Rob turned back to the hutless bloody hills and began walking again, doing his best to ignore the knot of unease twisting tighter in his gut.
Twenty minutes later, he clenched his fists and bit back a curse. Fuck it. He had to do the unthinkable.
***
Buy the ebook now from Samhain Publishing, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, Fictionwise.
Want more first five pages? Visit…
Mari Carr
Bianca D’Arc
Jambrea Jones
Rhian Cahill
Lila Dubois
September 20, 2012
The First Five Pages of Suspicious Ways
Lexxie Couper write a non-erotic romance? Is it even possible? Apparently, it is. And here’s the first five pages to prove it. Yes, boys and girls, it’s Five for Friday time and today, it’s Suspicious Ways, my very first non-erotic (but still quite spicy) contemporary romance.
Ready?
Chapter One
“Goddamn it.” Ali Graham cried out, hopping up and down in awkward shuffles, her big toe a throbbing world of pain. She scowled at the heavy mainsail cleat that only a second ago had been in her hand but now was lying oh-so innocently on the deck of her yacht. Frustration and anger shot through her, rivaling the ache in her newly struck toe. “That hurts.”
She glared at the cleat some more, her toe throbbing in time with her pounding heart. Holy hell, did it hurt. That’s what she got for working on her boat without wearing shoes. She should have known better. “Bum poo crap,” she muttered, the childish outburst strangely satisfying as she crouched down to retrieve the heavy metal cleat. Thanks to her stupidity, she’d be walking with a limp for the rest of the—
“I have to say, that’s some colorful language you’ve got there, Ms Graham.”
Ali froze, cold terror slamming into her at the deep, smooth and entirely too-familiar male voice sounding behind her. Her heart smashed into her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut, terror turning to stunned disbelief. You’ve got to be kidding, she thought. He can’t be back in Australia. He can’t be.
Entirely uninvited, an image of the owner of the voice filled her head and her pulse quickened. She hadn’t seen Jackson McKenzie in four years, but that made little difference. His image was just as clear and sharp and vivid as if she’d only seen him an hour ago. And just like it had four years ago, her body was reacting as if she was a silly teenage girl with a sillier crush—her nipples pinching hard, her breath growing rapid and her mouth going dry.
Maybe that’s because four years ago you were a teenage girl. Well, three months out of being a teenage girl. Now, however, you’ve got no excuse. You’re twenty-four years old and—
“Are you going to turn around any time soon and say hello?”
The voice—his voice—caressed her senses some more, each word thrumming with sardonic humor. The same sardonic humor she’d loved so much back when she’d been a naïve idiot.
She ground her teeth and closed her fist tighter on the cleat. Am I going to turn around and say hello? How about I turn around and break your nose instead?
“Ali?”
She dropped her gaze to Wind Seeker’s deck, following its line to the bow. It was a beautiful boat, a majestic forty-five-foot sloop designed and built by her father ten years ago—a gift for her mother as a wedding-anniversary present. The yacht had been her father’s passion. Since his death, it had been her passion too. And her livelihood.
“Ali?”
He’s not going away. You know that, don’t you, Ali?
With a sharp sigh and a muttered “shit”, Ali turned, directing her churlish glare away from her still-throbbing toe to the tall man standing on the jetty beside her boat. She jutted out her chin, letting him see her contempt. “What the hell are you doing here, Jack?”
Jackson McKenzie, her father’s best friend and once business partner, cocked a thick golden-honey eyebrow. “That’s an interesting way to greet your old sailing buddy.” Sea-green eyes pinned her from behind thin gold-framed glasses and a small grin played over lips that were entirely too kissable. He chuckled. “Anyone would think you haven’t missed me.”
Ali scowled. “You were my father’s sailing buddy, Jack. Not mine. And I haven’t missed you. Not in the slightest.”
Jack’s chuckle met her ears again, the relaxed, somehow far-too knowing sound igniting a flare of anger in her chest and—God help her—a blossom of heat deep between her thighs. His grin stretched wider, flashing white even teeth at her. “Liar.”
Ali bit back a scream. “What are you doing here, Jack?” she repeated, fighting like hell to ignore the unnerving sensation stirring in the pit of her belly. He didn’t turn her on any more. He didn’t. “And don’t tell me it’s a social visit, because I’m not that gullible anymore.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “It’s been a while, Ali.” He ignored her question—again. “You’ve grown up.”
She gave him a flat look. “You’re right. It has been awhile. Four years in fact. My father’s funeral. I wore black, remember?”
As if she hadn’t mentioned the horrible day, Jack’s mouth played with a smile some more. “Are you going to invite me aboard?”
Ali raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms across her breasts. “Hmmm, let me think… No.”
Jack’s smile turned mocking and he shook his head, those green eyes of his never leaving her face. “Still the spoilt teenager, I see.”
Renewed frustration and anger rolled through Ali. She jutted out her chin some more. If she wasn’t careful, the way she was carrying on she’d put her neck out. “I’m twenty four, thank you very much,” she snapped. “Not a teenager.” Damn him, why did he make her so flustered so fast?
Jack suppressed a laugh. “And yet so easily provoked. Nothing has changed.”
Ali’s breath caught in her throat. Goddamn it, Ali Graham. She gave herself a savage mental rap. Get a grip. Do you want him to see you like this? Do you want to give him the satisfaction?
With forced bravado, she turned her back on him, her heart a wild trip-hammer slamming against her breastbone. “I’ve work to do,” she flung over her shoulder, determined to sound indifferent as she pulled on the boom’s rigging. “It was…nice…to see you.”
There was a moment of silence long enough for Ali to decide he’d left. She let out a soft sigh. Oh man, why did she wish he’d stayed? Why did she wish he’d ignored her and climbed aboard her boat? Why did she wish he’d slid his arms around her waist and drew her close to his body like he had all those years ago?
Damn it. He still did it to her. Still messed her up even after what he’d done.
“Two missed payments, Ali?”
A chill cut straight to Ali’s heart at Jack’s soft question. She tightened her fists on the rigging, the steel rope biting into her flesh.
Damn it. He knows. He knows about the loan.
Of course he knew. Why else did she think he was there? To say sorry for four years ago? To beg her forgiveness? To make love to her again?
Staring at Wind Seeker’s deck, Ali let out another long, soft sigh. No, it wouldn’t be to say sorry. It was to look her in the face when he knew that she’d failed. That was why he was here. Any other hoping and wishing was just that, hoping and wishing. And hopes and wishes got you diddly-squat. She’d learnt that the second she’d taken over running With the Wind Charters.
Running a sailing charter business on Sydney Harbor was never going to be easy. It was a cutthroat world dominated by men and money. It didn’t help that she was an American, not a born-and-bred Australian. Nor did it help most of Sydney’s sailing world held her responsible for her father’s death, a man embraced by his adopted countrymen with open arms. “An upstart Yank” she’d heard herself described by some of the old salts around the yacht club, “a silly little girl too big for her boots” was another phrase she’d heard, a “know-it-all American” another, and worst of all “foolish and dangerous”.
She wasn’t any of those things. She loved Australia and gladly called the country she’d lived in since she was seventeen home. She knew she still had so much to learn about the sailing world and the rhythm of Sydney Harbor and was willing to do so. She wasn’t a little girl anymore, and she’d never been silly, even when she was one. And she wasn’t dangerous or foolish. But she’d promised her dad at his funeral she wouldn’t let his dream—his business—die, and damn it, she wouldn’t.
Despite the hostility from her father’s mourning peers, despite her age, despite her nationality, she’d refused to give in. She’d done everything she could to keep With the Wind Charters afloat. Everything humanly possible. Yet here was Jackson McKenzie, her father’s sailing partner and closest friend. He would only be here if the bank had contacted him about her missed payments. Which meant he now knew, as guarantor, that she’d failed in everything she’d endeavored to achieve.
A hot prickling along her spine, like a thousand fire-ants on her flesh, told her Jack was watching her. Waiting. “Want to tell me what’s going on, Ali?”
“No.” She turned back to him, chin lifted, jaw clenched. “I don’t.”
Jack held her gaze, an unreadable light glinting in the green depths of his eyes. “According to Greg Matthews you’ve been struggling to make the monthly payments for some time now.” He cocked a dark-honey eyebrow. “Not really the right way to pay off a loan.”
Ali took a silent breath. Her bank manager hadn’t wasted any time calling Jack. He must have been on the phone the second she’d missed that last payment. Anger rolled through her. At herself and the whole terrible, messy situation. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, exaggerating her tone to the point of childish sarcasm, “but a four-week charter cancelled on short notice. It left my funds a little out of balance.” She crossed her arms, trying for total confidence. She couldn’t let him see how rattled she was. She wouldn’t. If she did, he’d use it to his advantage and she’d be damned if she’d give him any further advantage over her. “It won’t happen again,” she continued. “In fact, the upcoming months couldn’t look better. I’ve quite a few bookings already, two of which will pay exceptionally well, and there is the possibility of a three-week charter to the Solomon Islands.”
Jack’s eyes seemed to bore into her soul. A slight frown creased his forehead. “Now you see, Ali, we’ve a bit of a problem here. As of this afternoon it is my business. I’m taking over your loan.”
Ali’s mouth fell open. “You’re what?”
“Taking over your loan. And your business.”
Shocked anger smashed through her. “Says who?”
“The loan agreement. If you default on more than one payment, the guarantor—me—takes responsibility for the loan. Your bank manager contacted me when you missed the second payment and we began the necessary procedures. I called him late this afternoon and arranged to finalize the payment.”
Ali stood, numb. “I don’t believe you. Why would…?”
Suspicious Ways will be available 6th November. It is available for pre-order already at Samhain (here) and Amazon (here).
Want more first five pages? Visit…
Mari Carr
Bianca D’Arc
Jambrea Jones
Rhian Cahill
Lila Dubois
September 6, 2012
Five for Friday – Stone’s Soul
Five for Friday time. Today’s first five pages come from Stone’s Soul, my first ever Ellora’s Cave release. Ready?
[image error]Prologue
Kilauea, Hawaii Island, 1542 A.D.
Kale stared at the woman before him. Her glare, sharper than his blade, cut his skin. Or at least it felt that way. He’d known rejecting a goddess was dangerous—more than dangerous—but he wasn’t anyone’s play-toy.
His heart had shattered the night his sweet Lani and their baby girl died during childbirth. He’d lost his past, his present and his future and his heart had not recovered. Pele had come to him, promising that which only the gods could—to ease his pain and soothe his grief. And only fools refused gods. Or so he’d thought. Now here he was, Alii, High Chief of his tribe, no man’s fool, telling the volcano goddess it was over.
Kale studied Pele as he stood naked before her. She had taken from him, milking his body of orgasm after terrible orgasm. She had ignored his protests, insisting she was helping him recover from the emptiness Lani and their pepe’s death had caused in his soul. She’d used his body in every way she saw fit. And still his heart ached for a spiritual and emotional connection once had, but now denied him.
He’d had enough.
Pele narrowed her midnight-black eyes and rammed her fists to her curvaceous hips. “You scorn me, human?” Her lips–lips that had caressed his body with ravenous greed more than once—curled. “You reject me?”
“Yes.”
Infinity swirled in Her black stare. “Then I was foolish to take Lani.”
Kale’s heart thumped hard and his breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean, ‘take Lani’?”
Pele laughed, the sound cold and cruel. “I took her life force from her as she squeezed out your spawn. I had been watching you for many moons, my Alii, and my appetite for what I saw could no longer be suppressed. I removed the mortal obstacle and her offspring.”
Icy numbness spread through Kale. “Why? Why would you do that?”
The goddess curled her lip again, disdain flashing across her impossibly beautiful face. “I share with no one.”
Kale stared at her, his blood roaring in his ears. Fury burned through his being. Fury and murderous rage.
“But now I see I was mistaken. Your body may be divine, but your heart…” She cocked a sharp eyebrow. “Unless you beg for my love, I must reject you.”
Fury clenched Kale’s jaw. “You murdered my wife, you murdered my unborn child and you expect me to love you? I will never love you, Pele! My days of worshipping you, of being your play-toy, are over.”
Pele’s ink-black eyes glowered. “You will not love me? I am Pele! The Volcano Goddess. The Goddess of fire. Your Goddess! If you will not love me then you are incapable of love.”
Kale shook his head, his chest a twisted knot of rage and grief. “No, Pele. I have loved more deeply than you would ever, could ever understand. My heart is capable of love, it is just not yours.”
The goddess laughed. “Ha! Your heart is cold. Hard. You are like a precious stone, just as beautiful and just as cold.” Her eyes shimmered, swirled with the life of a million stars. “Let it be as I say, then. Until you know love again, until your heart is hot with passion once more, a precious stone you will be.”
A chilling smile stretched Her lips. She lifted Her hands toward Kale. “A stone the color of your eyes.”
True and unending agony flooded through Kale. Every molecule in his body began to burn, a frozen heat of inescapable pressure. He threw back his head, his scream tearing from his throat.
And then, everything became still.
And was gone.
Chapter One
Present day
The Discovery
Jordynn Harrison looked at the small, dirt-encrusted stone in her hand. Something about it puzzled her. It didn’t look right. About the size of a walnut, its rough surface seemed somehow unnatural. Too concise in formation. She raised it close to her face, rolling it between her thumb and fingers, searching for clues in its texture. Hmmm. Definitely not igneous. Maybe evaporitic, possibly metamorphic…
A soft warmth spread through her fingers. A tingling heat.
Jordynn frowned. She brought the stone closer still, studying it intently. No naturally formed stone she knew of conducted heat without a heat source, and despite the humid mid-summer morning, she didn’t think the dormant Hawaiian Mauna Kea volcano constituted as a heat source. Nor, for that matter, did her fingers.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Odd.”
Without warning, a blistering heat singed her fingers, like she’d closed them around the molten tip of a fire poker. With a sharp and totally undignified yelp, Jordynn dropped the stone. “Ow!” She studied her stinging fingers. Long, slightly calloused and ingrained with dirt. Typical geologist’s fingers. Yet, despite the pain radiating from their tips, free of any blisters or reddening burn marks.
Jordynn frowned, turning her inspection to the hastily dropped stone at her feet. Gingerly, she picked it up. Small, dull and cold. Hardly anything to make her cry out like a little girl. She turned it over and over, gnawing on her bottom lip as she did so. Something about it looked…wrong.
She spat on the stone’s grimy surface and smeared away some of its crusted dirt.
A chill rippled up her arm, lifting the fine hairs on her skin and making her nipples pinch into tight peaks. Jordynn blinked, staring at the now dullish-green stone in her hand. What the…?
Another chill shot up her arm, followed by a wave of pulsating heat.
Her pussy clenched in response, as though replying to an unknown question.
Do you want to be filled?
Oh yes, please!
“What the hell?” Her mutter echoed softly through the silence and she blinked.
Unease crashed over her and she swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Silence? In the forest? She tore her stare from the strange stone to look out at the lush Hawaiian rainforest.
And saw a man standing on Mauna Kea’s rim.
A naked man, with long, glossy-black hair and deeply bronzed skin stretched over hard, sculpted muscles.
A naked man staring at her through thick, black lashes with piercing eyes the color of wild limes.
Jordynn started, dropping the stone again.
The man disappeared. Just like that. One second there, the next, gone.
Jordynn’s throat squeezed tight. “What the hell?”
She spun about, searching the landscape surrounding her. Nothing. Just towering koa, choking vines, spreading ‘Ama’u ferns, a cloudless blue sky and the volcano’s rim.
Jordynn shook her head. Okay, so she was seeing things. Maybe it was time to head back to the cabin and take a break. She shot a look at her watch. She’d been collecting stone and mineral samples on Mauna Kea’s rim for the last five hours. Removing her cap, she dragged her fingers through her hair, grimacing at the grimy sweat slicking her scalp. Okay, she definitely needed a break—and a shower—after which she’d lay out what she’d collected today and begin to make notes.
She flicked her gaze to the unusual stone lying beside her right foot, frowning at the faint hint of green glinting through the dirt-encrusted surface. Green the same hue as the man’s eyes.
“Oh for Pete’s sake,” Jordynn growled before squatting down and scooping up the stone. “There was no man. Idiot.”
Slight, gentle heat licked at her fingers, tingling her palm, and she frowned again, stuffing the stone into her canvas specimen bag. A soft beat throbbed between her thighs—wet and insistent—but she ignored it. She needed a break. Really. She was on the verge of losing her mind!
* * * * *
His tongue lashed at her clit. Laved it with furious fervor. She arched her back, forcing her sex harder to his talented mouth as she fisted the sheets below her. God, what was she doing?
Getting tongue-fucked by a complete stranger.
Jordynn’s heart leapt into frantic flight. Yes, that’s exactly what she was doing. The best tongue-fucking of her life, in fact. She stared at the ceiling through heavy-lidded eyes, her body hot and slicked with sweat, her pulse a triphammer in her neck.
Fuck. The anonymity of the situation was intoxicating. Why had she never done this before?
Because you’ve never let anyone this close before?
Because you’re asleep?
Before she could digest the questions, the tongue in her sex moved to her ass and she bucked, a cry of rapturous surprise bursting from her. It echoed around the small confines of the cabin, bounced off the crude wooden walls and came back to her, mingling with the soft moans now slipping past her lips. This was not how she’d planned to spend the afternoon.
She shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t be letting him…
His hands, large and strong and masterful, claimed her breasts, cupping each with steady pressure. She writhed beneath him, pleasure rolling through her like a velvet fog, clouding rational thought. Oh God, what was happening?
The hands on her breasts grew fiercer, long fingers finding her taut nipples with a pinch. She gasped and arched again, bucking her hips higher. “Yes.”
****
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