Category Archives: Excerpts

EXCERPT!!! Kringles and Kvetching…

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in Excerpts, The Kringle Boys, The Kringle Girls

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

Anybody else so over 2016?  Aside from the Cubs bringing joy to the world, it’s been a slog all around – and the pages have suffered.  What to do?

How about making 2017 all about fun, sexy reads to fill your e-reader?  Let’s start with a new Kringle book – ETHAN (The Kringle Boys #2) is coming up just in time to distract you from your relatives this holiday season.  I’ll have a blurb and a release date up in a couple of days, but let’s just say that Jack Frost’s chilly son is going to get a bit of a warm-up from a sexy scientist in his Antarctic fortress. There will be penguins.  This might be the strangest Kringle book yet, but I’m hoping you’ll find it as funny and hot as I do.

Ethan Main

Meanwhile, you’ve got a few days to catch up on the Kringles!  Here’s the collection of Kringle Girls:

The Kringle Girls - SMALL

And here’s Nick, along with an excerpt to get you going:

Nick - SMALL

Bah, humbug. Nick Kringle is having a rotten Christmas. A huge disappointment to his chilly, holiday-stomping father, Jack Frost, Nick’s punishment for his refusal to take on the family business is exile to the human world, no magic allowed. Luckily, his North Pole relatives take pity on him, letting him run Santa’s big city candy factory and store. But Nick never counted on having to deal with customers, elves, or Santa’s nitpicky Candy Manager, the lovely but tightly wound Phoebe Winters. He’s never had a sweet tooth before, but everything about her has his mouth watering for a taste, despite the fact that they come from different worlds.

Phoebe Winters is determined to be the best Candy Manager that Santa has ever had, even though it means controlling her magical sugar addiction and her impossible attraction to Nick Kringle. Santa’s nephew has no right to be so hot, especially when he seems to be as coldhearted as his chilly father. But when a dangerous saboteur puts Santa’s magical candy supply in jeopardy right before the holiday, Phoebe and Nick must work together to repair the damage and save Christmas. Can Phoebe melt the icy shell around Nick’s heart? Or will the cold sweep away any chance of holiday-ever-after?

EXCERPT:

Nick grudgingly admitted that the candy shop was a great idea.  Customers entered, lured by the smell of sugar and spice, wide-eyed and jittery at the sight of the elves. They quickly relaxed as the chipper little creatures heaped smiles, attention, and free samples on them, and left with boxes and bags of cheerfully wrapped candy and cookies.

When closing time came, Nick was surprised – the hour had flown. Wanting to get the caramel cookies set before he closed up for the night, he’d sent the rest home with a gruff, “Thanks,” feeling unaccountably warm and pleased with himself when Mirabelle hopped up to pinch his cheek.

The soft squeak from the doorway to the factory had him looking up.

Phoebe stood there, staring at him as though he’d grown another head.

“About this morning—” he began, determined to at least get them back to civility.

Phoebe held up a hand.

“It’s okay. Let’s just put it behind us. I thought you didn’t want anything to do with this?”

She fluttered a hand to encompass the candy shop with its rows of sweets in enticing, old-fashioned jars along every shelf.

“I’m coming around,” admitted Nick with a grin.

Phoebe drew in a sharp breath, and her eyes drifted down to his hands. And stayed there.

Intuition tickled the back of Nick’s neck, and he examined the petite half-elf by the door. She seemed reluctant to come all the way inside the shop. And the way she was looking at his hands…

Nick poured the sticky mess onto the marble slab and started kneading it, adding powdered sugar as the caramel goo began to hold its shape.

“Would you like a taste?”

The words popped out of him. If possible, Phoebe grew even stiffer in the doorway.

“I don’t…sample,” said Phoebe coldly, her tone as frigid as the icy fields of home.

“Never?”

“No.”

“Because you don’t like candy,” he prodded.

“Yes. I mean, no. No, I don’t.”

“Suit yourself.”

Shrugging as he dismissed the odd sensation that he was missing something, Nick wrapped the ball of dough in plastic and reached for the sink to wash his caramel-coated hands, absently popping his finger in his mouth to suck the gooey goodness off his thumb. Another soft squeak had him looking up.

He froze.

Phoebe’s eyes were wide and bright, flitting between his fingers and his mouth, her skin flushed, and she was doing a rotten job controlling her breathing as an excited little pant escaped her lips. Nick was shocked to see that the prickly half-elf was nearly bubbling over with repressed arousal. She looked ready to explode at the lightest brush of skin against skin.

Nick knew elves were susceptible to sugar – they craved it, had to have it, and used it to soothe, to comfort, and to fuel their magical ability. Phoebe claimed to dislike it, but Nick had never seen a reaction quite like this – he’d seen elves lust over candy, but she was quivering as though he’d taken a long, fat candy cane and slid it into her throbbing pussy. His inner devil grinned even as blood rushed southward.

She doesn’t hate candy.

Forgetting the sink, he moved around the counter.

“What are you doing?”

Phoebe skittered around the edge of the room, avoiding him, stopping in front of the closed front door. The shades were drawn, the door frosted glass. They were completely alone.

“Sure you don’t want a lick?” asked Nick, holding up his hand, moving ever so carefully closer, like a lion stalking its prey.

Phoebe stepped back until the door prevented her from retreating further, her clipboard clutched in a death grip in front of her as though to ward him off. Bells jangled above as she pressed herself flat.

“It’s good,” he murmured, “Warm, buttery, rich. Perfect for drizzling all over warm skin so that I can lap it off, one delicious lick at a time.”

Phoebe moaned. Nick’s cock tightened painfully.

He wasn’t sure when teasing turned to seduction, but despite her buttoned up demeanor, he had to admit that everything about Phoebe flooded his mind with naughty fantasies he was dying to make reality. Their animosity of earlier suddenly seemed like foreplay, and Nick was beginning to think he might actually lose his mind if he didn’t get his mouth on her within the next thirty seconds. He’d never responded to a woman like this, but didn’t have the brain cells to examine it, because she shocked him, grabbing his wrist in a firm grip and bringing his fingers to her mouth. The clipboard clattered to the ground.

Oh God.

Phoebe was still holding back, breathing in the scent of caramel, watching it drip slowly down his hand, practically shaking. Nick swiped her lower lip with one finger, spreading sticky sugar.

Soft.

“Open your mouth, Phoebe.”

His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and he felt heat surge through him as she obeyed, her tongue darting out to lick it away, eager and hot. The sound she made was so throaty and delicious, he shuddered in reaction, wrapping his free arm around her waist to pull her tight against him, his cock hard enough to pound nails, pressed into the softness of her belly. Nick couldn’t even be insulted that she didn’t seem to notice, because that gorgeous mouth was on him now, savoring the caramel on his skin, slowly sucking his fingers inside, one at a time, rooting for every little trace of sugar. Her eyelids fluttered down as pleasure suffused her face. It didn’t look like she was planning to release him anytime soon.

Nick absorbed each lick and hot little suck with greed. He wanted her mouth on him, everywhere. He wanted to feel her exploring his chest, his abs, with the same hunger. He wanted to watch her take his cock down her throat, stretching her lips with each sumptuous stroke.

Nick groaned.

SWEET, SHE THOUGHT. SO incredibly sweet.

Phoebe lapped up the caramel, hungry for all of it, feeling the magic of sugar zing through her system. And the taste of his skin was delicious – salty and hot and addictive.

There’s a reason I shouldn’t be doing this.

Happy Holidays!

xoxo, Lily

EXCERPT!!! Torn Asunder (Rift Guardians#1)

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Excerpts, Rift Guardians

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

My first excerpt of the new year!

I’ll have an official blurb for you soon, but the Rift Guardian series is about what happens when the magical world and the real world collide – sexy shapeshifters, powerful sorcerers, and creatures of the dark galore.  I can’t wait to share!  Here’s the Prologue to get you going.  Happy Reading!

Torn Asunder

EXCERPT:

The entire city of Chicago shook when the rift opened up.  The glass and steel skyscrapers that made up the iconic skyline swayed, the El trains shuddered on their tracks, and a wave of lake water swamped Lakeshore Drive with enough force to shove the morning commuters into a massive, waterlogged pileup, like toy cars accidentally left on the beach to the mercy of the tides.  Though there were few fatalities, the injuries were vast, and the city would take months to clean up the damage, years to sort out the insurance claims.

No one was thinking about paperwork that morning, however.  After a puzzled ten seconds when the locals wondered if it was even possible to have an earthquake in Chicago, they looked up to the sky over the lake, and the mighty city came to a standstill.

The rift dwarfed the tallest Chicago skyscraper many times over, spread as wide as three city blocks, a glowing rip in space a half-mile from the lakeshore that disappeared into the clouds and plunged deep into Lake Michigan.  Later, Coast Guard divers would discover that the rift went as far as the lake floor, as though the world itself were just a folded piece of wrapping paper, ripped down the center to show the secret beneath.

A tear in the sky was only the start.

Even from the lakefront, where anxious crowds gathered to view the terrifying phenomena as sirens blared and helicopters whomped closer, they could see what lay beyond the shimmering, golden slash over the blustery waters of the lake.  Though it wasn’t visible, every good Chicagoan knew that somewhere far across the lake lay Michigan.

What they saw through the rift wasn’t Michigan.

The first thing they noticed was the water – another lake, a dark churning thing, alive with trails of green and purple phosphorescence and teeming with strange creatures that one would never find in a lake.  They saw light gleaming on monstrous fins, shapes and sizes that were not of this Earth.  Roughly half a mile beyond that, a sandy lakeshore.

And a city.

This city also towered over the lake, an impressive skyline against a flat landscape, but instead of glass and steel, a sprawling medieval metropolis of gray stone, gothic towers, and castles monopolized by a towering fortress looking down from what could only be described as a mountain.  There were no mountains in Chicago, obviously.  But in this strange mirror image of the city, there it was.

Boats were sent out, of course, by the dozens, to get a closer look at the rift and the strange world beyond, and that’s when the city got its second shock of the day.  A pulse of light grabbed the Coast Guard and Chicago PD ships and lifted them from the water, then took hold of the whirling helicopters and held them frozen in midair for ten heartbeats, before dropping them.

Chicagoans scrambled back from the shore as another wave of water swamped them and the boats bobbed crazily in the water, half of them capsized, the heavy helicopters starting to sink.  At the impending loss of life, people sprang into action. Anyone with a boat – fishermen, sailboat aficionados, trust fund yacht babies – turned their ships from the marina and raced for the site, all incredibly brave or incredibly stupid.  Terrified, they edged close to the sinking vessels, but the rift stayed quiet, letting them approach to retrieve the injured and the dead.

But there were no dead.  Eighty-eight people – crew, officers, and Federal agents – all asleep. Every weapon on every wreckage of every vessel melted into an unrecognizable puddle of metal.

In the absence of a leader, Janus Marek, a third generation fisherman and retired Navy, stepped up to take the reins and organize the rescue with his three sons, keeping a wary eye on the shimmering rift and the city beyond.  The National Guard would be here soon enough – his job was to keep things moving and minimize loss of life.  The eighty-eight were brought on board, wrapped in blankets, coats – anything handy to keep them warm – and ferried back to the waiting ambulances on shore in organized fashion.  When the last of the rescues was clear, Janus ordered the remaining boats that had stayed behind to gawk out of the area.

And that’s when he saw it.

A man flying from the medieval city over the churning waters of the lake on massive wings of night sky black.

HOT EXCERPT!!! Updates and More

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Excerpts

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

Good morning!

I know, I fell off the planet there for a while.  It’s been a tough couple of months – some crazy family and work stuff that basically took over my life.  I got to the point where I just had to drop everything and deal with it.  Very happy that I’m finally getting back to writing.

I owe you some books!  This is going to be a great month – Kringles and Bright’s Ferry coming your way, and I’d like to finish Shiny Things and get that out to you as well.  ALSO, I’ve got a new romantic suspense series starting up – adventure, danger, and of course a hot relationship between a reckless spy and the assistant to a spoiled pop princess.  I’m hoping we’ll follow Knight and Zoe through a few books, to really get a chance to play around with them.  Hopefully Book #1 for August – I still have some research to do.

Enjoy and stay tuned – details as I have them!!!  It’s so good to be back.

xoxo,

Lily

Knight’s Temptation – Book #1 of KNIGHT AFFAIRS

Agent Knight is on the trail of a killer. Again. But after a decade of saving the world from criminals, despots, terrorists, and all their deadly toys, the game is starting to wear thin. Knight is seriously thinking of calling it quits, right after he takes down this assassin, preferably before he makes an attempt on the life of the American Ambassador to Malaysia. Piece of cake. Unfortunately, Knight is distracted by a touring pop star’s mousy little assistant, who seems determined to get in his way at every turn. She’s stubborn. She’s opinionated. And Knight has never wanted to taste a woman so badly in his life…

Zoe Fenelon has made a career of smoothing ruffled feathers as personal assistant and BFF in residence to Violetta Lang, a high maintenance pop princess on a world tour. Zoe knows how to handle the adoring fans and the media frenzy, how to keep her charge happy and on schedule, and how to deal with months on the road. But when six-plus feet of rumpled hotness stumbles past security and into her hotel suite one night, the ever-resourceful Zoe is completely out of her depth. The heat that sparks between Zoe and the man who calls himself Knight could burn down a city, but this is neither the time nor the place. Zoe has a tour to run and Knight has…well, whatever it is that puts a man in constant danger of being shot, stabbed, kidnapped, and tortured on a daily basis. It isn’t long before Zoe gets swept up into Knight’s world of secrets and spies, but is their connection more than just irresistible temptation? And will they survive long enough to find out?

EXCERPT:

A sleepy Zoe has just stumbled into the posh hotel suite kitchen to find a rumpled Knight wrapping his bleeding arm with a dishtowel….He’s a little surprised that she’s not more freaked out.

SHE HADN’T NOTICED THE blood, he realized.

“Oh please, you’re not the first man to sneak out of Vi’s bedroom in the middle of the night. At least you had the courtesy to get dressed first. Take the service elevator a couple of floors down and then take the stairs. Violetta told the press that she’s off men for the length of the tour and I’d like to keep it that way.”

She opened the fridge and retrieved a water bottle, giving him a better glimpse of her in the dim room. Not mousy as he’d first thought. She had delicate features and huge blue eyes, and an hourglass shape that her camisole and sleep shorts did nothing to hide. Knight liked details, and this woman – whoever she was – had some very fine details. Like the creamy, toned legs that led down to cute little purple-painted toenails. Like the curve of her throat as she tipped the bottle back for a long swig. Like the pretty, full tits that pressed against the front of her camisole – not huge, but exquisite. Knight suddenly found that his mouth was dry. Very, very dry.

She was looking at him expectantly.

Oh right, I’m leaving.

“I didn’t sleep with her.”

The words just popped out, and Knight cursed inwardly. Better to let her think he and Violetta were having a one-night stand, and leave them to puzzle it out in the morning. But suddenly it seemed important that this woman not lump him in with the rest of the idiot male population who would no doubt leap at the invitation.

She frowned.

“I don’t understand. If you didn’t – ”

“The window was open.”

Knight winced as the words came tumbling out.

What is wrong with me?

Her eyes widened, and Knight saw the fear creep in as her hand tightened on the water bottle. Knight watched her eyes flick toward the phone, and moved before the thought was even fully formed, impressed with how she fought back. He dodged a knee to the groin and pinned her to the fridge, careful not to injure her, a hand tight over her mouth, her wrists captured behind her.

Should have just knocked her out, Knight. Idiot.

“Don’t scream,” he whispered, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She was panting, her eyes wide and scared, and Knight hated himself for it. He was very aware of her under his hands and against his body, lush and feminine and delightfully curved, everywhere, with intriguing muscle tone under warm skin. Her breasts pressed into his chest and he levered his hips back from hers, away from temptation. His cock had a mind of its own and the last thing he wanted to do was to scare her further.

“Just listen. I am running from some dangerous men. I didn’t know whose window this was. I just want to get out of here before the guys with guns realize that I’m not where they left me. Do you believe me?”

She watched him for a long moment, scanning his face with wide blue eyes. Finally, she nodded. Slowly, Knight moved his hand from her mouth, tense in case she changed her mind.

“I’m glad someone taught you to defend yourself,” he said.

“Well, obviously it didn’t work.”

She sounded pissed.

“If I were any other man, it would have.”

She frowned at that.

“Oh, but because you’re you, it didn’t? You’re unbelievably arrogant for a…whatever you are.”

Knight grinned.

“Gonna smack me if I tell you how cute you are when you’re angry?”

“And sexist, too,” she spat.

She wriggled in his grip, but he held her fast. The movement brought him flush against her again and she froze at the inadvertent press of his hard cock against her stomach. Knight wanted to groan at the sensation, but stifled it.

“You’re not cute because you’re a woman and therefore inferior. You’re cute because you’re cute.”

 

ZOE WAS PRETTY SURE this was some kind of dream. A very weird, very confusing dream. Being around Violetta meant being subjected to awkward interactions with her brief paramours, but Zoe had never had one pin her against a fridge and insult her before.

But this isn’t one of Vi’s flings, she reminded herself, This is…I don’t know what this is.

Whoever he was, he was big but surprisingly agile, and it was infuriating that her weeks at self-defense boot camp had been so easily trounced with a flick of his wrist. She’d taken down drunken fanboys twice her size with those moves, but this one hadn’t broken a sweat. He had nondescript, sandy brown hair, and in the dark his eyes were either gray or green, but the way they looked at her made her feel bare in more ways than one. And every inch of his hard, muscled form was pressed to hers, the fridge cold against her back, an impressive bulge pressed hard against her stomach.

She could practically feel it as his eyes skimmed down her body.

“Is this what you sleep in?” he asked, distracted.

The Tardis-printed boxers and blue camisole weren’t exactly high fashion.

“When I’m alone, yes.”

The stranger’s eyes lingered on the pulse at the base of her throat.

“What about when you’re not alone?”

The words were soft, rhetorical, but sent a spear of heat straight to Zoe’s gut.

“That’s none of your business,” she said, breathless.

His tongue darted out to flick his lip and Zoe felt her pussy clench in response.

He’s so fucking hot.

He still had her pressed against the fridge

“I really have to go,” he said.

He sounded confused.

“That’s a good idea.”

Please, before I self-combust.

But he didn’t move.

Was he closer?

He seems closer.

“I’m sorry I disturbed your evening,” he said conversationally, but dipped his hips, subtly, just enough to align his cock with her softness.

Traitorous body. Everything inside Zoe melted, and she gasped, breathing in a drugging lungful of a subtle, bay-scented aftershave and man.

She moaned.

“Fuck me,” murmured the man holding her wrists, and then his mouth lowered to brush against hers once. Twice.

He tasted so good.

Bastard.

With a yank, Zoe’s hands were free, but instead of pushing him away, it felt like second nature to pull his head down and make him do it right. Her mouth attacked his, hot and wet and conquering.

And he kissed her back.

Oh. My. Sweet. Fuck.

For several long minutes it was nothing but heat, pleasure swamping Zoe as the stranger’s mouth and tongue and hands and body erased all previous notions of what a kiss should be.   It wasn’t until she felt a warm palm cupping her breast, her bare breast, teasing the nipple with a deft, exploratory touch, that she pulled back with a gasp, even as she wanted to arch into him for more, and then pull him to the floor so that she could have her wicked way with him.

He stepped away from her, nearly stumbling back.

“Your…” he began, running a hand over his mouth, waving toward her torso.

Shakily, Zoe realized that her cami was down around her waist, her nipples peaked and on display for the total stranger in her hotel suite.

Totally hot stranger.

She urged her libido to shut up and yanked her shirt up.

“That was…I’m going to go now.”

Zoe could only manage a nod. He shook his head as though stunned, and with a last searing look, slipped out the door, leaving her in the dark kitchen, alone.

EXCERPT!!! An intro to Nick Kringle – COMING SOON!

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Excerpts, The Kringle Girls

≈ Leave a comment

Just a short intro to the Kringle men for your Monday evening. Enjoy!

Nick - SMALL

BAH HUMBUG, thought Nick Kringle as he leaned on the railing, looking down on the merry party underway on the factory floor.

Christmas was still two weeks away, but the season was in full swing, and though Nick knew that throwing the candy factory workers the mother of all Christmas parties was not only expected, but also the nice thing to do, he resented it with every fiber of his being. Part of the problem was that he knew what was riding on them getting all of their orders, regular and magical, out the door on time. The other part of the problem was that Nick Kringle hated Christmas.

He hated the cheer, he hated all the happy laughter and joyous reunions of family and friends.

He hated wrapping paper and ribbons and pine trees and twinkly lights. And eggnog.

Especially fucking eggnog.

The whole holiday baffled him, though Nick had to admit, as he looked down on the workers whirling tipsily around the makeshift dance floor and catching each other under the mistletoe, that he might be biased. He’d been taught from an early age that a cheery smile meant someone was hiding something, friends were likely to stab you in the back, and Christmas was a dark day on the calendar, to be endured instead of celebrated. Growing up, Nick and his brothers had quickly learned to detest the holidays.  Not surprising, given that their father was Jack Frost.

Yes, that Jack Frost.

Nick had vague memories of early childhood Christmases, when his flighty elven mother would take the three boys to visit their Kringle cousins. His mother was one of Mrs. Claus’ sisters, and Nick remembered romping with the Kringle girls along with his brothers, Ethan and Jake. But that had been centuries ago.  Kringles aged differently than mortals, and those warm memories had mostly disappeared, trampled under decades of bitterness and resentment as the three brothers grew up in the drafty halls of Frost Castle. After a monumental fight with their coldhearted, scheming father, Nick’s mother had been banished to another realm, forced to leave her young sons behind. Nick and his brothers had been too little to really understand it, but since that moment, their lives had been shaped by Jack Frost’s chilly ideology, and they’d grown up cold, calculating, and emotionally stunted.

Jack Frost’s plan was clear – he was grooming his sons to join the family business, working to destroy Christmas and all that it stood for. On paper, it all sounded looked good, clearly villainous and coldhearted. Unfortunately for Jack, his sons had taken after their parents in more ways than one.

Ethan, the eldest, was the most likely candidate to step into their father’s chilly shoes.  Calculating, brilliant, and emotionless, Ethan had a head for business and didn’t get discouraged by the trifling little setbacks along the path toward world domination. However, in an ironic twist that infuriated the Master Icicle-Maker, Ethan had also inherited a conscience, a sense of fair play, and that unwillingness to break the rules, the need to win fair and square and not stab an opponent in the back was a serious blow to Frost’s grand scheme.

Jake was the youngest, and Ethan’s polar opposite. Fun-loving, mischief-making, and flighty as a snowflake, he had his father’s ability to live in the moment, but couldn’t be trusted with money, power, or any degree of serious magic. He’d been sowing his wild oats for the last hundred years ago, and the few times Nick had been forced to seek him out, he was usually in the company of a harem of voluptuous snow nymphs or living it up in the seedier magical clubs of the world’s major cities.

This left Nick as his father’s last chance at grooming an heir to take over his chilly empire. Too bad Nick wanted nothing to do with it. He gripped the railing, white-knuckled, watching a group of drunken workers attempt a round of “Deck the Halls,” and remembering the last tumultuous argument he’d had with his father. He didn’t want to ruin Christmas, Nick explained, he didn’t want to spread sadness and squash mirth, he just wanted to be left alone. Nick had no interest in squeezing the life out of the holiday or bringing misery to millions – he just didn’t care one way or the other. His entire adult life, he’d been looking for a way to step out from his father’s shadow, to live an ordinary, unimportant life of quiet, chilly, peaceful solitude. But no. He’d been dragged into scheme after scheme for centuries, always the sidekick, always being forced to inflict distress on perfectly well-meaning humans and elves.

It was such a waste of time.

Nick thought longingly of following in his brother’s footsteps – he should have taken off with Jake when he had the chance. Right now he could be balls deep in more-than-willing snow nymph pussy in the heart of Siberia, without a care in the world. Instead, he’d been too chicken shit to go through with it. When the situation finally came to a head, Nick blew up, and the walls of Frost Castle had trembled with Jack Frost’s fury and dark magic. Recklessly, Nick had declared himself independent – he didn’t need his family, his birthright, or his magic. And so Jack Frost had cast him out.

No money.

No brothers.

No magic.

He’d been dropped in an alley in New York with just the clothes on his back.

Two weeks of living homeless and magic-less was enough to convince Nick that he may have made a serious mistake. Cold, hungry, struggling to deal with the loss of his magic, and generally miserable, he’d finally uncovered one of the hidden North Pole portals around the city. There were wards on it, of course, to protect against dark magic. Luckily, Nick was no longer infused with dark magic, and he’d always been handy at mixing things. A half-hour of heavy petting with a cute witch at a local magical dive bar got him the ingredients for an unlocking potion that he mixed in a discarded bucket in a back alley, fingers frozen to the bone. The wards dissolved like melted butter, and the next morning Nick was stumbling through the portal, feeling something tight cracking in his frozen chest as the cheery lights of North Pole village came into view.

 

EXCERPT!!! Sneak Peak – Bright’s Ferry #4 – COMING SOON!!!

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bright's Ferry, Excerpts

≈ Leave a comment

OK, you’re going to hate me for this one – I’m such a tease. 🙂

This is a chunk from SAFE FROM THE WILD, which comes out after SAFE FROM THE STORM.  Ballpark is March, but I’ll keep you posted.  I don’t have an official blurb here, but you’ll meet Eden and Rafe in SFS – she’s a paramedic and he’s all tangled up in Nora’s family drama.  Since they get their first sparks there, I thought it might be fun to share a semi-spicy excerpt of where they’re heading.  This is from near the beginning – they’ve been trying to stay away from each other and it’s not working…LOL…

And note, it’s very weird writing two books at the same time!

Enjoy!

Safe From the Wild

 

EXCERPT:

Rafe caged her in with a hand on either side of the wall, and she felt her stomach flutter as he stepped closer.  She dug deep and clenched her fingers at her sides until the nails bit into her skin.  It was either that or reach for him.

“All that calm, like the still waters of a lake.  Makes a man wonder what’s under the surface.”

“Something with teeth,” she managed as he leaned in, and she shivered as his breath touched her cheek.

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

He didn’t touch her, but she felt the heat of his breath along her jaw and nearly melted.  She could practically feel his lips on her neck as he continued exploring, millimeters away, and had no trouble imagining the gentle scrape of teeth along her throat.  Eden swallowed a whimper as he reversed course and his breath puffed against her mouth.

She couldn’t take it.

With a carnal move that came as natural as breathing, her hands came up to cup his face and she surged forward to take his lips, greedily absorbing the punch of heat at the first press of that tempting, maddening mouth.  She tasted his surprise, his restraint, felt the hint of rough stubble under her fingers and then he muttered, “Shit,” against her lips before he shifted and kissed her back.  He took control with a smooth slant of his head, a swipe of his tongue that had her mouth dropping open, and then Eden couldn’t think as every nerve ending in her body melted into hot, tingling delight.

He didn’t touch her anywhere else, and her nipples tightened, ached to evaporate the inches between them and rub against his muscled form, to feel his hard thigh sliding between her legs to press deliciously against the place that throbbed for him.  The heat of his body was already threating to disintegrate what was left of her into sparkling little bits, but when she shifted closer, he held her back with a broad hand against her sternum, pushing her back into the wall.

It didn’t make sense.

She wanted.

 Eden whimpered against his mouth, greedy to get as close as humanly possible, starving for more.  She sank her teeth into his lower lip.

Rafe yanked his mouth away, panting, and leaned his forehead against hers.

“Fuck,” he breathed.

Speech was beyond her, and Eden could only gulp in air and let her hands slide boneless down his chest, testing and learning the hard muscle he selfishly kept away from her.  Rafe groaned at the touch, the hand on her sternum moving to cup one breast as though he couldn’t help himself.  He squeezed gently, then ran a circle around her aching nipple and flicked it.

Eden’s knees nearly buckled.

“What I want to do to you,” Rafe muttered.

But he dropped his hands and stepped back.

“Stay away from me,” he ordered.

“You’re the one who pinned me to the wall,” she retorted, but it came out breathless because there wasn’t any air left in her lungs.

A muscle ticked in his jaw and she saw his retreat, the way that lazy confidence dropped over him like a perfectly-fitted cloak.

“It won’t happen again,” he assured her and walked away.

Bastard, thought Eden, because now she had to go back and make small talk with her date and pretend that she wasn’t a turned on, trembling, soaked-panties, horny mess for a completely different man.

A man she should stay as far away from as possible.

A killer.

EXCERPT!!! Safe From the Storm – COMING SOON!

11 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bright's Ferry, Excerpts, Safe From the Storm

≈ Leave a comment

Happy Weekend!!!

I’ve been keeping my head down, trying to get through Kringle edits and Storm chapters, but I owe you an excerpt!  Here’s the intro to Steffen Decelles, who is a truly nasty piece of work and the kind of guy you want to punch.  He’s going to come to a bad end, no doubt. 🙂

And now to spend the weekend battling the red pen.

Safe From the Storm

EXCERPT:

 

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN she’d return here, he thought, gritting his teeth as the cheerful, hand-carved wooden sign proclaiming WELCOME TO BRIGHT’S FERRY swished by the SUV in a wet blur.

Even soggy with late November rain, the little New England town was quaint and welcoming, the art galleries and little boutiques on Main Street lit up, promising warmth and cheer, accented with swirls of red and gold fall foliage from the stately trees that dotted the landscape.  Beyond the town, storm clouds gathered over the ships that bobbed in the marina, and a churning purple and gray sea.

The whole thing looked like a fucking postcard.

Steffen Decelles had been here only once, five years ago, the first time he’d tracked down his errant bride, and even though she’d slipped his grasp that time, the visit had served its purpose.  He’d gotten a glimpse of the tacky life Nora had built for herself surrounded by hicks, tourists, and fishermen.

And he’d gotten a glimpse of Sheriff Tony Arnetto.

The man who had fucked his wife.

The man who even now kept him from what was rightfully his.

He had thought it would be enough when he finally caught up with Nora and punished her as she deserved, and her pleas and apologies had been so satisfying.  He had thought he’d taught her that her life was his, her body was his.

And the money, that went without saying.

But she wouldn’t break.  Surprising.

The first time she escaped he couldn’t believe it.  Just the memory had Steffen clenching his well-manicured hands on the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip.  He found her, of course, punishing her, teaching her, trying to force her to give him what he deserved, which was everything.

She escaped again.

The pattern continued for five long years, and Steffen had to admit, grudgingly, that he had underestimated Nora Allen.  He’d even given up on finding her for a time – the world thought she was dead.  He would have been content to let her stay that way and find another way to get the money if it were not for Tony Arnetto.

Because Sheriff Tony had stolen from him, was still stealing from him.

So Steffen would have his revenge – both on Nora and on Sheriff Arnetto.

That she would risk coming back to Bright’s Ferry showed how desperate she’d become.

How stupid.

He’d break her at last, but first he’d force her to watch him kill the man she loved, and realize that it was entirely her fault.

SPICY EXCERPT!!! Kringle Boys #1 – COMING SOON!

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Excerpts, The Kringle Girls

≈ Leave a comment

Have you missed our Monday excerpts?  Me too!!!  Here’s a hot one from Nick’s story – I’m in the last throes of editing, so this is coming VERY, very soon.  Think of it as a belated Christmas present. 🙂

It’s the last Monday of 2013!  Stay tuned for Bright’s Ferry updates and the plan for 2014 later this week!

Nick - SMALL

Nick Kringle is having a rotten Christmas.  A huge disappointment to his chilly, holiday-stomping father, Jack Frost, Nick’s punishment for his refusal to take on the family business is exile to the human world, no magic allowed.  Luckily, his North Pole relatives take pity on him, letting him run Santa’s big city candy factory and store.  But Nick never counted on having to deal with customers, vendors, or Santa’s nitpicky Candy Manager, the lovely but tightly wound Phoebe Winter.  He’s never had a sweet tooth before, but everything about her sweet little figure has his mouth watering for a taste, despite the fact that her lists threaten to drive him out of his mind.  All he wants is a hot holiday fling to heat up his cold world.

Phoebe Winter is determined to be the best Candy Manager that Santa has ever had, even though it means controlling her magical sugar addiction and her impossible attraction to Nick Kringle.  Santa’s nephew has no right to be so hot, especially when he claims to be as coldhearted as his chilly father.  But when a jealous rival threatens to destroy Santa’s magical candy cane supply right before the holiday, Phoebe and Nick must work together to save Christmas.  Can Phoebe melt the icy shell around Nick’s heart?  Or will the passion between them melt away when the holiday is over?

EXCERPT:

Nick wrenched his mouth away and she whimpered in protest as he scooped her up, striding toward the stairs.

“I am not going to fuck you on a mountain of sugar.”

Phoebe moaned, the image filling her scattered brain, and felt his chest rumble in a rough chuckle.

“At least not this time,” he said wryly, “Elves.”

She was going to retort with something snide, but he smelled incredible, like sugar and spice and Nick.  Clutching his shoulders, Phoebe leaned in for a taste, swiping her tongue over his collarbone, pleased when he tensed under her mouth and held her closer.

“Hang on,” he muttered, maybe to her, maybe to himself.

Phoebe didn’t pay much attention, too caught up in the delirious pleasure of lapping the sugar from his chest, feeling her nipples ache and her wet pussy throb with every stroke of her tongue.  She vaguely recognized the change in elevation when he started up the stairs, and then he was juggling her to get the door open, kicking it closed behind them.

“Sorry about the mess,” he muttered.

“Not a probl—” Phoebe’s voice left her in a squeak as he slid her down the muscled length of his body.

Nick grinned.

“Let me get a fire started,” he said.

Moving a stack of books, he urged her into an armchair near the hearth.  Phoebe gave the place a cursory glance.  The apartment above the factory had traditionally been used for storage – it had been years since a manager had stayed in residence. It wasn’t much, just a bedroom, a kitchen, and this main room with a couch and a couple of armchairs.  Every inch of available space was covered in dusty cookbooks and paper.  And it was cold.  Phoebe felt a little pang as she realized that Nick had nowhere else to go.

“Give me a minute and I’ll get this place warmed up,” said Nick, crouching by the fireplace and reaching for the woodpile to the side, “and then we’ll see about getting you warmed up.”

He darted a hot, blue-green glance at her that threatened to send her up in flames, no matches required.

Two can play at that game, thought Phoebe, and as Nick carefully stacked wood in the fireplace, she deliberately sprawled back in the chair, letting her knees fall open and slowly inching her skirt up, the shhh of the crinoline loud in the quiet room.

She knew the moment he noticed.  Nick froze in the act of setting a match to the paper, his gorgeous shoulders tight, all smooth muscle under warm, sugar-streaked skin in the glow of the tiny fire.

“Feel like being naughty, little elf?”

Oh yes.

Phoebe slid the skirt higher, spread her legs further.  Nick jumped as the match burned his fingers and abruptly went out.  He hastily lit another, touched it to the newspaper, and promptly dismissed the fireplace as Phoebe rubbed a fold of crinoline over her desperate clit, the roughness sparking delicious quivers along every nerve.  The fire whooshed in the fireplace behind Nick as he crawled to her, a big jungle cat stalking its prey.

“Show me how you touch yourself,” he ordered, and the demand had Phoebe moaning.

Her own fingers generally didn’t do much for her – Phoebe preferred toys or the real thing.  But the way Nick was watching her made the request so naughty, and her body responded with shocking enthusiasm.  Phoebe brushed her skirts aside and found the flesh of her pussy with her fingers, and her eyes were on his face as she stroked herself delicately, fingers slick with her juices, feeling his gaze on every swollen inch of her folds.

He stopped between her thighs and sat back on his haunches, running a hand over his mouth.

“Didn’t I give that greedy little pussy a good, thorough tongue-fuck just a few hours ago?”

He pressed her thighs wider with warm palms.

“But here you are, all wet and swollen again.  My mouth and my fingers weren’t enough to satisfy you?”

Phoebe cried out as he bent over her to flick her clit with his tongue, retreating quickly to watch her squirm and tremble from the sensation.

“Yes…no…please, Nick!”

“Think you can do better on your own?”

She couldn’t answer, since Nick placed his hand over hers , guiding her fingers down to her weeping core.

“All the way, Phoebe.”

SPICY KRINGLE EXCERPT!!!

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by in Excerpts, The Kringle Girls

≈ Leave a comment

There’s a new Kringle book coming!!!

If you’ve read the rest of the series, you’ll know that elves’ relationship with sugar is deep and nurturing, but in our heroine’s case, it’s about to get a little out of hand…LOL…I am scrambling to have MORE THAN A NIGHT out this coming weekend, and have Nick’s story done for relaxing after a long day of shopping on Black Friday.  Here’s a little glimpse!

Nick - SMALL

Nick Kringle is having a rotten Christmas.  A huge disappointment to his chilly, holiday-stomping father, Jack Frost, Nick’s punishment for his refusal to take on the family business is exile to the human world, no magic allowed.  Luckily, his North Pole relatives have taken pity on him, letting him run Santa’s big city candy factory and store for the season.  But Nick never counted on having to deal with customers, vendors, or Santa’s nitpicky Candy Manager, the lovely but tightly wound Phoebe Winter.  He’s never had a sweet tooth before, but everything about her sweet little figure has his mouth watering for a taste, despite the fact that her lists threaten to drive him out of his mind.  All he wants is a hot holiday fling to heat up his cold world, and then he can put her out of his mind forever.

Phoebe Winter is determined to be the best Candy Manager that Santa has ever had, even though it means controlling her magical sugar addiction and her impossible attraction to Nick Kringle.  Santa’s nephew has no right to be so hot, especially when he claims to be as coldhearted as his chilly father.  But when a jealous rival threatens to destroy Santa’s magical candy cane supply right before the holiday, Phoebe and Nick must work together to save Christmas.  Can Phoebe melt the icy shell around Nick’s heart?  Or will the passion between them melt away when the holiday is over?

EXCERPT:

“WOULD YOU LIKE A taste?”

Nick poured the sticky mess onto the marble slab and started kneading it, adding powdered sugar as the caramel goo began to hold its shape.

“I don’t…sample,” said Phoebe coldly, her tone as frigid as the icy fields of home.

“Never?”

“No.”

She probably thought he was a total Neanderthal.

“Suit yourself.”

Shrugging, Nick reached for the sink to wash his caramel-coated hands, absently popping his finger in his mouth to suck the gooey goodness off his thumb, but a muffled squeak had him looking up.

He froze.

Phoebe’s eyes were wide and bright, flitting between his fingers and his mouth, her skin flushed, and she was doing a rotten job controlling her breathing as an excited little pant escaped her lips.  Nick didn’t know if it was him or the sugar, but the sweet and perky half-elf was nearly bubbling over with repressed arousal.  She looked ready to explode at the lightest brush of skin against skin.  Nick’s inner devil grinned.  Forgetting the sink, he moved around the counter.

“What are you doing?”

“Sure you don’t want a little bite?” he asked, holding up his hand, moving carefully, like a lion stalking its prey.

Phoebe stepped back until the doors prevented her from retreating further, her clipboard clutched in a death grip in front of her as though to ward him off.  Bells jangled above as she pressed herself flat.

“It’s good,” he murmured, “Warm, buttery, rich.  Perfect for drizzling all over your body so that I can lap it off, one delicious inch at a time.”

She moaned.  His cock tightened painfully.

Nick wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but something about Phoebe flooded his mind with sweet and naughty fantasies he was suddenly dying to make reality.  He was beginning to think he might actually lose his mind if he didn’t get his mouth on her within the next thirty seconds.  He’d never had a reaction to a woman like this, but didn’t have the brain cells to examine it, because she shocked him, grabbing his wrist in a firm grip and bringing his fingers to her mouth.

Oh God.

She was still holding back, breathing in the scent of caramel, watching it drip slowly down his hand, practically shaking.  Nick swiped her lower lip with one finger, spreading sticky sugar.

Soft.

“Open your mouth, Phoebe.”

Her tongue darted out to eagerly lick it away, and the sound she made was so hot, he shuddered in reaction, wrapping his free arm around her waist to pull her tight against him, his cock hard enough to pound nails, pressed into the softness of her belly.  Nick couldn’t even be insulted that she didn’t seem to notice, because that gorgeous mouth was on him now, savoring the caramel on his skin, slowly sucking his fingers inside, one at a time, and rooting for every little trace of sugar.  Her eyelids fluttered down as pleasure suffused her face.  It didn’t look like she was planning to release him anytime soon.

Nick absorbed each lick and hot little suck with greed.  He wanted her mouth on him, everywhere.  He wanted to feel her exploring his chest, his abs, with the same hunger.  He wanted to watch her take his cock down her throat, stretching her lips with each sumptuous stroke.

Nick groaned.

SWEET, SHE THOUGHT, SO sweet.

She lapped up the caramel, hungry for all of it, feeling the magic of sugar zing through her system.  And the taste of him was delicious – salty and hot and addictive.

There’s a reason I shouldn’t be doing this.

The frosted glass door was cold against her back, but her front sizzled from the press of his body, the hard bulge of his cock cuddling against her belly, her aching nipples pressed into his chest.  His fingers had found bare skin, tunneling under her sweater to stroke her waist.  It felt so good, and Phoebe shifted restlessly as he teased, tracing the waistband of her jeans before sliding up to cup her breast with a warm hand, nudging the bra aside to stroke her nipple with sure, toe-curling friction as it tightened under his touch.

The zap of pleasure that raced to her clit was enough to shock her out of her dreamy state, but she only had a moment to raise startled eyes to note the blue-green fire in his gaze before Nick’s mouth found hers.  If the sensation of tasting his skin had been delicious and sweet and naughty, the feel of his mouth was wicked delight personified.  She dropped his wrist and wrapped her arms around his neck while he took her mouth with a skill that turned her knees to jelly.  Her pussy was hot and swollen, her panties soaked as his fingers plucked her nipple while his tongue fucked her mouth.  Her knee slid up his thigh as she raised herself on tiptoe for a better alignment.

Just one more moment…

SPICY HALLOWEEN EXCERPT from Bewitch Me!

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Collections, Excerpts

≈ 2 Comments

Happy Halloween dear readers!!!  Today’s a day for candy and spice, so here’s a little naughty magical sweetness to get your holiday started off right!  A somewhat spicy excerpt from the Bewitch Me collection, from the title story.

Bewitch Me is Available Now!!!

Mmmm…now I need some caramel.

Bewitch Me - SMALL

EXCERPT from BEWITCH ME:

TRENT ENTERED THE LOBBY with trepidation, but everything looked normal. Still, he hurried to check his mailbox and press the button for the elevator, his stomach churning with anxiety as it had for the last three weeks, his cock still hard and demanding his attention. Three weeks ago, the management company had opened up the available units to members of a heretofore unheard of magical community.

It was shock enough that creatures from fairytales and nightmares actually existed and were running around the city, sometimes in disguise and sometimes not. It was worse that now they were going to be living in Trent’s beautiful, hundred-year-old building, the place he’d loved at first sight, with its Old World character and prime location. For the most part, the newcomers kept to themselves, and Trent had to admit that the techie elves down the hall seemed like good guys, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to become drinking buddies or swap recipes with them. He was still worried about the towering man with the greenish tint that had been referred to him as a “half-troll.”

WTF.

And of course, there was the witch.

She didn’t look like a witch, and he’d had no idea when he helped the voluptuous, raven-haired piece of dynamite move in a few weeks ago that she was in fact a witch. Isabella Fiero. She said she was an artist. She looked like a walking fantasy, her bouncy black curls framing a face that was almost too cute to be believed. There was nothing cute about the rest of her. She might be tiny, but Isabella Fiero packed a punch. There wasn’t a flat spot on her – she was all lush curves and a sweet little waist and hips a man could hold onto while he sank into her heat. Her breasts would bounce no matter how he fucked her. It was quite a pleasant visual.

It had Trent having guilty second thoughts about his practical arrangement with Nicole.

And then Trent found out what she really was.

And that’s when the trouble began.

He’d been checking the mail that night when the glass front door opened.

Lucky dress.

He’d only seen her in jeans before, but Isabella dressed to kill was something else, and the simple black sheath that lovingly clung to her curves seemed unbearably exotic. Trent smiled.

“Hot date?”

“Gallery fundraiser. All those stuffy people with too much money and not enough taste, complimenting me on the ‘importance’ of my work. Blech.”

She rolled her eyes, opening the little mailbox and extracting a pile of envelopes.

“And they never feed you anything edible. I’m going to go upstairs, climb into my PJs, and eat an entire pizza.”

Isabella rifled absently through the envelopes, stopping on a fat, purple letter.

“Oh crap,” she said, as the thing started to vibrate.

“What’s the matter?” asked Trent.

Isabella dove for the elevator button, trying to hide the bouncing purple envelope.

“Nothing. Fucking elevator. Come on!”

Suddenly, the letter surged out of her hands in a shower of sparks, nearly taking Trent’s head off as it zoomed by.

“Get down!” shouted Isabella, pushing him to the ground, as –

WHOOSH!

The letter exploded in a rush, and the lobby was suddenly festooned with flowers, sparklers, hundreds of balloons, and even little glowing butterflies that dropped glitter like rain.

Trent pulled himself to his feet, his jaw slack, his entire body covered in glitter.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Just my Aunt Minnie’s way of saying congrats on the new digs. It’s touch activated. She doesn’t understand human things like lobby mailboxes. I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

But Trent stumbled back when she tried to brush the glitter from his sleeve.

“What the fuck are you?”

He was shaken and shocked, but the hurt in her eyes still made him feel like a heel.

“I’m a witch,” she said quietly.

The elevator pinged open.

“Don’t worry about all this,” she continued, expressionless, “It’ll dissipate by morning.”

And she stepped into the elevator and disappeared.

Three weeks later, Trent was still finding glitter in intimate places, though the lobby was magically pristine the next morning. He’d avoided Isabella ever since, but they lived across the hall from each other, which made that somewhat impossible. Trent couldn’t stop thinking about her, worrying about what crazed witchy thing she was going to spring on him next, plagued with thoughts of broomsticks and toadstools.

But…his blood heated whenever he caught a glimpse of her, and two days ago, he headed out for a jog just in time to see her opening the door to find the paper, dressed only in a tight cami and worn little shorts. By the time he reached the elevator, Trent was hard as a rock.

And it wouldn’t go away.

How was a man supposed to concentrate on work, pre-nups, and marriage when he was basically a walking hard-on?  It was all her fault. She’d obviously cast some sort of spell on him, maybe as punishment for him looking so horrified when she announced that she was an unnatural mistake of Nature. OK, that was harsh, but the only images he had of witches were creepy, vindictive, and fictional. And now he could add crazed glitter bombers to his list of characteristics, but whatever.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He couldn’t sleep. His only moments of relief came when he caved to the urge to jerk off to images of sinking between her thighs, into her mouth, or her hand. Dropping his jacket and mail on the front table in his apartment, Trent looked down at the bulge in his pants and frowned. This couldn’t go on.

She has to make it stop.

Before he even realized it, he was out the door and across the hall, knocking firmly. He winced at the sight of the doormat that read, “Life’s a Witch,” and looked down the hallway, anxious. Trent had left his jacket inside, and the last thing he needed was one of the neighbors to see him sporting enough wood to build a log cabin. Trent frowned at the softly lit hallway.

When you marry Nicole, you’ll have to move.

It had occurred to him before, but now that it was imminent, the idea left a sour taste in his mouth. But there was no way Nicole would agree to live in a building like this. Trent was surprised at how sad that thought made him. He’d always appreciated its warmth and character.

The door opened, and Isabella’s eyes widened at the sight of him.

Trent scowled. She was in another cami and a pair of sleep shorts, no bra. His cock jerked.

“Do you always answer the door half-dressed?”

She started to answer, and then noticed his big, throbbing problem.

“Yeah,” he growled, “You’re going to take care of that.”

EXCERPT!!! Safe From the Storm – COMING SOON!

26 Saturday Oct 2013

Posted by in Bright's Ferry, Excerpts, Safe From the Storm

≈ 2 Comments

I’m such a tease.  Luckily, my readers are patient and understanding. 🙂  Here’s a new excerpt from SAFE FROM THE STORM.  I’m in the last throes of MORE THAN A NIGHT, but I haven’t forgotten that you’re all waiting for Tony and Nora, so here’s a good chunk of the beginning to get your weekend going.

On that note, there’s a cup of coffee and a stack of edits with my name on them.

Enjoy!

 

Safe From the Storm

 

EXCERPT:

TONY ARNETTO DIDN’T BELIEVE in ghosts.

Especially not when they came in the form of tall, curvy redheads who moved like heaven and were dead ringers for his wife.  His dead wife.

“Hello…Sheriff,” said the vision in front of him, smiling hesitantly as she twisted her gloves between slender fingers.

Not a ghost, thought Tony, if only because Deputy Evie Asher was looking over her very corporeal form with cool, gray, somewhat suspicious eyes, and because the sound of her voice hit him like a body blow.

There was a frayed hole in the thumb of one purple glove, Tony noticed inanely, even as that voice washed over him.  Nora’s voice, soft and sweet, that always made him think of bells when she laughed.  The voice he’d heard in his dreams as memories of their life together refused to leave him alone, night after night for the last five years – her trembling vows at their tiny garden wedding, her gentle reprimands whenever he fucked up or worked too late, and the soft, sexy cries she made as she came for him again and again, unraveling in pleasure under his hands and mouth as she took him to the hilt.

Not dead.

“Nora.”

Tony forced the air back into his lungs as the implications sank in, and with them came relief, amazement, and more rage than he had ever felt before in his life.

“I see you’ve met Evie. Evie Asher, this is Nora. She’s my wife.”

His voice sounded odd and far away, and there was a rushing in his ears as though he were underwater.  His feet were glued to the spot, his fingers clutching the file folder with firefighter Matt Harris’ handwritten report closing the book on the arsonist that had recently terrorized Bright’s Ferry.  He couldn’t have moved if someone had taken a two by four to his head.   Outside, the rain had finally stopped, but Tony still heard the drip, drip, drip of the runoff from the drainage pipe to the window ledge.

“Can we talk?” asked Nora, her blue eyes wide and anxious.

Talk.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Tony, the words tumbling out even before he realized they were absolutely true.

Nora had an explanation, no doubt, a reason that she’d disappeared and let him and everyone she knew think she was dead, a reason that she’d stayed away for five years.  It was probably practical and well-thought-out and sane, like everything Nora did.  With a pang, Tony recalled her neat little piles, her organized desk, and even the way he used to tease her over alphabetizing the spice rack in the kitchen.

He didn’t want to hear it.

He couldn’t hear it.  Not now.

“Please, Tony – ”

She set her gloves down on the desk and withdrew a bundle of envelopes from her purse, neatly bound with a blue ribbon.

“I wrote to you.  All these years.  I wanted to tell you – but I couldn’t mail them.  You have to let me explain, Tony.”

“Explain?”

The word ripped out of him as the first fangs of pain ripped into his soul, took a big bite, and started chewing while the floor seemed to tilt.  For years, all Tony Arnetto had wanted was a measure of peace – once he’d accepted that Nora had drowned on that fateful day when the Allen-A-Dale went down, once he’d realized that the woman he loved more than life was gone forever, he’d only wanted to be left alone, to forget.  But it had never happened.

At first, it was Bright’s Ferry, the town he loved, the town he protected and cherished, whose townpeople trusted him to keep them safe.  Everywhere he looked were reminders of Nora – in her kindergarten classroom, in all the neat little touches around the house, and in her closet, where her clothes still smelled like strawberries and Nora.  Tony wasn’t too much of a man to admit he had cried like a baby when the scent finally faded.  After a year, when he finally started to feel like he might be able to see a future someday beyond his mechanical wake, eat, work, sleep robot impression, that fucking lawyer showed up to reopen the wound, with his accusations and demands and shocking revelations that had made the last four years of his life hellish.

Nora held the letters out.

“If you read them, you’ll understand,” she whispered.

Tony made no move to take them, and Nora finally set them down on Evie’s desk.  The defeat in her pose was a knife to the gut, but Tony could feel his hands trembling.  He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she stepped closer, if her skin actually brushed his.

“I’m staying at the motel if you change your mind,” said Nora, and Tony frowned.

There was only one motel in Bright’s Ferry – a crumbling dive down by the marina.  It was generally a stopover for passing merchants or fishermen who wanted a night on dry land with a willing woman, and far enough from the picturesque affluence of Main Street that it almost qualified as a “bad part of town,” if such a thing could exist in Bright’s Ferry.

Why is she staying there?

There were B&Bs galore in town, practically a new one every week.  Dryer Morton, the richest man in town, fancied himself a real estate mogul and had no trouble treating Bright’s Ferry like his own private model town to be developed and arranged at will.  Nora didn’t need to stay in some seedy motel where the walls were thin, the amenities nil, and the men who passed through somewhat questionable.

Not my business, Tony reminded himself.

“It’s good to see you, Tony,” said Nora, and turned to go, pulling her thin coat closer around her body, sorrow in every line of her lovely frame.

He watched the door close behind her, then pulled his keys out of his pocket and tossed them to Evie.

“Do me a favor?  Send Zeke over to my place.  There’s a blue file folder in the top drawer of my desk in the study.”

“Tony – ” began Evie, but he held up a hand, cutting her off.

“I need to check with the National Weather Service.  If that storm gets any closer, we’re going to have our hands full.”

Hurricane Ripley had been making its way up the coast for two days now, keeping the entire Eastern seaboard in a constant state of anxiety.  It was going to make landfall at some point – the question was whether it would hit Bright’s Ferry, or just spank them a little and head north.  Tony and the rest of the town had been keeping a close eye on it, and Colin Daniels, Bright’s Ferry’s charismatic mayor and Evie Asher’s boyfriend, had already started disaster relief preparations in case the situation took a turn.  Worst case, the town had been known to flood.

Thank God the Harvest Festival is over, thought Tony.

The annual celebration brought in tourists by the truckload, but now that they were past that and just a couple of weeks shy of Thanksgiving, tourist season was winding down.  There would be a surge again around Christmas, and then Bright’s Ferrians would settle down for a long New England winter.

But first, they had to get through the storm, and Nora Allen would have to wait until Tony had finished dealing with keeping his town safe.

Allen-Arnetto.

“She left her gloves,” said Evie abruptly, and Tony noticed the purple knit swatches lying on the desk.

He picked them up, still slightly warm from her hands, and emotion clogged his throat along with a desperation he hadn’t felt since the Harbor Master had come to tell him that the Allen-A-Dale had been lost in the storm.

The gloves dropped from his nerveless fingers.

“Be right back,” he managed, and bolted out the door.