Tag Archives: pnr

Horse Power: Another Jet-Lagged and Lusting Story FREE!

I’m very pleased to bring you one of my favourite travel and jet-lag inspired story. The Oregon Coast is always an inspiring place for me and several years ago, it inspired visions of night rides on a wild horse along a windswept beach. I’ve wanted to write a story set in that lovely landscape ever since. Horse Power is the result of that inspiring place. Enjoy!

 

I didn’t think it strange when I first saw the horse running on the beach in the middle of the night. That in itself was strange … that I didn’t think it strange, I mean. It was a very high tide and the wind was just blowing out the tail end of a storm, which was not going out peacefully. I didn’t think it strange that the white horse, who looked almost silver in the moonlight, was alone, frolicking in the waves. I didn’t even think it strange when I glanced away long enough to pull on my bathrobe and looked up to find a man standing where the horse had been. That he was naked and that the horse was nowhere in sight I didn’t think was really all that strange either. I just figured as jet lagged as I’d been the past couple of days I was dreaming, and a disappearing white horse and a hunky naked man on a midnight beach well that was a helluva lot better than some of the jet lagged dreams I’d had.

 

I had rented a cottage on the beach near Lincoln City for a bit of holiday and some much-needed downtime from my hectic schedule. I’ve often wondered how different my life would have been if I’d gone to the mountains instead. But hindsight is always better than foresight, and it’s better not to dwell on what I can’t change. I spent a lot of the first couple of days wandering the cottage in the middle of the night and sitting on the deck watching the ocean. That’s what I’d been doing when I saw the horse and then the man. As I watched, suddenly a wave high enough to cover a house swept over him, and I cried out, dropping the untied sash of my robe and pressing my face to the sliding glass door of the cottage. I had no idea what to do. No one could swim in that high sea. I didn’t even know who to call – 911, the Coast Guard, the police. As the wave scoured the beach, I stood nose pressed to the glass, heart racing. I had to do something. But what? And who would believe me? Surely anyone I did call would think that I was on something, or drunk, or … jet lagged. If there had been a man on the beach such a wave would have washed him far out to sea by the time anyone got there to check out my call. Still, I couldn’t just do nothing.

 

Straining my eyes to make out the darkened beach, I fumbled for my phone on the table next to me. I only glanced away for a split second to grab the device, but when I looked back, as the waves receded, the man was standing unmoved exactly where he had been. No, I think he was even closer. His back was to me, and he seemed to be looking up at the moon, his arms raised, his head thrown back. For a moment the thought flashed through my head that he might have been a marble sculpture standing there on the sand.

 

But then he turned, and honestly, I forgot all about my speculations. He was magnificent, unruly hair tossed around his head in the wind, water glistened and sheened off his arms and torso and dripped down the curves of his elbows and buttocks. He was muscle and sinew – not like a body builder, more like a dancer. But even a dancer couldn’t move like he did. He moved like the waves and the water. He flowed, muscles undulating beneath taut moonlit skin. I was so mesmerized by the look of him, the move of him that it took me a second to realize not only was he walking toward where I stood inside the cottage, gawping at him, robe wide open, but he was looking right at me.
Horse waterhorse 2storm.510x599I should have stepped back out of view. I should have pulled the curtains. I probably should have been terrified, but I just stood there staring. As he moved across the sand it was impossible not to notice his heavy cock becoming heavier with each step until he rested a protective hand against it, a hand that both protected and caressed, and the clench and tremble below my belly was a sign of just how aware of his cock I was. I was far more aware of my body warming and moistening and swelling to the sight of him than I was of the fact that a strange naked man on the beach was watching me with hunger in his eyes. By the time he reached the deck that led to the sliding doors of my room, the arousal I felt was liberally laced with fear, but when he vaulted the railing as easily as if it hadn’t even been there, I let out a shriek, dropped my cell phone on the floor in my efforts to jerk the curtains shut and fled into the bathroom. It was only after I locked the door behind me that I realized I had stupidly trapped myself. There was no window in the bathroom, no escape route if he did find a way in. Every horror film I’d ever seen rushed back to me along with every serial killer tale I’d ever heard. Abductions, tortures, kidnappings and white slavery all ran through my head for a split second. Be calm, Sadie! Be calm. It’s just your imagination. Surely it’s just your imagination, I told myself.

 

I woke in the morning stiff and sore and sprawled on the bathroom floor in my robe. There was nothing I could use for a weapon, and my watch read 9:00. The wind had died down, and if the forecast was right, the sun would be out and it would be a beautiful day. I cinched my bathrobe tight around my waist and, with fingers none too steady, unlocked the door, took a deep breath and poked my head out. The cottage was deserted, everything exactly as I’d left it, curtains hastily drawn, phone on the floor near the edge of the bed. After gathering enough courage to open the curtain and venture onto the deck, I discovered everything exactly as it had been the evening before. There were no footprints on the decking, no footprints on the sand beyond. There was no evidence of the naked man at all.

 

I dressed hastily and walked out onto the beach behind the deck. There were no footprints of any kind up close to my cottage, just lots of strange odd-shaped indentions in the sand. In my muzzy-headed condition, it took me a few minutes to realize they were hoof prints. I just figured someone had been out for an early-morning ride, though I thought it was a bit cheeky for them to come this close to my cottage.

As I went through the day, a little shopping in Lincoln city, a drive up the coast, lunch at Tidal Raves in Depoe Bay, my thoughts about the naked man on the beach became less thoughts of the scary stalker kind and more thoughts of wondering what might have happened if I’d invited him in when we were both clearly aroused by the situation. After a long walk on the beach in the afternoon sun, the man constantly in my thoughts, I masturbated in a long steamy shower leaning up against the tiles pretending the spray was the rain and the waves, that it was his mouth making my nipples tingle and rise, that it was his fingers opening me, stroking me, finding all the places that made me grind and shift and buck like a mare waiting for a stallion, that it was his fingers spreading me and making me ready for his cock. Thoughts of his cock reminded me of the white horse on the beach, and that made me wonder at the enormity of my need thinking of him vaulting my deck railing, thinking of the horse frolicking in the waves, thinking of the ebb and flow, of the undulation of sex, of his body penetrating mine; thinking of the overwhelming wave of release I might have had if I’d simply opened the sliding door and let him in.

 

When the sun set, I became ridiculously bold – perhaps it was due to jet lag, but certainly a couple of glasses of good Oregon Pinot Noir didn’t hurt. I stripped out of my clothes and wrapped myself in a blanket, then I settled in the chaise lounge with my glass of wine and my Kindle. I always had several erotic novels pulled up for my reading pleasure. I had a lot of sexual energy and at that point in my life, I was my only outlet, so I read a lot of erotica and watched a bit of porn now and then, but the man on the beach was even better than porn, and he was my own fantasy story come to life And then I’d ran away from him! I couldn’t really believe he was real, and yet if he was a dream, it really pissed me off that I’d done something so stupid as to run away rather than to stay and let him properly fuck me. I didn’t place much stock in lucid dreaming. I figured you get what you get, and your unconscious has a vicious sense of humor when it comes to the dreams you get, but I really, really wanted to revisit the man on the stormy beach. Instead, I got the horse.
It was the soft whickering that woke me. The moon had risen in a bright disk painting the pale horse in a silver grey dance of light and shadow. He pranced and sidestepped just beyond the edge of the waves, tossing his main, tail flowing like a kite behind him as he frolicked. Then suddenly he stilled, as though he were aware of my wakefulness. Seeing that I was no threat, he moved forward toward me. I stood, pulling the blanket tightly around me and moved to the rail, then I remembered the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. “I’ve got something for you, boy,” I said. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

 

HorseUnknownI was only gone a minute — just long enough to nab an apple, but when I returned, the horse wasn’t alone. The man from last night sat astride him, just as naked as he was the night before. But this time I wasn’t scared. This time I felt myself in control of the dream. He watched as I strode boldly down the steps onto the sand and offered the apple to the horse, feeling the soft velvet of his muzzle against my palm as he took my offering.

 

Then the horse gave me a gentle head butt and I lost my grip on the blanket. As it slid away, the man offered me his hand. It was a dream, I told myself. It had to be, so I lifted my hands to him letting the blanket fall away as he bent and scooped me one-armed onto the broad back of the horse and settled me in front of him. I gave a little gasp as, with the flat of his large hand low on my belly, he pulled me back against his hard naked chest.

 

And then we were like the wind racing down the beach dangerously close to the swell of the waves. The spray took my breath and stung my eyes and for a moment I saw nothing but a blur. He slid his hand up my belly to caress my breasts, and on upward to cup my throat and my jaw, drawing me around, and I twisted and arched toward him as he mantled me and took my mouth and I breathed in the fresh breath of the storm humid and wild on his kiss, a kiss that lingered and deepened as the rhythm of the horse drove me back against his body, back against the urgency of his cock pressed to the small of my back.

 

Once he was certain I wouldn’t pull away from the dance of his tongue, his caress migrated downward again, thumbing my nipples until I squirmed and ached, stroking my belly in little kneading circles, each one lower than the one before, until he shivered his fingers down through my tight pubic curls. Even spread wide as I was mounted on the muscular back of the horse, unconsciously, I opened still wider as he teased and worried his way between my legs.

 

I pressed hard back against his body for leverage to get long thick fingers into places slick as seaweed and more heated than the laboring back of the horse. He intuited the depths of me where the hungry places begged and wept for release. With fingertips and the broad flat of his thumb, he explored the valleys and folds, the swells and depths until I growled and arched and forgot how to be civilized. The salt spray that had misted us now rose above us in glorious curling waves, higher and higher until we road in the dark rise of their foamy shadows. The horse screamed and reared and I fell back against the man, who was now guiding the animal with only his knees, one hand teasing and making me ready, the other cupping my buttocks and lifting me until I could feel the insistent press of him pushing, prodding, opening me. Then with a loud, inhuman cry like a warrior at conquest, he plunged home deep and hard, forcing the breath from my lungs in a desperate cry for relief just as the horse turned headlong into the roll of the wave and took us down to the deep.

 

I came to myself in the semi-doze of the place where fantasy happens, naked breasts peeking to break the surface of the calm ocean undulating beneath me as I let the waves carry me in. It didn’t seem strange to me that I was naked and unafraid in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, nor did it seem strange when I realized I wasn’t in the middle at all, but gently riding the swells in toward the beach next to my rented cottage. It didn’t even seem strange that the sun was rising in the sky when my last memories had been of heated sex and full heavy night. What did seem strange, as I waded up the beach and wrapped myself in the discarded blanket that lay exactly where I’d left it, was that my cottage was swarming with police.

 

From my deck, two uniformed officers spotted me and the place went wild. Before I could speak, I was swarmed by EMTs trying to shove an oxygen mask in my face while one kept telling me just to relax and breathe deeply. When I was finally able to convince everyone that I was all right, a plain clothes detective named Dirk Snyder shooed the EMTs away and guided me the chaise lounge.

 

“What’s going on, detective? Why are all these cops in my cottage?”

 

He took a bottle of water a uniform handed him and gave it to me. When I’d drank most of it back in thirsty gulps, he settled onto his haunches next to me and held me in an earnest gaze. “Ms. Gibbons, you’ve been missing for three days.”

 

“What?” Suddenly the deck felt more like the deck of a ship as the memories of the wild ride on the beach came back to me. “How can that be?”

 

“The cleaner came Tuesday morning and found the place wide open. Several of the neighbors thought they saw you walking into the water. The tides were still high. They feared the worst.”

 

Since that night five years ago, I’ve read everything I can about the gods and goddesses and the spirits of the deep. I’ve read all the mythology and fairy tales I can find about water and water deities. I’ve read about water horses and mermaids and how sometimes they seduce people and take them down to the deep never to be released again. I guess I was lucky. But I’m more inclined to believe there was a reason for my survival. That reason is my daughter, conceived sometime during those three days I was supposedly missing. Every once in a while I have faint recollections, intimations of dreams of a place beneath the waves, of a man and a horse nearly interchangeable — always insatiable, and of me always ready and full of longing. The memories leave me aching with a desire I have no name for, and when I
can stand no more and give myself relief beneath my sweat-drenched sheets or in a foamy bath or a steamy shower, I horseswish I could bring it all back to me – those three days. The child who bears little resemblance to me but is a constant reminder of her father is the beautiful gift he left me, and yet I want more. Every day I want more, and yet I can’t bring myself to return to the sea because I’m afraid he’ll come for us, but I’m even more afraid that he won’t. Someday I’ll gather my courage and take the child he gave me back to that beach at Lincoln City and tell her about her father, and when the tide is high and the storm blows out on the heels of a full moon, we’ll wait for him together. Someday.

Earthbound by Melora Johnson – A Chat with Matthew Scott Blake (@MeloraJohnson) #ParanormalRomance #UrbanFantasy #RomanticFantasy #TirgearrPublishing

Melora: Hi and thanks for having us here today. I’ve brought along Matthew Scott Blake, ornithologist and . . . Matt? (looks around) Where are you?

Matt: I’m right here.

Melora: Oh, is that the chameleon thing kicking in again?

Matt: I’m really not comfortable talking about this in a public setting. I think it’s better if I remain off the record.

Melora: Well, we’re among friends here.

Matt: (dryly) I highly doubt that.

Melora: Don’t you think it would be better to have the public aware of the dangers present around us and have them help in the fight against, well, whatever it is you’re battling.

Matt: Civilians would just endanger us and themselves.

Melora: Well, ignorant and untrained civilians, but surely –

Matt: I don’t have time to train people to bring them into the fray, plus they don’t have the skills we do.

Melora: I understand that, but don’t you think that if more people are aware and keeping an eye out for –

Matt: No. We’ll know long before they’re aware.

Melora: (waves her hands) Okay, let’s try a different topic. You and Ally, huh?

Matt: (face reddening)

Melora: How’s that working out?

Matt: Good.

Melora: Have the two of you worked out any little differences in comfort levels with intimacy?

Matt: (stiffly) That would be on a need to know basis. Ally and I are the only ones who need to know.

Melora: Okay, okay. What about Zyriel? Are you okay with he and Ally being friends now?

Matt: (just glowers)

Melora: O-kay. How about work? Have you found something in New Hampshire?

Matt: There are several promising possibilities.

Melora: Good, good. Okay, ah, well. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?

Matt: No.

Melora: Okay, then. Maybe we could take some questions from the audience?

Matt: No.

Melora: But . . . .

Matt: I’m leaving now.

Melora: Okay. Well, thanks for having us here today, and rest assured, none of the other characters are this . . . taciturn.

 

Earthbound Excerpt:

“Doctor Reynolds,” a male voice called out from across the room, pulling me back to the present. It sounded somewhat familiar.

I looked up, shielding my eyes from the afternoon sun shining in the front window as a male figure strode toward me, blond hair haloed by the light. He stopped in front of me.

Startled, I rose to my feet and looked into a chiseled face, his eyes the indeterminate blue green of sea glass like I’d collected along the shoreline once as a teenager. His dark golden blond hair was short and spiky, his lopsided grin pure perfection. He was gorgeous.

In my experience, gorgeous men were not to be trusted. Well, no men really were. Oh, all right, no one was, period.

“Doctor Allyson Reynolds? I’m Doctor Matthew Scott Blake. I’m honored to have you join us. I’ve read your articles in the Raptor Rehab Newsletter.”

He held out a hand, but when I put out mine to shake it, he simply captured mine in his and placed his other hand over it. His eyes flashed green with golden flecks in the sunlight.

“I’m glad to be here,” I said, not at all sure I was anymore, as my pulse sped up. “Please, call me Ally.”

“All right, Ally it is.”

I want to climb him like a tree. I swallowed, aghast at my own thoughts. I’d only known him a few minutes.

His hands were so warm. My mother’s voice played in my head, Gorgeous men are dangerous, arrogant, and being involved with them will lead to no good. I frowned.

“It’s so good to see you…” he said. At my expression, he faltered and cleared his throat. The wattage of his smile dimmed significantly. “I mean, to meet you. I’ve been following your work since I arrived in the States, in the newsletter.”

He turned, drawing my hand through his arm. “Please, let me show you around the facilities here.”

“Uh, thank you,” I murmured, wondering how to tactfully withdraw my arm.

 

 

Blurb:

Her healing touch could start a fire.

Ally Reynolds is a veterinarian specializing in raptor rehabilitation in New Hampshire. Other than one horrific incident in her childhood and a little extra “spark” for healing in her hands, both of which she has kept secret from even her best friend, her life has been singularly boring. It has also been extremely lonely. Ally longs for someone to share her life with, but how can she trust anyone with her secret?

Matthew Blake, an ornithologist at Cornell University, calls Ally, asking for her help with an injured raptor. Matthew grew up in New Zealand and has lived around the world. He has read about Ally’s high success rates in raptor rehabilitation and suspects there is more to it than is generally known.

Matthew has some secrets of his own; he is a demon hunter. He suspects Ally’s healing powers could benefit him. He wants her to join him and thinks they’d make a great team.

Can Ally trust him or is he just using her? Matthew definitely has more secrets, and some of them are about Ally.

Buy Links:

Kindle USKindle UK
Kindle CAKindle AU
Smashwords
AppleKoboNook

 

Author Bio:

Melora Johnson is a poet and novelist living in Upstate New York with her husband, daughter, a black cat, and quite a few chickens. Her most recent published work includes A Sanctuary Built of Words: Poems of Peace, Grief, and Passion, and publication in The Sexuality Poems from Foothills Publishing. She also runs a large and thriving writer’s group for adults. Of course, into every life a little rain must fall as well as the occasional tornado, but you’ll find that amply covered in her writing. Find out more about Melora and her writing –

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Instagram
Pinterest
Blog

GIVEAWAY!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A Ghost, A Succubus and NaNoWriMo

Two of my favourite characters in all of my novels are Anderson, the ghost from my Lakeland Witches Series, and Cassandra, the succubus who becomes his lover in the second novel of the series, Riding the Ether. Of all the incredibly sexy, deliciously fun love stories I’ve ever written for my character, theirs was maybe the most fun. The whole Lakeland Witches series was one of the most fun series to write as well. Since this month is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month, it seems appropriate to share something that had its roots in NaNaWriMo. Body Temperature and Rising, novel one of the series, was my very first NaNoWriMo success. This year I’m doing NaNoWriMo for the fifth time, with three of those novels having been published. The other two aren’t quite ready for the world to see yet. I hope you enjoy Cassandra’s observations of and reflections on Anderson.

 

 

 

 

Book two of the Lakeland Witches trilogy (Click here for: Book One | Book Three)

 

Cassandra Larkin keeps her ravenous and dangerous sexual appetite secret until she seduces Anderson in the mysterious void of the Ether.  Anderson is the sexy, insatiable ghost who can give her exactly what she needs.

But sex is dangerous in a place like the Ether…

When the treacherous demon, Deacon, discovers the truth about the origin of Cassandra’s powerful lust, he plots to use her sex magic for revenge on Tara Stone and the Elemental Coven, who practice their own brand of sex magic.

Cassandra must embrace the lust and sexuality she fears and learn to use its power. Will she stand with Anderson, Tara, and the Elemental Coven against Deacon’s wrath or suffer the loss of friendship, magic and love?

 

Excerpt Riding the Ether:

CASSANDRA WOKE TO THE cold mist of her own breath rising in the room above the mattress and pulled the thick duvet up tighter around her. She had expected the fire to be out by the time she returned, though she had banked it as best she could. It was then she realised she had the tiniest bit of a headache. The fact that she had a headache at all caused a clench in her stomach that was far more painful than her head.

She never had headaches unless she had taken too much. And she never, ever, did that. Not any more. She hadn’t done since she was in uni, and then she hadn’t known any better, hadn’t known what would happen, hadn’t known how to control herself. And once she did know what would happen … She pushed that thought out of her head. Still, how could she have taken too much? She had been so careful with her research, so careful with her training. Anderson was a ghost, and they’d been in the Ether, and he had seemed fine, had said he was. He’d certainly seemed all right when she had left him. More than all right, actually.

Suddenly, the clench in her stomach and the ache in her head were both overshadowed by the rhythmic thrumming between her legs that buzzed up her spine. It was the feel of him. The feel of his energy still on her, still in her. She reached between her legs and felt his wetness still there. Even though they’d been in ethereal bodies, sometimes a bit of the Ether escaped back into the World of Flesh. Fooling the Ether, her grandmother used to call it.

Even the feel of his semen against her fingers tingled. She brought it to her mouth, strangely scentless for semen, but that was the curse of ghosts who wore the flesh. They could generate no scent. She wondered if he had been able to smell her scent on him after they’d left the Ether. There was always a scent on her when she came back from the Ether. It was the scent of high- altitude cold and metallic bite. She hoped it was more than that that lingered on him when he left. But then it would be, wouldn’t it? Much, much more, though she wasn’t sure about scent.

She licked his juices from her fingers and instantly she knew that he was indeed all right, if a bit confused. He was very all right. She slid her hand down for more, feeling the buzz of energy relax the knot in her stomach and clear her headache until her whole brain felt like a window, open to all she needed to see, to feel, to experience. And fuck, it was amazing! It had always been amazing, like a drug she dare not allow herself for fear of becoming addicted to it, but this was bloody awesome! It was more than her research had ever prepared her for, way more!

With little more than a stroke, she came, trembling all over as she reached between her legs for more of his juices, unable to hold back shudders that led to moans and, embarrassingly, nearly to bellows that vibrated her whole body. With each clench and tremor, her pussy forced out more of his delicious essence, and she wiped it, rubbed it, slathered it all over her body. Great Christ, she wondered what the man must have smelled like when he lived. He was … He was a rider of the Ether. And he had been for damn near ever. He was power and virility and physicality in ways she had only dreamed of. And she could make love to him. She had made love to him. Great Goddess, how she had made love to him!

With her orgasm mellowing to ripples, she sent out her fetch, that magical part of her that was, in itself, almost like a ghost, her essence, sent forth to explore beyond her body, sent forth whenever she rode the Ether.

She could have never breached the protective magic of Elemental Cottage before. But now she was connected to Anderson. She wore his essence inside and out. She passed through those boundaries and protective spells like water. And she would be able to find him anywhere, in the flesh, or not. She paid no attention to the house, took no time to marvel at the domain of the witches she so admired. She was sure it was amazing, but she had no time for that. She had sent her fetch out for one thing, and one thing only, and that was to find Anderson, to look, just look at him, to reassure herself that she hadn’t dreamed such a man, such a coupling.

And he was there, exactly as she knew he would be. He slept in the arms of his high priestess, slept the deep, even sleep of dreams, dreams which he didn’t need – and yet he chose to have them, in the vulnerable act of sleep that he also didn’t need. He slept wrapped around her. They had had sex. Though Cassandra could not smell him, she could smell the woman, earthy and slightly piquant from the labour of lovemaking. He slept, but the woman, Tara Stone, did not.

She could sense the woman’s worry, her restlessness, but that didn’t concern her at the moment. It was Anderson in his unnecessary sleep that interested her, fascinated her, drew her. He was erect. In a thought she felt was worthy of a teenager with a crush, she wondered if he was excited by dreams of her. She could find out easily enough, but she never invaded people’s dreams on purpose. She never entered people’s private places.

She ran her hand along his flank, feeling her own essence against his flesh as surely as she felt his on her. She could take him now while he slept and he would never know it. She could give him such sweet dreams of her, such passionate dreams that he would come in his sleep, and she would wear the energy of his release, the energy of his dream, like a tight- fitting skin – a skin that would nourish her, give her strength in a way her own never could. That she could do such things frightened her. That she still wanted to do such things frightened her even more. She bent over him and pressed her mouth against his parted lips, breathing a kiss against them, and he sighed softly.

The woman started and sat up, looking around the room. Cassandra couldn’t imagine that she was able to sense her presence, but she knew Tara Stone’s reputation so just in case, she quickly pulled her fetch back to herself, back to her own bed, and her flesh felt all the more vibrant, all the more alive for having been with him, even if it had been from a distance.

Her clit felt heavy. Her nipples ached, and she masturbated again. It was in the receding tremors of orgasm that she noticed the ghost watching her, peeking around the edge of the hanging blanket that separated Cassandra’s sleeping space from the rest of the bothy.

 

 

Spotlight on Alonso Darlington

 

Alonso will be very cross with me for spotlighting him at this time of year. He would growl something about not being a damned mascot for a holiday corrupted by commercialism. Come to think of it, Alonso will be cross with me for spotlighting him anyway. He likes to keep a low profile, and I’ve already blown that for him, so I am not on his favourite persons list. Nevertheless, when someone asks me who my favourite male character is in my fiction, his name is in the top five.

 

Strangely enough, Alonso’s story revealed itself to me almost by accident. He was my first vampire. I was very intimidated by the thought of writing vampires at the time. I’m still not sure if he whispered in my ear or grabbed me by the throat and bared his fangs. Whatever he did got my full attention. Alonso Darlington is most definitely a vampire, and a pretty damn scary one too. His story was the first proper M/M romance I ever wrote. Calling it proper, however, might not be the best choice of words. Some M/M fans were a little put off by his early vicarious use of his succubus familiar to help him find out details about Reese Chambers and satiate his lust for the man while at the same time keeping him safe. Alonso doesn’t normally play well with humans.

 

I never imagined when Alonso Darlington shoved his way into my head that he would become one of the main characters in my Medusa Consortium novels, and that he would also become one of the characters my readers most lust after. Since his revelation to me, there have been multiple sexy vampires who have stepped out of the dark to seduce me with their stories, and his role as one of Magda Gardener’s most valued allies has made him an endless source of writing pleasure for me. Below is an excerpt of Alonso’s first encounter with Reese Chambers from my novella, Landscapes.Enjoy!

 

 

Landscapes Blurb:

 

Vampire, Alonso Darlington has a disturbing method of keeping landscaper, Reese Chambers, both safe from and oblivious to his dangerous lust for the man. But Reese isn’t easy to keep secrets from, and Alonso wants way more than to admire the man from afar. Can he risk a real relationship without risking Reese’s life? And if Reese finds out the truth, will there be any relationship left to risk?

 

 

Find Out Who He Is – Landscapes Excerpt:

 

It wasn’t that Reese Chambers made my cock hard – though he did. It wasn’t that he was beautiful in a rugged, leather and stone sort of way – though he was. It was that Reese Chambers moved me in ways I had not been moved in a very long time, in ways that I, who never lacked just the right words to express myself, found my vocabulary inadequate to the task. Talia would call it an obsession, and maybe it was; from my first sight of him mantling his sketchpad like a bird of prey over a fresh kill, alone in the midst of the crowded pub, I could think of nothing else. It was my first night back on British soil. It is said that you can never go back home, and it had been a very long time for me. But the need to come home was in my blood like fever these past years, as were so many needs that never left me, but only sharpened with the passing of time.

 

Next to me, Talia droned on about suitable residences in Cumbria, about the leasing of a car and the making of necessary renovations. The Twa Dogs was busy for a Monday night with tourist season past, but being invisible was always easier in a crowd.

 

*****

 

‘Find out who he is.’ I nodded in Reese’s direction. Before Talia could protest, I continued. ‘I have a roof over my head, and I’ve fed. There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

 

Talia’s cheekbones flushed with the rush of blood, and heaven knew how beautiful she was in such a state, porcelain pale skin, midnight blue eyes and hair, which was so close to black that no one but I would have noticed all of the other colours in her silken tresses. She knew what it was I asked of her, and she knew the delicate line she tread on the rare occasion when I did ask. A tremor passed up her long, straight spine, and a bloom of tiny goose bumps textured her bare arms. It would not be painless, what I asked, and I knew she feared it as much as she longed for it. I could hear the thud thud of her pulse in the thin, silken skin of her throat as she swallowed the sudden dryness of fear. ‘What do you want to know?’

 

I leaned forward to rake the tip of my thumb against the pulse point in her temple. ‘Everything, Talia. I want to know all of it. And when you know, come directly to me. I don’t care what time it is when you return.

 

 

It was nearing dawn when Talia returned to our accommodations smelling of sex, as I knew she would if she were to obtain for me what I wanted. By then my blood burned in my veins, and my body felt too close to me, as though the flesh that I dwelt in suddenly conspired to crush me with its demands. And though I knew that Reese Chambers could not have refused her even if she had come to him as a toothless, foul-smelling hag, I hated her that he had poured himself into her body while I had been left with only my fantasies kindling my lust to an inferno.

 

Though my need was such that my flesh was fevered and my cock an insistent throb, until she returned, I held myself contained within skin that felt too thin. When she saw the state that I was in, she pulled the heavy drapes with an efficient tug, then with a nod of her head, motioned me to follow her down into the basement room that had been prepared for me. When she turned to me at the foot of the bed, before she could opened her kiss-bruised lips to speak, I took her mouth, starving for the first taste of him, the taste of his saliva, the taste of his blood, mixed with hers. She’d bitten him; he’d bitten her back. He was rough, and he liked to be treated rough, but he kept that to himself. He was embarrassed by it. His lips were slightly chapped from so much time in the sun and wind, and they’d slid against hers, suckling and stroking and pressing until her mouth opened to his. With ravenous laps of my tongue, I tasted him in her mouth, and she held back the moan of response, so I could hear the echoes of his groans, heavy with need he’d not satisfied in awhile, and I felt kinship in my own unsatisfied needs. Images of him flashed through my head. Christ, his eyes were green, dark green like the evergreen forests of the north, and he kept them open when he kissed her, taking her in with his gaze.

 

I shoved aside the silk of her low bodice exposing her breasts, breasts that his hands had cupped. My nipples peeked to sharp aching points at the feel of his calloused thumbs raking, pressing and releasing. I breathed in his scent on her breasts, burying my face in her cleavage, licking the taste of salty, slightly picante maleness, sniffing and tasting until I could stand it no more. In one violent jerk, I tore the dress all the way down and shoved it off her shoulders, away from the flesh he had licked and kissed and mounted. I cried out at the feel of him, weight on one elbow, knee spreading her thighs, fingers opening her heaviness, anxious to penetrate, anxious to relieve his need. And then, with Talia free of clothing, Reese Chambers’ essence filled the room. Talia’s panties were still wet with his semen mixed with her humid desire, and I tore them from her and forced her onto her stomach, onto her hands and knees, so that it was not her face I saw, but his that I imagined. With hands on her hips, I raised her bottom in the air and spread her still swollen, still slippery folds with fingers made awkward by my arousal, letting the scent of his hot bread and honey release intoxicate me. Then I buried my face in her snatch and, as I ate his lust from her, I knew him.

 

He was Cumbrian born and bred, and his accent was the soft lilting sound of the fells. He was a landscaper and a gardener by trade. His hands held the magic of the earth and his mind conceived ideas for beautiful outdoor spaces; those he liked best were patterned after Renaissance and medieval gardens. He was homesick and heartsick. He’d gone to Surrey to work with his father because the money was good. But his father had died recently and he had returned home to Cumbria. He didn’t care if he had to work in a pub or muck stables. He wanted to be home. He missed the people and he missed the fells. He missed the simpler, more honest rhythms of life. He was shy, even a bit reclusive. He read voraciously and widely, he liked astronomy and he was afraid of snakes, though it embarrassed him to admit it. He hadn’t had sex in a long time, and found it better to have a wank than a meaningless encounter. The facts of him, the details of his life raced at me in a flood I consumed ravenously with each lap of my tongue.

 

As I ate Talia I felt the shape of his face, the curve of his chin, the rise and fall of his chest as he had done the same. I felt the soft tuft of bronze curls nestled between the hard rise of his pecs and the courser, deeper curls that caressed his testicles and his cock when it was at rest, but it hadn’t been at rest. How many times had he taken her? He was thick enough to fill her and the friction of him inside was delicious and maddening. The shape of him – I wanted to caress the shape of him, with my hands, with my mouth, and the taking of his essence from Talia was an act of ripping away something that should have been mine. As I bruised her arse with kneading fingers and, as I licked the last of his release from her, she managed a breathless moan. ‘Take the rest. God, Alonso, take the rest, and release me.’

 

October Steamy Paranormal Romance Freebies

 

 

 

Summer is seriously gone and the rains have begun in earnest here at Grace Manor. I’m trying not to let my SAD get the best of me. My antidote for dark and gloomy weather is always a good writing session or a good read. Both always make me feel the dark days a little less, and appreciate the power of words a little more. And a good read brightens up my day even more if it’s a goof FREEBIE!

 

October Steamy Paranormal Romance Freebies

 

Ah! October! Honestly, can you think of a better time to curl up with sexy witches, vampires, ghosts and shifters? With Halloween on the horizon, followed closely by All Hallows, the Day of the Dead, what could be a better treat than a scary-sexy demon? And the treats are even sweeter when they’re FREE! The October Steamy Paranormal Romance Freebiespromo offers a whole yummy list of sexy, steamy, scary reads by your favorite PNR writers, plus a chance to get acquainted with some new authors as well. Of course yours truly has a novel on that list. What a wonderful way to celebrate the autumn and gird your loins for the winter fast approaching.