Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: Wrestling Book 4 to the ground
Mood: Mouth full of dirt

On my morning alley walks with Monster Girl, the grass has gone to seed and the air smells like cider from all the fallen apples. The shadows are getting so long.  But the heat isn’t over yet because here at Silk And Shadows we’re sneaking in a week of hot love scenes.

And speaking of hot, y’all are now seeing the first posting of VOWED IN SHADOWS, Book 3 of the Marked Souls.  Here’s Jonah, the hero, in all his blond bad boy glory, with the sweltering city behind him (it’s August in Chicago, after all) and a demon storm on the horizon:

Maybe it’s just the humidity making me swoon.

We’ve met Jonah briefly in SEDUCED BY SHADOWS and FORGED OF SHADOWS. This righteous missionary man lost his wife when he was possessed, and he can’t imagine ever loving again.  So when the repentant demon within him sets him on the path of rampant unbound etheric energies that leads him straight to the Naughty Nymphette — dancing tonight at the Shimmy Shack! — he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will never, ever, in an eternity fall in love as Archer and Liam did before him.

But he is a man of strong convictions, and he’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the Chicago league of immortal demon-possessed warriors bring this newest fighter to their side. And by “do whatever it takes,” I include doing her…

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From VOWED IN SHADOWS:

Jonah sat and crossed his arms. He needed her demon ascendant before he made his move. She wouldn’t believe his story otherwise. “Dance for me, Nymphette.”

Physical stress triggered the demon’s rise. Dangerous, but necessary since the newly possessed needed to find a way to balance the demon within them. Males traditionally drank and fought their way through the other-realm emanations coursing through their bodies. He’d been told it worked differently with the females. Just as well, since his balance was shot.

“Call me Nim.” Her voice turned husky, not with the demon, just a generic come-on. She swayed closer. “Nymphette is such a mouthful. And maybe you want me to save my mouth for… other things, right, Cap’n?”

“Don’t call me captain.”

Her fake tarantula lashes narrowed at his brusque tone, but she didn’t speak. She sidled toward his chair and slowly sank to her knees between his legs. Her gaze rested straight ahead, and his flesh, already strung tight, lifted like a marionette. Her mouth-that wide, generous mouth-was such a short distance from his zipper. He ached all over at her closeness, his erection straining toward her, his jaw locked hard against giving in.

She unwrapped the snake from her shoulders and laid it over his feet. The weight of the beast was surprisingly heavy and hot through the leather of his boots as it wound around his ankles. He couldn’t stifle a grunt of dismay.

Nim grinned, a crooked chink in her seductress armor that revealed the first hint of honest emotion he’d seen: amusement, at his expense. “Don’t want you sneaking away early, like you’ve been doing all week.”

“Hadn’t planned on it.” Anyway, not until her demon was firmly anchored in her soul and she’d been drawn into the league as its newest possessed fighter.

She rose, so close between his thighs he felt the passage of air, faintly scented of patchouli. But she never touched him. The way she used her body was sinful, but he had to admit, she kept it as brutally honed as any warrior maintained his weapons. A demon could choose worse than to take such a dwelling.

Within the confines of his spread knees, she turned and set her back to him. She ran her hands up her torso, over her shoulders, and through her dreadlocks. With a single twist, she bound her hair into a thick knot at her crown.

She leaned to one side, and he couldn’t stop his gaze from following the sinuous curve of her spine, down between the points of her shoulder blades to the twin dimples framing her tailbone. His hand twitched to test whether his spread fingers would span the distance.

Just as well it was his missing hand.

She glanced over her shoulder. “No touching.”

“So you said.” He hadn’t given himself away. Couldn’t, considering his maiming. But she obviously didn’t think that would stop him. “Aren’t you supposed to be dancing?”

She bent backward, an impossible contortion without making contact. And yet she managed to keep even her hair suspended above his lap, teasing but not touching. She stared at him from her inverted pose. “You’re supposed to be pulling something out.”

“You said no touching. Presumably that also means myself.”

“Your wallet is exempt from the no touching rule.”

He sighed, aggrieved, and uncrossed his arm to shift to one hip and reach for his back pocket. “At least this is on an expense account.”

“All business. I like that in a man. We’re practically soul mates.”

Anger, cold and jagged, wrenched like the hook through his chest, dragging the demon to the surface. “Don’t say that.”

“Bosom buddies then.” She turned again to straddle his other leg, facing him. Her arms, crossed in a low X across her belly, pushed her breasts into tempting handfuls. Another supple writhe brought her down low, so low and close her nipples would’ve grazed his lips. If not for her oft-stated no touching rule, of course.

“You have no idea how close we’ll be,” he said.

He’d meant to sound as flirtatious as any of her customers, but a faint hint of alarm crinkled her brow. When he opened his billfold, though, the wary look in her eyes evaporated with a spark of simple avarice. He wouldn’t bother making mental bets about the weakness in her soul that had made her vulnerable to possession.

“Let’s see then, shall we?” She edged closer and propped her foot on the chair seat between his legs. “I bet that big, shiny hook scares the good girls away, doesn’t it? Well, not me. I don’t easily scare.”

“Because you’re a bad girl.”

“Just like you wanted.” Her bare toes grazed his crotch, such a glancing touch it might have been an accident, except he suspected she didn’t make such mistakes. She fancied herself fully in control of the situation. Of him.

His body didn’t exactly disabuse her of the notion. The surge in his jeans kindled a flare of victory in her eyes. As if this was a battle she planned to win.

No way for her to know she’d already lost.

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Okay, that wasn’t actually a love scene, was it? <Evil grin> But you can guess what’s coming. Or who, right? If you want to know more, VOWED IN SHADOWS (scheduled for release April 2011) is already available for pre-order at Amazon and Borders and elsewhere soon.