Playing Against Type: Soulgirls, Book 4 (19 page)

“Okay, kick me when I forget that.”

She chuckled and kissed his jaw. “I absolutely promise to kick you anytime you forget. I think that’s why I love you so much.”

“I think that’s why I love you too.” He pinched her bottom. “Now please get dressed. We need to go.”

“Yes, sir.” She scrabbled away from him and grabbed her clothes. Even her movements seemed freer somewhere, lighter—or maybe that was him.

“Ready?” Pepper slid on her shoes.

“Yep. Let me just burn this stuff.” He stripped the bed and used the last of his burn bags. Some habits it just didn’t pay to break. When they left the room, he glanced back at the emptiness. Hard to believe he found his future in this damned casino. Closing his eyes for a moment, he bowed his head.

Thank you, mama.

Epilogue

Connor leaned against the bar, his foul temper clearing his immediate surroundings. The customers kept as far from him as possible and even the bartender set up camp at the opposite end. Nothing had worked out the way he intended.

Not. One. Damn. Thing.

The alcohol in his glass bubbled, but he ignored it.

“Stop scowling like the world is ending, Connor. It’s very unattractive.” Heidi’s voice punctured the dark cloud around him. He found her sitting on the stool next to him. In the bar.

Outside of the Midnight Mystery Lounge.

“Stop gaping like an idiot and buy me a drink.” She set a small evening clutch onto the bar and crossed one leg over the other.

“What are you doing out here?” Where she couldn’t just wave her hand and make him go away. Where—she could be under his power.

“You wanted a drink. I’ll have a drink with you. Buck up and stop being a sore loser. You went to a lot of trouble to bring that man here just to get at me, and you didn’t win—but I think that kind of effort deserves a little reward.” Her eyes softened, and he didn’t mistake it for weakness. She was the only woman alive who could stop his world with a word. He might be an Overseer and could have anyone,
anyone
who entered the Arcana Royale, but in so many ways, she was the only mistress he ever wanted—even when he fought his way to power to make her call him master.

“Just one drink?”

“Don’t be pushy or you won’t get that.”

Pursing his lips, Connor bowed his head and turned on the stool to sit sideways. “One drink it is.”

Heidi grinned and Connor forgot about Finn Mikelson and the human and their exodus from the Arcana Royale. Heidi had no idea, not really. She’d come out of the theatre to see him.

Mission accomplished.

About the Author

Heather Long, likes long walks in the park, science fiction, superheroes, Marines and men who aren’t douche bags. Her books are filled with heroes and heroines tangled in romance as hot as Texas summertime. From paranormal historical westerns to contemporary military romance, Heather might switch genres, but one thing is true in all of her stories—her characters drive the books. When she’s not wrangling her menagerie of animals, she devotes her time to family and friends she considers family. She believes if you like your heroes so real you could lick the grit off their chest, and your heroines so likable you’re sure you’ve been friends with women just like them, you’ll enjoy her worlds as much as she does.

Visit her at
www.heatherlong.net

Look for these titles by Heather Long

Now Available:

Into the Spotlight

Taking the Stage

Waiting in the Wings

Coming Soon:

Behind the Curtain

What the prince wants…he takes

Waiting in the Wings

© 2013 Heather Long

Soulgirls, Book 3

Who can blame Richard for his half-century-long bad mood? For fifty years he’s been waiting for his bride to get over the spat that sent her storming away from the safety of his territory. For fifty years, he’s missed everything about her—even her whimsical challenges to his authority.
 

It’s time for her to come home, but when he gets a lead on her whereabouts, he’s stunned. She’s dancing in a glitzy, gaudy Las Vegas show. And her memory of him has been wiped clean.

Kiki finally has the opportunity to headline at the Arcana Royale, but she’s not sure she’s happy about it. Especially when a dark, handsome stranger arouses forbidden passions from deep inside the fog of her lost past.

Richard has been granted only three days in hostile territory to free his Kiki from the curse binding her mind.
 

Only one problem. When Kiki remembers Richard, she may not forgive him, but if she never remembers, she’ll never be free.

Warning: Contains an arrogant-as-hell vampire prince who will stop at nothing to get the girl he loves, an unpredictable showgirl who loves to party, and scorching sex that drives them both wild.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Waiting in the Wings:

Richard rebounded to his feet. The sluggish beat of his heart surged double time. Adrenaline flooded his body, and his blood caught fire.
By all that’s holy, I’ve missed her.
Fifty years of separation vanished in a single blow. Her eyes glittered with suppressed passion. The potent scent of her filled his nostrils. The teasing lick of her throat was just a bare sample, and he wanted more.

On borrowed time, he’d called to her the moment he set foot inside the casino. Her blood sang to him—his blood running through her veins—his lover, his wife.

He slid a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him. Defiance shone in her expression, but he easily caught her hand before the next blow landed. Shackling her wrist, he brought her fist to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Her lips parted, and she exhaled a startled little sigh.

“Hello, my darling Kristina.”

“No one calls me that.” Her chin came up, curiosity warring with the rebellion in her gaze. His Kristina was a creature of impulse, a delightful assault on all proper etiquette and expected behavior. She loved to laugh, dance, drink and surrounded herself with others as carefree as herself. Her wicked sense of humor and unabashed wonder at the world filled his dark and lonely nights with welcome distraction.

Sad how easily he slipped back into old habits without her.

“I have always called you that.” He kissed another knuckle. Around them, waiters cleaned up the destroyed table and the bar’s patrons gradually drifted back to their own pleasures. The two men he’d been allowed to bring with him distracted the other voyeurs, affording them a modicum of privacy for this most public reunion. He studied her, hungry for every detail. She seemed leaner, as if all the soft curves had been erased. Her face, always angular and exquisite, was even more refined—like fine porcelain—perfectly pale and unblemished. Her lips were a rosy red, lacking her normal darker lipsticks and cosmetics. Oddly, she wore almost no makeup at all and yet seemed to shimmer from within.

His heart fisted in his chest. He turned her hand and slid his thumb along the pulse point in her wrist. The blood responded to him, drumming as if pumped by his own system. He kissed the soft skin just above the pulse point. The flutter of it tingled against his lips.

“Who are you?” Unlike her earlier antagonism, this question echoed through him, shattering his bliss. Malcolm told him she didn’t remember, but she had answered the blood call. She had come straight to him. Her gaze had locked on him the moment she entered the lounge; he didn’t mistake that.

“My name is Richard, and I am here for you, Kristina.” He watched her eyes, looking for any glimmer of recognition, but despite the liquid heat in her black eyes, no spark of recognition ignited.

“Richard.” She rolled the name around on her tongue, as though testing it. “I like that. My friends call me Kiki.”

“Do they?” This was not how their reunion should go. Stroking the hair back from her cheek, he tucked a lock behind her ear. “Come sit with me, Kristina.” He drew her deeper into the private lounge. The Bloodletter Bar seemed appropriate considering the first time he’d met her was in a rowdy little tavern in Vienna.

She hesitated, sucking her lower lip into her mouth. His eyes narrowed.
Where are her fangs?
The rich vetiver of the succubi in the room combined with the heavy undertones of blood should have aroused a hint of bloodlust and—even if she exhibited remarkable self-control around the hedonistic pleasures offered in the bar—he called her blood. Excitement would have skittered through her and her fangs should have descended.

“I don’t think I can.” Her wince softened the rejection, but he was not in a mood to be denied. Not after this many years.

“Why do you think that?” Controlling the urge to whisk her out the door and into his waiting car took every ounce of effort. Malcolm briefed him on the plane ride via conference call. Kristina’s binding to the casino meant he couldn’t just steal her—not without damning her. He sent word ahead to the Overseers with a five-million-dollar offer to buy out whatever contract they held over her.

Kristina flicked a look left and right before leaning in toward him. “Do you want to know a secret?”

Glee filled her eyes and drew a reluctant, if genuine smile from him. “Always.”

“I snuck out.” She mouthed the words, but this close, the whisper of breath carried the words to his ears. “If they catch me…”

They would take her away. Richard lifted his gaze from his bride to sweep the area. Malcolm had given him the codes for his private apartments. “Then let us go somewhere private.” He released her wrist and offered his arm.

“I don’t know you.” An amused smile quirked the corner of her mouth, her head tilted and her gaze roamed him from head to toe. “Do I look like the type of woman who is just going to walk out of a bar with some strange man at his invitation?”

Melancholy and delight stabbed him. “Yes. You look exactly like the woman who will join me this evening.”

Her grin grew and her eyes lit up. “Well, considering I’ve already hit you, we know I can do that again, right?”

“Oh yes. Without a doubt.” The thrill of the hunt thrummed through him. This conversation mirrored their first so closely he could almost imagine the coach waiting just outside the doors ready to whisk them away to his castle.

She sidled up to him, threading her arm through his and glancing around. “Then I suggest we go now—or we won’t have time for any fun.”

In wholehearted agreement, he led her from the bar. His men fanned out before and after him. Kristina snuggled against his arm and the hole in his heart began to knit. She stiffened next to him and slid behind him, hiding. He went still. His fangs began to elongate, and he stared at the crowds of partygoers flowing through the maze of the casino. His men closed ranks, and the three of them shielded Kristina in the triangle between them.

“Kristina?” He breathed her name softly.

“Salt and pepper, four o’clock. He’ll make me go back.” Her fingers dug into the back of his jacket.

Richard located the man, nondescript and unthreatening, Richard would have dismissed him. He folded his hands together, one over the other and waited. The vampires he chose for this—Anton and David mirrored his pose. The man took his time. He examined every face, studied every walk and finally took another path.

Nodding to his men, Richard took Kiki’s arm and they moved through the casino to the lobby and blockaded her again at the elevators. He maintained vigilance until they were inside. Kristina bounced when the elevator doors closed.

“That was so exciting!”

He gave her an indulgent smile. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“So,” Kristina leaned back against the elevator wall and glanced from Richard to his guards and back. “Do I get to have all three of you?”

Logic says wait. Their bodies scream go. And their spirit guides are playing dirty.

Cougar’s Courage

© 2013 Teresa Noelle Roberts

Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 3

Toronto cop Cara Many-Winters Mackenzie is still reeling from her fiancé’s murder when her orderly life takes a turn toward the weird, complete with voices in her head and phantom bleeding wounds.

This violent awakening is the rise of her Different gift—a chaotic, Bugs-Bunny-on-crack magic that she must learn to control before it destroys her. There’s only one place to get help: her mother’s ancestral village, and a mentor who seems to have stepped straight out of the smoke of her erotic dreams.

Cougar Dual Jack Long-Claw reluctantly agrees to take Cara under his wing, though he’d much rather take the beautiful city girl into his bed. As he guides her through a crash course in shamanic magic, sparks fly—some sexy, some snarky. But when an ancient enemy attacks the village, they must work together to hone a magical weapon against certain destruction.

Common sense tells them it’s a terrible time to fall in love. Their spirit guides have other ideas. And shamans who don’t listen to their spirit guides are dead shamans…