Wicked Misery (Miss Misery) (41 page)

Looks like someone’s knees are going to get a workout.

Lover Enraptured

© 2013 Jodi Redford

Thieves of Aurion, Book 2

Avily Donahoe has dated way too many losers trying to get over Jerrick Hunter, the man who taught her everything about the life of crime she left behind. Now he has the balls to show up and ask her to pose as his sub, complete with skimpy leather outfit, to get inside a no-faes-allowed sex club?

Oh, hell no. If anyone’s going to be wearing next to nothing, it’s going to be Jerrick…as her bitch.

Five years ago, Jerrick realized the lonely kid he’d taken under his wing had grown into a tempting, desirable woman—and he’d cut her loose. If gaining her help now means hitting his knees with a leash and a collar, so be it.

But soon their front escalates into an all-too-real erotic game where the prize is the one thing that tantalizes him beyond reason. Their hearts aren’t the only thing they’ll lose if they fail. It could mean the end of everything—and everyone—they know and love.

Warning: This book contains male groveling, the occasional blindfold and feather tickler, wicked sex magic, and a fae thief who isn’t afraid to wear ass-less chaps when the job calls for it.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Lover Enraptured:

He was starting to come to the conclusion that the smaller the package, the more potential for testing his patience. Despite being half his size, Avi possessed the ability to drive him to the limits of his sanity.

After their showdown in the bathroom, she’d calmly ordered him into the kitchen—where he was currently making her a salad while she kicked back on the sofa. She was taking this whole getting-into-character to an exasperating extreme. He knew she was doing it to prove a point, and he even understood why.

What
she
didn’t understand was the dangerous fire she was meddling with.

There was a reason he desperately needed to be the one holding the reins in this charade, and it had nothing to do with some farfetched notion of refusing to kowtow to a woman’s demands. As long as he remained in control of
himself
, everything would be okay. He could treat this job like any other and stay cool and professional in the process. But with Avi pushing him and stripping his defenses, what hope did he hold of resisting the potent pull of her?

He had to. Giving in was
not
an option. Popping a cheese cube into his mouth, he squinted at her profile. “It’s bloody cold in here. Can I put my damn shirt back on?”

“The lower temp is good for your metabolism. We wouldn’t want you developing a spare tire around your gut.”

“I appreciate your concern for my health.” Somehow or other, he’d find a way to get her back for this. “What else do you want in your salad?”

“Maybe a few slices of the Nahimi melon.”

He opened her cooler and inspected the contents of the crisper bin. “Looks like you already polished it off.”

“Well shoot.”

He waited for her to demand he drag his ass down to the grocer. Or perhaps produce some magical seeds and till her a garden so she could have her blasted fruit.

“Guess you’ll have to skip adding it. Chop up the rest of the cooked hen on the second shelf and toss it in instead. I need my protein, you know.”

Undoubtedly so she could keep her lungs nice and strong for bossing him around.

A minute later, meal completed to her exacting standards, he carried it to the sofa. She patted the cushion next to her. Before he even sat down he knew what her next request would be.

“You can feed it to me.”

Biting back a growl, he speared a serving of the greens and crispy poultry with the fork and held it to her mouth. Her lips closed around the metal tines with an
mmm
of pleasure that wrapped around his cock and refused to let go. Yes, she definitely drove him insane. In more ways than one. He battled the potent desire to suck the remaining few speckles of dressing from her berry-vinaigrette-glossed lips.

“Does it meet your approval, my precious?” His voice sounded strained and gruff to his own ears.

Her smile was as sweetly delivered as his endearment. “Color me impressed. Didn’t know you had it in you to cook. You’ve always avoided any domestic activity like it’s a fate worse than death.”

Damn sassy woman. Even if she was right. “It’s a salad. Not much cooking involved.”

She surprised him by snatching the fork from his grip. At bloody last, she was putting this ridiculous dominatrix stuff to bed for the night.

Truthfully, her roleplaying wasn’t the only thing wreaking havoc on his tightly strung patience. Sitting next to her and not running his hands all over her silky skin was killing him. Their brief contact in the bathroom only added kindling to the fire crackling between them. If he wasn’t careful, he stood a good chance of getting burned.

He needed to remove himself from temptation.
Now
. Desperately clutching the frayed strands of his willpower, he started to shove up from the cushion.

Avi stalled him with her hand on his thigh. His entire world narrowed to the distracting pressure of her splayed fingers. He didn’t immediately notice the fork waving inches from his face. “Wha—?”

She shoved the greens into his mouth, effectively shutting him up. He chewed the offering, his wary focus never leaving her face. She scooted closer and tucked her legs over his lap. A rush of familiarity swept over him. How many times had she curled into him like this? Too many to count. And just like those other occasions when he’d sweated through her need to cuddle, he questioned his ability to keep his hands safely out of the danger zone.

Popping another savory morsel of poultry into his mouth, she looked him square in the eye, her own twinkling with a devilment that put him on high alert. “Put your hand on my leg.”

He returned her stare for a long moment, attempting to decipher if this was part of her cover or something else. Something that’d ultimately prove a far tougher test to his control.

“Don’t make me punish you for your disobedience, Jer.”

The mock sternness in her tone did funny things to his gut. Or maybe the sudden stiffening of his cock had something to do with the lazy swirl of her fingertip along his abdomen. Hard to tell.

Extra emphasis on
hard
.

If he was smart, he would have called an end to their training right there and packed it in for the night, but apparently his intelligence had migrated south for the winter. “What punishment are you intending to dish out?”

“Well…” She set aside the forgotten plate of salad and straddled his lap. Her fingers drifted along the delicate swells of her hips, the soft
scritch
of her nails raking the supple leather providing an erotic soundtrack. “If you won’t touch me, maybe I should make you watch
me
do it.”

Surely she didn’t mean that the way it sounded. “Avi—”

She pressed a fingertip to his mouth. “No, you had your chance. Now you’re going to pay the price.”

Oh, he held no doubt of that. Particularly when her hands ghosted upward, tracing her rib cage and higher still to the fullness of her breasts. She rolled the pads of her fingers over her nipples, mimicking the motions he’d used earlier in the bathroom. His lungs suddenly felt equally as constricted as his damn briefs.

She licked her lips, the sultry haze of desire in her eyes nearly doing him in. “Did you like touching me? Do you wish you could do it right now? Would you caress my breasts, or maybe slide your hand up under my skirt and find out how wet I am?”

Sweet goddess.
He hissed a breath between his teeth. “Don’t play this dangerous game with me.”

“Why? Worried I’ll crack through that legendary control of yours?” One palm swept lower and hovered temptingly near her mound.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. He’d never been more grateful for the hindrance of a skirt. Ironic, considering he usually cursed them to hell and back for slowing his seduction progress.

The heated glimmer in her eyes making him infinitely nervous and aroused, Avi lifted onto her knees and tiptoed her fingers along the creamy-smooth expanse of her thighs. Hypnotized, he watched the slow crawl of her hemline ascending toward her hips. The black lace triangle of her panties popped into view, and his shaky exhalation snuck loose before he could rope it into submission. Damn. He was a fucking sucker for sexy underthings.

Then again, he was a fucking sucker when it came to Avi. Period.

“Do you like what you see?” She leaned forward until her lips grazed his earlobe. “Or should I give you something even better to watch?”

His brain screamed one answer while his cock piped in with an entirely different response. Not trusting the words that might jog loose of his mouth, he swallowed hard. This close, he could smell the sweet heat of her. Beneath the luscious floral essence, he easily detected the feminine musk of her arousal. It was driving him out of his mind. He longed to hike her up into his arms and bury his head between her legs, fill his nose with the heady intoxication of her pussy, right before he filled
her
with his tongue.

She leaned back, awarding him some room to enjoy the show. He knew he was in some serious trouble the instant she hesitantly stroked over the fabric covering her crotch. She was soaked. The slick, succulent sound taunting him verified it. No need for him to see or feel her wet, velvety flesh firsthand.

But he wanted to.

Dear gods, how he wanted to.

Hell on Earth. It’s not just an expression anymore.

Crazy in the Blood

© 2012 Lucienne Diver

Latter-Day Olympians, Book 2

It’s an ill wind that carries bad news, and Tori’s just had a double load of it blow through her door.

Just a few weeks after she prevented some rogue gods from blowing L.A. into the ocean, more dead bodies are turning up near the leftover crater. Bodies that have been shredded by something too big to be…shall we say, of this world? Worse, Uncle Christos has disappeared after stumbling onto a deadly cult masquerading as the Back to Earth movement.

The connection: Dionysus. Yes,
that
Dionysus. He’s resurrected his bloody fertility rite, complete with frenzied female groupies who tear men limb from limb. And he’s lured Demeter, goddess of the harvest, over to his side by finding a way to get her daughter away from Hades for good.

Predictably, Hades isn’t about to let her go without a fight. Unless Tori finds a way to bring her back, he’ll abandon the gates of Tartarus. At which time all hell will, literally, break loose.

Between saving the world, the woman, and cultists and her crazy uncle? So much for getting to the beach before all the good spots are taken…

Warning: The wine country is going through a heat wave of epic proportions, and it's not all about the weather. Beware steamy gods with seduction on their minds or brimstone in their blood.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Crazy in the Blood:

I opened my eyes to the face of an angel—the fallen variety. The kind designed to lead others into temptation and have them thank him for it. Repeatedly. To make matters worse, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his weight slanting the mattress so that my body seemed inclined to slide toward his.

Apollo’s golden hair was wild, like the corona of the sun, like it would look after someone had run their fingers through it, clutching his head to their breast or…elsewhere…urging him not to stop. My mind supplied an image of
me
in that position, Apollo above me, gazing down with those impossible turquoise eyes turbulent with emotion…

I shut it down, closed my eyes and focused on breathing. In and out. No, that was bad. Just…bad.

“Move away,” I said through gritted teeth.

Apollo shifted fractionally, but I could feel him staring at me still. My body cried out for contact, but I ruthlessly ignored it, even though every single cell seemed to strain toward Apollo. I felt
alive.
More than alive. Manically, enthusiastically, quite definitely, hyper-alive. Full of light and energy. My eyes snapped open at the realization of just what had to be heightening all my experiences.

As my gaze met Apollo’s, I struggled to find a well of anger to tamp down my libido and was surprised not to have to look too hard, though I must have known on some level that this was what would happen if Apollo rode to my rescue. Some part of me must have decided deep down that I could die another day but not while the family was counting on me to track Uncle Christos and not while there were new murders, massacres really, begging to be solved. I didn’t have the luxury of the moral high ground. No, as much as I wanted to blast Apollo with both barrels of my wrath, I was the one to blame here. I had to take responsibility.

Still, my “thank you” tasted like ashes on my tongue.

“Stop. Your effusion is just embarrassing,” Apollo said, brushing aside a sweat-soaked lock of hair obscuring my vision. The jolt it sent straight to my heart made me cranky.