13 shots from my trip
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Labels: Disney World, Thursday Thirteen
They are: Dawn Murphy, romantic_saamus, and Laura Kubitz.
Winners, Emma will be contacting you shortly so that you may receive your prize. You each receive a ten dollar gift certificate for the purchase of books from Siren Publishing.
Congratulations, winners.
And for the rest of you? Please stay tuned. We had so many entries, we may have news for you soon.
Labels: contest winners
What you can win: One of 3 Ten Dollar Gift Certificates for any books, your choice, at the Siren Bookstore.
What you have to do: Just visit the Siren website http://www.sirenpublishing.com
and look for the answers to the questions below. All answers can be found in the ‘excerpts’ posted.
How to enter: Send your answers to morganashbury@aol.com.
Contest closes Sunday, September 23, 2007 at 11:59 p.m. eastern time.
Winners will be announced Monday September 24th right here!
THE QUESTIONS
- Name the five released books in the Brothers of the Absinthe series by Emma Wildes.
- In The Blonde Bomb Tech by Lara Santiago, how many secrets is Sabrina haunted by and what are they?
- In Kinsey And The Exotic Dancing Princess by Tonya Ramagos, what is the bounty the king offers to he who discovers where the Princess spends her night?
- In Body, Heart and Soul by Samantha Lucas, what was the air perfumed with as Dev stands on the balcony?
Labels: contest
Torrid Hearts
Sarah Bennet is long past romance and fairy tales and the so called "happily ever after". World-weary and man-weary, she wants nothing to do with the fascinating man at the edge of her stripper's stage, despite her attraction. Drago has no idea what drew him to the club, until he sees Sarah take the stage and knows instantly this is the woman his heart has waited for.
Determined to get his way, he engages her in an emotional game of cat and mouse. Soon the roles seem to reverse themselves. He's no longer sure which of them is the cat and which is the mouse!
Desperate to have her, he blackmails Sarah with the one thing he knows she cannot resist. Reluctantly, she agrees to an arrangement and accompanies Drago to his home for the summer - only to find that surrender has never been so sweet.
An exclusive excerpt and book trailer are in the next two posts make sure you check them out!Purchase this Title now!
I have a new book release tomorrow from Siren Publishing!Torrid Hearts is my thrid release with Siren and I just love this book. Drago and Sarah were a great couple to write, lots of passion and both are very strong in their own right which makes the scenes where one is trying to dominate the other a lot of fun, but in the end, surrender is always the sweetest reward.
Below is the unpublished Prologue. This was cut from the final version of the book because we felt it dragged a bit too much, but I wanted to share it with you, it gives a little more background for Sarah. Hope you read and love Torrid Hearts as much as I do and make sure you check out the book trailer for this book in the next post. ;-)
Have a great rest of the weekend ~ lots of love Samantha
Prologue
The occasion of Sarah Rose Bennett's fourth birthday was met with the news that her father was leaving. He didn't actually say good-bye to Sarah directly, but rather had given her mother a "hug" to give her and a promise he'd come visit. To Sarah, it was the end of the world as she knew it, but she trusted her daddy. She knew that somehow everything would be all right and at least her daddy was still alive, unlike her neighbor's daddy who'd been taken in the ambulance one night and never came back.
By Sarah's fifth birthday, she'd stopped waiting for her father to come visit. Or, at least that was what she told her dolls so they wouldn't laugh at her when she still held her breath every time a car stopped in the street below their apartment.
Seven, eight and nine were all right, because—while it may have only been her and her mom—they were happy. Her mother had a glamorous job and Sarah was duly starry-eyed. As a showgirl in one of the big productions on the Vegas strip, every Friday night she'd sneak Sarah in to watch. Sarah sat quiet as a church mouse, eyes huge, mouth agape in awe through the entire thing. Then, after, she'd get to sit in the dressing room while all the girls stripped off pounds of makeup and glitter, talked and laughed and always had candy or some fabulous trinket for Sarah. Those were the happiest years of her entire life.
By ten, Sarah's mother had met a new man and Sarah didn't like it one bit. What had always just been her and her mom, was now mostly just her. She had a nice enough baby-sitter and all, but when a girl's an only child with no father, she grows a certain attachment to her mother and she didn't want to share.
Eleven was the worst, because Sarah's mother got sick, and the nice man had long since left. Sarah and her mother were now living with Corey Triply in a trailer just outside the Vegas city limits. Sarah did her best to take care of her mom, who'd lost her job as she'd gotten too sick to stand most of the time, a fact Corey didn't appreciate.
Sometimes her mother wondered aloud why he let them stay when he wasn't getting anything from her anymore. Their relationship had ended and Corey didn't hide the fact that he brought other women home. Her mother had decided that, somewhere deep down, he was just a decent guy and didn't want to throw a sick woman and her child out on the street.
Sarah knew differently.
Corey let them stay so long as Sarah let him watch her bathe, and Sarah did it because she had no idea what else to do. There was no way she could take care of her mom if they were on the streets, and because Sarah had grown up backstage at most of the bigger hotels on the strip, nudity meant very little to her, anyway.
If eleven was bad, twelve was so mind-numbingly horrific that Sarah was surprised she survived it. Not only was her mother barely in her grave, but because the nosy bitch Corey was dating had shown the pictures Cory had taken of an overly-developed and topless twelve-year-old Sarah to the social workers, Sarah ended up in foster care, and soon after, was officially a ward of the court.
Sarah's eighteenth birthday was not an occasion for a lot of fanfare, either. In fact, other than the curt and efficient social worker who finished Sarah's paperwork without emotion and officially released her from the group home she'd been in for the past seven months, there was no recognition at all of the day.
As Sarah held out her thumb on the busy Nevada thoroughfare, she couldn't believe it was finally over. She'd been lucky. She knew this because she was still relatively in one piece and she knew of others who couldn't say the same.
Pushing ugly thoughts from her mind, she started planning what she would do now. She figured the first thing she had to do was find Chad. He'd been released from the group home three months earlier, but sent her a message about a month back, telling her he'd made some good contacts in the city, and if she was still as free with the idea of using her body as she had been in the home, then he could find her work.
It wasn't as if she wanted to use her body, but it was the one piece of currency she found worked every time, without fail. There had been a few years when she'd been stupid, bought any line any guy gave her. She'd been so alone and so afraid, all she wanted was someone to love her. She'd exchanged her body with a great many guys under the guise of love, only to find out that once they'd gotten what they wanted, the love grew cold and she was once again alone.
Chad was different, though. Her first night at the home he'd come to her room and offered her a deal. In exchange for sex, he'd protect her from the worst of the goings on at the home. It had been very up-front and very honest and she appreciated him for that, agreeing without hesitation to his terms.
A blue pick-up stopped on the dusty curb. Sarah looked the driver up and down, knew she'd have to jack him off, but figured it was better than a twelve mile hike into the heart of the strip. She climbed in beside him, grimacing as the man smiled, reeking of cigarettes, but at least it wasn't alcohol.
Sarah's mother taught her when she was very young to always look for the bright side of things. No matter how bad they got, there was always a bright side. It may have been dimly bright, but definitely brighter than…whatever.
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One Night on a Balcony is one of the best books that I’ve read in a long time. The sex is blazing, the story if compelling and the characters will jump out and get you they were so hot. From the very first words the narrative grabs you and pulls you into the story, and I really didn’t want the story to end. I liked the fact that this story was a quick read, but I would have enjoyed it just as much if it had been a lot longer. I would love to have seen some development about one of Cole’s friends, and I’m hoping for a sequel to this book with that person. Some books I have to really think about do I want to give it a Recommended Read but with this book I knew immediately that it would get one. Congratulations Ms. Lucas for a great book! ~ Missy
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The reviews are already coming in!
Samantha Lucas satisfies readers craving for the 'risky' idea of public sex aboard a moving train. Whether it's the vibration of the train as it rumbles down the track or the thought of being caught or whatever ideas you have regarding trains, these stories will inspire you - or at least allow you to live vicariously through the characters. At less than 50 pages, this addition to the Torrid Teaser line from Whiskey Creek Press Torrid is a quick read full of all the traits that make any story memorable. I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of TORRID TEASERS 34. They're wonderful stories. Chrissy at Romance Junkies 4.5 ribbons
Torrid Teasers, Volume 34 is a delight. Both stories, Can't Walk Away and Captive Audience, take place on a train and I can just imagine reading these two while commuting to work! Wow!" 4 Angels from Marlena at Fallen Angels Reviews
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Can't Walk Away
Felicity Sumners sank gratefully into the window seat on the—thankfully—not too crowded Amtrak. She was going home. The thought brought both comfort and pleasurable sensations of the known, as well as the grating feelings of being lonely once more.
She drew a breath of unpleasant, stale, recycled air and reached into the small bag at her feet, pulling from it a worn paperback. Several hours lost in a world of faery and highland lords should do wonders for her melancholia. At least, she hoped it would.
She pushed the long sleeve of her sweater up over her elbow, wishing she hadn't dressed for the ambient night air temperature, but instead had given thought to the stuffy accommodations she'd be sitting in for the next three days. She sighed, knowing she could always change. It really wasn't the temperature that had her in such a foul mood anyway—it was Grant.
She still couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. To believe in him after all these years and all the water under that particular bridge, but she'd done it. The old desperation and insecurities put a stranglehold on her the second she'd heard his voice on her machine nearly three weeks ago now, and she dropped everything to run to L.A. The hopeful dreamer in her—the one she planned to dropkick across the high school football field once she got home—automatically assumed this would be the time they could make everything work.
God, she was a fool.
She pressed a palm against her forehead, moaning at a combination of her physical discomfort and her own stupidity before once again trying to lose herself in fiction.
* * * *
Mallin Lowell hated flying. It was a joke really considering he'd made his millions on corporate jets, but there one had it. So here he was, pushing his luggage into the cramped compartment that would be home for the next two days as he headed east with the unenviable task of burying his beloved grandmother. The woman had raised him and he had no other family.
He pulled his leather jacket off by the cuffs and tossed it on a bed that looked painfully small for his six-foot frame.
"You're alone now, Lowell. Just like you always knew you would be someday."
Looking at himself in the tiny mirror lodged in a corner of the cramped space, he rubbed a hand over the dark three-day stubble growing rough on his jaw. A jaw he hadn't bothered to shave, on a face that hadn't smiled in…he didn't know how long—even before he got word of Ruby's death. He looked closer at his reflection, seeing his grandmother's eyes when he looked in his own. They reminded her of the British sea, she'd always told him. Not quite blue, not quite green, not quite grey, but always stormy. He laughed harshly.
"God, I miss you so much already, old woman."
He went to unpack any essentials that couldn't sit in the Louis Vuitton case for the next couple of days, then pulled a book from his attaché. He figured he really should have reached for the laptop and done some work, but as the train rumbled to life beneath him and he watched the Fullerton station disappear into the night, he couldn't care less about work. He turned his attention to gothic warriors and damsels in distress as he'd always done when he was a kid and needed an escape.
He sighed deeply. A sigh he felt all the way into his soul.
It would be a long week.
* * * *
The dining car was intimidating as hell. What kind of wuss was intimidated by a dining car? Felicity was, she had to admit. She hadn't realized when she came down she'd be seated with other people she didn't know. She hadn't realized the dining car would only consist of a dozen booths and they used every seat, putting loners like herself anywhere they'd fit. And lucky for her, she fit with a lovely couple on their honeymoon, who hadn't spared her two glances since she sat down.
While staring out the very large window at the blurred scenery, Felicity seriously considered the least conspicuous way to slither out of the dining car and down to the snack window where she'd consumed her last two meals. However, the fourth member of their party was seated next to her, effectively blocking her escape and causing an unbidden reaction to her breathing by his mere closeness.
Heat rolled off him, the kind of heat she felt on a midsummer day when the sun beat down on her relentlessly. It soaked into her bones, and she craved it, at the same time feeling a need to run for the A/C. It was entirely different from the heat soaking through the window with the sun's rays now, but then it wasn't actual heat, she supposed. It was simply his height and breadth and dark dreamy features that merely alluded to a sexual heat, the likes of which Felicity knew was a figment of her imagination brought on by the dismal encounter with Grant and the amount of romances she'd been reading of late.
"Sorry, if I'm squishing you. I'm kind of big for these booths. Last meal, they stuck me next to a four year old who spent the entire meal asking if I was somehow related to the Hulk."
Felicity scooted closer to the window and without looking at him smiled shyly.
"I'm not, by the way," he stammered, then smiled before adding, "In case you were wondering."
Felicity giggled, felt ridiculous, then giggled again. What was wrong with her? She'd never known herself to be a giggler, then she'd never had much in her life to laugh about, had she?
"I'm Mallin Lowell."
He said it loud enough to startle the newlyweds into acknowledging him. For about a third of a second. The husband growled a hello, the wife blushed, then the two went back to ignoring anyone and everything but each other. It was actually very sweet. Unless, of course, one was well on their way to spinsterhood, which Felicity had quite decided in the past twenty-four hours that she was.
"Hmmm. I'm thinking it's going to be just you and me for lunch. What are you having, Red?"
Felicity, her curiosity outweighing her natural tendency to be shy, met his stare and had to swallow, reminding herself to breathe. He pulled a strand of her hair from her shoulder and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.
"Unless you give me a name, I don't see as how I have any other choice than to call you Red, as unoriginal as it is."
He smiled at her, showing off two deeply ingrained dimples. She thought the man smiled an awful lot, but with a smile like that one, it was probably illegal not to. She was still staring at him like a fool when he added, "Although, I suppose I could call up some creativity from the dregs of my soul. Let me think…Beautiful."
He pressed a finger to his lips. "No, still pretty unoriginal. Freckles? Hmm, makes you sound ten. I don't think we're well acquainted enough for me to call you sexy or siren. How about…"
"Felicity." Thank God she finally found her voice. "My name's Felicity."
He gave her a smile that seemed somehow incredibly intimate as he took her hand and kissed her knuckles.
"It's a pleasure, Felicity."
* * * *
By the time lunch was over and the honeymooners had left, Mallin moved to the other side of the booth and twice forbade the hostess from seating anyone else with them. Felicity felt the cold stare of the woman radiating through her back, but she had to admit she was grateful, even if it did leave her alone with arguably the sexiest man she'd ever seen in all her life.
Mallin leaned his elbows on the table and plucked the petals from the lone daisy in a vase on the table.
"Are you traveling alone, Felicity?"
Caught in his amazing stare, all she could do was mutter like the imbecile she was. Felicity had never been so aware of another man in her life, or of her own body for that matter. Over the course of lunch with his thigh pressed against hers and his arms constantly brushing some part of her anatomy, she was horny as hell and wet to boot.
He smiled at her now as if he could read her thoughts, then reached across the table, taking her limp fingers in his hand and rubbing his thumb over the backs. Shivers started where he touched her and raced up and down the length of her body until she visibly trembled. She diverted her gaze out the window; they were passing over some river she knew the conductor had announced a few minutes beforehand. But with a man like Mallin Lowell sitting across from her, geography paled significantly.
He watched her intently for several minutes, and Felicity dearly wished she could be more like her sister for the first time in her life. She sat there like a lump, unable to think of anything even marginally interesting to say. Maybe if she'd listened to the conductor, she could have at least discussed the landscape. She reached for her glass of water and attempted to take a sip as if she sat holding hands with sex gods every day of the week.
It might have worked too, if she hadn't sputtered her water in his face three seconds later when he so casually asked, "Do you want to come back to my compartment with me?"
Captive Audience
Gavin Carter boarded the train like a warlord storming a citadel. Six-four and naturally athletic, Gavin always exuded an intimidating aura, but since hiring the prim, proper, newly married Mrs. Vivian Green, he'd been working out a great deal of sexual frustration in his private gym. Not that Mr. Universe would have been impressed, but your average citizen tended to give Gavin a wide berth and tonight was no different. Of course tonight, he was furious.
"Sir, I need to see your ticket."
Gavin pulled his wallet out and shoved a platinum card at the little man.
"My card. Get me a ticket." He didn't spare the little man a glance. He was too busy checking what he could see of the rows of seats ahead of him.
"Sir, I need to know where you're going."
Gavin growled before he could stop himself, then snapped out, "End of the line," then began stalking the aisle, looking for his fair-haired, petite assistant.
* * * *
Vivian clasped her hands in her lap, appalled that they were still shaking. Even more appalled by what she'd done with them moments before. She sank lower in her seat, pulling her feet up against her rear, tucking the full white skirt around them and wishing she'd taken the time to pack a bag, if for no other reason than to block the seat beside her. She wasn't in the mood for company of any sort, and prayed no one would sit next to her the entire trip.
Then again, that was another problem she needed to sort out. Where exactly was she going? Vivian had long prided herself on her calm, organized approach to life. It had served her well. Right now, she felt like a mindless twit running off into the night with no particular destination in mind, just a strong sense of what she needed to get away from.
As the train jerked and rocked and slowly made its way from the San Diego station, Vivian released a breath she hadn't been aware she held. She also felt a slight twinge in her heart. Regardless that this was for the best, a sick little part of her had wanted him to follow her, to save her somehow from herself, but that was just silly. She'd never needed anyone in her life to save her. She sure as hell didn't need Gavin Carter to do it.
* * * *
"Swear to God, woman, you are the most infuriating, frustrating hellcat I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."
Gavin flung his large body into the seat beside her. He'd spotted her ten minutes before, but restrained himself until the train began to move. Gavin knew if he'd gotten to her sooner, she simply would have bolted from the train. Based on the information he gathered from the conductor, he now had at least two hours to get through to her before she had her next chance to bolt, effectively making her his captive audience.
"Wh-why are you here?"
Because you're my woman, damn it!
He dragged both hands through thick hair and blew out a breath, calming his thunderous visage before his thought actually found voice.
"Because I care about you, Vivian. We've worked together too long and too closely not to be friends. I can't just watch you storm off into the night like this."
"I'm an adult, Gavin. I get to storm off wherever I want to." She folded her arms across her chest and sat back against her seat with an audible humph. "It's one of the very few perks I've found to being an adult."
Gavin couldn't help himself. He let out a low chuckle while brushing a few strands of moonlight blond hair from her shoulder. "Then you're not doing it right, sweetheart."
He instantly regretted those words when her glare shot multiple daggers through his corneas. He gave her a remorseful smile and pulled his hand back. Never in his life had he dealt with a woman he cared about more. Vivian's feelings were uppermost in his mind, and he felt as if his hands were bound. None of his usual head-ramming tactics would work now, and what he'd gone and done at the station surely hadn't helped, but damn if he could have stopped himself.
"Vivian, you can't just—"
She held up a hand to stop him, it took everything in him to respect her.
"You are not in charge of me." She fluttered both hands in the air. "Well, other than at work, which this obviously isn't, and therefore you 'can't' anything with me."
"Huh?"
Maybe it was simply a matter of the blood supply to his brain always being derailed when he was around her, but that didn't make any sense. He tried valiantly not to smile when she became clearly frustrated at him for not catching her point.
"You said you can't, meaning, had I let you finish, you were about to usurp my authority as if you were my father or something, which…" she said with a supremely superior grin, "you are not, and therefore you 'can't' me."
He was sure somewhere in there had been some kind of female logic, but other than the part where she declared him to not be her father—to which he'd nearly growled the response, Damn fucking right,—none of that made any sense. Gavin decided then and there that he needed to regain control of this conversation.
"Vivian."
He spoke more forcefully than he'd ever done before to her, but when she got like this, he simply didn't know how else to handle her. The station had certainly proven a very, very bad idea. Not a line he dared cross again. Her big blue-eyed gaze snapped to his and he was trapped in the magic of it. He watched as a torrent of emotions swirled in the depths of her eyes. Goddamn, but he had it bad. He drew a painful breath in through gritted teeth.
"Sorry, Vivian," he said, his voice softer. He contemplated reaching for her hand, but thought better of it. "Of course you're right. I have no authority over you. But I am your friend."
She'd lowered her gaze to her lap and he ducked his head until she was forced to look into his eyes. A soft smile played on her lips now.
"You do think of me as more than your boss, right? We're friends?"
Gavin waited, pained at hearing the bloody word 'friend,' when he wanted to be so much more. When she finally nodded in agreement, he smiled. Then he did take her hand, thanking God above when she let him.
"You don't have a plan, do you?"
"No," she admitted quietly. Then her chin came up, her eyes sparked, and she twisted in her seat so she faced him.
"But I don't need a plan tonight. By morning, I will have one, and no offense, but it won't include you."
Gavin sighed. He forced his body to relax. He hadn't missed the pleading note in her voice, or the defiance in her eyes, but he just couldn't walk away. He hadn't been able to walk away three years ago and there was no way in hell he could walk away now.
"So what do you want to do tonight?"
She met his stare for a long while. Gavin watched her fight herself, then finally, her shoulders slumped and her breath hitched.
"I want to cry."
Gavin's heart broke. Silently, he opened his arms and the woman he loved beyond all reason fell into them and cried her heart out—over another man.
Torrid Teasers vol 34 available now. Purchase.