Flirty Friday - Ready To Run by Kinsey Holley

Nothing like a great visual to set the scene, don't you think? :)  Here's a quick excerpt from Kinsey Holley's Ready To Run:

Bryan rolled his eyes. “Enough with the chick stuff. Here, I got you something you actually need.”

“What is it?”

“Open it and find out.”

So she did. “Oh my God! This is awesome!”

“It’s a smartphone.”

She slapped his arm. “Duh. I haven’t been living in a cave. I know what they are—I’ve just never been able to justify the expense.” Her cell phones had always been the cheapest models—it wasn’t like she had lots of people to call, never mind texting or getting on the Web.

“You don’t need to justify this. It’s a gift. I added it to my plan.”

“I have to at least pay the monthly bill!”

“We can talk about it later. You really like it, huh?”

“I love it. I gotta send an email to someone. TJ, what’s your address? Oh, this is so cool!”

She must’ve squeaked a bit too loud because he and Taran both winced a little, but he didn’t seem to mind when she threw her arms around his neck.

He turned his head as she kissed his cheek. His mouth found hers. His was open, and though she didn’t normally French kiss guys in the middle of a bar, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to part her lips and welcome his tongue.

A warm, limp, happy feeling gushed through her, all the way down to her toes. She sort of sagged into him. 

A part of her was appalled at this very public display. It was the part of her she’d meant to leave behind in Luxor, so she ignored it and gave herself up to the intoxication of his kiss. His tongue was cold from the beer he’d been drinking, and she loved the taste of it.

His hand was warm and heavy on her knee. As he ran it up her thigh, his thumb tracing the inner seam higher and higher, his fingers bumped into one of the rips on her new jeans. She started to giggle, and after a soft nibble on her bottom lip, he broke the kiss.

They stared at each other a minute, her gaze locked on his mouth. She couldn’t look in his eyes, but she could catch their expression in her peripheral vision, and she knew his gaze was hungry. A hot knot of excitement was forming in her stomach. When he started to draw his hand away, she surprised herself by grabbing it, holding it against her thigh. His eyebrows shot up and his smile got wider.

“Alrighty, then,” TJ drawled. “Hey! Can we get the check over here? Like, right now?”

Flirty Friday - Busted by Sydney Somers

Before she could respond to that, Jackson touched her arm. “Can I talk to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He drew her through the crowd, not stopping until they reached the inn’s lobby.

A few people lingered nearby, but they didn’t pay any attention to either of them.

“You told that woman I was available.”

“You are available,” she pointed out, then shook her head. “Sorry, I was…” She trailed off, waving her hand between them. “This was a bad idea.”

“Apparently.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m trying to clear the air here.”

“And doing a bang-up job of it,” he shot back.

“You’re unbelievable.” She whirled around, wishing she hadn’t bothered apologizing.

His hand snagged her wrist, dragging her back to him. Warm and solid, his chest moved with her, bracing her when she might have used the wall of muscle to push him back. His arms locked around her back, but then there wasn’t time to think about that. Wasn’t time to think about anything.

His mouth covered hers, the kiss exactly like he played the game he loved. Fast, hard and taking her by complete surprise. Smooth, hungry lips teased across hers, pushing deeper the second she dragged in a breath.

And god she needed to breathe—needed something to anchor her or she’d wind up swept away as she had years ago. She’d learned by accident that Jackson Knight knew how to kiss, but even that one time didn’t compare to the present.

Not when he cradled her jaw and slowed the kiss, his tongue sliding across her bottom lip and stroking the length of hers. She wasn’t sure when her fingers found their way to his shirt, but she slipped them beneath his suit jacket to get closer.

So much closer.

Seconds, maybe minutes later—and altogether too soon—he drew back after one more slow, soft pass of his mouth, but didn’t release her. His heart pounded furiously under her palm and he breathed as hard as she did.

“No one has ever kissed me like that,” she whispered. She hadn’t planned on saying it aloud, but once the words left her mouth, she was too caught up in the delicious high to care.

“Hayley,” he murmured.

She nipped his bottom lip, loving the way he said her name. She hadn’t planned on liking a damn thing about him aside from the way he played hockey, but the moment he climbed into that tree without complaint and without dropping a kitten with a vicious streak, she guessed there might be a bit to like after all.

Like the way he set her entire body on fire with just a kiss.

*** 

Get more info on Busted here.

Flirty Friday - Sex and the Single Fireman

Today's Flirty Friday comes from Jennifer Bernard, one of the Naughties' favorite people! Here's a taste of Sex and the Single Fireman:

Sabina clung to Roman’s broad shoulders as a feverish sort of madness overloaded her senses. With one iron arm banded around her middle, Roman bent her backwards and kissed her with ferocious intensity, as if nothing else existed in all of San Gabriel but the two of them. Blood pounded in her ears to the rhythm of yes, yes, yes.

His shoulder muscles felt like boulders. The phrase “built like a brick shithouse” zipped through her mind. He was all rock-solid man, through and through, and the way he kissed her … ravenously, lavishly, as if every corner of her mouth had some secret to discover. She returned fire with fire, kissing him back until her lips tingled and her insides went hot and liquid.

He wrenched himself away from her, panting. “We shouldn’t do this.”

But in the next second he was on her again, cupping her face in his huge, calloused hands and consuming her mouth with devastatingly thorough greed.

This time she pulled away. “No, you’re right. We should stop. Right?”

He stared at her with burning eyes and swept his hand through his black hair, more rattled than she’d ever seen him. “I don’t know. I’ve been trying to stay away from you. You don’t know how hard it is to be around you and not toss you on the training room couch and ravish you.”

“Ravish me?” She liked the sound of that.

“Okay, fuck your brains out.”

She gulped, speechless.

He lowered his voice to a hot, secret growl. “Or back you up against the wall in the apparatus bay. Do you know how many times I’ve pictured it? If the department could read minds, I’d be out on my ass by now.”

Sabina slid her palm across his wide chest, edging her fingers under his black leather jacket. It made him look tough, all man, very Italian, and extremely sexy. “I wish I could read your mind right now.”

“Jones, you don’t have to be a mind-reader to know what I want.”

She glanced around to make sure the street was empty, then slid her hand down his firm stomach, feeling the heat of his body through his shirt, down past his belt buckle, to the hard, rigid lump beneath. When she touched him, he groaned, low and gritty.

“I give you three seconds to stop doing that. After that I can’t answer for the consequences.”

Slowly, deliberately, she traced the long shape pushing against his jeans. “One.” With her hand firmly on his erection, she found an opening in his shirt and licked his chest. “Two.” Moving the heel of her hand down his hard length, she whispered hotly into his neck.  “Three.”

In a voice as thick and hot as a triple espresso, he growled, “You were warned.” He swooped her up, caveman style, opened the passenger door and tossed her into the Jeep. He scrambled to the driver’s side, using one hand to half-vault himself over the hood.

Flirty Friday - My Three Masters

This month's Flirty Friday offering is from Juniper Bell, and is excerpted from her upcoming release My Three Masters. It comes out August 2, and can be preordered here. Enjoy!

The Marquis smiled, that glittering, complicated smirk for which he was famous. “I’ve seen how loyally you’ve served my wife. But would you be such a faithful servant to one such as myself? Perhaps you know my reputation.”

Color flooded my face. I knew his reputation perhaps better than he did himself. I was fascinated by it. I put my hands to my scalding cheeks. “Yes,” I admitted stiffly.

“And yet you’re still willing to enter my household?”

No. Of course I wasn’t. That was why I’d ventured into the library. But I found myself nodding. He shifted his legs so his knee brushed against my dress. His head tilted backward so it rested on the russet leather chair back. He looked utterly disreputable, and utterly fascinating. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

I said naught. I felt guilty, as though I’d been caught in a lie.

“I’m afraid I’ll require some proof.”

“Proof?”

“Proof that you’re fit to work for me. I require a certain ease with one’s sexual nature. I cannot have prudes in my house. Are you a prude, Miss Miranda Brown?”

The diabolical glitter in his eyes made my knees weaken. This was how I’d always imagined him in my midnight fantasies. For a wild moment, I wondered if I was dreaming this whole encounter. I swayed from side to side.

“My dear, you look a bit faint,” said the Marquis. “Come here and stand between my legs. I promise to keep you upright.” He said the word “upright” with light irony, as if referring to more than my stance.

I stared at him with wide eyes. Perhaps now was the time to tell him I wouldn’t work for him. Couldn’t work for him. Instead, I took a step forward, then another, until I stood between his two long legs clad in fine garnet velvet. His boots shone in the light of the fire. His waistcoat was slightly open, his cravat hanging to one side. His dark hair fell over his forehead in unruly waves. I’d never seen the impeccable Marquis in such disarray.

“Are you quite all right, milord? Shall I fetch a tonic for you?”

“Don’t waste your worry on me. I’m merely drinking to my soon-to-be late wife.” He raised his glass and swallowed more brandy. “Besides, I don’t want you to leave yet. I haven’t gotten my proof yet.”

“Really, milord—”

“It’s nothing overly difficult. It won’t take long, the matter of a mere moment.”

Excited chills raced up my spine. What was he referring to? The way he was speaking, and watching me with those lazy black eyes, it had to be naughty. Again I swayed, but he caught me between his strong legs. 

Through my dress, through his velvet breeches, I felt the heat of him, and it made my head swim as if I’d been drinking the brandy. “Wh…what?” I whispered.

“Let me look at you.”

He was looking at me. Closely. Heatedly. Confusingly. “But, sir, you are—”

“Lift your dress.”

The words dropped into the quiet library like stones into a well. Lift my dress. The Marquis wanted me to expose my private area to him. And that very region of my body seemed to pulsate with the desire to do just that. Heat tingled between my legs. I stared at him, feeling flushed and chilled in alternating waves.

He stared back and I knew his message. If I wanted to leave—the library or his employ—now would be the perfect moment to do so. Should I choose to remain, well, the dark promise in his wicked face left no doubt that I’d be traveling down a road to new sensual horizons.

Flirty Friday - Heat Up The Night by Skylar Kade

Today's Flirty Friday is from Heat Up The Night by Skylar Kade. Enjoy!

Sammy’s text flashed on the screen. We’re good to go tonight. He’s excited to meet you!

Tovia’s stomach lurched from nerves and apprehension. Six months ago, Sammy had talked her into becoming a cocktail waitress. Four months ago, she’d held Tovia’s hand as she got the belly button piercing she’d wanted since she was sixteen. And one month ago, Sammy had made her over and thrust Tovia into the luscious, kinky world of Apogee.

A sex club.

Okay, she was being overdramatic. As Sammy had drilled into her head, it was a kink club. A BDSM dungeon. Yes, sex was allowed, but calling it a sex club was “just so plebian.”

Somehow, Sammy had made the statement sound haughty even as she’d been naked and halfway tied up.

She pointedly exited out of the texting app, not wanting to see any of the four messages her mother had left during her shift. She didn’t need to read them—each was written in Amelia Douglas’s tongue of guilt, with an acquired accent of emotional manipulation.

Learning that language had been courtesy of Sammy as well, and about a decade too late, in Tovia’s opinion. After all, she was twenty-seven, living at home, and still playing referee between her mother and sister. Never mind the fact that Tovia’s mother still thought she worked at the Rio Hotel’s buffet as a waitress and would just keel over if she found out the truth. Some variations of but all those men leering at you…selling your body…you deserve more respect than that…

If she discovered the job change was partially impelled by Tovia’s need for a down payment on her own place—yeah, she didn’t want to go there. Not tonight.

Tovia craned her neck left and right to work out the knots, rolled her shoulders, then slithered into her almost-too-beautiful-to-wear emerald leather corset. With her work uniform hotpants, she was ready for Apogee.

Her heels got chucked into her bag atop her work shirt, and she snagged her most comfortable flats from the bottom of the pile. When serving on the casino floor, she enjoyed towering over most of the patrons in her four-inch wedges, but at the club she preferred flats. When her knees went weak from whatever a Dom was doing to her, she didn’t want to worry about twisting an ankle.

Flirty Friday - Jilted by Kelly Jamieson

Today's Flirty Friday entry comes courtesy of Kelly Jamieson's Jilted. Meet Josh! 

(c) istockphoto, all rights reserved

Cold hands gripped Devon, a feeling of dread and abject fear. It had been so hard losing him last time. Thinking back to her months of utter misery, her insides tightened into painful knots. Now after just this one week together, she was going to lose him again.

But he wasn’t even hers to lose. What had possessed her to think she could do this without her feelings for him getting all stirred up again? She shouldn’t have come here.

But he’d poured the wine and now handed her a glass. She took it and watched him cross to turn on the fireplace, then sit on the couch, stretching one arm along the back and crossing one ankle over the other knee. He looked at her. Oh. He expected her to sit beside him. Her feet in her high heels felt glued to the floor, her legs stiff. But she managed to somehow walk toward him and sit down. She sipped the wine.

Then she took a deep breath and asked the question that had been burning inside her all evening. “Josh. How could you possibly think I thought you weren’t good enough?”

He tilted his head. “I knew the kind of life you wanted. You had your big investment banking career in a big downtown office. You wanted the clothes, the shoes, the dinners in fancy restaurants. I was just a firefighter from a small town who didn’t know anything about designer clothes and gourmet food.”

“You’re a firefighter,” she whispered, her throat tight. “You put your life on the line to save other people. You’re smart and brave and strong. You were like a…a…” Her throat closed up and she swallowed hard. “You were like a superhero to me. How could you think I thought something like that?” She really, really didn’t get it.

His eyes shadowed. “A superhero?”

She looked down, afraid of what he’d see if he looked into her eyes. “Of course,” she said. 

“Jeebus, Josh.”

“I’m not a superhero.”

She peeked up at him through her eyelashes. He shook his head, his eyebrows slanting down.

“I’m just a guy,” he continued. “A guy trying to do the right things. Trying to figure out what the right things are.”

Her heart swelled up so big she couldn’t breathe.

*** 
You can  find Jilted here - and all major ebook retailers. 

Flirty Friday - Hitched

This photo reminded me of my upcoming book Hitched, which is book four in the Promise Harbor Wedding series that I had the extreme pleasure of writing with three of my Naughty Nine friends, Kelly Jamieson, Meg
Benjamin and Sydney Somers. The photo definitely depicts a wedding and some fun! The only difference would be that when *my* bride gets carried off and kissed it's not by the groom! :) Hitched comes out April 30th!

Gavin headed for the rental car, mostly because he had no idea where else to go.  It was right in front of the church, parked crookedly at the curb, the keys still in the ignition.

Just how he’d expect someone to park who was about to break up a wedding and steal the bride.

Break up a wedding.  Steal the bride.

Hell.  What had he just done?

Had he really just carried Allie out of her own wedding?

Gavin felt a trickle of sweat slip down his back—and it wasn’t that hot out here.

Holy shit.

He’d really done it.

And looking down at the woman in his arms, he knew he would do it all over again. 

It was moments like this that being a selfish bastard—as his father so eloquently put it—was a good thing.  He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over Josh Brewster and the wedding without a bride.  Maybe Josh really loved Allie.  Maybe his heart was in pieces right now. But Gavin didn’t really care.  This was about him and the fact that he was in love with her.  Josh was on his own.

Yanking the passenger door open, he nudged Allie inside and slammed the door before jogging to the driver’s side.  He slid behind the wheel, shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb, aware of Josh’s angry presence by the church’s side door.  Gavin kept his eyes on the street until they were a block away, then he glanced over at Allie.  She was watching him with those big green eyes that had made him mush for years.  

“You okay?” he asked, giving her a little smile.  She would be if she wasn’t now.  He’d make sure of it.

“Strangely enough, I think I might be,” she said.  

One corner of her mouth curled up at the corner and Gavin knew he was right to interrupt the wedding.  It wasn’t like declaring that he still loved her and wanted her back could have really waited until after the wedding.

Hitched, by Erin Nicholas. Pre-order at Samhain now!

Flirty Friday - Now Comes The Night

This excerpt is from Now Comes the Night—book three in the Children of Night series. This is one of Damian's early encounters with his human lover, Paul. For those who are keeping score, this scene took place during the years when Damian and Conrad were separated.

Photo credit: lsophoto.com/

By the time they’d arrived at their destination Paul’s mind was just about the last part of him in which Damian was interested. The minute the apartment door closed behind them, they came together in a clash of hot mouths and groping hands—and stumbling footsteps that ended with Damian’s back connecting with the door. Paul pressed closer. Damian made no effort to resist. All those lovely hard muscles, aligning so perfectly with his own, was just what he had been imagining ever since he’d first laid eyes on Paul in the bar tonight. They were just what he wanted to feel right now. What he needed to feel. It really had been much too long.

Now Comes the Night by PG Forte is available from Samhain Publishing http://store.samhainpublishing.com/comes-night-p-7229.html

Flirty Friday - Medium Well

This excerpt is from Medium Well, Berkley InterMix, which was released last Tuesday. My hero and heroine work together (he’s the boss, she’s the assistant), and he’s been resisting her charms on ethical grounds. But even the most ethical guy can only resist for so long! And yes, I was thinking of Jensen Ackles when I described him.

Photo source: http://www.screened.com/jensen-ackles/14-7815/all-images/132-7818/jensen_ackles_suesheader/131-193729/

Her grin faded as she stared. God, he was gorgeous! But she already knew that. His shoulders, his chest with the fine spray of golden hair, the tight muscles of his stomach. She knew he’d look like this. She’d always known.

“Gosh,” she whispered.

Oh, wonderful, Biddy! Gosh and golly, gee willikers, some pecs you got there, handsome!

His teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Just what I was thinking.”

She wet her lips, staring up at him. He was absolutely ready, judging by his arousal. Was she? What if she wasn’t right? What if he didn’t like having sex with her? What if? . . .

He leaned over her, pushing her down on the bed, the heat from his body radiating against her skin. "Biddy, if you change your mind now, I’m a dead man.”

From Medium Well, Berkley InterMix

Flirty Friday - Cutest Couple

Welcome to Flirty Friday! This new addition to our monthly rotation will bring you a fun picture and an excerpt to go with it.

Kate Davies will go first, with an excerpt from her work-in-progress Cutest Couple. The hero is a soldier returning to his hometown for his ten year high school reunion, which is why the picture fits so well! Hope you enjoy.

(c) messycupcakes, licensed under Creative Commons.

 

 

It was supposed to be just a little kiss. A brush of lips, a gentle pressure before lifting away. Nothing sexual or passionate about it.

But his mouth touched hers and all his good intentions disappeared.

He tugged her closer, wrapping his free arm around her back, and teased her mouth open with his tongue. She didn’t respond, not at first, but right as he was about to pull away, she whimpered softly and kissed him back.

It had been ten years since he’d tasted her, ten years during which he should have forgotten her mouth, her tongue, her white teeth nipping at his lower lip. It was an intoxicating mix of the familiar and the new, and he delved in again, wanting more, wanting it all.

Her hands, caught between their bodies, clenched the fabric of his shirt as she held on. Their feet were tangled together, the two of them caught up in an embrace that had been ten years waiting.



Cutest Couple, coming from Carina Press on April 29!