Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Dark Obsession: Now in PRINT!

A few weeks ago Syd and Kate held down the fort, so to speak, while the rest of us were living it up at RT. Today I'm repaying the favor (in part, anyway *g*) by posting about Sydney's new print release.

Dark Obsession is the fourth book in the Shadow Destroyers series. If you take your paranormal romantic suspense red hot and fast-paced, this is the series for you! A kick-ass, demon slaying heroine. A lust-demon-initiated hero. What's not to like?

Scorching desire…fatal consequences.

Shadow Destroyers, Book 4

Demon slayer Rae McAvoy refuses to let anything stand between her and getting the job done. Especially her ex. Loving Parker nearly destroyed her, and if partnering with him one last time means he’ll be reassigned and out of her life for good, bring it on.

If Parker was the only threat to her heart, tracking down one rogue scientist would be a snap. Except the scientist in question is Rae’s father, and his experiments are hitting much too close to home.
Parker Walsh hasn’t forgotten the passion that once burned between them, and he’s determined to remind Rae every chance he gets. But giving in to more than just lust could mean surrendering to the darkness inside him—the same darkness that once drove her away.

Riding the edge of their rising desire pushes them to the breaking point, until an explosion of passion raises the stakes even higher. Especially when long-buried secrets force them to break the last links to their past—or else be consumed by an obsession so dark it could tear them apart for good.

Warning: Contains a fierce battle of wills between reunited lovers, explosive sexual tension, sarcasm, gritty demon-slaying violence, scorching sex and a love worth fighting for.

Excerpt:

It all came down to a towel.

Hundreds of hours logged in the training room until her muscles ached from exhaustion, dozens of injuries—some that had come close to killing her—countless demons tracked and slayed, and Rae McAvoy was about to be done-in by a white terry cloth towel.

More precisely, the white terry cloth draped precariously around her ex’s waist.

The second she stepped off the elevator and spotted Parker Walsh leaning against the wall next to her office, in nothing but a towel, she gave serious thought to turning around and hitting the close button on the elevator panel.

Need—hot and sharp and all kinds of trouble—buzzed through her veins. For about ten seconds, anyway, then she was back in control, striding down the hall toward him as though she couldn’t care less what he wore. Or didn’t wear, for that matter, even if she had to fight to keep her gaze locked on his face.

Telling herself not to look was a lot like not reaching for a weapon when she crossed paths with a Shadow Demon—it just wasn’t in her, not where Parker was concerned. She might be determined to keep things professional between them, but that didn’t make her blind.

Parker had a good five inches on her in height, not to mention the solid wall of muscle that was just inches away. Smooth, hot muscle she’d been thinking about running her fingers down for weeks. Years, if she counted the time between their rough breakup and his reassignment to her field office seven weeks ago.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t changed nearly enough over the years. He wore his dark brown hair in the same careless style—just long enough to run his fingers through when he was frustrated and still hide the scar on his forehead she’d given him when they’d met.

His smile still carried that playful, I-could-eat-you-up edge she’d found increasingly difficult to ignore lately. And those deep, earthy green eyes that promised night after night of long, hot—

No. No way was she going there today.

Parker’s size, his overwhelming nearness, ultimately meant nothing to her. She’d worked too hard to let anything like personal history get in the way of taking down the enemy. He might not be an emotion-hungry demon, but that didn’t make Parker her ally either.

Not when he’d broken her heart.

Parker’s grin widened as she approached, and after seven weeks of him shadowing her every step, tracking her every move, watching her every breath, both her patience and her willpower were wearing thin. That arrogant I-know-I’m-getting-to-you smile of his really had to go.

Today worked for her.

Giving him her best bored look, she opened her office door. “Funny, I don’t remember any memos about a change in acceptable dress code. Do you?”

She directed the last part to Drew Reid as he stepped into the hall at that exact moment.

Knowing Drew, his timing likely hadn’t been a coincidence. He carried the same gene she and Parker did, one that allowed a demon’s dakorum, its essence, to mutate their DNA, giving them the same abilities as the demon that attacked them. With his acutely heightened senses, thanks to the stealth demon that initiated him, he’d probably heard her the second she’d stepped off the elevator and wanted to watch the show.

She might have been annoyed at the reminder that the friction between her and Parker was the hottest gossip to hit the Shadow Destroyer water cooler scene, if she wasn’t so relieved she had an excuse to avoid looking at Parker’s solid chest.

Any excuse would do, even if it meant that whatever Drew witnessed would inevitably be passed along to the rest of her team. Seemed like the only thing Rae could count on these days were demons running loose on her home turf and her agents wasting time speculating on her sex life.

Hopefully the former would keep the other Destroyers—trained demon slayers whose DNA had also been mutated during a demon encounter—from dwelling on any new tidbit for long.

Drew rocked back on his heels, shooting a knowing look between her and Parker. Probably the same look she’d been firing his way a month ago when he’d gotten involved with another agent’s sister.

“Awkward,” Drew finally mumbled, then turned and strolled down the hall as though he wasn’t chomping at the bit to report the latest to the rest of the team the first chance he got.

As much as she wanted to glare after Drew and order him into her office—surely he’d screwed up something lately—she squared her shoulders and sailed straight past Parker.

Her fleeting hope that he’d go back to his office—or better yet, to the personal quarters down the hall that he’d made his temporary home—fizzled and died when he trailed after her. At least he left the door open. Knowing him, he did it to prove he didn’t need to box her in to intimidate her.

She slid behind the desk and accessed her e-mail to mask just how much he did. She’d long ago given up on figuring out why being outnumbered by demons with only chopsticks to defend herself didn’t feel half as threatening as being in the same room as Parker.

She slanted him a quick look, noticing his bare feet. God, even the man’s toes were sexy.

“There’s no hot water in my quarters, Rae.”

“So you didn’t get my e-mail about the scheduled maintenance work for the next week or two?” Longer if she could swing it.

“There’s hot water in the locker room.”

“Weird how all that plumbing stuff works.”

He flattened his palms on her desk. “Playing games won’t get you what you want.”

A rush of heat worked up from her toes, warming her stomach before she forced herself to ignore the distracting sensation. He’d need to do more than flex a few pheromones to get her to back off.

Since Parker had been initiated by a lust demon, his mutated DNA left him with a particular skill set that took “weak in the knees” to a whole new level. But today her intimate knowledge of how easily he attracted other people, even when he wasn’t trying—unlike now—left her with the advantage.

Expose someone to something long enough and they learned to build up a tolerance to it.

But since he deserved a little credit for the effort, she only arched a brow instead of rolling her eyes. “And what is it that you think I want?”

A seductive smile caught his mouth, reminding her of how she’d ended up in his bed to begin with. Judging by the flare of heat in his eyes, he knew exactly what she was thinking about. Hard not to when the man oozed raw, earthy sex from top to bottom and everywhere in between.

“If you’re not comfortable here, there’s always a hotel.” She refused to consider his relocation permanent. She’d been hanging on by a thread for the last few days. One tiny, stretched-taut thread. She needed him out from under her feet and wasn’t above cheating to do it.

“If you want to get rid of me you’re going to have to get a lot more creative.”

Rae shrugged. “Seeing as you’re due for reassignment any day now, what would be the point?” Aside from her personal satisfaction, of course.

His cocky grin widened, a sliver of menace creeping in. Without a word he turned and left the room, the flimsy towel doing nothing to detract from the rugged determination in each stride.

Damn it, he knew something.

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