SFR Brigade Blog Hop :Starry Nights

This excerpt is from  Heart's Bounty.

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Sometimes, love among the stars happens. Sometimes it takes a while. And sometimes it gets a little kinky. In this clip, Miho is paying off a debt by serving as a submissive for a party, and this is the get-acquainted practice session. He's taken a drug called Starlight, which means all he can see is stars. Rejan is his top's tutor and one of the hosts.

“Miho,” Rejan said, “we’re in the playroom. You’re going to be buckled out and flogged. Is that all right with you?” He reached out to touch Miho and gently raise his arms.

Miho thought a minute. He wondered what his Sir looked like. All he saw were supernovas and deep black. “It’s a hard start…”

“Only as hard as you like it,” Rejan assured him. “Your top has never held a whip before. Let’s teach him how so you both look sexy at Scream.”

“All right, Sir,” Miho agreed. He felt hands, Sir’s most likely, fumbling at the buckles on the cuffs and putting his wrists in. Sir strapped them tightly, but not bad. Miho was standing, facing some kind of frame, and spread-eagle.

The first lick of leather on his back was hesitant. It was obvious that Sir had never held a whip. The second thudded hard without a nice snap or bite.

“Like this,” Rejan said. “Put some wrist into it. Just throwing it at him is inelegant. Make it snap. The noise is part of the experience. This should flow.”

The next blow felt better, as if Sir had let it start at his shoulder and carry right on out through his wrist. Miho gasped as his hands fisted in the cuffs. The fourth was the same good snap and thud. His whole back woke up and begged for more. 

~~~~~

Prize Time

The Blog hop has Prizes! (I'm part of the second prize bundle!)

Please note, no cash or other alternative will be offered, only gift cards and books as stated.

All winners chosen by Rafflecopter

a Rafflecopter giveaway

1st  $100 Amazon or B&N gift card, plus Tales from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her Cyborg Awakes, Anja's Star, Silver Strife, Corwint Series 4 Book Gift Pack, Earth's Requiem, Alien Blood, Starwoman's Sanctuary, one book from Jessica E Subject's SFR backlist (ONE ebook title out of the following: Alien Adoration, Alien Admirer, Alien Lover, An Unexpected Return, Another Night Another Planet, Celestial Seduction, Crash Landing, Hey Santa, His Alien Virgin, Made For Her, Never Gonna Let You Go, Never Gonna Desert You, Never Gonna Say Goodbye, Satin Sheets in Space, Sudden Breakaway, or Unknown Futures), LodeStar Series Books 1-3 (Stark Pleasure, Creed of Pleasure and Captive of Pleasure), Reunion trilogy, Terms & Conditions Apply, Wreck of the Nebula Dream, Starheart, Kuralon Rescue, A Matter of Trust, Earth's Blood, Roman's Gold, Wolf Born, The Marann, Nightfall, Unrequited, Butterman Time Travel Inc., Legend Beyond the Stars, Hathor's Legacy: Outcast, Removed, Midwinter Crisis, Shlyer: Finding Home, Boyfriend's Brother, Surviving the Trap. (38 books)

2nd $50 Amazon or B&N gift card, plus Tales from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her Cyborg Awakes, Anja's Star, Silver Strife, Corwint Series 4 Book Gift Pack, Earth's Requiem, Alien Blood, Starwoman's Sanctuary, Tangled In Time, Terms & Conditions Apply, Escape from Zulaire, Lana's Comet, Heart's Bounty, Glad Hands, Nikolai, The Trial of Tompa Lee, The Tribulations of Tompa Lee, The Midas Rush, Prime Obsession, Daughters of Suralia, Morning Star. (25 books)

3rd  3 separate winners each receive a $25 Amazon or B&N gift card, plus Tales from the SFR Brigade, Heart of Stone, Her Cyborg Awakes, Anja's Star, Corwint Series 4 Book Gift Pack. (8 books each)

Prizes from me: 

And for anyone who leaves a comment here, please leave the title of a SF or Fantasy ebook from my backlist, and I will send along a .pdf format version (it's usually all I have of that). Because it's Litha and why should Yule get all the presents.

Rest of the Hop

Summer Lovin' Blog Hop

www.hopswithheart.blogspot.com 

Our Sultry Summer Offering

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We wanted to call this one Hot Delta Nights, but the titled got changed to Spellbound Desire.

Blurb:
On the Nightside of Memphis, werewolves teach college, zombies load trucks and private investigator D. J. is hard at work, finding missing persons, solving cases and drinking herself into an early grave. Then Bran walks into her office, asking for her help in destroying the demon Oeilett, and everything changes.

Something about the battered, scarred combat mage ignites all the lusty feelings D. J. thought she had successfully drowned in rum. The mana he exudes weaves a web of desire over her, clouding thought and making the sultry summer even steamier.

Bran’s body and face may be marked by his previous battles, but everything under the black leather kilt works perfectly, and D. J. learns there are more things in Memphis, the hellplanes and her own heart than she had ever imagined.

Plug: If you enjoy the excerpt, buy the book. If you want more of DJ's world, please check out Undeath and the Detective and Dominant Tendencies, both of which have short stories set in this universe.

Excerpt:

Then someone stood up by the fire. I looked and saw it was Ian, our medic. He nodded to the mage working the music and the Southern rock cut out. A drum and guitar started up. Ian cut loose in a mellow baritone.

“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled. Scots wham Bruce has often led. Welcome tae yer gory bed or tae victory!”

“His accent’s not half bad. Most of you Yanks can’t do Burns,” Bran whispered to me.

“What is it?”

“Unofficial national anthem, written by Bobbie Burns back in 1793.” He pulled out his pipe and lit it, and then wrapped an arm around me.

I didn’t like the song, about dying for freedom. I didn’t want to think about death, not tonight. Not on the last night I would have my first and only lover by my side. I snuggled in tighter to him. He bent down and kissed me. It only made me feel a little better.

Then he let go and stepped up for the last verse, his own baritone filling the yard.
“By oppression’s woes and pains
By your sons in servile chains
We will drain our dearest veins
But they shall be free.
Lay the proud usurpers low!

Tyrants fall in ev’ry foe
Liberty’s in every blow
Let us do or dee!”

Do or dee. Do or die. And tomorrow would be exactly that. Bunch of bonkers Celts, loving life and death equally, and singing about freedom and death like they went hand in hand.

I had another drink from Bran’s bottle. It didn’t help. I wished for my own rum, but that wouldn’t help either. Inside twenty-four hours, the man I loved would be dead or gone.

The thought set me back on my heels. Love. I’d never loved anyone. Mom and I had barely put up with each other while she was alive. She hadn’t wanted to have me, and despised being tied down by a kid, and she made sure I knew it. I tolerated Jinx, but was constantly annoyed at him. I loved Bran. I wanted him with me. I wanted to wake up with him, hear him talk about his family or work. I wanted the lessons he could teach me. And I wanted to make him happy. That thought was as foreign as the love.

I was D.J. Admire. I didn’t make people happy. I satisfied their curiosity, for a price. I found stuff for them. I relieved their minds. I made people dead occasionally. But I had never made anyone happy.

I might only have twenty-four hours, but by damn I was going to make them add up to the best day of Bran’s life.

Someone had done some serious research because we made it well into the second hour of singing with only Scottish songs on the menu. Food had come out by then, a roasted pig from a pit and platters of side dishes. Bran skipped most of them, and so did I, still feeling my burger, but grabbed a triangle of shortbread.

They had gone all out to make him feel welcome and at home. As the guest of honor, I figured that was right.
He sang and ate and drank a lot of the scotch. Everyone wanted a minute with him, for a well-wish, a blessing or just a moment to reassure themselves about tomorrow. I suspected that anyone who survived would tell their friends and nieces and nephews about the battle, and about fighting with Bran McKay, most powerful combat mage of our generation. And the tale would keep getting bigger, until Bran was a nine-foot-tall giant with eyes that flashed sparks and lungs like a bagpipe.

Finally, as the fire died down and the songs grew sadder and slower, Bran gave me a squeeze.

“I’m thoroughly ceilidh’d, love. I have other things to do before we get a good sleep.” He kissed me and announced to the others, “Thank you all for this. Ma couldn’t have asked for a better send-off. I think all battles should do this before. But now, one last song and then my lovely lady is going to drive me home, so I can sleep before I face the beastie. Clear mind, sharp spells and all that rot.”

He conferred for a moment with the mage at the sound, and got a nod.

“This song was written by one of Bonnie Charlie’s soldiers, imprisoned in Carlisle Castle. He was to be executed, so he gave it to his cellmate, who was to be freed to walk the twelve kilometers back to the Scottish border and thence home. His friend will take the high road, the road ordinary people travel, but he will take the low one, the road the faeries open for those of us who die far from home, so that our souls may speed on the way.”

Oh, hell. He was already talking like he was going to die. If Bran went into this thinking he’d die, he would.
He nodded at the music, and looked straight at me. His burr thickened and I wondered if this was what he sounded like at home when he wasn’t trying to make a bunch of Yanks understand him.

“By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,
Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond.
where me and my true love were ever wont to gae
On the bonnie, bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond.”

I wasn’t going to cry, dammit. He could sing all the sad songs he liked, about walking the low road home, or about dying for freedom or whatever else he liked, but I wasn’t going to cry in front of a bunch of combat mages who thought I was a No-Talent weakling to start with.

I swallowed a lot on the walk to the car.


Prizes!

There is a free ebook for all of you lovely people. If you leave a comment with a title from my backlist, I'll be happy to send along a .pdf file.  (sorry, only format I have for most)  The following books are not available: GRITS, Zombiality, Dragons or the Dreams of Steam anthologies. I'm sorry, those were print only.

And there is the Rafflecopter grand prize:

Here’s the Grand Prize list:

1 $75 Amazon Gift Card

1 $25 Starbucks Gift Card (Donated by Sue)

1 $25 Amazon (or B&N) Gift Card (Donated by Denisea)

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Other Blogs!

Title contest!

Now that I have your attention.


The prequel to this story needs help!












The Help Retitle Angel's Newest Book contest is still going on. If you are new to the contest, the prize is a free ebook. If you are already a contributor to the Indiegogo campaign, the prize is the next reward level (if you're in for ebook, you get a paperback too) Prizes only if your title is selected.

I have a drunken, nonmagical PI on the trail of something that's killing children in Memphis. She has a rookie cop partner, with decent telekinesis and poor fireball control. Her help ranges from combat mages to Irish werewolves as she takes on an entire Wild Hunt.

The original title is _Dirty Toes_. Please make suggestions in the comments.

Help needed

Are you watching me type my fingers off and wishing you hadn't missed the Indiegogo?
Or did you contribute but wish you'd had more?
Here's your chance!

I need a new title for a story.
Right now, it's called Dirty Toes, and everyone says that sounds like a foot fetish anthology.

Here's the blurb:
DJ Admire works the Nightside of Memphis and this case is as dark as she's seen. Six children, murdered in their beds on the full moon, all the flesh missing from their thighs. Now, she and her police-assigned partner have to find the killer before the full moon on Halloween, and her own hunt is running afoul of the Wild Hunt of the Autumn Court of the Sidhe.


Here's the deal:
I am taking title suggestions.
All suggestions must be here by next Monday, June 23.
There will be a vote for the title on Tues June 24
All those who submit will be entered at the $1 level of a "Thank you" in the acknowlegements
The winning title will be raised one contribution level. If you aren't in the Indiegogo, this puts you at the ebook level. If you already contributed, it boosts you a step in the rewards.

Leave comments here, on my Livejournal or at Facebook

My Sexy Saturday: My Sexy Captain's Chair

Share with us this week those characters who are in charge and wield it in such a way that everyone loves them. Even those they think don’t. They don’t realize their power because it is natural to them. Right. These are the characters that appeal to all and each are different in lots of ways. Show us the characters that make our hearts sing, make us cry, make us wish for a better tomorrow…help us show them that they are more than the chair.

From "Breathe Deep"

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Blurb: Captain Salzoran and his merry crew haunt the spacelanes, taking what prizes they can. Years earlier, a chance encounter with a star yacht owned by one of the three Great Houses in the galaxy left Salzoran with a pretty green-eyed virgin boy in his cabin. He returned the young prince to his family, neither harmed, nor a virgin.

Now, although they have been apart for several years, Sharnil still remembers his pirate lover and misses him. Dissatisfied with his marriage and his life, he summons Salzoran to come and get him.

The designated meeting point is a pleasure station, built by Sharnil's father, and now hosting a month-long interstellar masquerade party and orgy. Here, on a metal wheel four miles in circumference, Salzoran must find his beloved prince amid thousands of costumed male revelers. And nothing is ever as easy as it sounds...


Your Seven Sexy Paragraphs:

I pressed him back against the bulkhead and kissed him. Oh yeah, the mouth was soft. Sweet, and gentle I kissed him, ignoring the hand that pushed me away, the twisting of his head.

“I’m not for you,” he protested when I let him up.

“Who are you for?” I asked, kissing his neck under the curls. “Some little girl who doesn’t know one end of a man from the other? Who thinks that pretty mouth should only be used for love poetry and chaste kisses under the moons?”

“I must stay pure! This marriage is more important than you can imagine.” Feisty brat twisted out of my hands and got across the cabin. “It’s more than my happiness, more than any mere pirate’s filthy lust. I am the only son of the Houses. She is the only daughter. There can be no error, no impurity, nothing to stop this
marriage. The financial and political stability of the galaxy itself is at stake.”

I cornered him and sniffed him again, trying not to laugh at his high opinion of his virginity. “That is why you smell of drink and intoxicants but not of whores. Any healthy boy would have spent at least half his money on the ladies at The Station.” I kissed his cheek, and down his neck. The smell of him was driving me mad, and I could feel he was hard against my thigh. “I won’t touch you in any way that she will. You will go to her pure and undefiled by women.”

“I’m hungry,” he stalled.

“Food’s there,” I gestured, steering him to the table by the back of his neck. I picked up a clusterberry and brought it to his lips. “Try this.” When he took it, I stroked his mouth. After a second, I kissed him. “You taste sweet, boy.” I caught a strip of roasted reptin, Klawk’s specialty. He took the meat from me more
willingly this time. I was tired of the game, and didn’t want to get messy. “Sit. Eat. Tell me what your father will pay for your safe return.”