Love Your Books....Just Don't LOOOOVE Your Books

*I originally posted this at Katidom about three years ago, but it's such a fun topic, I figured why not do a re-post?*


When you're reading, are you a delicate reader? Or do you beat the crap out of your books?

I can honestly say, that each and every one of my books is well loved by the time I'm done with it. I'm one of those readers who immediately cracks the spine of my book. If I'm interrupted while reading (usually to let the dog in or out of the house), the book goes open faced down on the coffee table. If I'm reading and I can't find a book mark, the page gets folded down. And yes, I've been known to hop, paperback in hand, into the swimming pool on a raft.

Sacrilege, I know.

Now, there are certain books of mine that I cherish and treat much better than others. I own a couple of copies of different books so that I always have one that is in good condition.

But yes, my name is Kati, and I beat the crap out of my poor defenseless books. I will say though, that I am VERY careful with loaned books. If the book belongs to someone else, I treat it very, very carefully. But my own books I beat the crap out of.

Now it's your turn. Are you hard on your books? Or do you carefully read them so that the spine never cracks, a page is never turned down and they go back on the shelves looking as pristine as ever?

Wedding Bells

I'm getting married a little over 10 days from when this posts. Scott proposed this past January, and we immediately made plans for a BIG wedding to celebrate with every person that we love. We set the date: March 17th (which is also my birthday), and we booked the venue. And we talked and talked and talked about guest lists, food, plans, etc. But as the date got closer, we began to realize that really, we just wanted to be married. And the prospect of taking on tons of debt to have that BIG wedding was both daunting and frankly, stupid. We both had big weddings the first time around. So we talked about it, and decided that we didn't want the big wedding, we just wanted to get married - as soon as possible, which translated to December 27th.

So,we decided instead to have a small family wedding at our house with only our direct family and our very best friends in attendance. We decided to have dinner after the wedding at our favorite little Italian restaurant. We also decided to have a BIG party this summer at our house so that we could still see all those people who we love and want to celebrate with.


As a bride to be, I love all the wedding shows. I love seeing the pomp and circumstance associated with weddings. Hell, I'll freely admit to watching the Kardashian extravaganza (I know, I know...). I watched every moment of the Royal Wedding coverage. I love the spectacle. But for Scott and I, small and intimate is what we wanted.


What about you? If you're married - did you go BIG? Or small? If you're not married, what does your dream wedding look like?

For Love of My Kindle

For Christmas this year, my beloved got me my precious. Yes, a Kindle. You see, I'd had a Sony eReader. The little one, all pink and adorable. But with no wifi, which meant uploading every-damn-thing on it. So when he asked what I wanted for Christmas, it took me about two seconds to blurt out, "A Kindle, please!"

I came relatively late, for a romance reviewer, to eBooks. I didn't know much about the devices, despite the tons and tons of information out there, and I found the idea of uploading books and all that jazz to be intimidating. I got used to it with the eReader, although I never really warmed to Sony's Reader Bookstore (I had a lot of crashing issues with it). So I was eager to upgrade my eReader. I did a moderate amount of research, and really went back and forth between the Kindle and the Nook. What finally sold me was the many stories I'd heard about Amazon's customer service. Now, I've yet to have an issue with my Kindle (:knocking on wood:), but I hear that Amazon has a fantastic customer service department, and that's enough to sell me. Especially because I haven't bought an actual print book in more than a year. I buy everything in eBook format.

I've become a total convert. I love the ease of reading a review somewhere, clicking on Amazon.com and ordering the book in less than 60 seconds. Of course, that stuff can get expensive too! I'm definitely spending more on books than I did in the past, but I'm also giving more authors than ever before a chance.

Overall, my Kindle has become my precious. I use it every single day and have yet to have a single complaint.

What about you? Do you have an eReader? If so, which one? If you don't have an eReader, what's holding you back from getting one?

Beth Kery Serves up a Heaping Helping of Three to Tango!

Four of erotic fiction’s most talented authors carry readers away with all-new tales of ecstasy that prove that the most delectable things in life come in threes…

Sex is best when it’s one-on-one…plus one.
In Emma Holly’s FLIPPING FOR CHELSEA, Shay and Liam shared an unforgettable night with their lifelong friend, Chelsea, awakening a rush of forbidden feelings—feelings they have to reckon with when the three reunite, and the unrequited lust between them is too much to bear.

Though Ava left her hard-knock Georgia childhood behind, she never forgot Luca and Angelo. Together they were best friends with a bond that could never be broken. But when she returns, the three must decide whether to face the fires that burn between them, or forgo their desires forever in Lauren Dane’s DIRTY/BAD/WRONG.

In Megan Hart’s JUST ONE NIGHT, fun-loving couple Kerry and Jeremy find themselves in a triangle of trouble when Kerry’s old crush, Brian, returns for a school reunion, and Jeremy gives her his enthusiastic approval to seduce him. But while Jeremy has no trouble sharing Kerry, Brian isn’t sure he can handle what’s coming.

Years ago, Walker walked out on Madeline when she needed him most. Now, the ex-Secret Service agent is back—hired to protect both Madeline and their billionaire friend, Tony. Madeline is determined to make him pay for denying her desires—and she’s not above bringing Tony in to sweeten the deal in Bethany Kane’s ON THE JOB.

Read an Excerpt

(Adult Rated)

He was back there, watching her. He was on the job, and Madeline knew better than most how important his job was to him. He wouldn’t abandon it, even if he had abandoned her. She held him in a trap, and it was sweet . . . delicious to torment him for his sense of duty, to make him pay for his noble intentions.

She reminded him of what he’d sacrificed as she stroked her erect nipples beneath a hot Tahoe sun. So what if they’d just been kids at the time, fools suffering from the heatstroke of a wild infatuation? She’d needed him, and he’d failed her. First Madeline’s father had died unexpectedly, then Walker had left. Madeline’s hurt had changed to anger over the years. Eventually, the sting had faded.

It had, anyway, until she’d walked onto the terrace this morning and seen Walker Gray talking to Tony.
Her clit begged for attention, but Madeline refrained. With effort. She longed to punish him, not only for eleven years ago, but for having the temerity to suddenly appear again in her life. His brisk, professional manner made a mockery of the fact that she’d been floored by his unexpected presence. He’d barely said two dozen words to her since Tony had asked her if she recalled their old friend from their high school and college days, Walker Gray.

She recalled, all right.

She’d make sure the bastard remembered just as graphically.

She sat up and took a sip from her glass of iced hibiscus tea mixed with lemonade. Her fingers strayed to the tie at her back. She pulled slowly on the string. She tossed the flimsy top next to the sweating glass and stretched out again on the dock.

It wasn’t a big deal. She sunbathed topless once in a while on Tony’s boat. True, she’d never gotten the impression that her bare breasts had received any of the focused interest from Tony as they once had from the man who stood behind her in the yard. Sure, she’d never have done it if it were another one of Tony’s employees standing guard. The point was, Madeline was perfectly comfortable sunbathing topless in this situation.

Perfectly aroused.

She doubted very seriously she would have ever cupped her breasts in her slick hands from below, making the nipples point upward, like dark pink arrows, to the sky even in front of Tony, but the heretofore unprotected parts of her skin needed SPF, didn’t they?


It felt good, so warm, so arousing . . . so powerful.

She let one hand trail across the sensitive skin at the sides of her ribs and across her belly. Her clit beckoned. It burned in protest at being ignored. She slipped two fingers beneath the top of her bikini panties. Her labia were moist and swollen. She slid a finger into the juicy cleft and moaned in pleasure.
Was he suffering? God, she hoped so.

Her eyes popped open a few seconds later when she felt a hand wrap around her wrist. He’d moved so quietly, and she’d been so involved in her little game, she’d never heard his tread on the dock.
“What—?”

“Surely you’re not going to ask me what I’m doing, Madeline.” She saw his clamped jaw and her shocked reflection in the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses. “Because I would have thought that was obvious. I’m giving you what you’ve been asking for.”

She gasped in surprise when he slid his forearm beneath her thighs and lifted. The next thing she knew she was flying down the dock in Walker Gray’s arms.

Beth Kery/Bethany Kane
www.bethanykane.com

Please Welcome Beth Kery to the Island!

I’m thrilled to be back here on the island and am looking forward to kicking back, soaking up some rays and sharing a margarita klatch with the ladies of DIK!

The topic: love triangles—talk amongst yourselves. :)

Now talk to me. What’s your honest opinion about love cubed? Do you have a favorite love triangle story? Leave me an answer, and you’ll qualify for a $15 Amazon gift card.

Originally, the theme of my upcoming anthology, Three to Tango, with Emma Holly, Lauren Dane and Megan Hart (I’m writing as Bethany Kane for this one) was ménage a trois, but I’m glad it became the more general love triangle theme. Why? Because while a ménage a trois can mean many different types of love affair, the love triangle theme has even more possible permutations. It gave a lot of room for the four writers to create their own unique stories and relationships.

My favorite love triangle comes from the classic movie, Casablanca. Yes, it would be nice to be Ingrid Bergman’s character, Elsa, and have two such amazing men want you. (Or it would be terrible, depending on how you look at it). She was lucky enough to experience a spiritual love and deep, abiding respect for her husband, and at the same time, the earthy, passionate kind of love for the warrior-hero archetype, Rick. In many ways, the Casablanca triangle can be likened to the even more famous and enduring King Arthur triangle between Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere.  The woman in both of these love triangles is the lynch pin. She’s the one who feels the friction because she desires and loves both men. With sexual liberation and the gay rights movement, we are opened up to a whole new realm of the love triangle.

The appeal of the love triangle doesn’t have to be sexual. Even teenagers are being exposed to a new world of romantic geometry, as in the wildly popular Twilight series. One could even make an argument that there’s a love triangle in the Harry Potter series.

In my contribution to the Three to Tango anthology, On the Job, I decided to have a little fun with the triangle concept. My heroine feels that the hero, Walker, abandoned her once, when she was young and most needed him, and as a result, she’s out to inflict of a little pain of her own now that’s he’s returned—pain of the sexual torture variety. Such games are tricky, however, and Madeline soon learns that sex as a means of revenge puts her heart at high risk. When she learns by accident that Tony, her and Walker’s long time friend, has made a huge mistake and is about to pay for it by his freedom, she ups the stakes. She brings Tony into her sexual power play, not only to prove her point to Walker, but to tell a good friend good-bye. In the end, I was happy with this blazing hot erotic romance with a touch of suspense that involves a passionate, fiery romance between two people and an enduring love and friendship between three.

The permutations in a love cubed are endless.

I hope you’ll check out Three to Tango, where four authors put their unique spin on the eternal theme of love times three.

Three to Tango, available now from Berkley Heat

A Delicious Excerpt from Colleen Gleason's The Vampire Dmitri

The very prim and proper Miss Maia Woodmore is dancing with a stranger at the masquerade. Little does she know that he is none other than her infuriating new guardian, Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale…who is also a vampire.

~~~

“Hatshepsut, I presume,” said the Knave of Diamonds, glancing down at her as they began their second turn about the floor, still relatively slowly and carefully. “An exceedingly original choice of costume, despite the fact that she dressed as a man on many occasions.” His voice was low, hardly more than discernible to her over the sounds of conversation and music.

“Baring my lower appendages would not have been appropriate, even in the spirit of accurate costuming. But you are correct,” Maia said, keeping her own tones pitched low in hopes of disguising her identity. Although her partner definitely wasn’t Alexander, she also sensed that he was someone she knew. “I am Hatshepsut. Everyone else thinks that I’m Cleopatra.”

“Fools, all of them. Where is the asp if you are meant to be Cleopatra?”

His comment surprised a little laugh from her, and she saw his lips move, relaxing into fullness from their hard, serious line from a moment ago.

“But of course, no one truly knows what Hatshepsut looks like,” she admitted. “Or if she was anything more than a queen regent.”

“I find it remarkable that you are even aware of Hatshepsut’s existence, let alone such details about her questionable reign,” he said after a negotiating a particularly tight turn that made her a bit dizzy.

Emboldened by her continued anonymity...and perhaps by the champagne punch...Maia launched into a candid speech that she would never have imposed on a gentleman under different circumstances. They preferred to talk on their own topics, not that of their partners. “I’ve indulged my fascination with Egyptian history for many years now. It started when I read my brother’s copy of Biblioteca Historica in order to help him with his Greek. Ask me about the Babylonians or the Indians, and I know little about them. But if one reads Herodotus or Diodorus, for example, there is much to be learned about the Egyptians. And now that more antiquities are being shipped back from Egypt, I can actually see them in the Museum. That makes it all the more real.”

“You assisted your brother with his Greek?” Was there a note of humor in the knave’s voice?

“I didn’t like it any better than he did, but I was determined....” Maia’s voice trailed off as she realized how she’d been babbling. She bit her lower lip and swallowed. One of the things that had put off some of her early suitors had been her tendency to lecture and overexplain. Not that the knave was a suitor, of course, but she well knew that gentlemen did not like women who talked.

“Very interesting.” The knave seemed to stop whatever else was about to come out of his mouth and clamped his lips together.

As she looked up at him, Maia realized suddenly that when one was confronted by a masked individual, one’s attention tended to focus on the parts that were exposed—in this case, his mouth. And she found those lips to be more fascinating than they really should be, tracing their shape with her eyes, memorizing them. Wondering what it would be like to kiss them, for they seemed soft and full and very mobile.

“Careful,” he said suddenly, his hands tightening on her, and Maia realized she’d become somewhat dizzy. The room had a bit more spin than the dance steps warranted, and she clutched the top of his arm, her face warm beneath her own mask, her heart suddenly slamming in her chest.

Oh. Maia blinked and focused on something over his shoulder—anything to turn her mind from the sudden, unexpected thoughts about his mouth. She couldn’t remember feeling this odd before.

“How many glasses of champagne punch, Hatshepsut?”

Her attention flew back to him and his gaze fixed on hers, shadowed and dark behind small round eyeholes. His intense regard knocked the breath out of her as if she’d been punched. Or perhaps it was the champagne punch that made her feel breathless and warm and loose.

“I’m not tipsy,” she retorted, forgetting to keep her voice low.

Those lips quirked in something that might have been an almost-smile, and he replied, “Naturally. Perhaps some air would be in order?”

She suspected that he didn’t believe her; and in all fairness, she wasn’t certain whether to believe herself. She was feeling rather odd, in a pleasant, tingly sort of way. “Perhaps it would be best, though I am loath to cut short my rare opportunity to waltz.”

Without another word, he drew her from the dance floor, managing them through the other swirling partners. Oddly enough, once removed from the smooth rhythm of the waltz, Maia felt even warmer and lighter in the head, and she actually bumped against him in mortifying clumsiness. He tightened his arm and led her away from the crowd, where she was able to draw in cooler, cleaner air devoid of attar of roses—which seemed to once again be this Season’s favored scent, as well as every other of the last years since she’d been out.

Maia’s heart hadn’t ceased its heavy pounding, and in fact seemed to increase as the Knave of Diamonds directed them away from the loud, close ballroom. Toward an alcove down one of the corridors, near which an open window offered a waft of breeze.

Perhaps it was because there was no other competition for her attention, for she was away from the music filling her ears, the mish-mash of the smells associated with such a crush, and the need to concentrate on the unfamiliar dance steps…that Maia found herself overly aware of the strong arm to which she found herself clinging.

Literally clinging.

How many glasses of champagne punch had she had? There’d been one before her dance with the court jester...or perhaps two? And then another—

“I do hope you aren’t about to cast up your accounts on my waistcoat, your majesty,” he said, easing her away from him a bit, even as he steadied her step.

“I beg your pardon?” she demanded, suddenly indignant. “Of course I shouldn’t do such a thing.”

No, indeed not. She simply would not allow it to happen, no matter how odd she felt. And she did feel a bit odd.

She blinked hard, realizing that she, the very proper Miss Maia Woodmore, was using the Knave of Diamonds to keep the floor from tilting and, quite possibly, her knees from buckling.

Pulling away from the knave, she found that she was able to stand on her own, even on the high-heeled shoes that put her face just...a bit...below...his.

Maia looked up from the brocade waistcoat and the ruby-studded, bloodred neckcloth that was much too close to her face, willing herself to focus on the matter at hand—which was...well, she wasn’t certain. They hadn’t been conversing, exactly, had they?

Her eyes traveled over a stiff black collar that brushed his jaw, hiding the full shape of his face, then beyond a square chin...and to that same mouth that had fascinated her as they spun gently, if not smoothly, around the dance floor.

It was a mouth, that, when relaxed boasted a full lower lip and a slanted upper one—soft and smooth without being the least bit feminine when it wasn’t flattened grimly.

“Hatshepsut?” Those lips moved, firming in something like exasperation. “Do you need to lie down?”

“Of course not,” she retorted, annoyed again. “I am perfectly capable of holding my cups. I merely got a bit dizzy from the dancing. It was so very close in there.”

“Very well. As long as you don’t—”

“You might be much too tall, sir knave, and a bit overbearing,” she heard herself commenting, the words simply pouring from her, “but, despite what nonsense comes from it, you have been blessed with a well-formed mouth.”

There was a pause for a moment, and then he replied, “Ah.” The syllable sounded a bit strangled.

“I’m not an expert on mouths, you know,” she continued, vaguely wondering why she was so fascinated by his lips. “One doesn’t normally examine them quite as closely as one might think, unless the rest of the face is masked, and excepting if one is intending to kiss said mouth...and even then, one might not even have the chance to do so before the kiss commences.”

“Ah,” he said again after she paused.

“Of course, I’ve only been kissed by a limited number of pairs of lips,” she said. Purely for clarification.

“And how many pairs would that be?” His voice rumbled deeply. Those lips were rather flat again.

She paused, pressing her own lips together in thought. Her mask shifted as she did so, and Maia was grateful for the reminder that she was still blissfully anonymous. “Perhaps three. No, four. Hmmm. Perhaps...no, four.” She wouldn’t count Mr. Virgil. He didn’t deserve to be counted, and the very thought of him made her feel ill. She looked up at her companion. “Four, my lord knave.”

Their eyes locked, his so dark and shadowed behind those small holes that she could hardly fathom that they could have such a hold on her. But they did. Her stomach felt as if the bottom dropped, leaving her warm and nervous in a very pleasant way.

Thanking God and all the angels in heaven for the fact that she was enmasked and completely anonymous, she whispered boldly, “But perhaps there might be a fifth.” 

And Maia held her breath.

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Excerpt - Night Betrayed by Joss Ware

Excerpt from NIGHT BETRAYED, by Joss Ware
********************************
Then all at once, Selena realized the significance of what she’d somehow ignored, and her brain refocused. “You really know how to work these?” She waved her hand to encompass the old machines called computers.

“Yes.” Theo looked sidewise at her.

“How?” she asked, mystified.

“I’ve been working on them for longer than you can imagine. I’m kind of a genius with computers and electronics.” The flicker of a smile returned to his lips and eyes. “My twin brother and I both are.”

“There are two of you?” The horrified words slipped out before she realized it. Then she laughed a little at the delighted expression on his face. “You must have turned your mother’s hair white by the time you were ten.”

“Somehow Lou doesn’t come across as reckless as people seem to think I am.”

“You don’t think you’re reckless?” she asked incredulously.

“I’m still alive aren’t I?” he replied. Then he raised his gaze and their eyes locked. “Thanks to you,” he added, his voice pitching lower.

Her throat dried and all she could remember was being pulled up against his solid, body last night. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that they were alone. Again. And he was looking at her in a certain way.

No more pity-kisses.

“Last night was definitely not a pity-kiss,” he said. “Selena.”

“Did I say that out loud?” she said, then clamped her mouth closed.

“Yes,” Theo replied, that smile playing about his lips. He stood now, shoving the wheeled chair away behind him. He seemed taller than she remembered. And broader. And whatever annoyance he might have had about her disappearing last night seemed also to have evaporated. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

He shook his head, folding his arms over his torso, continuing conversationally—as if they were talking about the weather and he didn’t quite understand why it was raining when the sun had been shining all day. “I find I’m fascinated by you, about what you’re sneaking out for at night, what you’re wearing around your neck that you don’t want anyone to see...what it’s like being the Death Lady and holding the hands of people dying, and how you do it every day without fail.” He nodded, his eyes holding hers. “How you got to be so strong, and why you do what you do. And other things, like the fact that you don’t eat very much and that you like to run in the morning. And where in the hell you got red toenail polish.”

“Um,” Selena said, trying to tamp down the warmth that was flushing through her. She was trembly all of a sudden and her stomach was all aflutter. Good grief.

And then...He’s fricking serious. He really wants to know about me. Both delight and terror rushed through her.

“And,” he stepped closer to her, “how I’m going to make it clear to you that I don’t give pity kisses. Not even for women who bring me back to life.” His hands landed gently on her shoulders and she felt his shoe bump against her bare toes.

“How many of them do you have?” she managed to say, realizing belatedly that her hands had risen and settled flat onto his broad, warm chest. Wow. Solid as a brick wall.

“How many of what?”

“Women who bring you back to life.”

“Only one.” He started to lean in, then stopped and pulled back. Selena released the breath she’d been holding, startled out of the warmth he’d lulled her into. “Make that two.”

“What?” she asked, her voice rising—partly in surprise and partly to hide her disappointment. “You’ve been brought back to life before?”

His lips curved and one of his hands shifted to flick a heavy lock of hair off her shoulder, then slide along its length. “Well, technically, yes. When I was a baby, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck and I came out blue everywhere, limp as a wet noodle. Heart stopped and everything. There was a nurse who did CPR—she breathed inside my mouth—and brought me back to life.”

“A nurse?”

“But don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I don’t remember the incident at all...so for all intents and purposes,” he said, slipping his hand around the back of her neck, lifting her hair, cupping her skull, “you’re the only woman who brought me back to life. And this is most definitely not a pity kiss.”

She met him halfway as his lips moved to add, “...at least on my end.”

Selena’s laugh was smothered by his mouth. She closed her eyes as their lips met, softly at first and then hungrily. He held her head with strong fingers as the kiss turned deep and sleek. Beneath her own palms, the planes of his chest shifted and his heart bumped fiercely.

He didn’t feel too young to her, not now, not with this demand and confidence, not with the solid muscle and strength against her. Her body had turned warm and liquid, awakening from a dormancy due to neglect. Selena stopped questioning, stopped resisting, and when his hands moved down along her back, following the line of her torso, she eased into him, molding her body into his.

Theo gave a soft little groan and shifted, pushing her back against something solid, holding her there so their bodies lined up, imprinting every curve and every rise into the other. If she had any lingering doubt about pity kisses, it was effectively erased at that point. His desire was blatant, and the gentle, insistent pressure as their hips ground together had her pressing just as hard back into him.

“Jeeezz...uzz,” he muttered, disentangling their mouths and burying his face into the hair by her ear. “Selena....” He breathed roughly, nipping and sucking along the line of her neck so that she twitched and shuddered against him.

She murmured her pleasure, sliding her hands under his shirt, feeling the flat slabs of his pecs and skimming over the tight nipples, aware of the faint trembling beneath her fingers, deep in his muscles. He was warm and sleek and her world had turned hot and bold...so much that she hardly realized it when he pulled back, tugging her with him.

The next thing she knew, he pulled her onto his lap, her toes bumping the base of the chair as she straddled him. Theo grinned briefly up at her, but his mouth was tight and his eyes hot as he slipped his hands beneath her loose shirt. She resisted instinctively when he tried to lift it—no, no, not in the light!—and he seemed to get the message, instead moving to her spine.

As her bra loosened and sagged, Selena arched toward him, half aware of the hot sun streaming through the window on behind her and the way his hands moved around to cover her breasts. Ahhh. His thumbs were firm and his palms warm as he lifted, pressed, stroked.

Now she had her hands on his shoulders for stability, her eyes closed, allowing the pleasure to grow and roll, unfurling from belly to chest to between her legs, where she pressed against him. His hair was warm and soft, thick beneath her fingers...his shoulders wide and square.

Theo moved beneath her as he bent and pulled the vee of her tunic to the side, finding one of her nipples and covering it with his warm, sleek mouth.

Selena jolted at the spike of sensation, then gasped as it didn’t stop, didn’t relent...but became a long, slick tug, a sensual dance of tongue and lips sucking, swirling, stroking. The hot shaft of pleasure arced through her, from her belly down south. She shifted on his lap, her fingers digging into his shoulders, heat and pressure building and throbbing between them.

Suddenly, he released her with a soft groan, leaving her nipple wet and throbbing, chafing back beneath her tunic. Pulling her up against him, his arms bundling her close, he slammed his mouth over hers once more. The kiss burned, deep and fierce, as his hands shifted down to her hips and jerked her close, into him, settling her legs wide against him. She felt the throbbing settle between them, his erection hard and waiting, she herself full and wet, the seams of their jeans meeting and intensifying the sensation.

And then, once again, he was shifting her, and once again, she moved at his direction—hazy, full, aroused—her legs coming together, sliding to one side of him. Before she knew it, he’d jammed his fingers down beneath the loosened fly of her jeans, down beneath the hot cotton of her panties, and into the sleek warmth that pulsed there.

They both groaned and sighed at the same time, and Selena’s eyes flew open when he first touched her. She nearly jolted off his lap, but he held her steady, safely, his fingers so long and easy, sliding and stroking where she was full and ready.

Oh God... She held on to him, lifted her hips as her jeans opened wider, feeling the stream of hot sun blasting through the window over her head and shoulders. His fingers...a wide, determined plane, curling and and slipping, coaxing smoothly and evenly, as his own breath hitched and roughened against her ear.

“Yes,” he whispered into her skin. “That’s...it.”

As she released herself, sliding wholly, into the pleasure, it took a moment before the sound registered in the depths of her lust-fogged mind. But then, all of a sudden, she heard it.

“Mom?”

Night Betrayed will be available on January 25, 2011.

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Guest Author - Joss Ware

KATI: Joss Ware's Envy Chronicles feature a host of hot men, an eerie post-apocalyptic world, and an intriguing mystery. We're thrilled to have her visit us here at DIK today. Please help us raise a fruity drink to Joss Ware!

*****************

So, I know you ladies here are big-time romance novel experts, and maybe you might be wondering how anyone could think that a post-apocalyptic romance is a good idea. I mean…people dying, buildings collapsing, earthquakes, tsunamis—The Day After Tomorrow meets I Am Legend—where’s the Happy Ever After in that?

Even His Hotness Will Smith didn’t get it on during his zombie movie. And if he couldn’t find a happy ending, looking like he does…. (Can we just pause for a moment to recall That Scene where he does pull-ups in the doorway?)

(Okay. I’m back. You? All right…I’ll give you a bit longer. Ready?)

That sort of skepticism was my first reaction when someone suggested that I think about writing a post-apocalyptic romance. And that’s why when I decided to actually write one (which turned out to be the Envy Chronicles, also known as the Awakening Heroes series), I decided that my guys and gals were going to have to exist far after the catastrophic events that decimated the earth on June 10, 2010 so I didn’t have to deal with messy stuff like that—at least in real time.

In my world, the world of Envy, it’s fifty years after the catastrophe. Five men wake up in a cave in Sedona, Arizona, to find out that somehow they were either transported to the future or suspended in time, or something. And that the world has horrifically changed.

The series is about how each man adapts to this new environment, how he finds the woman who can help him feel as if he’s come “home”…and how he deals with the paranormal ability that he has (or hasn’t) acquired during the fifty-year sleep.

The fourth book in the series, Night Betrayed, is Theo’s book, and it will be released on January 25 (so you have time to catch up!). Theo actually wasn’t one of the five men trapped in the cave in Sedona—his story is different because he actually lived through the catastrophic events. Yes, he’s eighty years old…but he hasn’t aged past thirty and he is hawt: a dragon-tattooed, totally ripped, computer geek.

But if you don’t particularly care for muscular, inked nerds (why wouldn’t you?), there are three other heroes to choose from in previous books:

Elliott, the hero of Beyond the Night, is a sensitive, charming Emergency Room surgeon who has to deal with the fact that he no longer has the ability to treat injury and illness in this stark, new world. He meets up with a lounge singer from Envy who goes on secret missions from settlement to settlement.

Simon, from Embrace the Night Eternal, is the strong, silent, brooding type who leaves behind a bloody, dangerous past in East LA when he wakes up to find himself in this post-apocalyptic world. One thing he brings with him is his honor…but when he falls for another man’s woman, and then has to go on a mission with her under pretense of being her husband, that honor is stretched to the limits.

And in Abandon the Night, Quent is a rich playboy who had everything he ever wanted—but not everything he needed—in our world, and who now has to accept the fact that he doesn’t have any skills or worth in this much simpler one. Money and power are worth nothing anymore. When he falls for a sharp-tongued zombie hunter named Zoë, things really heat up.

And the zombies? Well, yes, there are zombies in the books, but they’re more like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings or the Stormtroopers in Star Wars than the Walking Dead creatures…so, Kati, they aren’t too scary. ;-) [KATI: *shudder* Zombies skeer me!]

I’d love to answer any questions about the World of Envy or the heroes…so ask away!

And thanks to the DIK Ladies for having me back here!