Excerpt from Follow My Lead by Kate Noble

The taproom of the Stellzburg Inn was full of life. Life that had eluded Winn up until this time. The energy and excitement that was not found in a library. Travelers, mostly men, and mostly strangers to each other, were drinking, laughing. The innkeeper, his wife, and their servers threaded themselves through the crowd, delivering drinks and food with smiles, and sometimes a wry comment that made the customers laugh.

But it was all perfectly aboveboard. Respectable even.

Somewhat disappointing, that.

“For a minute there you looked blissfully happy, so how is it I rejoin you and you’re wearing a frown?” Jason asked as he returned to the table. “Er . . . you have foam on your nose.”

“Oh!” Winn said as she turned bright red. Jason reached in his pocket but came up empty.

“Damn,” he said, handing her a cloth napkin from their table. “I keep forgetting these are not my own clothes and my handkerchiefs are not where I expect them to be. No, you missed.” He indicated her face.

She wiped again but must have missed the offending foam again, because Jason took the napkin from her hand and, cupping her chin, wiped the end of her nose gently. “There, you’re perfect. Now, why were you scowling before?”

“I was?” she asked, her face remarkably hot. Must be the beer, she decided. “Oh, I was reflecting.”

“Reflecting?” he asked, bemused. “On what, pray tell?”

“That reality rarely lives up to expectations.” At his quizzical expression, she continued. “I thought the taproom of an inn would be . . . bawdier. More like a public house.”

Jason turned completely still. “You’ve been to a public house?”
 
“No, but I’ve seen illustrations,” she argued. “Someone playing a fast fiddle in the corner, barmaids with their breasts spilling out. Also, I would like to have some illusions preserved. But here we are in the German countryside, and I have not even seen one pair of lederhosen,” she finished mournfully.

Jason threw back his head in laughter, his deep- throated guffaws drawing the attention that Winn’s hesitant giggle had not.

“Expectations are a heavy lot. Perhaps we can find you some lederhosen in Nuremberg. But for now, just be happy that we are amongst actual Germans.”

“Why?” she asked, her eyebrow going up.

“Because they are logical enough to bring us— and charge us for— only one and a half plates of food.” He smiled.

“Thank you,” she replied with a nod of acknowledgement.

And it was not some few minutes later that the innkeeper himself brought over their food— smelling so good and buttery that Winn for a few seconds considered that maybe she could have made use of a full plate.

“Danke,” she said to the innkeeper in anticipation of being served her eagerly awaited meal. Jason casually put his arm around her back, some proprietary instinct letting the innkeeper infer they were indeed coupled.

“Bitte.” The innkeeper smiled back at them. Strange, for the first time since they had met, the innkeeper’s stern countenance had fled, lending him a sort of elfin charm. “I hope you are enjoying yourselves, yes?” he continued in English, still holding the food on his tray.

“Yes,” “Very much,” she and Jason replied in turn.

“Four days married.” The innkeeper shook his head with a smile.

“Five tomorrow,” Jason said, his voice straining on the lie. “That tray looks terribly heavy,” he continued, practically salivating— for which Winn could not blame him. “You should set it down . . .”

But the innkeeper was lost in his own line of thought to even consider placing the tray of food in front of two famished customers. “I remember when I was four days married! My wife— she was so young and lovely we did not emerge from our rooms for the whole week!”

“Er, right,” Winn piped up. “But we were a bit hungry, you see . . . from all the . . . staying in. So if you could— ”

Then the innkeeper turned and addressed the whole room in his booming voice in German. The room gave a solid cheer and then began clapping in time, chanting the same word. The last one the innkeeper had said to them: “Kuss.”

“What on earth?” Winn asked, utterly confused.

“He told the room we are newlyweds,” Jason whispered to her and then hesitated. “And then he said that . . . oh, just follow my lead.”

And he leaned down and kissed her.

Review: The Rifter Part 3: Black Blades by Ginn Hale

*Warning: It will be impossible for me to discuss this third part of The Rifter without giving away spoilers for parts 1 & 2!*

I've decided that it's quite an odd experience to review a serialised novel, especially this third part.  This is mainly because the book has reached a point where many of the major players have been introduced, the scene has been set and the pieces are slowly moving around the board.  In many ways this third part is very similar to part two in its structure.  The first half of the book follows directly on from part two and concerns Kyle/Kahlil and is set in the future Basawar after the Rifter has destroyed the North.  At the end of part two, Kahlil discovered an assassination plot against a warlord from the North, Jath’ibaye and this third part begins as Kahlil attempts to thwart this assassination. During this time Jath’ibaye and Kahlil meet, an event which has consequences for Kahlil. It was this part which was full of action and suspense as Kahlil travels the city looking for ways to help Jath’ibaye.

The second half of this serial moves twenty nine years into the past and deal with John as he describes the daily life of the monastery at Rathal’pesha where he's been living for about a year now. This section is used to feed the reader a set of information about the priests, the trainees and also some of the history of Basawar, including the religious figure of Parfir and the origins of the Rifter. As such, this meant that this part was slower moving and more focused on dialogue and character interaction that the section with Kahlil. It is heavy with information which will be useful to us as the book progresses, so whilst my attention drifted a little, I was aware of the importance of some of the facts given to us. That didn't mean that this section contains no action altogether, but just that the tension is provided by conflict amongst the priests and John's own worries over his future and that of his friends, rather than the more aggressive and nervous suspense in the section with Kahlil.

One thing I am enjoying with this book is seeing the links between the two separate times. One example of this is when Kahlil is thinking of one of the rumours that he hears about Jath’ibaye's eating habits and the fact that he likes strongly flavoured food usually eaten by peasants, rather than the more refined food of the Basawar nobility. Then in the next section we find out exactly why that is. Every time I come across these links it makes me smile, especially as they often seem to be just the odd whimsical fact, not important to the overall story but there as a flavour to the characterisation. It's little touches like these that remind me how good the writing is, and how complex the two worlds are.

Any niggles I have with the story stem from it being a month since I read the second part. The author has created an elaborate hierarchy of the both the nobility of Basawar and the priests at Rathal’pesha, and I found myself a little lost at times about who ranked higher than who and how people were related to each other. There is a glossary attached to the end of the part which explains it all, but it's difficult to swap back and forth like that with an ebook.

Overall, this third part continues to build and expand slowly on what has come before. Each strand of the story is slowly knitting together before moving off in another direction, only to form with another strand. I'm enjoying experiencing this masterful interweaving, and the monthly gaps between parts only highlights the efficiency of the world building in all its complexities. Bring on part four - I can't wait!

You can either buy this third part - and then any subsequent parts - separately for $3.99 each, or buy the whole book at $29.95 and each month the new part will be sent to you via email. More information about this and the buy now page can be found HERE.

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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