This time his mouth definitely quirked in a brief smile. “Promise no fireballs unless I give you a reason to use them?”
She contemplated for a moment, then nodded. “I’m in.”
He slowly loosened his grip and relaxed his thighs, and she slipped her hands out from between his legs, settling back on her heels as he released her. Two steps to the right and his hand was on the bedroom door.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah.”
She jumped to her feet, feeling slightly panicky about the thought of losing the only living thing she could actually touch. “I’m serious about the offer to work for me.”
His eyes were unreadable. “I know.”
“So? Will you do it?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.
She thought she saw a flash of regret in his eyes, and he shook his head. “No.”
“But—”
Then he disappeared.
What? She vaulted off the bed and ran to the door, and felt a swirling prickle on her legs, and she looked down. Darkness surrounded her legs, and then it shot away from her and down the hall, disappearing under her front door. She stared after it, awareness dawning as she realized what he was.
And what he could offer her.
So much more than she’d thought.
So, so, so much more.
She didn’t even bother getting dressed. She simply sprinted out the door.
THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Stephanie Rowe
Becca Gibbs from HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME HOT (on sale now) has been Satan’s right hand for three hundred years, and she’s getting a little tired of catering to his every whim. It might sound exciting to work for the most powerful badass in the Otherworld, but in actuality life as Satan’s best Rivka isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be. Here are her top five complaints:
1. No will of your own. Since Satan created you and you’re kept alive by his life force, you have to obey all his orders, theoretically, at least. Lucky for Satan he’s not so good at filling in all the loopholes, so if you’re really smart and willing to take the heat, you can subvert his wishes pretty regularly. It’s not enough to get free from his influence, but it can annoy the hell out of him. A girl has to take what she can get.
2. Getting assigned a pesky apprentice. Like you’re not already busy enough trying to stroke Satan’s ego, finding a way to break his hold on you, and keeping hell from breaking loose, you also have to find the time to train an over-enthusiastic newbie who is more likely to get herself killed than harvest any souls. Not to mention the fact that she’s trying to steal your job, rendering you obsolete. You ought to just kill her and send her back to hell, except she does make you laugh, and damn, it’s been a long time since you laughed about anything.
3. Having assassins after you. Doesn’t anyone realize you’re just doing your job? It’s not like you like having to harvest souls and bind them to hell … well, okay, it is kind of fun to take down the black souls who deserve to be tortured for all eternity. But still, it’s not personal. So why do they all feel the need to come after you when they sneak out of hell? So annoying!
4. Being Satan’s therapist. He’s the leader of the Otherworld. You’d think he’d have self-esteem and total dominance over his women. Alas, not so much. So what if you have souls to harvest and hot men to appease? If Satan needs to cry on your shoulder, you better make time for him—seriously, you better.
5. Getting stalked by gorgeous men who think you can solve all their problems. Well, okay, one gorgeous man who only needs help with one hell-related problem. A man who makes you feel alive in a way you haven’t felt in two hundred years. A man who just might hold the key to everything you’ve ever wanted, or he might destroy you instead.
www.stephanierowe.com
From the desk of Julie Anne Long
I have a confession to make. Whenever I set out to write a novel, my primary objective isn’t necessarily to entertain a reader—it’s to entertain myself. I mean, if I’m going to spend 100,000 words on a finite set of characters, I want to feel invested in their joys, triumphs, and tragedies; I want to laugh with, be intrigued and moved by, and dare I say it, aroused by them (which means, my hero had better be hot). In fact, I’ll go so far as to say it’s my responsibility to my readers to keep myself entertained, because if I do my job right—create a vivid world and populate it with vivid people—I think my pleasure in creating becomes the reader’s pleasure. (Do I have a great job, or what?)
Take THE SECRET TO SEDUCTION (on sale now), for instance. It wraps up my trilogy about the Holt sisters, Susannah, Sylvie, and Sabrina, separated when they were very young when their mother, the mistress of a much-loved English politician, is framed for his murder and forced to flee, leaving them behind. In the first two books Susannah (BEAUTY AND THE SPY) and Sylvie (WAYS TO BE WICKED) begin to unravel the decades-old mystery of their birth—a journey involving attempted murder, complicated villains, naked swimming viscounts, and surly dwarf choreographers, among other notable. And along the way they find each other as well as love, of course, with men as passionate, challenging, and unique as they are. As you might have guessed by this cast of characters, I’ve managed to keep myself entertained.
But my challenge for the third book was: how on earth do I follow surly dwarf choreographers and naked viscounts? The answer: with something completely different. Sabrina, the third Holt sister, raised to be a good girl by a vicar, is an excessively clever and dutiful girl, an even-tempered girl, or so she thinks. But she is a Holt, after all. I knew it would take a dark, deliciously wicked, sinfully clever, and subtle man to bring the Holt out in her—the pride, the passion, the temper, the will, so I invented The Libertine, a.k.a. the Earl of Rawden, the scandalous poet of THE SECRET TO SEDUCTION. He does the job rather nicely. Of course, Sabrina has a thing or two to teach him, too. I had a wonderful time bringing the two of them together.
I’ve spent three books’ worth of time with the Holt sisters and the men who love them, and bidding farewell to them is poignant and satisfying and in many ways an enormous relief. Sort of, I imagine, like sending rambunctious kids off to college. Of course, somewhere in the recesses of my imagination, they all live on, having more adventures, arguing, loving, and growing old. And if I’ve lived up to my responsibility as a writer, they’ll live on in your imaginations, too.
www.julieannelong.com
Contents
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
About the Author
A Preview of her new novel, Sex & The Immortal Bad Boy
The Dish
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot Page 29