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Every Witch Way but Dead
The Upside of Karma
Get out your bells, books and candles; this witch is ready to kick some ass.
The Upside of Karma
© 2008 B. Ella Donna
For Angelica Kane, encountering the ghost that terrorized and nearly killed her a year ago is more than just an eerie annoyance. It’s just the first in a proverbial house of cards. A psychic-fair reading reveals that another woman is out to seduce her husband Jonathon. Then the woman turns up dead, Jonathon’s business card clutched in her hand.
Angelica’s world tumbles into a downward spiral, accelerated by sizzling sexual chemistry with her very own Lancelot—Sean Bennette, the officer investigating the murder. As rumors of an affair spread, Angelica finds an ally in a sister witch who shares her gift of psychic visions. Together the two women, the handsome detective, and the specter lugging a load of karmic debt race to prove Jonathon’s innocence.
But poison is no respecter of time. Angelica must decide if she’s willing to pay the price to uncover the painful truth. Truth that could bring her love—or cost her life.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Upside of Karma:
“So, you started the divorce proceedings?” he asked, sipping the soup.
I smirked, running my fingers through my hair. “Yes. Jon is being very generous.”
“That’s good.” His eyes locked onto mine. “You look so beautiful.”
His observation took me by surprise. “I’m a wreck, but that was sweet of you to say.”
“I mean it. I, uh…I’m having a hard time keeping my hands to myself,” he admitted.
“Maybe we should think about more…unpleasant things, like what do you think is going on with this letter?”
He smiled, but I could see it was an empty smile at best. “I think your husband was being blackmailed. The papers, though, for the construction job, do not name Joan as a partner of any kind. They were signed the nineteenth of December.”
“That doesn’t look good for him, but poison? No way.”
Sean stopped eating, barely making a dent in the food laid out before him. “We have to keep looking. It may not have anything to do with him. She could have screwed over someone else,” he added.
I sipped my wine and snacked on a piece of sun-dried tomato and Havarti cheese. I was lost in thought and didn’t notice Sean staring intently at me.
I came back to reality and watched as the snow still fell in swirls outside the windows.
“What? Do I have cheese on my face?” I asked, wiping away imaginary crumbs.
“No, you’re just so…incredible. I’m sorry.” There was that southern twang weaving its way throughout his verbiage.
I must have turned all shades of ruby red. “Thanks Sean, you’re pretty incredible yourself. How come no woman’s captured your heart in all these years?”
“I don’t know. I just never met anyone that moved me like Rita… Until you.”
I felt so alone, so vulnerable. I needed to feel desirable again. My self-esteem had been at an all time low these past few weeks.
I sat there and sighed, not knowing what to do next, invite him upstairs or to the front door. I was torn again. A flood of emotions were coursing through me, and left to my own devices I would have tossed all caution to the wind and snuck him upstairs to my room. I wanted to.
He reached for my cheek and caressed my skin longingly. I felt the electricity pass between us. I entered dangerous territory. I felt dangerous, not caring anymore about appearances, or what the right thing to do was. I wanted to do…everything. With Sean. He was weaving his own powerful spell on me.
I got up and took the dishes to the sink. “I better clean up. You still hungry?”
“Ravished, but not for food,” he said in a husky tone.
He walked over to me. I stood leaning against the counter, rinsing dishes. He pushed my hair away from my neck and began gently kissing me at the nape of my neck, down to my shoulder. Warm, probing hands made their way around my waist, pulling me closer, into him. I leaned my head back and let out a soft moan. Massaging my breasts, he heedfully unbuttoned my tightly bound bodice. I turned to him, my hands still wet, and he kissed me ever so lovingly. His lips were petal smooth.
“Angelica, I can’t take another night of this torture. Please, let me be with you.”
Had my children not been home, I would have torn his clothes off of him where he stood. I would have kissed him all over then started from the beginning again. I’d postpone our pleasure until we both couldn’t take it any longer. I’d be merciless. I would explore his body like a new lover, tenderly, slowly, intently. I would finally take him inside me and we both would lose ourselves, reaching the heights of pleasure we both deserved and couldn’t deny.
However, my children were home.
I kissed him long and hard. A desperate kiss. A kiss I hoped would convey how much I did want him to stay.
“God, I want you,” he moaned in my ear. His warm breath sent chills up and down my spine. I felt his arousal pressing against me.
Unfortunately, I also felt guilt.
I slowly pulled back, gazing into his sultry, azure eyes. I knew my own eyes gave away all my feelings. They always did.
“I know, the kids,” he said, resigned to the fact that wouldn’t change.
I rubbed against him. I knew it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry. I do want you, too. You have to know that.”
His gentle expression hardened. “No, actually, I don’t. I’m putting my heart in your hands. Please don’t break it. I’m moving too fast for you, I know it. I can’t seem to help myself when I’m with you. I should give you space, you need to heal. I know what I should do, damn it, but it’s not what I want to do. I told you once I’m a patient man and I meant it. I’m sorry, Angel. I’ll give you your space.”
I was speechless. He was so selfless. It was all too much for me to deal with. If I had my way, I would have had my way with this suave, sexy man standing in my kitchen, but I had to be responsible. I couldn’t afford the luxury of having a sexual encounter whenever the mood came over me.
I didn’t want my anger at Jon to spill over into anything that might develop, whether with Sean or any other man in my future. I had work to do, both psychological and ritual. All these thoughts caught, unexpressed, in my throat.
Instead, I leaned into him and kissed him again, wrapping my arms around him. It wasn’t right and yet it was. I knew that bringing him to the edge of passion and sending him on his way home, alone and unsatisfied, was wrong. I had no other choice. After all, I was the responsible one. So, on we went pushing ourselves to the point of no return then slamming on the brakes. One of these times, I thought, he will not stop, and I had to accept that. I couldn’t go on like this with him and expect him to leave. I didn’t want the evening to end this way, either. I sought to feel loved as well.
“Soon, I promise,” I whispered.
He backed me against the refrigerator, his hands roaming every curve and winding my hair around his fingers. He breathed in deep. I arched against him, breaking all the rules and losing myself in the moment. He caressed me between my legs, and I thought I’d melt into a puddle onto the floor. My hand reached for him. He was hard and ready for me. “Oh, Goddess…” I whimpered.
He cupped his hands around my face and gently kissed me goodnight. “Like I said, you’re worth the wait.” He headed for the front door, grabbed his coat and vanished into the snowy night, leaving me with nothing to cool me off but the cold outdoors. None of which brought any relief. Again.
It was supposed to be a simple burglary…but the ghosts had other ideas.
Ariadne’s Thread
© 2008 Marie Treanor
Glaswegian single mother Ariadne McSween is not having a happy New Year. Instead of celebrating with family and friends in time-honoured tradition, sh
e’s helping her scallywag brother and his even less-savoury friends burgle a mansion in the Scottish Highlands. And nothing is going right.
First there’s the bad weather and car breakdowns. Then, instead of a quick, quiet robbery under cover of a noisy party, Addie finds herself flirting outrageously with the house's owner, sexy concert pianist and accused murderer, John Maxwell. Worse, her violent and erratic accomplice, Shug, takes their hosts hostage.
Another complication: The house turns out to be haunted, and not just by the ghost of eminent composer Christopher Maxwell. Two randy spirits drawn to the lust of living want to join the party—along with the vengeful shade of John's murdered wife.
Soon Addie becomes entangled in a host of mysteries, like why are Ariadne and her cohorts being paid to rob a house that holds nothing more valuable than dusty musical manuscripts? And most of all, how does she avoid falling in love with the chief victim of her crime?
Enjoy the following excerpt for Ariadne’s Thread:
Don’t get involved in this, Add—get yourself out the door. Any minute now, someone’s going to discover Tammy locked upstairs… She’s going to scream… She lifted the glass to her lips.
He said, “You’re beautiful.”
Startled, she almost choked. “Aye, right,” she said cynically and became fascinated by the way his eyes laughed at her while the rest of his face remained straight.
“And that’s the other reason I like you.” His gaze dropped to the region of her lips, causing those butterflies in her stomach to tighten once more. Heat began to spread outward. She wondered how he would kiss, how he would taste.
Hastily, she took another gulp of the gorgeous whisky.
He said, “So is there a boyfriend lurking somewhere?”
“What’s it to you?” she demanded from habit, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.
“Absolutely nothing, as it happens, but I thought it might matter to you.”
“Do you always speak in riddles?”
His intense gaze remained steady. “You know exactly what I mean. I like you and I’d like to know you better.”
Oh, Jesus, why does this have to happen now? Does he know what these words do to me?
Of course he does. He’s just another man…
She said, “Aye, well I know exactly what that means.”
“Tell me,” he invited.
He really thinks I won’t. She looked straight into his eyes. “You fancy a quick fuck.”
Laughter and something far hotter swept over his stormy face. “Not quick.”
Oh, Christ. Heat swamped her, melting her jeans. Before the conversation got even further out of hand, she downed the last of her whisky and laid her glass down on the nearest table. “Look, I have to…”
“I want to show you something,” he interrupted with a bewildering change of mood. “Come on.”
He took her hand, and it felt so good there that although she’d truly meant to leave at that point, she actually found herself going with him. Worse, he was leading her back upstairs.
Where Tammy was, no doubt, banging on the office door.
“Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly. “I thought the party was downstairs?”
He laughed. “Why do you think we’re going up?”
She pulled away. “I’m not going up there.”
He glanced down at her, his devil’s eyebrows arching in a look both tempting and challenging. Beneath them, his eyes gleamed with that curious darkness she’d noticed before. And something else that she recognized as bitterness. Half the country believed he’d murdered his wife. Certainly, no one had proved he hadn’t.
He said, “Why not? Are you afraid of me?”
There were several good answers to that. Answers that would have lost him and got her finally out of the house. Unfortunately, her mouth always answered a challenge before her head gave it permission.
“Don’t be daft.”
And she was climbing the stairs again. “Maybe I’m scared of your ghosts.”
“No, they’re second rate ghosts, not scary at all. Mostly.”
“I think I saw your great-grandfather.”
“Bad luck, to quote my great-grandmother.”
She blinked at that, but since she really wanted to know, she asked, “Is that his piano I was mangling?”
Laughter hissed out between his teeth. “You didn’t mangle it that badly. I’ve heard a lot worse played on it, believe me. Though the old bugger would prefer if you played the notes he actually wrote.”
Suddenly she wanted to laugh, too, at his casual disrespect of a national icon as much as at the outlandish nature of the conversation. “Did you learn to play on that piano?”
He shrugged. “It was always there.”
“Did he lean over your shoulder and encourage you?”
“Well, he swore at me when I got it wrong.”
“You mean he speaks?”
“Constantly. As the ogre said, it’s getting him to shut up that’s the trick.”
Shrek? He knew Shrek? How incongruous was that?
They had reached the top of the stairs now. Turn right, please turn right, away from Tammy…
He drew her to the left. Addie was sure she could hear the office door rattling. She coughed to cover up any shouting, then found herself whisked into the piano room and the door firmly closed.
“What are we doing here?” she demanded.
“I thought you might like to play the piano with me.”
The lamp was still on. By its poor light, his face looked rugged and more devilish than ever. And he stood too close, much too close. With the door behind her, there was nowhere she could go. God help her, there was nowhere she wanted to go…
“Though now we’re here, I find I don’t give a stuff about playing.”
You could drown in the storm of those eyes. She so needed to be away from him…
“Shit, Kate.” His breathing seemed suddenly uneven. “Remember what you said about the lucky bag?” She opened her mouth to deny that she’d meant any of that, but he didn’t let her speak. “You’re right. It would be a bloody unlucky dip that dropped me in your lap. Tell me to sod off. Tell me quickly, and mean it—right after this kiss…”
His head swooped down and his mouth seized her parted lips before she could think, let alone react to his words. She wasn’t prepared for it. She had no time either to reject him or to savor the moment. He went from speaking straight to kissing, his hands on either side of her face while his body pressed her back into the door. Paralyzed, she hung there while his mouth devoured hers, moving across her lips with a strange, tender hunger she’d never encountered before. It astounded her, enchanted her. So when his tongue slid between her lips, she opened wider to him, meeting his tongue with her own. He wound it in his, danced with it, sucked it into his own mouth while he explored every nook of hers.
Sensation rolled inward like a tidal wave. Every caress of his sensitive fingertips at the corner of her lips, every movement of his devastating mouth, dragged her further in. She clung to him, kissing him back with forgotten passion till he groaned into her mouth.
His hands left her face, trailing down her neck to her shoulders, and down the sides of her body, just teasing her breasts on the way to her waist where they lingered, stroking. Her hard, needy nipples pressed into him through the thin camisole. She moved in his arms, rubbing them against his chest. His hands swept down her hips, holding her while he pressed his lower body into her, his sporran jabbing into her abdomen.
With an impatient jerk, his hand pushed between their bodies, pushing the sporran aside so that he could grind his erection into her instead. Through the thickness of his kilt, she could feel it already hard and thick. Desire flooded her, soaking her jeans. Her pussy pulsed with need.
This can’t be happening…how can I want him so much so quickly?
Changing the angle of his mouth, he deepened the kiss even further. One questing hand found her breast, cupping and caressin
g, his thumb flickering back and forth across her rigid nipple, making her moan into his mouth. She pressed forward into the delicious hardness of his cock and obligingly he rubbed it against her. She wanted it inside her, pushing, thrusting. She wanted him naked, to feel his skin, every inch of the hard body pressed so beguilingly against her now.
At last, as if it were a supreme effort, he dragged his mouth free. “Tell me now,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers. “Tell me quickly… ‘Sod off, John Maxwell, you’re nothing but trouble.’ Kate…”
His mouth found hers again, brushing back and forwards across her lips as reality flooded back, bringing shame and guilt and a pain so sharp it made her gasp aloud. She grasped his head between her hands to stop his devastating mouth.
“Johnny… I… Johnny, I’m not…”
Something bumped inside the room, crashing against the window frame at the same time. A body fell into the room, cursing in fluent Glaswegian.
Appalled, Addie watched over Johnny’s shoulder as Big Malky rose to his feet, shaking his shaggy head as if to clear it.
Johnny spun round. “What the…?”
Malky blinked at the pair of them. “Aw right there, big man?” he said amiably to his host. “Happy New Year.”
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