Rock Rhapsody

by Rachel Cross

  “Nope. Told ya. Trying to get better about the creeper wolf thing. I’ll go hang out at the baseball diamond and heckle the kids. Gotta make some calls anyway. The team’s travel agent messed up my itinerary again.”

  “I miss you when you travel.”

  He winked. “Yeah, being away makes me a sad puppy, too. Wolves don’t like to stray so far from their mates. Being apart is distracting. Makes it hard to focus. It’s a wonder I’ve managed to manage to strike anyone out.”

  “Of course you have and you’ll continue to do so. You’re Calvin F. Wolff.”

  He chuckled. “You’re my number one fan. You know the F doesn’t stand for Frank, right?”

  She stumbled, but he held her up and laughed again.

  “That fact has recently come to my attention.” In fact, it had dawned on her while they engaged in some scandalizing acts behind closed doors. Apparently, Calvin had developed a long hair fetish in the past four months. She made his wolf wild with teases about cutting it.

  “Your naïveté is so damned cute, but it makes me and the dingbat wolf worry about you, honey. I’m glad to be out guiding you through the world. I never thought I’d have a mate, and figured I’d just go feral.”

  She nodded as they approached her class’s building. “We really are a pair, aren’t we? Dingbat wolf and ditzy succubus?”

  He swatted her bottom as she started up the stairs. “I guess The Fates have a sense of humor.”

  “I have it on good authority that Cupid would agree.”

  About the Author

  Holley Trent is a Carolina girl gone west. Raised in rural, coastal North Carolina, she currently resides on the Colorado Front Range with her family. She writes sassy contemporary and quirky paranormal romances set in her home state.

  She’s hard at work writing other stories set in the Sons of Gulielmus world, including one for Cupid himself—Charles. Read all about John’s clash with the demon daddy Gulielmus in A Demon in Waiting.

  See Holley’s complete backlist of paranormal and contemporary romances at her website, http://www.holleytrent.com. When she’s not on deadline, she boldly tweets under the handle @holleytrent.

  A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance

  High Octane: Ignited , by Rachel Cross and Ashlinn Craven

  He’d been catching flashes of her smooth, tanned skin all night. In a conservative sea of blacks and taupes, her dress with its low-scooped back shone vibrant as a peacock’s tail. But that wasn’t what caught his eye. There were plenty of beautiful women at the Le Meridien hotel. What caught his attention was the way she carried herself; she didn’t glide about like a model, or vamp about like an actress. Instead her posture was ramrod straight—Queen’s Guard style.

  He leaned against the wall, nursing his drink and watching, as she approached the bar. She gave the bartender a smile, revealing the kind of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth that indicated extensive orthodontia or good genes—in this crowd either was likely. He studied her lips as she mouthed her order, his gaze dropping to her fingers drumming impatiently on the mahogany bar.

  A man at least twenty-five years her senior, vaguely familiar, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, sidled up and stood close enough to indicate familiarity. He laid a hand on hers, preventing her from taking the drink from the counter. Her expression darkened, her mouth twisted, and she said something—something cutting judging by the pained look that crossed his face.

  She strode away, leaving the older gent gazing after her with longing. Ronan suppressed a shudder. May-December relationships still made him queasy, maybe because he was the product of one. He gave his collar a tug—he loathed these things. He’d been to sponsor events like this his entire career and it never—

  “Incredible job in Budapest, Mr. Hawes. The way you managed the pits was inspired. This is Pantech-Windsor’s year!”

  Ronan pasted on his professional smile and turned to greet the speaker. “Cheers, mate.” Some tire corporation chap if he wasn’t mistaken. American. They were crawling all over Formula 1 these days, thanks to Supernova Energy Drink. They’d money to burn. Supernova had brilliant engineers and brought new sponsors and fans into the mix. In fact, they had everything but a sane driver. Maddux, their lead driver, had more luck than a man deserved and occasional flashes of brilliance, but no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Ronan shook the American’s hand, received a clap on the back in return, and continued moving through the crowd.

  Speaking of the maverick Texan devil, Maddux Bates made eye contact across the room, sending him a sly grin, Vivienne on his arm. Ronan froze. He nodded back, teeth clenched, and headed in search of the peacock with the military bearing. He’d do anything to avoid contact with Vivienne McCloud. The woman who had gone straight from his bed to Maddux’s two races into the season, spawning such inspired tabloid headlines as “Hey You Get Off My McCloud” and “Bates Outrates Hawes.”

  Teal dress was alone on the edge of the room, studying an abstract modern painting on the wall. The older man was nowhere in sight. Ronan took a sip of his Pellegrino and wandered over.

  She turned her head, her gaze sharp, assessing every inch.

  He stared down into her heart-shaped face. Her nose was a smidgen too tip-tilted, her mouth a shade too wide, but her eyes were clear and intelligent. The dress highlighted their not-quite-green-not-quite-blue color perfectly.

  “Thoughts?” he said, indicating the painting with his drink.

  She blinked at him and turned around to resume her study of it. “I’m no expert where modern art is concerned, but it looks like it might be upside down.” Her husky American-accented voice sent a surge of testosterone down his spine.

  He extended his hand. “Ronan Hawes.” He waited for the spark of delayed recognition, a comment about his season. Nothing. Then again, this Brussels event didn’t house a strictly F1 crowd.

  She assessed him coolly for a half a second too long, and then extended her own for a brief, firm clasp. “Cassidy Miller.” She swept a lock of wavy, dark brown hair out of her face. Only ice remained in the glass she held.

  “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Yes, thanks. Double bourbon on the rocks.” She turned back to the painting.

  “Right. Double bourbon it is then.” American whisky was almost as revolting as their beer.

  On his approach back, he noticed that her gaze went beyond the painting and her jaw was set, the soft curve of her mouth a rigid line.

  She started when he reappeared at her side.

  He handed her the bourbon.

  “Thanks.” Her expression smoothed back into bland. “In town for the race?”

  “Yes, you?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Are you a fan?”

  “Of Formula 1? Not so much. But I love NASCAR.”

  He pressed his lips together. Americans and their precious NASCAR. “Oh?”

  “I’m with someone who loves Formula One.” Her lips quirked. “So I deal.”

  “If you enjoy racing, you’ll enjoy F1.”

  She tilted her head, eyes wide. “You think?” She shook her head. “Formula One is so much more about the car than the driver.”

  “Interesting opinion, but there’s the catch—the cars don’t drive themselves.”

  “Don’t they? With all that technology, isn’t F1 less … I mean, aren’t the NASCAR races more of a test of the driver’s capability?”

  His lips curved in an insincere smile, and despite his attraction to this woman, despite Vivienne across the room, he was tempted to walk away. It had been ages since he’d had to explain his sport to a novice. He’d more trouble with people toadying up to him than with them denigrating the sport. “You shouldn’t even mention NASCAR in the same breath as F1. Those guys wish they had our cars.”

  Her wide-eyed gaze was steady on his. “Oh?”

  “Formula cars are the fastest circuit racing cars on the planet. We can max them out at 350 kilometers per hour.”

  Her br
ows lifted.

  “That’s 220 miles per hour to you,” he said. “To reach that speed you need perfection—aerodynamics, suspension, tire design, all of it.”

  “So it is the car?”

  Was she having him on? No, she seemed merely curious.

  “It’s everything. The team, the technology, the engineering, the driver. All of it packed up and shipped out after every race to the next Grand Prix, racing on different circuits, on city streets—it’s a global sport, not just for you Americans.”

  “Well, maybe if you came to the United States ...”

  He smiled and raised his glass. “Ah but we do. Texas built us a brand new circuit in Austin. We’ll be there in November.”

  “Texas?” She pretended to shudder. “You race in Monaco. Why not the streets of New York or San Francisco?”

  “San Francisco?” A laugh escaped him as he pictured his car on one of those hills. He stepped back, readying his departure with a polite smile.

  She stayed him, laying a small, fine-boned hand on his forearm. He studied it—no rings or bracelets, her fingernails clipped short and without varnish, rather like her method of chatting up. His gaze rose.

  She was grinning at him. He’d been baited.

  She drained her drink, threaded her arm through his, and stole his line. “Want to get out of here, Mr. Hawes?”