Ghosts of Boyfriends Past
Page 15
Was she insane? It was not okay to pretend that Julian Devlin was a normal guy. He thought he was a vampire, for heaven’s sake, and he certainly hadn’t tried very hard to disguise his desire to bite her.
She leaned against the locked bedroom door, breathing deeply to calm herself. What would she do if he was still there in the morning—later in the morning? What if he didn’t leave?
Thank God he was all right. That thought came out of nowhere and pushed all the other ones aside. Her guilt at letting him wander off into the night evaporated and was replaced by complete shock that he’d come back.
He trusts me. That notion frightened her a little. That made it her responsibility to help him. But how?
Certainly not by giving him an eyeful of her ladies’ Fruit of the Looms. Though he had definitely liked what he saw.
Cool it. Get a grip.
The sound of his rhythmic breathing reached her through the door. She chanced opening it a crack to peer at him. He was asleep already, one arm flung across his eyes as if shielding himself from something.
He’d taken off her father’s sweatshirt. It now lay folded neatly on the arm of the sofa. His naked chest rose and fell, and his muscles still looked rock solid even in sleep.
Gorgeous.
What am I going to do with you, Julian Devlin?
Zoe shut the door to the bedroom and locked it again. The real question was, what was he going to do with her?
Their wolves are howling at the moon. Their human halves are on different planets.
Black Gold
© 2011 Vivian Arend
Takhini Wolves, Book 1
Lone wolf Shaun Stevens’s automatic response to the words “happily ever after”? Kill me now. Yet with all his friends settling down he’s begun to think there may actually be something to this love-and-roses crap.
One thing’s for sure: his dream mate will have to out-cuss, out-spit and out-hike him. So he never expected the one to push his forever button would be a blue-blooded Southern debutante with a voice as dark and velvety as her skin.
When Gemmita Jacobs steps off the plane in Whitehorse, Yukon, it’s about more than her caribou research project. It’s her declaration of independence from an overprotected upbringing. Except there’s something in the air she can’t quite define—something that unexpectedly rouses her mating instincts.
Moments after their eyes lock, the deed is done—and done thoroughly. When the pheromone dust settles, though, all the reasons they don’t belong together become painfully clear.
It’s enough to make a wolf learn a whole new set of cuss words…
Warning: Two strong wolves getting exactly what they deserve. Includes wilderness nookie, shifters being naughty in public places, the Midnight Sun as a canopy for seduction and grizzly shifters on the loose. Oh, and don’t forget the sarcasm.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Black Gold:
Both hands slid onto a smooth surface, and Shaun halted. The connecting door to the next room was warm under his palms, a soft thump, thump, thump radiating from the opposite side. It took a little maneuvering to get the deadbolt undone, and he swung his door inward.
The second door, the one from the neighbouring room, remained closed, but the volume of the music and the amazing scent increased tenfold. Shaun soaked in the bouquet. Delicious and invigorating. Appetizing enough to chase away the brain-buster of a headache hovering nearby. One deep breath after another cleansed the fog from his brain and lit a direct path from his nostrils southward.
Whatever the hell was on the other side, he had to have a taste.
The music changed, slowing in pace. Shaun pressed his ear against the door and froze in surprise as the surface retreated from him. He glanced to the side and spotted a faint crack of light glowing back. Holy shit—the lock on the second door was open, and as the space widened, he was gob-smacked with more of the mouth-watering goodness.
Leaning on the doorframe, he pushed and let the door swing on silent hinges away from him. His eyes adjusted to the increasing light, focusing in a flash as a pair of shapely cocoa-brown hips barely covered by pale pink panties swished from side to side not ten feet from him.
Shaun dug his fingers into the doorframe, using arm strength to keep his body vertical. Standing was a major issue in light of the reverberating shock waves rushing up his limbs. Every breath he took forced more of the incredible scent into his head and brain. His gaze remained trapped by the woman as she undulated before him, her head tilted to one side, her hands running over her skin. The long, lean line of her neck tempted him, the shimmer of the lamps highlighting her curves.
One pulsing beat after another, the music drove into his ears, his blood racing head to toe in powerful surges. And when she widened her stance and scooped upward with her palms, catching hold of her lace-covered breasts, Shaun wasn’t sure what could possibly calm the storm raging inside him.
Imagining that he was touching her would be a good start, him pinching her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. She hummed in time with the music just before the sound disappeared behind a scene of white noise, his hearing obliterated by the blood pounding out of his brain en route south to his groin. The lacy wisp of her bra floated to the floor, and he followed the frilly thing with his gaze, distracted for a second by the desire to pick it up and see if the lingerie was warm from her skin.
There had to be a reason for his entire body to be shaking with need. He glanced behind him into his room, his abandoned clothes untidy heaps barely visible in the darkness.
Was he still asleep? Shaun wiggled himself upright and pinched his thigh, snapping his mouth shut on the ouch he wanted to exclaim.
Nope. Awake.
A hallucination. That’s what this was. Damn fine one too, made even more incredible the moment she revealed those breasts. Perfectly formed, dark nipples already tightened to peaks. Shaun stared slack-jawed, frozen in admiration for the sheer angelic beauty before him. Or maybe this was heaven—that was the answer. Evan’s moonshine had given him a heart attack, and he was now entering the Pearly Gates. The cheap wooden doors weren’t expected—but then people everywhere were dealing with cutbacks, right? And who the heck cared what the gates were made of when the streets beyond were lined with visions like this one.
He stepped forward and took a deep breath. Angelic perfume flooded his brain and erased all thoughts except needing to see if his other senses were going to be treated to an incredible feast tonight.
Then the angel opened her eyes, and he stared into dark glistening obsidian pools. Right before she vanished.
Gem snapped her mouth shut, trapping the scream that threatened to burst free. It wasn’t turning to discover a man in her room—a naked man—that stunned her the most. The complete flip-flop her belly turned as her wolf sat up and howled in delight wasn’t enough to shock her into letting a girlish cry escape.
It was staring into the man’s eyes as all his humanity drained away. Watching as he transformed into the biggest, most enormous and bushiest black wolf she’d ever seen in her life, the beast immediately crashing to the floor between the wall and the bed.
She snatched up her shirt and held the fabric in front of her. Then the stupidity of attempting to cover herself when she had a much bigger issue at hand hit—there was a strange wolf at her feet and her own itching to come out and say hello. Being mostly naked was nothing compared to that.
Gem took one step, then another, slow and cautious until she reached the end of the bed. She nudged one furry paw with her toe. “Hello? Are you okay?”
No response.
She peeked into the space behind the now open door, figuring out the rooms were pretty much identical. He’d opened his side, and she must have left hers unlocked. With that mystery solved, she turned back to deal with the more difficult one of the furry beast sprawled on her floor.
Deep inside she felt it again—a nearly violent urge to change and let her wolf crawl all over his. The scent in the air had returned to intoxi
cating levels, even higher than she’d experienced earlier in the office with Evan.
Oh my. Oh no. Through the haze of lust coating her mind like a thick coastal fog, the only possible solution pulsed out a lighthouse-warning signal.
Her mate? For real this time?
A low rumble bounced off the wall, urgent growls and moans increasing as the wolf scrambled to his feet. Gem retreated instinctively before making a stand.
She was not going to freak out. One hand shot forward, palm upright.
“Freeze right there, mister.”
The wolf ignored her, pacing closer until he stood on top of her feet. Then he rubbed against her legs, bumping hard enough to force her to sit on the bed. The mattress swayed under her hips as he jumped up and joined her, the bulk of his wolf body dipping the surface.
He sniffed her cheek and sighed happily, the warmth of his breath hitting her squarely on the neck. Gem twisted to bring up one leg and face him better.
“You don’t take direction very well, do you?”
A wolfish grin, with a full flash of teeth greeted her just before he stuck out his tongue and licked her from jaw to hairline.
She giggled and grabbed him. All thoughts of how utterly enormous his wolf was compared to the other wolves she knew disappeared as she wrestled with him on the mattress. Instantly comfortable with this stranger in her room, she targeted all the prime wolf ticklish spots, laughing as he squirmed under her.
Then he rolled and shifted at the same time, and instead of the weight of a furry wolf pinning her to the bed, the full length of a very smooth-skinned, muscular and naked man held her captive. His black hair hung in unruly tangles around his head, beautiful dark brown eyes with simply enormous pupils filling their cores hovered inches over hers.
A squarish jaw. The smile she’d seen moments earlier on his wolf—the expression was still there, although his teeth were now human-shaped and even. His nose had a slight bump in the middle, broken at some point she suspected.
“Hello, love.”
Ghosts of Boyfriends Past
Vivi Andrews
Letting him in could mean losing him forever.
Elizabeth “Biz” Marks has the magic touch when it comes to matters of the heart—except her own. In a slightly tipsy fit of loneliness, she once tried to harness a little love mojo to work in her favor. Instead the spell mutated into a nightmarish curse that kills off her boyfriends on her favorite holiday: Valentine’s Day.
With three permanently ex-boyfriends on her conscience and another hearts-and-flowers holiday approaching, the last thing she needs is a too-gorgeous-to-be-true reporter snooping around.
Biz just has extraordinarily bad luck, or she’s a bona-fide Black Widow who bumps off her boyfriends for a chunk of the inheritance money. Either way, Mark Ellison is sure there’s a story here. Especially when his attempts to charm her send her into a panic.
The harder Biz tries to keep Mark and his beguiling dimples as far away as possible, the harder he digs to get at the truth. Now she’s beginning to wonder if his is the love that will finally break the curse...or if she’ll be burying her heart along with him.
Warning: This book contains curses, meddling ghosts, nosy neighbors and enough peppermint Schnapps to drown the inhibitions of even the most cautious witch.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Ghosts of Boyfriends Past
Copyright © 2012 by Vivi Andrews
ISBN: 978-1-60928-564-7
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Valerie Tibbs
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: January 2012
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
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