Excerpt from Blood Moons

This was posted earlier today on the LSB Forum in the “Coming Soon” section. I figured it should be added here too. Enjoy!

Dara stared. In his shirt yesterday he’d been impressive. Without it today … Holy crap! For just a second, watching those beautiful muscles stretch and bulge, she forgot where she was and who he was. The walls faded away, the other voices muted, and she was just a woman, staring at a man who just rolled out of bed, his pants riding low on his hips. And Dara was curious about what it would feel like to be gathered up in arms that powerful. Would he crush her without a thought? Her gut said he wasn’t that kind of guy.

Right now, without that tough, menacing face he’d put on yesterday, he looked completely devastating. The type of guy for whom women fell all over themselves; and who touched his women with just enough strength to make them feel overpowered, but not threatened. Well, not much, anyway. A guy like that never let a woman forget she was toying with danger.

The fantasy made the region around her heart ache. Why couldn’t she have met a guy like this before? Maybe if she had, her life would have turned out differently. Maybe he could have kept her thoughts and dreams occupied with more pleasant things than what those around her were thinking. Maybe she could have woken up with him, and spent her days smiling about how lucky she was, and come back home to sleep in his arms at night.

Maybe he would have kept her so busy in his bed that she wouldn’t have had time to think about anything else. Ah, sex. Dara remembered having had it. So very long ago. Remembered not being impressed with it. She should have known better, though. Nothing was ever as good as the books made it seem. Dara had built her hopes up with a steady diet of romance novels in which the hero was … well, like this guy, and everything turned out perfect when he found his heroine.

If she let herself, Dara could pretend that this was the beginning of some steamy romance novel. Wouldn’t be difficult, really. The plot had already begun with a complicated situation, and now here she was, trapped with the hero of the tale, with nowhere to turn except into his arms.

His really big, strong-looking arms…

Then Hunt spoke and quickly dispelled her fantasy.

“Wake-up call,” he said and grinned, as if he’d read her thoughts and they amused him. “Six thirty.”

Dara blushed, feeling as if she’d just been caught in one of those naked-in-public dreams. When he turned away, she swallowed a wistful sigh and made herself look at something besides his tight backside.

There was nothing, except a wall.

Back to reality she plunged, and it wasn’t a soft landing. What was she thinking? Romance novel? Turning into his arms for help? Ha. All that strength had a completely different purpose here. Hunt probably would crush the life out of her, given half a chance. And he’d smile while doing it.