Biting Nixie (42 page)

Play by the rules when playing together. With family and friends. Improvise the solos.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Julian called out. “If I could have your attention?”

His voice was mildly hollow, with just a touch of what I was coming to recognize as vampire compulsion. Conversation dropped off. “Your attention, please. I have an announcement to make. As you know, I have decided to take up practice here in Meiers Corners.”

Cheering greeted that, along with some good-natured ribbing of Denny Crane.

Julian cleared his throat. “But while I have made many new friends in Meiers Corners, living here would be very lonely without company. Without someone special to share my life.” He signaled, and Bo brought him a package.

“Nixie?” Julian held the package out to me.

It was beautifully wrapped, gold paper with a huge satin ribbon. And the weirdest shape since the breaking of the continents. Not a box, or a tube. Not even a garment bag. No, this package looked more like a—guitar.

I took it like a zombie. How could Julian think…so soon…I couldn't replace Oscar. That would be like getting a new puppy the day a beloved dog died.

I peeled back the paper with brittle fingers. Julian meant well, I told myself. He meant to make me happy. He didn't mean to break my crayons.

A new guitar. With Oscar barely cold. My heart was shredding.

I looked up. Julian smiled brightly at me.
He didn't get it
. I wanted to rail and scream. I had hoped…had dared to believe…but Suitguy didn't understand me after all.

The paper stuck. I gritted my teeth, pulled it away. Saw the neck. Oh, fuck. He had gone to a lot of trouble to copy my defunct Strat. The Schaller machine heads were exactly the same. So was the rosewood fingerboard, even including the custom black opal inlays.

How could he? How could the Boston wonder hoag be such an ignoramus? With everything we'd been through…he didn't get it!

I'd think of Oscar every time I looked at the guitar. It was exactly the same—C-shape maple neck with satin polyurethane finish, twenty-two medium jumbo frets, and the bent tuning machine on the E string.

And the bent tuning machine on the E string
. Where my sister had stepped on it.

It wasn't exactly like Oscar—it
was
Oscar. Reborn.

Julian went down on one knee. “Nixie Schmeling. I love you. I want to live with you, forever. Will you marry me?”

His face was even with my neck. Cupping his cheeks, I tilted his head to stare straight into his gorgeous blue eyes. “Julian! You do get it! This is better than a ring. Yes,” I said, laying a big smoochy one on his lips. “Yes, yes, yes!”

My friends shouted and toasted us with beer. And new Oscar—and my heart—riffed right along.

About the Author

Mary Hughes is a computer consultant, professional musician, and writer. At various points in her life she has taught Taekwondo, worked in the insurance industry, and studied religion. She is intensely interested in the origins of the universe. She has a wonderful husband (though happily-ever-after takes a lot of hard work) and two great kids. But she thinks that with all the advances in modern medicine, childbirth should be a lot less messy.

To learn more about Mary Hughes, please visit
www.maryhughesbooks.com
.

What's a nice girl like me doing with a demon like you?

 

I Married a Demon

© 2008 Beverly Rae

 

Jennifer Randall ignored her instincts and rushed into a vacation-fueled romance and quickie marriage to devilishly handsome Blake Barrington. But as a Level 10 Protector with the super-secret Society, how's she supposed to keep the man she adores happy while hunting down gargoyles, zombies and other evildoers of the Otherworld?

As if balancing work and newlywed nookie sessions wasn't hard enough, now she's been assigned to find the Bracelet of Invincibility before a high demon lord can claim it. And Blake seems hell-bent on distracting her at every turn.

Blake Barrington will do anything to regain his mortality and live happily ever after with the woman he loves. Including delivering to his demon lord the one object that could be his salvation—the Bracelet. Too bad part of the contract includes killing his wife. Getting around this small glitch might be doable…if his ghoul-cursed brother wasn't after the prize, too.

Jenn's suspicions mount, and finally the evidence is undeniable. Her sexy spouse is a demon.

Great. Now what? Shag her husband? Or shoot him

Warning: Okay, so there's graphic sexual language. So what? Trust me, if chopping off a few demons' heads doesn't bother you, why would the sex? Either way, it's all good.

 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
I Married a Demon:

At the exact moment I noticed him, he was only a few feet from me. Mr. Ta-DaH—my nickname for Mr. Tall and Dark and Handsome—lay sprawled like the King of the World basking in the sun, surveying his kingdom and the lowly subjects he allowed to share his beach. He held a drink in one hand and scrutinized me through dark sunglasses, his chiseled face a mask of controlled passivity except for the slight lift at the corners of his mouth.

I'm good at playing cool. I have to know how to play it cool in my line of work—both of my lines of work. But this guy's intense scrutiny was almost more than I could handle. With my sunglasses resting on the bridge of my nose, I nonchalantly spied on him, trying to appear unaware that he studied me. I tried to suck in my ass, hoping to make the dimples disappear, but knew the battle was lost before it began. How do you suck in a bottom, anyway? Is it the same as a butt clench? I sighed and hoped he liked women with junk in their trunks.

The man was perfect. At least physically, but physical was all I had to go on. His wet hair, silky and shiny black, slicked away from his forehead and curled around his earlobes. Just the right amount of matching chest hair glistened with drops of perspiration, drawing my gaze to all the right places. Notice I said perspiration, not sweat. No one this good-looking ever sweats.

I'm talking the perfect model of a man. The kind of man I'd buy if I could call in my order and have him delivered to my doorstep in thirty minutes or less. Remember how moviegoers went gaga over Matthew McConaughey when he started taking off his shirt? Yup, me, too. I was one of the hundreds, probably thousands of women, who sat through his movies, not caring about the plot. Instead we sat glued to our seats and waited for him to strip off his shirt and take the heroine to bed. Take M's sex appeal and multiply it by a zillion times more heat and that's what oozed from this guy.

His shoulders, wider than the beach chair he leaned against, mesmerized me and I couldn't keep from imagining the way they'd feel. I'd have donated my whole stack of traveler's checks to charity just to feather my fingers over them. I could see the strength in his muscular arms and sense the power he could unleash at any moment. He pressed his mouth to the highball glass, moving his square jaw, and I had to fight to keep from dashing over and licking off the tiny drop of whiskey left on his upper lip.

His eight-pack abs called to me. Come, Jenn. Come and run your hands over me. I let my gaze glide down his rock-hard abdomen. Can you blame me when my heart started pounding and my mouth went dry? Can you understand why the place between my legs overflowed with wetness?

I pondered what to do. Should I say something? Why didn't he say something? How long could we lie here and stare at each other? What would I do if he got up and walked away? Or even more frightening, what would I do if he came over?

Then he smiled at me.

My mouth dropped open. I lifted my head from my beach towel, forgetting to play it nonchalant. Instead I gaped like a schoolgirl with her first crush. He stood and started toward me, making me oh-so-aware of his height and brawn. My examination of this spectacular specimen started at the top and moved slowly downward.

I'd never found men's legs attractive before—I'm an upper torso kind of gal—but the black hairs on his legs, the firm tanned skin stretched over his runner's tendons, converted me to a leg gal right then and there. My membership in the leg lovers fan club was sealed the minute he squatted next to my blanket and gave me a front row seat to the hard bulge in his swimsuit.

Granted, his first words weren't anything particularly clever, but he didn't need clever. He could have read me the directions on how to buckle a seat belt and I'd have thought it wonderful, riveting, mysterious and oh, yes, sexy as hell.

“Hi, there. Why are you watching me?”

Thick as molasses and hotter than the center of the sun, his warm voice traveled over my naked skin and made me shiver in anticipation of steamy nights and luxurious mornings in bed.

“Uh, no. I mean, no, I'm not watching you.” I rolled off my stomach and onto my side in what I prayed was a slinky kind of move, and propped my head with my hand.

Sliding his sunglasses to the end of his nose, he arched one thick eyebrow upward and knowing eyes twinkled the word liar at me. “Oh, I see. My mistake.” His gaze left mine to make a very slow, very deliberate trek down my thong-clad body, and the tips of his mouth tweaked a bit higher.

Thank you, oh tortuous elliptical machine.

I swallowed, trying to force the liar's lump in my throat all the way down to my stomach. Since when had I ever felt guilty about lying? I was proud I could lie with the best of them. In my line of work—both lines of work—I have to be able to stretch the truth. Otherwise, I might not live very long—or sell a bug-ridden condo. But something irresistible about him drew the truth out of me. “Okay. Maybe I was. But I was simply returning the favor, if you know what I mean.”

He reached out to take a wayward strand of my hair off my cheek. Yet instead of putting it behind my ear to join the rest of my ponytail, he played with it, rubbing the strand between his two fingers as if he'd never experienced the texture of hair. I found myself wishing I'd spent the extra bucks for a salon-quality conditioner.

“I do and you're right. I apologize.”

Huh? “What for?” I suddenly envisioned those fingers playing with my nipple instead of my hair. Forget the conditioner, think scented body lotion. The image was so intense, I wanted nothing more than to take his hand and bring it to my breast. How I kept from grabbing his hand, I'll never know. “Why are you apologizing?”

“For staring at you. I apologize for my rudeness.”

Unnerved by his words, I sat up and tried to position my body as I'd seen countless swimsuit models pose in glossy magazines. Yet instead of stretching my torso and legs in an alluring way, I ended up sitting cross-legged like a big kid. A real turn on—not.

“Oh, were you?” Argh! Stupid comeback, especially since I'd already accused him of staring at me.

“Yes, but you can hardly blame me.”

“I wasn't blaming you, but I'd be interested in knowing why I can't. I mean, since you're apologizing.”

He took off his glasses and, like in all those cliché romance books my mom used to read, our eyes met and a sizzle passed between us. “The answer is very simple. What man could not look at such a tantalizing sight?”

Sure it was a corny line, but I fell for him right then and there. Off the deep end, over the cliff, dived in head first and all those other sayings people use when they fall in love at first sight. As if he could read my thoughts, he leaned closer and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips. Yet, although his touch barely brushed against my mouth, the result rivaled the explosion of a nuclear bomb between my legs. My body's temperature jumped sky high, matching the burn of the sun on my shoulders.

“What are you doing tonight?”

I knew a leading line when I heard it and I heard this one loud and clear. “The same thing I'm going to be doing in about fifteen minutes.”

His eyebrows dipped toward his nose and he cocked his head to the side. “And what would that be?”

“Having the best sex of my life.”

A powerful attraction is the last thing these arch enemies need. Or is it?

 

The Trouble with Curses

© 2008 Anara Bella

 

Selena Tremayne is different. For one thing, how many vampires do you know faint at the sight of blood? Despite the problems her “differences” cause, she's grateful. It means she's not an all-out-evil killing machine. It also means she can't afford to let anyone get too close. And a guy like Rafe, delicious as he is, is to be avoided at all costs.

Rafe Hunter is a vampire slayer, an odd job thrust upon him by dint of birth. And with his augmented abilities, no one else does it better. Those abilities run into a major short-circuit, however, when he meets Selena. The mysterious beauty clouds his every instinct—something he can ill afford in his line of work. Because of her, his quarry has somehow slipped out of his grasp. Twice.

Coincidences are piling up, and he can't help but wonder if simple lust is the culprit. Or if it's something deeper—with dangerous repercussions that extend beyond anything either of them imagined…

 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
The Trouble with Curses:

“Okay, Rafe. I know you're back there. You may as well show yourself.”

Nothing.

“I have no intention of letting you find out where I live, so you have nothing to gain by following me. I'll wander around all over town all night long before I'll show you where I live.”

A dark shadow separated itself from the wall. “How did you know I was here?”

His rich, deep voice shivered down her spine in its usual intoxicating way. “I have a sixth sense about these things.”

“Has to be something like that because I'm damned good at what I do. No one's ever caught me tailing them before.”

She threw him a quizzical look. “You do this often, do you?”