And: if you go
over and comment at Cherie’s blog – ‘Tales from the writing cave’ –
By noon tomorrow EST… Cherie will enter you in the draw to win a copy of this
fabulous book. The link is at the bottom of this post.
BLURB:
Seelie Fae
Prince Ee-an, brought up in as a royal foster son in the Unseelie court, seeks
love guidance from a seer—and learns of a shocking circumstance.
Thomas
Hume, fleeing an ugly breakup, moves across the country and into an old brick
building with an otherworldly tree in its backyard. Branches move when no wind blows.
Tiny lights glow from it in the night. Only the reasonable rent and an ironclad
lease keep him there.
Finding a portal between
the two worlds open, Ee-an travels to the human realm to find his foretold
mate. Fae laws forbid Ee-an to stay in the human realm. Thomas’s adopted
daughter and younger brother are unable to cross the veil into Faery. Can Ee-an
and Thomas find a way to honor their obligations without losing hope for a
happily-ever-after future?
EXCERPT:
I
woke from what had to be the weirdest dream ever to find myself lying on a
mattress that felt the way I imagined floating on a cloud must, covered in a
fluffy, forest green comforter. I was not in my bed. I had a battle scarred
queen bed that had belonged to some pre-teen girl in its former life. This was
made blatantly obvious by the random splashes of various shades of nail polish
and the occasional scribbles attesting to the fact that the owner would love
Justin Bieber forever. On second thought, the bed had probably belonged to some
lucky pre-teen queer boy with liberal parents before I found it at the
Salvation Army. After all, what self respecting straight girl would chase after
Justin Bieber, even in her mind? He was far too pretty to be straight. Everyone
knew that… well, at least every hopeful young queer did.
Ee-an’s
rumbling bass tones came through the cracked open door, eased along the
hardwood floor and crawled up onto the heavenly bed with me, rather in the
manner of a friendly hound. He spoke some lilting language I couldn’t make
heads or tails of, but thought might be Gaelic. It sounded a bit like the elves
from The Lord of the Rings movie starring Viggo Mortensen and Orlando Bloom.
Those two were a double dose of yum in my book, even if they did dress funny
and, at least in Aragorn’s case, have the bad taste to fall in love with a
woman.
I
pushed myself up and was treated to a moment of wooziness. I must have made
some noise because Ee-an’s conversation broke off and then the door to the room
I was in pushed open.
“Thomas?
Is that you?”
As
the door swung wide, the faint whimper escaping my throat turned to a moan.
Ee-an
stood, back lit and perfectly framed in the dark wood of the door frame. He
wore a pair of black leather trousers that molded to his firm thighs with
loving devotion. And that was it. The pants laced partway up the front, and
they were only laced half way. I could see a light trail of dark hair leading
down from his bellybutton to where the waist of the pants would lie if they
were closed all the way. There the—oh so happy—trail broadened. His torso was
gloriously bare. My gaze wandered across sculpted pecs, down across a firm
mid-section which hinted at a six pack, and then back up to the rounded tops of
his well-muscled shoulders.
Oh
yeah.
I
could so see myself holding onto those broad shoulders as he fucked all sense
out of me up against a wall. I must have whimpered again at that point because
the next thing I knew, Ee-an was easing me back down against the bed, his brow
crinkling up and his lips pinching together.
“Thomas?
Are you in pain?”
His
warm brown eyes searched my face, peering into my eyes as though he could see
my very soul. I blinked owlishly up at him and then did possibly the stupidest
thing I’ve ever done. I ran the tips of my fingers across the stubble lining
his jaw and traced the outline of his plush lips.
“So
soft…”
Ee-an’s
eyes darkened and his nostrils flared.
Score.
Maybe not the dumbest thing I’d ever done, then.
He
pulled in a deep breath, drawing my eyes and my stupid hands to his chest. His
nipples hardened as I watched. He leaned down toward me, pausing just before
his lips would have brushed my mouth.
“I’m
going to kiss you now unless you give me aught reason I shouldn’t.”
I
moaned again, closing my eyes and opening my mouth. Ee-an’s lips lit upon my
own as lightly as the brush of butterfly wings, once and again. Then he sealed
his lips carefully over mine, slid his tongue into my mouth and stroked it
along mine teasingly. His hands slid over my chest, and I cursed the invention
of clothing. My shirt kept me from feeling the rasp of his skin on mine. I could
feel the heat though, and I thought in that moment that I could happily spend
the rest of my life right here, with his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my
body. Only, in a perfect world, this would happen with far less clothing
between us. A guy’s gotta have goals, you know?
After
a bit, the damned inconvenient necessities of life, like oxygen, got in the way
of the best kiss I’d ever been blessed to participate in. Ee-an pulled back
slowly, brushing my lips with his own, ending the kiss just as he’d started it,
with a whisper across my lips.
“Delicious.”
Again
I found myself blinking up into his melted chocolate eyes without two thoughts
to rub together in my brainpan. I realized that my hips were straining upward,
seeking to press my painfully hard cock against any part of him I could reach.
I forced my over-eager body to relax back down onto the bed.
“I…
best kiss ever. Again?”
Ee-an
chuckled, dropped one of those butterfly kisses at the corner of my mouth and
pushed himself back up to standing with an impressive flex of those biteable
shoulders. I sighed. Propping myself up on an elbow, I quirked an eyebrow at
him and asked the question that had been burning up my pea-sized brain since I
woke.
“Um…
where am I?”
Ee-an
flashed a smile. My belly quivered. Seriously, when do peoples’ bellies quiver?
You know, outside of romance novels?
Sheesh.
I
could feel a warm tide rising up my throat to wash across my cheeks and
forehead. Yeah, I aced Dork 101 without needing any of the study aides. So?
Ee-an
sobered for a moment, his eyes seeming to search my features intently before he
grasped my forearms and hauled me back to a seated position. The woozy feeling
was gone. Go figure. Heh. He really did kiss my boo-boo all better.
His
deep rumble broke into my meandering thoughts. “You look much better, Thomas.
As to where you are: you’re at my place. When we got home from the hospital
last night you said there was no one at your place to keep an eye on you so I
brought you here.”
Damn.
Double
Damn.
I’d
spent the night with Ee-an and had no fracking memory of it. I quickly clenched
my ass-cheeks together. Nope, there was no lingering soreness there. I guess he
hadn’t taken advantage of my weakened state.
Pity.
Ee-an
kept speaking, and I forced my mind to catch up with the real life happenings
going on right in front of me rather than swimming through the infinite sea of
my imaginings. Ee-an shook his head. Quirking a brow at me he spoke, his
expression made it obvious that he was repeating something he’d already said.
“Do
you know when your brother and daughter will be back from visiting your friends
in Pennsylvania?”
I
blinked at him.
Gods.
His
voice was getting me hard again.
“I—uh,
they should be home by this afternoon.”
Ee-an
nodded, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Do you want to stay here until they
get back? You know, just so you won’t be on your own.”
I
opened my mouth to suavely reply to that ordinary question. But, of course,
being me meant that it could never be that simple. I listened in horror to the
words spilling from my traitorous mouth.
“Wait?
Like, naked waiting? Is that code for sex?”
Ee-an
took a step back, his mouth falling open and his eyes widening as his face
flooded with color. His sultry voice shook as he stammered his way through a
response. “No—not naked. It—I—that is here. Stay. I mean you should stay in
your clothes. And wait. For your brother and, ah—I’m going to make us some
lunch. S-s-salad? I’ll toss a salad. No. I—I mean I’ll make salad. Caesar.”
Ee-an
fled to the kitchen, but I was not dismayed. The sight of the enormous erection
he sported while running from the room smacked into my awareness like a solid
oak clue-by-four. Hah. Those two functioning brain cells I have kicked into
action and told me that the big hunk who’d all but run screaming into the other
room was all mine even if he wasn’t aware of it yet.
Caesar
salad sounded like a fine entrée, but I was shooting for an appetizer that the
chef hadn’t listed on today’s menu. An evil grin stretched my ordinary lips
wide. A filthy little chuckle worked its way up through my chest to ring
through Ee-an’s room.
“I
think I’ll start with a protein shake. I am a growing boy, after all.”
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