Happy Feisty Heroines Day!
*Takes a lap around the track just happy to reach this point*
Have you bought your copy of the #1 New Release Collection yet?
All proceeds will be donated to the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and the Red Cross.
And you’ll help me and the other amazing authors hopefully hit the USA Today Bestseller List.
To celebrate, here’s an excerpt from my short story, Banshee Kiss.
“I’m sorry,” Morgan whispered, guilt chewing through her aloof visage. Only the edge of her eyes could flit to Dane as if she feared her mere gaze would doom him.
“For what?”
That stubborn breath that clung to her shell of a body rattled from her nose. “I thought, hoped that…I tried to save you.”
Dane snickered, his hand falling to his chest as if to measure his heartbeat. “But you did.”
Shutting her eyes tight, Morgan whispered, “I tried. I wanted to, but you’re…”
A spark lit between her darkened vision, the energy cascading straight down her arm. She turned in surprise to find Dane’s fingers trailing from her inner forearm down to her palm. Her body hummed with inescapable electricity, causing Morgan’s lips to part and a sigh of satisfaction to escape. How long had it been since anyone touched her? Looked at her beyond a cursory glance, and with eyes burning brighter than the stars of winter?
“You’re trapped between the living and the dead,” she sputtered. “Just…just like me.”
To her shock, Dane didn’t collapse in frustration or stomp away in denial. No, instead his fingernails danced up her arm like figure skaters. Each hop sent a burst through her, Morgan waiting and pleading for another touch.
“This life,” she kept confessing, “it’s not a life. It’s scrabbling to survive. It’s existing for the sake of not dying. It’s…”
A palm, warm as the summer sun, cupped her cheek. She leaned into it, craving him to the depths of her soul. Her eyelashes fluttered, and through a clog in her throat, she confessed, “It’s lonely.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Dane whispered. With his thumb curled under her jaw, he pulled her to him. Lips soft as silk caressed hers, the breath of life warmed across her mouth, and Morgan’s entire body lit white-hot.
She wrapped her arms around Dane, tugging him to her. His lithe, taut body flexed below her palms. Heat entwined with his taste filling her mouth. Masculine and strong, Dane lapped his tongue across her lip and Morgan happily invited him in.
God! She ached for his touch, his lips, his body pressed to all of hers. Dane pinched the fallen collar of her shirt, rolling the fabric in his grip as he kept kissing her. “Please,” he whispered before diving back to her lips. His thumb brushed along her upper arm, sliding it down to the top of her chest.
“Please,” he pleaded again and dragged the tip of his nose up her cheek. Morgan followed with, bowing her head back as she stared up at the glistening lips flushed from her touch. They begged for her, for a touch she hadn’t known since death appeared to her.
Straining on her toes, Morgan licked along the hollow of his neck, nibbled on his lobe, and whispered in his ear, “Yes.”
Her shirt tumbled to the floor in an instant. Dane paused only a moment to stare in wonder before he pressed his lips to her and unhooked her bra. His hot mouth nipped and licked along her jaw and down her neck as he tugged at the straps. All the while, Morgan fumbled with the buttons on his vest.
Every attempt she made was foiled by Dane pressing her back toward the bed. She yelped in surprise as she fell to the rumpled mattress and the duvet left lingering on the floor. Her feet must have caught in it, sending her tumbling, but Dane didn’t laugh. Fire burned in his ice eyes as he stared at her topless and heaving for breath.
Slowly, he twisted his arm and—with his hand hooked at the top—unbuttoned his vest. One by one, Morgan watched in trembling anticipation at the confident movements as he shook off both the vest and his shirt. Lean muscle clung to his thin frame as freshly shaven as his face. The skin gleamed by the cheap hotel light, beckoning her like an angel to the apocalypse.
Ellen Mint 