Dirty Distractions

by Cari Quinn

  Fate leads her to the Blue Moon bar in January. After all, what better place to howl? And when she meets Jake Stewart, the sexy bartender, and engages in some red-hot sex with a stranger, her year seems to be off to a great start.

  At least, until Jake declares he wants all her full moons…

  Warning: This is NOT the shifter story you are looking for. While the heroine howls during the full moon, she does it in naked, human-form only. Sorry—no wolves, but there is a really sexy bartender and lots of red-hot fantasies.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Full Moon:

  “Tonight’s full moon is sex in public.”

  Jake choked on the drink and put the glass back down. “In public?”

  She nodded.

  “What the hell do you mean by full moon?”

  Josie considered avoiding the question, but there was no harm in telling him the truth. She explained about her list and her desire to fulfill the fantasies.

  “So what’s on the list? Besides the stranger danger and PDA ones.” Jake was exactly as she’d remembered him. Unflappable, fun, funny.

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid the contents of the list are privileged information. If I told you, I’d have to fuck you.”

  Jake grasped her shoulder, pulling her closer. “I’d have no problem with—”

  “Jake?” A waitress stood by their table. She pointed to a couple of loud drunks by the door. “I think we might have trouble. You wanna take care of it?”

  Jake sighed. “Yeah, sure. I’ll be right over.”

  The waitress went back to work.

  Jake leaned closer, whispering in her ear. “If you don’t have any luck with number two on the list within the next hour, come find me.”

  Josie didn’t have a chance to respond before Jake rose and went to address the problem by the entrance. She took a sip of her drink, hoping it would calm her down. It was suddenly quite warm in the bar.

  Josie watched Shelly and Lance dance, then gazed around the room. The place was crowded and there certainly wasn’t a shortage of men hanging around, either drinking alone or standing in large groups.

  She spotted one large table across the room. It appeared the men were all out for a bachelor party. She found the groom-to-be instantly. The party must have been going for a while because the man had at least a dozen empty shot glasses in front of him. His friends were sending him out of bachelorhood in style. She slowly studied each of the men at the table, silently trying to decide which were married, which were mama’s boys, which were playboys.

  Josie had never paid much attention to the opposite sex. Tony had been her first boyfriend. She’d fallen fast and hard for him toward the end of their junior year in high school and she’d convinced herself she was lucky. She’d honestly believed she’d found her soul mate at sixteen.

  She closed her eyes wearily. The silly romantic girl she had been was long gone, leaving Josie struggling to figure out what her beliefs regarding love were now. Since the divorce, Josie had concentrated on setting up a new home for her and her son, working long hours to pay the bills, and avoiding the dating scene as much as possible because she refused to open up a revolving door of men in Tommy’s life.

  She remembered too well how painful it was when her mother would bring home a new boyfriend, include him in every aspect of their lives, then yank him out again after the break-up.

  Josie wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to Tommy. The full-moon list had been created to protect him. And her.

  So while she was tempted by Jake’s offer, she wasn’t sure she should accept it. She’d thought about the handsome bartender too many times the past few weeks. If she had sex with him again, wasn’t she sort of tempting fate and running the risk of developing feelings for him?

  As tough as she tried to pretend she was, Josie knew when it came to matters of the heart, she was way too soft.

  A man lingered at the edge of the dance floor by her table and gave her a friendly smile. It wouldn’t take much effort on her part to show interest, to invite him over.

  Josie glanced over her shoulder and watched Jake deal with the two drunks by the door. Apparently a fight had been brewing between them, but somehow Jake had calmed the waters. They were laughing at something Jake had said. She smiled. Then she ignored the stranger and stood up, approaching Jake just as the two men shook his hand and said goodbye.

  “Hey, gorgeous.” Jake glanced at his watch. “It’s only been fifteen minutes. Are you coming to give me the brush-off?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to wait an hour.”

  Jake’s eyes darkened with lust and her body responded instantly. “Come with me.”

  Her love life is running on empty. And he’s just the man to make her engine purr.

  Revving Her Up

  © 2013 Joy Daniels

  Full Throttle, Book 1

  Sarah Katz’s career as a New York lawyer is in high gear—and the stress has left her hormones sputtering. With strict doctor’s orders to relax, she books the cure: a spa vacation in the cool, green mountains of Virginia.

  When a pothole sends her Porsche to the side of the road, she finds herself stuck in small-town Rapture. She’d love nothing more than to blow this Hicksville and be on her way…until she meets sexy stockcar mechanic Cole Cassidy.

  Coles knows exactly how to handle that fancy car, and its uptight driver. Sarah’s not his type, but neither can deny that their attraction is firing on all cylinders. Soon he’s introducing her to the thrill of speed at the local track—in his car, and on it.

  But Sarah’s troubles aren’t so easily left in the dust. Unless she forces herself to decide if she’s willing and able to let someone else take the wheel.

  Warning: Contains a false start, breakdowns of the automotive and erotic kinds, creative uses of shower massagers and silk ties, and thrill-rides in, on, and outside of a racecar.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Revving Her Up:

  The middle of freaking nowhere. Sarah had assumed it was solely a figurative expression. But deep in the hills of Virginia, three hundred miles from New York City and another hundred plus miles from The Spa at Westwood, she’d found it. No reception on her cell phone. No one at the local garage who worked on Porsches. Not even a working soda machine.

  According to the sign at the end of the street, the middle of nowhere was officially called Rapture, VA. Sarah snorted. Some name. The only pleasure she’d get from this town was watching it disappear from her rearview mirror.

  She got out of her car and headed for the garage’s office. Heads turned as she passed the group of men who’d been ogling the Porsche—and her—since the tow had dropped them off. None of them appeared to actually work here so she ignored them.

  The smell of engine grease assaulted her nose and twangy country music attacked her ears as she pushed through the glass door. The office chair screeched in protest as a barrel-chested man in a blue work shirt and stained jeans settled himself behind a battered metal desk. Austin was embroidered on his left breast pocket.

  “Excuse me.” There was no response. “Austin.”

  The man started, his eyes wide when he looked up at her. He must not have heard her over the music. She took a deep breath, pushing aside the ache that was starting in her left temple. “Look, I’ve been waiting here for God only knows how long and I want to know when someone is going to look at my car.”

  “Your car. The Porsche.” His words stretched out like hot taffy.

  No, the rusty pickup on the lift. “Yes, the Porsche. The one that’s been sitting out there for well over an hour now without a single person looking at it.” She held up a hand. “Correction. Without a single qualified person looking at it.”

  Austin shook his head with a patronizing look that made Sarah grit her teeth. “Thing is, honey, we don’t work on foreign cars here. I called the Porsche guys over in Richmond, but they’ll be a while. But don’t you worry about a thing. Our local expert’s on his way.”
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  She cringed. “Local expert?”

  The man nodded. “Honey, he knows everything there is to know ‘bout sports cars. He’ll take a look at that vehicle of yours and tell you what the problem is just as fast as you please.”

  She snorted. Yesterday couldn’t have been fast enough for her and if he called her “honey” one more time she was going to tell him off just as fast as she pleased.

  The chair screeched again as he leaned forward and placed one meaty elbow on the desk. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  She shook her head, the pain in her temple turning into a steady pounding. “No—yes.” The man looked at her quizzically.

  “For God’s sake, is there anywhere I can get a Diet Coke around here?”

  The cluster of men had thinned, but those who remained stared as Sarah stalked back to her car. She must have looked like some kind of exotic animal to them, her black clothes and high-heeled boots as out of place on this dusty road as the men’s worn jeans and cowboy boots would be in her Manhattan law office. And her car, which hardly signified back home, stood out among the battered pickup trucks and twenty-year-old sedans like a peacock among pigeons.

  Annoyed as she was, she didn’t notice that the front end of her car was jacked up until she was practically on top of it. A man’s body stuck out from underneath it, visible from the ribs down.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  Faded denim hugged narrow hips. The man’s white tee had ridden up to expose abs that were flat and taut. A six-pack instead of the beer bellies sported by the men she’d seen so far. Dark hair gathered into a narrow line that parted around his navel and disappeared beneath his waistband. A brass buckle with an image of crossed racing flags cinched his leather belt. The thought of crossing that finish line made her pulse race.

  The beautiful body moved, pulling the material of his jeans across his crotch and clearly outlining the bulge beneath his fly. A wave of longing swept through her, so strong that it made her knees shake. All concerns about her car fled.

  If that’s what he looked like soft… Damn.

  Her last lover Trent had been pretty well endowed but nothing like this guy seemed to be. He’d been fit too, but wiry. Handsome. Disappointing in bed. But this guy? The warmth in Sarah’s belly drifted south and pooled between her thighs. Her fingers twitched with the urge to touch him. Were his muscles as hard and his skin as smooth as they looked?

  Whoa. She stepped back, the intensity of her reaction a total surprise. She liked a buff guy as much as the next woman but had never wanted to grope one at first sight. Her little “problem” had to be the reason she was acting strange. Months of frustration made her desperate. The man was under her car for God’s sake.

  Which meant that she could stare with impunity.

  She leaned forward—and he slid out from under the vehicle.

  Broad shoulders and chest. Strong jaw. Black curls. She knew this guy. “You stopped on the road earlier.” It came out like an accusation.

  He nodded, rising to his feet with unexpected gracefulness. Sarah’s mouth went dry.

  The man’s hand dipped into the front pocket of his jeans and Sarah’s gaze went back to his crotch. A red bandanna came out with a bit of flourish and Sarah realized she’d been caught staring. An uncharacteristic blush heated her cheeks.

  Get a grip, Sarah. Pulling her New York mien around her like armor, she thrust out a hand. “Sarah Lange.”

  “Better not,” he said, raising his large, callused hands to show palms spotted with motor oil. “Cole Cassidy. Pleasure to meet you.”

  Pleasure… Sarah withdrew her hand and tucked a few errant blond strands behind her ear as she mentally shook herself. He was a mechanic no matter how powerful his mojo. Definitely not her type. She forced her attention back to the problem at hand. Her car’s problem. “You’re the local expert?”

  “Yes, ma’am. ‘Fraid they don’t have much experience with high-maintenance foreigners around here.” His drawl was soft and smooth.

  “And you do?” She heard the sharpness in her voice and hoped that he chalked it up to impatience—or the dig about “high-maintenance foreigners”—rather than the disturbing effect he was having on her libido.

  If he noticed her tone, he chose to ignore it. “I’ve got some.”

  Dirty Distractions

  Cari Quinn

  She wants a fling, and he wants forever…

  Zoologist Sara Carmichael’s active social life is the envy of all her friends, but she has a secret. She’s bored senseless. If she has to go to one more bird sanctuary fundraiser with some guy who thinks his little sports car makes him “hip”, she'll scream.

  Enter Brad O’Halloran, her best friend Kim’s much younger brother. A guy who’s picking up the pieces after a quickie marriage and even quicker divorce. A guy so hot he makes her body scream with frustration.

  Until Sara’s apartment is renovated, they’re all living at Kim’s place. Despite her determination not to salivate at glimpses of Brad’s finer-than-fine body in nothing but a low-slung towel, flirtation escalates to the brink of something more.

  Now one of them has to back down…or ante up for some good, dirty fun with the unspoken understanding that when the time comes, they’ll make a clean break. Neither anticipated they’d make the most complicated connection of all—love.

  Warning: This book contains a hero who knows how to make engines— and women—purr, seduction while on cold meds, and a heroine who might be a little older but still enjoys learning a few naughty new tricks.

  eBooks are not transferable.

  They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  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

  Dirty Distractions

  Copyright © 2013 by Cari Quinn

  ISBN: 978-1-61921-483-5

  Edited by Christa Desir

  Cover by Lyn Taylor

  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: June 2013

  www.samhainpublishing.com