Anchor

by Jorrie Spencer

  She pressed against him, arching her back, and he entered her from behind.

  “God,” he muttered as she moaned, a low note deep in her chest. He didn’t move but bit down on the tendon running from her shoulder to her neck, tasting the salt, her own or perhaps the salt water’s. It didn’t matter, it still belonged to her.

  “Move,” she demanded. Instead he lapped at her neck.

  “Morag.” He just wanted to say her name.

  “What?” Frustration filled her voice. He remembered this, how they’d been crazy for each other, going at it like rabbits multiple times a day and it had been glorious. He’d cared about his lovers since then, but it had been nothing like what he’d had with Morag.

  He placed a palm over one breast, caught the nipple between thumb and finger.

  “Clay.”

  “Um-hmm?”

  “Please.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  She tried to roll onto her stomach and he clamped her to him, ignoring her cry of frustration. He understood that she wanted him to drive into her from behind, and God knew he wanted it too. Just not yet. Over the years he’d learned to appreciate a certain drawing out of the event and even if this was more making love than the sex he’d become used to, he still wanted to try for slow with Morag. Slow and rewarding.

  He slid his arm down and found her clit, hard and engorged. Tracing a finger over it, he felt her crash into her orgasm as she let out a scream. He didn’t relent, working the nub as she flew and came down to earth. She panted in his arms, trying to catch her breath, a sweat breaking out over her body.

  “Clay, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Too much.”

  “Come again.”

  “I can’t,” she gritted out even as her body seized and she broke against him a second time. He was growing harder and harder inside her, likely to come by just feeling her around him, squeezing him.

  So he pressed her down on the bedding, lifting her ass as he rolled, staying inside her. She was wet and welcoming and tight. Friction and feeling and deep, beautiful warmth. He drove into her and she screamed, “Yes, Clay.” His cock grew impossibly hard, his balls tightened and he wanted to stay there, just at that moment before he went over the edge, when the feeling was almost transcendent.

  No strings? Try hopelessly tangled.

  Serengeti Sunrise

  © 2011 Vivi Andrews

  Serengeti Shifters, Book 4

  Zoe King is itching to get out of Three Rocks. Sure, the pride is more progressive with her brother in charge. She’s just got a bad case of wanderlust…and an even worse case of the hots for Tyler Minor.

  The pride’s mechanic sets her senses on fire one second, then shuts down and walks away the next. Before she hits the road for good, this lioness decides it’s time to bring their cat-and-mouse game to a satisfying end.

  Twenty years ago, Tyler’s father walked out and left him with a mountain of responsibility. Now that his younger siblings are settled, the last thing he wants or needs is another obligation. Which is exactly what he’ll get if he screws around with the Alpha’s sister.

  When Zoe offers—more like demands—a no-strings affair, temptation wins and he finds his hands in places they shouldn’t be, and his thoughts straying to words like his. But Zoe’s got her own ideas about possessive, chest-banging males. And they don’t include white picket fences…or letting Tyler keep her out of the danger zone when an outside threat to the pride’s secrecy becomes all too real.

  Warning: This story contains sexual relations, manipulations, ultimatums and two strong-willed shifters determined to be on top.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Serengeti Sunrise:

  Zoe launched herself out of the truck. “Tyler!” His only response was the clang of the heavy metal door to the garage slamming behind him after he ducked inside. “Dammit.” She stalked after him. Cutting through the garage was the fastest way to the main part of the compound, but they weren’t finished here yet and she was going to make sure he knew it.

  She ran to the door, jerked it open and surged through, carried on a tide of indignant frustration.

  “Tyler!” Her shout echoed in the garage bay along with the ringing clang of the heavy door banging shut behind her. “Stop running and face me, you coward!”

  Two yards from the front exit, Tyler’s feet took root on the concrete floor. She could hear a growl rumbling in his chest. His lion must not have liked being called a coward. Well, hers didn’t much like him running away from her.

  Her lioness was ready for this fight, had been itching for it for months.

  He turned to face her, his eyes narrowed and hands loose around his hips like a gunslinger. As they faced one another across the length of the garage, she felt that high-noon feeling herself. Tension snapped in the air, the unavoidable sense that something was coming. Something that had been bearing down on them for a while now.

  Love or war. Whichever it was, there wasn’t any middle ground. They’d burned it all away with the friction of the last year.

  “Coward?” he asked, his voice a soft, dark rumble.

  “You have another word you’d prefer?” She strolled across the concrete floor, adding an extra sway to her hips as she came to stand directly in front of him. “Chicken? Pussy, perhaps?”

  “Don’t push me, Zoe.” He rumbled the warning.

  “Or what? You gonna show me who’s boss? Or are you just gonna run away like you always do? Like a coward.”

  His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl and he loomed over her. She could practically feel his lion pushing against his skin, burning with the need to prove to her, once and for all, which one of them would end up on top if it ever came down to a battle for dominance. He might play at being civilized, but Tyler wanted to make her submit. She could see it in the luminous feline gold of his eyes.

  “Are you going to kiss me or throttle me?” Zoe tipped her chin back, meeting his eyes with a blatant challenge. “Whichever you’re going to do, do it now. Because I’m sick of waiting for you to make up your mind.”

  “What makes you think I didn’t make up my mind months ago and you just can’t take a hint?”

  “What hint was that? The way you stare at me when you think I’m not looking? How you take the longest possible path between your bungalow and the garage each evening just so you can go past my house? Or maybe the fact that you can’t tell when I’m in heat because you always want me?”

  He turned away, striding toward the door. “That’s quite a healthy ego you have there.”

  “It’s all in my head, is that it?” He put his hand on the door and Zoe felt her composure fracture. “Dammit, Tyler! What the fuck is your deal?” He didn’t turn back to her, but he didn’t open the door either. She shouted at his back. “You want me. I’ve made it embarrassingly obvious I want you too. So what is the big problem?”

  “Your brother…”

  “I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t have to ask his permission to fuck whoever the hell I want.”

  He turned, leaning his shoulders against the door, one hand still resting on the knob. “He’s the Alpha—”

  “So what? This has nothing to do with him. He doesn’t even have to know.”

  “He’ll know.”

  “Who the fuck cares? Because I’m the Alpha’s sister, I’m not allowed to get any?”

  “I don’t want any more commitments in my life. I’m sick of being responsible for everyone.”

  “Who’s talking about a commitment? I’m talking about sex. Fucking. Screwing. Banging our brains out. No strings attached. I never asked you for a fucking commitment, dumbass.”

  “It’s never going to be no strings. Not with the Alpha’s sister.”

  “God, I am so sick of being the Alpha’s sister. I’m Zoe. Can we just have one conversation that doesn’t include Landon?”

  Tyler thunked his head back against the door. “Look, Zoe, if I wanted to stay here at t
he pride for the rest of my life and mate with a little lioness who’d give me lots of fat babies, you’d be the first person I’d—”

  She cut him off with a solid punch to his shoulder that made him wince. “You asshole. Would you listen to me for five seconds? I don’t want to marry you. I’m not Mara the fucking baby-making machine. If you tried to give me a picket fence, I would rip up the posts and shove them up your ass. So stop trying to put me in that box.” She slapped her palms flat on his chest, baring her teeth up at him. “I want sex. And I want it from you. So do you want me or not? Because I’m done waiting. We’re deciding this, once and for all. Are you a man or what? Because for someone with the teeth of an alpha lion, you’re awfully fucking scared of me.”

  He grabbed her so fast her back was slamming against the door before she even realized his hands were on her waist. Her hat went flying, landing somewhere on the dirty floor. “Scared, am I?” He gripped her jaw and forced her face up to his. “Does this look like fear to you?”

  His expression was harsh and unforgiving, the animal running close to the surface. There was nothing contained or distant about the heat in his eyes. Who is this man and what has he done with Tyler Minor? Zoe’s breathing quickened.

  His claws flexed against her side. Zoe wet her lips. She’d goaded him to this.

  A little flicker of misgiving flared in her chest.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you not to bait lions?” he growled, palming her nape.

  Zoe’s heart stopped then restarted and accelerated. The nervous sensation got lost in a flood of heat as he took command. Finally. This was it. After a year of foreplay, it was finally happening. Quick, rough, one and done. At last, she’d get over this stupid obsession.

  Tyler Minor had her pinned between hard and harder, leaving no doubt in her mind exactly how much he wanted her. Then he leaned in and sealed his mouth over hers, and Zoe forgot everything but the taste of him. This wasn’t just a quickie to get him out of her system. This was everything.

  Magick made him human. Only love can keep him that way.

  Uncross My Heart

  © 2011 Jennifer Colgan

  After a century of living la vida muerta, Julian Devlin’s closest ally casts a de-vamping spell that leaves him defanged and demoted from his hard-won place in Baltimore’s vampire hierarchy. Disoriented by his transformation, he can’t even find his way home.

  The indignities don’t end there. Before he can explain to the quirky consignment shop owner why he’s hiding in her basement, she’s punched the newly re-acquired breath out of him and smacked him upside the head with her knock-off purse.

  Zoe Boyd’s scream could have peeled paint from the walls—if she could get her heart out of her throat. Common thugs aren’t supposed to have a smile so panty-melting that she finds herself apologizing for scaring him.

  She’s also too busy managing her friends’ love lives to take on an ex-vampire with revamping and revenge on his mind. Until she guides him home and ends up neck deep in his world of trouble.

  As Zoe risks her life to give him back his death, she warms the soul Julian never thought he’d own again. And when he tracks down a devilish witch who can reverse the spell, immortality without Zoe suddenly seems like cold comfort…

  Warning: This novel contains sensual love scenes between a fashion-forward hero and a fashion-unconscious heroine, abuse of Italian loafers, and a few love bites. Don’t worry, freshly sharpened fangs don’t hurt. Much…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Uncross My Heart:

  “Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you.” Julian dropped his hand from Zoe’s lips and backed away from her bed, hands up, his movements deliberately slow and non-threatening.

  In the blue neon glow of her bedside alarm clock, her pale skin looked like alabaster, and her eyes were huge and terrified. Clutching a thin blanket to her chest, she scrambled to a sitting position amid the tumble of pillows that populated her bed. “How did you get in here? Are you insane? What if I kept a knife under my pillow or something?”

  “You don’t. I checked.”

  She squeaked in indignation. “You broke into my house.”

  “No. I let myself in with your spare key, which you obviously put back right where you got it from after we came in before. You know, you’re asking to be murdered in your sleep, or worse. It amazes me that a girl as trusting as you is still alive.”

  “You weren’t supposed to look.”

  “I looked. Sue me.” He shrugged. This had all been too easy. He’d probably be doing her a favor by draining her dry as soon as he transformed back. This blonde gypsy belonged in another era, a simpler time when people left their doors unlocked and everyone knew their neighbors. Either that or she needed a body guard twenty-four/seven.

  “What are you doing back here? Didn’t you find someone to help you?”

  He sighed. A lie would be easy, even if it did little to preserve the mere shred of dignity he had left. “It’s almost dawn. I needed someplace to go before sunrise, and I was kicked out of the bus station. They don’t allow people to sleep there anymore, I discovered.” Truth was, she was the only trustworthy soul he could find at this hour.

  She blinked at him. “Sunrise? Um…humans can go out in the daylight. Or have you been revamped already?” One delicate hand slid toward her slender throat. Julian watched the subtle movement with a mixture of amusement and—dear God—arousal.

  She’d traded her peasant blouse for a thin-strapped tank top. Clingy and white, it contrasted with her honeyed skin and did little to hide the sumptuous curves of her breasts, now peaked with taut nipples. Gooseflesh stood out on her bare arms. He wondered if she might be considering the possibility that he would lower his lips to her neck and drink…

  He blinked away the traitorous thoughts. “No. I’m still human.” He laughed. “I guess I’m so conditioned to avoid sunlight that it never occurred to me. Nevertheless, I need a place to sleep for a little while. I don’t have enough cash to go to a hotel, and if I use my credit cards, I could be leading Lambert right to me.”

  “Vampires have credit cards?”

  “We’re undead, not Amish. How else would one purchase Gucci loafers?”

  Warm yellow light illuminated her skeptical gaze when she switched on the bedside lamp. “Okay, silly question. I admit it, but give me a break. It’s four fifty-nine a.m., and I just woke up with a man’s hand over my mouth. You’re lucky I didn’t bite you.”

  He let his gaze roam her half-hidden curves again. She’d be lucky if he didn’t bite her one way or another. “I apologize for sneaking in… Something I would not have been able to do if you had an ounce of common sense.” He tossed the spare key to her, and just as he’d hoped, she let go of her death grip on the blanket to catch it.

  Delicious. He’d have climbed into the bed with her if he hadn’t been so desperate to keep her trust for just a little longer. He needed this girl. And he hated needing her. “Do yourself a favor and hide that somewhere else. Better yet, give it to your boyfriend for safe keeping.”

  “I told you, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Good. The thought crossed his mind unbidden, and he squashed it. “Can I borrow your couch? Just for a few hours?”

  Her lips quivered a bit before she responded. “Sure. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket.”

  “No need to treat me like a guest.”

  “But you are one.” She rose, and Julian’s gaze traveled up and down her bare legs, pausing only briefly at the still red scrapes on her knees. She’d hurt herself running from him and, for some inexplicable reason, he regretted that. He shook off the unproductive thought and took inventory of the rest of her outfit.

  Tiny panties rode low on her hips, leaving a band of naked skin beneath the hem of her skimpy top. Ah. The twenty-first century had so many advantages over the nineteenth. Each decade, it seemed women became less inhibited about their bodies. It made being immortal so much fun.

  She moved unselfconsciously now, and
Julian followed her into the living room. When she bent over to retrieve a blanket and pillow from within the square hassock, he stifled an appreciative sigh.

  She tossed the items at him while he debated sinking his very human teeth into one creamy inner thigh. “Put your eyes back in your head, Romeo. I already told you, I’m nobody’s entrée. Now, go. Sleep. I’m going back to bed in my room behind a door that locks, and there’s no spare key above the frame, so don’t get any ideas. If you’re still here in the morning—the actual morning—I’ll think about cooking you breakfast, and we’ll talk about getting you a decent place to stay until your house is fixed, okay?”

  He stared for a full second, dumbfounded by her. One bite. Just one bite was all he wanted. “Okay.”

  She disappeared into the bedroom then, shutting the door firmly on any further comment or fantasy on his part.

  Disappointed but still oddly amused, Julian made himself comfortable on her couch.

  Zoe’s heart thundered in her shamelessly exposed chest. She’d just been parading around in her underwear in front of a lunatic—a drop-dead gorgeous lunatic—who’d stolen into her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  Her face burned with shame and something else. He’d been looking, and she’d enjoyed letting him look.

  Was she insane? It was not okay to pretend that Julian Devlin was a normal guy. He thought he was a vampire, for heaven’s sake, and he certainly hadn’t tried very hard to disguise his desire to bite her.

  She leaned against the locked bedroom door, breathing deeply to calm herself. What would she do if he was still there in the morning—later in the morning? What if he didn’t leave?

  Thank God he was all right. That thought came out of nowhere and pushed all the other ones aside. Her guilt at letting him wander off into the night evaporated and was replaced by complete shock that he’d come back.