HOW TO REPRIMAND YOUR ROCK STAR
by Mina
Vaughn
About the Book:
In this fun and saucy
romance novel, all-star college basketball player Thea dominates on the
courts—and off—with a rock star who is determined to win her over.
Thea is a star basketball player at UConn on track to be Rookie of the Year. That is, if she can stay focused on the game. Lately that hasn’t been going so well, as her knee has been bothering her. But that’s not the only thing on her mind…
Ever since rock star Keaton Lowe surprised her in the girl’s locker room, Thea can’t stop thinking about him. On top of his status and enticing ways, he seems to know everything about her. But some of his actions cross the line, and Keaton needs to be punished. Will Thea keep her head in the game, or get distracted by her other favorite pastime—reprimanding her rock star?
Thea is a star basketball player at UConn on track to be Rookie of the Year. That is, if she can stay focused on the game. Lately that hasn’t been going so well, as her knee has been bothering her. But that’s not the only thing on her mind…
Ever since rock star Keaton Lowe surprised her in the girl’s locker room, Thea can’t stop thinking about him. On top of his status and enticing ways, he seems to know everything about her. But some of his actions cross the line, and Keaton needs to be punished. Will Thea keep her head in the game, or get distracted by her other favorite pastime—reprimanding her rock star?
EXCERPT:
The locker room welcomed me with the smell of freshly washed
uniforms and leather workout equipment. The familiar scents tickled my nose and
I envisioned my locker room back home. I remembered giving speeches to my team,
rallying them against our foes. I felt like a general sometimes. Here, I just listened. Sure, I liked everyone, but I
really wished I could just be myself. I rolled my stiff shoulders and decided
that tape wasn’t all I needed—a long hot shower would do my body a world of
good. And I didn’t want to let the guards have the satisfaction of getting me
out of their hair so soon.
I dropped my clothes at the threshold of the locker room and the
adjoining shower room. I was never weirded-out by the team showering together.
It was what athletes did. When you’re there, making jokes under the steaming
water, splashing and commiserating, it was almost better that you were naked.
It showed your trust. The team saw you at your most vulnerable. I wanted them
to know they could trust me, so, therefore, I let them see my boobs. Common
sense. It did kind of make me sad that even though we’d been playing together
since September, I couldn’t really call many of them my friends. Except for my
roommate, Callie.
The weirdest thing was the only person I had met besides Callie
that I really felt a connection to was the team’s landlord, whom they had
nicknamed the Red Devil. Her real name is Scarlett. I had actually never spoken
to her, but something about her drew me in. She was intimidating as hell—tall like us basketball folk, flaming-red curls that hung to
her waist, and heels that could kill small animals that skittered into their
path. The team hated her strict curfews and neat- freakery. I liked her.
Powerful women were cool, and it pissed me off when they were labeled “bitches”
just because they knew what they wanted. Plus, I liked that she owned a little
new-age shop in town that, rumor has it, has a secret back room. So yeah,
Scarlett was cool. Scary, but cool.
I made my way across the white tile floor, dodging cold puddles,
and cranked my lucky showerhead number thirteen to a scorching blast. Every
time I had picked this one, we won, so I never showered anywhere else. Except
at home—my real home, that is. I stood under the scalding deluge and tipped my
head up to feel the hot spray in my mouth. I had to
singe off the thin layer of failure from last night’s game. I
grabbed a loofah and scrubbed my skin to a near polish. Rolling my shoulders, I
took a squirt of the lavender-scented shampoo and worked it into my long curls.
Sighing, I let my naked back slouch against the cold tiles as I
worked my scalp. My ex, Ty, had loved giving me massages. But that was all he
wanted, touching. College was supposed to be a fantastic dating scene, but all
I ever got were guys who wanted me for the wrong reasons. Boys who were lazy and easy. Not that I had an ideal guy in mind, but I
just wanted to work for it. I wanted the hunt. Lamenting my permanently
single status, I watched the last few soap bubbles drop from my hair to the
floor. Absentmindedly, I turned and reached for my towel and found nothing. I glanced around the empty room. Always, without fail,
I’d put my towel within arm’s reach of my lucky showerhead. How could I forget
that today? I really was off my game on several levels. Padding wetly, dripping
like a mermaid, I made my way toward the locker room’s entryway where my
clothes sat.
Only, my clothes weren’t there either.
I took a tentative step into the locker room and turned toward my
locker, where at least a practice uniform would be waiting for me. Or maybe I
left my clothes there. Get your head together, Thea.
Every time I saw that locker, I’d chuckle. My obnoxious Greek last
name was too long to fit on the nameplate, or my jersey for that matter, so
instead of reading PAPASTATHOPOULOS, it just said PAPAS. That’s why the team
had taken to calling me “Pops.”
But instead of seeing my truncated name or a pile of clothes, I
saw a guy.
Link continuing the
excerpt to XOXOAfterDark:
http://xoxoafterdark.com/2014/07/14/pocket-star-e-nights-reprimand-rock-star-mina-vaughn/?mcd=z_140721_RockVaughn_PSEN
ATTACK THE
GEEK
by Michael R. Underwood
About the Book:
A side-quest novella in the bestselling Geekomancy
urban fantasy series—when D&D-style adventures go from the tabletop to real
life, look out!
Ree Reyes, urban fantasista and Geekomancer extraordinaire, is working her regular drink-slinger shift at Grognard’s bar-and-gaming salon when everything goes wrong. The assorted magic wielders of the city’s underground have come to test their battle skills via RPGs like D&D, V:TES, White Wolf, and the like. All the usuals are there: her ex-mentor Eastwood, Drake (the man-out-of-time adventurer), and, of course, Grognard himself (her boss and a brewer of beer that act as magic potions). However, it’s the presence of these and other “usuals” that makes all the trouble. For, a nemesis from Eastwood and Ree’s past decides to finally take her revenge not just on those two, but on every self-styled “hero” in the city who happens to have crossed her at one point or another. When wave after wave of monsters besiege Grogrnard’s store, if Ree & Co. are going to survive, they’re going to have to work together. And avoid the minotaur. That’s always a good rule of thumb.
Ree Reyes, urban fantasista and Geekomancer extraordinaire, is working her regular drink-slinger shift at Grognard’s bar-and-gaming salon when everything goes wrong. The assorted magic wielders of the city’s underground have come to test their battle skills via RPGs like D&D, V:TES, White Wolf, and the like. All the usuals are there: her ex-mentor Eastwood, Drake (the man-out-of-time adventurer), and, of course, Grognard himself (her boss and a brewer of beer that act as magic potions). However, it’s the presence of these and other “usuals” that makes all the trouble. For, a nemesis from Eastwood and Ree’s past decides to finally take her revenge not just on those two, but on every self-styled “hero” in the city who happens to have crossed her at one point or another. When wave after wave of monsters besiege Grogrnard’s store, if Ree & Co. are going to survive, they’re going to have to work together. And avoid the minotaur. That’s always a good rule of thumb.
EXCERPT:
The mass
of gnomes looked like a beehive. They were stacked on top of one another,
falling and scrambling over one another to get to the group.
Uncle Joe raised
several cards over his head, tore them with a whoop, and a wave of fire pushed
forward, enveloping the gnomes. They screamed and scuttled backward, and the
group stepped forward into the sewer. Eastwood tossed out a handful of
industrial-grade glow sticks, which filled the tunnel with yellow light.
Ree did her best
Steve Ditko Spidey-fingers, unleashing a net of webbing that pinned a handful
of gnomes to the far wall. She jumped forward and swung up, the blue blade
strobing across her vision. She caught two of the gnomes, but several more
leapt out of the way. As soon as her blade swung past, more of the miniature
monsters scuttled forward. Their nails clicked on the concrete floor with the
strange familiarity of her golden retriever, Booster, trying to get purchase in
the linoleum kitchen back at her dad’s place.
She let loose
another dose of webbing, then jumped and stuck to the ceiling, leaving her
sword arm free to continue swinging.
Ree’s
spider-shtick attracted a dozen of the gnomes’ attention as they tried to climb
over one another to get to her. Even with their considerable ups, they fell
short, putting them just in range of her lightsaber.
From her vantage
point, she saw the rest of the group as they fought, each in their own style.
Out front,
Grognard tore through the creatures, swinging the glaive-guisarme around as
easily as a broom at closing time.
Talon covered
Grognard’s back, following his movements and keeping the gnomes from sneaking
through legs and flanking the group as they formed a semicircle out from the
door. She fought with practiced efficiency, the longsword always striking and
blocking at once as her hands moved in concert, levering the pommel around for
maximum precision.
On the other
side of the group, Eastwood fought with lightsaber and blaster in perfect
harmony, managing not to chop his hand off even as he wove and dove through the
crowd at a breakneck pace. He was a jerk sometimes, but he’d earned his Badass
bona fides years ago. Gnomes jumped at him by the dozen, like they’d all
decided he was the most delicious dish on the menu.
Drake stood
back, picking his targets quickly but deliberately, squeezing off shots that
thinned the herd rushing at Eastwood.
Wickham hugged
the side of the door, taking shots where she could. She wasn’t comfortable in a
fight, but she’d logged plenty of practice time somewhere—range or arcade—so
her shots connected more often than not. Trouble was, her peashooter only
seemed to stun the gnomes.
A musty wind hit
her cheek, and Ree looked down to see that the gnomes clustered beneath her had
started to get smart. Two gnomes held their hands together, boosting up the
others. Ree wanted to know where they’d picked up cheerleading techniques, but
that would have to wait. She flattened against the ceiling to avoid a tall
gnome’s swipe, which fell just inches short.
The magical
energy from Spider-Man was waning, as
she’d only gotten a quick dose of the film. Rather than spending the energy on
another burst of webbing, she cut the arm off the next gnome that got a boost.
The gnome crashed into its accomplices, which would scatter them for a bit. Ree
pulled out her phaser and zapped a few more, then turned and dropped one that
had managed to Xenomorph its way along the ceiling, just a few feet from
Wickham’s head.
The sizzling
gnome fell to the sewer ledge in a heap at Wickham’s feet, and the model looked
up to Ree, who saluted.
“That’s two you
owe me,” Ree said with a grin, then turned back to her cheerleader gnomes. She
picked off the two boosters, hoping that they were the bearded brains of the
operation. If Wickham responded, the sound was lost in the din. Gloating was
hard to do when you were dead, so she could wait.
“How you
feeling, boss?” Ree asked, her voice echoing in the sewer over the sound of
clanging metal, exertion, and snarling.
“They don’t seem
to be running out of friends! Somebody pour on the AoE!” he called.
“On it!” Uncle
Joe flipped through a card binder, then pulled out several cards, which he tore
in half and then threw, Gambit-style. The card shreds flew true, exploding on
impact. The blasts engulfed a dozen gnomes, but as the dust settled, more had
filled the space, hopping over their charred compatriots.
“I didn’t think
there were that many in the whole city!” Ree said.
“Recent surveys
put their numbers at under a hundred. We’ve seen at least twice that,” Drake
answered, his voice level even as his firing routine had become more harried.
He stopped as one of the crystals in his aetheric rifle went dark, and cleared
the gem, replacing it with a ruby red one that Ree knew as his flamethrower
mode.
“Clear!” Drake
called, and Talon cycled right, opening up a space. The inventor knelt forward
and the rifle belched a cone of flame that took another cluster of the gnomes.
The repeated blasts turned the sewer into a sauna, including the concrete she
held on to with Spider-fu. It was either burn her ass off or lose the higher
ground, so she dropped from the ceiling, cleaving through several gnomes as she
landed.
When she hit the
concrete pathway near the group, the sewer shook.
“Someone needs
to lay off the lagers,” Wickham said.
“That wasn’t
her,” Grognard said, looking down the tunnel.
A roar shook the
walls of the sewer, making it very apparent that the gnomes were no longer the
worst of their problems. If possible, the smell in the tunnel got worse.
That’s never a good sign. In her nine months of hero-ing, she’d
noticed a clear correlation between “smells bad” and “likes to snack on humans
and suck the marrow from their bones nom nom nom” types of creatures.
“Boss?” Ree
asked, closing ranks with Drake between one of the adventurer’s bursts of
flame. The gnomes on the roar side of the tunnel parted. Even worse sign.
Grognard buried
the head of his blade in a gnome’s shoulder, the butt of the haft held down
with his foot. Then he used the weapon like a lever, slamming four gnomes into
the wall with one heave. “Anyone got a land mine?” he asked.
“Let me check!”
Uncle Joe said, flipping through his binder. “I just had a big order for a
Direct Damage deck, haven’t had a chance to restock.”
A second roar
gave way to the sound of charging and splashing sewage. The gnomes on the far
side vanished into the shadows.
On one hand, it
gave them a breather. On the other hand . . . “Faster would be
better!” Ree said, quoting her favorite space cowboy.
Eastwood holstered
his blaster and leveled his Green Lantern ring at the right side of the tunnel.
Ree pointed her blaster in the same direction. The group formed their best
imitation of a pike formation, reinforcing their position in the direction of
the oncoming . . .
. . .
Minotaur.
Really? Just what I f****in’ need.
****Sensored by Seduced By A Book to keep it family friendly.
Link
continuing the excerpt to XOXO After Dark:
DRIVING MR.
DEAD by Molly Harper
About the Book:
A standalone
novella introducing a new side of Half Moon Hollow—featuring a freewheeling
courier and the stuffy vampire she has to transport.
Miranda Puckett has failed at every job she’s ever had. Her mother just wants her to come home, join the family law firm, and settle down with Jason, the perfect lawyer boyfriend. But when Jason turns out to be a lying cheater, Miranda seizes on a job that gets her out of town: long-distance vampire transportation. Her first assignment is to drive vampire Collin Sutherland from Washington to sleepy Half Moon Hollow without incident—no small feat for a woman whom trouble seems to follow like a faithful hound dog! And she has to do it without letting her passenger—the most persnickety, stuffy, devastatingly handsome vamp she’s ever met—drive her crazy. As she and Collin find disaster on the roads, they also find an undeniable spark between them. Could Miranda have found the perfect job and the perfect guy for her?
Miranda Puckett has failed at every job she’s ever had. Her mother just wants her to come home, join the family law firm, and settle down with Jason, the perfect lawyer boyfriend. But when Jason turns out to be a lying cheater, Miranda seizes on a job that gets her out of town: long-distance vampire transportation. Her first assignment is to drive vampire Collin Sutherland from Washington to sleepy Half Moon Hollow without incident—no small feat for a woman whom trouble seems to follow like a faithful hound dog! And she has to do it without letting her passenger—the most persnickety, stuffy, devastatingly handsome vamp she’s ever met—drive her crazy. As she and Collin find disaster on the roads, they also find an undeniable spark between them. Could Miranda have found the perfect job and the perfect guy for her?
EXCERPT:
I was used to far more pleasant
interactions with vampires. I’d worked as a waitress at a vampire bar called
Bite for six months. The nonbreathing clients were a lot friendlier than those
with pulses, and they left better tips. And in the days after I’d accepted the
assignment, Iris, an old high-school classmate, had had me do a series of test
runs, ferrying local cross-country to drive her friend Jane from Half-Moon
Hollow to Nashville for a booksellers convention. Jane had been downright
sweet, keeping me entertained on the brief drive through Tennessee with her
absurd life story. None of these experiences had prepared me for Mr.
Sutherland’s hostile, monosyllabic reception.
In his absence,
I saw that the house was comfortable and quaint. The open floor plan gave
visual access to nearly everything, including the spectacular view afforded by
the back windows. Rough-hewn polished pine stairs led to a bedroom loft.
Comfy-looking leather chairs the color of melting caramel flanked a river-stone
fireplace. Bookshelves stocked with leather-bound editions stretched floor to
ceiling on the opposite wall. There was no stuffy furniture, no
useless dust
catchers beyond a red and gold military insignia framed and displayed on
the mantel. A lion devouring a snake.
A thump from
above snapped me out of my decor ogling. I focused on the little pile of
luggage near the foot of the stairs, and I slung a dark leather designer
overnight bag onto my shoulder.
When I bent
to pick up a sleek silver suitcase, there was a blur of motion, the force of
which swept my wet hair over my eyes. I lurched to my feet, pulling the damp
strands out of my face, just in time to find Mr. Sutherland snatching the case
out of my hands.
“You do
not touch this case,” he said sternly, shoving a pristine white towel into my
hands. He swept across the room to blot my puddle from the floor with a clean
cloth. “I am responsible for transporting this case to Ophelia Lambert at
midnight four nights from now—a deadline that your tardiness has put in
jeopardy, I might add. Therefore, only I touch the case.”
“But—”
“Only I
touch the case,” he said.
I was
starting to suspect that he had unnatural feelings for that case.
I raised an
eyebrow. “Are you going to be handcuffing it to your arm?”
“Very
amusing, Miss Puckett,” he said, looking me up and down. “Of course, I’m forced
to assume that you are the Miss Puckett described in Miss Scanlon’s
correspondence, since you have not, in fact, introduced yourself to me.”
Something
about the way his silky voice slid over my skin triggered my “authority figure”
complex. And suddenly, I was having some very unwelcome, very naughty images of
Mr. Sutherland and his hypothetical handcuffs.
“Oh, right, sorry.
Hi, I’m Miranda Puckett. I’m the driver for Beeline.” I reached out my hand to
shake, a hand that he pointedly ignored as he swept past me.
Shocked by
his rudeness, I merely followed in his wake, muttering to myself. “Nice to meet
you, too. Oh, yes, I’m sure we’re going to end up lifelong friends after this
road trip. We’re off to such a great start. Feel like I’ve known you my whole
life,” I grumbled, toting the bags to the car while he checked and rechecked
the locks on his front door. “And I’m talking to myself again. Super.”
I stared at
the warm, dry house with longing. A kinder client might have offered me use of
the restroom or even coffee. But I was hardly in a position to ask for perks.
To add
insult to injury, my tardiness and the weather ruined my plans to introduce Mr.
Sutherland to the fabulous features of the Batmobile, which I’d thoroughly
rehearsed with a very patient Jane. A decommissioned Council vehicle that Iris
had purchased for a song at auction, the Batmobile was built for comfort and
safety. While it looked like a mild-mannered SUV from the outside, the
Batmobile boasted a light-tight cubby that took up most of the
rear
compartment’s floorboard, like a compact coffin, allowing the passenger to ride
comfortably while I drove us in full sun. Tucked between the front seats sat a
cunning little cooler/warmer for blood. It worked a bit like a bottle steamer,
using hot water on a timed switch to bring the blood to an even 98.6. The
windows were tinted with SPF 500 film so that he would be safe inside the cab
if necessary.
I’d become
familiar with those features on the three- (OK, four-) day drive to pick up Mr.
Sutherland. I’d planned to make him familiar with them before we started the
drive back to Half-Moon Hollow so he could deliver a parcel to an official with
the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. But clearly, Mr.
Sutherland preferred that we just get on the road. I couldn’t blame him, I
supposed. We absolutely, positively had to be back on time, or
Mr. Sutherland
would not be paid . . . which meant that Iris would not be paid . . . which
meant that I would not be paid . . . which would be upsetting.
Using the
boatload of upper-body strength it took to close the rear door, I slammed it
down. I noticed a pale flash out of the corner of my eye at the last minute.
The gate came crashing down on Mr. Sutherland’s fingers with a sickening
crunch.
This was a
hallucination. I could not be looking at a vampire’s hand caught in a car door,
crushed like something out of an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. I clapped
my hands over my mouth and let out a horrified shriek.
“Open the
bloody gate!” he roared.
I scrambled
for the key fob and clicked it, popping the door open. Mr. Sutherland groaned
and flexed his mangled fingers, bent at bizarre angles, obviously broken in
several places. Sure, they would fix themselves rapidly with his vampire
healing, but it would hurt like a bitch.
“I’m sorry!”
I cried, rushing forward to help him. He hissed like a cat and turned his back
on me. “Shit! I’m so sorry!”
“Language,
Miss Puckett,” he growled over his shoulder. “Did you not see that my hand was
in the way?” He grunted as his fingers stretched and snapped back into their
proper places.
“Not until the last minute,” I said. “Why didn’t you move your hand when you saw I was closing the door?”
“I thought
you would stop the door,” he shot back.
“How was I
supposed to do that? I don’t have vampire reflexes!”
“From now
on, I will keep your limitations in mind,” he seethed,
and
pivoted on his heel toward the car door.
Link
continuing the excerpt to XOXO After Dark:
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