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Excerpts From: AND LADY MAKES THREE
An Excerpt From: PRISM
©
Copyright NIKKI SOARDE, 2005.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave, Inc.
He breathed a sigh of relief, and flopped back on the
pillows. He hadn’t slept as long as he thought, and still had an hour
before he was due down at the Audi dealership. He was just mulling over the
clients he was scheduled to see that afternoon when a loud snort from the
other side of the bed demanded his attention.
He propped himself up on his
elbow and looked down at the man beside him. He smiled and shook his head. Dax slept like he did everything—with gusto. His long
wavy hair was fanned out across the pillow, his arms and legs flung wide.
He had a knack for taking up almost three quarters of the available space
on the bed, and his snores could rattle the windows at fifty paces. He
worked hard, and played harder, his rugged physique and deeply bronzed
skin, attesting to just how much time and energy he devoted to his
passions. He gave his all in every situation, and he never turned his back
on trouble. Or on a friend.
Barring the occasional
forgivable one-night stand, and one catastrophic stab at the suburban
white-picket-fence myth, Dax and Clay had been
together almost since graduation and Clay had never once regretted his
decision. They were good together. They were good friends, and God knew the
sex was great.
So what was going wrong?
Clay knew he’d overreacted
the night before, but he didn’t know why. He also didn’t know why they’d
been arguing more lately, picking fights over everything from which brand
of coffee they should buy to escalating long distance bills.
He lay back on the pillow and
stared at the ceiling as he considered the events of the past few months.
Had something changed and they just couldn’t see it? If so, how did they
figure out what it was, and when they did, what did they do about
it?
But the more he thought about
it, the more certain he was that nothing had changed.
Everything in their
relationship was exactly the same as it had been a year ago. Two years ago.
Five years ago.
And then it hit him. At last
he knew exactly what was wrong. How could they have missed it? How could
they have been so blind?
He closed his eyes and groaned. Now, if only he could
figure out what to do about it.
An Excerpt From: TWILIGHT
© Copyright
ANYA BAST, 2005.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave, Inc.
“Are you all right this
morning?” Dai asked. Her moods seemed so unknowable. He felt like he was
constantly dancing on the edge of her temper.
“I-I’m fine” She shot
him a glance. “I’m just fine.”
He waited a heartbeat
and then knelt beside her. “I think not. Tell me what is troubling you.”
She turned to him. “Why
could I feel you coming down that path? Why can I sense you in ways I’ve
never been able to sense other people before?”
“I think you know the
answer to that.”
She sighed, stood,
and walked to the tree line. He followed. Twyla whirled on him. “What do
you two want from me?” Tears stood her eyes.
“You know the answer
to that, too.”
“You both want my
body.”
“Your body, yes.
We’re healthy males who have waited a long time for you. That goes without
saying, but we want more than just your body.”
“What, then? You want
my emotion, my love, my-my soul?”
Dai smiled and shook
his head. “Nico and I already have your soul, love. It’s already
intertwined with ours. We want the rest, though. Most of all, we want your
love, freely given.”
She stood there,
looking up at him with large, tear-filled eyes. The way she looked now, she
could almost fool him into thinking she was vulnerable. Maybe she was. He
took a step toward her, wanting nothing more than to pull her into the
circle of his arms and hold her.
“I don’t have any
love left to give,” she whispered hoarsely and turned away from him.
He reached out and touched her shoulder. When she didn’t
jerk away, he pulled her to his chest and wrapped her in his arms. She let
out a long, ragged sigh and relaxed against him. Closing his eyes, Dai
inhaled the scent of her. His heart sung. To have her in his arms was
better than all his imaginings. “You
do,” he murmured insistently into her hair. “Let Nico and I show you.”
She turned in the circle of his embrace and tipped her
face up toward his. Tears made tracks down her cheeks. “Kiss me,” she
whispered.
An Excerpt From: PIRATE’S BOOTY
Copyright © ASHLEY LADD, 2005.
All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing,
Inc.
Keir’s
warm breath tickled her neck. “Something troubling you, Princess?”
Her hand grasped her
throat in shocked alarm.
“I have a name. Would it
hurt you so terribly to use it?” She exhaled slowly as she turned to find
him barely kissing distance away. Lifting her lashes slowly, she gazed up
at him. Not as tall as his colleague, he was the perfect height, his nose
level with the top of her head. His lips rested at her eye-level and from
this distance, they looked ideal, too. Usually, she couldn’t see them for
his full beard, but at this distance, she could see them very clearly.
“Melena.”
Keir caressed her name as no other had before
him. It rolled off his tongue like the richest Synkethian
milk chocolate.
Mesmerized by his dark,
sultry voice, a minute gasp escaped her lips. Quivers of lust racked her,
and a strange twinge resounded between her legs. It might not hurt him
terribly to use her given name, but apparently it made her ache. But it was
too late to take it back now.
Realizing she stared as if
he were her last supper, she cursed silently and forced herself to act
nonchalant. She was chained by a thousand different prisons and had no
right to quiver at his nearness or devour his lips with her gaze. Too late
to act as if everything was sunny when she probably looked as if she were
about to go nova so she confessed to the partial truth. At least, he
wouldn’t hear a lie in her voice. “What if we’re never rescued?”
Swallowing the lump in her
throat, she swept her gaze wide in an all-encompassing arc around the glade
where they’d moved their camp. Lifting her chin high, she tried to sound
confident, but her voice emerged strangled. “What if we spend the rest of
our days on this planet, completely alone, except for the three of us?”
Keir
raised his hand as if to stroke away the stray wisps of hair from her
heated face, but it hovered mid-air and then dropped limply to his side.
“We have to be optimistic. We can’t give up hope.”
If it were only the two of
them, she and Keir, it could be paradise. But
three? She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Someone would be the
odd man out and that spelled trouble.
Uncomfortably hot, bored,
and frustrated, she glared. “Why? Shouldn’t they have found us by now if
they were searching? My people must think me dead from the explosion. They
may not have launched any missions of rescue.”
Keir
slid a finger under her chin and forced her to look him square in the eye.
His were deep, murky pools that she could happily drown in. “Because we’ll
go crazy if we give up. Because you’re much stronger than that. We’re not
just going to lie down and die…”
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