Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by my little slice of the internet.  It’s lovely to see you.  I have some fantastic things planned for the next few days, including giveaways, an ongoing contest, and some fun freebie fiction.

First: The Giveaway

At the end of the hop, I’ll be giving away one PDF copy of each of my books.  Want more information on them?  Then GO HERE and check them out.

Want to know how to score one?  Leave me a comment (with an email address!) with a suggestion as to which book you might want.  At the end of the hop, I’ll collect comments and suggestions, and will choose three lucky winners.

Easy enough, right?

Second: The Freebie Story – Part One

Next you get to meet the main characters from Blood Doll,  Lana and Christian.  This story takes place in two parts and is set after the book ends, so there area few spoilers.  Part one appears today, and part two will be up tomorrow, so come back often!  Oh yeah, enjoy!

WARNING:  THIS STORY IS OF AN EROTIC NATURE, AND THEREFORE SUGGESTED FOR ADULTS ONLY.  IF YOU ARE NOT OVER THE AGE OF 18, PLEASE TURN AWAY NOW.

Bloody Good
An Erotic Holiday Adventure

Vampires are so overrated.  I would know…I am one.

A few months ago, my boyfriend, Christian Sterling, turned me into a vampire so that I could save my sister, Sarah, from complete and utter destruction at the hands of a psychopath vamp named Xanthe.  My name is Lana, by the way.  Lana Roberts.

It’s funny, you know… this being a vampire thing.  When I was looking for Sarah, I never even batted an eyelash at Christian and his announcement that I wouldn’t survive unless I died.  He didn’t say it quite like that, but it’s pretty much what he meant.  After all, he kinda had to kill me to save me.

And no, I’m not bitter.  A little sarcastic and cynical, maybe.  But not bitter.  Trading humanity for transcendent sex is nothing to be bitter about, let me tell you.

The worst part of the transformation isn’t the torpor, or the pain, or even giving up the sun.  No, it’s the knowledge that no matter how bored I get with life, I’m stuck with it for the foreseeable future.  At least Christian tries to keep it interesting.

This story is a perfect example of his creativity.  And I must say, I never knew either of us was quite so kinky.

***

With a week to go before Christmas, Sarah took it upon herself to leave us a note and say that she was going off to find a new adventure.  Vampirism suited her and her wild lifestyle, and it wasn’t the first time she vanished on us.  I wasn’t worried, but I was a little unsettled by the fact that she likely would not return before the holiday.  It would be the first one spent without my family – our parents knew we were together, but they still didn’t have a clue about the bloodsucking fiend part.

So in standard vampire fashion, I spent the following three days moping around the cottage – yeah, we live in the middle of the woods half-way between Boston and Salem, and there is a perpetual blanket of snow on the ground from November first until sometime in the middle of May, or so Christian tells me – feeling sorry for myself.  Christian, of course, wasn’t having that.  He had this bad habit of surprising me in bizarre ways, and this particular night was no different.

It started with the blindfold he tied around my eyes.  Christian appeared behind me, thinking he was moving in ultra-stealth mode and forgetting yet again that as a vampire, I could hear him.  The thin strain of giggles coming from him would have given him away even if the creaky floorboard hadn’t.  I sat still, continuing to stare at my book and pretending I didn’t hear him as he draped the scrap of blue silk across my eyes and tied it into a knot at the base of my head.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said.  I’d have rolled my eyes if I was able.

“So I gathered,” I replied, and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.  “Going to tell me where it is, or just leave me sitting here in the dark.”

He apparently lost the ability to speak and began to giggle as he took my hands and led me out the door.  Because of my new status – vampire, that is – the cold didn’t bother me.  Yes, I still had a heartbeat, but because of the weird mojo that makes us undead my natural body temperature wasn’t much higher than that of the snow around me.  It was still falling, too.  I could feel it whispering against my bare arms as he led me deeper into the woods.

About a quarter mile in, I caught the first scent of what I assumed was his surprise.  A fire made from oak wood, and human blood – warm, spicy, and unmistakably male.  At this point I wasn’t sure exactly where this was going with this little ruse, but it was certainly exciting.

With my hand still clutched in his, Christian led me up to the edge of the fire.  Its warmth was welcoming and the scent of aroused male blood intoxicating.  Through the contact of his fingers against mine, I could feel Christian’s amusement as his arm shook with silent laughter.  This was getting more and more interesting by the second.

When Christian finally took off my blindfold, I was amazed by the sight he’d created.  A flannel blanket lay atop of snowdrift to the left.  A young man with deep, chestnut-colored skin, nearly naked and blindfolded, was shackled to a tree on the other side of the happily crackling fire.  Stuffed down into the snow was a bottle of champagne.  Two glasses lay next to it.

“Picnic dinner,” he said, his lips grazing my ear as he said it.  The motion sent a shiver of delight along my spine.  I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of the stranger’s blood.   He smelled sweet, spicy, and clean.  My mouth began to water as my fangs descended.  “I thought you might like to try something new.  Indian.  Virgin.”

Virgin? I hadn’t had one of those yet.  My lips curled up into what had to be the most wicked smile I’d ever shown, because Christian laughed as he kissed my throat.

“Appetizing?” he asked.

“When can I eat him?”

***

Let me pause here – I should tell you before we go any further that yes, I had every intention of drinking his blood.  That didn’t mean I had to kill him – and I didn’t.  Just thought I should clear that up now.

***

“Have a seat and I will bring your dinner to you,” Christian said as he led me toward the blanket.  “You open the champagne while I go get the main course.”

I sat, as he instructed, and pulled the cork from the bottle.  After balancing the glasses on the snowy bank, I filled each one and stuffed the bottle back into its carved-out hole.    I heard the rope and handcuffs fall away, and the young man gave a quiet, nervous chuckle as Christian took him by the wrists and led him toward us.

He lay down across the blanket and Christian sat down across from me.  The cold snow under the blanket was obviously a shock for the human’s skin as his back arched away from it.  The motion sent a wave of his scent hurtling toward my nose.

I wanted to eat him.  Badly.

“Christian?” I asked.  I knew I was whining, but I didn’t care.  “Can I eat him now?”

Smirking, he picked up the young man’s bound wrist and offered it to me.  I couldn’t help it.  I knew it was cliché as I did it but I licked my lips then licked his wrist before I took it into my own hands.  The young man moaned as my tongue slicked over his salty skin.  He tasted sweet and innocent.  Christian lifted his other wrist with a smile, and together we sank our teeth into the delicate, cocoa-hued flesh.

His blood, sweet and heady, hit the back of my throat.  I shivered with pure delight.  Never, ever in my life – human or otherwise – had I tasted anything so delicious.  The stranger made a strange, keening noise deep in his throat that slowly turned to a groan of pleasure.  I glanced up at Christian, whose eyes were nearly invisible they’d rolled so far back into his head.  Tiny flakes of snow hung on the tips of his blue mohawk and lay scattered over his shoulders and down his bare arms.  Whether it was the virgin blood coursing through me or my boyfriend’s own heady charisma, I didn’t know.  But what I did know was that before this was over, I was going to get lucky.

Very lucky.

Be sure to come back tomorrow for the final half of Bloody Good and more chances to win!

Third: Where To Go For More

The Hop Participant List – With 193 authors, there are LOTS of things to win!

Want another shot at my books?  Check out my Guess The Date Contest!