Caress
of Darkness
Dark
Pleasures , Book
1
by Julie
Kenner
Genre: PNR
Publisher: Evil Eye Concepts, Incorporated
Date of Publication: December 9, 2014
ISBN: 1940887232
ASIN: B00HFG6ENE
Number of pages: 80
Book Description:
From the first moment I saw him, I
knew that Rainer Engel was like no other man. Dangerously sexy and darkly
mysterious, he both enticed me and terrified me.
I wanted to run–to fight against
the heat that was building between us–but there was nowhere to go. I needed his
help as much as I needed his touch. And so help me, I knew that I would do
anything he asked in order to have both.
But even as our passion burned hot,
the secrets in Raine’s past reached out to destroy us … and we would both have
to make the greatest sacrifice to find a love that would last forever.
Excerpt:
Uncopyedited,
Uncorrected
But I can’t get
the words out, and I feel the tears snaking down my cheeks, and dammit, dammit,
dammit, I do not want to lose it in front of this man—this stranger who doesn’t
feel like a stranger.
And then his grip
on my shoulders tightens and he leans toward me.
And then—oh, dear
god—his lips are on mine and they are as warm and soft as I’d imagined and he’s
kissing me so gently and so sweetly that all my worries are just melting away
and I’m limp in his arms.
“Shhh. It’s okay.”
His voice washes over me, as gentle and calming as a summer rain. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I breathe deep,
soothed by the warm sensuality of this stranger’s golden voice. Except he isn’t
a stranger. I may not have not met him before today, but somehow, here in his
arms, I know him.
And that, more
than anything, comforts me.
Calmer, I tilt my
head back and meet his eyes. It is a soft moment and a little sweet—but it
doesn’t stay that way. It changes in the space of a glance. In the instant of a heartbeat. And what started out as gentle comfort
transforms into fiery heat.
I don’t know which
of us moves first. All I know is that I
have to claim him and be claimed by him. That I have to taste him—consume him.
Because in some essential way that I don’t fully understand, I know that only
this man can quell the need burning inside me, and I lose myself in the hot
intensity of his mouth upon mine. Of his
tongue demanding entrance, and his lips, hard and demanding, forcing me to give
everything he wants to take.
I am limp against
him, felled by the onslaught of erotic sparks that his kisses have scattered
through me. I am lost in the sensation of his hands stroking my back. Of his chest pressed against my breasts.
But it isn’t until
I realize that he has pulled me into his lap and that I can feel the hard
demand of his erection against my rear that I force myself to escape this
sensual reality and scramble backward out of his embrace.
“I’m sorry,” I
say, my breath coming too hard.
“Callie—“ The need
I hear in his voice reflects my own, and I clench my hands into fists as I fight
against the instinct to move back into his arms.
“No.” I don’t understand what’s happening—this
instant heat, like a match striking gasoline. I’ve never reacted to a man this
way before. My skin feels prickly, as if
I’ve been caught in a lightning storm. His scent is all over me. And the taste of him lingers on my mouth.
And oh, dear god,
I’m wet, my body literally aching with need, with a primal desire for him to
just rip my clothes off and take me right there on the hard, dusty floor.
He’s triggered a
wildness in me that I don’t understand—and my reaction scares the hell out of
me.
“You need to go,”
I say, and I am astonished that my words are both measured and articulate, as
if I’m simply announcing that it is closing time to a customer.
He stays silent,
but I shake my head anyway, and hold up a finger as if in emphasis.
“No,” I say, in
response to nothing. “I don’t know
anything about this amulet. And now you
really need to leave. Please,” I add. “Please, Raine. I need you to go.”
For a moment he
only looks at me. Then he nods, a single
tilt of his head in acknowledgment. “All right,” he says very softly. “I’ll go.
But I’m not ever leaving you again.”
I stand frozen, as
if his inexplicable words have locked me in place. He turns slowly and strides out of the shop
without looking back. And when the door
clicks into place behind him and I am once again alone, I gulp in air and feel
the warm trickle of a tear as it snakes down my cheek.
I rub my hands
over my face, forgiving myself for this emotional miasma because of all the
shit that’s happened with my dad. Of
course I’m a wreck; what daughter wouldn’t be?
Determined to get
a grip, I follow his path to the door, then hold onto the knob. I’d come over intending to lock it. But now I
have to fight the urge to yank it open and beg him to return.
It’s an urge I
fight. It’s just my grief talking. My fear that I’m about to lose my father,
the one person in all the world who is close to me, and so I have clung to a
stranger in a desperate effort to hold fast to something.
That, at least, is
what my shrink would say. You’re
fabricating a connection in order to fill a void. It’s what you do, Callie. It’s what you’ve always done when lonely
and afraid.
I nod, telling
myself I agree with the voice in my head.
And I do.
Because I am
lonely.
And I am afraid of
losing my dad.
But that’s not the
whole of it. Because there’s something else that I’m afraid of, too, though I
cannot put my finger on it. A strange
sense of something coming. Something dark. Something bad.
And what scares me
most is the ridiculous, unreasonable fear that I have just pushed away the one
person I need to survive whatever is waiting for me out there in the dark.
***
He wanted her.
When you got right
down to it, that was the bottom line.
Raine wanted Callie Sinclair.
Craved her. Hungered for
her.
Hell, he fucking
yearned for her, and that was simply not a feeling he was used to having. Hadn’t been for a very, very long time.
Oh, sure, he’d
gotten off often enough. Lost himself in
a women. In the feel of her body against
his. There was power in the claiming of a willing female, in that hard, rough
ride that erased the world, at least for those few singular moments as the
sensation built and climax approached.
And when the
inevitable explosion came, he’d lose himself in the sharp oblivion that
mimicked the death he sought again and again, and yet this death was forged in
pleasure and not pain.
But that was all
he wanted or needed—just that physical connection to remind him that no matter
how dead he might feel on the inside—no matter how hard he chased that escape
and no matter how many times he burned—this body still functioned and he still
had a job to do.
Because if he
could fuck, then he could fucking well survive another day, another year,
another century.
Shit.
He ran his fingers
over his close-cropped hair and told himself to get a grip. An ironic lecture
since he stood like a criminal in the shadows across the street from Sinclair’s
Antiques, his eyes trained on the now-locked door.
Thank goodness
he’d dismissed Dennis, Phoenix Security’s driver, telling him to go ahead and
simply be on call in case Raine needed him later. He hardly wanted to explain
to the eager twenty-three year old why the hell he was standing like an idiot,
waiting for just another glimpse of this women who’d gotten so deep under his
skin.
Christ, he was pathetic. For millennia he’d
not been distracted by a woman. Not since he’d lost Livia, his mate.
Oh, he’d fucked
plenty, but that was to escape. Because
even after all these centuries he still craved what he’d lost when she’d been
ripped from him.
He’d loved her
beyond all reckoning, and never once had he believed that he would ever feel
that same connection with another female.
And yet this woman
— Sinclair’s daughter — not only caught his attention, but sparked his
awareness.
He told himself
that he was simply attracted to her beauty.
That he hadn’t brought a woman into his bed for over a year. A short time for a man such as him, but still
too damn long.
He told himself
that he just wanted to fuck her—but that wasn’t true at all.
He wanted to know
her. He wanted to protect her.
He wanted have
her.
And that’s why he
was standing here in the dark.
That’s why he was
watching her door.
And that’s why the
moment she left the building, he was going to follow her—all the way to
wherever the hell that might lead.
About
the Author:
J. Kenner (aka Julie Kenner) is the
New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly,
Wall Street Journal and International bestselling author of over seventy
novels, novellas and short stories in a variety of genres.
Though known primarily for her
award-winning and international bestselling erotic romances (including the
Stark and Most Wanted series) that have reached as high as #2 on the New York
Times bestseller list, JK has been writing full time for over a decade in a
variety of genres including paranormal and contemporary romance, “chicklit”
suspense, urban fantasy, Victorian-era thrillers (coming soon), and paranormal
mommy lit.
Her foray into the latter, Carpe
Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner, has been
consistently in development in Hollywood since prior to publication. Most recently, it has been optioned by Warner
Brothers Television for development as series on the CW Network with Alloy
Entertainment producing.
JK has been praised by Publishers
Weekly as an author with a “flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations”
and by RT Bookclub for having “cornered the market on sinfully attractive,
dominant antiheroes and the women who swopn for him.” A three time finalist for
Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award, JK took home the first
RITA trophy awarded in the category of erotic romance in 2014 for her novel,
Claim Me (book 2 of her Stark Trilogy).
Her books have sold well over a
million copies and are published in over over twenty countries.
In her previous career as an
attorney, JK worked as a clerk on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and
practiced primarily civil, entertainment and First Amendment litigation in Los
Angeles and Irvine, California, as well as in Austin, Texas. She currently lives in Central Texas, with
her husband, two daughters, and two rather spastic cats.
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Great excerpt, thanks for sharing!! And thanks for the awesome giveaway :)
ReplyDeletei enjoyed reading the excerpt
ReplyDeleteI love reading a book with secrets, and this one sounds so good. I am looking forward to reading it. Thanks for having this fantastic giveaway.
ReplyDelete