When Xcite invited me to write a romantic novella for their upcoming
Secret Library series, my first thought was hell yes. Then I read their call
where they specified they wanted “strong Alpha male heroes,” and my first
thought was uh-oh. My male heroes tend to be, well, the opposite of alpha
males. They’re usually a little geeky, kind of quiet, and sometimes even
clumsy. I don’t know why men like that make me hot and wet, but they totally
do. Maybe it’s because I like to see them come alive in the presence of the
right woman.
Excerpt from “Safe Haven”
It was easy to talk about Shar, it gave Kallie something to think about
besides Darrin sitting on her couch with his easy posture. His long fingers
wrapped around the mug. Those blue eyes which seemed, impossibly, to be getting
brighter and bluer as afternoon slipped into evening.
‘Thank you for letting me stay here,’ he
said. ‘I feel ... like a ...’ He dipped his head to sip at his
coffee.
‘I don’t even know what you’re doing here.’
It was out before she meant it to be, before she thought it through. ‘I
mean ...’ she started. Shit, what did she mean? She meant she wanted to
know everything: where he’d come from, what he was on his way to, whether he
would stay just for a little while to strip her down and kiss the lonely parts
of her body. If the answer to that was yes, that he would stay and then go, she
thought she could let her guard down, invite him in. But she didn’t even know
how to ask it.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said, and she
thought he actually might.
‘What are
you doing here?’ she asked.
Darrin seemed to consider this. ‘I’m a
photographer, in LA. I got burnt out. My photos were
getting ... stale. So I took a little time to ride around the
country. See if I could find my, I don’t know ...’ He looked at her, that
clear blue gaze steady and strong, the weight of it sending her desire up
through her thighs, into the heat of her cheeks. ‘...passion again.’
Kallie returned the gaze as long as she
could, savouring the stream of lust through her body, and then she lowered her
head to stare at the surface of her coffee. ‘So you’re only passing through?’
‘Yes,’ he said. And suddenly, ‘I’d like to
touch you.’
The words, the ease with which he’d said
them, the strength, and his bright blue gaze as it fell on her, all of it made
her feel unsteady again, as if gravity was changing its laws every second.
‘Nice segue,’ she said, trying to keep
things light, refusing to admit the impact he was having on her.
He laughed, shook his head, setting his
coffee on the table. ‘I feel stupid, like this. Not being able to get up and
come to you, to make the first move, but, well ...’ He waved a hand at his
calf, the pant leg still rolled up to his knee, the swelling visible from where
she stood.
‘So you’re saying you’d like me to make the
first move?’ Her smile surprised her; it felt sleek and sly. What was she
doing? She held her cup tighter, as though that might stop the words from coming
out, or stop the tumbling, falling lust that filled her stomach.
‘I’m saying I’d like someone to make the
first move,’ he said. ‘And sadly, I’m clearly not up to it.’
‘Well, that could be a problem, don’t you
think?’ She toyed with her coffee cup, hearing the tease in her own voice,
feeling both excited and embarrassed by its obviousness. So much for not
touching him. For not letting him touch her.
‘Please come here and kiss me,’ he said.
No one had ever asked her please like that
before; no one had ever asked anything so simple. He wasn’t asking for
permission, nor if she was interested. Instead, he was laying his desire out
there so clearly and asking her to help him reach it. She’d never known anyone
so quietly confident, so willing to ask for what he wanted.
Her mind, that last bastion of safe choices,
shut off all its alarm systems as his request. Her body, already willing and
wanting, helped her put the cup on the table without spilling it, and go to
him. She thought she’d feel nervous or awkward making the first move. Instead,
the closer she got, the more her body seemed to know what to do, how to settle
itself near him without touching his injured calf, how to put herself where she
needed to be in order to do the thing she’d been wanting to do since he first
walked up her driveway: kiss him.
*****
Shanna Germain claims the titles of writer, editor, leximaven, vorpal
blonde and Schrodinger’s brat. Her work has appeared in places like Best
American Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, Best Erotic Romance, Best Gay Romance,
Best Lesbian Erotica and more. Visit her wild world of words at www.shannagermain.com
*****
The Secret Library is a new
range from Xcite Books which will appeal to the female romance reader market.
Each book contains three specially commissioned novellas guaranteeing a
satisfying and varied selection.
The story content is relationship led with a strong alpha
male hero, a level of conflict and a climactic, explicit ending.
The covers are deliberately designed without visual imagery
to be discreet. These books could be comfortably read in public, given as gifts
and left on a bedside table.
The Secret Library contains six books with three erotic
romance novellas in each:
Traded
Innocence – Toni Sands, Elizabeth Coldwell and K D Grace
Silk
Stockings – Constance Munday, Jenna Bright and Lucy Felthouse
One
Long Hot Summer – Elizabeth Coldwell, Penelope Friday and Shanna
Germain
The
Thousand and One Nights – Kitti Bernetti, Primula Bond and Sommer
Marsden
The
Game – Jeff Cott, Antonia Adams and Sommer Marsden
Hungarian
Rhapsody – Justine Elyot, Charlotte Stein and Kay Jaybee
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