By: Diana DeRicci | Other books by Diana DeRicci
Published By: Purple Sword Publications, LLC
ISBN # 9781936165520
Word Count: 29995
Heat Index
Available in: Adobe Acrobat, Palm DOC/iSolo, Microsoft Reader, HTML, Mobipocket, Rocket, Epub Read More
About the book
Dario Acardi has enough stress in his life. His family is hounding him to marry, his father wants him to take over as head of the pride, and his cousin needs to borrow the car. All he wants is a little peace.
Narrowly escaping another engagement his uncle deems as an "appropriate" showing for the coming heir of the Taja pride, he chaperones his cousin and date to the State Fair. The obvious problem is they don't want a chaperone and leave him in the dust to find his own entertainment. Except he finds himself standing behind a curvy brunette, and suddenly both he and his cougar are pacing like wild animals.
Sheridan Donovan is nursing a bruised heart and her brother and friends are driving her crazy with their coddling. What stung wasn't the break up. It was her ex's immediate engagement to a skinny friend.
But now that a certain cougar has decided she's the woman he needs, Dario has to convince her that what she believes isn't true at all. That size isn't what rules the heart. And perfection really is in the eye of the beholder.
An excerpt from the book
Blood pulsed like a roaring river, ramming through his body. He couldn’t remember a single time when he’d ever felt this hot, this hungry for a woman. She was turning him into an inferno of need.
“I’m going to tell you every single fantasy I’ve ever had, baby.” He licked at the seam of her lips and she melted into him. Rising on her toes, she pressed her body against his groin. Dario moaned through the sensation of her body rubbing over his.
“You didn’t even tell me the first one,” she replied, a laughing, teasing lilt in her voice.
Guiding her into the one room he hadn’t visited yet, he didn’t bother turning on the light. “Sweetheart, if I get that one fantasy tonight, my heart may not survive the shock.”
Lashes fluttered. “Oh. Now that does sound like a challenge.” The drag of her fingers snaked under his shirt again, and he chuckled. Then she was tugging it free of his jeans waist. With a little help, the pullover vanished beyond his shoulder.
Within minutes, they’d managed to strip each other bare, except for one little article that left Dario speechless.
“A thong?” His beautiful woman wore thongs? He couldn’t believe it, but there it was. A silk triangle smaller than a handkerchief.
She giggled self-consciously. “They make me feel sexy.”
“Sheridan, if you were any more sexy, I’d incinerate.”
Her eyes widened, her immediate answer being to shake her head. He gripped her between firm palms. “Never again. I mean that.”
Confusion dampened her excitement. “After. We’ll talk later. I need you now, baby.”
With his mouth devouring hers, he urged her backward until the edge of the bed stopped her. “Where are they? I’m not getting out of this bed for anything.”
“Nightstand.”
He grinned. “Hallelujah.” Then laughing at her startled chirp, he toppled them both to the bed, catching her in his arms. Rolling her beneath him, he began to drop open-mouth kisses across her collarbone. When he reached the harried beat of her pulse in her neck, he suckled the erratic pounding between his lips, scraping his teeth over her before pulling hard on the skin. She arched and groaned like a winter wind, a low howl that made the hair on his arms stand up. He’d never heard that sound, never heard it come from a woman. He shuddered as the timbre faded.
Morgan Aiza is tormented by a dream seductress, a woman who has haunted his dreams like a nightmare, but leaves him craving for a completion he's never known--and has never wanted. When Fate steps in and his dream woman literally runs right past him, Morgan is determined to prove he has no need of a wife, or a mate.
N'Rea Gordon has been alone since she was a teenager, moving and hiding, but from what she's never really admitted. When Morgan appears and offers more of himself than any other person in her lifetime in the name of compassionate aid, she is compelled to fight the attraction and help tooth and nail.
Trouble is hounding him, and evil is stalking her. From the gates of the Renaissance Faire where Morgan is granted an honorable knighthood, to the very doors of the family, they are stalked by an unknown danger. To survive and to acknowledge the deepest trust either have known, they are going to have to face the ultimate good versus evil struggle.
Together.
Prologue
It was the dream, the merciless attack on his sleep Morgan couldn't avoid. Unconscious, he craved it, though he silently decried it and its meaning when awake in the light of day. The nameless goddess had plagued Morgan for over a month. A woman of uncommon beauty, with eyes the color of the darkest green, like the dew-kissed nettles of a mountain fir tree. Helpless in his sleep, he tossed restlessly as the image of the woman enthralled him, made his blood sing, creating sparks of flaring desire that never really faded.
Within the hidden secrets of his dream, the silken sweep of her lustrous hair seared his thighs. The long ebony tresses defied its own darkness, glinting a red and gold fire in the full moonlight slicing into his room, as though there were flames hidden within the heavy fall of midnight. A wild, untamable fire flowed through her, moved with her. Even in a dream, the surging heat lingered under his skin, everywhere she caressed and teased him. He tasted it in the air. When she moved, her hair swayed with a scalloped motion, a natural wave that called out to him to touch, to worship. He followed it hungrily, feasting on all of her like a starving man.
This woman had become an enticement, a temptress of unfulfilled desire as he slept. She beckoned to him, calling to him not by name but by a word—mine. The one word was all she ever said, a seductive whisper winding over his ear, a sultry sound that made him ache and reach for her.
His goddess would appear slowly, only her eyes, as if his vision were panning out, opening wider to enjoy her completely. Her features focused until he could see her entire face, smooth fair skin crowned with the full, rich midnight and fire of her hair. Delicate features, high cheekbones forming to a lush mouth, parted with the promises of passion. She glided over him with a graceful presence as he hungered for the next moments of the dream. After so long, he knew what to expect, and she didn't fail him.
Her body was long and lean, supple hot flesh, arching and writhing beneath his fingers. She brought the same burning hunger he carried when she invaded his dreams. Long red nails, sharp but purposely teasing, brought him to a fever pitch, stroking, holding, tempting. The sensations were electric, tightening his skin until it was almost painful to breathe. He never questioned her weight as she rose over him, taking him deep inside of her heat, like a velvet caress. It was a dream but it was so good. She would cry out and he would moan in pleasure as they met, the length of her hair singeing the heated skin of his thighs with her rocking movements. He quivered when she raked his stomach with her nails, her green depths blazing with possessive ecstasy, daring him, challenging him. Demanding he fulfill her every wish.
Morgan would exist in his dream, fall into the between world of real and make-believe willingly. Regrets would be for later, when he lacked sleep and the cold stab of deception mocked him. Right now, he imagined every word, every caress, every desire he knew he wanted. Desires she wanted from him, that together they wanted to share. Her cries filled his ears, her spine bowed tight, moonlight streaking over luscious breasts like a beautiful offering to the gods. Rocking over him, he would revel in the fire burning between them. Smooth skin would flow like heaven beneath his fingers, heat roaring up his arms to settle in his chest with every caress.
Until he couldn't take any more. Until he was thrusting his hips, dying to feel her rapture. Needing to bury himself inside her silken sheath, wrapped intimately by her. An ecstasy in itself.
Morgan awoke, snapping straight up in bed, the images crystal clear in his mind as his body finished what had started in the dream. He groaned thickly as a fierce orgasm ripped over him, his hips clenching in release unable to stop the result of her nightly visit. Clutching cool sheets in shaking fists, snarling his frustration with a loud echo into the dark room, his head reared back at the cruel misleading vision of passion.
Because he was alone.
The green-eyed vixen who had tortured him for over a month was not there, and never had been.
He tore the twisted, sweat-soaked sheets away from heated, naked skin, the keen disappointment like a scorching, stabbing knife. A heated blade he was familiar with and wished he weren't. Rising, he stalked to the open window of his bedroom glaring out into the unforgiving Oregon sky.
His heart pounded behind his ribs. If he breathed deep enough, Morgan could find the scent of her skin, of her heat surrounding him. On him. He gripped the window mercilessly, wanting to throw his head back and howl with rage.
None of this made sense to him. Morgan had never met the woman of his dream. There was no name for the goddess of seduction who came to him with an unerring nightly appearance. A woman who tortured him with an unbelievable body and a voice that spoke of promise and pleasure. With one word, she invited him. With only one word, she seduced him. Every night.
He breathed deeply of the late summer air flowing over him, the cooling breezes of the night's darkness soothing his stressed sex. Gradually, his reaction to the dream faded. His tensed muscles relaxed until he could stand at his full height without animalistic need clawing through him, without the desire to be sated spearing him with a viciousness never experienced in his lifetime. The breeze entering his home through the window danced over cooling skin, teasing shoulder length black hair, raising a ghost of the sparking touch he had yet to experience, yet knew too damn well regardless.
Morgan was the last of the four. Roman, Selene and Brooke were all either married or bonded. He was the lone wolf, remaining single by choice. His head sank forward a fraction, his gaze unfocusing as adrenaline continued to resonate through his blood with the hunger of his unsatisfied sexual dreams. He wasn't disappointed that of the women he'd shared an occasional interlude with, none had met his long term expectations or his deepest desires. What did bother him was this unknown vision who tempted him, drawing him into a world of seduction and sex, every night.
Since her initial invasion of his dreams, no other woman had raised even a whisper of attraction or appealed to him. Even the thought of slackening the lust with another woman was impossible. Any woman other than his dream induced siren left him cold and disinterested.
His seductress was mystery, desire, hunger, and maybe something more he couldn't put a finger on. Something that called to him almost as strongly as her voice and scent, a hidden element that he knew he recognized but couldn't place. And with just a dream, she could make him experience things he'd never felt wide awake and in bed with a flesh and blood woman.
Needing to escape the torment of his dream, Morgan stepped away from the wide window and called the heat of the change. Craved the rush of blood, the changed tempo of his heart pounding in his ears. He needed the change like a dying man needed forgiveness. The lupine form standing within his room a moment later was as well-known to him as his own human one. Anyone in his family would have recognized him.
He leaped through the window with a fluid movement, sprinting into the starry night. His long, harried gait carried him miles into the woods where he slid to a stop in the complete stillness, breathing heavily, trying to leave his misery behind, and knowing he failed. He let out a long, piercing song hearing the reverberation of his voice combined with the echo of nature. Gradually, peace calmed his erratic pulse, though he knew it was only temporary, until he slept again.
For nearly thirty-two years, he'd lived a contented life, living and sharing with his family and pack, having never really sought out his own mate. Never compelled to be proactive for the one woman who would be his.
Diana Castilleja|| Diana DeRicci Stop Copyright Infringement! Do not download illegal copies of books. This is theft right out of the pockets of authors. His Redeemer's Kiss || Print New! Unbound Trust || Coming Soon! Crowning A Warrior King || Print Aiza Clan Shifter Combo 1&2 || Print The Eternal Kiss || Print
Morgan Aiza is tormented by a dream seductress, a woman who has haunted his dreams like a nightmare, but leaves him craving for a completion he's never known--and has never wanted. When Fate steps in and his dream woman literally runs right past him, Morgan is determined to prove he has no need of a wife, or a mate.
N'Rea Gordon has been alone since she was a teenager, moving and hiding, but from what she's never really admitted. When Morgan appears and offers more of himself than any other person in her lifetime in the name of compassionate aid, she is compelled to fight the attraction and help tooth and nail.
Trouble is hounding him, and evil is stalking her. From the gates of the Renaissance Faire where Morgan is granted an honorable knighthood, to the very doors of the family they are stalked by an unknown danger. To survive and to acknowledge the deepest trust either have known, they are going to have to face the ultimate good versus evil struggle.
Together.
An excerpt from the book
Morgan glanced up from his plate to find both his sisters waiting expectantly. "I'm sorry. Did you say something?" he managed to mumble around the mouthful he chewed. He swallowed the chunk of meat, wincing as it slid to weigh heavily in his ungrateful stomach, and waited for the coming storm. Selene waved an impatient hand at him. "See? That's what I'm talking about. He's oblivious to the entire world." Facing her brother, she placed a hand across her growing abdomen. "Morgan, you've been in a serious funk for weeks. What's going on?" He shrugged, setting his fork beside his plate, avoiding his sisters' contemplative gazes, glancing at his dinner with longing instead. Somehow he didn't think he'd get to eat more anytime soon. "I don't know. Nothing I can think of," he replied innocently. Too bad Bram and Mitch had stepped outside for some brotherly bonding when they'd finished dinner. Morgan felt outnumbered two to one. Selene's gray eyes flashed at him with irritation, her brow taut with her frustration at his answer. Morgan knew that stare. He had the exact same storm-gray eyes, just as capable of slicing a person in two. She'd learned it from him. Maybe too well. "You're lying. You never used to," Selene scolded coolly. "Maybe he needs a change of scenery," Brooke suggested with a teasing pitch in her voice. Morgan didn't think so, but he knew her exuberance usually meant something he wasn't going to enjoy. He waited to be proven right. "Hey, I know! Mitch and I are going south for a couple of weeks. There's a Faire we wanted to wander through before he starts with the fire department here." "A Faire?" Morgan echoed with a sour burn. Yep, just as he suspected. It might have been his dinner making that ache in his stomach, but he doubted it. "Why a Faire?" Brooke's whole face lit up with the idea of a new adventure. "Something different. Malls are boring. It's near Sacramento, I think. Autumn is right around the corner. It'll be beautiful with all the trees. Summer days and cooling nights," she told him. "Call Roman," Morgan suggested with a firm 'no thank you' tone. "Oh, come on," Brooke cajoled with a winsome smile. "It could be fun." "It could also be the most nauseating time of my life," he muttered. "I don't want to go." "Morgan," Selene said with a sharp undertone. "You need to do something. You've been haunting the woods like a damn ghost for weeks. You're restless." "So? Since when has it ever mattered?" He didn't restrain the cold chill in his tone. He didn't need his sisters needling him over this. Selene drummed her fingers over the table in a rapid rhythm. Morgan knew she was aggravated with him, and he wasn't making it any easier on her. She was seven months pregnant with Bram's child. Except for the annoyed frown she wore between her brows, she glowed with the pregnancy. Both his sisters did. Brooke was barely six weeks pregnant herself. Brooke and Mitch had returned from Belgium a few days before after a stay with Aunt Jerry. Except for the absence of Roman and Delilah, the quadruplets were at Selene's for dinner. It was a regular gathering, and silently, he wished he could have missed this one. Selene's voice lowered with anxiety for her brother. "You may be the oldest Morgan, but we do have the right to worry about you." Her face smoothed, her hidden concerns out in the open. "And right now, I'm worried." He controlled the black thunder pulsing under the surface of his skin, raking over sensitive nerves, the urge to snap painfully close from too many restless nights spent first enjoying, then suffering, his dream seductress. His sisters weren't the meddling types, but being family, both were more than capable of getting under his skin. He tempered the impulse to a simmer with deliberate effort. His lack of sleep wasn't their problem. Brooke leaned toward him, pulling his attention in her direction. "I know we're going," she said, her brow twisted with her own worry. "We put a bid on the old Victorian on the outside of town. Mitch wanted to be closer to town than this for his shift duty. We've got a lot of work ahead of us if we get it, and I'm looking into the vacant corner shop off Main to open an apothecary. So this is probably going to be the extent of our travels for at least a year." She rose from her seat at the table and settled a comforting hand on his shoulder, her warmth flowing over his soul. "If you want to go, you're welcome to come with us." She started to leave but peeked at him with a devilish grin. "And before you ask, we're driving." She gave him a big wink and left them sitting at the table, vanishing through the front door to go outside to join Bram and Mitch.
If you havent gotten your room yet YOU NEED TO DO SO! We are almost sold out of our room block! If you want the 109 price GET YOUR ROOM RESERVED TODAY!
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AAD is closed to weekend registrations. If you would like to come for the day, Tickets can be bought at the door for 35$ a day and include goodies (while supplies last). Meals and editor appointments are not included.
Tickets are bought between 8am and 10am at the registration table.
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Please spread the word.
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Diana Castilleja
Diana Castilleja|| Diana DeRicci Stop Copyright Infringement! Do not download illegal copies of books. This is theft right out of the pockets of authors. His Redeemer's Kiss || Print New! Unbound Trust || Coming Soon! Crowning A Warrior King || Print Aiza Clan Shifter Combo 1&2 || Print The Eternal Kiss || Print
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