SFR Brigade Showcase September

It’s the SFR Brigade’s Showcase again! It’s hard to believe a month has gone already.

You can find out who the other participants are by hopping over to their blog. You might even find some new authors to read. I know I have!

http://sfrcontests.blogspot.com.au/p/sfr-brigade-presents.html

I have some good news…and some bad news.

Let’s start with the bad news.

The first book in my new series Project Destiny was supposed to be released today, but due to unforeseen circumstances it has been postponed until the 9th of September, which is only 1 week away!

You can find the first chapter of Claimed here.

 

And now for the good news! I’m so excited!

In October next year, I will be at the Riveting Reads Australia Author Event! You can find out all about it over on their website. http://rivetingreadsaus.wixsite.com/rivetingreads 

So there you go. Bad news and good news.

Since I was supposed to be having a release today, I was going to post an excerpt for Claimed, and some other fun stuff. But I promised a free short story, so that’s what I’ll post today.

Tied in Knots is from my Fallen Star series featuring a side character who is mentioned in Drowning in You.

It comes in at around five thousand words, so grab a cuppa and enjoy.

Oh, and I’ve had to modify it slightly to keep the required PG-13 rating, but don’t worry, it will be included in all its glory in an anthology of Fallen Star short stories I plan on releasing soon. I just have a few books to write first before I can put that one together.

Tied in Knots

She had balls he’d give her that. Snarky pulled at the ties around his wrists, but all his effort did was tighten the knots of Zahlee’s scarves and cinch them tighter around his wrists. When he was free, he was going to put her over his lap and paddle her ass.
No. No, that was the last thing Snarky was going to do. If his hands went anywhere near Zahlee’s luscious ass, he wouldn’t be spanking her. At least not at first. He would never take advantage of her gratitude like that.
Nor would he let her take him drinking ever again. He’d never met a female who could put away that much liquor and not end up as drunk as a guest at a Smoraken wedding.
“Zahlee!” He pulled again on his wrists cursing silently when the scarves bit into his skin.
She had to be around here somewhere. He’d been awake for almost ten minutes, and she hadn’t come in yet. He needed to get back to the ship. They were leaving later that afternoon. He didn’t want the crew to come looking for him and find him tied to a female’s bed. He’d never live it down.
He didn’t want to be in her bed surrounded by her scent. Visiting her and staying in her small home was hard enough, torture enough, but lying right there amongst the lush covers and endless pillows of her bed was starting to drive him crazy.
Thank the gods he still had his pants on, but she’d removed his shirt and boots. The soft brush of the lush pile of her cover teased gently at the skin of his back, every little movement as he shifted around sliding the soft fabric against his skin in a sensuous caress.
“Zahlee!” he shouted again.
Where the dlack had she gone? Snarky cursed again. Maybe she thought he was angry with her. Their relationship was strange. He knew that. He also knew he should have ended it a long time ago, but he couldn’t. The thought of never seeing her again twisted something in his chest and sent a pain through him.
A pain he didn’t want to think about. Nor did he want to think about what she did in her bed. Dreaming about her for weeks after every visit already threatened his sanity, but adding what she did in her bed and what she wore—or didn’t wear—when she was in it, would send him mad in a moment.
Snarky took a breath with the intention of yelling for the stubborn female again when the door to her bedroom slid open, and she sauntered inside. He ripped his gaze away from her and looked resolutely up at the ceiling, but the image she presented had burned itself into his brain.
The dress she wore—if you could call it that—barely covered the lush mounds of her breasts, the two strips of fabric tied or joined behind her neck and connected to a band that circled her ribs right under her bust, accentuating her assets. The short skirt hung in two panels, with a slit up either side exposing her thighs, hips, and waist. It wasn’t a dress. It was a temptation at its finest.
What game was she playing? He wanted to growl and curse at her, but she was such a sweet little thing, he couldn’t bare to frighten her or hurt her feelings.
“Oh, you’re awake. Are you thirsty, Snarky? I always need to drink a heap of water after drinking so much liquor.” Her lilting voice swept through him, caressing and inflaming him.
“Zahlee, sweetheart, whatever happened last night, whatever you’ve done, I’m not angry with you. You didn’t need to tie me up. You don’t ever need to be afraid of me. You know that. I would never hurt you.” Surely she knew that already? He’d saved her life. Why would he hurt her? “Untie me, little one. I need to return to the ship.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Snarky, and I’m not worried about you being angry with me. I didn’t do anything for you to be angry about…yet.”
He whipped his head around to look at her. She had her head tilted a little, looking so gods damn cute that he wanted to fist all her lush pale purple hair in his hand and angle her back so he could just stare at her.
“What do you mean—yet?” he growled.
She walked over to the bed, her steps slow, hesitant almost as if she expected him to launch himself up off the bed and attack her. He wouldn’t attack her, but he would shake her and demand to know what the hell she was doing.
He’d very carefully kept her at arms length for the last five years, visiting when they were in her sector, making sure she was all right. He helped with money if she needed it, and a time or two he’d helped her with chasing away annoying males who wouldn’t take no for an answer, always at her request.
What he’d never done is give her any indication that he found her attractive. Gods who was he kidding. She was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen on two legs, and every time he saw her it took every ounce of his willpower not to taste every luscious inch of her until she was panting and begging. Every time he left he fought the driving urge to ask her to go with him, to be his in every way.
“Well…” she replied as she put one knee on the edge of the bed.
Snarky kept his gaze on hers. He would not look. There was no way she could be wearing anything under that dress. You’d be able to see it through the slits on the side, and there was nothing there but smooth purple skin a few shades darker than her hair.
He flexed his arms as she leaned forward and placed first one hand and then the other onto the bed. His gaze dipped down, and he barely bit back a groan at the sight of her plump breasts. Damn, he had to leave, or all his good intentions would be out the airlock.
“Zahlee, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but sweetheart, I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to the Fallen Star.” Snarky pulled at the scarves again and grunted as they tightened further.
“Yes, I know,” she said as she inched over towards him, and continued, crawling up the bed, then up him until she settled her ass over him.
Her sweet curves settled over him and this time, he couldn’t hold back his groan. She leaned down, one hand on either side of his torso, her warm naked skin brushing against his equally naked skin, her face just inches from his. All he would have to do to kiss her, and finally taste her sweet mouth was lift his head and press his lips to hers. But he would not.
She stared down at him with her enormous heavily lashed black eyes. Her warm breath blew across his lips with each soft exhale, her sweet female scent so much stronger with her right there. Gods he wanted her, so much he could barely think, but he’d promised himself he would never take advantage of her like that. Not ever.
“See the thing is, Snarky,” she said, her voice a low husky purr. “I want you to take me with you, and I’m not going to let you go until you agree.”

Snarky stared up at Zahlee. He felt like he was drowning in the depths of her black gaze.
Take me with you.
Gods no. He couldn’t do that. He’d never be able to stay away from her if she was there on the ship all day, every day. It would drive him crazier than just seeing her a few times every planetary cycle.
“Zahlee, I can’t take you. It’s not safe on the ship, and you would have nothing to do and no way of earning an income.”
Her lips tipped up in a wicked little grin. “I don’t need income, Snarky, not anymore. I have enough credits to live comfortably for the next fifty planetary cycles without earning a single credit, but I invested some of it, and I’m earning a tidy little income to keep it topped up.”
He narrowed his eyes and glared back at her, his hands balling into fists. “You sold it?”
She sat up, her backside pressing down on him. He had to bite back another moan, but it didn’t stop the surge of anger. She trailed her finger over his stomach, her gaze downcast, watching her finger move over his firm muscles, which he couldn’t stop from rippling at her teasing touch.
“Yes, I sold it. I looked at my life and thought about all the things that had happened since my brother died. Those males you chased away weren’t after me, Snarky. They wanted to get their hands on the relic and sell it or trade it. As long as I had it, I would never be safe. I would always have to rely on you, and I didn’t want that.”
Her words hit him like a knife in the gut. Slicing through him and leaving devastation in their wake. He tugged at his wrists again. It was time he left. This game she was playing was starting to annoy him off. He’d known for a long time he should stop coming, but he…couldn’t, and he didn’t know why.
There were attractive females on every station they stopped at. If he wanted female companionship all he had to do was crook his finger, but he could never get Zahlee out of his mind.
She leaned down again, her lips bare inches from his. “See, Snarky, there’s something else I want from you. I’ve been relying on you for the last five years. You come and help me out, or give me credits…and then you leave. You leave me with all these feelings, and for a long time, I didn’t know what to do with them. But I finally figured it out.” She licked her lips as her gaze dropped to his mouth, then she raised it again to meet his. “You want me, you have for a long time. No, don’t bother denying it. I can feel your lust. Every time you look at me, I feel it, and I like it, Snarky, because I feel the same. I’ve been waiting for you to make a move, to kiss me or touch me, to tell me how you feel, but you never have.”
She flicked the end of his nose with hers. A cute, innocent little gesture that should have made him grin, but instead it sent a surge of the exact lust she was talking about through him.
She wanted him? Why had she never said anything? He’d been holding back for her, holding back because he thought he was taking advantage of her. No, no it was more than that. The world he lived in, the life he led on the ship, it was too dangerous for her.
He never wanted to put her life in danger again. It was why he’d set her up on this station. It was why he stayed away as much as he could, and he wasn’t going to change his plans now. He would never let her be in danger again.
“I’m sick of waiting,” she whispered right before she pressed her lips to his and kissed him.
Snarky didn’t move, his body locked down tight, all his muscles rigid as his breath caught. He expected her to lightly brush her lips against his and stop, but she didn’t. Oh, gods, she didn’t. She nibbled on his lip, sucking it between hers and teasing him with tentative little swipes of her tongue until he couldn’t help himself, and he opened to let her in.
He groaned and strained at the ties around his wrists. He wanted to delve his hands into her hair and pull her down so he could feel those luscious breasts pressed against his chest, but the ties held him fast. This was not how he’d imagined the first time he kissed her to be.
She had him at her mercy, and Snarky found he didn’t mind as much as he thought he would. Her kiss was delicate, teasing, and inflamed him far more than he would have thought. The delicate strokes of her tongue and her sweet feminine flavor made him moan as he leaned up to meet her.
Zahlee drew back and looked down at him. Her eyelids had dropped making her eyes sultry windows to her emotions. It wasn’t only lust he could see shining in them.
“I want you, Snarky. I’ve wanted you for years. Take me with you.”
“Zahlee—”
But she didn’t give him a chance to say anymore. She kissed him again, firmer, driving her tongue between his lips to tangle with his. Her hot little hands stroked up his chest to his neck, and she cupped his face, tilting him just the way he would have done to her.
Gods he wanted more than anything to take her with him and bind her to him for the rest of eternity. It was that need that desire that ripped him out of the lust filled daze he was in and made him rip his lips from hers.
“Zahlee, stop, sweetheart. We can’t do this.” He managed to grind out, his voice deeper than he’d ever heard it.
She opened her eyes and looked down at him, a flush of deep purple darkening her cheeks. Her breath whispered across his damp lips with every soft exhale, tempting him with the sweetness of her mouth, making him waver in his convictions.
“We can, Snarky, I love you. I don’t just want a fling. I want to be with you all the time, not just when you come to visit. Take me with you. I want to be your female. I want to be yours.”

She was offering him everything he’d dreamed of having since the moment he rescued her. Not just a soft willing body, but her heart, and he was about to break it. After today, he doubted he’d ever see her again, but it was for the best.
He didn’t deserve her, and she deserved far better than him. She could marry a king if she wanted. She could have everything she ever dreamed of. He wouldn’t ruin her chances at happiness by being selfish, he wouldn’t steal her future.
“Zahlee, you don’t love me. You don’t know me. Let me up, sweetheart, and we’ll talk about this.”
She sat up so fast, her hands sliding from his face. He felt bereft without her warmth. Her dark eyes gazed down at him as she stared at him in silence for a long time.
“I don’t love you?” she asked, her voice quiet. Too quiet. “You know me that well that you can read my emotions? You can see into my heart and know how I feel, Snarky?”
Damn! He’d pissed her off, and he knew from past experience just how stubborn she could be when she was angry. He wanted to shake her and make her see sense, but with his arms still tied he couldn’t get his hands on her.
“No, Zahlee,” he growled in frustration. “That wasn’t what I meant. Sweetheart, you don’t know the real me. We’ve only spent a day or two together at a time. You don’t know my past, you don’t know anything about my family or my friends or what I do for a living. The male you love isn’t a real person. It’s only part of a person.”
Her black-eyed gaze burned down into his, and she leaned forward. She stroked, with gentle fingers, down his cheek and along the length of his beard to tug on the nerodium engraved ring on the end.
“I do know you, Snarky. I know more about you than you probably want me to. I know you and the crew of the Fallen Star are pirates. I know you’re wanted on your home planet for murder, and I know you’re innocent. Everything I found out about you told me, you are a male of honor. You’re loyal, dedicated, and protective of the people you care about. You’ve always treated me with respect, you’ve never forced your desires on me even though I know how much you’ve wanted me, and…you saved my life, Snarky, and never, not once asked me for any kind of payment or reparation—”
“Zahlee, stop.”
But she didn’t. “You could have asked me for my family’s treasure, and I would have given it to you, but you didn’t. You didn’t ask me for anything. Why is that, Snarky? You never explained to me why you saved me, or why you never asked for anything in return, and you keep coming back even though you know I’m fine. I’ve been supporting myself for the last three years. I’m safe here. I have friends, other people who look out for me, yet you still keep coming back.”
Snarky had heard enough. She was asking questions he didn’t want to answer. Questions he’d refused to answer even to himself. He’d known for a long time he should stop visiting her, but he couldn’t stay away. Every time they came close to the station she lived on she drew him to her like Magnolia drew him with the temptation of the sweets she made.
But he couldn’t have what he wanted. He couldn’t have her.
He gritted his teeth and pulled at the scarves binding his wrists to the slatted rails of the bed. The fabric tightened around his arms, biting into his skin, but he kept pulling until with a screech of tearing fabric he was free.
With a forceful shove, he pushed Zahlee off him, ignoring her small cry of protest, and climbed from the bed, ripping the remnants of her scarves from his wrists.
“Snarky, wait.”
He turned to her with a growl. “Don’t, Zahlee. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You think all that information means you know me? You don’t know a damn thing. I’m not innocent. I’m not this gilded knight you seem to think I am. I’m a criminal. A killer. I lie, and steal, and cheat, Zahlee. That’s my life. That’s the life I chose, and I will not have you being any part of it.”
He spun away, in search of his clothes and boots, unable to bear seeing the pain twisting her face. She’d laid his shirt and boots over and at the foot of a padded chair on the other side of the room.
“So that’s it?” she demanded, and it wasn’t pain he could hear in her voice, but anger. Fury made her voice quaver. “You’ve made a decision, and I don’t get a choice? Well screw that, Snarky. I refuse to accept your decision. I love you, and I know you want me too. We could be good together if you’d just give us a chance.”
Snarky snatched up his shirt and boots, not bothering to put them on and stalked for the door. They wouldn’t be good together, they’d be awesome, and he knew it, but it didn’t change anything. “That’s right,” he said as he stood in the open doorway. “I made a decision, Zahlee. I will not drag you into my world. I will not put your life in danger.” Regardless of what I want.
He was through her small living area and at the door out into the station hall when her voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Snarky, please. Don’t do this. Don’t walk away.”
The soft pleading in her voice sent a spear of pain through his chest. He turned, just his head and upper body until he could see her. He needed to see her one last time, but the sight of her standing in her bedroom doorway almost undid him.
Tears ran unchecked down her beautiful face and turned her enormous black eyes into glistening pools of torment.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I can’t give you what you want. I’d give you anything, but this. Ask me for anything and I will get it for you, just don’t ask me for this.”
Her sob ripped through his heart and laid devastation in its wake. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but she would never be safe on the ship, and he didn’t want her settling for him when she could have a male who could provide for her far better than he ever could.
“There isn’t anything else I want, Snarky. All these things? All the credits in the universe can never make up for not having you in my life. You are the only thing I have wanted since you saved me from my people.”
She turned away and stepped through the door to her bedroom. Her long lush hair swept across her backside dragging the skirt of her dress to one side and giving him a glimpse of her rounded ass as she looked over her shoulder.
“Goodbye, Snarky.”

He stared at her closed door and knew this would be the last time he would see her. She wouldn’t be here when he returned. Snarky turned away and slipped through the open door and out into the wide corridor of the station.
The deserted empty space of the walkway mimicked how his heart felt. He had no idea what time it was or how long before the Fallen Star had to leave. Right then, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
All he could see was Zahlee’s face with tears streaming down her cheeks. He’d done that. He’d broken her, and now he was just going to walk away. Gods, he was an ass.
He started down the corridor, boots and shirt still in his hands. This was what was best for her. She’d be safe here on the station. She had friends who would look after her.
Gods, that was only if she stayed. If she left, if she went to another station or ended up on a ship with less than honest people she could be in more danger than she’d been in when he’d saved her life. If she’d sold her family’s relic, she would have nothing left to bargain with.
Snarky stopped in the corridor, gazing down the long empty passageway. Could he really leave her vulnerable? No, that was stupid. That wasn’t the question he should be asking himself.
Could he leave her forever?
That was the question he should be asking himself. Could he walk away from her and never see her again? His heart squeezed, a tight pain that made him stumble to one side to lean against the cold metal wall of the station.
It was something he’d been trying to do for the last four years, but he’d never been able to. She kept drawing him back to her, and he’d never been able to figure out why.
Sure she was beautiful, but there were beautiful females all over the universe, and it wasn’t her beauty or her lush body that kept him coming back. It was her sweet personality and the way she focused on him completely when he talked to her like she had nothing better to do than sit and listen to him. It was the way she always seemed to know exactly what he wanted. Whether it was another drink or to return to her quarters so they could talk in the quiet or just to sit next to her on her couch and lose himself in a useless action vid for a while knowing she was right there beside him.
Damn! He loved her!
Snarky snarled, low and furious. He was such an idiot. Gods, how could he walk away knowing he loved her, and knowing she loved him in return? But how could he ask her to put her life in danger every single day? How could he ask her to give up her friends and the life she’d made for herself here on the station?
Then again, how could he not ask her to do all those things? She’d said she loved him, she’d said she wanted him to take her with him. She’d already been prepared to let everything go to be with him, and he was just standing here in the corridor like a stupid lompox.
He spun on his heel and stalked back down the corridor. He was in front of her door in less than a minute, pressing his hand to the access panel. The door slid open, and he stepped through, her delicate scent assailing him as it always did, but this time he didn’t have to brace himself against the bolt of lust that always slammed into him whenever he visited.
This time, he welcomed the lust and even breathed deep letting her scent infiltrate every particle of his being. He was going to have her. Nothing was going to stop him from claiming her except Zahlee herself. He stalked across her small living area, past the couch he’d spent countless hours sitting on with her just talking away the time they had together, then he was through her bedroom door.
Bags lay open on her bed, some empty, some with clothes already piled in them, but Zahlee was not in her room. Gods, she was leaving already. Where was she going to go? Did she have plans she hadn’t told him about? Did it matter? She would be coming on the ship with him.
Snarky strode towards the bathroom door. It was the only place she could be. The door slid open as he neared it, but he heard her before he saw her.
Her heartbreaking quiet sobs slashed through him like one of Frek’s knives, gutting him and ripping him to shreds. A painful hitched breath made him rush forward. Gods, he was such an ass.
“Zahlee, sweetheart,” he murmured as he scooped her up off the floor.
She went stiff in his arms before he’d even reached the bathroom door, then started pushing at his chest and shoulders.
“No,” she cried.
He ignored her futile attempts to get him to release her and continued on through her bedroom and out into the living room where he settled on the plush couch with her in his arms.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured into her hair, holding her tight against him.
Zahlee pushed and struggled, but he held her tight. He would never let her go again.
“Let me go, Snarky. Please, I can’t do this. I understand if you don’t want me, but don’t give me hope only to rip it away again,” she sobbed.
The pain and torment in her voice left him feeling raw and exposed and made his voice a harsh rasp when he replied, “I’m not going to rip anything away, Zahlee. I came back for you.”
She went still in his arms, her breath catching and holding so long he thought she would pass out.
“Baby, breathe,” he whispered.
A gasping breath was her reply, then she was twisting on his lap and staring up at him with shining black eyes, her long lashes, spiky with tears.
“You’ll take me with you?” Her voice was barely above a whisper but held so much hope Snarky’s own breath caught.
“Leelee, I’m going to give you everything you asked for. I love you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to realize how important you are to me.” Calling her by the nickname she’d told him her family had used, felt far more intimate than calling her sweetheart or baby, but it felt right, it felt like it was time. He leaned down and caught her lips in a tender kiss, hesitant to push for more than she was ready for.
But Zahlee, as she usually did, had other ideas. She twisted in his lap until she was straddling him and swept him up in a wicked, thorough tangling of tongues that made him moan.
She drew back and stared down at him. “You love me?”
“How could I not?” he asked quietly running his hands up the smooth skin of her arms to her shoulders.
She smiled down at him. A wobbly lopsided smile that tied his heart into a knot. “I love you too, and I promise I’ll never tie you to the bed again.” A wicked gleam entered her still damp eyes, and she whispered, “Unless you ask me to.”
Snarky surged up off the couch, Zahlee held firmly in his arms. “I hope you have lots of scarves, baby.”
Her husky giggle was all the reply he needed, and the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. She could tie him in knots every day, and he’d still keep coming back for more. Not that he’d ever tell her that. A male had to have some secrets after all.

Thanks for reading!

Next month I will have an excerpt from Claimed and some other fun stuff.

Don’t forget you can see what all the other authors taking part in the Showcase have posted from the Brigade’s webpage.

Catch you next month!