Dreams of the Oasis III

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Excerpts From: ELLORA´S CAVEMEN: DREAMS OF THE OASIS III

An Excerpt From: PLEASUREMAID

Copyright © CRICKET STARR, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

She was cold. So very, very cold. Shivering, the woman pulled herself to a sitting position and raised her head. Something liquid fell into her face and slid down the back of her neck.

She identified it. Water. Rain. Cold and wet, and she was outside, sitting on the ground. Her fingers on one hand stung and when she looked at them, there were pale red marks on the tips. Even as she watched the marks faded to thin lines, although the sting from them remained.

Rain dripped from her hair into her face.

She brushed the hair aside and a light caught her attention, just past the neatly trimmed bushes that surrounded her. She struggled to her feet and headed toward it.

Light meant warmth and shelter from the rain, and she needed both. She clutched her arms around herself trying to preserve what body heat she had.

It seemed to take forever, moving slowly across the thick plush of the ground cover-some sort of short grass, well tended and soft beneath her bare feet.

Why aren´t I wearing shoes? Why was her only garment a simple shift-thin, sleeveless and barely reaching her knees, of no use in weather like this?

So many questions and no answers-she needed answers. The light she´d noticed was over a door set in a wall with a roof overhang. The wall of a building, large and imposing. She reached the door and for a brief moment gloried in the overhang that kept the rain off her. She found and held down the buzzer.

After a long time the door opened, revealing someone. She registered a man, tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a sleeping robe. His eyes...there was something about his eyes...she knew him.

He looked at her quizzically. "Who are you?"

She opened her mouth...and realized she had no answer for him. She knew him but not herself. She had no idea who she was.

It was one question too many-the world spun and she collapsed.

An Excerpt From: TEMPT ME TWICE

Copyright © RENEE LUKE, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Latoya stared at her husband´s broad back, his well-defined muscles swathed in smooth dark skin. The color of rich chocolate and just as tempting. She blinked. Twice. The sting of tears burned behind her eyes and tightened her throat. Her gaze slid down his spine to where the shadows of the sheet draped over his hip obscured his rounded ass and corded thighs.

As fine as it was, it was still his back. Across a cool span of Egyptian cotton sheets. On his side of the bed. She longed to reach for him. To touch the silken texture of his flesh.

To be welcomed.

But he presented his back to her when not so long ago she would have been tucked into his embrace. Secured in his arms. Fitted to his body.

Swiping a lone tear from her cheek, Latoya inhaled. A mistake. The masculine scent of him, mingling with the faint hint of cologne prompted her body´s response. Liquid heat seeped to her panties. Her nipples beaded with need.

If only she knew Dante wouldn´t spurn her advance, she´d close the distance between them and demand he made love to her with his thick length of cock.

She licked her lips and closed her eyes to ward off a rising moan. The ring around her finger should´ve been all the permission she needed.

But she knew better. His back meant leave him alone. They hardly spoke at all, let alone made love anymore. She couldn´t have her husband when she wanted. Not with this invisible wedge between them.

Hell, how had another tear escaped? she wondered, dabbing the moisture from her lips. Lips that longed for her husband´s kisses. His love. Affection.

And as aroused as she was, she wasn´t foolish enough to deny it. She longed for sex.

Rolling to her other side, Latoya fluffed her pillow and ignored the desire pouring through her system. She had to focus on a bigger problem-lure Dante back between her thighs and into her heart.

Or divorce him.

An Excerpt From: WEREWOLF IN L.A.

Copyright © MARIANNE LACROIX, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

"Action!" called Melville Smith, B-movie director extraordinaire. Of course, no one at International Star Studios would ever tell Mr. Smith he created B movies. Most of the cast saw his entire film production process as a joke, but Smith took his job very seriously. The low- to no-budget films were the bread and butter of ISS, but he refused to accept any downgrade to his creative genius-at least it was genius in his eyes.

Estelle Lane awaited her cue on stage left as the scene from Blood Hound played out before her. She was a queen of the B-movie lot, and she liked it. She might not be in the same class as the Hollywood prima donnas like Vivien Leigh, Katherine Hepburn or Lauren Bacall, but Estelle had a talent those ladies couldn´t match. And as an actress in her late twenties, Estelle was in her pinnacle years in Hollywood. She was ripe in beauty and agility to compete for parts. In the B movies, the parts would continue as she aged, but the scene time would be less-as would the pay.

She watched as her leading man, or chump in her opinion, played out the scene. How was she supposed to convince an audience she was in love with such an asshole? Acting. Her talent came into play every time she was matched with Donald Valentino. The idiot thought he was the next Errol Flynn. If only. The man was handsome and perfectly built, but had no acting talent. He had the personality of a flea. His dreams would only be realized on the casting couch.

 "I have a houseful of dinner guests and you are telling me I can´t let anyone leave tonight because of a legend?" Donald´s line was her cue.

"What do you mean we can´t go home?" She walked into the scene in her black velvet evening gown that dipped in the back, and the elegantly coiffed hair. She was playing the love interest, the innocent yet sophisticated debutante who captured the eye of a rich British lord.

"Ah, Miss Ashton, please, come and join us," Donald´s character, Lord Williamson, said to her. When he laid his hand upon her, her skin crawled. She fought her personal reactions and smiled.

"What is this about a legend?" she asked as she took a seat on the couch in the mock study.

"It isn´t so much a legend, Miss Ashton. The wolf is very real."

An Excerpt From: PRIESTESS OF DESIRE

Copyright © MARY WINTER, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hall outside. Daphine Shalwood failed to suppress the shudder of fear slithering down her spine. Closing her eyes, she recited an invocation to Zudiat, her Goddess, and reminded herself why she stood here, chained in the prince´s bedchambers. The Rite of Completion, when she lost her maidenhead and completed her training as a priestess of Zudiat. As a member of the temple just a few blocks down from the king´s palace, she should have given this honor to the king. She could handle him, with his salt-and-pepper hair and kind eyes. His firstborn, Sethe, however, made her think dark things, dangerous things that, should she speak of them, would get her expelled from her order.

The door creaked open. Daphine refused to see who entered. Servants came and went, seeing to her needs, but their steps didn´t shake the room, didn´t make heat coil in her womb. No, this would be Prince Sethe Cavelblood, heir to the Pyndaria throne. Daphine swallowed hard.

Two footsteps, then the door closed. She turned, helpless to resist the pull of him even across the room. Wearing dirty breeches, boots, and little else, Sethe stood just inside the door. His eyes traveled over her form, from the jut of her breasts against the white silk scarf binding them, to the matching triangle of fabric covering her sex, and every inch of flesh in between. She willed herself not to be moved by his hungry gaze. I´m just completing my testing. That´s why I´m chained here. For the ritual. In spite of her mental words heat raced through her and her pussy clenched.

"My Lord." Daphine bowed her head, as much out of courtesy as to pull her gaze from the sight of his broad chest with its dusting of blond hair. She kept her head bowed as he neared, though she feared he´d hear the pounding of her heart. Her nipples tightened painfully under his regard, and she wondered how other priestesses had survived this night. None spoke of it, and she feared what might happen.

"Priestess." He cupped her chin, tilting her gaze up to meet his. "I regret they did not tell me you were here, otherwise I would have bathed."

An Excerpt From: SUMMER LOVIN´

Copyright © SHELLEY MUNRO, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

"Sophie Walker? Is that you?"

The dark-haired hunk grinned before grabbing me in a bear hug, right in the middle of the Burleigh Bowls Club.

Who was this Cutey Pie? My mind screamed questions even as I cozied up and savored the experience. I mean, what was not to enjoy? He possessed lots of muscles and was downright hunky with his tanned face and sexy grin. Pity we were in the middle of the Bowls Club. My heart kick-started into a racy beat, while I inhaled deeply to counteract the effect. He smelled wonderful-of ginger and exotic spices, all wrapped up with the tang of the sea.

Tall, dark and cute grasped my upper arms and pulled away before dropping a chaste kiss on my cheek.

Aw, call that a kiss, my inner siren taunted. Rev it up and lay one on me. For once I didn´t care if I ended up being the floorshow. Like a kid in a candy store, I wanted to touch and taste. I wanted it all.

"Sophie, what are you doing here on the Gold Coast?"

I stared and still came up blank. The petite redhead who stood at his side didn´t look too happy. If I was in her shoes I´d have felt exactly the same way. Possessive. Heck, in her place I would have bared my teeth and warned me off.

"I used to go out with Sophie´s daughter," Cutey Pie said.

Redhead´s frown smoothed out like magic.

I groaned inwardly. Well, that sure put me in my place. Cutey´s name popped into my mind. Isaac Shepherd. I´d liked him back when Susan was going out with him. Since my daughter was notorious for being late, I´d spent a lot of time chatting with Isaac. We had a lot in common. It had taken me a long time to forgive Susan for letting him get away.

An Excerpt From: INTERPLANETARY SURVIVAL EPISODE #495

Copyright © TIELLE ST. CLARE, 2006

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

"What are they?" Katya whispered, never taking her eyes off the four men standing opposite them. Their skin tones varied from light tan to a deep brown but each had a mane of golden hair forcibly constrained at the base of the neck. Fur jackets that matched their skin tones hung open at the front revealing broad, powerful chests and rippled abs.

But it was their tawny cat eyes that warned they weren´t "pure-human".

"Riabhians. Human descendents," MarKaln, the team´s information officer, said. "Some very strange genetic experiments were done in the years before Earth vaporized. And who knows what they´ve intermingled with in the two hundred years since."

"Giant cats," Katya joked. The smallest of them was a good seven feet, maybe more. Humans had grown taller through the centuries but had stalled at the mid-six foot range. She watched the way they stood-arrogant, aggressive and sensual-like they were assessing whether Katya´s team was worthy of their notice. There was something definitely feline about them-not the tame versions she´d seen in twentieth-C vids, but wild ones like they kept in zoos. Brutal, dangerous and sexual.

Jessup, their team leader, pushed his shoulders back and scraped his hair away from his handsome face as he approached the Riabhians. The saunter he used as he walked forward was pure sexual animal and Katya knew it was designed for the lone vid-cam that tracked them. The other vids had moved on ahead, keeping up with the race leaders.

All four giants listened intently as Jessup spoke. He was in his "I´m just one of the guys" mode. It worked with most males. It seemed to have no impact on these guys. The one in the middle shook his head and then spoke. The negotiation was on. Jessup listened intently, then slowly nodded.

The vid-cam swirled around, getting a shot of Jessup´s face. The red light above the lens clicked on indicating the camera was being taken live. What could Jessup say that would interest the race organizers enough to take their vid-cam live-pulling attention away from the leaders?

The Riabhians turned their catlike gazes to Katya.