And Samantha MacLeod is back again for the second time this month - she's a busy writer! Today she shares an excerpt from The Monster's Lover, which is officially released today:
Promised to cruel King Nøkkyn’s harem, Sol Eriksen is out of options, and nearly out of time.
When she meets a distractingly handsome stranger in the Ironwood Forest who claims to be a legendary monster, Sol thinks he must be a madman, or a demon. She knows she shouldn’t listen to him. Or trust him. And she should not, under any circumstances, kiss him again.
As King Nøkkyn's grip around her tightens, Sol finds her last chance at freedom may lie with her mysterious new lover, the man who calls himself Fenris
“Are you a demon?” I asked.
His frown deepened until he looked slightly lost. “Why would I be a demon?”
I shook my head, pressing my lips together to keep from answering his question. Because you’re so beautiful, I wanted to say. Because you’re naked, in the middle of the Ironwood, by yourself.
“I-I’m sorry. Have I scared you?” he asked.
“No,” I said, crushing my dress to my chest as if it could muffle the wild pounding of my heart.
“Don’t run. Please.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
I didn’t want to run. I didn’t want to put any more space between the two of us, between his bare chest and arms and my trembling body.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring. His lips twitched as he opened his eyes, almost as though he were trying to remember how to smile. “I’m Fenris,” he said.
I couldn’t stop my laugh. It rang across the Lucky like a peal of thunder before I could clamp my hand over my lips. He frowned again, his forehead wrinkling.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But Fenris is a wolf. A monster. You’re just a boy.”
“A boy?”
He took another step toward me, so close I could have touched him, then glanced down at himself. A flash of heat burned through my body. No, not a boy. His shoulders were wide, and his chest was ridged with muscles. And between his legs...This close, I couldn’t avoid it. I didn’t want to avoid it. Another ripple of heat surged deep inside me as I drank in the sight of him.
I’d seen my brothers and father naked, on occasion, the drooping, pale stem between their legs curled around the wrinkled sack holding their seed. Those markers of their manhood had seemed oddly soft and vulnerable, almost comic.
But this demon was different. There was nothing vulnerable about what stood between his legs, hard, straight, and alarmingly large, jutting from a tangle of thick curls to point directly at the evening sky. I was suddenly very aware of my wet dress pressed against my breasts and between my legs, its thin fabric and the thick air the only things separating our two bodies.
I dragged my eyes back to his face. His soft lips curved over white teeth as I met his eyes. He had a strangely pleasant smile. I wondered if his lips would feel as soft as they looked, and blood rushed to my cheeks as the space between my legs grew even warmer.
“But, you’re not a monster,” I insisted. “You have a stick in your hair.”
He frowned and ran his fingers through his hair, just missing the little twig as it twisted above his ear.
“No, your other side,” I said.
I pinned my dress under an arm, reached for him, and pulled the tiny branch from his long, auburn curls. He caught my wrist. My heart surged, hammering against my ribcage. He turned, his lips almost brushing my skin. His nostrils flared and his eyes closed. I forgot to breathe.
“Your scent,” he growled. “I know you. You like to pick the bloodberries along the river.”
“Y-yes,” I stammered.
My skin burned under his cool touch. I did like bloodberries, the little red spheres that grew only along shady riverbanks. And yes, I’d picked baskets full in the early summer. I picked the last harvest just a month ago, not far from here.
His lips pressed against the inside of my wrist. They felt as soft as I’d imagined. I shivered, although I was far from cold. A strange heat filled me, a burning born of some new fire I’d never before touched. I opened my mouth to say something, to ask who he was and what he was doing with his lips to make my body smolder like this but, instead of speaking, I moaned like an animal.
His gaze met mine, and he smiled.
I wasn’t sure who moved first, if he came toward me or if I was drawn to him like a moth to a candle, but when he released my wrist I was in his arms with my wet dress pressed between my breasts and the hard muscles of his bare chest. I was half surprised the heat of our bodies didn’t release a cloud of steam from the fabric.
I tilted my head. I wanted him to kiss me. I needed that kiss, needed it the way the trees need sunlight and rainwater.
He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I felt the hard jut of his manhood against my stomach. I’d never been told the exact mechanics of what it was men and women did together in the darkness of their sleeping furs, but on some level my body understood what it wanted. My thighs slicked with heat and moisture; my hips tilted to-ward him, seeking him, needing him.
He buried his face in my hair, his breath hot against my neck as he ran his hands over my waist and up my back.
“Smells good,” he muttered. “Oh, you smell good.”
He pulled back, then dropped to his knees. I gasped, missing the heat of his chest against mine. The sudden absence felt like pain.
I looked down at his pale eyes. He raised a trembling hand to my chest, and his fingers curled around my wet, crushed dress.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Buy The Monster's Lover at:
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Born and raised in Colorado, Samantha MacLeod has lived in every time zone in the US, and London. She has a bachelor’s degree from Colby College and an M.A. from the University of Chicago; yes, the U. of C. really is where fun comes to die.
Samantha lives with her husband and two small children in the woods of southern Maine. When she’s not shoveling snow or writing steamy sex scenes, Samantha can be found teaching college composition and philosophy to undergraduates who have no idea she leads a double life as an erotica author.
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Good choice of extract! One story going onto my reading list very soon.
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