HERE WE GO AGAIN! EXCERPT MONDAY
Huge list of authors, pick and choose, come back anytime and read at your leisure. You can click any and all, just a little taste of someone new and see if you like what you find. Ratings vary from PG to R.
Here is a comedy snippet from my recent release JINXED! Other excerpts are available as well as other FREE READS on my funstuff page if you want more.
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“You really don’t believe me when I say we’re supposed to be together, do you?” Jinx’s voice was a puzzled and quiet whisper.
“No. Just because we have a few things in common does not mean we’re destined for anything. Go Google Frannie Sullivan. There are thousands in the world, I’m sure. Go find one of them. As similar as we are, there are too many things different about us. It wouldn’t work. Somewhere out there’s a wonderful woman meant just for you. I’m not her. You need to move on and leave me alone.”
Jinx stared at her a long minute before he swallowed and nodded. With a defeated look in his eyes, he rose and walked to the foyer. Frannie closed her eyes in both relief and misery. He was going. Out of her house and out of her life. Sadness crashed down on her like a wool blanket. Stop it, there’s no future with him. He’s crazy and you don’t need the heartache.
Turning her head to watch him leave, she was shocked to see his legs disappear up the steps. Now where does he think he’s going? She tripped over a waking Pocus in her scramble to follow him. With one quick eyeroll at her pet, she bounded to the top of her stairs and looked around. Where is he?
He wasn’t in her bedroom or the guest room, and the bathroom was empty. But the attic door stood wide open. The attic steps were narrow and rough under her sock-clad feet. A bare bulb shone harshly but did little to brighten the cold darkness of the unfinished room. A few old boxes and some camping equipment lined one wall but the rest of the space was bathed in freezing shadows. Why is it so cold up here and what the hell is he doing?
The answer to both of those silent questions was directly in front of her. Jinx had opened the large eastern window and stood on her roof. Glacial air poured in around her feet, raising goose bumps along her arms. Night had completely fallen and the moonlight, joined with the glow from the neighbors’ Christmas lights, cast an eerie green-tinted aura onto the rooftop. The cold temperature coated the shingles in a fine glistening array of shimmering ice crystals.
Ramrod stiff, with arms outspread and face turned up into the wind, Jinx stood at the edge of her gutter, high above the shrubbery. The poetic beauty of his posture stole her breath. So still and dark against the night sky, eyes closed as if in prayer, he could have been a modern-day prophet listening to the Almighty’s whisper. Twisting her head, Frannie could see or hear nothing that could have captured his interest. Panic seized her chest in a painful grip as he took a final step toward the edge of her roof.
Oh my Gawd, he really is crazy! He’s going to jump off my roof!
“Jinx, get in here! You’re going to break your neck!”
Over the rustle of the bare tree limbs in the growing wind, Frannie heard a group of carolers come up the street. Someone noticed the man standing atop the roofline and the warbling chorus of “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” died out. A harsh whisper barely reached her ears.
“Dear God, he’s going to jump!”
The words seemed to galvanize Jinx. He began rocking to and fro. Tongue thick with fear, Frannie hacked like Hocus with a hairball before she could find her voice. She’d never had a lunatic try to commit suicide from her roof before, and she wasn’t quite sure of the protocol required. Should she go out there after him? Try to talk him down? Run and get towels to clean up the mess?
“Jinx, please, come back in here.”
Not moving a muscle, his voice melted on the wind, teasing her ears. “Will you marry me, Frannie?”
“I’m not going to marry some idiot who’s jumping off my roof. Now get in here, Looney Toon!”
“Man, lady, that’s cold-blooded. Have a heart, it’s nearly Christmas.” A voice from the sidewalk made her bury her face in her hands before once again pleading with the swaying figure outside her window.
“Jinx, come inside. Let’s talk about this.”
He wouldn’t even face her. Back stiff, perched like a blackbird high on a wire, his silhouette was nearly artistic in grace. Tinged with opera, that glorious baritone voice bathed her in frigid song. “There’s nothing to talk about. You couldn’t even be bothered to answer the phone today when I called you. You told me to drop dead.”
The wind picked up a lock of his dark hair and sent it dancing across his forehead in a lover’s caress. Her face stung with the cold and she frantically grasped at anything to get him inside.
“I—I was wrong. I didn’t mean I wanted you to really drop dead and certainly not from my roof. Please, come back inside. I’ll do anything you like, just come in here where you’re safe.”
Finally turning his gypsy eyes to her, Jinx asked hopefully, “Will you marry me?”
“She ain’t worth it, buddy!” A different man yelled from below the roofline.
Frannie ignored the insult. Feeling the wind whip and seeing his white-socked feet so close to the edge made her mind up for her. If the worst happened, she would never forgive herself, and how high would her insurance premiums be?
“I—if you come inside right now, yes, I’ll marry you.”
“Okay.”
Effortlessly, Jinx turned, strode across the shingles and crawled back in the window. He smiled rakishly at her and cocked one dark brow.
Blood rushed to her temples. He had played her like a scratch-off lottery ticket. Heat boiled through her veins and she had a brief mental image of Elmer Fudd, red-faced with steam coming out his ears, screaming like a train whistle.
“You son of a bitch! You never were going to jump.”
“I never said I was going to jump. You just assumed it.” He closed the window with a soft thud.
“You are a sick, twisted individual.” Vehemence made her voice trembly and shrill.
“I was desperate. You’re being bullheaded. Okay, maybe I went a little too far—”
“A little? Try about four miles too far, fruitcake. A little far? That’s like saying the Titanic had a little ice problem.” Her loud voice echoed in the dim attic. Red flooded her vision and her fingers itched to pluck every one of those black brows out without tweezers.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You’re damn right, I’m right. How on earth could you have thought that was a smart move?”
He hung his head before a smile carved a dimple into his cheek. The dim bulb lent an otherworldly eeriness to his features. “Can I claim temporary insanity due to extreme sexual frustration?”
“Ha! There’s nothing temporary about your insanity. You’re a full-time fruit loop!”
A chocolate-rich smile curving his lip, he started to wrap his arm around her waist but she shimmied away. “Come on, be nice. I’m a decent guy. I promise you’ll never, ever regret marrying me.”
“Oh, hell no. I am not marrying you.” Frannie spun in a huff and pounded down the stairs.
Jinx followed close on her heels. “You just said yes. I have a dozen witnesses out there.”
She made it back to the living room before whirling on him. “That was when I thought you were a suicidal maniac. Now you’re just a regular old maniac. It makes the verbal contract null and void.”
With dancing eyes and cheeks flushed from the wintry air, he seemed so very alive, so full of zest and energy. How could he have fooled her into believing he would have jumped? She felt like a fool.
“You are such a spitfire.” He chuckled, moving as if to kiss her. Quickly, she picked up Hocus and held the cat in front of her like a shield. Growling with a fierceness much too large for his small body, Hocus glared at Jinx with shining yellow eyes.
“Touch me and I’ll sic my killer cat on you.”
“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up. “No kisses in front of the pussy.”
Buy JINXED here
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Link up
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Annie Nicholas, Sci-Fi Romance (NC 17)
Kirsten Saell, Erotic – Fantasy (NC 17)
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