Snippets ahoy!

As many of you already know, the other day, I posted a snippet from the stepback of THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE (haven’t seen it? Here it is) because I’m not allowed to show the whole cover yet. I got a lot of comments from people saying they enjoyed that, and a few comments from readers saying a paraphrase of, “Why don’t you post a tiny snippet of the cover each week so we could do a puzzle?”

You know what? That sounds like fun to me! 🙂 I can’t post them every week because it’ll show too much – and I’ll be out of town next week at RomCon – but I’ll post enough of them that the “puzzle” idea will work, yet not so many that my editor will shoot me (I can just picture her swilling Aspirin as she reads this, heh).

So, without further ado, here’s Puzzle Piece #2 from the stepback of THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE:

And because I’m having so much fun with snippets today, here’s another peek into ETERNAL KISS OF DARKNESS. For those of you keeping count, this would be snippet #5 (Haven’t seen one through four yet? You can check them out here, here, here and here ).

***

Kira sat in one of the private booths that were sectioned off from the rest of the room. After several minutes, the dark curtains parted and Jennifer appeared, smiling seductively as she approached.

“Hi, beautiful,” Jennifer crooned, running her hands up Kira’s legs as she began to twist her hips. “I was hoping you’d be the one waiting for me –”

“Jennifer,” Kira said quietly. “Jennifer Jackson.”

The girl paused, her eyes darting around. Then she began snake-hipping again, leaning forward to brush her breasts against Kira’s legs.

“How do you know my name?” she whispered.

This was an awkward way to carry on a conversation. Jennifer was naked except for an extremely small g-string and she kept rubbing and swaying her body against Kira. Kira assumed the curtained booths were being monitored if Jennifer kept up the lap-dancing even though she now guessed Kira wasn’t just here for a thrill. Jennifer didn’t seem to be afraid to verbally acknowledge her real name, though, so maybe the monitoring was only visual. Kira tried to fix an appreciative look on her face and ignore the softer parts Jennifer pressed on her as she spoke.

“I’m an investigator your parents hired,” Kira whispered back.

Jennifer’s face twisted even though her frozen smile still remained. “They can’t help me. Neither can you. Get out before you’re discovered, or you might end up like me.”

Poor girl clearly sounded like she was here against her will. Kira’s resolve strengthened. Someone had forced Jennifer to disappear from her family’s life at seventeen to become a stripper. What if Kira’s little sister had been the one kidnapped so young, and someone who could have helped Tina didn’t try because it might be too dangerous? Kira had wanted to become a cop to protect the people who needed it. Well, here was someone who really needed it, and she might be the only one who knew enough about what held Jennifer to help her get away.

“Did Flare make people forget they’d even seen you when you tried to get away before?” Kira asked, taking the plunge.

Jennifer stopped in the act of straddling her. “Who are you? How do you know that?”

“Keep dancing,” Kira hissed. Jennifer began her sultry squirming again, even though her practiced smile had slipped.

“I’m someone who knows what kind of creature can make people forget things they’ve seen with just a look,” Kira said, her confidence growing as Jennifer’s expression changed from suspicious to hopeful.

“And I’m someone with a gun containing silver bullets right here in my purse,” she went on. “If you come with me, Jennifer, I’ll try to get you away from this. I-I know someone who might be able to help.”

From how hopeless Jennifer had sounded before, she probably hadn’t tried to escape in years. With luck, Flare wasn’t here tonight, and any others who were supposed to keep an eye on Jennifer had grown lax. If she and Jennifer quietly snuck out a back entrance, they could be away before any of the bouncers or staff noticed…

The curtains snapped open and a stocky male appeared. Both Kira and Jennifer jumped. A sinking feeling coursed through Kira as the young man’s eyes changed from whatever color they had been to glowing, bright green.

“Why hello there,” the vampire said. “And who just might you be?”

***