Win my book; read their excerpts!

So today, December 30th, Carrie Lofty, Victoria Dahl and I are having a joint contest! It goes like this.

1. I’ll be posting excerpts from Victoria Dahl’s Lead Me On and Carrie Lofty’s Scoundrel’s Kiss.

2. I will then ask a few questions about those excerpts (on this blog) and throughout the day on Twitter. One random answer will get a free copy of Proof by Seduction.

3. Carrie and Victoria will have excerpts from Proof by Seduction on their blogs, and they’ll be asking questions about my books on twitter. You can follow Carrie on Twitter here, and Victoria on Twitter here. So go read the excerpts for Proof, and you could win a copy of Lead Me On or Scoundrel’s Kiss from either of them! Carrie’s post is here; Victoria’s is here.

So, from Lead Me On:

The door opened and she expected to look up and see  Mr. Jennings walking in. What she didn’t expect was the man who’d visited her  dreams the night before. But she was cool Jane  now, the impenetrable fraud, so she merely raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, Mr.  Chase.”

“Hello, Miss Jane,” he  countered.

She almost laughed at his joke, and  what a disaster that would have been. If he knew she found him charming, he  might ask her out again. She didn’t
allow her expression to budge. “What can I  help you with?”

He held out the folder he’d  tucked under his arm. “See? Safe and sound. I’m the soul of  responsibility.”

“Mm-hm,” she murmured, trying  to hide the way he was wreaking havoc on her concentration. His sleeve had  inched up, revealing more of the tribal tattoo on his left arm. “Thank  you.”

“So…” he said.

She  jerked her eyes up from his arm.

“Have you  thought any more about it?”

“About  what?”

“Going out to dinner with  me?”

“No,” she answered as if it were the honest  truth. Actually, it was. Dinner hadn’t entered into her thoughts even  once.

“Come on.” He smiled at her, his wide mouth  curving into a very handsome grin. His dark blue eyes sparkled. “Just  dinner.”

“No, thank  you.”

“Why not?”

“You’re  not my type.” The bald-faced lie fell smoothly from her  tongue.

“You sure?” He glanced toward his arm,  and Jane felt her pulse leap. Oh, my God. Had  he looked at his tattoo when he said that? She felt her
face heat despite her  best efforts to suppress the betraying flow of blood. He’d seen her  looking. But those could have been looks of  horror, she told herself. They’d meant
nothing.  Nothing.

Her pulse wouldn’t listen to her. It  gathered speed. Chase smiled and put one hand on her desk to lean closer. His  gaze fell to her mouth, and she
could feel herself breathing too  fast.

Last night as she’d boxed, she’d imagined  her trainer was Chase. She’d imagined him grabbing her, his hands sliding across  her damp skin, his mouth
descending with a  growl…

Oh, God, her masquerade was crumbling around  her. What if she let Chase–

Her cell phone rang,  breaking the man-spell she’d fallen under. Jane looked down to the phone and the  display was a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. “MOM,” it read, the  back-light glowing red in warning. She stared  at it for a moment, skin cooling as each second ticked by. “Yes,” she finally  answered him, “I’m sure.”

“Sure about  what?”

“I’m sure you’re not my type, Mr. Chase, but  thank you very much for the invitation.”

Though his  face fell, Chase didn’t look the least bit angry. In fact he pulled a business  card from his back pocket and handed it over. “All right then. Call me if you  change your mind. That’s my cell.”

“Thank you.” She  meant to drop it in the trash. She really did. But as Chase turned and walked  out, Jane tucked his card into her purse. Then she turned off her cell phone and  stuck that in her purse too.

NICE. And I mean not “nice” as in, “he’s a nice guy,” but NICE, as in, “oh yeah, baby.” This is one of the things I love about Victoria Dahl–she knows how to get a slow burn going. And she also knows how to take a gallon of gas and pour it over that smolder. You can read more about Lead Me On here.

And here’s a sneak snippet from Scoundrel’s Kiss, by Carrie Lofty:

When one step separated his body from hers, Gavriel breathed the scent of lemon and skin warmed by the mineral-rich spring water. The more he breathed, the more lightheaded he became. He felt every heartbeat in triplicate: beneath his ribs, in his skull, at his groin.

Gavriel brushed his mouth along the curve of her shoulder. Ada shuddered but did not pull away. The moist heat of his breath raised goose bumps on her skin and reflected back against his face. He waited, glorying in that intimate caress, knowing he would take her if he tasted her.

“Order me to go,” he rasped.

Ada looked over her shoulder. He let his eyes fall down the line of her brow and her cheeks and her chin. “I won’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?” The need to touch her again burned like hell’s fires. “No respectable woman behaves as you do.”

“We both know I left respectable behind some time ago.”

“Then you do this as a game or as punishment.”

“You’re mistaken if you believe this involves you alone.” She spoke with less deliberation and more speed. “Perhaps I do this simply to see what I’ll do next. I hardly know who I am anymore. It makes me wonder.”

He reached out to trace the line of her shoulder blade but pulled back. “Wonder what?”

“Am I the kind of woman to seduce you outright, or will I wait for you? Either way, you’ve become a most welcome distraction.”

“Ada, don’t–”

“You think you’ve cured me because I no longer shake or cry,” she said. “But in that you’re mistaken. The need is still here. Right here.” She clenched one hand over the other and pressed it to the hollow between her breasts. “It’s like thirst or hunger or lust. A need. Can you understand that?”

He could only nod, a weak one at that. A delicious and wanton angel stood before him, his own parable of temptation. The redness of the hot spring had faded, leaving the smoothest white porcelain skin–a feast for his eyes. But he wanted more. No matter his aims or his vows, he was a man who needed more.

“I can understand,” he said thickly.

“Then help me, Gavriel. Give me something new to crave.”

Oh, Carrie Lofty. I am definitely feeling some cravings right now–a craving for a really awesome book! You can read more about Carrie Lofty’s Scoundrel’s Kiss here.

So, for the first chance to win a copy of Proof by Seduction, answer these two questions (one random commenter will win):

1. What kind of parable does Gavriel think Ada is?

2. Where does Chase have his tattoo?