Here’s a quick preview of what’s coming next. As soon as this contest ends, another will start because I have a new book coming July 14th!

Lust trapped them in darkness…only love can free them…

Petra Pedersen has lived as a recluse all her life thanks to a genetic double whammy—a strange deformity and a shameful power inherited from the father she will never know. The power to incite lust in men and women with just a touch.

Exploring the garden of the mansion she’s just inherited, she comes across a fascinating stone gargoyle whose raw, passionate expression draws her to caress its broad chest. Her imagination follows her fluttering fingers. As she closes her eyes and gives herself up to the arousal, something shifts beneath her touch.

Long ago, failure to stop a demon battle trapped Octavius in a prison of stone. Freed by the woman’s incendiary touch, he doesn’t hesitate to unleash his pent-up rage and desire in a blistering fury. Yet once the haze of lust clears, he discovers he isn’t really free after all.

They are both trapped in another realm where he must choose between his last chance for redemption or returning Petra home…

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Not wanting to waste the waning light, Petra hurried down the stairs and into the large open living room. French doors led to the garden. They opened easily on quiet hinges. She let them close behind her and stepped onto a tiled porch. Stair steps led to a flagstone path. From this elevation she couldn’t see the boundaries of the planting beds they were so choked with weeds.

Three steps downward, a sensation, like the softest velvet brushing past her exposed skin, glided over her as she entered the garden. The late afternoon sunlight dimmed instantly to dusk and she blinked to adjust her eyes. She had to hurry to get her first look at her new home before darkness fell.

At the end of the pathway bordered by tall bushes and made impenetrable by dense vines and weeds, she saw an opening and walked steadily toward what she assumed would be the grassy area beyond the formal garden.

Frogs croaked, crickets chirped, creating a cacophony of sound that reminded her again just how far from home she really was.

The open grass was farther than she’d thought and she considered turning back, but the smells welcomed her. She recognized a hint of roses and paused to inhale the sweet fragrance from small white flowers studding a long vine wrapped around a leggy bush.

Honeysuckle.

She smiled, recognizing the blooms from the pictures of the travel book she’d read on her flight across the sea. The scent was sweet, nearly cloying, but she inhaled deeply, entranced with her discovery. She plucked a bloom and held it cupped in her palm and continued down the narrow pathway.

At the end of the path, she exited the dense, tall foliage into a clearing. A gazebo, its lattices intact but in need of paint, stood against the darkening forest. To her left a stone bench sat next to a large statue. The fading sunlight limned the statue and lent its surface a pearlescent sheen. The figure of a winged gargoyle, its massive body upright, its arms and wings outstretched as though ready to take flight was so exact, so detailed, she couldn’t help but stare. “Oh my.”
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