Psst! Be sure to check out today’s blog at Girls Who Bite! C.J. Ellison is donating two copies of both books in The V V Inn series to two commenters today!
In the meantime… Yup, I have a short story in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance, which releases today in the U.S.! It’s entitled “Hot Out Here”—and the only way you’ll get to read it is if you happen to beg, borrow, or buy your very own copy. Enjoy the excerpt!
Beads of condensation, glittering jewel-like in the sputtering candlelight, ran in rivulets down the sides of Jason’s ice-cold beer.
Detail I shouldn’t have been able to note, given the fact I wasn’t anywhere near him.
As I lowered my nephew’s toy binoculars, I reflected that I had indeed sunk to a new low. You see, my bedroom window conveniently overlooked Jason and Robert’s fenced backyard. A fact that never registered with the previous tenants, but one that proved too delicious to ignore after the arrival of the handsome duo.
I began a furtive surveillance at once. One that had me cringing in embarrassment each time I greeted them in passing and feeling even more ashamed when we struck up a friendship.
We’d shared meals, drinks, watched football games together on their wide-screen TV. And still, I peeked into their backyard, waiting for those moments when they popped outside to mow it or catch a few summer rays. Their bodies gleamed with sweat while raw lust warred inside me along with the fear that I’d mess up our relationship if I let the guys know how I really felt.
My convenient perch on the windowsill afforded me a window into their private lives, and I was hooked from the very beginning. They’d become an obsession, one frustrated by the fact they treated me like a kid sister rather than a woman one of them might desire.
And therein lay another problem. I’d resisted the urge to seek a deeper relationship because then I’d have to choose. My libido was completely fickle, lusting after Jason’s muscled physique, then sighing over the possibilities of what Robert’s tall, bony frame and large feet hinted at. That their personalities were perfect bookends, fierce and funny, confused my heart as well.
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