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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**Remember! The Fugly Ring contest continues!
Click on the contest name for details! ~DD

I may be the writer, but sometimes, stories surprise me. That happened in the middle of BAD, BAD GIRLFRIEND. I knew the big climactic scene would be in a strip club. I knew Gabe was going to catch Jolie’s act. What I didn’t know was how the scene would go down—not until I wrote it. I think I wrote this in an hour, snickering to myself the entire time. I hope you enjoy it half as much! ~DD

“Ms. Devlin will have readers laughing one minute and screaming the next… BAD, BAD GIRLFRIEND is a witty, heart pounding smoking hot read that is a must have.” 5 Angels, Fallen Angels

“Bad, Bad Girlfriend is just plain fun!… A great quickie from a great author.” 5 Stars, Just Erotic Romance

“My emotions ran wild while reading Bad, Bad Girlfriend… Don’t miss this mischievous woman’s attempts to secure her man’s love. I had a fantastic time reading Jolie and Gabe’s story.” 5 Silver Dragons, Veiled Secrets Reviews

Expect magic when one determined woman dons a legendary pair of red stilettos and bares body and heart to get her man’s attention…

Jolene’s a big, beautiful woman with an even bigger heart. But she’s become her police officer boyfriend’s favorite doormat and that’s so not working for her. It’s time for a little conversation, time to tell Mr. Happy Pants to “pee or get off the pot”.

Gabriel has seen what his profession does to marriages. He’s not willing to risk that kind of heartbreak. Besides, he likes what he has with Jolene. The woman is sex personified. So when Jolie tells him she won’t see him anymore if he’s not willing to commit, he’s shocked and angry.

With a girlfriend’s encouragement and the added confidence a certain pair of red stilettos gives her, Jolene arranges a special show at a strip club to prove to Gabe once and for all that she’s more woman than any man can handle, and if he doesn’t want the job, then she’ll find another lover who does.

Jolie heard the music, tried to catch the beat, but she’d never been so scared, so embarrassed in her life.

She knew she’d made a huge mistake the minute she’d entered the stripper’s dressing room. Lexie had ushered her in after Guppy, the skinny, bespectacled manager of the strip club, let them in the back door and showed them to the women’s dressing room. She already wore her costume under a tightly belted trench coat, but getting her first up-close look at the other women awaiting their turns on the stage made her lose her nerve.

She turned back toward the exit.
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I’m going to use this space to send you somewhere else today! GWB will hit the stores in just six weeks! I have an alternate website, GirlsWhoBite.net, strictly to encourage all the wonderful authors who contributed to my first Cleis anthology to talk about their work, their story and maybe generate some buzz. Yeah, that’s the crass part. But hey, if we authors don’t push a book, how are you gonna know about it?

The Fugly Ring Contest continues! You’re welcome to post a comment here to enter, but any comment on GirlsWhoBite.net counts too! Today, Paisley Smith is sharing the very cool book trailer she put together, plus news about a project she and I are co-authoring. If you wanna know more, you gotta go there!

Also, if any of you have ideas for guests to invite to blog on the GWB site or groups we should visit as part of a blog/chat loop tour, let me know! ~DD

**Remember! The Skull Stealing Fairy contest continues!
Click on the contest name for details! ~DD

If I could make a living writing short stories, I would. I love getting quickly into a story, finding the surprise (Yes, I know that makes me sound a little nuts. I’m the one writing the story, how can I be surprised? But so often, I am!), then zooming to the close. Writing short helps me polish my prose, helps me focus on word choice. Have Sex Will Travel was especially fun to write since I placed the story in Europe aboard the Orient Express—a train I enjoyed several times while I lived there. I hope you enjoy the little snippet!

“Sexy Little Numbers” is a choice cut of all new and original erotic stories and the latest addition to Black Lace’s immensely popular series of erotica collections. This longer collection will contain even more variety and a greater range of female sexual desire than ever before. It will be the first of an annual collection of the best general erotica stories written by women. Fun, irreverent and deliciously decadent, “Sexy Little Numbers” will combine humour and attitude with wildly imaginative writing from all over the world. This will be the most entertaining erotic fiction for women to be found anywhere in the world.

From Have Sex Will Travel…

The Russian’s fingers did it for her.

As annoyed as she’d been with his arrogant set down on the train platform before they’d boarded, one look at his hands as he clutched his newspaper in front of his face and she was mesmerized, unable to drag away her gaze.

He had large hands, shaped like shovels, dark, sparse hairs sprouting below the second set of knuckles. His fingers were long—the tips blunt and thick. His nails were clean, trimmed, but not filed or buffed. He had a man’s large and capable, but unfussy hands.
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Isn’t it beautimous?! I don’t have a blurb written yet, but if you like my Lone Star Lovers stories, you’re gonna love this one! Forgive any typos, this snippet is unedited.

“It’s time you boys found yerselves a wife.” Sam Logan made his pronouncement then waited, watching the four younger men seated at the table from the corners of his eyes. He didn’t have to wait long for his words to sink in. They exploded in the room with the force of a silent grenade.

Johnny’s jaw closed with a snap, and he laid his spoon down on the scarred, oak table. His black, winged brows drew together, nearly meeting over his dark eyes as he raised his head.

Sam suppressed a smile. That look could make the toughest hombre gulp, but Sam wasn’t the least bit concerned. Johnny tended to look mean when things changed. His oldest boy hated any kind of change.

If any other man had said what he had, Johnny would have cussed under his breath and aimed a piercing, silencing glare. However, he respected Sam, trusted him as much as he could anyone. That trust and respect were the only things that kept his butt on the bench beside his brother Killian.

For his part, Killian’s eyes narrowed. The corners of his lips twitched. Likely, he was amused by Johnny’s reaction and didn’t want to let him off the hook too quickly, but was already lining up all the reasons why Sam’s idea was ludicrous. He was quick that way.

Sam calmly ladled the hearty stew he’d made into his mouth and let his gaze roam to the twins. Jason was coughing into his napkin while Mace gave him “helpful” taps between his shoulder blades.

Mace caught his stare and grinned. “A wife, did you say?”

Sam grunted, ignoring the one word that had caught his son’s attention. “This is the third time this week we’ve had stew,” he murmured. Not to change the subject, but to point a out a glaring fact.

“I like stew just fine,” Johnny muttered.

“This house misses a woman’s touch.” There, he’d said it. Sat the big gorilla in the room right at the dinner table. Impossible to ignore.

“Gracie can’t be replaced,” Killian said softly.

The permanent ache next to his heart echoed that truth. Sam nodded. “She’s gone. Three years. I miss her every day. Know you do too. But life goes on. You’re men now. You have an obligation. Ranchin’s a family business. Y’all need families.”

Johnny cleared his throat. “No disrespect intended, Sam, but you didn’t get sons the old-fashioned way.”

“Not because Gracie and I didn’t try. And in the end, we had no regrets. We both loved you all like you was our own.”

“So, you’d rather saddle us with—”

Sam aimed a quelling stare. “Think I felt like Gracie was a noose around my neck?”

“No sir, but…” Johnny’s hands fisted on the tabletop. “Hell, how’re we to find someone like her?”

Sam understood what he meant. Gracie’s passing had left a hole in all their hearts. The boys had loved her. Took to her the very first day he’d brought each of them home. Gracie had been born to be a mother, and she’d showered them all with the things they needed most—acceptance and unconditional love.

“Boys, Gracie wasn’t born a rancher’s wife. Truth is, she didn’t know a bull from a cow and damn near poisoned me with the first meals she cooked. But she learned. Find a woman willin’ to learn, one you kin love and who’ll love you back.”

“You said, ‘a wife’.” Mace wasn’t gonna let that slip of the tongue go.

Sam shook his head and gave the twins a faint glimmer of a smile. Those two could always see the humor in any predicament. “Thought I’d give you two options. I know one can’t piss without the other goin’ too. And there are damn few single women to go around these parts. ‘Nough said?” When all of them nodded, he cleared his throat. “I’ll be out of town for the next four days. Auction in Abilene. The house is yours.”

October 4th will come sooner than you think! That’s the date Enslaved by a Viking releases. It’s available for pre-order right now. And if you order early, you will lock in the reduced price of $10.20 (regular price will be $15.00!).

What should you expect from my story? A lushly erotic journey with twenty naked vikings…a brothel where anything goes (and does!)…a battle to end all battles…and a romance that will leave you very, very satisfied. I love this series and want to write more of the stories, but it’s up to you. If you read it and love it and talk it up to your friends so that they buy it, then maybe Berkley will be convinced there’s a demand for more Vikings in Space. In the meantime, enjoy the opening…

His suffering….

Though proud and strong, Eirik, heir to the Ulfhednars kingdom, found himself seduced and taken from his homeworld by a bounty-hunting vixen, who sold him into slavery. Purchased by a wealthy, Consortium-backed brothel, he is kept at a heavily guarded and secure breeding facility, where he is forced to feed the lustful whims of Helios’s elite at night. He bides his time, waiting for a chance to escape and get his revenge on the woman who betrayed him…

Her satisfaction….

Once a sex thrall, Fatin earned her freedom through service. Now, as a bounty hunter, she is determined to earn enough to buy her sister’s papers from the same brothel she escaped. For this, she abducts a brutishly handsome, breed-worthy specimen from the Viking planet and delivers him to auction. But her desire for justice and his desire for freedom may consume both of them in a passion neither wanted—or can resist.

Eirik tried not to breathe too deeply. The rotten, sour smells of his dark, dank prison already made his skin stink. He didn’t want the awful stench inside his lungs or belly.

He hadn’t seen the other prisoners, not after they’d been herded like cattle through a chute once the hatch had been opened at the side of the ship and his keepers applied prods to their backsides to move them out in single file.

With only brief impressions of his new home, of searing heat and blinding, harsh sunlight, he’d shielded his arm over his eyes and stumbled down the gangway, through the iron-barred alley that disallowed any thoughts of escape.

He’d been led to this cell, deep inside an enormous stone building. A brief glimpse of an open arena, and then he’d been shoved down two flights of narrow stone steps.

Once they’d slammed the solid door and slid the eye-level window closed, he’d been left alone, no sounds penetrating his prison other than the hum of the light above him, and the sounds his own body made.

His thoughts drowned it all out, screaming inside him. He’d wanted to beat his fists against the door, rail at his captors, but he didn’t know if anyone watched him, and wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing how close to abject despair he was coming.

Hel, he’d even suffer Fatin’s derision, her cold, calculating touch, just to feel or hear another human being.
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**Remember! The Skull Stealing Fairy and Tag It contests continue! Click on the contest name for details! ~DD

There’s just something about a man in uniform, right? Cops, firefighters, soldiers, TSA agents… Okay, so maybe I went a step too far. Enjoy this excerpt about two hard-ass cops, both struggling with their emotions (and one with her sanity) after a shooting. I loved writing these two. As much as they told each other, “not again,” they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Mmm-mm.

“…loved everything about SIN’S Gift…the way Delilah Devlin sets up her world makes it feel like nothing I’ve read before…” ~5 Angels and RECOMMENDED READ!, Fallen Angels

“…A turbulent relationship and sexy, spooky thrills await readers in SIN’S GIFT…This is a well written and engrossing tale with complex characters who have hidden depths. Enter into other realms with the highly recommended SIN’S GIFT.” ~Romance Reviews Today

“…Wow, I loved this novella. It’s fabulously exciting and a fast, exhilarating read…I recommend this book to everyone that loves hot, sexy paranormal story. I love Delilah Devlin’s books and this is one of her best yet…” ~5 Hearts, The Romance Studio

Police Officer Sinead O’Rourke returns to duty months after being shot in an incident that also claimed her partner, Danny. Despite being cleared of any negligence, Sin knows her fellow officers wonder whether she’s partially responsible for his death. One more problem is that everyone knows she claims she’s seen Danny. After months of rehabilitation and counseling, and lying like hell about the fact she’s not seeing spooks anymore, Sin’s determined to get back into the saddle. But her first day back in the patrol car, Sin sees something more horrifying than the ghost of her dead partner and enters a deadly new world. Jake doesn’t want to partner with Sin. Been there, done that—couldn’t keep his hands off her the first time around. She’s too much of a distraction and her penchant for rushing into trouble scares the hell out of him. Despite wishing she’d quit her job, he’s still deeply attracted. When an armed robbery goes down and something happens that rattles Sin to the core, he’s right there—ready to cover her back and her sweet body.

“Sure you’re ready for this?”

Sin stifled a groan. How many times would she hear that today? She especially didn’t want to hear it from Jake Chapa’s lips. Lips she knew the texture and taste of all too well.

She didn’t respond, still fuming because he hadn’t even offered to let her drive. That had been only one of the bitches she’d had partnering with him before. He’d never trusted her. Not with the car. Not with his back.

Now he’d been just fine playing house with her for a while, but he was too much of a chauvinist to ever accept her working at his side.

She’d looked him over when she strode through the garage to the car. He hadn’t changed a bit. Same thickly muscled frame, hair so “high and tight” a Marine DI would weep, same sensually charged expression that always made her stomach clench. He’d been a god in bed, but a total asshole as a boyfriend. What was the lieutenant thinking? She thought she knew the answer.

He hoped she’d wash out in a week, and he wouldn’t have to worry about her getting anyone else killed.
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