Over at my other website, Delilah’s Collections, the FREE READS keep on coming!
These offers won’t last! Get your copies today!

UPDATE: The winner is Debbie Watson!

* * * * *

I’m all about the movies this holiday season.

Still have to see Bad Mom’s Christmas and Justice League.

Can’t wait to see Downsizing AND I’M DYING TO SEE THE NEW JUMANJI!!!

A set of movies I just bought to watch over the holidays is Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. Haven’t seen them in forever, but not too long ago I wrote a story about it! “Her Heart’s Tomb” was featured in the Rogues anthology put together by the ever lovely Delilah Devlin! Here’s the AWESOME cover designed by Elle James! And a little tease from “Her Heart’s Tomb”.

When an international tomb raider finds herself trapped with the enemy, she unearths her most precious discovery in the only man she’s ever loved.

The tomb raider, Sonya, needed nothing but the pack on her back and the next treasure drawing her forward. She certainly didn’t need a man to help her. Absolutely not the one man she ever cared about. Jack.

Jack couldn’t let his heart get involved with any woman. Especially not a raider after the same jobs as him. He certainly couldn’t let his guard down around the one woman he wanted more than his next prize. Sonya.

Falling for each other was the last thing either of them wanted, until they’re trapped in a tomb together with no place to go but into each other’s arms.

Amazon – https://goo.gl/iUXaiZ
B&N – https://goo.gl/g0GR6J
Kobo – https://goo.gl/jV8QAu
Smashwords – https://goo.gl/LTaoHR
Are Café – https://goo.gl/hrIXSS
Ibooks – https://goo.gl/v8fJQc
Website – https://www.jenniferkacey.com/books/her-heart-s-tomb.html

GIVEAWAY

In honor of the above sexiness I’m having a giveaway for one lucky commenter!!

**GIVEAWAY – US ONLY** – Just look at all the awesomeness you could win!! Including a full print copy of the Rogues Anthology! So tell me a movie you can’t WAIT to see right now!!

I’ll pick a winner on Monday the 18th!! Good Luck!! PS –It’s always great to leave your email address in your comment so I can contact you! Hate not being able to give winners their goodies!!

Decadently Yours,
Jennifer Kacey

About Jennifer

Jennifer Kacey is a writer, mother, and business owner living with her miniman in Texas. She sings in the shower, plays piano in her dreams, and has to have a different color of nail polish every week. The best advice she’s ever been given? Find the real you and never settle for anything less.

Website – Newsletter – The Decadent Divas– Amazon Page
Facebook – Facebook Author Page – Twitter – Goodreads – Pinterest

UPDATE: The winner is…Jennifer Beyer!

* * * * *

I love the run-up to the holidays! Everyone’s so busy! For the first time ever, I have all my gifts purchased in advance. I have a few left to make (I dabble in jewelry!), but that’s part of the fun, too—trying to figure out what will please the women and girls in this family. But then I wondered what I might do for my online friends and readers! Here’s what I came up with! (Lots of exclamation marks here, I know, but I’m excited!!!!)

Anyway, here’s the deal. Throughout the month on the Delilah’s Collections website, I and some of the wonderful authors who’ve appeared in my collections will be giving away our stories! My suggestion, if you’re interested in collecting them, is to subscribe to the Collections blog. Look for the sign-up in the right column. It says “Subscribe To Blog Via Email”—easy-peasy, right? That way you won’t  miss a single offering. And beware! These free stories will only be available for a short time, so jump on them!

So, here’ the first…

All you have to do is click on the cover above, and you’ll head to Instafreebie,
where you can download your copy.
Don’t know what a Skjaldmaer is? It’s a Shieldmaiden!

This story first appeared in the Conquests anthology, which features 13 stories by some very talented authors. The entire collection is just $.99! So, if you’re in the mood to meet a slew of sexy, very alpha Viking warriors, check it out: Conquests!

And let me know in the comments below whether you’re subscribing to the Collections blog and intend to follow the authors as we provide you samples of our story-telling abilities! One lucky commenter will receive her choice of one of my recent releases! 

I may be on vacation, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy! And you may be getting ready to entertain family, but that doesn’t mean you won’t need stress breaks! I have the perfect suggestion. Something short, super hot, and fun! Yes, another Stepbrothers Stepping Out story, and in particular, another With His SEAL Team installment! Check it out!

I’m Sara, and most days my life is wonderful—better than wonderful. I live with three handsome, sexy Navy SEALs, who see to my every need—one of whom is now my fiancé. My stepbrother, Hunter, is the love of my life. Everything couldn’t be better, but two things worry me. I wonder whether our open arrangement with Hunter’s buddies will end after we tie the knot…and our parents are coming for a visit! Will my SEALs be able to pretend we’re only housemates? Will our parents approve our wedding? After all, Hunter and I were raised as siblings…

Get your copy here!

I’m thinking there will be only one more installment of Hunter and Sara’s story. After you read this one, you’ll guess exactly where we’re going—right to a satisfying end!

In case you’ve missed a story…

I don’t know about you, but Halloween/Samhain/Dia de los Muertos is kind of a big deal around here. We don’t buy candy because we live in the boonies—no one goes door-to-door with their kids. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be working with my dd to get the kids’ facepaint right. We have one zombie and one sugar skull to create.  

All this made me wonder what sort of prep you do for the big date? Tell me about it and you’ll be entered to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

In the meantime, enjoy an excerpt from an appropriately scary/sexy tale, Zombie Love. It’s a short story and just $0.99!

A woman desperate to save her infected boyfriend from certain extermination faces her battle alone, in secret, until one day she has to trust he’s still inside the monster she feeds…

No one knew where the infection began. However, rumors abounded. It was a government experiment gone awry. Or an ancient plague released by melting icecaps. If anyone knew, they weren’t saying. Before long, no one cared about its origin. We were too busy trying to survive in our new world.

A bite…a kiss…was all it took to change everything. We eyed our neighbors with suspicion, held our families close, until, one by one, they were struck. The contagion spread, leading to panicked looting and murder. Businesses and homes boarded up windows, locked doors. Travel was limited. Curfews enforced. Silence settled over cities, interrupted only by the rattle of gunfire or the screams of sirens. Haunting but distant—someone else’s tragedy, until it arrived in your home. And then how did one face the horror? Well, there were regulations to follow, specific entities to inform. However, I chose a different path from everyone else I knew. One I hoped I wouldn’t regret.

Over the long weeks since Danny’s infection, I noted the mindless roars lessened in their intensity. He ceased slamming his fists and head against the walls and thick Plexiglas until they were bloody. His features, though coarser than they’d been before, and gray-tinged, were no longer frightening. Bruising faded. Split lips, cheekbones, and knuckles healed.

The clumsy jerking motions he made as he moved around the space where we’d trapped him eased into something less inhuman. Still unsteady on his feet, he used his hands to push off the walls or press against the ceiling to keep the wavering from sending him to his knees.

Physically, he was improving. I recognized him now beneath the dirty clothes and scruffy beard. But his eyes still betrayed his savage soul. They gleamed red. The darkening of his irises, one frightening red fleck at a time, had been the first sign the disease had struck. Red had eventually consumed the brilliant blue.

I’d defied the law, refusing to report him or quarantine myself, and instead, had locked him in the garage studio he’d built when he’d been an aspiring musician, but which now served as his prison cell.

I’d watched the news as the disease continued to spread. The virus which caused an unending hunger for raw meat, turned law-abiding citizens into mindless murderers. At first, the sick had been quarantined in hospitals then prisons. When those reached capacity, the infected were loaded onto train boxcars and sent to internment camps, or so the government said, until a cure could be found.

But rumors had started almost immediately that everyone who boarded those trains was destined to be “put down”—a humane solution, which protected the rest of the population. But still, the disease ran rampant.

Businesses operated, but only because people needed basic commodities and the money to buy them. There was a military presence on every street corner.

Hiding Danny had proven tricky. The need to purchase large quantities of fresh meat meant I spent a good part of the daylight traveling to grocers in other counties so that my buying habits weren’t noted. I couldn’t risk having my home raided and losing Danny.

I’d do anything to protect him from extermination. No one knew whether the illness was reversible, but I was willing to wait, and hoped the signs of improvement that I noted every day in my journal weren’t just my wishful thinking. I’d loved him since high school—the shy girl who’d fallen for the bad boy rocker. The engagement ring he’d given me days before he’d become ill was hidden away in a drawer—something I pulled out when I wanted to remind myself why I was doing this.

Today, his gaze followed me through the thick glass without blinking. The raw, intense hunger was tinged with something else. Regret perhaps? Was he remembering us?

As I did every day, I unlocked the door to the studio and carried in a fresh set of comfortable clothing, a towel and washcloth, soap, and a tall pitcher of warm water.

Unlike days past, he didn’t rush toward me only to be jerked back when he reached the end of his chain.

I slid everything as close as I dared, and then backed away from the door, all the while holding his smoldering gaze. “Please bathe, Danny. I’ll bring you food in a little while.” I reached the door and turned the knob behind me. “I love you.”

My life was reduced to this. Foraging for food. Cleaning the perimeter of the dirty enclosure where I kept him. He’d helped prepare his own prison, installing a toilet where the old mudroom sink had hung on the wall before he’d converted the space. Welding chain to a manacle and testing the length to ensure my safety when I entered. He’d removed his sound equipment and instruments. Placed a sturdy metal cot in the corner.

The morning he’d woken, feeling as though he had the worst hangover ever and rushing to the fridge for the hamburger I’d thawed the night before, he’d recognized the signs.

I’d awoken with him standing in the doorway, his eyes haunted.

“What’s wrong?” I’d asked.

He’d given me a tight smile, but then I’d noted the deep gray shadows beneath his eyes, the slick of perspiration on his forehead. The reddening irises. “Danny?” I’d asked, sitting up on my elbows as my stomach roiled.

No, it can’t be happening. Not to us. We’d done everything right. We’d stayed clear of quarantined areas. Used our own vehicles rather than public transportation to get back and forth to work. We never drank after one another. Didn’t eat out in restaurants where we couldn’t watch the cutlery and plates being sterilized. Didn’t kiss.

“How?” I’d asked, my throat thickening with tears.

He shook his head. “I don’t know, baby. But I have to go. I’ll walk to the center. Turn myself in. I won’t tell them where I live, but you’ll need to sanitize when I’m gone.”

My stomach tightened in rejection. “You aren’t going there.”

His sweet smile stretched, although his eyes watered with unshed tears. “I don’t have any choice. I’m already scared to death I may have infected you.”

I shook my head, the back of my throat burning. “You know what they say about those places. I won’t ever see you again.”

He spread his hands and gripped the doorframe, his head bowed. “I love you, Trish.” Then he backed away from the door.

I threw back the covers. “No! We’ll find another way. Wait this out. They’ll find a treatment.”

But he walked away, down the hallway toward the front door.

I scrambled from the bed and followed. Before he reached the door, I encircled his waist with my arms and held him back. “Don’t do this. Stay with me. We’ll find a way to keep me safe. You still have a little time.”

While he’d finished the raw hamburger and I’d drank a pot of hot coffee, we’d conspired. By the end of the day, I’d hit the hardware store two counties over, and he’d cleared his beloved studio.

That hug at the doorway was the last time I’d touched him.

UPDATE: The winner is Peggy!

* * * * *

I think I’ve mentioned this before… I love writing short stories. I began my career as an author writing novels. Then browsing some calls for submissions, I ran across calls for short stories. I wrote one. Then another. And then another. I quickly discovered I loved writing them. They gave me a chance to reach THE END very quickly, which was hugely satisfying. They gave the chance to try out different genres to see whether I enjoyed writing them. Plus, they gave me stress relief.

Very soon, I compiled quite a backlist of shorties, and I was tempted to try my hand at editing my own anthologies. I put together several projects for Cleis Press, but when the company sold, I decided to release my own personally-curated books. I find it highly enjoyable developing the theme and seeking authors to write stories.

These anthologies were never meant to be money-makers. Instead, I wanted a way to help authors, and me, expand our reader base by sharing our readers and encouraging them all to pick up every one of these books, so I offer them for a very low price to recoup expenses then offer them for free. There’s little risk that way. If you love only one story in 15, it’s still worth the asking price, but I’m betting you’ll discover authors you want to follow.

So, below is what I have so far of my self-pubbed anthologies. You can check out my full list at my Collections website. Coming in January (I hope), will be the next volume, Pirates: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.

*****

Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance

Just $0.99!

Vikings. Fierce warriors who terrified all in their path as they raided and marauded, enslaved and murdered during Europe’s Dark Ages.

But these rough men from a rugged land were also sailors, explorers, craftsmen, and highly sought after mercenaries.

Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance will transport you to the realm of fantasy where such fearsome and loyal men are relentless potent lovers. Whether the lady of the keep demands a few stolen hours of pleasure with a captured Viking warrior or the handsome Northman is the one seducing his captive, you will find plenty of lusty adventures in settings as far-flung as Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Byzantium, Moorish Spain and the New World.

Let your fantasies run wild to a time when men wearing bearskin shirts and shining iron helms could capture a fierce maiden’s heart!

Amazon | Nook | Kobo | IBooks | GooglePlay | Print

Rogues: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology

FREE!

Rogues! Even the word conjures a special sort of hero—a playful bad boy with a heart of gold—at least when it comes to his lady love. This volume is filled with the Jack Sparrows of old—pirates sailing the high seas, Regency-era highway men, modern-day jewel thieves, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief—men doing bad things, bending or breaking the law, but in a very sexy way. With thirteen stories sure to satisfy the reader who craves that ultimate bad boy, prepare to have your heart stolen!

Amazon | Nook | Kobo | Print

Blue Collar: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology

Just $.099!

When it comes to love…Blue Collar is better!

It’s time to set aside those sexy billionaires and enjoy stories about the everyday, even sexier bad boys you meet in real life. They may have dirty hands and wear tool belts and jeans instead of Rolex watches, but they’re earthy alpha males unafraid to get down and dirty when face to face with a woman in need–whatever her need may be!

Just a few of the titillating stories inside…

In “Elevation” by Megan Mitcham, an always-in-control policewoman trapped in an elevator shaft gets a sexy rescue from the handsome repairman. A lonely woman drives a thousand miles to meet an oil field roughneck ready for a long night of laying pipe in Mia Hopkins’ “We Drill Deep While Others Sleep”. Jennifer Kacey shows the lengths to which an enterprising gal will go to get the owner of an oil change shop to check her fluids in “The Boss”. And those are just a few of the sexy stories inside this collection about the everyday hero next door.

These are men who’ve built their powerful muscles from hard work rather than inside any gym, and they sure know how to use their hard-earned skills to pleasure a woman…

Amazon | Amazon UK | Nook | Kobo | IBooks | GooglePlay | Print

*****

Contest

For a chance to win your choice of one of my self-published backlist stories or one of these anthologies, answer me this:

1. Are you looking forward to an anthology filled with pirate stories (historical, sci-fi, steampunk, etc.)?
2. What other kinds of bad-boy themed anthologies would you like to read?

This month, my guest post on Delilah’s blog will be a few words plus a link to a FREE SHORT STORY, Emily’s Very Special Halloween.

What happened is that one afternoon I had this sketchy idea for writing a Halloween story. I thought, okay, something with dark mystery would be nice. I’d figure it out the next morning.

During the night, this idea came to me about a book and a magical man. Next morning, I could think of nothing else. I sat down at my desk and by noon, the story was finished.

I’ve never had that happen before.

So…I hope you enjoy it. I’m still a little creeped out by the whole process, and I’m absolutely not going out for Halloween. Anywhere. My two black cats are enough, thank you very much.

Usually, that’s how it works for me with a character appearing out of the shadows. They start talking, showing me the story. This one is spooky, which is not my norm. Rest assured there are plenty of others that will wet your panties and keep you up too late.

Here’s the first part of the story:

The book fell, quite literally, into Emily’s hands. Teetering on the tall ladder, she set down the duster and examined the small volume. Bound in blackened ancient leather, the book seemed unremarkable. The title, visible more from the indentation on the leather than by any surviving original lettering, said “Spells and Incantations.”

Briefly, she leafed through the brittle pages. Elaborate scrollwork ornamented the letters, which didn’t form words she knew. At one random page, she tried to read the text and succeeded only in mumbling nonsense phrases.

She’d never seen it before, but that wasn’t a particularly odd circumstance considering the thousands of books crammed onto the shelves along the narrow aisles of Taylor’s Used and Collectible Books. Mr. Taylor himself, a distracted older man with a pinched face and thick glasses, liked to joke that the books bred when the lights were out and he took no responsibility for the overflow that sometimes ended up in hopeless stacks partially blocking the aisles.

Then he’d look over his glasses and wink in an admission that yes, on his off hours from tending the store, he roamed through garage sales and flea markets and browsed the internet to find more books. As far as Emily was concerned, Mr. Taylor cared less about selling books than he did about acquiring them. She’d seen him become visibly pained when someone insisted on purchasing a book that he held in particular regard. Which more or less applied to a majority of the works in the store, a ramshackle red brick structure on the corner of a minor street on the edge of downtown.

Turning to replace the slender tome, Emily frowned at the crammed shelves. She tried pushing the books over where she’d dusted but there was absolutely no room for another book. Even more puzzling, additional books lay on top of the upright ones, filling every inch of space. She looked around wondering where the book actually fell from, then tucked it in her oversized apron pocket, stifled a sneeze, and climbed down.

At the front counter, she set the book down as a man walked up. There had been only a handful of people in the store this morning, not exactly one of their busier days. Somehow this guy had slipped by her. Had she not heard the bell ring?

“How can I help you?” she said, trying not to gape at his appearance.

He studied her with intensely dark eyes, almost frightening at first glance but then engaging in a fascinating way. Short dark hair and a slight after-five shadow set off his chiseled features, a combination of strong aquiline nose, stern brow, and sensual lips she couldn’t avoid noticing. His lips seemed to move slightly even though he wasn’t talking.

He cleared his throat. “I’m looking for a particular book,” he said. The corner of his mouth crooked in the hint of a smile. “Do you have a section for vintage and collectibles?”

His melodic baritone voice sent chills down her spine that collected at her nipples and pressed them to hard points. Almost breathless, she clutched the edge of the counter, pointing to the place she’d just been dusting.

“Aisle 5,” she said. “Halfway down. There’s a ladder if you need it.”

FREE READ

Download the full story at Smashwords and use coupon code CY64F.
Hurry! Coupon good only through October 12. 

P.S. My apologies to Delilah fans who are also subscribers to my newsletter. This free story offer was extended in the October issue of Liz’s Hot News, meaning you didn’t get anything new here. But stay tuned—more free stuff coming to newsletter subscribers! For those not yet subscribed, when you join the fun, you’ll get excerpts from forthcoming works, short stories, coupon deals, previews and more. You can unsubscribe at any time, and it’s FREE. Easy signup at https://eepurl.com/bHOyS9

Like my Facebook page to receive updates on other nice and naughty works by Lizzie Ashworth plus some random images of hot men. What more could you want? https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLizzieAshworth

Don’t forget to check out my Pinterest page. https://www.pinterest.com/ashworthlizzie/ And definitely check my website/blog for regular outrageous blog posts and the full list of all my books and short stories, with buy links, https://lizzieashworth.com/