Delicious Tease Contest Day #27: Shayla Black

Today, Shayla's back with a sneak peak at her next project!

Now that Delicious has released, I’ve been asked a lot, “What’s next?”


In the Wicked Lover’s series, of which DELICIOUS is a part, the next title, SURRENDER TO ME, will hit bookshelves next March. This one is all about Hunter Edgington! And yes, for those who have asked, I’m hoping to plan something wonderful soon for Tyler, but you’ll see him again soon.The release on my schedule (and something I’m super excited about is an anthology called FOUR PLAY with Maya Banks.

What’s next?

“Her Fantasy Men”
FOUR PLAY anthologyPublisher: Berkley HEAT
Genre: Erotic Romance/ménage a quarte
ISBN: 978-0425236697
Release Date: October 5, 2010 Two all-new novellas of erotic games between the best of friends…

Blurb:
Kelsey Rena is an enigma. She’s a girly-girl who’s wild for football, craves action movies, and loves knocking back a cold beer with her three best friends–all male. She’s a puzzle, too, when it comes to sex. Here are three hot guys always ready and within reach and she’s never seemed interested. So who is the lucky mystery man satisfying the girl of their secret dreams? The three pals plan to find out. And when they do, they’ll see a side of Kelsey they’ve only dared to fantasize about.

First sneak peek EVER Excerpt:

“Anything?” Jeremy asked as soon as he shut the door.
“Nah, man. She’s in her own world.” One that didn’t include them. Tucker resisted the urge to curse.
“What do you think she wants in a man?” Rhys asked.
“If I were an expert, I wouldn’t be telling you. I’d be dating her myself.”
Jeremy nodded. “She doesn’t seem to care about money. God knows, I tried that route.”
“Nope.” Tucker grabbed another beer, then headed for the garage, motioning the others to join him. “She’s more than comfortable with her ability to make her own money.”
“She’s also not impressed by anything with a fast engine. I tried that, too,” Jeremy confessed.
“Hey, I mowed my lawn shirtless for a month, then struck up conversations with her, hoping she’d look. Her gaze stayed glued above my neck.”
Rhys was a fireman and spent nearly all his downtime pumping iron. If Kels was going to be wowed by some guy’s body, it would be Rhys’s.
Tucker retrieved the cooler, then opened the freezer in her garage, and started dumping in bags of ice. The others joined in.
“I’ve been her confidante, her shoulder to cry on, her prom date when hers dumped her at the last minute... None of that did me any good either.”
“You knew David. What was he like?” Jeremy spoke in low tones. Always. Yet his voice carried the snap of subtle demand.
“Easy going. Big sense of humor. Kind of a wandering spirit.”
“That leaves me out,” Jeremy brooded as he began to toss in beers, wine coolers, water, and soft drinks into the cooler.
“But her boyfriend prior to that was successful guy who owned a few jewelry stores. Flashy dresser. Of course, he was an asshole, too. I don’t think she would put you in that mold or you wouldn’t be here,” he told Jeremy, then wondered why he was trying to make the competition feel better.
Truth was, he liked both Jeremy and Rhys. And it felt good to finally be talking about the elephant in the room.
They finished icing down the drinks in relative quiet, but Tucker’s brain was working overtime. A glance at Jeremy—whose brain never stopped—proved Kelsey’s boss was lost in his own ruminations, too.
Until he spoke. “Would all of you agree that we’d rather see Kelsey happy with one of us than some bastard who might mistreat her?”
Tucker hesitated, glanced at Rhys. Finally, they both nodded. Yeah, he’d hate like hell to let her go, but if he couldn’t have her, he’d at least be happier knowing that she was with someone who wanted her, had genuine feelings for her, would take care of her.
“Me, too,” Jeremy offered. “I think Tucker is right, gentlemen. What we need is a plan.”
“Plan?”
Tucker laughed at Rhys’s confusion. The firefighter was a great guy...but Rhys and a plan combined as well as gasoline and margarita mix.
“We’ve got to find out what’s in her head.” And her heart, Tucker decided. But they had to start small. Forever and ever amen, picket fence, and two point two kids was a lofty place to begin. First, they had to know what she wanted in a date, in a lover. Who, if anyone, was on her mind.
“How?” Jeremy asked, getting right to the heart of the problem as usual. “Does she keep a diary.”
“Not that I know of...but it’s not as if Kels tells me everything.” Tucker shrugged, lamenting that fact.
“She might have a journal. God knows she’s capable of writing more than a grocery list,” Rhys drawled.
“Kels is a bit private. I’m not sure she’d write her feelings down.”
“Maybe because she is private, she’d be more likely she’d pour her feelings out on paper than to another human being.” Jeremy pinned his gaze on Tucker. “Or does she have some really close girlfriend I don’t know about?”
“No. To her, most women like shopping and gossip and those Gray’s Anatomy type shows, which she hates.”
Rhys frowned. “Yeah. Not Kelsey’s style.”
“So now what?” Tucker ran his hand through his unruly hair.
“Could you have one of those best friend heart-to-hearts?”
“Yeah.” Rhys warmed to the subject. “See if she’ll spill.”
“Tried that. She blushed and said that talking to me about her fantasies and her ultimate man was crossing the friend line. I told her it was because I was seeking a girlfriend and wanted her advice. She was sure that her wants wouldn’t necessarily match anyone else’s and ended the conversation.”
“Damn.”
“Exactly. There must be some way to trip her up or persuade her into a tell-all mood so we can learn what she wants and who she has feelings for,” Jeremy murmured.
“Get her drunk?”
Tucker reached over and swatted Rhys on the head. “No, you idiot. Something that won’t have her puking or give her a headache. You know Kels doesn’t handle her liquor well. I’d rather try something less sneaky.”
When Tucker reached down to lift one half of the enormous cooler by a handle, Rhys lifted the other. “I would too, brother, but the up and up isn’t working.”
Jeremy held the garage door open. “He’s right.”
“What are you suggesting?” Tucker asked. “Seducing her?”
“Tried that.” Jeremy sighed as they traversed the house, cooler in hand. “She sidestepped me, then set me up on a blind date with a Barbie who had an equally plastic personality.”
“I tried, too.” Rhys lowered the cooler by the back door, then glanced out at Kelsey, who stood in the shade, face raised to the sky, eyes closed, basking in the sun. “She giggled and started making jokes about firemen who think with their hose.”
“I can’t seduce her,” Tucker admitted. “First, I’m not a ladies’ man, and second, I’d lose her. She thinks of me as someone she can rely on—”
“Which is why you’re stuck in the friend zone, dude,” Rhys chastised. “You’ve never tried to make her see you as a man?”
“I kissed her once.”
“Yeah?” That got Rhys’s attention.
“But we were thirteen, and her comment afterward was that Josh Smith kissed better.”
Rhys doubled over with laughter. Even single-minded Jeremy cracked a smile.
“What we need is evidence.”
Golden brow raised, Rhys glared at Jeremy. “Spoken like an attorney.”
“I am one; sue me.” The attorney smiled, and something about his eyes demonstrated to Tucker why the guy billed out at two grand an hour. Suddenly, he shot Rhys a cunning stare. “You firemen have interesting ways of gaining access to a house, right?”
Rhys rolled his eyes. “Yes, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.”
“I have a key, guys,” Tucker offered.
“Give it to him,” Jeremy snapped. “I’m going to call Kelsey after the party, make up some emergency. You,” he stared at Rhys, “are going to sneak in. Look around that monster closet of hers, her home office. See if she keeps a journal or mementos or has written anything personal on her laptop. Check her correspondence, her voicemails. Scroll through her recent calls and see if she’s reached out to anyone.”
“I don’t know, dude… What if she catches me?”
Jeremy’s stare lost what little levity it had. He looked as if he was resisting grabbing Rhys by the shirt and shaking some sense into him. “Be careful, and she won’t. Just get us some information or we’ll all be stuck in this hell indefinitely.”
Rhys sighed. “Fuck.”
“Call both of us as soon as you’ve finished your reconnaissance.” Jeremy directed. “Then collectively we’ll decide the best course of action, regardless of what you find, agreed?”
“Count me in.”
Tucker hesitated. He didn’t like spying on Kels. He didn’t like lying to her or invading her privacy...but he also didn’t like being cut off from the woman he adored. He hadn’t made any progress with her since that chaste tweener kiss. Fifteen years later, maybe it was time to try something new.
Hoping like hell he didn’t regret this, he handed Rhys Kelsey’s house key.

Today’s winner will receive an eBook of Dangerous Boys and Their Toy, so comment away for a chance to win.