Saturday, February 1, 2014

First Ever Shaken Dirty Saturday!

Hi Everyone! I'm so excited because it is finally time to start talking about Drive Me Crazy, the
second book in my Shaken Dirty rocker series for Entangled!!!!  Woo-hoo!  I love this book.  I really, really love this book.  It's a little different than what I usually write-- both Quinn and Elise are damaged, but it still has a little lighter tone than usual.  For example, they prank each other throughout the book and I have to admit I had SUCH a good time thinking up those pranks with my friends :)

Anyway, Drive Me Crazy is Quinn's book (as  I mentioned above) and it will be out on February 24th.  And for those of you who are wondering ... yes, Wyatt's book is third!!!!  So anyway, here's a quick look at Drive Me Crazy, which is up for pre-order now.  Hope you like it!

Blurb:
His rival’s in his bed, and this rocker is ready to play.Former rivals Quinn Bradford and Elise McKinney are not friends, at least not anymore. As teens, all they cared about was psyching each other out before concerts. But when Quinn—now the keyboardist for Shaken Dirty, the hottest rock band on the scene—returns to his hometown and hears about the car accident that shattered Elise’s career, he’s determined to make things right.
Elise wants nothing to do with an arrogant rock star, despite how bad she so clearly wants him, so Quinn kidnaps the stubborn little piano player and whisks her back to his mansion. A little seduction might be just the thing to keep Elise under his care…and in his bed. But amid pranks both childish and very adult, their past comes rearing back to haunt them. And it might be more than either of them can forget.

Excerpt:


Before she could say another word, Quinn ripped the phone out of her grasp and threw it as hard as he could. He’d expected it to land on the lawn or in some bushes, somewhere where it would take her a couple minutes to retrieve it. Instead, it soared well over the hedges and landed, with a plop, in the huge stone fountain that filled the center of his courtyard.
For long seconds, neither of them moved. They just stared at the fountain in wide-eyed, open-mouthed astonishment.
Elise recovered first. “You didn’t!” she screeched at him.
But he had. He really had. Amusement bubbled up inside him and though he knew it was akin to suicide, he couldn’t stop himself from bending over and laughing his ass off—all under her vengeance filled eyes.
“You bastard! You dirty bastard!” She fumbled for the door handle and all but fell out of the car. “That’s my phone.”
“I know, I know.” He did the best to swallow his amusement, but every time he looked into her astonished eyes, he just ended up laughing harder. He couldn’t help it. She looked like a puffer fish, all gaping mouth and head about to explode. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”
Fueled by fury and a good dose of righteous indignation, she marched up his driveway, across his lawn, and straight up to the cell-phone swallowing fountain. He was right behind her, making sure that she didn’t stumble or fall—she might be more alive than he’d seen her all week, but she was still only three days out of surgery, not to mention heavily medicated.
Once at the fountain, Elise bent over and tried to fish out her phone. But to do that, she had to brace herself on her injured hand and, even with the cast, it wasn’t ready yet to support her. His amusement fled instantly—even before she gave a yelp of pain—and then he was picking her up and carrying her away from the fountain.
“What are you doing?” she screeched, this time loudly enough to break the sound barrier. “Let me down! You can’t just manhandle me whenever you want, Quinn!”
“While that’s a nice thought, Lissy, I was just trying to keep you from injuring yourself worse.” Still, he carefully put her back on her feet.
“You should have thought of that before you dragged me out here to the middle of nowhere!” She stomped her ballet flat clad foot hard and he tried to swallow another round of laughter.
Unfortunately, he failed. But he couldn’t help it. It was just so incongruous seeing her like this—flipping out over a phone. And the minor matter of being kidnapped, but he was choosing not to dwell on that fact.
“I need my phone, Quinn!” This time when her foot came down, it was right on the top of his toes. Since he was wearing flip-flops instead of his normal boots, she actually managed to do a little bit of damage. Not that he intended to let her see that.
“I’ll get it. Just chill.” He headed back toward the fountain. “Not that I think it’ll do much good at this point. That thing is toast,” he told her.
“Maybe if we pack it in rice.”
“Maybe.” Who was he to shatter her illusions, after all? But his band mates had done any manner of things involving their iPhones and water through the years and not once had he ever seen the phones actually recover from the abuse.
Elise’s phone had landed near the center of the huge fountain, and he had to bend over and stretch all the way out to reach it. Poor Elise hadn’t stood a chance.
His fingers had just closed over the dark red case when Elise walked up behind him. “I’ve got it,” he told her, not bothering to look behind him.
“Good,” she answered, right before he felt both her hands in the middle of his back. Then she was shoving as hard as she could and he was falling, face first, into the three foot deep fountain.
***
Quinn came up spluttering and dripping, his once perfectly coiffed hair falling in clumpy strands over his forehead and down his cheeks. A stray leaf was stuck to his chin, while a couple purple flower petals decorated the tips of his crazy-long eyelashes.
She was the one laughing then, hysterical snorts she had no control over. At least until Quinn began stalking toward her with hot eyes and an even hotter look on his face. Her phone was clutched in his hand and Elise knew if she wanted it, she was going to have to stand her ground. But it was hard, when every instinct she had was telling her to flee…or to throw herself at him.
She wasn’t sure what it said about her that the second option was the one she found most appealing. Especially considering the way his white T-shirt was plastered to his muscular chest while rivulets of water ran down the hollow of his throat before disappearing beneath the shirt’s V-neck.
As he stalked toward her, he reached for the hem of his shirt and ripped it over his head before tossing it onto the ground at his feet. Again, the adrenaline coursing through her body urged her to run. And again she just stood there. How could she not when a half-naked Quinn was headed straight for her?
She tried to rip her eyes away from his naked abs—taking off his shirt had definitely given him an unfair advantage—but she couldn’t do it. Not when she was getting her first glimpse of his chest, which, to answer her question from a couple days before, was definitely tattooed, and not when she was faced with abs that looked like they had been chiseled from stone. Forget six-pack. Quinn had an eight-pack and it looked amazing on him, as did the happy trail that started below his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
“You’re drooling,” he told her once he’d finally stopped in front of her.
“Do you blame me?” She reached out the fingers of her good hand and stroked them down the center of his body, from breastbone to belly button. His whole stomach contracted, his muscles growing impossibly harder and tighter beneath her hand. “This is ridiculous.”
“My abs?”
“Yes. No! This whole situation. It’s ridiculous.” She dragged her eyes away from his chest and stomach, tilting her head up so she could look him in the eyes. Then almost wished she hadn’t as his gaze was darker and hotter than she had ever seen it before. Not to mention focused on her with an intensity that bordered on the predatory.
“I want—” Her voice broke, so she tried again, forcing the words past her suddenly tight throat. “I want to go back to the city.”
“You should have thought of that before you shoved me into a fountain. Not only am I half naked, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got a goldfish in my boxers, so the only place I’m going is into my house.”
“A goldfish?” Her eyes were drawn, against her will, to the area in question.
“Yeah. My gardener’s brilliant idea of the month was to introduce goldfish to the fountain. Next time I see him I’m going to let him know it was an epic fail.”
Again with the goldfish? They were around so much that if she was a superhero, she’d think the damn things were her nemesis. “Should you, uh, try to get it out?”
“Is that your way of asking me to get naked?”
“What?” She felt her cheeks catch fire. “No! Of course not. I was just thinking of the poor fish. If we could get him back into the water quickly, he might be okay.”
He quirked a brow at her. “The fish is really your primary concern here?”
“Of course.” Ignoring the blush sweeping everywhere from her face to her ears to down her neck, she forced herself to meet Quinn’s knowing eyes. “I’d hate for the poor thing to die.”
Holding her gaze with his own, Quinn slowly unbuttoned the top of his jeans. Then slid a hand into the waistband and down, down, until it came to rest right behind the zipper.
She followed that hand with her eyes—she couldn’t help it—and nearly whimpered when he fisted himself under the faded denim.
“I must have been mistaken,” he said after a moment, his voice low and gravelly and so sexy that she felt her nipples peak in response. “There’s nothing here.”
Considering the already impressive size of his erection, the words were so patently untrue that Elise didn’t bother calling him on them. Then again, she wasn’t sure she could have formed a coherent sentence even if she wanted to. Not when he was stroking himself under her hot gaze, his fist moving back and forth along the length of his cock.
“Of course, if you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to check.”
She forced herself to swallow, despite the fact that her mouth had gone bone dry. “Check?” She tried to sound scandalized instead of intrigued.
Quinn grinned, slowly stroked himself once more before he pulled out. “For the fish. In case I missed something.” He left his jeans unbuttoned in an open invitation.
If another guy had done something like this to her, she would have told him off—and made him feel like the biggest loser in the world while she was doing it. It was just one of the many perks that came with being a “frigid bitch,” as more than one of her dates had called her.
But after watching Quinn do that, she was as aroused as he was. Maybe more. But she refused to let him see it, refused to let him have all the power in this equation. She’d done that last time and it hadn’t worked out very well for her.
Injecting a carelessness into her voice that she was far from feeling, she told him, “I’ll take your word for it. Besides, you’re right. It doesn’t look like there’s anything there, after all.”
She expected a witty comeback, narrowed eyes, maybe a little bit of insulted manhood. Instead, what she got was so much better. And so much worse.
He reached forward, scooped her up in his arms. Then turned on his heel and took off up the winding, concrete path that led to his front door.
 

5 comments:

  1. Oh that is so not fair........it's bad enough having to wait another 23 days but now we know what's to come....it's really NOT fair!!!

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  2. Thanks, Mistie and Blanche. The two of them were so much fun to write. Just wait til you see what you does to his Harley ;)

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  3. Sorry, InkyArtitude :) I'll be posting more next Saturday, if that makes it any better!

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