The Second #ShakenDirtySaturday :)

Hi Everyone,
Hope you guys had a great week!  Mine was busy, but good-- lots of writing done-- so I'm happy :)  Today I'm putting up another excerpt from Drive Me Crazy, the second book in my Shaken Dirty rocker series.  And in case I haven't mentioned it before, can I tell you how much fun I had writing Quinn and Elise?  They made me laugh every day :)  Hope you like them, too!  And remember, my publisher is doing a special promotion, so you can get Drive Me Crazy for $.99 at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble!  Check it out :)

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:

Moving slowly so that she had plenty of time to stop him, he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her gently toward him. Her eyes widened, her breath caught in her throat, but she didn’t protest. Didn’t pull away. So he kept tugging her closer, kept leaning forward himself until his face was only an inch or so from hers.

Then he paused, waited. Watched. Her broken breath was a warm caress on his face, her pulse a wild thing under the deliberately soft clasp of his fingers. He knew she was waiting for him to make the next move, for him to kiss her, but on this he wanted no misunderstanding. Not when her eyes were wide and her chest was rising and falling rapidly. Not when she looked terrified and confused and exhilarated all at once.

No, this kiss, their first kiss in a decade, would have to come from her.

So even though his body was on fire, even though he ached to pull her against him and take everything he wanted—everything she had to give—he waited. And waited. And waited. Until his every nerve was screaming, his every cell straining toward her with an intensity he couldn’t control.

He was about to say to hell with it and pull her to him, when Elise finally made the move he was waiting for. Leaning forward, she brushed her lips—her sweet, hot, gorgeous lips—softly against his. Once, twice, a third time. Then she started to pull away.

But he was having no part of that. He wanted more, needed more. From the moment he’d first set eyes on her again in that hospital bed, he’d craved her. Dreamed her[af1] [TD2] . Now that she was here, in his kitchen and his arms, there was no way he was letting her go without a proper taste.

This time, he was the one who closed the distance between them. He was the one who brought his mouth to hers. And he was the one who kissed her, really kissed her, for the first time in a decade.

It was even better than he remembered.

Her lips parted on a moan, and he swept inside—to explore and taste and feel. She was hot and sweet and so responsive that he couldn’t help the answering groan that welled up in his own throat as he deepened the kiss.

He’d been right. She still tasted like strawberries, but with a rich overlay of sweet and salty caramel that was new. It was a flavor he was rapidly becoming addicted to. One he wanted to taste again and again and again.

He stroked his tongue along the roof of her mouth, brushed it over the side of one cheek and then the other. Swept it between her teeth and her upper lip, pausing to play with her sensitive frenulum for just a moment.

She gasped, the fingers of her uninjured hand coming up to clutch at his shirt even as her tongue came forward to meet his own.

His hand tightened on her neck at the first whisper of her tongue against his. He pulled her closer, pulled her into him until her breasts were against his chest and her mouth was completely open, completely vulnerable, to him.

And then he took her, took everything she was offering, everything she had to give. Gave her everything he could in return.

He was ravenous as he plundered her, tangling his tongue with hers. Licking at her lips, the corners of her mouth, the insides of her teeth. He wanted to explore every part of her, to re-learn her, to figure out everything he’d missed since he’d walked out. To memorize her so that he would remember this even after she left again.

He pulled her closer, wrapped his free arm around her back and plastered her body to his. She gasped, moaned, and he wanted more. Always more. Just like when they’d been kids.

But they weren’t kids anymore, hadn’t been for a long time. It was that thought, more than any other, that brought him back. That had him pulling away from Elise when all he really wanted to do was sink into her.

She had real problems, problems that wouldn’t be fixed by a kiss or a quick tumble onto the closest flat surface. And that was all he could offer her. All he’d ever been able to offer her. It hadn’t been enough when they were seventeen and it sure as shit wasn’t enough now.

He untangled her fingers from his shirt, then gently dropped her hand back into her lap before standing up. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to see the accusation in her eyes for so blatantly taking advantage of her when she was injured and medicated and vulnerable.

But in the end, he couldn’t not look, his eyes seeking and finding hers like they were meant to be. And what he saw there nearly brought him to his knees all over again. Passion, not accusation. Need, not mistrust.

Her eyes were heavy-lidded, dreamy. Her cheeks flushed, her nipples hard little points pressing against the sheer fabric of the blouse Jamison had bought for her to wear home. And her lips. Those damn lips that had haunted his dreams for years after he’d walked away from her, were red and swollen and so tempting it took every ounce of willpower he had not to bend down and take another bite. One that would only end when they were in bed and he was inside her.

That last was the thought he needed to get him moving away from her as fast as his hard, aching body would carry him. He’d made love to her and left her once, when he’d been young and stubborn and too stupid to understand how doing so would shatter them both.

No way in hell was he going to do it again.

---