Can’t Sleep? #MFRWsteam #BlopHop

Hello Everyone. I’m glad to be back for another Marketing for Romance Writers STEAM Blog hop. All writers on this hop write steamy romances and will be sharing excerpts from the books. You can reach them in the link provided at the bottom of this post.

This week I will be sharing an excerpt Green Rising Book 1, Race to Redemption.

Blurb

Intergalactic storm racing champion, Elaina Carteret, left the circuit in disgrace after a horrendous accident. Willing to deal with the devil, aka her business manager, she accepts a challenge for one last chance to fly again. The deal seemed easy – pose as Lainie Carter, medical transport pilot, and spy on a hospital outpost. Until she meets the director, Dr. Erik Johansen, who runs the station with an iron hand, a permanent scowl and the tightest bod on the planet.

Erik keeps his emotions and laboratories locked up tight. He once trusted a woman who turned out to be a spy—and millions died. When the sizzling hot Lainie Carter sashay’s into his office with her endless legs, pouty mouth and penchant for sneaking into forbidden areas, he knows she’s dangerous. If only she would stop sneaking into his fantasies.

When the outpost is attacked by mercenaries, the Diva and Dr. Dictator are thrown together in a race across the desert to save two sick children. As a fragile trust grows between their damaged hearts, will it be strong enough to survive the truths that threaten their growing bond?

Excerpt

In this scene, our heroine arrives at the medical outpost and finds everyone huddled in the dark, looking forlorn. She cares for two children who are in the hospital suffering from an unknown malady. Sen, the boy, is worse off, then Qirta, the female. She realizes something may have happened to him.

Sexually Explicit Content For People 18+

“Sen?”  Anxiety formed knots in her lungs and throat, making it hard to breath.

Erik tilted his head.  Speech didn’t seem to be in him.  She followed him to the bathing room at the back of the building.  The small lump in the bath couldn’t be Sen.  Whatever it was had gill-slits and greyish-green skin, no remaining golden hue of the Ranharran air breathers. No, definitely not Sen.

“I don’t understand.”

“Biogenetic tampering that forced his DNA to rewrite itself into Den Vedran but it was only partial. His gills are not fully formed but the Ranharran lungs collapsed.  I believe the Den Vedran lungs would have grown over them but not in time.  The changes left him unable to take in oxygen from any source.”

She couldn’t get her head around what Erik was saying. Every cell in her body froze into numbness. Her blood stopped flowing. That just couldn’t be Sen. 

“We should return him to the dust.  Sen had a soft spot for Ranharran ceremonies.”  How she coughed up those words she’d never know, but it is what Sen would want. If that lump were Sen, which it wasn’t.

Erik shook his head. “He’s not dead. I injected him with a stasis drug. It only lasts about two months. I’ll need to do so some tests on him.” His low growl told her the idea appalled him as much as it did her.  She swallowed back an instinctive retort.  He didn’t need her crap on top of the pile he already carried.

“For Qirta,” she said instead.

 Gratitude flickered in those ancient eyes.  She took his hand and leaned her head against his shoulder, desperate for touch. He let her without balking. A heart did beat underneath Erik scowl.

They stood together without moving for what seemed like a century. Fintarl brought in an air gurney at some point to move the body that wasn’t Sen to the lab. Everyone in the camp stumbled like the walking dead to get through the next hours.  Ranharrans did not have tear ducts, their bodies were built to retain every ounce of water.  They hummed in grief and the camp was awash in a low, melancholy drone.

In auto pilot, Lainie got the meds unloaded and found herself a room tucked in the corner of the housing area.  Sadness weighed her body down, gagged her, forbid sleep to come. The walls seemed to close in around her, as if they were grieving too. Suffocating in the closed space, she left it to prowl around the camp, hoping the night air might melt the numbness.

The light in Erik’s lab drew her like a wanta beast to water.  She needed to be near him.  He’d resist but she didn’t care.

Loitering on the threshold, she watched him and found an odd comfort in his ability to maintain a work routine.  Pop in a chip, trace the numbers around the screen, curse and pull hair, start again.  Its regularity was a balm to the chaos chewing through her bones into the marrow.  An outside message, coded for high security, flashed on the screen and broke the ritual.  His eyes lifted and caught sight of her. He didn’t grimace or frown or sigh or flash any other of the “why-the-hell-are-you-here” greetings he usually gave her.

“Can’t sleep?”  he asked.

Was that gentleness in his voice?

“It’s early.” She edged closer to him, the exhaustion tattooed on his face in sweat and lines an irresistible magnet. It pulled at her, insisted on her nearness, her touch.  He must have felt it too. His body swayed toward her. His gaze locked into hers and tugged her closer.

Then there was no distance at all and they escaped into a kiss.  Who moved in first she’d never know or care but she wasn’t letting go.  The kiss tasted better than she had ever imagined a kiss could. Her hands gripped his shoulder blades and her fingers dug craters into his skin. She was petrified if she let go she’d drown in a tsunami of regret.  His tongue, lips, teeth doled out pleasure and pain in equal helpings. The bites and licks, a drug ripping through her bloodstream, pricked sensation into the numbness she wore like armor. His lips softer than she imagined, his body harder, forged from metal like a soldier.

She pulled him to the floor, craving every inch in contact.  Calves, knees, thighs, hips stomach, and chest all pressed together.  Lips were locked, groins grinding.  It wasn’t enough for either of them.  They ripped at each other’s clothes, desperate for the feel of human skin.

Teeth bared, Erik nipped down her throat, collarbone and mounds until he found a nipple and drew it, hard.  Her core spasmed. Liquid heat splattered her panties. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her hand unzipped his pants and found her target.  Smooth and hard like a cannon, she pumped it from base to stem, pulling the skin over the crest with each stroke. She wanted his groans, loud and needy, to drown out the anguish hammering her chest.  He gave them to her, fierce and low, like an animal warning its prey. 

Without warning, he took control, wrestled her shorts off and thrust inside her.  He pummeled her with a hard, driving rhythm, rough enough to frighten the ghosts away.  She banged back and demanded more. They pushed at the boundaries of lust, pleasure a weapon to whack back the grief that refused to be contained.  To touch life when the stink of death was all around them. To touch another—a need so primal, so driving neither could deny it.  The silence of the lab filled with female moans and male grunts and the steady bang of skin against skin.   

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