Today, July 21st--also my 30th wedding anniversary -- I'm participating in Joey Hill's Facebook Launch Party. I'm giving away two copies of the Advance Reader Copy of my September, 2014 book LOVE BITES. You'll find the Launch Party and instructions on how to win the book by answering a question about the excerpt here:And here's the excerpt from the novel-length story OATH OF SERVICE...In this scene, Morgana has her first erotic encounter with Sir Percival, Knight of the Round Table. Note that the book is a romantic contemporary paranormal with a lot of BDSM; this is a flashback.
Camelot, 545 C.E.
Morgana paused outside the room that belonged to Sir Percival and paused, swallowing nervously. Percival had defeated three other warriors the day before for the right to drink from Merlin’s Grail.
That one sip of the magical potion knocked him unconscious while it transformed his body, making him into an immortal blood drinker.
After a full day out cold, Percival had regained consciousness. Now he’d need to feed for the first time. The problem was that when the Magi first woke from the Grail Sleep, their starving brains were barely capable of speech, much less complex thought.
But they were more than capable of sex and seduction.
Nimue had warned Morgana that Percival might not recognize her at all, but he would want to drink from her, as well as satisfy the considerable sexual arousal that was a side effect of Merlin’s spell.
The idea of experiencing Percival’s passion didn’t strike Morgana as particularly frightening. Though she didn’t know the big blond knight well, she’d always found him handsome and intriguing. She was more than happy to fulfill any needs he had.
Morgana unlocked his chamber door with a flick of her will and moved inside. It was dark in the small room. She gestured, sending a wave of magic to light the lamp that hung from a chain by the bed. She smiled with pleasure at the easy way the power had leaped to her command.
Powerful hands seized her, snatched her off her feet. She hit a hard, muscled body with a startled, breathless woof! Instinct almost had her hitting her attacker with a fireball.
Then she looked up. Her eyes widened as she realized Percival was naked.
Very, very naked.
Tall, handsome, his bare chest broad, powerful and furred in gold, his strong shoulders surrounded by a disordered fall of blond hair. Her gaze tracked down the length of his torso to his erection. She blinked at the sight of it—the long, thick shaft with its ruddy head, the balls furred in blond curls. “Oh,” she said in a hoarse voice. She cleared her throat. “My.”
“Want you.” His voice sounded impossibly deep and hot. And incredibly sexy. “Now.”
Morgana licked her dry lips and swallowed as she glanced up, meeting Percival’s pale gray eyes in the dim light. He studied her with dominance and demand in his gaze. “Need you,” he growled. “Taking you.”
Reaching out, he closed his big hands around her upper arms, picked her up as if she weighed no more than a housecat, and dragged her body against hers . His voice rumbled, low and deep, a sound she felt in her chest as much as heard. “Taking you now.”
He dropped her to the bed in a rustle of dried grass mattress. Then he was on top of her, his hands grabbing the cord belt that bound her tunic closed. Stripping it off and tossing it aside, he jerked the tunic off over her head.
Percival rocked back, staring down at her nudity, his gaze glittering on the tight peaks of her nipples. Then his head shot forward as his hands gripped her breasts, plumping the soft flesh.
His fangs bit deep into the soft flesh on either side of her nipple.
Morgana convulsed in shock at the stabbing pain, a strangled cry of pain and protest tearing from her mouth. She shoved at his powerful shoulders, only to find there was absolutely no way she could budge his muscled weight as he pinned her to the bed. She bucked, fighting to free herself, but he ignored her, suckling the nipple hard, drinking in deep swallows, his tongue swirling and stroking, drawing delightful patterns over and around the hard little nubbin.
Until the pain began to fade, drowned out by the pleasure he created with each drawing tug.
Morgana gasped, her eyes sliding closed. It made no sense at all, yet somehow the sting of his teeth intensified the pleasure of his skillful manipulation of her nipple. She’d never experienced such an effect before, but it was too strong to be denied.
Too strong. Too dark. Too delicious. Too much.
Morgana writhed as the sheer wicked pleasure of the moment sent her body’s arousal leaping higher and hotter. Her desire went on growing as he continued to feed, taking the blood his newly transformed body needed. “Horned God, Percival!” she gasped in his ear, her hips rolling helplessly against his, seeking stimulation from his thick cock-stand. Her nails dug into his muscled arse, trying to pull him closer so she could grind her clit against his sword-hard shaft.
Until at last he dragged his fangs from her breast with a low growl of lust, moved up between her thighs, and speared his cock deep in one ruthless thrust. Morgana cried out in arousal and delight as he filled her, his cock seeming to extend well-past her navel. “Perrrrrrcivaaaaaal!”
He growled back at her, the sound rough and animal more than human. Lunging hard, stroking deep, he fucked her with such force their bodies jolted together with loud slaps. So hard it should have hurt, probably would have hurt if he hadn’t aroused her so savagely, so quickly. Her pleasure grew and grew, spiraling in a searing corkscrew that seemed to glow behind her closed lids.
Bucking and screaming, Morgana came as he roared in her ear, the sound of his completion almost deafening. It went on and on, longer than any climax she’d ever had, fierce and sweet and merciless.
At last she collapsed back onto the bed, sweating, breathing with heaving effort, her heart beating so hard, it made her breasts bounce and judder.
Percival panted just as hard as he held her close. Until finally he stirred against her and drew back. The gray eyes that met hers held a man’s intelligence now as they probed hers.
Queen Guinevere had told her that once the Magus had taken enough blood on waking, his mind would return to normal. It seemed she’d been right.
Now his gaze searched hers, narrow, fierce with sheer dominant demand. “You’re mine now. You hear me, Morgana? Mine!”
Her heart seemed to simply…stop.
Morgana had never considered herself a weak-willed person. She was too stubborn to be easily led. But now, as she looked up into Percival’s fierce, handsome face, felt the hard strength of those massive arms, she realized she wanted to be his. Wanted to belong to him, as she’d never belonged to anyone before.
His mouth came down on hers in a hungry kiss that demanded her utter surrender. She melted against him with a soft moan.
But as he kissed her, drawing her tight in a hard demand for her surrender, fear rose in the back of her mind. An icy shaft of it, stabbing through her heat.
Yes, he wanted her now. But what happened when he didn’t want her any longer? And that day would come. Everyone she’d ever loved had turned on her. Her mother had. Her son had.
What happened when Percival did too? She remembered the fury she’d felt when Mordred had threatened and struck her.
If she’d had the power then that she’d had now, what would she have done to her son in the grip of that dark rage?
What would she do to Percival?
“No!” The word emerged as a strangled scream. “Get off me! Get away from me!” A flick of her magic picked Percival up and threw him against the wall of his chamber with stunning force.
She heard his shout of rage and pain as he tumbled to the floor, but she was already rolling off the bed and running for the door. Jerking it open, she snapped over her shoulder, “Stay the hell away from me, Percival!”