Wednesday, January 27, 2021

An Excerpt from my new Box Set, Unmasked

 

Changeling Press has collected a box set of my sexy superhero stories. Several of these have been out of print for years now with other publishers, and one of them was never published at all, so we've collected them all and released them in this nifty box set. Here's an excerpt from the first of them, "Hero Sandwich." 

Hero Sandwich: When Meg Jennings finds herself at the mercy of a pair of kinky heroes, she discovers keeping a wicked secret can be good, dirty fun.

Voodoo: Voodoo is tired of waiting for Lynx. Time to show him everything she can do with her psychic superpowers.

Taming Jack: Lark Anderson is determined to save Deputy Jack Ramsey -- even if it means accepting an inhuman invader.

Natasha and the Android: When Natasha is kidnapped by an android supervillain who wants to find out why humans are so obsessed with sex, she realizes the dark side has a lot more going for it than she thought.

Masks & Mistletoe: From rescuing a ten-year-old from an evil Santa to celebrating a BDSM Christmas, superheroes Lock and Ultra explore discipline, dominance and the kinky way…

Warning: Includes forced seduction and adult kink themes that some readers may find objectionable.

Publisher’s Note: Unmasked (Box Set) contains the previously published novellas Hero Sandwich, Voodoo, Taming Jack, Natasha and the Android, and Masks & Mistletoe.

Buy Links:

Changeling Press       Amazon    Apple Books    Barnes and Noble    Kobo


Cougar had chosen his vantage point carefully, right on the edge of the rooftop. He figured he’d be silhouetted against the streetlights below.


Easy for anybody flying overhead to spot.

“Think she’ll show?” Lynx asked. The communications unit in Cougar’s mask was so good, it sounded as if his brother was whispering right in his ear.

“Tonight?” Cougar shrugged. “Who knows? Eventually? Yeah, eventually.”

Lynx grunted. “Hope she doesn’t take too long. We’ve got more important things to do.”

“Patience, Grasshopper. She’s had this coming for a while. And I mean to make sure she gets it.”

There was no sound for a moment except the roar of traffic from below. A jet screamed by overhead. Finally, Lynx asked, “Isn’t that a little extreme? I mean, it’s not like she’s Nightwolf. She’s just a photographer.”

“What, you enjoy being a joke on Leno?” The photo in the New York Daily Journal had been taken immediately after last night’s brawl with Battle Ax. Unfortunately, the brotherly arm

Cougar had thrown around Lynx’s shoulders had looked like something entirely different to people who’d been speculating about their sexual preferences for years. Everybody from Jon Stewart to Conan O’Brien had riffed on it.

In the shadows of the building’s rooftop elevator, Lynx shifted his weight, boots scraping on the cement roof. Cougar’s animal-acute hearing picked up the sound clearly. “People have been making those jokes since we started out. Like you always say, that’s what happens when you run around in leather. Paparazzi was only doing her job.”

“That’s not what you said when Jay said we make a cute couple.”

“I was ticked. Look, Cougar, pissing us off isn’t against the law, so we can’t take her to jail. What the hell are we going to do with her once we do catch her?”

Cougar smiled slowly. “I’ll think of something.”


* * *

Years of experience had taught Meg the perfect flying height if she wanted to spot supers in action. Even so, sometimes she circled the city for hours without seeing anything worth shooting.

 

It was the luck of the…

What was that?

She braked into a hover, attention caught by a human shape standing on a rooftop, silhouetted against the lights. The guy was so broad-shouldered he just had to be super-powered. Meg shot down for an invisible fly-by.

He stood with one leg bent, bracing a boot against the low rooftop wall. Soft brown leather armor emphasized his narrow waist and the contrasting width of powerful shoulders. A leather helmet in the shape of a cat’s head covered his face. The cat’s roaring jaws framed his lower face and the grim line of his mouth. She’d always found that mouth perversely sexy.

Cougar.

Meg’s heart began to pound as her instinct to run like hell battled her need for a closer look. New York’s premier hero had fascinated her since she was a scared fifteen-year-old watching him

battle her father. Every time Gerald had reeled under one of those powerful punches, guilt, terror, and hope had warred in her soul. Secretly, she’d dreamed Cougar would rescue her.

And in the end, he’d done just that.

Meg was twenty-three now, and Cougar still starred in her fantasies, though her dreams had taken a distinctly adult turn these days. He was just so… male, so dominant, so hard-edged and grimly handsome. You just knew he’d be the type to go for handcuffs and kinky sex.

She’d even told Richard about those fantasies one night after three glasses of really good champagne. Richard being Richard, he’d offered to rent a costume, but she hadn’t been quite that drunk.

Now there he stood in the flesh. Cougar. All by himself. Not fighting anybody. She could actually get close and just look at him, instead of snapping a shot and fleeing for her life.

Meg drifted down to hover ten feet away. Taking her time, she floated closer, slow enough to avoid creating a rush of air that would betray her to Cougar’s hyper-human senses. He didn’t seem aware of her presence. He just stared down at the street below as though watching something, still as a hunting cat.

Damn, he was big. Had to be six-four at least. Meg was willing to bet his armor wasn’t padded, either. It exposed his arms from shoulders down to the beginning of his clawed gauntlets, and those biceps were mouth-watering. Eyeing the elegant curve of hard, tanned skin, Meg imagined what he’d look like naked, all that glorious brawn on display. His body must be as delicious as Richard’s.

Except Cougar was a good guy. She wasn’t so sure about Richard.


* * *

She was right in front of him. He could smell her. The hint of jasmine in her floral shampoo blended with the rich, complex scent of woman.

Aroused woman.

But good as his feline senses were, Cougar couldn’t see her. She was completely invisible.

Wait for it, he told himself. Let her get closer. He had only one shot at this. If he blew it, she’d make damn sure he never got close again. And he wanted to get very, very close. It was a good thing he wore armor over his groin, or she’d have seen his hungry erection.

Cougar spared a thought for Lynx, ready to pounce from the shadows. They hadn’t dreamed she’d be brazen enough to approach him head-on. He doubted his brother was even aware she was here. The serum they’d taken as teenagers had given Lynx speed and agility instead of acute senses and super-strength.

Cougar breathed in slowly. The light breeze brought more of that wonderful female scent, as though she was coming closer, flying right up to the edge of the roof he stood on.

Wait for it.

* * *

Meg wondered what color his eyes were behind his mask’s opaque eye slits. The only thing she could really see of him was the lower half of his face.

She’d always thought Cougar had a grim, hard mouth, but now she realized his upper lip had a deliciously sensual curve, while the lower pouted ever so slightly. God, she wanted to kiss him.

Why not?

Why not just zip in, steal a kiss, and zoom off before he could grab her? He’d never know who it was. Hell, he might not even be sure what happened.

Her heart thudded an eager adrenalin beat. It was so risky. If he got those big hands on her…

She’d love it.

No, Meg, you would not, she told herself sternly. You’d go to jail.


Well, probably not. It wasn’t against the law to steal a kiss, and he didn’t know she’d been Sneak Thief. Where was the harm? Besides, Cougar might be big and strong, but speed was Lynx’s talent. She was pretty sure she could fly off before he could catch her.

Meg floated closer. One inch. Two. Sloooowly. Holding her breath. She could smell him now, leather and man. His armor was exquisitely made in contrasting shades of warm brown, trimmed in metallic gold. It looked faintly Roman and extremely butch, unlike the spandex many heroes wore. She’d seen it stop bullets, so it had to be made of something more than just leather.

Her gaze focused on his seductive mouth. She licked her lips. Her heartbeat thundered. She was close enough now to reach out and kiss him. Tensing, ready to fly, Meg leaned forward the few inches she’d need to make contact with those velvet lips…

Powerful arms snapped around her like the jaws of a trap springing shut. She slammed against Cougar’s chest so hard the breath left her in a stunned whoof.

As Meg gasped, a white grin spread across the mouth she’d wanted so badly to taste. “You’ve been a bad, bad girl, Paparazzi.”


Thanks so much for reading! I hope you'll check it out!

Buy Links:

Changeling Press       Amazon    Apple Books    Barnes and Noble    Kobo

 

Designing the Perfect Romance Cast

I'm teaching a new class beginning Feb. 1, 2021, so I thought I'd share a sample in case other writers would like to sign up. I've been teaching online classes for fifteen years or so now, but this one is brand new, so it's completely new material. I'm really excited about it. 

 You can sign up here. Here are some reviews of my classes.

Designing the Perfect Romance Cast

By Angela Knight

 

I want to thank you for taking my class on designing the perfect romance cast. It’s my objective with this class to give you the tools that can help you become a successful romance writer. The first step is to understand what romance readers are looking for — which is the key to becoming an autobuy.

As someone who made the New York Times list a few times, I’ve given this some thought.

Success for a romance novelist isn't a matter of poetic descriptions of sunsets, great costumes, witty dialogue, pulse-pounding fight scenes, or even toe-curling sex. What matters to romance readers is the answer to one question: “will these two people get their Happy-Ever-After?” The HEA needs to be seriously in doubt all the way through the book. The deck has to be stacked against the couple from page one.

Maybe he's a demon hunter and his seductive lover is a demon. Maybe he’s a widower Earl with four kids and not enough of the ready to maintain his estate, and she’s his penniless governess.

But the problem that ultimately drives the book can't be some purely external problem like money or social status. After all, people married their governesses all the time, so there must be more to it than that.

The real problem must come from inside the characters — their fears and emotional scars. Maybe the demon believes that despite everything good he does to win the hero's love, he's basically evil, and he can literally never be good enough. His hero knows demons are born deceivers who can never really be trusted.

Perhaps the governess heroine has been sexually harassed by prior employers, and trust doesn't come easily for her. Maybe her Earl has been played by social climbers before.

Those are the kinds of problems that make readers wonder how in the world you're going to get to Happily Ever After.

Luckily, your protagonists have a fabulous matchmaker on their side: the villain.

You read that right. More than any matchmaking Regency mama, a good villain is a romance author’s best friend. Every time your protagonists are ready to throw in the towel on their love, your antagonist does something nasty that drives them back together.

That doesn't mean the antagonist has to be out to destroy the world with a snap of his fingers. He can be your hero's deeply religious father, upset that his gay son is "going to hell." Daddy may try various well-meaning thing to make his son see the light. Things which, of course, backfire. Maybe he gets the hero fired, forcing him to move in with the secondary hero to save money.

Or if things are going well between the couple, Daddy can also do things to break the couple up. It all depends on where you are in the plot. The whole idea is to keep the reader wondering, "There’s no way they’re getting a Happy Ever After given this mess."

And it’s not just the antagonist, either. Every character, from protagonist to walk-on, must serve one of four purposes in every scene in your book:

1.      Increase the stress on the romance by posing either a physical or psychological threat to the relationship.

2.      Make one of the two protagonists more sympathetic through their interaction with them. That can be as dramatic as the protagonist saving the character, or as subtle as the protagonist's showing kindness or affection toward them. (We care about people who care about people.)

3.      Make the protagonist seem more realistic. It's hard to get worked up about the fate of cardboard people. If the character has no parents, boss, friends, or coworkers, the protagonist doesn't seem as real.

Even if the parents are dead, they must at least be mentioned. This is true even in a short story where space is at a premium. The mention of them doesn't have to be detailed, but you need at least a sentence or two about them.

4.      The character can act as a sounding board for the protagonist. Long periods of protagonist introspection are boring. If the protagonist argues their options with their best friend, it a lot more interesting. Especially if said friend thinks the protagonist's plan is nuts and they're going to end up dead.

 

In the next month, I'll elaborate on these ideas in lessons I'll post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, you're invited to send me up to 2000 words in a Word file from your current work in progress. That can be scenes, raw ideas, or ideas that you're toying with. I'll give you my feedback in comments in the document. Email it to me and I'll respond privately.

Lessons will include:

1.      Introduction – How a good romance cast functions as a unit.

2.      What’s the big idea? – What kind of story do you want to tell? How do you make sure it would make a good book? Is it novel or novella, and how can you tell?

3.      From Rom-coms to Game of Thrones: What’s the subgenre for this kind of book, and why does it matter? What’s the audience for that subgenre, and what are they looking for?

4.      Brave New Worlds – Designing the story world, even a contemporary.

5.      Imperfect for Each Other -- Creating a heroic couple who’ll drive each other crazy… in and out of bed.

6.      A Match Made in Hell – Creating an antagonist to make your couple’s lives miserable … and keep readers up all night turning pages.

7.      Sidekicks – Supporting characters who bring your protagonists to life and make them question what the hell they’re doing.

8.      Henchmen – The importance of a good flunky with bad intentions.

9.      Perfect Pitch – How to give each character a realistic “voice.”

10.   Snark, Sarcasm and malice – Using humor to make readers laugh … or scare the daylights out of them.

11.  A Good Row – Writing a knock-down-drag-argument without making your characters sound like jerks.

12.  All Together Now – How to put everybody through their paces on the page.

 

I'm really looking forward to this class. I always learn a lot from teaching, and I find it helps my own writing. I hope it will help yours too.

Now, are there any questions?

Angela Knight