An Excerpt from Forever Kiss

 

Dear Reader:

Forever Kiss was my first novel, though it was the second published. I wrote it all the way back in 2002, so the original version is full of all kinds of dated references.

 So when Changeling Press decided to release a new version of the book, I started updating it and cleaning it up. That meant things like MAC-10s became AR-15s, which in turn meant I had to change the wounds a mercenary's weapon inflicted. If the character had been shot that many times with an AR-15, he'd have much bigger holes in him. 

I also created a new cover and added new scenes, along with heating up some love scenes and punching up dialogue.

Please note that the universe of Forever Kiss is different than the Magerverse. Vampirism is a virus in the Kiss universe instead of  having magical origins, so women can become vampires. 

Here's a little taste...

Blurb: For years, Valerie Chase has been haunted by dreams of a man she knows only as Cowboy. When she was a child, her fantasy Texas Ranger rescued her from the nightmare vampires who murdered her parents. As an adult, she still dreams of him, but now he’s her seductive lover in nights of erotic pleasure. Yet Cowboy is far more than a dream. He’s very real. And he’s a vampire.

For years, Cade McKinnon has protected Valerie from Edward Ridgemont, the sadistic vampire who Turned him. But now, Ridgemont is determined to take her for his own, and Cade is the only one who can protect her. And he means to do just that, even if he must kidnap her to do it.

When Val finds herself abducted by her handsome dream man, she’s horrified to discover he’s one of the vampires she fears. Now, caught in a web of fear and passion, she and Cade must learn to trust each other, even as an immortal monster stalks their every move. Their only hope of survival is the Forever Kiss.

* * *

Val catapulted off the bed expecting to feel Cowboy’s fangs tear into her skin. Her ears still rang with the echo of her own screams. Racing for the bedroom door, she threw it open and flew out into the hall.

Hands clamped around her shoulders. She yelped and swung a wild fist.

“Hey, watch it!”

The cry yanked Val from the dream’s grip. Her eyes focused to find Beth staring at her, dark hair tumbling around her shoulders, fright and annoyance mingling on her young face. “You’re asleep, dammit,” her sister said, giving her shoulders a little shake. “Wake up!”

A dream. It had been a dream. “Cowboy was going to bite me.”

Beth rolled her eyes like the teenager she was. “So what else is new? And since when do you mind?”

Val sagged against the hallway wall as her terror drained away, leaving behind weak knees and a brassy taste in her mouth. “He was a vampire.”

“Oh, babe.” Beth reached out to scoop a lock of hair out of Val’s eyes. “You must be freaked, if you’re seeing Cowboy as monster material. Come on, sweetie, let’s fix some chocolate. I think we need to talk.”

* * *

Cade McKinnon jolted awake, frustrated fists gripping the sheets. The head of his erection brushed his flat belly, and his fangs ached. The room would have appeared pitch-black to human eyes, but his vampire vision easily made out the empty elegance of Ridgemont’s mansion, the polished mahogany and expensive crystal.

Valerie was gone. Not that she’d ever been there to begin with.

And he’d terrified her, dammit. Their last time together shouldn’t have ended in fear, but he’d lost control of both the Hunger and the dream.

Reaching for Valerie’s mind without feeding first had been a mistake, but he’d had to see her, touch her, one final time. Knowing he’d never have another chance, he’d wanted to capture as much of her as he could. Silken skin, long, muscled legs, velvet pink nipples, the dizzying musk of her scent, the hot, salty feast between her thighs.

With a groan of frustrated hunger, Cade rolled onto his belly. Once, twice, again, he ground his hips into the tangled linen sheets, imagining her tight and slick around him. Throwing back his head, he came with a growl, his fingers clamping the soft fabric of the pillow.

Heart pounding, he collapsed, the taste of bitterness and loss in his mouth. Finally, he shook off the depression and rolled out of bed.

It was time to get ready for the last night of his life.

* * *

“He doesn’t even exist,” Val said, hands still shaking faintly as she sliced slivers from a chocolate bar into a saucepan of milk. She and Beth stood in the apartment’s wonderfully normal kitchen with its cheery strawberry wallpaper and cream counter tops. Unfortunately, her vibrating instincts kept insisting Cowboy was somewhere just out of sight, all sex and fangs and menace. She breathed in, trying to settle her jangling nerves with the scent of chocolate and simmering milk. “He’s just the world’s longest running dream. Hell, I lost my job this week -- I have real stuff to be upset about. Why do I feel so damn betrayed?”

“Well, for one thing, your own personal knight in shining armor is not supposed to turn on you.” Beth perched on the counter next to the stove, swinging her tanned legs as she watched the cocoa preparations. “Anyway, I’ll bet you had the nightmare because of the job.”

“Maybe.” Stirring the chocolate, Val studied her sister. Beth was a tall girl, barely eighteen, her elfin face dominated by perceptive brown eyes. A loose red shirt skimmed down her rangy, athletic body to the tops of her thighs. Like almost everything else she owned, the shirt was smudged with oil paint -- peaches, browns, ochers, blues. Matching smears marked her fingers and the bridge of her slim nose. “Working late again?” Val asked. “You getting enough sleep?”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mother, I’m getting enough sleep. I’ve just got to finish Tommy Wilson’s portrait. I promised Mr. Wilson I’d have it by Mother’s Day, and I’m close to deadline.”

“Well, don’t push too hard while I’m gone.” Val bit her lip, worrying once again whether she was doing the right thing in leaving Beth at home while she went to New York. Taping the interviews for Edward Ridgemont’s memoirs would take a good three weeks. That was a long time to leave the kid alone.

Still, Beth was eighteen. She’d be going off to college soon. Too, Val had never met her new employer. Ridgemont looked clean on paper, but she wanted to get to know him before exposing Beth to his influence.

Frowning, Val dug her fingers into the muscles she could feel contracting into knots in the base of her neck. She’d been making decisions about her sister’s welfare since their grandmother died seven years ago, but the process hadn’t grown any easier. Not that Grandma had been all that involved with Beth’s upbringing even before she died. The nearest bottle had always held far more fascination for her than her murdered son’s children.

“Have Cowboy dreams ever gone bad before?” Beth asked.

She lifted a brow. “You changing the subject?”

“Yes. I’m not going to New York, Val. I’ve got that portrait and a portfolio to finish. So -- Cowboy?”

“No.” She looked down into the melting chocolate slivers swirling around her spoon. “God knows I’ve had plenty of nightmares about vampires, but he’s always been the one saving me in them.”

According to a slew of child psychologists, Val had created Cowboy to protect her from her parents’ murderers -- the killers who became fanged monsters in night terrors she’d been having since age twelve. Yet tonight he’d tried to feed on her himself. She wondered what buzzwords the shrinks would have used for that little twist.

Logically Val knew there was no such things as vampires, any more than Cowboy himself existed. But logic didn’t keep her hands from shaking at the thought of those sharp white teeth. “He. Is. Not. Real,” she gritted, more to herself than her sister.

“Maybe not, but you’ve had him so long, he might as well be.” Beth propped her chin on her fist and smiled slightly. “When I was little, I thought he was real, just from listening to you talk about those dreams.”

“You weren’t alone. I believed in him half the time myself.” Sometimes she still did. Especially when she was impaled on that massive cock. Which definitely wasn’t a thought she had any intention of sharing.

“I was so jealous.” Beth shook her head. “I wanted Cowboy to visit my dreams too.”

“You wouldn’t have wanted him there tonight.” Remembering the seductive tenderness of those big hands, she suppressed a feline smile. Well, maybe at the beginning…

Her sister’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, right. I see you fighting that grin.”

“Let’s just say his role in my dreams has --” the smile broke free “-- expanded over the years.”

“By a good six inches, I’ll bet.”

“Beth!” Val tried to fake outrage only to break into a wicked grin. “And it’s closer to eight.”

“Ha! Knew it!”

Forever Kiss will be out in late July. I hope you'll check it out!

Angela Knight