Driven to Distraction
You know the
feeling.
You spot someone,
a certain special someone, maybe for the first time. Everything changes. The
world tilts on its axis. Stars seem to collide. Your blood pressure skyrockets.
You might feel palpitations and are sure you might die.
And yet
everything seems to make sense at the same time.
That, my friends,
is love at first sight. Or, at least in my books, being driven to distraction.
This happens to
my characters a lot, and the hero/heroine in Predator’s Serenade, my new release, are no exception.
My hero Soren
Snow is a playboy, a famous rock star shifter who has always gotten what he
wants from women. Until the day he spies a petite, curvy mom of a shifter boy.
And because she knows his reputation, she wants nothing to do with him.
Gioia Clementine
has enough to think about without having to worry about the tall, blond sex god
who happens to be her drummer son’s rock idol. And yet meeting Soren in the
flesh results in spontaneous sexual combustion.
From that moment
on, my characters can’t quite seem to breathe properly unless they’re in the
same room. They can’t function, can’t see for wanting each other so much. Soren
tries to distract himself with a bottle of cold beer, tries to slake his
thirst, and the bottle seems to morph into Gioia’s curvaceous form. Gioia tries
desperately to look away from Soren, but her gaze is drawn to him as if by
magic.
Fate, you say?
In the shifter
world, this sense of being driven to distraction is a palpable emotion that
threatens to devastate. Not being with one’s mate can destroy a shifter. We
watch these hapless beings, who’d been so sure of themselves, fall from their
exalted, almost cocky heights.
And it’s so
delicious watching them fall.
******
There are three things that make bear shifter Soren Snow’s
skin crawl: mothers, their children, and the great outdoors. Soren is a famed
musician and playboy, and he would rather spend his days pressing the flesh
with the women in his fan club than developing meaningful relationships. When
his brother calls in a favor, forcing Soren to revisit the Ursa Fishing Lodge
in Northern Ontario, he couldn’t be more displeased. However, he owes his
brother big time.
Gioia Clementine would rather not meet Soren, her drummer
son’s rock idol. But when tragedy strikes her home, it seems the only one the
boy might respond to is Soren. Gioia begrudgingly agrees to let her son meet
him, hoping the rock star won’t turn her tween into a musical misogynist.
When Gioia and Soren meet, the sexual chemistry threatens to
set the Ontario woodland ablaze. Can these two opposites find a common ground?
And can they manage to resolve their unwanted feelings, even when a mysterious
stranger arrives at the lodge, threatening everything?
Excerpt:
Gioia followed Soren's approach with a curious eye. She'd
wondered if the miracle kisser would beat a hasty retreat after witnessing her
boy fall to pieces, and yet here he was. He wore the same famished look he had
right before he'd ruined her for any other man's kiss. And she felt it too. The
tingles between her shoulder blade, the gelatin knees, and trembling lips that
wanted to gobble him up.
She couldn't. She didn't want to saddle him with such a
wreck of a woman or family.
He came right up to her, so close, as if making a mockery of
the space that sought to separate them. Weaving his fingers through her hair,
he cradled her skull and pulled her close. Tucking her head against his chest,
he kissed the top of her head, blazing a trail of hot reaction down her spine.
He had new clothes on and smelled fresh and clean. As she breathed him in, he
rained soft kisses all over her head.
He knows.
She pulled away, suddenly terrified he'd think she was a
travesty of a mother. It's what anyone would think in his case. They'd wonder
what Gioia had done wrong to create a monster child. But as she attempted to
remove herself from his grasp, Soren fought her by holding her still. Again she
tried jerking away from his wall of a chest. He held her firm.
When she tried two more times, each time unsuccessfully, he
looked at her and shouted, "Dammit, woman, I am not letting you go, so you
can stop pulling away from me!"
Something in Gioia broke. She'd been carrying her sadness
around for so long, trying to be strong, and Soren was offering to be strong
for her. For just a moment, maybe she could surrender. God only knew how badly
she wanted to give herself to the bear man.
He grabbed her tighter, and his hands slid down to mold over
her ass cheeks. His warm breath was all over her face, and she took a dizzying
dive into the seas of his eyes. He ground her against him, and she was forced
to stand on tip toes.
"Gioia," he whispered.
She wound her arms about his tense neck, felt him tense
further. Then … a sigh somewhere in his big frame and a relaxation in his
muscles. As if he needed to have her wound about him. As if it soothed him as
much as her.
"Soren. Please."
As he kissed her, he picked her up, his hands under her
bottom. Her miniskirt rode up, and she spared a second to mentally curse her
decision to wear it. And then she didn't care.
Kissing her madly, Soren spirited her into the woods.
To purchase Predator's Serenade:
Author bio:
Rosanna Leo is a multi-published, erotic romance author with
Liquid Silver Books. Her books include For the Love of a God, Up In Flames, and
Sweet Hell. When not writing, she can be found haunting dusty library stacks or
planning her next star-crossed love affair. She blogs at www.rosannaleo.blogspot.com
