Passion for the Game (Georgian 2)

“That would take years.” Mitchell ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know that I can bear it.”

“Give yourselves time to mature. Allow her to see what she has missed all of these years. Then, if she will have you anyway, you will know that she is making the decision with a woman’s heart, and not a child’s.”

For a long moment, the young man remained motionless, the weight of his indecision a tangible thing.

“Try it,” Simon urged. “What harm can come from the effort?”

Finally, Mitchell heaved out his breath and sank into the seat opposite the desk. “I’m listening.”

“Excellent!” Simon leaned back in his chair. “Now here are my thoughts…”

Please turn the page for a look at

Shelly Laurenston’s sizzling story,

“My Kind of Town”

in the SUN, SAND, SEX anthology

available now from Brava!

“There’s blood everywhere.”

Kyle Treharne leaned into the passenger side of the overturned car, the driver’s side so badly damaged no one could get through the crumpled metal to extract themselves. Not even the female whose fear he could smell. Her fear and panic…and something else. Something he couldn’t quite name.

“Do you see anybody?” his boss asked. Kyle readjusted the earplug to hear the man better. The Sheriff’s voice was so low, it was often hard to make out exactly what he’d said.

“Nope. I don’t see anyone. No bodies, but…” He sniffed the air and looked down. “Blood trail.”

“Follow it. Let me know what you find. I’ll send out the EMS guys.”

“You got it.” Kyle disconnected and followed the trail of blood heading straight toward the beach. He moved fast, worried the woman might be bleeding to death, but also concerned this human female would see something he’d never be able to explain.

Kyle pushed through the trees until he hit the beach. As he’d hoped, none of the townspeople or resort visitors were hanging around, the beach thankfully deserted in the middle of this hot August day. He followed the blood cutting in a small arc across the sand, the trail leading back into the woods about twenty feet from where he’d entered.

He’d barely gone five feet when a bright flash of light and the missing woman’s scent hit him hard, seconds before she hit him hard. He should have been faster. Normally, he would be. The scent of hers, though, threw him completely off balance and he couldn’t snap out of it quick enough to avoid the woman slamming right into him.

Her body hit his so hard that if he were completely human, she might have killed him.

But Kyle wasn’t human. He’d been born different like nearly everyone else in his small town. They may not all be the same breed, but they were all the same kind.

Still, his less than human nature didn’t mean he didn’t experience pain. At the moment, he felt lots and lots of pain as he landed flat on his back, the woman on top of him.

Yet the pain faded away when the woman moved, her small body brushing against him. She moaned and Kyle reached around to gently grip her shoulders.

“Hey darlin’. You all right?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she slapped her hand over his face, squashing his nose. Putting all her weight on that hand, she pushed herself up.

Between her fingers, he could see the confusion in her eyes as she looked around. Blood from a deep gash on her forehead matted her dark brown hair and covered part of her face. Bloodshot, slightly almond-shaped brown eyes searched the area. For what, Kyle had no idea. A cut slashed across her top lip and although it no longer bled, it had started to turn the area around it black and blue.

Damn, little girl is cute.

“Uh…” He tapped her arm. “Could you move your hand, sweetheart?” And the question came out like he had the worst cold in the universe. “I can’t really breathe.”

She didn’t even look at him, instead staring off into the forest. “Dammit. It’s gone.” Putting more pressure on his poor nose, the woman levered herself up and off him. “Damn. Damn. Damn.” She stumbled toward the forest and Kyle quickly got to his feet. “This isn’t my fault. It’s not.” Poor thing, completely delirious from all that blood loss and muttering to herself like a mental patient.

Then she stopped walking. Abruptly. Almost as if she’d walked into a wall. “Damn,” she said again.

Knowing he had to get her to the hospital before she died on him, Kyle put his hand on her shoulder, gently turning her so she could see him. “It’s all right, darlin’. Let’s get you out of here, okay?” He slipped one arm behind her back and the other under her knees, scooping her up in his arms.

Hmmm. She feels nice there.

Kyle smiled down at her and, for a moment, she looked at him in complete confusion.

Then the crazy woman started swinging and kicking, trying to get out of his arms. Although she had no skills—she did little more than flail wildly—he couldn’t believe her strength with all the blood she’d lost, but he quickly realized someone else had caught on to her scent, too, and was heading right for them.

Kyle gripped the fighting woman around the waist, dragging her back against him with one arm. Ignoring how much her tiny fists and feet were starting to hurt, he turned his body so she faced in the opposite direction and with his free hand, swung up and back, slamming the back of his fist into the muzzle of the black striped and orange Yankee bastard hellbent on getting his tiger paws on the woman in Kyle’s arms. Tiger males only had to get a whiff of a female and they were on them like white on rice. The fact that this one was fully human and an outsider didn’t seem to matter to some idiots.

A surprised yelp and the Yankee cat flipped back into the woods. Kyle rolled his eyes. He loved his town but, Lord knew, he didn’t like the Yankees who often came to call. All of them rude, pretentious, and damn annoying.

Kyle walked off with the woman still trapped in his arm until she started slapping at him.

“Hands off! Hands off! Let me go!” After all that blood loss, she seemed completely lucid and quite insane.

Even worse…he’d recognize that accent anywhere. A Yankee. A damn Yankee.

Kyle dropped her on her cute butt and she slammed hard into the sand.

After a moment of stunned silence, she suddenly glared up at him with those big brown eyes…and just like that, Kyle Treharne knew he was in the biggest trouble of his life.

No, no. That was not a normal-sized human being. Not by a long shot. Her coven had warned her, “They grow ’em big in the south, sweetie,” but she had no idea they grew this big.

Nor this gorgeous. She’d never seen hair that black before. Not brown. Black. But when the sunlight hit it in the right way, she could see other colors under the black. Light shades of red and yellow and brown. Then there were his eyes. Light, light, gold eyes flickered over her face, taking in every detail. His nose, blunt at the tip; his lips full and quite lickable.

“You gonna calm down now, darlin’? Or should I drop you on that pretty ass again?”

Emma Luchessi—worshipper of the Dark Mothers, power elemental of the Coven of the Darkest Night, ninth-level Master of the dream realm, and Long Island accountant for the law offices of Bruce, MacArthur, and Markowitz—didn’t know what to say to that. What to say to him. Mostly because she couldn’t stop staring at the man standing over her.

Take a peek at Amy Garvey’s

ROOM SERVICE

available now from Brava!

No one appreciated tradition, she thought with a spark of mutiny as she stepped backward toward the curb. Her gaze was trained on the hotel, counting floors and picking out the windows of the suite where she had grown up. Everyone wanted everything to change, all the time. Newer, improved, bigger, better. It was absurd. Some things deserved to stay just the way they were. And Callender House was one of them. Her father had entrusted her with it, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

It was a little disconcerting that she couldn’t pick out the old suite’s windows automatically, however. Once upon a time, she’d been able to do it in her sleep—she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life there, after all. She took another step backward, craning her neck as she counted up each floor, then over five windows—or was it six? The perspective was a little different now that she was taller.

She stepped backward again, squinting now, trying to remember—until a pair of very strong hands thrust her forward and a cab blared its horn.

She was still stumbling for balance when she heard something else hit the pavement with a wet splat, and then an irritable, “Oh, bloody hell.”

Uh-oh.

She grabbed a parking meter to right herself, and turned around to find a cabbie giving her a one-fingered salute as he drove off—and a rock star covered with what looked like a mocha latte, an exploded suitcase, and a dropped backpack at his feet. The sidewalk was littered with jeans and T-shirts.

He looked like a rock star, at least. First there were the faded jeans and what appeared to Olivia like motorcycle boots, black leather that had seen better days and plenty of wear. Then the layered shirts, a long-sleeved gray one under a short-sleeved dark blue one with Mick Jagger’s luscious pout on the front. Finally there was his hair, dark and shaggy around his face—and splattered with creamy white foam, just like his visage. And the white snakes of his iPod, which he pulled from his ears and shook over the sidewalk, spraying foam and coffee.