A sensual fight to the death -- @skye_warren #ballet #eroticromance #giveaway

Blurb

Blood and sweat. Bethany Lewis danced her way out of poverty. She’s a world class athlete… with a debt to pay.

Joshua North always gets what he wants. And the mercenary wants Bethany in his bed. He wants her beautiful little body bent to his will.

She doesn’t surrender to his kiss.

He doesn’t back down from a challenge.

It’s going to be a sensual fight… to the death.

Excerpt

Blinding lights. Aching lungs. Thunderous applause. The final show concludes the same way we rehearsed for months, the same way we performed for weeks. My muscles know the movements better than they understand rest. The prospect of after, of what comes next, makes my breath catch. Even as the primas take their bows, relief echoes around the stage. Vacations are planned. Relief for strained muscles. Everyone needs a break, even professional athletes. I’m the only one onstage dreading it.

We bow and curtsy with practiced grace. The curtain descends to the floor. Almost to the second we break formation—a flock of crows startled from the woods. The more exuberant among us, the young ones, the new ones, the ones using steroids, prance and jeté toward the dressing rooms. Most of us limp our way out. One hundred percent of NFL players are injured every season. Professional dancing is the same. We hurl our bodies through the air, forcing massive impact through tired joints night after night. I catch my friend Marlena in my arms. Her face is white with pain.

“Ice,” she says. “Or better yet—tequila.”

I push my shoulder under hers as we exit the stage. “Don’t sell yourself short. You can have both.”

A delicate snort. “Not likely. We have to smile and flirt with the old men with big, fat wallets. And for what? I won’t be here next season. You won’t be, either.”

The reminder clangs inside me like a copper bell. I won’t be coming to the New York City Ballet after the break. We fall into our creaky chairs in the dressing room. “Are you going to miss it?”

“Miss it? Of course I’ll miss it.” Marlena turned twenty-eight last month. It’s comfortably retirement age for a dancer. “When the little children do their terrible pirouettes, when they sneeze and throw up and cry all over my leotard, I’ll think fondly of the beautiful art I left behind. Then I’ll be able to walk home. That won’t happen if I try to dance another season.”

“You’ll make a wonderful teacher. You know you were mine.” She didn’t teach me to dance. It was my first love, before I learned to flip and contort myself. Before I ever leapt from a trapeze bar.

Marlena taught me the ropes of the ballet company when I joined two years ago. Most of them thought I wouldn’t last a week. Some of them didn’t want me to. It’s a rigid world, the hierarchy stacked with graduates of Juilliard or the John Cranko school.

I don’t have a pedigree.

All I have is a body that does what it must, no matter how much it hurts.

Which means changing out of my sweaty leotard into a fresh one. We’re contractually obligated to attend the ball. Like Marlena said, we should smile and flirt with the high society people who attend. Both the male and female dancers have to do it. It’s what convinces the sponsors to write checks that will fund the next season. By the time they’re rehearsing The Nutcracker I’ll be in New Orleans, the place I swore I’d never return.

About the Author

Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of dangerous romance. Her books have sold over one million copies. She makes her home in Texas with her loving family, sweet dogs, and evil cat.

http://www.skyewarren.com/books/audition/

Buy Links

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Audition-Skye-Warren-ebook/dp/B07VZTRXJ3

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/audition/id1475290521

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/audition-skye-warren/1132969928

Skye Warren will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sneak Peek: The Castle by @Skye_Warren (#contemporary #sneakpeek #giveaway)

Blurb

Safe in the ivory tower…

Gabriel Miller swears he’ll keep me safe. Enemies lurk outside, waiting to strike. An army held back by these walls.

Except some animal instinct warns me the danger is much closer. It’s already here. Is Gabriel my protector or my enemy? Is this house a castle or a cage?

There’s nowhere for me to go, no one left for me to trust.

No escape from a past determined to capture its prize.

Excerpt

A sleek black limo idles in the center of the parking lot, the gleaming black stark against the backdrop of cracked concrete and cigarette-littered gravel. It’s not for me, I tell myself. It can’t be.

It’s probably one of Chastity’s customers.

At eight o’clock in the morning. In the cheapest motel in Tanglewood.

The driver steps out and nods to me in that deferent, discreet way that drivers have. My stomach sinks. He opens the back door and stands beside it, a silent invitation. A tacit command from the man inside.

My feet move me across the pavement, breath trapped. It’s that moment when you’ve slammed your finger in a door, before the pain has registered, when your mind is all too aware of what comes next.

The shadowed interior hides his face, but I know who it is before he speaks.

“Good morning,” comes the low voice of the man who made me come on his desk. The door shuts behind me, enclosing me in the warm darkness.

“What are you doing here?”

A shuffle of papers. The scratch of a pen. As the darkness solidifies, I see him reclined in the back of the limo, focused on a stack of papers in front of him. Working, like I’m a distraction. “I’m your ride.”

He doesn’t even look up.

“Excuse me?”

“To Landon Moore’s office. That is where you’re going, I assume.”

My eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”

Finally he looks up, his golden gaze searing me. “Because you’ll do anything to get your house back. It’s the only place you feel safe, isn’t it? The only place you felt loved?”

My stomach clenches. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I don’t think you need me to answer that.”

Because he knows everything that happens in the city. He could have had me followed after I left his office yesterday, but odds are he knew where I was before. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’d rather walk on nails than ride with you.”

I pull the latch to discover that the door is locked. From the inside.

My gaze flies to him. “You’re kidnapping me?”

“Unfortunately,” he says with fake sympathy. “You’ll have to explain to the cops how I abducted you and transported you in comfort to your previously planned destination.”

The car glides forward, as if connected to his very will.

Asshole.

I glare at him, settling into the warm leather. Are these seats heated? Of course they are. I have to admit this is way more comfortable than the city bus, but everything has a cost. And when it comes to Gabriel Miller, the cost is always too high. “Why are you doing this?”

“Does it matter?” he asks, his voice faintly mocking. “As a gentleman your comfort is my highest priority. It’s enough to be of service to you.”

“You’re not a gentleman.”

“Probably right. In that case I’m coming with you to see sweet old Uncle Landon give you the horrible news, to see your face fall as he assures you there’s nothing you can do.”

My throat constricts. “Can’t you find someone else to torture?”

“No one nearly as pretty. Besides, my presence has some advantages.”

“My very own supply of fire and brimstone?”

“People are more inclined to tell the truth when I’m in the room. My reputation for dealing with liars and cheats is somewhat brutal.” He leans forward, his eyes reflecting sunlight. “All of it true, I’m afraid.”

I’m living proof of that, the fallout from my father’s decision to steal. “Be careful or I might think you’re actually being nice to me.”

A short laugh. “Not a chance. It will be my pleasure to see Landon Moore break. And even sweeter to watch you break, too. A show I can’t pass up.”

Buy Links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

About the Author

Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of contemporary romance such as the Chicago Underground series. Her books have been featured in Jezebel, Buzzfeed, USA Today Happily Ever After, Glamour, and Elle Magazine. She makes her home in Texas with her loving family, two sweet dogs, and one evil cat.

Website: http://skyewarren.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/skye_warren

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyewarren

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/skyewarren/

Amazon: http://amazon.com/author/skyewarren

Skye will be awarding a $15 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As Wet As It Gets

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the Wet and Wild blog hop, organized by the intrepid Skye Warren. Skye has a talent for coming up with the most fabulous grand prizes imaginable. For this hop, she's offering a $100 gift certificate from Victoria's Secret (that's a lot of lingerie, baby!) and a big prize pack of sexy reading.

Of course each of the participants is sweetening the pot. My gift to you is a brace of best-selling print anthologies, autographed of course: Brit Party (ménage themed, includes my M/M/F story Monsoon Fever) and Bound Brits (bondage themed, includes my M/F story Getaway Girl). All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, with your email address. In fact, I'll offer a second prize, too, an ebook version of Brit Party. I will draw my winners on Sunday the 26^th of May.

I picked this book because Monsoon Fever includes one of the wettest, and wildest, scenes I've written, a three-way interlude in the Indian version of a shower room. The story is set in the Indian state of Assam, just after World War I.

Priscilla and Jonathan originally enjoyed a marriage based as much on physical passion as on love. However, the travails of business and the tribulations of the Great War have taken their toll. When Jon's father dies in faraway India, the couple travels to the father's isolated Assamese tea plantation to settle his affairs.

Anil Kumar, a charismatic Indian lawyer who arrives on business, enchants both Priscilla and Jon with his god-like beauty and charm. In separate incidents, each of them succumbs to Anil's lustful attentions. Will the illicit desires excited by the handsome Indian be the final stroke that destroys their marriage? Or the route to saving it?

Here's the excerpt, which takes place after the three main characters have been working to dig survivors out of a landslide that engulfed the tea workers' village. Hope it has the desired effect! (That is, an increase in wetness!)

***

The bathroom was simple, Asian-style, a tiled area with a drain rather than a tub. Lalida had left an ample supply of hot water, filling every bucket and ewer in the house. Cold water came directly from the rain-fed cistern on the roof.

Quickly, before she could think too much about what she was doing, Priscilla stripped off her clothes and kicked them into a corner. She grabbed one of the pitchers of hot water and poured it over her head.

Dirt sluiced out of her hair in muddy rivulets and swirled down the drain. The warmth soothed her aching muscles but made her scratches and blisters sting. She picked up a bar of her precious English lavender soap and began smoothing the suds over her breasts and belly. She lingered over the task, savouring the silkiness of her own skin under her fingertips.

The two men watched her, transfixed. Jon’s mouth hung open as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing, but at the same time his trousers were distended by a huge erection. Anil’s lips were parted, his tongue-tip playing unconsciously at the corners. She could see that he was hungry to taste her. For long moments, though, neither man moved.

Her soapy hands slipped easily into the cleft between her thighs. It seemed so natural, to slide her slippery fingers along her folds and stroke the juicy bud of flesh that set her trembling. She had done this so many times; she knew instinctively the path to her own pleasure. No one had ever watched her, of course. Instead of inhibiting her, though, her audience stirred her to new peaks of excitement.

No longer was her self-pleasuring lonely and sterile. Now she was sharing it with the man—the men—that she loved and desired. As she climbed higher, she could see her own arousal reflected in their faces. Neither moved to expose his cock, not yet, but she knew that would come soon.

She rubbed harder, plunging three fingers into her depths while vigorously thumbing her clit. With her other hand, she pinched her soapy nipples, sending sharp bolts of sensation straight to her sex. She moaned, closer every instant to her final release. With her eyes closed, she could still feel their lustful gaze, hear their harsh breathing.

All at once, Jon groaned. Priscilla’s eyes flew open. He had unbuttoned his trousers. His cock jutted out, pale as ivory, the helmet purple with blood. He gripped his length with both hands, jerking away desperately. A grimace distorted his sweet mouth; he seemed almost to be in pain.

He worked his cock faster and harder, his eyes never leaving her soapy form. She picked up his rhythm, her fingers probing and twisting, her thumb mashing her clit against her pubic bone. She was close, and so was he. She squatted, opening her thighs wide and burying both hands in the sloppy, soapy cavern between them. Jon groaned again at the sight of her lewd posture.

They were locked in a race toward completion, each urging the other on. Priscilla tottered on the brink, humping her hands, watching her husband ravage his beautiful blood-engorged cock. Energy whipped back and forth between them, circling, strengthening. Nothing existed but their two bodies, straining toward ecstasy.

A half-strangled cry from Anil drew their attention. He had freed his cock as well. He stroked the thick rod of tawny flesh gently, far from the desperation of climax, or so it seemed. Yet as they watched, his cock contracted, pulsed and sprayed viscous ribbons of cum all over his delicate brown fingers.

The sight was simultaneously beautiful and obscene. Priscilla ground herself against her hands, hurling her body into an orgasm that tore through her like a hurricane. Even as she quivered in the retreating gusts of pleasure, she heard Jon yell and knew that he was spewing his seed across the floor.

The next thing she knew, Jon was beside her, helping her to stand. He clutched her soapy form to his now-naked body and sealed her lips with his. Joy ballooned in her chest. It had been so long since she’d felt his decisive mouth or tasted his familiar flavour. She rubbed her breasts against him, smearing herself with his dirt. His rigid nipples poked at her chest. Below, she could feel his cock stiffening again, nudging into the gap between her thighs.

She opened her legs and tilted her pelvis toward him, inviting his entry. Then, all at once, a torrent of warm water poured down on their heads. They broke their kiss, sputtering in the surprise flood. Before they could respond, another bucketful drenched them.

“Anil!” Priscilla turned to find that the native was behind them. He too had shed his clothes. As she watched, he raised a pitcher and poured its contents over his own head.

The shower slicked his dark locks against his skull, emphasising the fine planes of his countenance. Rivulets coursed over his muscled shoulders and down his hairless chest. His skin looked oiled, cinnamon-hued and buttery smooth. Only in his groin did hair grow, in wild black tangles completely different from the golden fur at the base of Jonathan’s cock.

***

Wet enough for you?!

Don't forget to leave a comment. Every one counts as an entry for the grand prizes, as well as for my giveaway. And to increase your chances of winning, visit the other authors participating in the hop. Just click on the links below.

A big thanks to Skye for organizing the hop. Have fun!