Blurb:
One mistake can change a life—let alone an eternity.
Tisiphone’s a revenge demon working for Hades in
the Underworld torturing damned souls. When she escapes for three days under
the sun with a human male, her leash is pulled tight. Tisiphone’s banished from
the Underworld to Earth and stripped of her demonic powers. But that’s not what
drives her horrendous nightmares.
Cithaeron’s human life was dedicated to revenge,
until a demon walked into it. The wickedly intense, sensually destructive Tisiphone
takes over his life with probing questions and haunting caresses. It’s over in
a blink. After centuries of torture in Limbo, Hades brings him back for a
judgment call that could change their intertwined lives—dead or alive.
Their future is in their past. Their lust can
burn each other to the ground. But they’ve got to learn to work together or
they’ll both go to Hell for good.
Excerpt:
He moved me with confidence, our
hips rolling from side to side while his breath eased across my neck. His clean
cheek lightly brushed mine. Before I’d found any composure goose bumps dotted
my arms and I sensed the curve of his lips against my ear. We worked as one to
the techno rhythm that replicated the beat of my heart—my pulse plunged into a
rather embarrassing quickness.
Through my leather skirt his warmth
soaked into my flesh radiating body heat upward through my breasts. My nipples
pebbled with sexual awareness, my belly twisting into a labyrinth of knots. His
body was tightly pressed against my lower back so there was no question as to
whether or not he was enjoying our dance. As his fingers guided the swing of my
hips, for once, I’ll admit, I was captivated. While I wasted no time reaching
behind me tracing up his arms, shoulders, and chest with my hands.
There was a certain seductive
slowness that set him apart from my usual partners. He didn’t lack confidence.
Much could be gathered from the way a man danced with a woman and my body
wasn’t lying to me. I’d learned to trust my instincts. My partner was special.
His fingers slipped beneath my
clingy, vinyl tank top playing along my ribs. When his hands tightened along my
naked flesh our flirtation deepened into a more serious encounter. Despite his
hold, I couldn’t avoid savoring his warmth. My first touch of cleansing fire, a
comfort, and the key to my arousal. My fingers eased through his soft hair
tangling in the strands at the nape of his neck. For the briefest of moments, I
entertained the fact that he might go further, cupping my breasts and brushing
his calloused thumbs across my tingling nipples.
But his hands squeezed tighter along
my waist, though we moved as if nothing had changed between us. Would it be
wrong to admit I enjoyed this edge? Whatever the game was between us. Even the
subtle brush of my stockings against my inner thighs left me wide-eyed and wet
between my legs. We were playing with fire.
His possessive, too hard touch
promised an outcome I couldn’t fathom. A jolt of fear prickled beneath my skin.
Though I faltered in my steps, the stranger only pressed harder against my hips
with his chin casually resting on the top of my head. He never missed a beat,
while I was shivering in his embrace.
My throat was constricted to a knot
while my instincts shot off sparks inside my body. Yet, I was drawn to him. I
moaned when his rough, long fingers slipped down beneath the top of my skirt
idly following an outline of the waistband across my stomach—and lower. There
was no going back now. Beneath the scent of sweat and alcohol that permeated the
club, a familiar charred wood-smoke scent lingered on my clothing.
Home.
It was only a moment before I
completely understood my situation, with a jolt that sent my mind reeling. My
weak-kneed acceptance was replaced with ironclad knowledge of the man at my
back. His almost unbearable heat lingered inside me. The scent of the
Underworld clung to the strands of hair across my face. His unwavering grip.
But perhaps, for a second—if I could take some more time to think—
Unable to fully process, automatically
my arms dropped from around his neck and my hands clenched into fists.
Realization left me cold and aching. Without knowing who I was facing, without
my powers, it would be foolish to spin on him and attack. But my need to vent
my rage left me seething. One of the most sexual moments of my existence in
recent history had been dashed.
Whoever he was, he was working for
them—the Underworld.
He’d stopped dancing against me and
his breath against the nape of my neck spun me deeper into a confusing hole. It
cannot be so. But when I broke our contact from hips to head glancing down the
smooth line of my body—Apollo’s balls, I knew those fingers as if they were my
own. Could I bring myself to turn around? To look him in the eye?
“Tisiphone,” he murmured low and
cool against the lip of my ear.
I saw his face as if it wasn’t dark
in the nightclub—as if my past was yesterday. His low, pleased voice triggered
a darkness inside me that I was afraid to acknowledge. His fingers pinched into
mine as I tried to pry his hands off me, until I softly cried out. But he let
me go, letting me know with his continued presence at my back that he would
have kept me there if he wanted to.
There would never be enough space
between us—this wasn’t real.
I turned until I’d locked eyes with
his pale gray irises—but they weren’t gray anymore—and not because of the harsh
dancehall lighting. While I searched inside his shining coal black eyes, I
sensed the trace of brimstone magic within him. His tongue casually flicked
across his lips. An unreadable expression, even with neon lights spinning and
whirling across him.
If he were truly of my old world,
his skin would be shiny as an oil slick—black with dappled rainbows beneath the
chaotic light play. In the night he’d be purely human in appearance until any
ray of light caught his flesh. But there was nothing. Nothing that was
recognizable but tan, human flesh like mine.
What have they made him? What have
they done? Brimstone. Black eyes. No pulse. But looked human. His
heat—the undeniable heat of those from the Underworld because though creatures
there have no need to breathe or bleed, the temperature at the Earth’s core
isn’t anything to trifle with on a whim. He carried the depth of heat that my
kind engineered as a defense mechanism to live in the Underworld.
That was my answer. I couldn’t deny
it any longer. I knew—gods, I wished I didn’t. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst
enemy. Not even a man who had unknowingly condemned me to live a life far from
my sister’s for hundreds of years.
Demon.
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