What Ever You Like

What Ever You Like 

By: Maureen Smith

“Are we almost there?” The uniformed chauffeur met Lena Morrison’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “About five more minutes.” Nodding briskly, Lena slid a tube of MAC lipstick across her mouth and surveyed her reflection in the compact mirror she’d removed from her evening purse. The lustrous red color made her full lips look as juicy and inviting as ripe mangoes dangling from the bowed branches of a tree. Smoky eye shadow accentuated her wide, dark eyes and high cheekbones. She’d exchanged her conservative office attire for a sexy black dress that hugged her curves and had a plunging back. Diamonds glittered at her ears, throat and wrists. She looked like a million bucks. Felt like it, too. So it was only fitting that tonight she was escorting one of Chicago’s most eligible bachelors to a glitzy party aboard his private yacht. Roderick Brand, president and CEO of a multinational energy conglomerate. Educated at MIT. Recently named Businessman of the Year by Forbes. Net worth $2.4 billion. [download]  

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The Dead Janitors Club

The Dead Janitors Club 

By: Jeff Klima

I WALK INTO THE LOBBY of a shockingly splendid hotel, and the wheel on the cash register in my mind is clicking audibly upward. I anticipate leaving this place a few thousand dollars richer than when I walked in. So many factors are at play here; I am chomping at the bit, trying to discern them all. French doors gilded with a gold overlay breeze open effortlessly before me, working off unseen sensors and a pneumatic arm. Caucasian employees stare pleasantly at me from behind the counter. From a financial standpoint, this is a good thing. White people are terrified of death. An overabundance of detachment and safety in our culture has resulted in “whitey” becoming a benign collective of soft-shelled whiners, people who understand pain only in terms of there not being three-ply toilet paper on sale at the supermarket closest to their condo. [download]  

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With Seduction in Mind

With Seduction in Mind

By: Laura Lee Guhrke

London, May 1896 DaisyMerrickwas unemployed. Such a circumstance wasn’t unusual Daisy had been in that particular pickle many times before. Some people, including her sister, were inclined to see her ever-changing job situation as her own fault, but to Daisy’s mind that opinion was most unfair. Today was a perfect example.Bristling with indignation, she marched out of the offices of Pettigrew and Finch, where she had just been informed by the matron in charge of typists that her services would no longer be required. And no, Matron had added upon her inquiry, they could not see clear to providing her with a letter of character. Given her shameless conduct, no favorable reference would be possible. “My shameless conduct?” she muttered, pausing on the sidewalk to search for a passing omnibus amid the traffic that clogged Threadneedle Street. “Mr. Pettigrew is the one who should be ashamed!” [download]

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Wolfsbane

Wolfsbane 

By: Andrea Cremer

I COULDN’T SHUT OUT the screams. Darkness surrounded me. A terrible weight pressed into my chest, making me struggle for each breath as I lay drowning in my own blood. I sat up with a gasp, blinking into the shadows. The screaming had stopped. The room became still, flooded with silence. I took a couple of painful swallows, trying to moisten my parched mouth. It took me a moment to realize that the screams had been my own, each cry clawing my throat until it was raw. I brought my hands up to my chest. My fingers moved along the surface of my shirt. The fabric was smooth, with no sign of rips or tears from the crossbow bolts. I couldn’t see well in the dim light, but I could tell this shirt wasn’t mine, or rather, wasn’t Shay’s borrowed sweater the one I’d been wearing the night everything changed. [download]  

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Beneath The Thirteen Moons

Beneath The Thirteen Moons 

By: Kathryne Kennedy

MAHRI POLED HER BOAT AROUND THE BASE OF THE SEA tree, the bone staff she used as much an extension of her body as her own arms. She ducked beneath a branch, a wide one, the limb as straight as the Power of a Seer could make it. The gloom of the evening blackened to inky darkness, the slap of the waves echoed eerily inside the cavern-like arch, and here Mahri chose to anchor her craft. She flipped her wrist in the pattern peculiar to her bone pole, and it retracted with a sliding hiss; her fingers shook as she slid it into a sheath of octopus skin. She patted the bone grapnel with its length of coiled rope and then dug into the small fish-scale pouch that hung against her hip. Mahri withdrew a small piece of zabbaroot, unsure if it would be enough for her task she’d never kidnapped a man before, how could she possibly know? [download]

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Alexander and Alestria

Alexander and Alestria

By: San Sa 

I, Alexander of Macedonia, son of Philip, king of kings, conqueror of the Greeks, came into this world on the night of a great fire. The temple of Artemis was alight. Ocher and yellow flames, forests of sparks and twisting wreaths of smoke, spilled into the sky. Thick clouds settled on villages in which every soul had taken refuge indoors, terrified by the fury of the divine huntress. By the time of my first memory I can already run to the top of the hill. My mother, who dresses me as a girl, takes me to play among the ruins. There are fragments of burned stone scattered in the grass, and wild flowers exhale their bitter fragrance. Wearing a white tunic and sandals with golden straps and with my hair in braids, I stumble up a collapsed flight of steps, hide behind a fallen column, and laugh when the slaves walk past without seeing me. [download]

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In Want of A Wife

In Want of A Wife 

By: Cathy

‘You don’t believe in love, do you?’ she asked, and Louis laughed, raking his fingers through his hair. ‘I believe in lust, and I believe in marriage.’ ‘You mean marriage based on … what? How can you base a marriage on lust? Lust doesn’t last.’ ‘But it’s an enjoyable starting point, don’t you agree? Not that I’ve given much thought to marriage one way or the other.’ Lizzy shifted awkwardly. She realised that her legs were brushing against his, and she primly angled her body away from him. When their eyes met, she could see at a glance that he had noted the shift and was amused by it. ‘And what happens when the lust fades away?’ ‘Oh, that’s why it’s so important to be practical when it comes to getting married. A decent business arrangement doesn’t allow for any nasty surprises. There’s no such thing as the perfect marriage, but there is such a thing as the perfect criteria for a wife.’ [download]

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The Courtship Dance

The Courtship Dance

By: Candace Camp

NO ONE WOULD have guessed from the way Lady Francesca Haughston moved through the Whittington ballroom that she was making the opening moves of her campaign. She strolled along in her usual manner, pausing to compliment a dress here or flirt with one of her many admirers there. She smiled and talked and plied her fan deftly, a vision in ice-blue silk, her blond hair falling in a cascade of curls from an upswept knot. But all the while, her dark blue eyes were looking for her prey. It had been almost a month since she had vowed to herself to find a wife for the Duke of Rochford, and tonight she intended to set her plan in motion. She had made all her preparations. She had studied the young unmarried women of the ton, and through careful research and observation, she had managed to whittle the number down to just three whom she felt suitable for Sinclair. [download]

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The Witches of Santa Anna

The Witches of Santa Anna 

By: Lauren Barnholdt and Aaron Gorvine

Here’s how my first day of school at Santa Anna is supposed to go: 1. I will cruise effortlessly through the halls, never once getting lost, misplacing my schedule, or embarrassing myself in any way. 2. I will meet a boy who will fall madly in love with me. (Think Edward from Twilight, but without that whole weird there’s-a-vampire-staring-at-me-while-I-sleep thing. So I guess think Robert Pattison. Which would actually be perfect, since I’m English. Well, sort of. I grew up in England, but I’ve been in the USever since I was ten. I still have a tiny bit of an accent, which people usually think is cool, so sometimes I try to play it up and make it more pronounced than it actually is. I figure if it worked for Madonna, it should work for me.) 3. I will hook up with a new crowd of amazing friends that will become my friends for life. [download]

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Forbidden Pleasures

Forbidden Pleasures 

By: Bertrice Small

“I’ve got bad news and bad news. Whadaya want first?” Aaron Fischer looked across the large mahogany desk at Emily Shanski, a.k.a. Emilie Shann. He was a stocky man in his sixties who wore impeccably tailored Armani suits, and had beautifully manicured hands. His gray hair, what was left of it, was nicely barbered around his balding pink pate. On the third finger of his left hand he wore a gold band engraved with a Celtic knot. The gold tie pin in his silk tie echoed the same design. “You dragged me in from Egret Pointe for bad news?” Emily grumbled. She didn’t like the look in Aaron’s usually warm brown eyes. Those eyes were serious today. It did not bode well. “Okay,” she sighed dramatically. “Gimme the worst of it first. Then the not so worst.” “I’m not sure which you’ll consider the worst,” he said slowly. “Kirk!” he called to his business and life partner. [download]

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Eloise: Letters to A Lost Child

Eloise: Letters to A Lost Child

By: Loise Lavallee

sitting alone in your room, I have long dreaded this moment, seeking the right words, gentle words of love which will bring about your rebirth. Dizzy before this quest for missing words and with the need to come to terms with our new reality, I have arrived after opening and closing many doors. I have this constant, fine pain, a small needle piercing just above my heart; emptiness and pain mingled with doubt and panic. How can I recreate your beauty, your softness, your strength, your suffering, and above all, your magic? Faced with the task, I doodle, I let myself be distracted and wander so that I can hold back, just a little. First I come to a picture of you at five months old. You are intact, smiling, with your brilliant cheeks and mirthful eyes, my little girl, so fall of life. Just beside it is another image of you, ten years later at the pavilion, with your freckles showing springtime and your dainty straw hat slightly tilted to one side, cruelly emphasizing your too-open mouth. [download]

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Zuleika Dobson

Zuleika Dobson 

By: Max Beerbohm

That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antique station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to the tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age. At the door of the first class waiting room, a loof and venerable, stood the Warden of Judas. An ebon pillar of tradition seemed he, in his garb of old fashioned cleric. Aloft, between the wide brim of his silk hat and the white extent of his shirt front, appeared those eyes which hawks, that nose which eagles, had often envied. He supported his years on an ebon stick. He alone was worthy of the background. Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was descried, and a long train curving after it, under a flight of smoke. It grew and grew. [download]  

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Touch of Darkness

Touch of Darkness 

By: Christina Dodd

“I want you to cover my back.” Konstantine handed his brother the bottle and gestured down to the encampment in the valley below. “I’m going to take the Gypsy girl.” “We’re not supposed to mess with the Gypsies.” Oleg took a long pull of vodka. “Remember? It is written. Any woman is ours for the plucking, but not those zalupa Romanies.” Konstantine bared his sharp white teeth in what passed for a grin. “And I wonder why that is.” The Varinski family had no rules. No rules at all. They could do what they wanted rape, pillage, torture, murder and no one could stop them. But one ancient law existed. They were not to take a Gypsy woman. “Gypsies are filthy.” Oleg spft in the direction of the camp, and the warm spittle steamed as it struck the frozen ground. This autumn was as cold as a witch’s tit, with an early frost that had ruined the crops and put a hungry edge on everyone’s temper. “You’ll get a disease.” [download]

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The Seduction of Simone

The Seduction of Simone 

By: Cherie De Sues

The swollen February sky brooded with purple and rosy hues, as though Mother Nature had slapped it. There was no point for Simone to put on a happy face her fickle emotions had bounced erratically between pain and joy all day. She supposed it was Mr. Cavendish standing at the rusted Iron Gate, towering behind him like the grill of a Mack truck. His tiny red sports car was off to the side, allowing her to drive on the narrow pavement leading to Celeste’s estate. No. It was her estate now. A chill stung her cheeks as she powered down the Jeep window and waited as the unsmiling octogenarian slowly meandered to the door. “Simone Devereux?” Old weathered skin told a silent story of years sailing and a life by the sea as he leaned in close to her. It was interesting Celeste had chosen this grumpy relic as her attorney. [download]

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The Blood That Bonds

The Blood That Bonds

By: Christopher Buecheler

Her name was Two, and she sometimes thought she could smell her death, blowing in from the cemetery that lay south of her building in East New York. Sometimes she even hoped for it. Stinking, muttering, moldering death. Cold and dark. On these occasions, she felt as if even the dirty embrace of the grave would be better for her than the squalor she lived in now. She thought, maybe, she might find some sort of peace that had been missing all her life. Darren owned her building, like he owned the girls who occupied it. Three stories tall, four rooms to a floor. They lived two to a room, two bathrooms per floor, two kitchens in the building. Just over twenty girls, every single one of them selling her body each night at his command. In return for the money they brought him, he gave them food. He gave them shelter. [download]

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The Awakening

The Awakening 

By: Shannon Drake

Megan was screaming. In the terrible reality that was happening, she heard her own voice. In the darkness, she knew the sense of a spiraling fear that threatened to become overwhelming, to smother her. She had a sense of fatality, and she saw the shadow figure, saw him entering the room. Adrenaline raced through her, desperation, the sense that she must move, must fight for survival. The sound continued it was all she heard and she screamed and screamed, knowing the deadly menace that had come to her. She knew, as well, that she had said something, done something, to precipitate what was happening. She knew each step as it occurred, the figure appearing, the fear, the terrible understanding of what was to come. She felt the violence as he came upon her, his touch upon her hair first, then her clothing, the blows against her as she resisted. [download]

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Once in A Lifetime

Once in A Lifetime 

By: Gwynne Forster

Alexis Stevenson had spent most of her thirty years doing what was expected of her. She managed not to fall in love until she met a man of whom her family would approve. Her father expected his girls to lead the pack, and she graduated at the top of her high school and college classes. Indeed, as a model student, her grades were such that her college and graduate schooling didn’t cost her wealthy parents a penny, although they provided her with a lifestyle that she neither needed nor wanted. But her academic successes came at the expense of a healthy social life. After she married Jack Stevenson, she exchanged her job as instructor in home economics at the StateUniversityfor that of homemaker, spending most of her time either planning for or entertaining her husband’s business associates, smoothing his rise to the top of the corporate ladder. [download]  

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Hot City Nights

Hot City Nights 

By: Sandra Maarton, Sarah Mayberry and Emilie Rose

CARNAVAL had ended almost two months ago, but Rio didn‟t seem to know it.  Lincoln Aldridge wasn‟t surprised. He‟d been to Rio before. The city could be an endless party, especially for a man with money, rugged good looks and connections. Linc had all three but he wasn‟t in a partying mood. He had been on the go for almost two weeks, first flying to Argentina, then Colombia, then Brazil. His business meetings had gone well, but he had a more important matter on his mind. Too much time had gone by since he‟d heard from his sister. Kathryn and her husband, married five months, were on what she‟d called a belated honeymoon, seeing the world.  New York City was part of the world, Linc had said wryly, and he damned well expected that Kath and the husband he‟d never met intended to make it part of their trip. [download]

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George and The Virgin

George and The Virgin

By: Lisa Cach

“Hurry up, Osbert! It will be morning soon.” “Don’t rush me, Alizon. I cannot do it if you rush me.” She held his pizzle in her hand and jerked on it as he had shown her. “Why aren’t you getting hard?” “You’re not doing it right,” he whined. “I am not a cow to be milked.” “You certainly feel spongy as a cow’s teat. You’ll never get it in me if it stays like this.” “Devil take you! If I don’t, it won’t be my fault. You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re doing. You’re the virgin.” He said it with a taunt in his voice, and she was glad of the dark of the shed, which saved her from seeing his face and being tempted to slap it. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t a virgin and well you know it. Sheep would speak Latin before I would let you touch me.” “Be nice to me. It’s a favor I’m doing you.” She bit off the retort that came to her tongue,… [download]

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Brink of Eternity

Brink of Eternity 

By: Caris Roane

While standing in her office, preparing to leave for the night, a vision came to Elise Jordan, a sequence of events that threatened the life of someone she knew. She tried to shut the images down, to stop the flow, something she could normally do. But this vision would not be denied. She saw it through to the end, which was not an end at all, just that point at which the woman, if left on her own, would surely die. Now she had a decision to make and a vampire to contact, something she had promised herself she would never do. Elise thrived on order and routine. She enjoyed having a firm schedule. She was the only person she knew who had a genial relationship with her alarm clock.Everything about this vision, however, invited chaos, the very thing she strove to avoid every day of her existence. [download]

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