Morning Loverlies,

Yes, it’s that time again! Snippet Saturday! Which is hosted by the absolutely and totally kick ass Lauren Dane. Today’s theme is the “Humour!” Today’s snippet is from one my favorite and first novellas, Seducing St. Nic. I wrote Seducing St. Nic in less than forty-eight hours, it’s was as if I tapped a vein and the story just came pouring out.

Seducing St. Nic can be found at Elloracave.com and Amazon. Also, if you’re interested in reading some more excerpts you can find them here.

Then her luck starts to change. She wins a gorgeous fur coat. She gets promoted and her new boss is none other than the super-sexy St. Nic. Cypriano San Nicolo is everything a woman could want. He’s tall, dark, handsome, rich, successful and, oh yeah, the evil undead.

After nearly a century of self-imposed sleep, St. Nic has only two uses for humans—blood and sex. Until he meets Barbara Jean, his irreverent, wisecracking assistant. If he shows up at her apartment just before dawn, she’ll have to take him in, right? Into her bed, if everything goes as planned.

“Is there anything else you need, Mr. San Nicolo?” I stood outside his office door with my coat on and purse in hand, hoping he would take the hint. The one or two hours I’d planned on staying had mysteriously turned into four and, if I didn’t hurry, I’d be late getting to my older brother’s house.

“Si, as a matter of fact, Miss Ruiz, I wondered if you could teach me to use the facsimile machine before you leave. Just in case I need to use it while you are gone.”

My eye twitched and a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran through my mind. Not from the series with the uber-hot James Marsters, but the original movie edition with Kristy Swanson and Paul Reubens. Only I was the Kristy Swanson character and St. Nic was a less-greasy version of Paul Rubens.

Taking a deep breath, I automatically reached up to stroke my coat and went to my happy place. The last thing I wanted or needed was a repeat of earlier. Miraculously, my body had cooled down. For a while after he left my office, I actually considered going to the ladies’ room and making myself come.

Only the tiny remainder of my pride had stopped me. It wasn’t the first time someone or something had gotten my engine running and I hadn’t been taken out for a ride. I had survived then and I would survive now, without resorting to public masturbation.

An image of me and St. Nic in a tiny lavatory stall, his fingers buried between my legs, crept insidiously into mind. I stomped on it like the creepy crawly thing it was.

Just show him how to work the fax machine and get your ass out of here.

I didn’t point out that since darkness had fallen, the building now crawled with a dozen or more vamps, all no doubt born within this century, including two or more vampettes who’d be oh-so-willing to show the big boss how to work the fax machine, among other things.

Forcing a smile, I said, “Of course, Mr. San Nicolo. Do you have time now?”

He nodded, reminding me of a king granting a peasant a small boon.

Move it, your Majesty. Or the turkey won’t be the only thing that’ll get something stuck up its keister tonight.

Removing my gloves, I set them and my purse on the small table near the door for quick retrieval.

“Okay, this is your average fax machine. I figure for your next lesson I can teach you how to send faxes from your computer.” I looked up to see if less-than-jolly-old-but-super-hot St. Nic was still with me, only to find him watching me with an intensity I really didn’t care for. I’d seen that kind of look before. It came right before Duchess ripped the wings off a fly she had cornered.

Gulping, I tried to steady my hand. St. Nic’s eyes looked different and a little less focused than they had earlier.

Quick. Think, Barbara Jean. Had I accidentally flashed him a glimpse of neck or wrist? Surreptitiously as possible with a shaking hand, I reached up to make sure the mink was still wrapped around my neck.

It was. Breathing a sigh of relief, I snapped my fingers in front of St. Nic’s face. “Uh, Mr. San Nicolo? Are you okay?” I asked loudly, enunciating carefully.

No need to talk louder, I realized. He’s hungry, not losing his hearing.

Modulating my voice to normal, I continued. “I saw on my way in today that the vending machine had been restocked with Vita-Sangre. O negative. Yum. Yum.” I rambled now, but I didn’t care. The mention of the synthetic blood seemed to make the hunger I saw in his eyes recede.

“You can go now,” he said, his voice hoarse and a little less than friendly. As if he fought some great battle and I was a saucy wench in a village he’d just sacked.

I opened my mouth and I could have sworn that Bad Barbara Jean slapped me upside my head. Muy bien, chica. Tu y tu pinche prejuntas. Correle pendeja!

Bad BJ often channeled my dad’s Cuban mother when she was scared and, at the moment, she urged me to run. Okay, more like, Shut up with the fucking questions and run, idiot. But Good Barbara Jean kind of thought St. Nic looked hot all broody and intense and didn’t want to leave him in such obvious pain.

Mira puta— Stopping Bad BJ mid-Spanish insult, before my two Sybils could start brawling, I swallowed nervous laughter and eased around him toward the door.

It took me more than one attempt to pick up my purse in my nerveless fingers, not once taking my eyes off St. Nic.

“Well, good night, Satan—uh, St. Nic—uh, Mr. San Nicolo. Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.”

I nearly tripped in my haste to get out of the media center and to the nearest elevator.

Safely ensconced in the elevator, I once again reevaluated my chosen career path.

Near sweatshop-like wages. Check.

Mediocre benefits. Check.

Murdering, blood-craving psycho but still really hot boss. Check.

Did the murdering, blood-craving psycho boss automatically cancel out the benefits? If he tore out my throat, at least I’d be able to go to the hospital to get it repaired.

Yeah. Way to look on the bright side, Barbara Jean!

Releasing the breath I didn’t know I held, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a cab. If I hurried, I could get to my brother’s house before Cin put the twins to sleep.

Cin, short for Cindy, was my older brother Joaquin’s wife and mother to my adorable twin niece and nephew, Paloma and Sky.

I wanted to make sure I got to their house as soon as possible, not only to say goodnight to the twins, but also to make sure everything else was ready for tomorrow night’s dinner. Not that Cin couldn’t cook or anything, it was just that she was working on my third niece or nephew and was ready to pop at any moment.

As I waited in the lobby for my cab, I couldn’t help but notice my heartbeat hadn’t slowed, and what I thought was fear didn’t feel like the kind I would have experienced normally. What was it about St. Nic that made me need to do stupid things?

What’s so stupid about wanting to be with him?

Besides the fact that a lot of predators played with their food before they killed it?

I was getting myself worked up for nothing. St. Nic didn’t want me.

Then why did it feel as if he were the one in control of my body? And why didn’t I mind more?

I had almost been killed—okay, maybe a slight exaggeration—and it turned me on. A lot of girls liked a little pain with their pleasure, but wasn’t this crossing the line?

Watching the cab pull up, I tried to put St. Nic out of my mind as I walked out to meet it.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this week’s Saturday Snippet! You can read more Snippets below.

Jody Wallace
Leah Braemel
Lissa Matthews
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Selena Blake
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
T.J. Michaels
Helen Kay Dimon

Morning Loverlies,

Yes, it’s that time again! Snippet Saturday! Which is hosted by the absolutely and totally kick ass Lauren Dane. Today’s theme is the “Worldbuiding!” Today’s entry is from my first paranormal series with Ellora’s Cave, Seducing St. Nic. I am not only an author of paranormal romance but I am also a great lover and huge fan. It is one of my very favorite sub-genres. So when I first wrote Seducing St. Nic getting the opportunity to create my own world was one of the best things I got to do.

Seducing St. Nic can be found at Elloracave.com and Amazon. Also, if you’re interested in reading some more excerpts you can find them here.

Then her luck starts to change. She wins a gorgeous fur coat. She gets promoted and her new boss is none other than the super-sexy St. Nic. Cypriano San Nicolo is everything a woman could want. He’s tall, dark, handsome, rich, successful and, oh yeah, the evil undead.

After nearly a century of self-imposed sleep, St. Nic has only two uses for humans—blood and sex. Until he meets Barbara Jean, his irreverent, wisecracking assistant. If he shows up at her apartment just before dawn, she’ll have to take him in, right? Into her bed, if everything goes as planned.

“Where to, lady?”

“The San Nicolo building on Regents Street, please.”

The cab jerked into the street and sped toward the end of the block.

Sitting back, I burrowed deeper into the soft fur of my coat. It was the most luxurious thing I’ve ever owned and I forgave Mr. San Nicolo just a tad because his ordering me to work on my day off gave me a reason to wear it.

Sighing, I thought of the enigmatic Cypriano San Nicolo. There wasn’t much I knew about him, other than he was rich, gorgeous and a vampire. And, from what I’d heard, a rather old one.

I had been working for San Nicolo International for two years when my previous boss retired. Well, actually, he’d met the business end of a stake. Thankfully, instead of letting me go as I had expected, Nonhuman Resources called me a couple days later and offered me a promotion as the new executive assistant to Mr. San Nicolo. At first the news excited me because it meant a pay increase and I wouldn’t have to look for a new position.

But then I found out I’d be working for the Mr. San Nicolo. The same man who had founded the company in 1807. It wasn’t his age or the fact that he was the evil undead that bothered me. Hell, more than half of the company was the evil undead. San Nicolo International prided itself on being an equal-opportunity employer and having more Vampire American employees than any other company since vamps had come out of the coffin nearly three decades ago.

No, the fact that Mr. San Nicolo, or St. Nic as I secretly called him, was a blood-sucking fiend didn’t really bother me. What had bothered me was that he hadn’t sucked in a while. He had gone to ground about a hundred years ago, which in itself wasn’t unusual for older vamps. And who could blame them? Hell, even I got bored eating pizza once a week, so the thought of living century after century with only one meal on the menu was beyond my comprehension.

You know what they say—a hungry vampire is a dangerous vampire. I’d seen news footage of what happened to vamps when they came out of long periods of sleep. Even the old ones like St. Nic had only two things on their minds—feeding and fucking. And from what I’d heard, they weren’t particular about which need they satisfied first.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this week’s Saturday Snippet! You can read more Snippets below.

Jody Wallace
Leah Braemel
Lissa Matthews
McKenna Jeffries
Selena Blake
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
T.J. Michaels