Jewels of the Nile 2 out today!

http://www.ellorascave.com/productpage.asp?ISBN=9781419916540

BLURB:

Sexy men, magic, and mayhem…oh my!

Gelsey is grateful to land a gig as costume mistress for a theatre. She simply wants to hide from the dark forces that pursue her. She never plans on falling for the sexy, surly Tin Man, the character every Wizard of Oz fan knows has no heart.

Stephen has finally found the woman destined to be his. Now only one night of danger, a little sex magic and Gelsey's stubborn refusal to admit she's his stand in his way. But Stephen won't give up. He'll have Gelsey, giving her such pleasure she'll have no choice but to surrender.

EXCERPT:

There was music playing, faint fiddle music that reminded Gelsey of home. Ireland, the only home she’d ever known. She could practically smell the soda bread her mother was cooking, feel the cool stone floor beneath her bare feet. She’d only been six years old when her parents had died and the executor of their estate put her on a plane to America. Sometimes she had a hard time remembering their faces, but she could remember the smell of the herb lotion her mother made in her huge vat on the stove, and the way her dad’s eyes wrinkled around the edges when he grinned.

“Gelsey. Wake, little witch, the sun sets and the Rite must begin.”

As soon as the male voice spoke, the music in her head fled with dizzying swiftness, only to fade back in, softly, when a warm summer breeze swept over her bare skin. It felt so delicious to experience the wind this way, without any clothes between her and the—

“Where are my clothes?” She sat up fast, eyes flying open as her arms crossed over her breasts. Her first instinct was to jump to her feet and make a naked run for it, back to the theatre, when she saw him. All of him. “Better question, where are your clothes?” She meant for the words to be harsh, accusatory, but they came out breathy, an unmistakable invitation.

“Can you really call that thing ‘clothes’? It itches something fierce.” He sat cross-legged on the simple brown blanket, as naked as the day he was born, a huge mixing bowl cradled between his legs. “Felt like I was wearing wool pantyhose clear up to my neck.”

“How do you know what pantyhose feel like?”

“Good question. But if I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He smiled, a wicked grin that lit up his face and transformed the usually handsome Mackenzie Fellows into something extraordinary. He was gorgeous, he was naked, he was showing signs of a sense of humor and he’d kidnapped her for some sort of kink-fest out in the woods. On the surface, it was exactly what she’d wanted from this man.

So why was her every instinct still screaming that she should get up and run—fast—and not stop until she was leaving the state of Indiana?
Maybe because he did actually kidnap you! And strip your clothes off while you were unconscious and take his own clothes off too and now—

“Mac, this is very…flattering, but—”

“Stephen. My real name is Stephen. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but you didn’t seem able to keep a secret to save your life.” He smiled as he said the words, but they still stung. What did he know about her? Or her ability to keep secrets?

“Excuse me, but what the hell do you know about—”

“You talked non-stop about the entire casts’ business while you were fitting me. I assumed you did the same with everyone else. I couldn’t risk telling you too much.” He dipped a finger into the bowl between his legs and began casually tracing a red symbol on his bare chest—which she couldn’t help but notice had the perfect amount of chest hair, not too much, not too little. Not to mention that he was muscled like a warrior, not a musical theatre performer. Mac—Stephen looked like he could handle himself in the ring, or on the battlefield if the faint scars marking his skin were any indication.

Gelsey felt another whisper of unease raise the hairs at the back of her neck. There was something wrong here, something more than a man reluctant to reveal he had a stage name.

“In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you speechless.” He grinned again and anger quickly banished her fear.

“I talked non-stop because you stood there glaring at me and—”

“I never glared,” he said, glaring.

“You did! You always—”

“I wouldn’t glare at a woman, especially not one so terribly important to me. Or so beautiful.” A trace of an Irish accent, a trace she’d heard before, found its way into his voice, making her shiver. Then she met his eyes, eyes filled with passion and, more surprisingly, sincerity, and shivered again.

“Are you ever going to let me finish a sentence?” Gelsey swallowed hard and fought the desire beginning to unfurl low in her belly. She was glad she’d kept her hands in front of her breasts. At least he couldn’t see how her nipples tightened, aching for him to touch them, for him to trace crazy red symbols over her body and then follow the path with his tongue.

“I just did.” He finished the final mark with his finger, closing off the last in a series of four triangles, each pointing in a different direction. “Now it’s your turn. Will you become the bone of my bones, the flesh of my flesh, making us one flesh bound by—”

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” Gelsey leapt to her feet, no longer caring if Stephen caught a glimpse of her thigh dimples as she turned and fled. The man was insane, probably a serial killer from the sound of it. She’d been a fool to sit there as long as she had. “Flesh of my flesh” didn’t sound like any foreplay she’d ever heard of. No matter how much she wanted this man, she needed to haul tail back to civilization, reality, any place where she had more sense than to let her hormones lead her straight into an unmarked grave.

c. 2008 Anna J. Evans