Sunday, August 5, 2012

#SampleSunday - Tall, Dark and Divine... or When Eros Met Annie

Just for fun, here are a few pages of text from Tall, Dark and Divine, for your enjoyment. (If you mind f-bombs or b-words, you may want to stop reading right now. Fair warning.)

If you do keep reading, and decide you'd like to read more, the ebook is available from AMAZON and BN.com for $2.99; just follow the links.

Without further ado, here's Eros:
He stopped in the hallway to pick up his jacket and shirt from the floor—making sure he didn’t dwell on the memory of her hands sliding across his skin and her fingernails raking down his back—and shrugged them on, before making sure the door latched behind him. He buttoned the shirt on his way down the five flights of stairs he’d carried her up earlier—stupid chit; did she really think he wouldn’t be able to carry her up five flights of stairs?—and by the time he was back outside on the street, he looked like nothing had happened.

Or so he thought, until he walked up to the bar at Dionysus’s and Dion took one look at him and grinned. “How was it?”

Eros shot him a dark look. “None of your business.”

“Sure,” Dion said. “Just tell me one thing. Did you make her keep the shoes on?”

“Fuck you.”

Dion chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes. So why aren’t you there, reclaiming your manhood and sticking it to the bitch?”

Eros felt himself bristle. “Don’t call her that.”

“Not Annie,” Dion said. “The bitch who left you.”

Oh. Much better. “What’s the point? She’ll never know.”

“You could tell her.”

No thanks. “I don’t care if I ever see her again. Let what’s-his-name have her.”

“I’m sure he already does,” Dion said. “Right now, probably.”

Probably. From what Eros knew about the warriors of Valhalla, they were pretty much only interested in two things, and spent all day doing one and all night doing the other. And because the idea bothered him just a bit, even after what he’d just done himself, he put it out of his mind before it could lodge there and bother him more.

Instead, he looked around the bar. “Harry around?” Things had slowed down some in the time he’d been gone. He couldn’t see Harry anywhere, although Brita was still there, probably hoping to end the night with Dionysus. The rest of his office staff had joined her: Iris, the pretty little goddess of rainbows, in a flowing multicolored chiffon blouse, and Carrie—Carya—goddess of the walnut tree, in a pair of jeans that would have made Harry weep. Ariadne was over at the corner table talking to Silenus and—he assumed—keeping an eye on Brita. Or on Dion. If the Cretan goddess of hunting attempted to go upstairs with the god of wine at the end of the night, the minor goddess of the labyrinth would probably have something to say about it.

Dion nodded. “They left a few minutes after you walked out. Why? Were you gonna hurt him?” He looked delighted at the prospect.

The thought had crossed Eros’s mind. However— “No. Annie told me she wants him. I’m gonna get him for her.”

Dion tilted his head and contemplated him. “What did you do wrong?”

“Nothing,” Eros said. “It was before.”

“Before you showed her paradise. You did show her paradise, right?”

Eros shrugged. “She seemed to enjoy herself.”

“Not exactly the rousing confidence I was hoping for,” Dion said, “but it’ll do. So you took this woman home, and nailed her, and she let you, and even kept her shoes on while you did—”

“That wasn’t deliberate.”

“Sorry to hear it. Even so, what makes you think she still wants Harry?”

“She said she did,” Eros said.

“Before you fucked her. And seeing as you’re the fucking god of love, when you fuck someone, they stay fucked, right? They don’t want anyone else afterwards.”

“Will you knock it off with the fucking?” Eros was no prude, but there were limits to how many times he was comfortable hearing the word fuck in a sentence.

“When I’m dead,” Dion said, and added, “which will be never, since I’m immortal.”

Eros growled, and Dion continued, “But I’ll stop saying it. You walked Annie home. You took her upstairs. Knowing you, you probably carried her. She was pretty drunk when she walked outta here, so she might have needed some help walking. You stayed there long enough to take advantage of her. She kept her shoes on. Very hot shoes. Not to mention, you’re the god of love. I think you can assume she’s over Harry Mitchell.” 

“Maybe I don’t want her to be over him.”

Dion leaned his elbows on the bar. “Why not? She seemed nice. Nice ass, nice boobs, nice mouth. Very nice shoes.”

“Are you trying to make me angry?”

“Why would I do that?” Dion grinned. “You’re thinking too much, Ros. Just enjoy her.”

He had. He just didn’t want to do it again. Or rather, he wanted to so much that it was probably better if he just fixed her up with Harry and was done with it. “You just said I took advantage of her.”

Dion shook his head. “You didn’t. You’re the god of love. She would have rolled over for you even if she hadn’t been drunk.”

Maybe. But the fact was that she had been, and he’d known it. He’d known she wanted Harry, and he had seduced her anyway. “I’m scum.”

“No, you’re not,” Dion said. “You’re a god. The usual rules don’t apply.”

“They should. Just because I have an unfair advantage doesn’t mean it’s okay to go around seducing drunk mortals.”

“Oops,” Dion said calmly, “and here I’ve always thought it did.”

###

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