Lust at First Sight

GEMINI HEAT & GOTHIC HEAT - Portia Da Costa

This is just a quickie to say... Wahey, both GEMINI HEAT and GOTHIC HEAT are published in America today! They're the two books that span my fourteen years as a Black Lace author and I'm thrilled to bits that they're available together like this... :)

To celebrate this auspicious day, here are two brief clips, one from each book, each containing the heroine's first impressions of the hero... and in each case, as the title of this post says, it's lust at first sight!

First, from Gemini Heat... Deana turns around and finds exotic Jake de Guile at her side...

'Chatted who up?'

The voice from beside her was soft and light with an insidiously husky catch. Pure sex, filtered through human vocal chords, and Deana knew exactly who it belonged to. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she turned around.

Her moments-only impression hadn't done him justice. She'd formed a sketch in her mind but what stood before her was a masterpiece, a living composition more fine and sensual than anything in this mad bad collection.

'Who were you going to chat up?' her vision in black persisted, but for several seconds all Deana could do was stare at his smiling lips, his large dark eyes; his hands, his body, his crotch. His narrow black eyebrows lifted in enquiry and amusement, and after a century she recovered her voice.

'You,' she said sharply, making a split second decision to be her usual unflinching self. He was raw eroticism on two legs, but she wasn't frightened of him. She wanted him, yes - instantly and unequivocally - but she didn't fear him. Although a small voice inside her said ought to.

'Yes,' she went on as she faced him. Panicking creatively, she said the first thing that came into her head. 'Although "chat up" is purely a figure of speech. You seem to be one of the few people here genuinely interested in the exhibits... so I thought it would be nice to "chat you up" and get your opinions. I'm an artist myself and I wanted to compare... compare my reactions with someone else's,' she paused, flustered, realizing that she was rabbiting on and that he was still smiling his slow, indulgent smile, 'You are interested, aren't you?'

'Of course. It's my specialty.' He accompanied this cryptic utterance with a elegant flip of his fingers. Deana noted the slenderness of his hands and how beautifully kept they were, and suddenly she imagined them slipping knowledgably over her body, seeking out the most sensitive places and stroking her to climax after climax. She could almost see her own shine on his narrow toffee-coloured fingertips.

'Is that a fact?' she answered pertly, feeling the blush rise again, then fall as it had done before, to the place that now yearned for this strange dark man, 'Are you an artist yourself? Do you paint? Or draw?'

'No, sadly I have no talent. I merely observe beauty,' he replied, his eyes roving almost crudely across her body. As his gaze returned to meet hers, Deana met dark, electric-blue fire and was shocked. Not just by the blatant desire there, but by the fact that with his colouring she'd been expecting brown eyes, or grey.

The shape of his eyes was unusual too. In a Caucasian face, they were slanted, oriental, almost catlike. Wide-set and with thick, sooty lashes, they had a slight over-folding of the lids at the inner corners. Mr Mystery here had the east not too far back in his heritage, and his eyes bore the epicanthus to prove it.

His hair was also eastern. Steel-black and straight as water, it was smoothed back closely against his head and caught at the nape of his neck in a ponytail. Its hard, unruffled shine reminded Deana of a seal's coat, but almost instantly, she revised her assessment. Seals were cuddly and playful, and this man just wasn't. He was a shark or a king cobra, hovering to strike or kill, smiling and deadly. Suddenly, she knew she should fear him.

'Me too,' she said, responding belately. He must think I'm a complete ninny, she thought, annoyed by her own inability to impress. 'Why don't we get together?'



And now, in Gothic Heat, Paula has an 'across a crowded room' moment when she spots Rafe Hathaway in a grotty, insalubrious nightclub....

The man by the dance floor was still there, and the sight of him still made her catch her breath and wonder. Now he seemed to look entirely different.

What she’d seen before must have been an hallucination.

Raven Club man didn’t have the aristocratic glamour of ‘Count André’ and he didn’t even have the long, exotic locks. His dark hair was cropped quite short, and it made him look earthy and dangerous. He had the aura of a conscious outsider about him, a rebel, and a bit of stud maybe, but in a raw, maverick way. In contrast the boring but colourful designer outlet finery around him, he was wearing a battered black leather biker jacket, narrow black jeans and some kind of heavy, buckled work boots.

A pair of dark, narrowed eyes scanned the room just as hers had, their hooded lids predatory and jaded-looking. His mouth was rather hard, and thinned a little, as if the club inspired just the same sense of distaste and disappointment in him that it did in her.

Yeah, I know, it’s a dingy old sump, isn’t it? thought Paula. So what the hell are we doing here? We should be elsewhere. Together.

She watched his hands. They moved quickly and edgily, even though his large body was still and poised. First he tapped his fingertips against the smudged railing in time to the music, and then went through the motions of patting his pockets, reaching into them, digging about. Only to be snatched smartly back out again.

Ah hah! A smoker - or an ex smoker - searching for his ciggies. Having done hard time giving up herself, Paula recognised the tell-tales. Maybe the tall, hard-looking, and vaguely biker-ish man wasn’t quite as calm and self assured as he looked? The urge to smoke was a natural reflex when ill at ease.

The large hands appeared again, and suddenly he cracked his knuckles. The sound of it shouldn’t have been audible over the cacophony of the music, but even so it echoed across the room as if they were the only two people in it.

Hands still clasped, the tall stranger looked straight up at Paula.

Connection hit her like a thump in the solar plexus. Lines of force zipped between the two of them, and the man down below cocked his head as if listening to their hum.

A powerful urge to run gripped Paula, but then died again.

Connection hit her like a thump in the solar plexus. Lines of force zipped between the two of them, and the man down below cocked his head as if listening to their hum.

A powerful urge to run gripped Paula, but then died again.

Take him, he’s yours, the voice of Isidora purred beneath her skin. And Paula’s eyes and limbs obeyed it. Holding the tall man’s gaze, she glanced towards the club’s emergency exit, and then, not looking back, she began to walk quickly towards the steps to the lower level.


So... two guys, two naughty books... hope you enjoy both of them equally! Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of a book from my back list.

love

Portia
Still labouring at the Black Lace coal face to bring you sexy and romantic treats!