Sensual Sunday is brought to you today by Vampire for Christmas, which is one of my stand alone vampire romance novellas and perfect for the holiday season. Sensual Sunday’s always feature a hot excerpt from one of my paranormal romance books. Read on for this Sunday’s sensual snippet…
VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS is FREE right now on Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Nook and Apple iBooks
Shannon mounted the first step on the stairs. “I’ll show you around.â€
Rafe followed her, still convinced that he had hit his head harder than he had thought and was unconscious and dreaming all of this. She stopped at the top of the stairs and pointed along a hall that led towards the back of the house.
“The bathroom’s this way.†She motioned for him to follow.
He did, still taking everything in. There were several large bedrooms, all with their doors open. Which one did she use? The agency had only bothered to put a bed in one room of his house, and he was glad of it. He kept the other bedroom doors closed so the house didn’t feel as big. Shannon’s house was at least the same size as his. Both of them felt too large for just one person to live in. Did she feel that way too?
Shannon leaned into a room and turned a light on. He stopped beside her. The bathroom was standard white with a shower cubicle, basin on a vanity, and toilet.
“There should be soap and things.†She didn’t sound sure. “Just toss your clothes on the vanity and I’ll add mine to them. I have a robe you can wear.â€
Rafe walked into the bathroom and she closed the door. If the robe she had gone to retrieve was at all feminine in style, he was going to have words. He looked around, stripped off his shirt, jeans and underwear, and left them on the vanity just as she had told him to. He stepped into the shower cubicle and turned the water on. He hissed out his breath at the freezing temperature and stepped back, giving it time to warm up. The water still sprayed onto his feet, numbing his toes. It wasn’t good to lose body heat. It took him a long time to warm up again. The downside to no longer being human. He didn’t have a beating heart to burn energy and warm his blood. The colder his environment was, the colder he was. He had touched Shannon tonight and she hadn’t seemed to mind about the difference in their body temperatures.He had kissed her.
The memory of their first kiss rose up in his mind, sending it spiralling down paths that twirled ever outwards, multiplying to imagine all the possible outcomes of kissing her again. It would be difficult to keep it as chaste if he kissed her now. At the time of their first kiss, it had been imperative that it had been nothing more than a light meeting of lips. His fangs had been out.
If he had kissed her with the force of the passion burning inside him, he would have caught her tongue on them. He wasn’t sure what he would do if he tasted her blood.
The thought of it stirred him and he stepped into the cold water to chase his desire away. The water started to warm, as though wanting to foil his attempt to keep his ardour under control, and he grabbed the shower gel from the chrome rack in the corner of the cubicle.
Their second kiss had caught him off guard. He had been nervous about whether she would let him in, distracted by it enough that he didn’t want to risk kissing her as he had wanted to.
If she gave him the chance now, he would kiss her with all the hunger and desire he felt for her.
The bathroom door opened.
Rafe paused. His senses fixed on her.
She must have come to take his clothes and to bring him the bathrobe to wear.
He waited for her to leave.
She didn’t.
She opened the frosted glass door of the cubicle.
Rafe’s gaze instantly dropped to her bare body, taking in every luscious curve and the swell of her breasts. His eyebrows rose. His breath hitched in his throat.
Why was she standing naked in front of him?
Was he dreaming?
He seriously considered pinching himself and then forced his eyes up to meet hers. Her cheeks coloured deeply, tinted rose pink. She stared at his chest and spoke to it rather than him.
“I just want to get clean.â€
He didn’t believe that for a second. If she only wanted to get clean, she would have told him to shower second, or to hurry up. Getting clean was the excuse she was hiding behind. Not that he cared. He stepped aside, backing into the jet of warm water, and made room for her. She hesitated still. Her gaze rose a little higher, almost reaching his jaw, and then dropped back to his chest.
And then it dropped down for a split second and darted away to her left.
Her cheeks blazed.
Rafe smirked.
She might have an excuse for being here, but her body betrayed her. He listened to the rapid beat of her heart and the rush of her blood that carried heat to the surface of her skin and filled the air with the scent of her arousal. She wanted this to be more than a shower.
But he was going to play the gentleman.
If his body got the message that was.
His groin throbbed and he kept his gaze firmly on her face and told himself to get a grip. She had said she just wanted a shower, and that was what he would give her. When she wanted more from him, she would only have to say the word.
But she would say it.
He wasn’t one to overstep boundaries laid out by women, and he didn’t want to mess anything up with Shannon. As excruciating as the thought of showering with her but not touching her was, he would bear it and would abide by her rules.
Rafe kept still as she took the shower gel from his hand, squeezed some onto her palm, and then tiptoed and rubbed it into his dark hair. The feeling of her little fingers working the soap into his scalp, nails catching occasionally, and the gentleness with which she cleaned around the cuts along the side of his head, was divine. She leaned closer to him when she tried to reach the back of his head and her breasts pressed against his bare chest. They both froze.
Her heart hammered against his chest.
He moved back an inch, so their bodies no longer brushed, and she took to cleaning his shoulders instead. It was torture. He couldn’t take the feel of her hands on him, smoothing soapsuds over his skin, when he wanted to touch her too. This wasn’t just showering. She had to see that.
Rafe hesitated and then placed his hands on the arc of her waist. She didn’t scream, shout, pull away or slap him. He took it as a good sign and slid his hands up towards her breasts. He detoured when he reached them, sweeping the bare curve of them, and she shivered. Her nipples tautened, dusky peaks tempting him to swirl his tongue around them, or at least brush his thumbs over them. Minx.
Instead, he took the shower gel from her and pulled the band out of her fair hair. She turned her back to him and he ran his fingers through her wet hair, untangling the strands. She sighed when he started to wash her hair, gently cleaning the golden lengths, and tilted her head back. Rafe ran his eyes down her back to her bottom and his cock twitched. He tried to focus on just washing her hair but it was impossible. He was a man after all. When faced with such temptation, with the bare form of the woman he wanted most in the world, no man would be able to resist.
She gasped when he stepped close to her, nestling his erection against the crack of her buttocks, and then arched into him. Rafe groaned and rolled his eyes closed. He grabbed her hip with one hand and dropped the shower gel from the other. He held her firm and ground against her backside. She sighed and wriggled. The Devil he wanted to be inside her.
He reined himself in instead and moved backwards, bringing her under the spray of water and rinsing her hair out for her. His cock ached and throbbed, demanding attention, but he kept his focus on the simple task of washing her.
Any excuse to touch every inch of her.
Did you enjoy today’s hot little snippet?
Caris Roane is also posting a Sensual Sunday snippet from one of her paranormal romance books, so be sure to check out her blog and read it!
Vampire for Christmas
Felicity Heaton
It was one last mission. Shannon, a demon hunter with the agency, is looking forward to leaving behind the small town and the vampire she’s been stuck with for the past two years. Things are getting complicated fast and she wants out. A fresh start, free of her vampire partner, awaits her if she can survive their final mission and the lonely Christmas holidays.
It was one last mission. Rafe, a vampire doing time with the agency, watches it approach with dread weighing heavily in his stomach. Two years of working with Shannon has been difficult, especially since he started falling for her, but he doesn’t want their partnership to end. He has barely a few days to make her face her feelings and stop her from leaving, and he intends to do just that.
When a slimy demon threatens the season of peace and goodwill, it’s the chance Rafe has been waiting for and the moment Shannon secretly fears. Rafe’s determination to prise open her heart and her own resolve to keep it closed clash as violently as they do with the demon, and threatens to end as messily.
Can Rafe make Shannon see that his love for her is real and that she feels something for him too? Can Shannon face her fears and her past, and stop herself from running away from both? Will a wish on a star bring her what her heart truly desires—a vampire for Christmas?
VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS is FREE right now on Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Nook and Apple iBooks
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