Excerpt: Tempt Me With Darkness

Olivia shares a mystical—and irresistible—connection with brooding Marrok. Soon after the sexy warrior appears in her erotic dreams, he abducts her, demanding she uncurse him. Their intense passion is more powerful—and intimate—than either of them has ever known. Olivia may be the key to unlocking the diary that will break Morganna’s hold on his life. But in the wrong hands, the book also holds the power to destroy magickind. As they search for answers, a ruthless wizard returned from exile is building an army of evil. When he discovers Marrok and Olivia have the diary, only their love—with the help of a powerful group of magical Brethren—can save them.

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“Black vaults into the supernatural… Kudos!” Romantic Times Bookclub

“Shayla’s created a very interesting reality with standout characters… I certainly was kept up past bedtime by this one! I’ll look forward to the next book with pleasure.” ~ Merry Cutler, Romantic Times Bookseller of the Year

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“Your social skills haven’t grown during the last fifteen centuries. You can’t just accuse me of stabbing you in the back. I’m not Morganna.”

“Honesty from her is something I neither needed nor wasted my breath asking for. You…” he swallowed, pain shadowing his face. He buried his fists in her hair and stared at her with stark blue eyes. “Do not betray me. You will rip out my heart.”

His voice was a whisper, his words a plea. And they melted her like butter.

He was telling her that she, a woman who had never been wanted, could bring this fierce warrior to his knees. Did she dare believe it? How often had she fantasized about being wanted, having someone who would touch her freely, with affection? Marrok knew it. He could be feigning all this emotion to keep her close until he discovered how to open the diary and end his curse. When he’d met her, he hadn’t been hoping for a wife.

When he’d mated with her, it hadn’t been for love.

But when he touched her, she swore that nothing—no one—mattered as much to him.

Tears pricked her eyes as Olivia grabbed the hard line of his jaw and looked into his icy-hot eyes. “I know what rejection feels like. Why would I purposely hurt you?”

“Mayhap you resent your abduction, our mating. Or because you can.”

He’d given her power over him…but all she wanted was his touch, his affection. Marrok pressed against her, chest, belly, hips, thighs, as close as he could without being inside her. Then his lips followed, consuming hers in one greedy stroke.

She should stop him, sort out this tangle of thoughts, hopes, and desires before jumping into the fire. But her nipples burned into his chest, and he pulled her deeper into the kiss. Everything inside her incinerated. Letting him go was impossible.

Panting, he pulled back and drilled her with a hot stare. Without words, Olivia knew he wanted to be deep inside her. That look siphoned off her anger and inhibitions. She forgot everything but the moment as he pressed passionate kisses to her neck, his hands drifting to her breasts. His cock pushed between her legs as if begging for entry.

She burned up, itchy and hot, smoldering inside for something only he could give her. Leaning into him, Olivia opened herself to him—her kiss, her need, her heart. He took them, hungry and unrelenting. The contrast of his soft lips and rough stubble mesmerized her.

“Mine,” he growled against her mouth, challenging her to deny it.

“For now.”

“Forever.”

He sounded so determined. Marrok was looking to break his curse and die. Did it really matter to him? Did she?

He kissed her like she did, now at her mouth again, sliding deep. His callused palms burned her breasts, pinched her tight nipples. The pleasure-pain made her gasp. As Marrok unsnapped her jeans and shoved them down her legs and off, he took sensitive nipples in his mouth, one after the other, back and forth. Until she trembled. Arched. Gushed.

Olivia couldn’t believe she stood completely naked in Bram’s hallway, her back against the wall, panting for Marrok to make love to her. Worse, she didn’t want it to stop.

Marrok nipped at her breast with his teeth, then licked softly. As he repeated the process on her other, he shoved his sweat pants past his hips.

“Open for me.”

The need to feel him deep rose hard and fast. Olivia complied, and he kissed his way down until he kneeled between her spread feet. When he latched on to her wet folds with his mouth, tongue toying with her, she cried out, grabbing the dark silk of his hair as his lips spread desire all through her.

He lapped at her, and her need soared. As she whimpered his name, he nibbled at her thigh, rose to kiss her belly, suckle a breast, breathe against her lips. “Release all your need unto me.”

Then Marrok lifted her, wrapped her thighs around his hips, and thrust deep. At the sudden intrusion, pleasure shot past any pain, ripping through her. She opened her mouth to scream, and Marrok covered it, driving her higher with his hungry demands.

His kiss claimed her, never-ending. He swallowed all her cries, as if he refused to share them with anyone. Her body devoured every inch of his erection and squeezed, craving more. The ache inside skyrocketed, burning hot, threatening to incinerate her. Blood rushed to her swollen clit. Olivia convulsed as pleasure climbed, spiked, and overtook her.

He opened his eyes. Hard, bright, rapacious. A sizzling blue that threatened her sanity—her soul.

“Again,” he demanded.

The warrior in him compelled her surrender; he’d settle for nothing less than a proverbial white flag. But with one relentless thrust after another into her weeping core, the tightening tension and the perfect friction only strengthened their bond. It expanded outward, filling everything inside her, cocooning and disintegrating her at once.

“Feel me,” he whispered. “Tell me who you belong to.”

“No one.”

“Wrong! You belong to me.”

His determined growl resounded with passion and filled an empty place in her heart. Did she dare believe him?

“Say it,” he demanded. “Tell me.”

Inside her, he swelled, eased back, then pressed inside her again with a molasses-slow stroke that had her clawing his back.

“You!” Pleasure ripped the word from her.

“Only me. There will be no other.”

“Never!” She threw her head back to the wall.

With her neck exposed, Marrok planted his lips just beneath her ear.

“Come for me, love. Give everything to me.”

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