Nope, not at all. So tempted to just walk out on my life today I can taste the salt air.
The new dryer was to be delivered today. It was. It's currently sitting in my dining room. Fat lot of good it'll do me there. The guys who brought it, late of course, wouldn't even try to take it down the steps. I still maintain it would have fit just fine if they'd have just manned up and lifted it a little but no, I ended up doing some demolition work on something my ex added instead. Something that had absolutely no purpose other than to piss me off every time I looked at it. So yeah, demolishing it wasn't at all a bad thing. But now there's the annoyance factor of having to waste all day tomorrow waiting for them to come back. Grr. Just not my day.
On a much better note, my friend Regina Carlysle has a book releasing today. Ringo's Ride which is the third in her High Plains Shifter series. If you haven't read the first two you don't know what you're missing.
Blurb - Rayne dreamed of the day Ringo would claim her as his mate, changing her into the lycan she is meant to be. One touch from his hands burns her with a flame hot enough to scorch the Texas plains. But the moody lycan has made it clear he doesn’t want her. That’s just too damn bad! The sexy Latino lycan belongs to her and she aims to claim him, no matter what it takes.
Ringo hides the pain of his tortured past behind a menacing sneer. Learning that Rayne is meant to be his mate is unwelcome news. She deserves better than to be saddled with a man with his checkered past. It isn’t until she is taken from him that he knows she is the only woman who can heal his battered soul.
Excerpt - Ringo Ramone raced through the hot Texas night as if someone had lit a fire under his ass. He dodged rocks and prickly cactus, ignoring the heat that singed the pads of his paws, too furious to notice. Rage beat at him until he practically shook with it. He sniffed the ground in an effort to pick up the trail of the rogue lycans who’d stolen his mate.
His mate!
Fuck!
He’d always suspected Rayne Poteet might be the one but he hadn’t wanted that. For years he’d watched her from a distance, drawn to her sweetness, her beauty. He’d slunk around in the shadows, fighting off the feelings that twisted tightly in his chest every time she so much as spoke to him. He wasn’t an emotional man and didn’t plan on changing for any she-wolf, not even Rayne. Besides, she was too good for the likes of him. He was a motherless son of a rat-bastard traitor and that’s all he’d ever be.
The huge black wolf stopped and panted. How much ground had he covered since leaving the ranch house to hunt down the men who’d taken her? Tonight they’d had a barbecue for the town of Cloverfield. It had been a happy time and, Lord knew, he’d seen too few of those in his many years. His alpha Joe McKinnon, and Quinn, the daughter of their former alpha, were celebrating their Consummation Ceremony when it all went down. Like a bunch of raving idiots, the males of the pack had been lured by rogue lycans to the south pasture while others had circled back to the ranch to steal away their unmated females.
Rayne!
She was his predestined mate. He hadn’t known it until tonight and then, in one instant of stupidity, she’d been taken before he’d had time to absorb it all. Spotting a grove of mesquite in the distance, he loped over, shifting as he ran. Naked, dripping with sweat, he leaned against the rough bark and closed his eyes. Ringo couldn’t help it. The look on her face tonight as the knowledge of their empathic connection, the proof they were a meant to be a mated pair, had gone through him like a blast from a flamethrower. Her pretty, sherry-colored eyes had gone wide as energy sizzled between them.
His cock thickened as he remembered.
Damn his horny ass!
This wasn’t the time.
Shifting back into his wolf, he took off again, scenting the air. Off in the distance, he spotted an old line shack at the edge of the ranch property. If worse came to worst, he could bring her to it. It was kept fully stocked with provisions.
Ringo continued on, running endlessly across the empty stretch of prairie. Suddenly, he spotted it. A low campfire was flickering in the predawn darkness, shooting up occasional sparks. Laughter. Male laughter. His heightened senses picked up the sound of Rayne’s breathing. It was accelerated.
A truck was parked at the very edge of the meager light and two naked men sat on the ground several yards from where Rayne lay, trussed up like a Christmas turkey. Her clothes were a mess and there were scratches on her legs. Her copper-colored hair was spread across the dusty ground like a pool of sunshine and he got a glimpse of her bare white belly and the tiny red panties she wore.
“What are we gonna do with her? Zavalos must be dead. He hasn’t shown up like he was supposed to.”
The other lycan stood and, planting his fists on his hips, stared across the fire at Rayne. Ringo lowered his body closer to the ground and moved slowly toward them, listening.
“Something went wrong. I feel it,” he said. “Let’s load her into the truck and head south. We can’t wait out here anymore. It’ll be morning soon.”
“Please. Let me go,” Rayne said.
Ringo’s heart thumped then sped in his chest at the sound of her voice. Just hearing it threatened to send him to his knees.
“Can’t do that, Red.” This from the man who was crouched before the fire. “Our pack is short on unmated females and you’ll have to come with us.”
“But I-I am,” she stammered. “I have a mate.”
The lycan who stood stalked toward her and, grabbing her shoulders, jerked her upright and slapped her. The crack of it shredded the quiet.
Red rage clouded Ringo’s mind. His fur bristled. They would die this night for trespassing on what was his. His snarl of outrage made his prey go still. With death and destruction on his mind, he leaped.
* * * * *
The first lycan had thrown her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and run with her into the night to where a truck waited. A second man had bound her hands and feet with duct tape and covered her mouth with it too. Callously they’d tossed her into the bed of the truck and driven off. She heard the cries of the McCafferty sisters and wanted to scream her outrage. They were just girls really, no older than seventeen. No doubt they were being handled in the same sickening manner. A second truck, carrying the girls, went in another direction.
Oh gods!
There was no way in hell she could help them.
Terrified, shaken beyond anything in her experience, she’d lain there as tears leaked from her eyes. All she could see was the smattering of stars overhead. All she could hear was the sound of the truck engine and the wind as it whistled by. Closing her eyes, she prayed for Ringo.
Yes, she was lycan but not yet fully in working order, so to speak. She’d yet to shift and only tonight had it been revealed that Ringo, the lanky, dark wolf with the blacker–than-sin eyes was hers.
Hers.
Finally. After all these years of hoping and praying that he was the one who would have an unbreakable psychic connection with her, the wish had come true. He would come for her. She knew it.
They’d barely touched tonight at the barbecue at the Wolf Creek Ranch. Big Joe McKinnon, the pack’s new alpha had taken Quinn, his newly consummated mate by the hand. Joy propelled Rayne to her feet as she took a step through the crowd and toward the bandstand where the couple had gone to make an announcement. Suddenly, she brushed against six foot four inches of steely-hard muscle. She smelled the familiar scent of clean, masculine cologne and stared into the black eyes that featured prominently in most of her dreams.
“Ringo,” she gasped as his hands reached out to steady her.
“Steady there, darlin’.”
He sucked in a breath and so did she. Their eyes connected and held.
Around her the world narrowed dramatically as a low buzz of energy zipped through her system. Instantly her panties were drenched and a ball of lust tightened low in her belly. Her first thought was to press her thighs together to soothe the harsh ache in her pussy. “Wha—”
“Fuck. No. This can’t be happening,” Ringo murmured huskily. He released her as if burned and shoved his fingers through his thick, black hair. His nostrils flared. His breath whipped in and out of his lungs as if he he’d run a race.
Rayne could do nothing but stare. Ringo’s eyes narrowed on her seconds before he grabbed her arm and ushered her toward the kitchen door of the house. His grip was strong but she didn’t mind. Even a simple touch from him set her on fire. In the distance she heard shouts of “Happy consummation” from the lycan population of Cloverfield, Texas. But then she heard nothing because Ringo led her through the door, pressed her against the wall and took her mouth with a hunger she’d never experienced before. Those lips, that to others might seem cruel, softened over hers and then he nipped her bottom lip. “This can’t be happening. It can’t be you.”
He regretted her. He didn’t want her.
Click here to buy.
