The WWR Romance Bulletin

A WeWriteRomance.Com Newsletter
Keeping you connected with your favorite authors...
Volume II, Issue 17
November 30, 2005 -- Copyright (c) November 30, 2005 -- PLEASE FORWARD

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The WWR Romance Bulletin is issued twice a month by FREE subscription only. If you are not a subscriber, then this copy may have been passed to you by a friend.

Our subscriber list is confidential and we respect your privacy. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends as they may also be able to benefit from it. Thank you.

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In this issue...

Thoughts from Heather R.
Author News & Announcements
Win, Win, Win...New contests for November!
Books, Books & More Books
Sneak Peek of: The Greek's Christmas Baby by Lucy Monroe
Cutting for Pace by Kate Walker
Sneak Peek of: Kiss of the Night by Sylvia Day
Chat with Donna December 1st!
Notes & Contact Info

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Editorial

Happy Holidays!

Yes, it's that time of year again. The time when you have to brave the crowds or surf the web for the perfect gift. Let me just say two words: romance book!

I ask for at least two books each Christmas that I've either put off buying myself (has anyone else noticed how expensive hardbacks are?) or that will be out in the month of December. Books make a wonderful gift. Almost like sending someone on a dream cruise, but without their having to make time in their busy schedules to actually 'go' somewhere—at least that's my thought. =)

In case you're contemplating which books to buy, we have excerpts of two new releases that might help. Check out The Greek's Christmas Baby by Lucy Monroe and Kiss of the Night by Sylvia Day. These are sure to be wonderful books by two of WWR's bestselling authors.

And for the writers who are interested in learning more about cutting and tightening up a manuscript, WWR author Kate Walker has shared Cutting for Pace, a very helpful article with us.

Until next time, happy shopping!

Heather R.

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Member News: Always fun, always fresh!

Dianne Castell's A Fabulous Wedding, the third book of her Harlequin American Forty and Fabulous series will be in stores in December. Dixie Carmichael feels she’s been given a second chance at life and plans on being a big city reporter. Nick Romero is on his last undercover assignment as an FBI agent and has had enough adventure to last a lifetime. Visit with Dixie and Nick, BJ and Flynn, Maggie and Jack in Whistlers Bend, Montana and see what happens when they meet up with the "knock-off" smugglers and how they get Andy the marshmallow-eating buffalo back home.

Starting December 1, Tanya Michaels will be conducting a "12 Days of Christmas" Giveaway at her blog. Anyone who posts comments during those twelve days will be automatically entered to win festive prizes such as ornaments, holiday-themed books, and scented candles. You don't need to be a registered blogspot user to participate, and you will not be required to list an email address--but if you don't, make sure you check back to see if you won, because Tanya may not have any way to contact you!

On her website, Lucy Monroe has posted special bonus scenes for readers that were cut from the original version of Come Up and See Me Sometime. Don't miss your chance to get a better picture of Marcus and Veronica and their relationship prior to their story in Goodness Had Nothing to Do With It out this month. "Deception, lies, betrayal and secrets are all staples of this book and readers won't be able to put it down until the very last page." --The Romance Studio

Also, look for The Greek's Christmas Baby from Harlequin Presents this month too! It tells Aristides story, the brother of the hero in her May release, The Greek's Innocent Virgin. "You'll want to add this Presents to your Christmas list. 4 & 1/2 stars." --The Romance Readers Connection

Kate Walker's brand new UK release The Antonakos Marriage is on the shelves as a Mills & Boon Modern Romance. To mark the publication of The Antonakos Marriage, Kate will be updating her web site and launching a special Christmas contest--The Twelve Days of Christmas--with a chance to win a prize every day between the 1st and 12th of December--just in time for Christmas.

Kate has just completed her 46th title which is now with her editor--but the book doesn't yet have a title! The Married Mistress will be her next release in America. This title will be on sale in the Harlequin Readers' Club in February 2006 and again as a Promotional Presents in May 2006. For more details on all Kate’s books and activities, including how to enter her contests, check out her web site at http://www.kate-walker.com.

Check out this space each month for the most updated info about our member authors!

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Til There Was U
by Dianne Castell
The first book in the Four O’Fallons and a Baby series...
A Kensington Brava November 2005 Release
Rated Four Stars by Romantic Times Magazine

Effie and Ryan have the perfect jobs in the perfect place but they don’t have each other...till they realize hot nights on the shores of the Mississippi are perfect for shutting out the world and succumbing to sexual fantasies, deep desires and true love.

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Win, Win, Win...Enter these contests today!

YEAH! WWR Forum member Blue has won the Bag O'Books 2005 Contest.

Keep watching WeWriteRomance.com for new contests!

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Books, Books & More Books

Check out these current and upcoming releases!

November 2005

SNARING THE HUNTRESS by Sylvia Day from Amber Quill Press
TIL THERE WAS U by Dianne Castell from Kensington Brava
HOT OFF THE PRESS by Erin Katz from Liquid Silver Books
DATING THE MRS. SMITHS by Tanya Michaels, A Next Novel
SCARLET WOMAN by Shelley Munro from Ellora's Cave
BOUND BY BLACKMAIL by Kate Walker from Harlequin Presents

December 2005

A FABULOUS WEDDING by Dianne Castell from Harlequin American
HOT WITH HANDCUFFS by Erin Katz from Liquid Silver Books
GOODNESS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT by Lucy Monroe from Kensington Zebra
THE GREEK'S CHRISTMAS BABY by Lucy Monroe from Harlequin Presents
DIAGNOSIS: LOVE by Donna Wright from Avalon Books

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One Little Sin by Liz Carlyle
When one man's wicked charms are matched by one woman's fiery spirit, one little sin can lead to another ... and another ... and another....

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Sneak Peek of The Greek's Christmas Baby by Lucy Monroe

CHAPTER ONE

"She’s coming out of it."

Eden heard the words, but didn’t recognize the voice. Her eyelids felt glued together over a layer of sandpaper. It took Herculean effort to force them apart and at first, all she saw was white light and moving shadows.

There were more words, but they sounded like they were coming from under water.

A shadow moved to her right. "Yes, doctor."

Her eyes began to adjust, making recognizable interpretations of the light and shadows.

A young doctor bent over her, his pale blue eyes intent on her face. "Hello, Mrs. Kouros. I’m Adam Lewis, the doctor on call when you were brought in. How do you feel?"

"Like I’ve been hit by a truck," she rasped. Her tongue felt parched and swollen.

"You were...or at least your car was."

Images flashed in her mind. Driving rain, a wet road, the sound of squealing tires. Headlights coming straight at them. The grating honk of a car’s horn, long and penetrating. Aristide swearing in Greek and English. His arm coming out to shield her, the airbags rendering the gesture superfluous. Her brown hair swirling around her face, it and the airbag blocking everything else from view.

More distressing images bombarded her and her hand moved restlessly to cover her still flat womb.

Her gray eyes clung to the doctor’s, begging reassurance. "My baby?"

The paramedics had said the tiny life inside her probably wouldn’t survive the trauma, but she’d prayed desperately they were wrong. She didn't remember anything from that desperate prayer until waking up just now.

"You’re still pregnant."

"Thank God," she said brokenly, relief pouring through her slight body.

"Unfortunately, you’re spotting. The good news is that there is no amniotic fluid in the blood. However, the amniotic sac has disengaged from the wall of your womb in one spot. We’ll do everything we can to save the baby, but the next seventy-two hours are going to be critical. You must remain in this bed and stay calm."

She nodded and winced at the ache in her head. "Hurts..."

"Yes." He shone a small flashlight in her eyes and made a note on her chart. "You are suffering a minor concussion and have several small abrasions on your right arm from shattered glass."

Now that he mentioned it, her arm did sting, but her entire body felt like she’d been beaten.

Where was Aristide? Surely he wouldn’t leave her to face this alone. He might not love her, but he adored being a father. Even after their argument, he would be by her bedside for the baby’s sake.

"Where is my husband?"

The doctor laid his hand on her forearm. "You must remain calm, are we agreed on that?"

"Yes." She willed her emotions in check, despite fear trying to take a choke-hold her. "Please tell me."

"Mr. Kouros is in a room down the hall. His vitals aren’t bad, but he hasn’t come round yet."

"He’s in a coma?"

"Yes."

She flinched as if the word had been a physical blow. She felt like it had been. Prior to the accident she’d convinced herself and told Aristide that she was ready for her marriage to end. She had believed there was no greater pain than loving a man she was certain cared for another woman, but she had been wrong.

The prospect of Aristide dying hurt much worse.

"Will he come out of it?" She could barely make herself ask the question, she was so terrified of the answer.

"There’s no way to tell, but indications are good."

"I need to see him." If she could see him, it would be all right. It had to be all right.

"Not just yet. As I said before, moving you would be detrimental to your pregnancy. You must remain here."

"How can I stay here while Aristide is in a coma in another room?" She struggled to sit up.

He pressed gently against her shoulders, putting a halt to her feeble efforts. "Your husband will continue to live without you by his side, but if you attempt to go to him, your baby might not. When he wakes up, we will bring him to you."

She appreciated the "when" rather than the doctor saying "if", but his promise was not enough. "Please...isn't there some way you can take me to him?"

"Your baby's life depends on you remaining calm and remaining flat on your back in this bed," the doctor said too firmly for her to ignore.

She gave up trying to move. "Seventy-two hours?"

"If he hasn't woken up by then and you are no longer spotting, we will arrange for you to be taken to his room to sit beside his bed."

She knew she had to be strong, but it was so hard. She just wanted everything to be the way it had been before she got married, when she thought Aristide was just poor at expressing his emotions toward her...before she'd decided he didn't have any.

The doctor squeezed her shoulder in comfort before stepping back. "Bed rest is the best chance you have of ensuring the viability of your pregnancy at this point, Mrs. Kouros. I know it is difficult, but you must stay here. We will keep you apprised of your husband’s progress. I promise."

"Thank you." She blinked away tears at the kind understanding she saw reflected in the doctor’s eyes. "I need to make a phone call."

"Of course."

She called her mother-in-law. Phillippa was frantic at the news of the accident and Aristide’s coma. Even so, she did not neglect to ask how Eden was doing.

"I’m fine. Some minor complications...a concussion...it will keep me on bed rest for a few days, though." The only family member who knew she was pregnant was Aristide and she had every intention of keeping it that way.

She’d found out very recently herself and the news had come as a total shock. She was still breast feeding Theo, or had been, but her milk had stopped producing and she’d gone to her doctor to find out why. She’d been dumbfounded to discover she was pregnant again so soon after the birth of her first child. Theo was only nine months old.

Even if it had been a planned event, she would have hesitated to impart news of her pregnancy to her mother-in-law when there was a chance it would end in grief.

Her heart contracted at the thought and she sent yet another desperate prayer heavenward.

"I’m so glad Theo is staying with you."

"You must not worry about your son. All is well."

Eden actually managed a smile; thoughts of her son always gave her pleasure. "Thank you."

It had been murder leaving him behind and she went to sleep every night with images of his baby features so like his father’s firmly fixed in her mind’s eye. Theo share Aristide’s dark curly hair and olive complexion, but he had her gray eyes. She missed him like crazy, but she had intended this trip to New York to be an opportunity to cement her relationship with Aristide.

She had thought that by coming back to where they had met and been lovers, she could recapture the way things had been between them. However, the trip had been a dismal failure. She’d ended up playing second fiddle to Kassandra...again and getting so mad about it, she’d asked Aristide for a divorce.

She could barely believe she'd done it. She'd been crazy in love with him from practically the moment they met. She'd thought he felt the same way. He'd certainly acted like it.

They'd bumped into each other in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It had been a muggy day in summer and Eden was visiting her dad in the city. He was busy in a last minute business meeting and had cancelled their plans for lunch. There was nothing new in that and she'd taken herself off to the museum as she'd done on so many occasions in the past.

Only this time, she'd never made it inside.

Cutting for Pace by Kate Walker

QUESTION: I've finished my novel and done a total word count - to find that I'm way over the limit. How does one cut 28 pages from a 348 page WIP?

ANSWER: Some years ago, I had an editor who was affectionately known as Ms C4P and the C4P stood for Cut-for-Pace. This is because when I - or any of her other authors - sent in a manuscript for her to read, inevitably, even if she passed it without any other revisions, it would come back with lines, paragraphs, sometimes even whole pages where she had put a pencil line down the side and the instruction 'Cut for pace'. After a while working with her, I very soon started to hear her voice in my head when I was writing, and I would soon start cutting for pace even before I'd sent the manuscript off - sometimes even as I was writing the words - I would be erasing them as fast as I wrote them.

Cutting your work to meet the strict word count of a Harlequin novel can be one of the hardest things for an author to do. We put a part of ourselves into these stories, we love every word we've written - we believe every word we've put into it is vital, essential to the story - and oh, so eloquently written. How could anyone ever ask us to cut it back?

But an editor will. If your work is over the word count limit, you'll be asked to bring it under the maximum. If your story has lots of extra characters, events, secondary plots that are extraneous to the central romance, you'll be asked to reduce them. If you have proportionally a lotmore narrative than dialogue, you'll be asked to change the balance to around 60% dialogue to 40% narrative. And even if your story fits exactly into the word count limit, very often a trained, objective, editorial eye will see places where the action slows, where the dialogue goes nowhere, where you repeat something you or your characters have said before, and her pencil will come out, a line will go through the passage and in the margin will be the words:

CUT FOR PACE

So how do you cut anything from a few hundred words to several thousand from your precious manuscript on which you've worked so hard?

First things first - you swallow your pride. You push away all thoughts of how much you 'just love this bit!' and you look at your work as coldly and objectively as you can. After all, that's what your editor is going to do. She isn't going to think, 'Oh but she had such fun writing this,' or 'This is where she put in something that her DH said to her once - a secret message between the two of them'. No way. She's going to decide that this doesn't really contribute to the story or that has been said already on pages 34 and 78 and really we've got the point by now. And she isn't going to be impressed by long, poetic descriptions of scenery or clothing or meals or the history of a particular place. To her it's going to look like padding and the pencil will cross it out.

The best thing you can do is to try and get there first - to do much of the cutting for her. If you're careful and clever then you'll create a tighter, pacier read at the same time -you might even improve on the slightly saggy middle - and that will help to give your manuscript the best possible chance.

So what do you cut?

Cut anything you’re already said
If you have a point to make between you characters, make it once as clearly as possible and then leave it to stand. You can refer back to it briefly, but don't keep belabouring the point. In short books like romances, even just one line repeated on several occasions can seem way too much.
Unnecessary description
Obviously you have to have brief descriptions here and there - what your characters look like - what they're wearing - what the room they're in looks like. But don't waste time and precious words going into elaborate details. The sad truth is that more often than not a reader will skim over any detailed descriptions so as to get on with the good stuff - the relationship between your H & h - so you're really wasting your time if you go into poetic descriptions. Make it short and sweet.
Dialogue that doesn’t make its point
Okay, so everyday dialogue is full of Good morning/How are you/Nasty weather . . . but you don't have space or word count for that. You don't really have the word count for any dialogue that doesn't reveal one character to another. The conversations your characters have should add to their knowledge of each other, reveal facts about the conflict that has come between them, explain why things happened. They - and you - don't have time just to pass the time of day. Make your dialogue count. And don't constantly keep getting them to the point of revealing something and then breaking off and saying, 'No - not now.' No one in real life would let that pass again and again and it becomes irritating repetition.
Excessive introspection
Yes, the reader wants to know what your H & h are thinking - but keep it short, sharp and to the point. One problem with introspection is that it's always in narrative - and it's always telling, not showing. If you spend time having your hero reflect on how the way the heroine is behaving reminds him of how his mother always used to act in front of her many boyfriends and so he . . . before you know it, you'll have lost the reader's attention - and they'll have lost their place in the dialogue. Keep introspection to a couple of telling sentences. If there is more that needs to be explained, then it should go into dialogue and be told to the heroine.
Introspection that has been done before, that doesn’t add anything new, that is indulgent
This is much like point number one - yes, your reader wants to get inside the H/h's head and understand them - but we don't need to know every last details of their life, their thoughts, their relationship with their parents and every single girlfriend/boyfriend they ever had. Only use introspection when it actually tells the reader something about the way the person Is feeling now.
Elaboration on minor points
Elaboration full stop
The reason a reader has picked up a romance is because she wants to read a ROMANCE. She doesn’t want a travelogue, a history lesson. You may be a world expert on horse racing, or martial arts – but are the details you’re putting in directly relevant to the ROMANCE? If not, they are padding, and padding will weigh down and slow down your story.
Too much detail/dialogue/description/action involving minor characters who take away the focus from the H&h and so diffuse the action
The story your reader wants is the story of the HERO and the HEROINE. They don’t want her sister’s troubles with her husband or his best friend’s long last girlfriend.. Any time you spend away from the central story weakens that plot and so the focus of the book. Of course, this varies according to the different lines – a Superromance can afford to have more of a secondary plot and more characters than, say a Presents – but as a general rule, and certainly when you are trying to cut for pace, the main relationship should always be your focus and you can afford to cut back on the lesser ones.
Scenes that only show one thing and so could be combined with another to tell a couple of things in one go
In a restricted word limit, you don’t have time to detail everything and give everything its single focus in the spotlight. Use each scene to it’s best advantage by making sure that it shows something about your H&h and their story. Don’t just have one scene where the heroine finds a photograph of the hero’s dead wife – put that together with an argument that leads to her blurting out that she has been married too - unhappily – and the repercussions from that will lead into a sensual reconciliation . . .
Family – families often get in the way in fiction – and in fact!
Don’t however fall into the trap of feeling that you have to kill off all the heroine’s parents and relatives – that will just turn your book into melodrama. But families could interfere – a brother or father wouldn’t stand for the way the hero is treating the heroine – so set up a scenario where the heroine is working away from home – or living in another country – or Mum & Dad have gone on a round the world cruise and won’t be back till Christmas. Then you won’t have to have scenes in which things have to be explained to them.
Lovemaking scenes that don’t show any development – that aren’t different from the last one
The point about a sex scene is not just to show that your H&h fancy each other - they are there to mirror the development of the relationship and show the changes in it. If your word count is too long and you have some love scenes, however well written and erotic, that are really just a long-winded way of saying ‘they made love again’ - then why not just say that. Besides, too many repetitions of lovescene, even passionate love scenes lose their impact and become a bit too much the same. Don’t waste them. Make them count – or cut them. Long, detailed ‘getting to know you’ that could be summarised into ‘and then he told her about…’

The H&h need to learn about each other, especially if this isn’t a reunion story – but you don’t have to have ALL the story – summarise – He told her about his childhood in Texas, the happy days before his mother died, the change that came after . . .’

Quite often if you show the beginning of the conversation – ‘Tell me about . . .’ then like a film would ‘fade’ - focusing again on the ending ;’ . . .and that’s why I came to live in New York . . ‘

Scenes that are not the H&h together should always be looked at in case they’re not really needed.

This is another point on the focus of the plot - that central relationship. So even if a scene is the heroine discussing her relationship with the hero, if it’s with her mother/her best friend, it can probably be expendable and a shorter, more direct way of just stating how she’s feeling can be found.
Detailed telling of action that could become ‘with one bound he was free’!!!!
For example – if your hero has been captured and tied up – then finds a piece of glass and cuts through his bonds- again you only need the beginning ‘Twisting the glass awkwardly in his restricted grip, he began to saw clumsily . . . Two hours later the last strand finally parted. With a sigh of relief he rubbed his hands, wincing as he touched the places where the glass had slipped and nicked him.’

You don’t have to go into every last detail of how long it took, how he kept dropping the glass, how he cut himself . . . Leave that to the reader’s imagination.
Factual background that weighs down the action – history of places/family histories/ clothing details/ training details

A romance isn’t the place to air your knowledge – you are telling a story never forget that.

Cutting always hurts – you’ve written it and you meant it to stay but….

The rule is – yes you may have written this wonderfully well – but is the fact that it’s well written enough justification for it staying in – what does it ADD to the book – if nothing/not much – why is it there?

Kate Walker has been writing for Harlequin Presents since 1986 and in that time she has had more than 45 novels published. Check out these Kate Walker releases: The Twelve-Month Mistress or A Sicilian Husband! And for more on Kate's upcoming releases, be sure to visit her website.

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Sneak Peek of Kiss of the Night by Sylvia Day

Blurb:

Special Task Force agent Alexei Night has had a crush on Interstellar Council Representative Briana Michaels ever since the first time he saw her on the vid comm.. But their lives are worlds apart. He’s a vampire. She’s not. There’s no possibility of a relationship between them. But still he dreams of her...

When her unpopular position supporting vampiric rights threatens her family, Alex leaps at the chance to protect her and be with her. It’s a two week journey to her homeworld, and he’ll spend it loving the woman he can’t keep, trying to get enough of her to last an eternity.

A hopeless romance with a woman whose mortal life is threatened... Things can’t get any worse for Alex.

And then somehow... they do.

Excerpt:

Alex glanced around the dining area one last time, making sure that everything was as perfect as possible. He’d dimmed the cabin lights, turned on soft music and prepared Briana’s favorite meal. The last had been the hardest. Since he couldn’t sample the food, he had no idea if he’d cooked it right or not. It smelled…edible. However, if it was really bad, he’d purchased enough space rations to keep her alive.

He shrugged. He could always seduce her into forgetting about his questionable cooking skills. Hell, he planned to seduce her anyway. A long, slow seduction. Keeping Briana on edge was the best way to stay in control, which was a necessity. Regardless of the lust he felt for her, he had a job to do.

Her work in the Council was of unparalleled importance to the entire vamp race and he was charged with the task of keeping her safe until the threat against her family could be resolved. It was an assignment he took seriously. The mistakes of his past hadn’t faded and they never would, but he could lift himself above them if he worked hard enough. He’d been given a second chance and no matter what, he would prove himself worthy of it.

Still, he didn’t see the harm in enjoying her. If he called the shots.

With a multitude of tantalizing thoughts in mind, Alex moved down the corridor to Briana’s quarters, his senses coming to a heightened awareness as he drew closer. It had been a long time since he’d felt this kind of attraction. He’d forgotten what a rush it was. It flooded his mind with decadent pleasure, like warm hands coursing across his skin, kneading his flesh, making his spine arch…

Oooohhhh… Harder, James… deeper…

Alex stumbled to a halt.

What the hell?

The sensations he was experiencing were not lustful imaginings but feelings radiating from Briana.

He swore as his fangs descended. There wasn’t another woman in the universe like Briana Michaels. Physically she was no more or less than any other female he could have, but who she was inside was completely and beautifully unique. She laid her life on the line for a cause that wouldn’t benefit her at all simply because it was the right thing to do. Correcting an injustice and fighting prejudice were all she cared about and because of that, Alex cared about her. It was a potent combination, her unwavering convictions, the power she wielded so easily and her passionate nature. Quite simply, Briana was one of a kind.

These next few weeks were all the time he would ever be allowed to have with her. His work and hers were literally worlds apart. After this mission he’d never see her again, so having his fill had to happen now. No way was he getting usurped by a droid. Not after all these months of waiting and planning and dreaming.

Within seconds Alex was standing inside the door to her quarters watching with possessive eyes as the blond droid straddled his naked woman.

A snarl was the only warning he gave before leaping into action.

***

Bree drifted into a state of half-awareness, imagining hypnotically dark eyes and erect fangs attached to the hands that were presently moving all over her back. The chip in her mind signaled her preferences to James’ whose motions went along with her thoughts, facilitating the massage until she was completely relaxed.

Then suddenly he tensed, his body becoming a crushing pressure against her thighs. She felt him pitch forward and she screamed, knowing the droid’s heavy weight could kill her.

But before that could happen, the burden was snatched away with a snarl. She rolled over, confused, and barely caught sight of James’ bent legs moving horizontally out the door.

“Hey!” she yelled, leaping from the bed and dragging the sheet with her. She covered herself as she ran out to the corridor. Alexei was already halfway down the hall, her droid tucked securely beneath his arm. Bree gaped. James weighed a ton, but the vamp carried him as if he weighed nothing.

Her bare feet slapped against the cool metal floor as she gave chase. “What are you doing?”

“This thing’s got to go,” he muttered.

She studied the odd stillness of her droid. “What did you do to him?”

“Shut it off.”

“You can’t do that!” she protested.

“I just did.”

Alex rounded the corridor and entered the cargo hold. Finding a neglected corner, she heard him drop James unceremoniously to the ground.

“You’re going to break him,” she complained, stumbling blindly into the darkness behind him.

He rounded on her, dark eyes flashing red in the unlit interior. “If only I could be so lucky.”

Bree scowled. “What’s your deal anyway?”

The laser brightness of his gaze grew more intense, signaling that he was moving closer. She stood her ground and lifted her chin even as her heart raced with excitement.

“I’m not sharing you with a droid. Got it?”

She blinked in surprise and then bit back a smile, grateful he couldn’t see it.

“I love your smile,” he purred, moving closer. “Even when it comes at my expense.”

Choking, she took rapid backward steps. Damn! She’d forgotten he could see in the dark.

“No need to make me jealous,” he said softly, the foreign inflection in his words making her nipples hard. “I’m easy.”

At the reminder, she snorted and spun on her heel.

“Hey!” Now he was chasing her.

“Go away, Alex.”

She shrieked as her feet left the deck and she was swung up into his arms.

“Don’t be mad at me, sweetness,” he said, nuzzling her throat. “I can service you much better than a droid could.”

Visit Sylvia's site for more on her upcoming releases!

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Chat with Donna tonight!

Award-winning author, Donna Wright is scheduled to chat with WWR visitors December 1, 2005 (9pm EST) about writing a Christmas themed story and her December Avalon Books release, Diagnosis: Love.

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Click here for Harlequin's writing guidelines.

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