Excerpt of Freeing Al by Marie Treanor

Protesting, the door opened. I stepped into the profound darkness. My sense of danger was no stronger in here. It was simply the pub cellar, full of beer casks and wine racks and manacles.

Manacles?

I didn’t need a light to see the thick metal glinting in the darkness. Shiny and new and securely attached to the wall. All the walls. They appeared to be on some kind of adjustable runners, presumable to accommodate different heights. Chains hung down from hooks above them in some elaborate bondage network.

Intrigued, I moved further inside, looking about me. The floor was clean, although at several points near the wall, there were daubs of paint, almost as if a tin of the stuff had leaked as it had been carried and the resulting white trail had been imperfectly cleared up. But I thought it significant that the white spots were grouped in twos, like feet marks.

There was a chair in the middle of the floor, a sort of modified arm chair with several open metal cuffs waiting to close round the arms of whoever sat in it. A chain belt hung down either side, presumably to act as a lap strap. Propped up against the chair was a well-used cricket bat. On a table beside it, six strips of leather were laid out, their purpose unclear. I could think of a few.

In fact, looking around this lot, I began to think of quite a lot. Either something very weird was going on, or someone in this house was into some pretty kinky sex. My mouth watered. My pussy began to leak as I remembered how long it was since I’d had any sex at all. The scarred barman sprang back into my mind, dragging the chains around my naked body, unfastening his jeans to reveal—

All very well, Draguta, but sexual fantasy won’t find the source of the danger!

Above me, something creaked. My head snapped up and round, To my left, stairs led upward, presumably to the pub itself. I caught a glimpse of paler darkness around the fast-moving figure of a man as a door at the top opened and closed.

In the darkness, he wouldn’t be able to see me, but I could see him, running stealthily down the stairs and dodging immediately to the left. Amused, I watched him stand very still for a human, poised and listening.

It was the barman. Tall and big-boned, wearing a dark woollen sweater with the sleeves pulled up. He was tense, watchful, alert. I had the impression that he would hear me if I so much as breathed. Fortunately, I don’t breathe.

Without warning, the outside door slammed shut and a light came on, blinding me. I staggered backward without meaning to and grabbed at the table to save myself.

"Shite!" said the barman in the local vernacular. "Don’t touch that!"

Still blinking in the sudden blaze of an electric bulb, I was hazily aware of him leaping across the space between us.

Instinctively, I threw myself away from him into the wall, just as something—a net, weighted at the sides?—fell from nowhere over the armchair.

"Nor that!" yelled the man, and this time he actually caught my hand, swinging me away from the wall. He was strong, for a human, but I’d had enough. Instead of pulling free at once, I held onto his hand long enough to aim for the white paint-marks on the floor. Then I slammed him into the wall and leapt backward. It seemed my guess was right, for three steel bands shot out of the wall, and around his middle. Chains fell around him and broad cuffs closed around his arms with two short, sharp snaps.

It seemed I could see again. The chained-up man in the manacles stared at me.

"Bugger," he said. "That wasn’t meant to happen."

ISBN 9781419962363

Title Seducing Scots

Is this book part of a series or is it related to another book? Name of Series or related book Trade paperback containing all three Psychic Seductions novellas:Hunting Karoly, Guitar Man and Freeing Al.

Tagline

Price (USD) 14.99

Pages

Publication date November 2010

Publisher Ellora’s Cave

story setting (time period and location) Contemporary Scotland

level of sensuality (sweet, emotional, sexy, hot, erotic, other) Hot to Erotic

characters (up to three, include hero and heroine) Karoly, Jenny Chris

summary

The three Psychic Seductions novellas: Hunting Karoly, Guitar Man and Freeing Al - now together in print.

You're not meant to fall for the bad guy, are you? Not the vampire, nor the possessed, nor the ex-con...

Reluctant Scottish psychic Jenny discovers her true talent is hunting vampires. Yet when that vampire is the evil, sexy gorgeous Karoly, in his quite inappropriate antique kilt, will she be able to fulfill her potential?

Ellie is a strong psychic with a messy personal life. When she decides to clean up the latter, the last person she needs to encounter is carefree Scottish busker Chris, the best ever one night stand from her naughty past. Especially when something evil within him threatens them both.

When the vampiress Draguta, Karoly’s ex, comes to the Scottish Highlands with a social mission, she’s distracted by local pub landlord, Al MacNab – a large, sexy man with a dubious past, a lot of secrets, and some alluring bondage gadgetry in his cellar.

Could you also please note that my upcoming book Blood Eternal (Oct 2011) is Awakened by Blood #3, and is in mass market paperback. And here’s an excerpt from Blood Eternal:

She gripped the stake, bracing her free hand against the rock. She didn’t need the detector anymore. She could sense Ancient.

He moved differently, like a shadow around the curve of the hill, gliding over the boulder a yard away from her feet. And instead of attacking, he stood still on top of the boulder and regarded her in silence. Only his long hair stirred in the breeze.

Slowly, Elizabeth lowered her stake. "Saloman."

Saloman stepped down from the boulder and walked the distance between them. She tried to speak, questions and information tangling in her head and on her lips. In the end, she never made more than an inarticulate gurgle, because the words vanished as his sheer presence overwhelmed her. There was only his name in her head, his profound black eyes to drown in, his body pressing her flat into the rock. The hilt of his sword, a turning gift from Luk, brushed against her hip.

Wordlessly, she lifted her face to his. But he didn’t kiss her mouth. His silken lips took her neck in a strong, urgent pull. The hard shaft of his erection pressed between her thighs, and inappropriate lust galloped through her. Well, it had been a long time, several weeks. . . .

It seemed he felt the same. His tongue lapped at her vein and without warning his teeth pierced her skin. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pain that vanished into the surge of fierce, familiar pleasure. She gripped his arms hard, letting herself glory just for a moment in the blissful weakness of her blood rushing into his mouth in answer to the tug of his lips.

So lost was she in the blood kiss that it was a moment before she realized he’d unzipped her jeans and pushed them and her panties down over her hips.

"Saloman, the hunters are here," she managed. "They’re coming now."

His cool, stroking hands left her hips, perversely disappointing her, until he seized the Ancient detector from her frozen hand and hurled it into the night. Before she could object to this vandalism, he lifted her and entered her body in one swift, gliding movement that shattered the remnants of her resistance.

Blood and sex and Elizabeth, he said inside her head.

Bastard. Can’t you even say hello?

He detached his teeth from her neck and flicked his tongue over the wound to heal it. His burning gaze lifted to hers.

"Hello," he said huskily, and took her mouth.