Well, looky here. Switch has had a makeover, and will be appearing in Target stores across the country in mid-June…!

The Space Between Us by Megan Hart

all rights reserved

I’d agreed to meet Meredith and Charlie at the Firehouse, one of the nicer places downtown. Waiting for them in the parking lot, pacing back and forth alongside my car, I wished I smoked. It would’ve given me something to do with my hands besides chew my fingernails. When they pulled up in Meredith’s familiar black Saab, I did think about turning tail. Just…running. But it was just a date, after all. It wasn’t a lifetime contract.

Instead, I took in a deep breath, straightened my skirt and held off from running my fingers through my hair again. It was already ruffled and spiked, the fringes splayed artfully (or so I hoped) against my cheeks. Touching wouldn’t make it look any better and would probably just make it look worse.

Meredith got out first, looking put together and beautiful as always. She waved, her smile familiar but not exactly putting me at ease. “Tesla! Hi!”

Charlie didn’t look anything like I thought he would.

He was gorgeous, of course. I shouldn’t have expected anything less for a woman who looked like Meredith. I’d expected athletic, bronzed, blond and blue-eyed, the Ken to her Barbie. Charlie was something else altogether.

He stood about five ten, still a good five inches taller than me and a few more than his wife. His dark hair had a few glints of silver at the temples and was brushed off his forehead, trimmed neatly around his ears and the nape of his neck. He had dark eyes with a few lines at the corners. Smile lines, too. He wore a teal shirt beneath his dark suit jacket, his tie a swirl of colors. He’d dressed up…for me?

“Tesla?” He moved forward, a hand out to take mine. The other closed over it, both his hands enclosing mine with warmth. “Meredith’s told me so much about you. Nice to meet you.”

For one long minute we stayed like that, the possibilities of what might lay ahead somehow palpable between us. Like something solid I could touch, if only I could make myself remove my hand from Charlie’s. He was grinning, I saw that much, before I realized I was also smiling like a fool.

He didn’t drop my hand, but released it gently, and I’m not going to lie, it sort of felt like it floated back to my side rather than fell. Every part of me felt a little bit like I was floating just then. Silly and giddy. It didn’t occur to me to tell him that while his wife might’ve told him a lot about me, she’d barely ever said anything about him.

“Let’s go inside,” Meredith said.

Both of us followed her without a pause, and I don’t know about Charlie, but I was glad to be led so that I didn’t have to think about where to put my feet. She kept up the familiar rattle-tatta-tat of her constant conversation all the way inside. She stepped aside without missing a beat to let Charlie open the door for her — and for me. He ushered us inside, one hand lightly briefly on the small of my back, there and gone so fast I might’ve imagined it if everything about this night wasn’t already permanently engraving itself in my brain.

Charlie pulled my chair out for me.

Now, I was no stranger to good manners. My parents, despite their fairly free and easy ways, had been sticklers for “please and thank you.” But pulling out chairs went beyond their casual attitude. I froze for a second while Meredith settled into hers and Charlie gave me a tilted head, curious glance.

“Thanks,” I said.

Charlie smiled. “Sure.”

“I’m starving.” Meredith grabbed up the menu. “What do you want, honey? What are you hungry for?”

“I don’t –” I began, before stuttering to a stop as Charlie said “I think I –”

It was Meredith who bridged us with laughter, making this okay. I liked the way Charlie ducked his head, shy, and covered his eyes with his hand for just a moment before he looked at me. He gestured for me to go first. A gentleman.

“I’ve never been here before. What’s good?” I studied the menu to hide the rising flush in my cheeks.

“I like the T-bone steak,” Charlie said. “Oh…unless you’re a vegetarian, Tesla.”

It charmed me suddenly that he seemed as nervous as I felt. “God, no.”

“Oh, our Tesla likes meat.” Meredith gave me a slow wink that made my cheeks heat further. “Don’t you?”

By then the waiter had come to see what we wanted to drink, and Meredith urged Charlie to pick a wine, and they both argued amiably over which bottle to buy while I sat and watched them be in love. Envy had no taste this time; envy was just a breath threatening to push me over.

“Tesla?” Charlie said at last, while the waiter looked on with barely concealed disdain. “What would you like?”

I knew nothing of wine, but they were both looking at me expectantly. “Whatever you guys like, I guess.”

“Charlie,” Meredith said with the slightest edge to her tone, “order the merlot.”

He looked at her. “Sure. Okay. We’ll take the merlot.”

It was the only edge during the dinner. The rest of the time, the three of us laughed and carried on like the best of friends. Charlie had a terrific sense of humor and was what my mother had always called “wicked smaht” in her slightly Boston accent that she hadn’t passed along to my brother or me. And he was sweet, too, making sure our glasses were filled and that we lacked for nothing.

“Tell Charlie about your summers,” Meredith urged as the waiter put our desserts in front of us.

“Oh. My summers.” I paused, fork hovering over the piece of chocolate cake. “What do you want me to tell him?”

“He’ll be fascinated,” Meredith said.

Charlie smiled. “Will I?”

“I spent most of my summers in a commune.” I poked the top of the cake with my fork but didn’t scrape off a bite. “My parents were both college professors at Franklin and Marshall college. They had this share in a place in upstate New York called The Compound. A real holdover from the sixties, though most of it had been built in the seventies. It was really…umm…well…”

What could I say about The Compound? Just like the stories Meredith had asked me to tell didn’t sound crazy to me until I said them out loud to someone else, nothing about The Compound seemed interesting or exciting until I started telling stories. Which was why I usually said nothing to anyone who wouldn’t understand.

“Creative,” I managed to say. “My parents and their friends were creative.”

“They named you Tesla,” Charlie said. “I’d have guessed that.”

I laughed. “Yeah, after Nikolai Tesla, not the heavy metal band.”

“What?” Meredith looked up from her crème brulee. “I thought it was for the band.”

“Nope. Nikolai Tesla, the father of commercial electricity.” I lifted my fork, heavy with the weight of chocolate and cream. “But I got off okay. I have a brother named Captain, and you’ll never guess who he was named for.”

“Captain America,” Charlie said.

“He wishes. No. Captain Ahab.” I snorted laughter, shaking my head. “He goes by Cap. And you can’t ask him about his name, he’ll deny it. He’ll answer to Captain, but he’ll never tell you about the Ahab bit. He thinks our parents were morons.”

“Wow. So this Compound place. It was full of what, hippies?” Charlie poured more hot water from the small pot over the teabag in my mug. He and I were drinking tea; Meredith had coffee.

“Old hippies. The worst kind. Some of them who’d have been hippies if they’d been old enough in the sixties but instead sort of had to live out their fantasies during summer break.” I paused. It had come out sounding more bitter than I’d intended. “They grew their own foods. Lived communally, mutual finances, the works — at least during those three months.”

I didn’t mention the other communal living, the crèches where the babies and toddlers lived, cared for by whatever set of adults had drawn the duty for that day. The co-ed dorms for the teens, where we were encouraged to “explore” ourselves…and each other…in ways most parents were actively trying to restrict. Drugs and booze, nothing hardcore. Beer and weed, mostly. I didn’t mention the way the adults lived, either. Forming pairs and clusters regardless of the legality of marriages. They didn’t call it swinging. They called it “free living.”

“Sounds fascinating,” Charlie said.

“Told you!” Meredith waved her fork in the air.

When I was younger I thought it was amazing, like the summer camp a lot of my friends talked about, though my parents had always made it very clear we weren’t supposed to talk about the stuff that went on there. What we did on our summer vacations was filed under “stuff we only talk about at home–” and as a matter of fact, we didn’t really even talk about The Compound when we were at home.

Every fall, after three months of indulgence and orgies and who knew what else had gone on, my parents packed up me and Cap and took us back to our suburban development with the fenced-in yard of mostly green grass, the television, our socks and shoes. Hell, our clothes in general, which was always quite a shock after The Compound’s lax policy on clothing. We’d spend the winter doing the stuff every family seemed to, but come the end of school in the spring, I could see my parents getting edgy.

This wasn’t always a bad thing — anticipation of the summer ahead made my dad laugh more, leave off the lectures he was prone to give on behavior and grades and the expectations of society and how we should (or shouldn’t) conform. With my mom it could go either way. She could either be slightly manic, packing up the house and singing while she worked, or she could snap and scream at the least provocation that she had “too much to do and not enough time to do it!” Later, I’d figure out it was because my mom didn’t love The Compound the way my dad did, and that she had her very valid reasons, but back then all I knew was that our lives changed every summer in ways none of my friends’ ever did.

When I was still older I’d watch The Howling at a friend’s Halloween party. While everyone else was jumping and screaming at the scary bits, I was consumed by the atmosphere of the place in the mountains the lady reporter goes to — The Colony. Ok, so The Compound didn’t have shapeshifters, but it did have wolves in human clothes. Worse than the dude digging that bullet out of his brain or the lady reporter turning into that cute little kitty-wolf at the end.

Nothing bad had happened to me at The Compound. Nothing to scar me, nothing I’d need therapy for. It had happened around me, before and after me, but not to me.

I shrugged. “It was definitely not the sort of childhood you see in Disney movies.”

“Well, who the fuck has one of those?” Meredith shrugged and licked her fork. “I mean, even Bambi’s mom got shot by a hunter.”

“Shortly after my last summer there, The Compound was raided. Big drug bust. A couple people died.”

This stopped them both. I hadn’t meant to say it, especially not on this, our first date. But it had come out anyway, and I couldn’t be sure why.

“Mary Jane?” Meredith asked, perking up.

I shook my head. “Poppies.”

She looked confused, but Charlie let out a low chuckle. “Heroine?”

“Opium,” I said. “You can harvest it from the flowers and smoke it in that pure state without doing anything to it.”

Meredith shook her head. “Opium? Who smokes that?”

“Apparently,” I said dryly, “wanna-be hippies who want something a little stronger than marijuana.”

“Wow.” Charlie leaned forward a little. “How did that affect you?”

It was a kind question, but before I could tell him that I hadn’t been affected at all, that though I knew about the gardens with the flowers I hadn’t even been at The Compound when the raid happened.

“What’s it like,” was what Meredith asked, leaning even closer than Charlie had. “Opium, I mean.”

I had to laugh. “Umm…I don’t know. I never smoked it.”

She looked disappointed. The conversation turned to other things, Meredith mostly leading it, but I caught Charlie looking at me now and then. He didn’t look away when I caught him. Neither did I.

By the end of the night, I’d figured out this was one of the nicest dates I’d ever had, no matter how unconventional. Maybe that was what I liked about it. The fact there were two of them. Two sets of attention on me.

Like Chase and Chance, Meredith and Charlie were a unit. Husband and wife, but more than that. Clearly friends. Comfortable enough with each other to know in advance where to laugh at the jokes, or to pass the cream and sugar without being asked. Yet also like those boys from my past, they were individuals, clearly told apart.

In the parking lot, I waited for them to ask me if I wanted to go home with them. I could see the question in Meredith’s eyes, though I didn’t know Charlie quite well enough to read his. I put a hand on the handle of my car door, pausing coyly, giving one or both of them the opportunity to make the offer.

I still wasn’t sure what I’d say.

“This was great, Tesla.” Charlie moved forward first.

I tipped my face, but instead of kissing my lips, his mouth brushed my cheek. His hand squeezed briefly on my hip, then withdrew. He took two steps back. I might’ve been embarrassed that I’d offered a lover’s kiss and been granted one from a friend except that nothing about Charlie ever felt like it could make me embarrassed.

That was when I knew that when the time came, I was definitely going to say yes.

Check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
Lissa Matthews
Zoë Archer

• WRWW Panel Discussion and Signing, Books A Million, Harrisburg, 5125 Jonestown Road. April 28, 12:30 to 3:30.  Authors on board that include Meredith Mileti, Mitchell James Kaplan, Maria V. Snyder, Gwyn Cready, Sabrina Benulis and Megan Hart. The panel discussions will be on “Breaking into Publishing” (1:00 pm) and “The Changing Nature of the Female Protagonist.”(2:30 pm)  If you have friends in or around Harrisburg, please pass the word. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 717-545-5492.

Tempted by Megan Hart

all rights reserved

Meeting the Queen might have been more important than going shopping with Mrs. Kinney and her daughters. Being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps took precedence. Abduction by aliens might have been excused. Anything else just didn’t cut it.

I sighed. Alex rolled onto his back, an arm behind his head and the other rubbing his sternum lightly. Up and down. Hypnotizing me. His fingers drifted lower, my gaze following them. When I looked back at his face, he was smiling.

“Can you give me until ten?”

“I don’t want to take you away from your plans.”

“I’m sure I can rearrange them, but I won’t be ready by nine-thirty. If you want to go on without me….”

“Oh, I’m sure we can all wait.”

Great. I was going to be beholden to them the entire day because they’d waited for me. “I don’t want to hold back your plans, Evelyn.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Because I’ll hold you accountable for all eternity.

I sighed again. Alex was smirking and moving his hand like a puppet’s mouth, mocking my conversation. I turned away so I didn’t laugh, and he pounced on me. He mouthed my neck and cupped my breasts from behind, tweaking my nipples to hardness. I let out an “oof!”

“Anne?”

“I’ll be ready by….” His hand was between my legs beneath the hem of my nightgown, finding bare skin. “…ten….”

“Tell her to make it ten-thirty.” He gave a low, evil chuckle as his fingers stroked my curls.

“Is someone with you?” Mrs. Kinney asked. “I thought you said James went to work.”

“He did.” I tried wriggling away from him, but he was strong enough to hold me in place. “Alex just popped his head in to tell me something.”

“Oh. He’s still there?”

She knew he was, of course, because I was sure she called James at least every other day. “Yes.”

He pulled me back against his erection. His fingers stroked me, slowly, circling. I was wet for him. My body ached at his touch.

“We’ll see you at ten, then.” She hung up and I hung up, then collapsed back against Alex with a groan.

“You’re wicked.”

“I told you, I’m a rascal.” He kissed my earlobe. Hot breath made me shiver. The hand on my breast caressed my nipple, while the one between my legs kept up the steady motion. “Good morning.”

I turned to straddle him, my nightgown the only barrier between us. My arms linked around his neck. His hands drifted to my ass, holding me closer.

“Good morning.”

“You’d better go get ready. She’ll be here soon.”

“I know.”

Neither of us moved. Our breathing shifted, his going in while mine went out. My clit throbbed, and I rocked slightly against the heat and hardness of his cock. Alex bent his head to trace my collarbone with small, light flickers of his tongue.

I ran my fingers through his hair, the strands tickling the back of my hand. “Did you get up earlier?”

He nodded, mumbling against me. “Had breakfast with Jamie. Came back to bed.”

I hadn’t even woken when James got out of bed this morning. “You’re the better wife.”

He looked up at that, his lips glistening. Those graydark eyes flickered. He licked his mouth. His hands grabbed my ass harder, pulled me tighter. “I didn’t know it was a competition.”

I hadn’t meant it that way, but once the words were out there was no denying them. “Is it?”

His lips pursed, looking sly. “You tell me.”

He let go of my ass to grab a handful of fabric at my belly and pull it upward until nothing was between our bodies. Bare skin to skin, his cock trapped between his stomach and my cunt. I couldn’t move for a moment. It felt so good. Heat from him, slickness from me. It would only take a small shift, the tiniest arch of back and thrust of hip, and he’d be inside me, if he wanted. If I wanted.

We didn’t move.

His hands kept pulling until the nightgown came off over my head. My nipples brushed his chest. Alex put his arms around me again, while I adjusted my legs to close around his waist.

The air might still have been morning cool, but all I felt was heat. I put my hands on his face, tipping it up. I held him still while I looked down into his eyes. My thumbs reached the softness of his mouth and traced his lower lip. He turned his head just a bit and kissed my palm.

When he looked at me again, I lost myself in his eyes. Deep and dark, not like James’ bright blue summer sky gaze. “Do you love him?”

“Everyone loves Jamie.”

“Then why are we doing this?” I whispered against his parted mouth. I breathed in his air, took him inside me in the only way allowed.

I moaned when he put his hand to the back of my head and forced my mouth to his. When he kissed me so hard our teeth clashed. When he twisted to push me down on top of the tangled mound of sheets, and when he covered me with his body. His erection stroked along my inner thigh, tantalizing my flesh with his.

“Because we can’t stop ourselves.”

The perfect answer, if not one that made me happy. I didn’t have time to reply because he was kissing me again. He rubbed himself on me. The friction built. My hand found his cock, fingers curling into a tunnel he could fuck into. Our mouths bruised each other. He bit the soft skin of my shoulder, and I cried out. Sweat coated us, making us slick, helping us slide.

There were, he’d said, lots of other things to do besides fuck, and he was right. We did them all. Hands, mouths, skin on skin, my body making places for him to fill. I held my breasts together so he could slide his prick between them as I used my mouth at the same time. We lay head to foot, licking and stroking. He got behind me, thrusting against the groove of my spine while his hand stroked me closer to climax from the front.

We tangled, we writhed. We contorted. But we ended up face to face, mouths open, concentrating too hard on what was happening between our legs to even kiss. He pushed into the space between my hand and hip, while he used two fingers inside me and a thumb on my clit.

The position was awkward. He was pulling my hair. His arm had to be falling asleep. We didn’t care. Too close to coming to stop, to move, to breathe, we moved together until the headboard banged the wall.

“Fuck,” Alex breathed. “Just like that….”

My fingers curled tighter. He groaned and buried his face into the curve of my neck. I shuddered, lifting my hips to meet his thrusting fingers.

He spoke, low muttered words muffled into my skin. How much he loved to fuck my mouth, how good my pussy felt around his fingers, how much he wanted to make me come. Mostly he whispered my name, over and over. Cementing me to him, making it impossible for me to think he didn’t know me, or that I could have been anyone.

Anne, he whispered. My name. My body beneath him. My taste on his tongue, my breath in his lungs. He said it again and again until I answered with his. We were joined.

Pleasure filled me like water in a well, bubbling up from some place deep inside. It filled all my crevices, every inch. I shook with it. I was lost in it, swallowed up in it. James had been right about him. Alex was like the lake, and I was drowning in him.

We came within seconds of one another. Slippery, sticky fluid coated my fingers. The smell of it made me gasp. Spent, breathless, we eased to stillness and relaxed inch by inch.

Alex, face still tucked against me, moved off me just enough so I could breathe. His arm lay across my stomach and his leg stayed over mine. His breath tickled more now that passion had passed. We stayed like that for a while. Quiet.

“This is more than it was supposed to be,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

Alex, so vocal a few minutes before, stayed quiet. His body replied in a way his voice did not, with a small, swift tension all over. He rolled onto his back, then away from me, and he got out of bed and padded toward down the hall without saying a word. I heard the hiss of the shower a moment later.

I looked at the clock and hopped out of bed with a curse. I had ten minutes to shower and dress before they arrived to take me shopping. I had no time to ponder what Alex’s lack of response had meant, and I was glad. That meant I didn’t have to think about it, either.

Check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Megan Hart:Read in bed!
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Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
TJ Michaels
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Zoe Archer

Please come see me TODAY!!!! Saturday, April 14th, 1-4 pm.
Books-A-Million #571
717-299-7201
451 Park City Center
Lancaster, PA 17601

I sign things.
I will have candy.
If you bring me Cadbury Creme Eggs, I will give you a hug (or a mutually agreeable, knowing nod of acknowledgement)

Virtue and Vice by Megan Hart

all rights reserved

When the knock came at Jarron’s door, Demi wasn’t surprised to open it and find her former lover there. She didn’t step aside to let him in, but he pushed past her, anyway.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“Your king is locked deep with his advisors in counsel. He’ll not be back for some hours, perhaps even until after nightfall. Such is the life of a man of power.”

“You have power,” she said, watching as he strode in his high black boots across the carpet, leaving marks.

He helped himself from Jarron’s jug of worm, swirling the liquid in the glass. He held it to the light from the window. He sipped, watching her.

“I do,” Erekon said and put the glass down. They stared at each other from opposite sides of the room. He was waiting for her to look away first, but Demi was no longer the girl he’d once known, and she didn’t. He didn’t either, but at least she’d surprised him.

“Why did you come here?” He asked her.

“Jarron sent for a Handmaiden. The Mothers-in-Service chose me for him.” It was the truth but tasted of a lie.

“But why did you come? Surely you’re able to refuse. They can’t make you serve someone, can they?” Erekon tilted his head, leaning on the dresser, one leg crossed over the other. “Can they force you?”

She smiled, keeping her distance. “It would please you for me to say they can.”

“Can they?” Erekon asked in a low voice that was not soft. “No.”

“Would they have chosen you had you told them the truth about this place and how you left it?”

“What makes you think they didn’t know?” Demi smoothed the front of her gown, her palms skidding on the buttons.

“Did you tell them?”

“The Mothers-in-Service know all they need to know.”

Erekon laughed. “Clever answer to the question I didn’t ask. Did you tell them, Notsah, where you came from?”

She hadn’t. She’d spent her time in domestic service instead of prison, had met a Handmaiden in one of the houses to which she was assigned. When her indenturement was complete she’d gone to the Motherhouse, where they turned her away three times before at last allowing her entrance. They’d never asked where she came from, or why she sought a life in the Order. None of the Mothers, nor the Sisters.

“I never asked any of them. Why should they ask me?”

“Do you think it fate they chose you, then? To come and serve the King of the Second Province? Of all the kings in all the world, in every province and country served by the Order, this is the man to whom you were assigned.”

“And of all the Sisters, true, they chose me to serve him. They know best.” Demi kept her voice steady, though facing Erekon was somewhat for which she’d never been trained.

“You’ve grown up,” he told her. She touched her face, her hair. “Time passes, Erekon. Think you I’d have stayed the same, when you yourself show the passage of the seasons?”

“Your nimble tongue has turned itself to wordplay instead of loveplay,” Erekon told her. “You speak of the silver in my hair, aye? But have I changed, really, beyond that? How would you know?”

“Because the man I knew back then wouldn’t have stopped himself from taking me against the wall. He wouldn’t have stood as you do now, across the room from me without ordering me to come forward.”

Erekon drained the glass and put it down hard enough to crack it. “I still want to.”

Her heart thumped, her stomach twisted at that, the raw honesty in his voice. This time, she did look away. Demi went to the fire, which didn’t need poking, but she took the poker from its hook and stirred the flames anyway. Sparks flew and she braced herself for the sting that never came. She braced herself, too, for his touch. That too, never came. She felt him behind her. Heard his boots shush-shush on the carpet. Imagined the brush of his breath against her hair. But Erekon did not touch her.

“Your lord king is in need of solace, this is somewhat that can not be denied by any who know him. There could be few surprised by his decision to send for a Handmaiden, though fewer who’d believe he did it for any kind of faith. There are some unhappy with your presence here, his lady mother amongst the most vociferously opposed and the least vocal.”

She looked at him. “I’m not surprised she doesn’t approve, but what do you mean by that?”

“I mean the Lady Yewdit will speak to the world with a tongue of honey rather than have any know she could be dissatisfied with her darling son’s behavior. She’s kept herself away from the social hall, the one place she truly had any joy, and would spite herself rather than face the possibility of being greeted with anything less than her former admiration. What she does not seem to understand is that there will always be those willing to pander to the mother of a king so that they might grant the benefit of his ear.”

“Even if she doesn’t have it, herself? Jarron isn’t close with his mother and, in fact, avoids her.” Demi studied Erekon with different eyes for the first time since seeing him again. This man had once been her teacher, her lover, her confessor and finally, her pursuer. Now she looked at him as somewhat else she could not define. Erekon’s smile didn’t touch even the corners of his dark eyes.

“Who’d know such a thing? Jarron avoids everyone, or used to until you came and he began making an effort. The gossip is about the war between you and his beloved Adam, if there is such a battle, which I doubt, but there’s naught about Jarron’s lack of consideration for his mother.”

“But you know it,” she whispered, watching him.

“I know it. Of course I know it. I know it all.”

She swallowed, hard. “Because…you are the Aryon Melek.”

“Because it is my business to know it.”

She needed a drink, herself, and pushed past him to pour herself a glass of worm. It stung her lips and numbed her tongue at once. What had he said? Her nimble tongue, used for words instead of love. Demi’s hand shook until the liquid sloshed, and she made no secret of it.

Erekon watched her. “You and I know his mother doesn’t have his ear, but I shall tell you somewhat he doesn’t know. Nor you. She, though she might pretend otherwise, also knows, and this she finds so dissatisfactory, she is quite likely to do somewhat about it.”

“You speak of intrigue.” Demi drank again, relishing the burn as it went down and warmed her belly. “That has naught to do with me.”

“You’re the king’s consort. His companion. His Handmaiden, bound to bring him solace. Think you that standing by to watch as his throne is taken out from under him will bring him anything but grief?” Erekon said in the low, half-sneering voice she’d always hated, even when she’d loved him. “Think you she’ll manage to do such a thing? Jarron has his father’s blessing and the support of the court, even if he’s not the sort of sun-faced sovereign his father was and his mother would prefer him to be. He’s far from the sort to make enemies.”

“He need to make none and will have them anyway, for the sole reason he was born to the crown and not someone else. That’s all it takes, sweetheart.”

Her throat tightened at the endearment, which almost sounded like an insult. She searched his face. “Do you stand with his mother?”

“Would I be here telling you this, if I were?”

“You might,” Demi said with a step toward him, “if you believed it might somehow hurt me.”

At this, Erekon stepped back, swiftly and not with his usual grace. He knocked into a side table, sending it to the floor. Demi moved at once to right it, but she stopped herself. Doing so would put herself within his grasp, and she did not trust him.

“You hold yourself in very high esteem,” Erekon said, voice rough. “Mayhaps, too high.”

“Why, then?” She demanded. “Do you stand with Jarron? Do you go against his mother in his support? Why not tell him of her schemes, if indeed she has any but what you’ve concocted! Why not tell your King, to whom you vow such alleged loyalty, instead of me? Why should I be the one to warn him?”

“I’m not asking you to warn him. I am…I am trying to warn you.” She had no words for this. No reply, no protest, not even a gasp of surprise. Somewhat twisted in her chest, true, and she put a hand there as though her touch could quell it.

“She does not like you,” Erekon said.

“She’s not yet even met me, and truth, Erekon, her regard doesn’t concern me.” Demi shrugged. “Your mother, as I recall, cared little for me, too.”

It was the wrong thing to say. She’d meant to jest, to tease. She’d forgotten he was a man not given much to humor, particularly at his expense. How could she have forgotten? She’d spent too long in the company of men predisposed to finding her charming and lovely and tantalizing.

“My mother, may the Invisible Mother bless her, didn’t have the power to have you hung by the neck until you died.”

“No,” Demi said without thinking, “that was you.”

“You were a thief,” Erekon said flatly. He spoke with no emotion in his voice, but how could she believe him to be without feeling? She knew better, but as she’d forgotten not to tease him, so she’d forgotten how to read him. He didn’t know her, but nor did she know him any longer. And this, more than anything else that had happened, made her want to weep.

She didn’t, of course. This wasn’t the place for tears, which Erekon would misconstrue, at any rate. Take for weakness. And mayhaps would be right, in fact, for she’d ever been weak when it came to him. Demi straightened her shoulders, stood up tall. She faced him.

“I was a thief, true. A hungry thief who stole naught but a loaf of stale bread, easily replaced.”

“You needn’t have gone hungry. You never would have, and you know it.”

“Not here,” she agreed, her chin lifted, her gaze unflinching. “Not working in the kitchens, no. But on the road, a woman alone, no coin to ease the path? So I stole a loaf to keep me from starving until I could find a means to support myself. So I took somewhat from those who had much. I had naught!”

“Does that make it any less a crime because your belly was empty than if it had been full? If you’d stolen from the jewel box instead of the oven?”

“You chased me!” She cried, at last unable to keep the tears away. The memories came back. The crust in her hands, the smell of yeast, the heat of the ovens and the sound of the cook, complaining. The ache behind her eyes of tears. She hadn’t thought of anything beyond what was in front of her. Taking what would barely satisfy her for more than a day. Foolish, but he’d called her that, had he not? She meant to prove him wrong and shown him to be right, instead.

“You chased me,” Demi repeated in a low and shaking voice.

He didn’t speak. He backed up another step without stumbling this time. His back straight, eyes forward. Mouth thin. He looked every inch the soldier he was. He looked a stranger. At the door he stopped to look at her. “You ran.”

check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
TJ Michaels
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace

Broken by Megan Hart
all rights reserved

I woke to sunlight and Joe still tangled up with me. His deep breathing said he wasn’t yet awake, and I was careful not to disturb him as I extricated myself and hobbled to the bathroom.

Had I run a marathon? My body felt like it. Stepping under the steaming water, I winced as I rinsed myself and discovered a myriad of stings. I was raw and bruised, aching.

I waited for the guilt to hit me when I looked at my reflection while brushing my teeth. I waited for it while I threw on a robe and slippers and pulled my wet hair into a knot on the top of my head. By the time I headed downstairs to make some breakfast, I was ready to tell guilt to go fuck itself, when and if it ever bothered to show.

The smell of pancakes must have drawn him out of bed, because Joe appeared as I was setting the table. He’d showered and wrapped a towel around his waist. In the bright morning sunlight he was every bit as beautiful as I’d known he’d be.

He came up behind me to kiss the back of my neck. His hands slid into the gap of my robe and found my breasts. I let him touch me, my nipples getting tight under his touch, but after a moment he stopped and pulled away.

“This smells good.”

“Sit down. Help yourself.”

I’d made coffee, too, and poured us both mugs to sip while we ate. He made appreciative noises about the pancakes, but put his fork down after a few bites.

We looked at each other.

“Last night,” he said quietly. “Are you sorry about it?”

“No. Are you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

I sipped my coffee, watching him. He had spent the night. He had kissed my mouth. But none of that meant anything, in the end. Did it?

“Do you want me to leave?” He asked suddenly, leaning forward.

“Do you want to go?”

After a moment in which he wouldn’t look at me, he shook his head.

“Joe,” I said gently, and waited until he gave me his gaze before I finished. “I think it might be better if you did.”

His mouth tightened.

“I’m not ready for this to be anything more than what it was.”

“What was it, Sadie?” He sounded angry, but he looked…sad.

I didn’t have an answer for him, at least not one I came up with fast enough to suit. Joe crossed his arms and frowned.

“What should I do?” He asked. “Pretend it didn’t happen?”

“Maybe that would be best.”

“For who?”

“For both of us.”

He got up. The towel slipped lower, revealing a bit of hair I had to turn my eyes from. He scowled, looking fierce.

“For you, maybe.”

“Fine.” It took effort to keep my voice calm. “Yes. For me. It would be best for me if you left.”

He came around the table like he meant to reach for me. I didn’t realize until he did how I’d react. I pushed my chair back so abruptly it screeched along the linoleum like someone stepping on a cat. He withdrew. We squared off.

“Why?” He asked, finally, gesturing between us.

“Because my husband just died, Joe, and I’m not in a good place to start anything new!”

His scowl deepened, lines bracketing his mouth. “This isn’t new.”

I took my plate to the garbage to scrape it clean and put it in the dishwasher. I felt him behind me, but he didn’t touch me this time.

“I’m sorry, Joe.”

“You’re not really asking me to go.”

I kept my back to him as I went to the sink to wash the mixing bowl and griddle. “This is absurd.”

“Why?” From behind me, his tone had gone deep. “Why is it absurd?”

“Because it is!”

“That’s not an answer!”

I turned. “I don’t have a better one, okay?”

We faced each other across the small expanse of my kitchen. In all the months of imagining, I’d never imagined him here. Joe wasn’t a part of this life, this reality. At least, he hadn’t been meant to be. Things were different now.

It terrified me.

“You can’t possibly think we’re ever going to be together.” When his only answer was a solemn look, I babbled on. “Because that’s just messed up, Joe. That’s really messed up. There are so many things wrong with that scenario, I can’t even begin to list them.”

“Try me.”

I shook my head, vehement. “No. No, I don’t want –”

“Sadie.” Joe put his arms around me from behind again. His chin fit just right into the curve of my shoulder. His breath was warm on my face. “I know you better than you think I do.”

I wanted to push him away, but he didn’t seem to want to go. I wished he were dressed. It seemed unfair to have this conversation with him when he had only the protection of a towel and I wore a robe, in such an intimate reminder of the night before.

“I’m sorry, Joe. I can’t do this with you. Not now.”

“Because of your husband?”

I turned in his embrace to meet his eyes. “No. Because of me.”

He let me go and stepped back. “Last night,” he said finally, with the dignity of man whose back is straight only because it hurt less than slouching. “You said you wanted this. Whatever it is.”

“How many stories have you told me?” My voice was hoarse.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

He frowned. “It shouldn’t.”

“I wish it didn’t,” I said. “But it does. For years I’ve listened to your stories. Now, here I am, inside one. Right where I wanted to be all along. And I’m not sure what to do.”

Joe sighed and put the heel of his hand to one eye, like his head hurt. Then he took it away to give me his full gaze. “You are not just another story to me.”

I drew in a soft, hitching breath. “I wish I could believe that.”

“But you can’t.”

We stared at each other. I wanted to touch him, to let him touch me, but it was suddenly all too much. Without the safety of knowing I couldn’t have him, I wasn’t sure how to want Joe, any more.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry. Shit. Be anything but sorry.” His hands opened and closed into fists at his sides. “What if we started over?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. He kept talking, filling in the silence so I didn’t have to. “What if we started at the beginning?”

I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I gripped the edges of the sink and watched the foam dissipate, giving me a glimpse of dirty water beneath. I took small, shallow breaths that didn’t give me enough air.

I didn’t turn, though he moved so close behind me I felt the warmth of his body. “I need time,” I whispered. “To make sure I know who I am. How can you say you know me, when I don’t even know myself?”

“I wasn’t the only one telling stories, Sadie. For two years I’ve seen you once a month, every month. I am not the only one who told stories. I just used more words, that’s all.”

I faced him. He stopped an inch away from touching my face. After a moment, he put his hand on my shoulder, and the weight of it was as familiar as a favorite story heard for the first time after years untold. For a while, two minutes or ten, the only sound in the kitchen was our breathing.

“Why do you think I kept coming back?” He asked. “Why do you think I kept telling you, month after month, everything about me that nobody else seemed to see?”

I looked into his eyes. “I can’t be your answer, Joe. I can’t be the one who saves you from yourself. I don’t have what you’re looking for. I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to be your redemption.”

He took his hand away, and nodded once, slowly. He took step by careful step away from me until once again there was a universe between us. The lifted burden of his hand upon my shoulder left me not lighter, but heavier under the weight of that distance.

I washed every dish and pan under water so hot it turned my hands to crimson gloves at the ends of my wrists, but I didn’t notice the sting. I hadn’t had time even to finish when I heard a step in the doorway. I didn’t turn.

“From the first time you laughed with me, all those months, and all those stories,” Joe said quietly. “They were all you, to me. All of them were you.”

I waited too long to turn, because when I did at last, he’d already gone.

Check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Lissa Matthews
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Leah Braemel
Shiloh Walker
TJ Michaels
Lauren Dane

Layover, Spice Briefs
copyright Megan Hart, all rights reserved

The lobby bustled with people coming and going. They got on the elevator, where Graham took a spot along the back wall next to Julia. She stared straight ahead, but he could see the tilt of her smile. The crowd pushed in on them, but even in the crush of people he could feel her.
Smell her. She was the only woman there, as far as he was concerned.

The elevator stopped. They got off. Down the hall he followed her, and still they hadn’t said more than a murmured word or two. At her door she paused.

Now it comes, he thought. She’d say goodnight and leave him with his cock aching and his heart pounding. But Julia glanced at him over her shoulder and slid her key card into the slot. She pushed open the door and walked through.

Graham went after her.

She was already turning as he stepped inside and the door started to hiss closed behind him. In two steps she was in his arms. In another she had him pushed against the door, her knee between his thighs, both her hands laid flat on his chest.

She didn’t kiss him.

They stared. He was breathing hard, his pulse like thunder in his ears. The perfect breasts he’d fantasized about for months rose and fell beneath her silk blouse, and though his hands itched to cup them, Graham didn’t move.

Julia looked at him and tugged her lower lip into the grip of her even, white teeth. Her hands, fingers spread, moved down his chest to his belly. Her knee hitched higher, pressing her thigh against his balls, and his cock surged.

Her eyes widened a tiny bit at the sound of the moan he couldn’t hold back. Her tongue swiped her mouth. Holding his breath, Graham watched her gaze move over his face, his jaw, his throat, the small part of his bare chest exposed by the undone couple buttons on his shirt. Her eyes licked kisses all over him.

His hands, which had gone naturally to her hips when she put herself against him, clutched, but something in her gaze kept him from moving more than that. Julia’s thigh moved slowly back and forth between his legs, the pressure not enough to do more than tease.

And still they hadn’t spoken. The sound of their breath, mingled, was harsh and loud even over the room’s noisy air conditioner. Through the door behind him Graham heard the mutter of voices, the squeak of wheels. He opened his mouth to say something, but had nothing to say.

“I shouldn’t have walked away.”

It wasn’t what he expected her to say, but once the words left her lips Graham couldn’t have imagined anything more right. He half-nodded, not trusting his voice.

One hand moved down his chest to his belt buckle, and he held his breath again. Her other hand slid over his heart. Her gaze went there next. When she leaned to press her mouth to his shirt, when she felt the leap and stutter of his heart at her touch, Graham said the only thing that came to mind.

“You’re not walking away now.”

Her breath seeped hot through the cotton and her lips traced shivery patterns on him when she spoke. “No. Absolutely not.”

In his imaginings he’d had her on the bed already, exploring that luscious body with hands and tongue. But now, here, in the reality, with the slow but steady rocking of her thigh against his balls and her hand only inches from his cock, Graham couldn’t move.

She wasn’t waiting for him to make the first move. He knew it though she hadn’t said so. Julia wasn’t waiting for him to kiss her, or touch her. Julia, Graham thought with another small groan easing from his throat, was the one in charge here. All he could do – all he wanted to do—was acquiesce.

When she looked at him this time, her dark blue eyes flashed. Something passed between them in that look, and though Graham wasn’t sure exactly what it was, Julia nodded slightly, as though she approved.

Her thigh pressed him again, and this time he couldn’t stop the breath from hissing out, or his hips from pushed forward. Julia smiled. The hand on his belt moved to cup him. She weighed him through the khaki, his cock stiff and his balls heavy; when her hand stroked him the material blunted her touch but did nothing to diminish its power.

Graham’s hands fisted in her shirt, just above her hips. “Julia –”

“Shh.” She shook her head a little. “This is all right. Isn’t it?”

He didn’t know what to say. No other woman had ever pinned him to a door. It didn’t matter he stood a good half a foot taller or that he could easily have captured both her wrists with one of his hands. She held him prisoner not with her size or strength but with her will.

It was fucking sexy as hell.

* * * *

Check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
Lissa Matthews
Zo� Archer

Monster in the Closet
copyright Megan Hart, all rights reserved

Tessa Hanson had a naked man in her closet. She peered downward. A very well-endowed naked man. She blinked, and then blinked again. He didn’t disappear.

“Boo,” he said.

She closed the door and stared at it for a moment. She heard the rattle of hangers and some muffled thumps. When she opened it again, he was still there.

“Boo,” the naked man repeated.

Dreaming. She had to be dreaming. With a shake of her head, Tessa tried to close the closet door again. This time, the naked man put a large hand between the door and the jamb.

“Wait,” he said. “I know I can scare you.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am,” he said. “Look, just go back to bed and let me try again, okay? Only this time, wait until I’ve opened the door the whole way before you wake up.”

This was really too much. Tessa gave a narrow-eyed squint toward the faintly glowing clock on her bedside table. It was way, way too early in the morning for her to be awake. She put her hands on her hips and faced the intruder.

Hung like a horse or not, this guy was working her very last nerve. “What?”

With a backward glance, the man catapulted himself out of the closet and kicked the door shut behind him. The force of his flight knocked Tessa over, and they both fell onto the bed. Tessa found herself with a face full of fragrant male chest, complete with curling dark hair and rippling muscles.

She gave his skin an experimental lick. Yum. He tasted good, too. She reached around and gave his firm, muscled ass a squeeze.

“Hey!” The man rolled off her and jumped up. “Stop that!”

Tessa sat up and scrubbed at her face. She looked at the clock again. Two more minutes had passed, bringing her two minutes closer to the time her alarm would ring.

“If this is one of those sex dreams,” she said pleasantly, “do you think we could get started? I have an early appointment tomorrow morning.”

“Dream?” It appeared she’d stunned him. His eyes flashed, reflecting the green glow from her clock. “No! This–you don’t understand.”

Annoyed again, Tessa crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what the hell, exactly, is going on? I wake up because I hear something in my closet, and I find you. Naked. It’s clear to me this can’t be really happening, so of course I assume it’s a sex dream, especially since you just threw me down on the bed.”

“No, no, no.” The man shook his head. “This isn’t a dream.”

His dark hair fell in silky-looking lengths to his broad shoulders. The kind of hair a woman would like to feel drifting across her thighs, Tessa thought. The last few men Tessa had dated wore business suits, kept their nails trimmed, used hair products, worked out.

Metrosexuals, she thought the term was, for men who required as much, if not more, personal care than the women they dated. This sleek, muscled hunk with the Samurai hair and burning gaze was just what she’d been missing.

“If it’s not a dream,” she said slowly, “then what were you doing in my closet?” What a drool-worthy body.

The intruder began to pace along the side of her bed. Nice pecs, to-die-for abs, an ass she’d already discovered was perfectly made for squeezing. Long, muscled legs, and yep, she peeked down toward the floor. Nice toes.

He’d said something, but she was so caught up in her appraisal of his body, Tessa hadn’t heard it. “What?”

“I’m supposed to scare you,” he said rather miserably.

“Scare me?” She looked him over again, taking the time to really check out his package. Damn. His kickstand could’ve held up a Harley. “Naked?”

He looked down, as if just noticing. “Oh. Crap.”

“You didn’t know you were naked?”

He looked up and his eyes met hers. They were green, she realized. Not emerald, or jade, not even grass green. Glowing green. Like the numbers on her clock.

“I forgot to put on the uniform.”

“Uniform?” Tessa shook her head to clear away the cobwebs. She got to her feet to confront him. “What are you talking about?”

He sighed heavily. “I’m the monster in your closet.”

Surely she hadn’t heard correctly. “You’re the what in my what-what?”

He looked at her like he was defying her to contradict him. “I am the monster in your closet. I’m supposed to scare you. Only I forgot the uniform because I was running late. I figured you wouldn’t know the difference–that I could just scare you and leave, collect my pay and be done with it. But you didn’t get scared,” he said accusingly. “And now I’m screwed. I’m going to have to go back to sprinkling fairy dust and painting rainbows, and let me tell you, lady, there’s no fucking future in rainbows.”

Taken aback, Tessa said the only thing she could think of. “Would it help if I screamed?”

The look he gave her made shivers run up and down her spine like fingers plucking a harp’s strings. “It might.”

Tessa clamped her thighs shut tight on her perking-up pussy. Slickness teased her with every movement, and she became suddenly very aware of her clitoris, which previously had been contentedly nestled, asleep, and now apparently had decided to sit up and take a look around. She opened her mouth and let out a yelp. “Help! Eek! Oh, how frightening!” She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. “How was that?”

“You didn’t sound very scared,” the man muttered. “Oh, just forget it.”

He sat on Tessa’s bed and put his head in his hands. Uncertain of what to do, Tessa sat beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. His skin was warm and smooth, like heated satin.

“You don’t feel like a monster,” she murmured.

He looked up at her. “Closets normally aren’t my gig. I told you–”

“Fairy dust and rainbows. I know.” Tessa slid her fingers from his shoulder down his bare arm to rest them on his wrist. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“No?” The man got to his feet and stood in front of her, gesturing at his gorgeous body. “Do I look like I should be flitting around from flower to flower, sprinkling glitter on rosebuds?”

She let herself admire his luscious build for a moment before she answered. “No, but you don’t look like you should be lurking in closets either.”

“It’s supposed to be a part-time job,” he explained, like that somehow would make better sense. “Just a foot in the right department. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get hired without experience.”

She thought of her own corporate struggle. “Not much call for closet monsters any more?”

He sat down beside her again, his body warmth like a fire against her side. His eyes glowed brighter with excitement. “There’s plenty of work for closet monsters. I’m in training to be an incubus.”

Tessa burst out laughing. “You’re kidding me.”

The man shook his head. “No, really. The hours are great, the pay is excellent, and the benefits are amazing.”

Tessa peeked down at his long, thick cock nestled between strong thighs. “I bet.”

His gaze followed hers. “But you have to complete a very intensive training program first. So far, I’ve managed to get to the closet monster level.”

Tessa cleared her throat. “Ummm…”

“Magnus.”

“Magnus. And what, exactly, do you need to do to finish the training?”

He grinned. She’d thought him handsome before, in a somewhat disturbing way, but he became devastating now. “I have to perform a seduction that changes someone’s life.”

“That’s it?”

He frowned. “It’s not as easy as it sounds. You’d be surprised how easy it is to get into a woman’s bed these days.”

Tessa looked again the chest, the abs, the thighs… “I wouldn’t be so surprised.”

“It’s the life change part that really matters, and that’s the hard part.” Magnus sighed again. “The corporate office is very strict about what constitutes a life change. I took the monster job as a way to get myself in front of the right people, maybe get offered an internship. But I blew it.”

Tessa put her hand on his shoulder again. “What if I blew it instead?”

* * * *

Check out the other Snippet Saturdays!

Megan Hart:Read in bed!
Rhian Cahill
Eliza Gayle
Mandy M Roth
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Shiloh Walker
Lauren Dane
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
Lissa Matthews
Zo� Archer

Frederick, MD
Friday, March 23rd
6-9 pm
Francis Scott Key Mall
5500 Buckeystown Pike
Frederick, MD 21703
301-698-0121

Fairfax, VA
Romance Author Megan Hart Book Signing
Author Signing
Join nationally known author Megan Hart for her latest release signing of All Fall Down.
Saturday March 24, 2012 1:00 PM
Fairfax
Fair Lakes Promenade, 12193 Fair Lakes Promenade Drive, Fairfax, VA 22033, 703-278-0300

If you bring me a Cadbury Creme Egg, I’ll give you a hug. Seriously! (And I’m not a hugger, so that’s a big deal.)
I’ll sign your books or your baby or whatever you want. You can take your picture with me. Most of all, just come out and say hi. I won’t know anyone, it will be nice to see some friendly faces.