Santa Baby by Taylor Lee

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Chapter One excerpt – 2016 Love Christmas Collection – Santa Baby – by Taylor Lee

Chapter 1

Zach took a hefty swallow of Makers Mark draining his glass. Plunking the empty schooner on the table top he reached for the bottle and poured himself a healthy portion. Not waiting for his buddies’ certain approval, he refilled Danny’s and Mark’s glasses with the amber liquid and raised his tumbler in a mock salute.
“Here’s to what, men, our fourth, or, is it our fifth Christmas, celebrating at the Xpose? Damn, I never thought anything could be worse than canned Christmas music everywhere from Walmart to the barber shop.” He shook his head and pointed with his chin at the stage. “But two nearly naked faux reindeer pretending to have sex to the beat of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? Damn, that’s over the top even for the Xpose!”

When his buddies roared in agreement, Zach tried to remember when he’d been amused, hell, even a little intrigued at the Xpose’s Christmas decorations. Leave it to Lecherous Lenny, as he and his men had named the proprietor of the sleazy strip joint, to create the scene in front of them. Who else would decorate his fake Christmas trees with gargantuan silver and gold phalluses? Not to mention every kind of sex toy the most perverted imbiber of kink could imagine. Zach admitted that once he’d even been amused by the plastic breasts decorating the trees. In an apparent imitation of Rudolph’s nose, they were topped with pointed red nipples that blinked on and off.

Zach took another slug of the potent whiskey welcoming the harsh burn in his throat. With a heartfelt sigh he acknowledged that the garish sex-saturated displays were no longer funny, they were sad. Watching the women gyrating on the stage he shook his head. He knew that their glassy eyes and occasional stumbles confirmed that they’d deadened their bleak lives with the plentiful crystal Lenny provided to keep his girls in line. Disheartening as the women were, the ugly hoots of the drunken men egging them on, was sickening. Zach was about to finish his drink and call it a night when the girl-on-girl reindeer tableau came to a merciful end.

As he rose to his feet and was about to slap down a bill, another song hit the PA system. Instead of a cheerful, inappropriate children’s tune, it was Eartha Kitt’s taunting tribute to materialism, Santa Baby. But it wasn’t the saucy lyrics that made Zach change his mind about leaving. Rather it was the long-limbed dancer sauntering across the stage toward the brass pole in the center of the stage. Deciding that leaving was premature, Zach allowed himself to sink back in his chair and appreciate what was an anomaly at the Xpose: A stripper who knew how to dance. Zach marveled that the woman not only moved her beautiful body in the expected, provocative fashion but she did it with a sinuous grace that snagged his breath.

Danny’s appreciative whistle and muttered expletive confirmed that Zach wasn’t the only one agog at the apparition before them.

“Wow! I haven’t seen that little piece before. Don’t tell me Lenny the Lecher is adding quality to his lineup. Fuckin’ A, that babe looks more like a beauty pageant contestant than a stripper.” He added with a hearty laugh as the music throbbed, “Bet she’d win the talent portion if not the whole damn crown.”

Gratified that his cohort was as flummoxed as he was, Zach tried to figure out what was different about the dark haired woman working her way to the pole. Like all the other strippers, she was wearing Lenny’s sexy de rigour Christmas attire. A tight red low-cut halter captured her full breasts and skimpy boy shorts cupped her curvy ass. The red velvet stocking cap with the sassy white fuzzy ball on the end perched on the shiny curtain of curly black hair streaming over her slim shoulders and back. But unlike the other women, who looked sleazy not sexy, the new dancer almost looked proper. More like one of Santa’s prettiest elves, not a woman who was about to shed her clothes for the voracious men who were screaming at her to “take it off”.

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The girl-next-door morphed enticingly when the dancer responded to the crowd’s lewd demands. With a flick of her fingers she allowed the straining halter to fall to the floor. Bodacious breasts topped with sparkling rhinestone pasties revealed a tantalizing glimpse of rosy nipples that stole Zach’s breath. The gasps from his hardened teammates confirmed he wasn’t the only one stunned by her lush body. He almost didn’t want her to lose the boy shorts, not wanting to share more of the erotic vision with the leering men. He was glad that the City fathers had decreed that no matter how loudly the crowd insisted, the remaining G-string would stay in place.

Zach watched in amazement as the stripper-turned-erotic-gymnast skillfully used the shiny pole to display her stunning athleticism as well as her beautiful body. She shimmied up and down the pole twirling from one gravity defying move to another. When she landed a flying breathtaking leap and stood once more upright on the floor, Zach captured her gaze. The look in her eyes when she met his open appraisal surprised him. It wasn’t only the sudden shyness that flickered across her face. Rather it was the fact that her expression changed dramatically. If he was any judge of women who shed their clothes for a living, and Zach most certainly was, he recognized her startled wide-eyed expression. He’d seen it far too many times in his line of work. It was fear, pure and simple. Seeming to realize that her mask had slipped, the accomplished performer quickly recovered her poise. She turned back to the chanting crowd and showered them with a cheeky grin. Tossing her head she shook her booty eliciting a thunderous roar from the appreciative audience. Then with an impudent wave she turned and literally dashed from the stage.

  1. PS. I love new readers. Please follow me on Amazon to find out about my latest releases as soon as they happen! Thanks. Taylor Lee

Taylor Lee

USA Today Best Selling author Taylor Lee writes Suspenseful Mystery Thrillers – with a heavy dose of Sexy to Sizzling HOT Romance.

In the less than four years that she has been writing, Taylor has written more than thirty books. Her seven series track her Special Operatives, Covert Agents, Cops, Firefighters and other iconic heroes and heroines, through the harrowing situations that make up their lives. From human trafficking rings to corrupt politicians, Taylor investigates the underbelly of society and the criminals who flourish there.

Taylor says: “From the residue in my personal blender of mixed races, cultures and world views, my characters emerge. It comforts me to know that while evil slinks in the shadows, the “good guys” of the world sniff it out – and snuff it out.
My characters are arrogant alpha males and the feisty women who bring them to their knees – and vice versa… They fight hard, love hard and don’t mince words. They are dangerous men and women in dangerous times. Love, passion and ridding the world of evil? What’s not to like?”
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White Christmas by Rebecca York

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Chapter One Excerpt – 2016 Love, Christmas Collection – White Christmas by Rebecca York

Craft shop owner, Amelia Parsons, is too upset to be paying attention to her surroundings.  When she’s hit by a car, she wakes up far from home.  Here’s the first chapter of the story.

CHAPTER ONE

Amelia Parsons was too upset to see the car speeding toward her through the swirling snow.  One moment she was crossing the ice-rutted street in St. Stephens, Maryland, and worrying about a call from the police—plus a missing shipment of Christmas ornaments for the hospital tree.  In the next she was flying into the air.  She heard someone scream.  Maybe it was her.  Then she sank into thick blackness that lasted for minutes—or maybe it was years.

When her eyes blinked open, she was standing in the cold again, wavering on unsteady legs as big flakes came down around her like she was the star attraction in a giant snow globe.

Main Street was gone.  Instead, in her blurry vision, she saw pine trees, their branches weighted down with a layer of ice.

Her head hurt and her mind felt muzzy.  She thought she heard holiday music drifting toward her on the wind—White Christmas, she thought.  Or was it only ringing in her ears?  And were the warm lights in the distance real?   Through the falling snow and the trees, she could just make them out.

She’d been downtown, half a block from The Wild Side, her arts and crafts shop, which sold the work of local artisans as well as native crafts from around the world.  Now somehow she was out in the woods, but the lights must mean she wasn’t far from civilization.

The snow on the ground was almost to the top of her boots.  As she struggled toward the vague outline of several oversized Swiss chalets, she tripped against a root, going down on her hands and knees.

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For a few moments, she fought a pitched battle to keep from blacking out again. When her vision cleared, she pushed herself up and had to grab the trunk of a tree for support.

“Get it together, Amelia,” she muttered as she started struggling toward the lights again.

Before she had gotten more than a few yards, she heard an ominous rumbling that seemed to be coming from high up and to her left.  It thundered closer, and the image of an avalanche hurtling down the side of a mountain leaped into her fogged mind.

All she could do was scramble for safety, floundering through the drifts like a seal out of water, trying to reach the building ahead.  A torrent of white enveloped her, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Just before she went under, a running figure grabbed her, swooping her up in strong arms.

She had a quick impression of dark hair under a fur trimmed hood, fierce eyes, and a clenched jaw as he ran with her, lumps of ice pelting down on both of them. He must have zoomed out of the main mass of the avalanche because she sensed it rumbling behind them as he kept going, heading for the closest building.

When he crossed the threshold and carried her inside, she realized they were in a barn where animals were making snorting and chattering sounds.  But when she peered into a couple of stalls, there were no cows or horses.  Instead she saw beige- and brown-colored beasts with antlers.  They looked like some kind of deer?  But who kept deer in a stable?

Strange as it seemed, she would have sworn they were talking excitedly to each other, or was that just the ringing in her ears?  At any rate, she couldn’t understand what they were saying.  And before she could figure it out, her rescuer took her to an unused stall and set her down while he threw back his hood and brushed snow off his shoulders.

Unsteady on her feet, she backed up and landed in a large pile of hay.

Now that they were out of danger, she could get a better look at the guy towering over her.  He was a hunk wearing jeans, a dark coat and heavy gloves.  Under other circumstances, she might have tried to get friendly, but his icy eyes stopped her.

“Thank you for saving me,” she tried as a kind of, um, icebreaker.  When he didn’t reply she kept talking.  “I mean, I know I put you in jeopardy.  I’m sorry.”

His answer wasn’t what she’d expected. “What are you doing here?”

Her fogged brain struggled to process the question. “I don’t know.  I mean I don’t even know where I am.”

He glared down at her.  “I think you know all right. Who sent you?”

“Nobody.”

As she spoke, she heard footsteps in the corridor between the stalls.  A short man dressed in jeans and a red coat over a red flannel shirt stepped into the stall.  His thick white hair was mussed, and his bushy white beard hid the bottom half of his face.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I found her out in the snow.  I think she’s a spy.”

Amelia stared at him in disbelief.  “A spy?  I don’t even know where I am,” she repeated what she’d said earlier, then added, “My name is Amelia Parsons.  I own a craft shop in St. Stephens, Maryland.  I was minding my own business when . . .” She stopped and pressed her fingers to her mouth.  “Oh Lord, I think I was hit by a car.  I was so upset about that call from the police—plus the Santa’s Workshop shipping delay.”

They both stared at her.  “What do you know about the problems at Santa’s Workshop?” the hunk demanded.

Again she struggled for coherent thoughts. “Nothing.  I was supposed to get a discount order of ornaments, for the hospital tree, but the distributor can’t get anything from them.”

The men exchanged glances.

When the older one started to speak, the younger guy shook his head.  “Need to know basis.”

Amelia blinked.  “Huh?”

The bearded man turned back to Amelia. “We’ve had some problems lately.  I guess I should be more cautious, but it’s hard not to expect the best from people.”

“Would you mind telling me your names?” she asked, her gaze swinging from one of them to the other and back again.

The hunk opened his mouth, then closed it again.

The older man supplied, “He’s Daniel.”

“Okay,” the hunk agreed.

Was she still too out of it to hear that right?

“You just gave him a name?” Amelia asked.

The older man flushed.  “Well, a code name, you know.”

“Why?”

Daniel jumped back into the conversation. “We’ve had sabotage here lately.  And an innocent looking woman like you could be a decoy, sent to make us let down our guard.”

END OF EXCERPT

The title of each story in the collection is a holiday song.  And our readers selected the songs.  I’m so excited that Sharon L. Gage gave me my title. Thanks so much Sharon.

Here’s a link to the Love, Christmas Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tenbrides/?fref=ts

Rebecca York

NY Times & USA Today best-seller, Rebecca York, is the author of over 150 books. She has written paranormal romantic thrillers for Berkley and romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. Her new romantic-suspense series, Decorah Security, is set at a detective agency where agents have paranormal powers or work paranormal cases. She also writes an Off-World series where each story is a science fiction romance taking place on a distant planet in the far future.
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HARK THE HERALD ANGEL FALLS by Michele Hauf

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Chapter One excerpt — 2016 Love, Christmas Collection — HARK THE HERALD ANGEL FALLS by Michele Hauf

Hey! It’s a christmas story! And…it’s May and 80 degrees outside. It never ceases to make me laugh at how my writing tends to have me working on winter stories in the summer and vice versa. Today I’ve got an excerpt from HARK THE HERALD ANGEL FALLS, a paranormal novella featured in the Love, Christmas anthology due out in September. This story is set in my world of Beautiful Creatures. I added a bit more than Chapter One because well, you’ll see why.

Chapter One

Then…

Crisp snowflakes dusted their faces and stirred up laughter as Merit and Luke Dawson swished their arms up and down across the packed snow. They lay side by side beneath the quiet glow of a streetlight in a corner of a Paris city park. Luke stood and clasped his wife’s hand to pull her up beside him as they looked over their handiwork.

“Not bad,” he decided.

“Not bad? We rock at snow angels.” Merit’s bright blue eyes danced as she landed his embrace and gave him a cold, wet kiss laced with snowflakes. “I love you so much.”

“I love you more than the world,” he replied.

“I know you do. Sometimes when I’m home alone, I can feel you thinking about me.”

“Really?”

She nodded effusively and snowflakes sifted from her thick, wavy black hair. “When the loft is quiet, I can feel your love for me as if it’s something I can reach out and grasp. Don’t ever leave me, Luke.”

“I swear I won’t. You’ll always feel my love, wherever you are. Now, are you sure you want to go with that image?” he teased as they looked over their impromptu snow angels. “Really? You? An angel?”

Mocking outrage with a pout of her snow-kissed pink lips, Merit nudged him with an elbow. “You love my devilish side.”

“No halo for Merit Dawson, and that’s the way I like it. Especially when you get that wicked, sexy glint in your eyes—like now—and I know what’s coming next.”

She plunged against him, wrapping her legs about his waist and kissing him hard and sloppy. Her attack kisses always ended in their laughter, and, if they were anywhere near a bed, long and lingering sex.

“Happy first anniversary, lover,” Luke said against her mouth.

“And Merry Christmas,” she added.

“Only you could have convinced me to get married on Christmas Eve.”

“I love Christmas. It’s the one day that bursts with love. Can you feel it?”

He did, and the feeling radiated from deep in his soul. “I almost forgot. I have a surprise for you. It’s in the car. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Merit dropped from their embrace and then lunged to grab a stray branch from the snow. “I’m going to draw a halo on your angel.”

“Don’t forget the horns and tail for yours!” Luke called as he strode toward the Renault parked around a hornbeam hedge and at the curb.

Running, he performed a slide across the slick, packed snow and landed the car door with a slap of his gloved palms and a chuckle. Merit did that to him. Lifted his heart and made him feel like a kid who’d just been gifted a sleigh full of Christmas toys. A year of marriage had felt like a mere day. His job as a traveling jewelry salesman allowed him to set his own schedule, and sometimes take Merit along. The next year promised great and wondrous things standing alongside his gorgeous wife and seeing the world through her optimistic eyes.

He opened the door and popped open the glove compartment. From inside, he drew out the heart-shaped diamond necklace. He tapped the five-carat diamond. “Adamant, like my love for you.”

Merit’s scream shattered Luke’s happiness. Dread curdled in his throat. He took off toward the park, leaving the car door open, and the necklace dangling from his clasped fist.

*

Frost etched the hospital window. The glow of a star topping the Christmas tree in the neighboring churchyard winked defiantly at Luke. The ambulance had delivered he and his wife to Hôtel Dieu half an hour earlier. They’d rolled Merit into another room, a creased white sheet covering her face. A young male doctor stood at his side now, talking, saying…something.

Luke wasn’t listening. He couldn’t hear. He didn’t want to hear.

She was gone. And he remained.

Something wrong with that. It should have been him.

The church bells clanged roughly, marking the eve of a great savior’s birth. Luke swallowed and the air pressure adjusted, siphoning into his brain the doctor’s voice on quiet but cutting words.

“…we did all we could.”

Sitting on a plastic chair outside the room where his wife had been treated, Luke gritted his jaw, wincing at the pain from the wounds on his neck. A nurse had bandaged him and asked if he’d like something for the pain. The pain? What drug could take away the pain he felt from the indelible wound to his heart where Merit had been viciously cut away?

“I can tell you she didn’t feel a thing,” the doctor continued. “When she hit the back of her head, it knocked her out. She wasn’t conscious to experience any pain.”

Luke tilted his head back against the wall and bit his lower lip. “You’re lying. I saw her while three of them held me back. There were two of them on her. She screamed. She didn’t stop screaming.” He met the doctor’s bloodshot eyes. “She felt it all.”

“I, uh…”

“Just leave,” Luke said. “Get away from me.”

The doctor receded, as did the blurry haze of the Christmas star. Snowflakes fell over the world. Including Luke’s heart.

Clasping the diamond heart necklace he hadn’t a chance to give his wife before the vampires had attacked, he strode out of the hospital.

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Chapter Two

Paris, almost a year later…

Snowflakes sifted across the Seine and floated a few seconds before melting into the icy waters. Luke leaned against the river wall, watching the last bateaux mouche pack up for the night. Even in this chilly weather crazy tourists hopped onto the boat ride that would sail them by the famous monuments and buildings. Christmas landed in a week. Shouldn’t those mortals be home, snuggled next to the ones they loved?

At least they had loved ones.

Sighing heavily, he tilted his head and his skull hit the limestone wall hard as he stared into the charcoal sky. Difficult to find a star standing here in the center of the City of Light. A bright and beautiful star reigned up there in the heavens somewhere.

“Merit,” he whispered his dead wife’s name. “I miss you.” His throat closing up, his heart muscles clenched.

“They’re lighting the tree tomorrow night at the Galeries Lafayette,” said the bum standing beside him.

Francois was a riverside regular. He knew Luke would hand him a few euros if he was quiet while Luke muddled in his usual late-night pondering before he went out to scam for a thief to provide the sustaining blood he required.

Luke hated drinking blood. Not so much the taste of it, but the whole living off another’s life to survive thing did not sit well with his morals. Did he need to survive? He’d lost everything that meant anything to him that night the vampires had attacked he and his wife. He could still hear Merit’s screams. Until that moment, he’d not heard terror touch her voice. She’d always been happy, fun and sexy, and a bit of a smart ass.

He’d give anything for that sassy little tongue to slip out the corner of her mouth right now, followed by a twinkle in her bright blue eyes. Just to see her one last time. Not screaming. To kiss her. To hold her so tightly nothing could ever rip her away from him.

“You’ve never been in the Galeries Lafayette,” he said to the bum.

“Right, but I can look in the windows. Pretty things in there.”

There was but one pretty thing Luke wished for, and he could never have it now.

“I was going to make an early night of it,” Francois said.

Luke got the hint. A roll of ten euro notes were coiled in his pocket. He shoved a hand in to forage for a few bills—and decided to hand Francois the whole roll. Francois hooted.

And a burst of brilliant light flashed across the river.

Something hit the water with a crack. Impact landed in the center, yet it spread out in waves of shimmering light in a definite shape.

“Did you see that?” Francois hooted again. “It was a bloody angel!”

It had looked like a person. With wings? That had been the shape he’d seen shimmer in the water. Impossible. Yet if it was a person, they’d never survive the freezing water.

Luke shrugged off his leather jacket. “I have to save her.”

Michele Hauf

For more info on Michele’s books visit michelehauf.com

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