Forgive me, I'm just a tad excited, but it's release day and I can't wait to see what you'll make of Cole and Emmi's story. I had such fun writing this one and I hope you'll enjoy this second installment in The Projects.
so now is your chance to grab it, if you haven't already, as you'll meet these characters again in The Bear Project.
What's a girl to do when her best friend confides her inability to orgasm? Set up the Orgasm Project of course, and Maria knows just the guys to do it. Her hot as Hades brothers might be full of themselves, but at least they're safe. What can possibly go wrong?
Anastasia wants the ground to swallow her whole when she meets the twins. How embarrassing can this be, even if the gorgeous hunks set her knickers aflame with just one look?
Jake and Carter know their mate when they see her, and nothing is going to stop these cougar shifters from claiming her. Their night of passion leads to discoveries neither one of them is prepared for.
To celebrate it's release I am giving away a $10 Amazon GC. Just leave me a comment, and let me know which combination would make a good pair for the next story in The Projects. This will be Maria's story and just like her brothers she will have two mates. One of them is human, but the other one.... What sort of shifter should he be? I'm leaning towards a panther at the moment, but that isn't set in stone.
"If he keeps you
waiting, he's not worth waiting for, sugar."
The deep southern drawl
wrapped itself around Emmi, and the rest of the crowded bar faded into the
background. The man that sinful voice belonged to caged her in against the
counter, one muscular arm either side of her, until she had to inch forward on
her stool to avoid contact. The heat of his body seeped into her back through
the thin cotton of her summer dress, and puffs of hot air raised gooseflesh on
her skin, when he bent his head and inhaled sharply against her neck.
His scent surrounded
her. Earthy, virile, intoxicating, he smelled of tobacco and leather, and that
indefinable something that had Emmi's body reacting as though she was a cat on
heat.
What
the hell is that about?
"Hmm,
delicious." A rumble came from the stranger's chest and trembled through
every fiber of Emmi's being. By rights she ought to be outraged by this
invasion into her personal space, not fighting her body's instincts to lean
into this man and take what he offered. Sexual tension hung heavy between them,
and Emmi raised the glass of bourbon she'd been nursing for the last half an
hour in a white knuckled grip, and drained the whole lot in one go.
Fire burnt her gullet,
and she barely heard the man whistle through his teeth.
"Steady there,
sugar. That there will put hair on your chest." He chuckled softly, and
Emmi finally found some of her usual spunk.
"Good, then maybe
people like you will leave me alone."
Shit,
was that breathy squeak coming out of her mouth really her voice?
"Oh sugar, you
don't want me to leave you alone now, do you? I've been watching you for the
last half hour, as have several others in this establishment. It's clear you
don't want to be here, so whoever the jerk is that—"
"There is no jerk,
okay." Emmi spun round as far as his close proximity would allow and
swallowed hard. The man looming over her had to be at least six foot five of
tightly packed muscled bad boy, packaged into faded denim jeans, and a simple
white tee that left nothing to the imagination. Several days' worth of stubble
graced a jaw so chiseled it looked as though it could cut glass, and his eyes…
Liquid chocolate dipped in the rays of the setting sun, they held her captive,
and Emmi had to remind herself to keep breathing.
Yet, this wasn't a
pretty boy—far from it. This man oozed confidence and sex appeal, with muscles
clearly honed from hours of hard labor, rather than time spent at the gym, and
right now, all his attention was solely focused on her.
He smiled, and showed a
set of even white teeth, which were a startling contrast to the deep tan of his
skin. The crinkle lines around his eyes were testament to the fact that he
smiled often, and there was a devilish glint in his eyes now. He reached out
and tugged the hairband out of her hair, as though it was his God-given right
to touch her, twirled one long finger around a strand, lifted it to his nose,
and inhaled again.
"He's just what,
sugar?"
Again that sinful
smile, when she drew a shuddering breath into her lungs and yanked her hair out
of his grasp.
"Do you mind? And
I have a name. Stop calling me sugar. My name is Emmi. I'm not a damn
confectionary, stud."
His eyebrows rose, and
then he laughed. A full, deep, belly laugh that made several of the other
patrons of the bar stop what they were doing and look toward them. Emmi wanted
the ground to swallow her up. This was the last thing she needed. More
attention drawn to herself. The root of all her troubles stopped rubbing
herself against her next conquest, and sauntered over to them, her six inch
heels click-clacking along the dusty wooden floor.
She put a hand on the
man's bicep, and his amusement fled in an instant.
"Not like you,
Cole, to slum it? She looks a right prissy to me. What'cha think, y'all?"
She pushed her tits out
and demanded the attention of seemingly every man in the room.
Emmi bristled inside at
that comment. She might not flaunt her wares for all to see, like this heavily
made up brunette, but she was certainly not prissy. Then again, compared
to the woman who'd had wild monkey sex in the toilets, causing Emmi to miss her
bus, and get stuck in this little hicky town in the middle of nowhere, perhaps
Emmi was more conservative.
Before she could say
anything in response though, Cole growled low in his throat. It was a sound not
unlike that of a wild animal, and the other woman's eyes widened and she took a
step back and away from them.
"Take
it easy, there, Cole. Just having a bit of fun, that's all."
"I'd have thought
you'd had enough fun for one day," Emmi said. She was damned if
she'd sit here and be found lacking by the town slut. Not that Emmi knew that's
what the sorry excuse for a female was, but there had been an exchange of money in the toilets after said wild sex,
so it seemed entirely reasonable to assume that Emmi was looking at the
resident whore.
Instead of being
annoyed, however, the other woman just laughed.
"Oh, it was you hiding in that cubicle, was it? Did
you learn something?" She blew a bubble with the chewing gum she'd been
diligently chewing the whole time, blew Cole a kiss, and sashayed back to her
latest victim.
"Oh, the nerve of
that woman." Emmi ground the words out through clenched teeth, irritated
beyond belief that Cole was once again grinning down on her.
"What's so damn
funny? If she wants to strut her stuff, she could at least take herself off to
a room somewhere, instead of giving decent folks a heart attack when they're
just…" She couldn't quite bring herself to say pee in front of him,
so she just clamped her mouth shut and glared at him.
"So, let me get
that straight, sugar." His grin deepened when she groaned at the renewed
use of that irritating moniker. "You were in the toilets when Dolly
serviced her latest client, and you hid?"
Heat crept into Emmi's
cheeks under his amused regard, and she crossed her arms to stop herself from
wiping that arrogant smirk off his far too handsome face. There should be a law
against men this appealing finding you in such embarrassing circumstances.
"Well, what else
was I to do? It didn't seem polite to interrupt them."
"Polite?"
Cole shook his head and cupped her chin with one hand, forcing her to look up
at him. "How very English of you."
"What's
that supposed to mean?" Emmi asked.
"It means, sugar,
that it's perfectly obvious you're not from around here. I'd remember a cute
little thing like you, and besides your accent gives you away. Anyone else
would have simply left Dolly to get on with it and left, which of course raises
the question, what you were doing here in the first place."
"That's really
none of your business, now, is it?"
Emmi held her ground,
and inwardly cursed at the heat climbing into her cheeks under his silent
scrutiny. Microbes under the microscope were surely studied with less intensity
than this sexy stranger was showing her. It was unnerving and far too arousing.
Emmi crossed her arms over her chest to hide her nipples’ embarrassingly
obvious reaction to his close proximity. However, there was nothing she could
do about her knickers’ increasing dampness. She never reacted like this to any
man, dammit. What did they put into the drinks around here? And more
importantly what was she going to do, stuck in this bar, in the middle of
nowhere?
"You're wrong, you
know." He smiled, and Emmi's pussy practically did the samba in response
to that almost growl.
He dipped his head
lower, until he was so close that their breaths mingled, and it took all of
Emmi's will power to not just close that distance and press her mouth to his
firm lips.
"I am?"
Cole smiled in answer
and ran just one finger along her jaw-line. The calloused pad left a trail of
heated need in its wake, and Emmi found it difficult to breathe. The crowded
bar faded into the background, until she was only aware of Cole.
"Yes,
you are."
"Why?" she
asked on a shuddery exhale, and he tapped her nose with a sinful smirk, that
had her insides tightening in need until she wanted to jump his bones. His
delicious scent intensified. It called to her in an indefinable manner. It
should be illegal for any man to smell so good.
"Because you're
mine."
****
The curvy little
human's eyes widened at the growl of his beast, and Cole told his bear to shut
the fuck up. The animal wasn't listening to him, however. From the minute he'd
stepped into the bar, her scent had driven his bear insane, and this close to
her, his animal was straining to claim his mate.
Mate,
that word alone should have sent Cole running out of the door as fast as his
paws would carry him, and he'd been all set to do so, until he'd seen her
emerge out of the toilets, looking lost and confused.
Misery had surrounded
her like an invisible cloak, and his bear's growl in answer had the occupants
of the table he'd chosen to sit at scarpering. Even in a town full of shifters
Cole's bear was feared almost as much as Cole himself. In other circumstances
he'd have found this situation amusing. Now, knowing that Emmi had stumbled
into this bar by accident, and sensing her unease and her unwilling arousal,
his sense of humor had left in a hurry.
He'd seen the way the
other males had sniffed the air, and despite his personal misgivings, he had to
approach her, before one of the other shifters claimed her. Mid-cycle as she
was and with that air of innocence surrounding her, she was a tasty morsel of
human no shifter could resist. The town didn't need any more incidents.
That's why he was here cooling his heels after all, to make sure the rumors
surrounding Creek Fells stayed just that—rumors. This unsuspecting human who'd stumbled into
their midst at the wrong time could change all that.
"You've got to be
kidding me. Does that caveman attitude work for you?" she asked.
Had it not been for his
shifter senses, the ice in her voice might have convinced him, but her body
gave her away. Emmi wanted him as much as he wanted her. She didn’t understand
this connection between them, but her physical response only served to heighten
his, and made his bear go into full overprotective mode. He wanted to fuck her,
and at the same time he wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool and keep her safe
from harm.
Cole was in a shit-load
of fucking trouble here, and he had to get her out of here, fast.
"Look, I don't
know who you think you are, but I'm not interested." She put a hand on his
chest and immediately dropped it as though she'd been burned. A shudder went
through her little frame, and she drew her brows together in confusion.
"Hot little piece
of ass you've got there, Cole, but she seems to not wanna go with you. I'll be
glad to take the lil’ lady off your hands, and show her what a real man can
do."
She spun around at the
sound of Blade's voice, only to shrink away from the wolf shifter. Her back
made contact with Cole's chest, and his bear growled his approval.
"Fuck off, Blade.
She's not interested in you or anyone else. Emmi here has just agreed to come
home with me, haven’t you, sugar?"
He put one arm around
her waist and pulled her still closer into his frame, and his bear hummed his
approval. Cole indulged his animal by inhaling deeply against her sweat
dampened neck, and licked the instant gooseflesh that sprang up. Oh yeah, she
felt it, too, the bond between them. The only question was, could he afford to
act on this pull, and did he have any choice in the matter at all, anyway?
"Trust me, and let
me get you out of here." He whispered the words into her ear, whilst
running his tongue along the sensitive outer shell, and he sensed her
acceptance seconds before her tentative nod.
"Good girl, now
follow me."
