Bestselling Author Delilah Devlin
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One Day to Four Sworn!
Monday, September 6th, 2010

I’m running TWO contests.
1) One offering a $25 gift certificate from Amazon to celebrate the release of PLEASING SIR. This contest ends today! See details here!
2) The second is my usual thing. You post a comment here today and you’re eligible for a free download of any of my backlisted books.

Yesterday’s winner is posted at the end of this entry.

I went to bed last night with sniffles, and today I have a full-blown cold (hacking cough, runny nose, general aches and pains, aching back from cough). It’s looking iffy for my trip to West Viriginia on Thursday. I hope this is a really fast-moving bug, but if I’m not better, I won’t inflict myself on two hundred other people.

So back to tomorrow’s release. You know the story’s going to be hot as hell. And the reason has to do with the Kinzie brothers, who don’t get the girl at the end of Four Sworn.

Keep in mind this book is unedited because I’m still writing it, but I thought you might like a sneak peek.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Chrissi Page raised her cell phone in the air, staring at the screen. No bars. Not even a hint of one skinny, green nub. “Oh, come on,” she moaned as her radiator hissed behind her. “Damn, damn, damn.”

She’d been tempted to ignore the check engine light when it first appeared, wanting to take the chance she could limp back into Two Mule. However, the steam seeping from under the hood had pretty much killed that hope.

Today was not the day for her car to break down. Not so far from town. Not so close to their ranch. Any minute now one of the Kinzie brothers might happen by.

They’d stop because they’d never leave a woman stranded.

They might not let her go because of their shared past.

And she didn’t know if she had the strength anymore to fight fate or her own inexplicable needs.

Macy Pettigrew, her best friend and boss, had sent her to the Dunstan house to make sure the owners had followed her suggestions to increase the house’s curb appeal. Never mind that there wasn’t a curb. Not really even a road—more of a caliche-covered goat trail that meandered up a steep hillside, rutted from runoff during recent summer storms.

Something must have happened to her car on the run up that hill. She’d heard the rocks pinging against her undercarriage but had been too busy with her mind filled with Ms. Dunstan’s handsome neighbors. She’d been afraid she’d pass them or that they might stop in to see old Lettie Dunstan, the widow selling off her roughhewn home.

Chrissi had forced a smile on her face, looked at the potted plants the old woman had placed in pretty window boxes and admired the paint she’d used to spruce up the weathered door and window frames. The junk the old woman’s husband had accumulated, and that she hadn’t had the heart to part with after his passing, was gone from the front lawn. And lo and behold, grass was beginning to grow to fill in the brown patches where car engines and tires had lain.
Macy would be pleased. They had a potential buyer. One who’d relayed an offer via email, and which had checked out with the mortgage lender.

Chrissi heard a powerful engine rev behind her, and she slowly lowered her arms and glanced nervously over her shoulder. A sage metallic pick-up truck pulled off the road behind her, and her stomach dropped to her toes. She’d known the moment her engine light had shone that this was going to happen.

And good Lord, it had to be Ezra Kinzie. His dark gaze narrowed on her through the windshield, the intensity of it feeling like the hissing heat of a brand against her skin.

He opened his door and stepped down, slamming it with a decisive shove. Everything Ezra did was deliberate. He never wavered once a decision was made.

Long ago, he’d decided he wasn’t going to fight his brothers for her. If she wasn’t going to decide among them, then she’d have to take them all.

And, Lord help her, she had.

She’d never gotten over that night, had never been able to push it to the farthest corner of her mind when she lay down to sleep. Just the memory of it made her hot, cold, wet…

And horribly ashamed. Anyone could have seen them beneath the bleachers at the homecoming game. Gossip hadn’t followed, but that didn’t make her any less self-conscious when she strode down the sidewalk on Main Street.

Someone might know. Someone might tell. The thought of that sordid night being revealed left her feeling nauseated. Her life had been circumspect ever since, her love life nonexistent.

They’d left her scarred. Unable to move on. Not because they’d harmed her physically, but because she hadn’t been able to shake off the terrible attraction that tempted her every single day.

Boots crunched on the gravel at the side of the road. The brim of Ezra’s straw cowboy hat left his ice blue eyes in shadow. She straightened away from her car and squared her shoulders.

“Havin’ trouble, Chrissi?”

“It just showed up,” she said under her breath, determined not to let him see how flustered she felt.

One side of his mouth quirked up and he glanced up at the sky, squinting against the bright sunlight before leveling that devastating stare on her again.

Her belly clenched, and she fought hard not to give him any clues about how he still affected her. Just the rumble of his deep voice always made her think of crisp, cool sheets and hot, slick skin.

Her glance flicked over his body-hugging dark tee, noted his well-developed chest, the bulge of his biceps, his taut abdomen. She started to sweat. “Will you call a tow truck for me when you get home?”

He glanced down with a frown that dug a deep crease between his dark brows. “Get in my truck, Chrissi. I’m not leavin’ you on the side of the road.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere with you, Ezra Kinzie,” she said tightly.

A muscle rippled alongside his jaw. “I’m just offerin’ you a place to wait out of the sun. And a cool drink. Nothin’ more.”

His features were stern, his jaw rigid, but the heat blazing from his eyes mesmerized her, made her want to sway toward him. The intensity of that unblinking stare made her wish he’d take the decision right out of her hands. She’d never willingly take that first step. Her days of following his commands were over.

Chrissi swallowed hard and broke from his glance, looking down the road and praying someone else would appear over the crest of the hill. She needed rescuing from the deep emotions roiling inside her—from the temptation his large, hard frame embodied. However, only the shimmer of heat waves rose off the black tar.

A trickle of moisture dripped between her breasts, gliding along one curve, and just like that, her imagination replaced the slide of that hot little bead with the tip of his tongue. She turned away from him and dragged in a couple of deep breaths, trying to stiffen her resolve, but the only things hardening were the tips of her breasts. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin, then turned to aim a glare at the one man who had the power to make her knees quiver.

So many memories swamped her as she stared into his handsome, rugged face. So many regrets sat like soured milk in her gut. He’d been “the one” until she’d succumbed to a dark sensual greed.

Too bad she couldn’t turn back the clock about seven years. She’d make damn sure she’d never let him take her hand and pull her into the shadows.

The winner of a free download of Unforgiven is…Shelly! Shelly, contact me via email to arrange delivery of your prize. Congrats!

18 comments to “One Day to Four Sworn!”

  1. Wesley Nichols
    Comment
    1
    · September 6th, 2010 at 8:39 am · Link

    Hey Delilah.. I am sorry to hear you caught a bug 🙁 Did you have any plans for Labor Day?

    Also, have you been able to do any writing?



  2. sue brandes
    Comment
    2
    · September 6th, 2010 at 11:04 am · Link

    Sorry your not feeling well Delilah. Hope you feel better soon. Really loved this excerpt too!! Congrats to the winner. :mrgreen:



  3. Rasha
    Comment
    3
    · September 6th, 2010 at 11:43 am · Link

    DD sorry to hear that you are sick 🙁 Cold is hitting a lot of people hard including me and my mama last week and this one respectivly. I hope you will be better in no time.



  4. Becky
    Comment
    4
    · September 6th, 2010 at 11:53 am · Link

    I’m sorry to hear that your sick Delilah. Hope you feel better before your trip comes. Loved the excerpt! Congrats to the winner.



  5. SiNn
    Comment
    5
    · September 6th, 2010 at 1:27 pm · Link

    awww I hope ur feeling better ! soudns awesome love the blurb



  6. Ilona
    Comment
    6
    · September 6th, 2010 at 2:25 pm · Link

    Poor you. Hope you get better soon.



  7. Joder
    Comment
    7
    · September 6th, 2010 at 2:58 pm · Link

    Feel better soon Delilah! I’ll be saying a mantra that those pesky germs leave you soon. They say that you can sweat out the germs and this book definitely sounds like it can help in the heat department. I love menage stories since I believe in the more the merrier and would love to get my hands on this.



  8. Shelly
    Comment
    8
    · September 6th, 2010 at 4:56 pm · Link

    Hope you get to feeling better. Nothing worse than being sick during the summer. Great excerpt. Love the chemistry between Chrissi & Ezra. Thank you so much for drawing my name. 😉



  9. Diane Sadler
    Comment
    9
    · September 6th, 2010 at 5:15 pm · Link

    Get better quickly; a few weeks ago I was sick also, some weird combination of cold and flu like symptoms. Loved the blurb by the way.



  10. Zina
    Comment
    10
    · September 6th, 2010 at 5:17 pm · Link

    I hate getting a cold out of season, actually I just hate getting sick, so I hope you feel better soon. Very nice excerpt, looking forward to this series.



  11. Rachel Lynne
    Comment
    11
    · September 6th, 2010 at 7:56 pm · Link

    Sorry you’re sick … drink some herbal tea, and pop some pills of course 😉
    All I can say about Breaking Leather is … WOW! Hot and compelling. Once again, with a few clicks of a keyboard you’ve created so much tension and conflict … I’m dying with curiousity over Chrissie’s dilemma and turning green with envy over your talent 🙂 My deepest wish is to write even half as well as you do … (sigh), someday …
    Feel better soon!!



  12. Sherry S.
    Comment
    12
    · September 6th, 2010 at 9:11 pm · Link

    I hope you get feeling better soon. I hate to get a cold this time of year it just seems like they are harder to get rid of. Loved the excerpt this sounds like a very good book.



  13. Courtney S
    Comment
    13
    · September 6th, 2010 at 10:02 pm · Link

    Sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. Chicken soup really does help with colds & cold-like bugs.

    (I mean this in the best possible way) You are EVIL! You post an excerpt from a book that sounds SUPER hawt, & then tell me I gotta wait to read it. Evil, I tell you…LOL (Lissa Matthews does the same thing to me)

    I’m heading over to MBAM to get my copy of Four Sworn (& put myself out of my misery waiting for that one…lol)



  14. savonna
    Comment
    14
    · September 7th, 2010 at 1:47 am · Link

    Feel better!! I love the excerpt and can’t wait to read what happens next!



  15. Sasha White
    Comment
    15
    · September 7th, 2010 at 2:02 am · Link

    Take care of yourself! I’d make you tea and cookies if I was closer. *hug*



  16. Delilah Devlin
    Comment
    16
    · September 7th, 2010 at 5:49 am · Link

    Thanks, everybody. I pretty much closed the computer, wrapped myself in a blanket and dozed through the NCIS marathon all day. Went to bed about 7 PM last night. Still feel like hell this morning. I hate to say it, but I don’t think I’m going to West Virginia this week. 😐



  17. Teresa Noelle Roberts
    Comment
    17
    · September 8th, 2010 at 2:08 pm · Link

    Sorry to hear you’re sick and missing the fun.

    But thank you for giving me a little fun with that *hawt* excerpt. Hurry up and finish the book!



  18. vickyvak
    Comment
    18
    · September 9th, 2010 at 12:35 pm · Link

    Hope you get better soon!!!!



Comments are closed.