Blast from the Past, a WIP excerpt and contest

I promised you it wasn't over after the Kindle contest, didn't I?

This new contest will run for one week. Between now and Christmas Eve, I'll be posting five excerpts from future works such as Heart Storm and Wicked Temptation (assuming my editor likes it when she reads it LOL), and from current works in progress. I'll also post some guessing games related to those excerpts.

The first person to guess the right answers of ALL the excerpts posted between now and Christmas Eve, put them in a single email with the subject line "I still believe", and email it to me at starmuse23@gmail.com will win a fifty dollar gift certificate from amazon.com along with a special prize which I'll talk about in a future post. Trust me when I say its lovely. :)

So here's today's question: What time period does the excerpt below, from my proposed contribution to the upcoming Red Sage Series, Three Kinds of Wicked, take place in? I need the exact month and year. If you read closely, you can figure it out with a little help from google.

Warning: If you're under 18, you need to ask your mommy if it's ok for you to read this. :) If you go on and read it anyway, and you're under eightteen, you automatically release me from all liability, even if you get grounded for life. Which you should.

~

Sage Sawyer peered across the van to slake her gaze man she’d loved since she was sixteen years old. Honestly, there ought to be a law against anyone with a y chromosome possessing such raw beauty. Everything about Russell McKenna made her fingers burn with the need to touch him.

As her hand trudged across the vinyl seat to connect with his, his bright gaze slanted her way, triggering a rush of heat between her legs. Jesus H., if he didn’t take her soon, she might just spontaneously combust. And judging by their location, all the ingredients for a tryst were falling neatly into place: a winding dirt road, a tree shrouded lake, and the sexiest man in the world.

Would she finally lose her virginity to him? Though his thumb brushed suggestive circles of promise into the cup of her palm, she hardly dared hope it. Until now, none of the sugar she’d been pouring on him since he’d returned from Viet Nam had paid off. He’d scarcely noticed that while he’d been gone, she’d grown into a fully liberated woman. And it was high time he got serious about putting that worthless war behind him and getting into her pants. Preferably before they got to Woodstock.

The van rattled to a halt and Sage grinned so hard she thought her cheeks might split. Perhaps she wouldn’t be the token virgin at the concert of the century after all. Judging by the fact that Russ was humming Come on Baby Light My Fire, an afternoon love-in was exactly what he had in mind.

The idea of making love for the first time beneath the pine trees and the cloudless summer sky whipped her pulse to a gallop. A groan of anticipation caught in her throat as Russ set the parking brake and yanked the keys from the ignition. As he shouldered the van door open, he peeled off his tank top.

Hot damn.

As she drank in his rippling torso, her body temperature shot up about a thousand degrees. “Tease,” she rasped beneath her breath.

Russ motioned for her to scoot over and follow him out the driver’s side. “Come on. This will be fun.”

Eager to get this party started, Sage peeled her thighs from the sticky seat and scrambled toward Russ. As she swung her legs through the open door of the driver’s side, his enormous hands settled at her waist and tugged her closer. With her arms tightly looped around his wide shoulders, her breasts flattened deliciously against his sculpted pecs. As he swung her down from the van, her impatient nipples pearled.
No way was he getting away from her this time.

When her bare feet sank into loamy earth, his grip loosened. Sage feigned a stumble, sealing her body tighter to his. Lingering, she basked in the way his muscular embrace hardened to a protective cage. Proof positive. No matter what had happened in Nam, Russ still cared about her. And if she were to judge by the moisture gathering between her legs, she was more than ready for this.

“Easy there, sunshine,” he murmured, steadying her. She lingered there for a second with her cheek pressed into the damp curve of his neck. The way his stubble rasped her forehead as he spoke nearly undid her. Christ, he smelled the just the same as she remembered, a combination of sunshine, shaving cream and virile man.

Her hands travelled the hard ridges of his belly until firm flesh yielded to fabric. Hooking her fingers in his belt loops, she tossed her bangs from her gaze and tilted her head back to gauge his reaction. Though she could already feel the hard burn of his length plowing against her belly, his brow was furrowed with concentration, his blue gaze clouded and distant.

In spite of his obvious state of arousal, she was losing him.

“So, how much further to Woodstock?” she tried, grasping for the first subject that came to mind in order to draw his attention back to her.
Russell shrugged and then turned away to dig through the tangled bed linens in the back of the van. Instead of producing the picnic blanket she’d hoped for, he pulled out his guitar case.

She doubted it was packed full of condoms.

Sage’s hopes crashed into the pit of her belly. It was obvious that this beautiful place—not Russ’s desire to bed her—had inspired him to pull over to write a song. Barring an air raid, he wouldn’t budge until the tune that was banging around in his head was finished.

So much for making it to Woodstock as his lover.

As a clueless Russ settled onto the nearest patch of dry ground to tune his guitar, Sage picked her way through several mud puddles, putting a safer distance between the object of her desires and the temptation to beg. As she wandered toward a moss covered boulder that jutted out into the water, she gulped down humiliated sobs. Hiking her skirt up, she climbed atop the stone and made herself at home atop the rock’s sun warmed surface. While her gaze travelled over the cool green water she idly spun the POW bracelet she’d worn for the last five and a half years around her wrist.

She wouldn’t begrudge Russ his music. Not after she’d witnessed the violent flashbacks that had set him to screaming like a banshee as he rained punches into the air. After last night’s episode passed and he’d rebuilt his stoic façade, he said dreaming up new songs had been all that stood between him and insanity in Nam.
Not memories of her, who had spent years waiting for word of him. Rather his music. And while knowing just where she ranked in his heart tore her own in two, she wouldn’t indulge her anger. Not when she considered the alternative—that he might not have come home at all.

Sage’s fingertip travelled the timeworn letters that composed the name on the bracelet—SGT Russell Keats. Amazing how putting three little letters before a man’s name could change him, wound him, even cost him his life. Question was, did those letters wield enough power to reach around the world and come between them forever?


Copyright 11/2008, Liane Gentry Skye