Fine Print releas­es 2/1/2010! To cel­e­brate, I’m hav­ing a lit­tle give­away. All you have to do is com­ment on this post. I don’t care what, even just a smi­ley face, to get your name in the hat. I’ll noti­fy the win­ner, who will have his/her choice of an elec­tron­ic copy of any of my back­list books.

Con­test ends on ¹⁄₃₁, and I’ll announce the win­ner here on the first of February.

Also, don’t for­get my Print Book Read­er Appre­ci­a­tion Give­away, there is still some time to par­tic­i­pate. Buy a print copy, and get an ebook free!

Now, to whet your appetite, here is a short excerpt from Fine Print:

She peeled off the out­fit that a few hours ago was crisp, but now looked worn and wilt­ed. The swim­ming pool would feel heav­en­ly against her over­heat­ed skin. She stood naked for a moment, let­ting the air con­di­tion­er soothe her fevered chest. She had her biki­ni and sheer robe on in record time.

If she didn’t get the hell out of this hotel suite, Kara Sor­ren­to would end up doing some­thing com­plete­ly out of char­ac­ter. She bit her lip, but she could still taste him there from the kiss on the dance floor. It tast­ed so good, she swiped her tongue all along her lips, and her insides hummed with desire. She grabbed the first two tow­els that she saw, glad to have some­thing to hold with her shaky hands.

He wasn’t in the kitchen when she emerged. Nor was he in the liv­ing area, or the bal­cony.        “Derek?”

“Yeah.” His voice came from the direc­tion of his bed­room. The door was open; she saw the light spilling into the hall­way, so she walked toward it.

“I’ve got some tow­els, did you want to…”

She couldn’t con­tin­ue. Derek lay on the end of the wide bed, arms over his head, feet plant­ed on the ground. He wore his blue swim trunks, but noth­ing else. The posi­tion of his body called atten­tion to his mus­cu­lar frame. The white bed­cov­er empha­sized his brown skin. The air con­di­tion­er was blast­ing frigid air through the room, and it looked as though he stretched out to cool off his body, and hadn’t moved since.

His legs were the same toasty col­or as the rest of him, except for the very bot­tom rim of his feet. Even his toes looked per­fect, the way they all lined up neat­ly togeth­er. Her eyes trav­eled back up his body, until she saw that he had now propped him­self on his elbows, and gave her a curi­ous gaze.

“Are you okay?”

She nod­ded, know­ing her eyes were wide, and her face had flushed.

He shift­ed that sinewy body. “I’m ready when­ev­er you are.”

He’s ready, Kara. Her eyes dropped to his lap, then to the car­pet by her feet. She swal­lowed hard. “Okay, I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” She took a step back.

“Wait.”

Wait. That one word froze her in place, almost like he had some strange pow­er over her. Her heart pound­ed, and she clutched the tow­els against her chest to hide her mis­be­hav­ing nipples.

“Come here.” His words were husky, spo­ken to trav­el across the room on the low­est of frequencies.

Again, she fol­lowed his direc­tion, with­out any thought to the con­trary. When she stood before him, he sat upright, took the tow­els from her, and laid them aside.