Hel­lo! I’m so glad you stopped by. I hope you’re enjoy­ing the JustRomance.Me Blog Hop! Click HERE to find the begin­ning. I’m pick­ing up the Crim­son Dawn Ranch thread. For some rea­son the strip­per Jer­ri and the K9 cop Corey begged me to tell their sto­ry, so I went with it. I did­n’t have a choice.

Corey Thurston scooped up a hand­ful of red dirt and faced  the bon­fire. The crowd behind him was solemn. Corey pinched his eyes closed so no one could see them roll. As if his wish­es would come true just because he’d sat through local per­form­ers and sto­ry­tellers pro­claim­ing Crim­son Dawn Ranch’s mag­i­cal aura. He almost laughed out loud and threw his hand­ful of dirt on the fire. Sure­ly the myth­i­cal crea­tures would help Corey in his quest to get in that exot­ic dancer’s pants tonight. Sti­fling a smile, he gave his dog Kevlar the hand sig­nal and the Ger­man Shep­ard obe­di­ent­ly fell into step beside him. As they made their way back to the crowd, Corey glanced at the woman for whom he’d just wished car­nal knowledge.

Jer­ri Carlisle met his gaze steadi­ly. In fact with the glim­mer of the roar­ing fire, Corey could have sworn there was lust behind those clear blue eyes. Per­haps there was. She’d spent the entire bus ride read­ing from a very erot­ic romance nov­el. She’d shared a few pas­sages aloud to the enjoy­ment of the rest of the pas­sen­gers. Corey had shift­ed in his seat to hide his inter­est, and he could­n’t help but notice her squirm­ing too. Now, as the flames from the bon­fire reflect­ed in her eyes, he did­n’t both­er to hide his inter­est. He let it show in the flick­er­ing orange light.

He returned to his spot, and forced his focus back on the fire. He absent­ly scratched behind Kev’s ears, as the rest of the par­tic­i­pants threw their dirt on the fire.

“I’m dying to know,” a whis­per came close to his ear. “Just what does a big tough…sexy cop like you wish for?”

He did­n’t have to turn to know it was the strip­per teas­ing him with her sweet breath and if he moved back just a lit­tle, he could feel her breasts brush against his back. “Now Miss Carlisle, you know that I can’t tell you that. My wish won’t come true.” He turned his head just enough to see her from the cor­ner of his eye.  From her prox­im­i­ty, he could­n’t tell if she licked her lips or if he just imag­ined it, but it took every ounce of willpow­er to turn away rather than kiss her.

“And maybe,” she whis­pered again, this time he felt the brush of her lips against the rim of his ear. “Your wish was the same as mine…”

He reached behind him, brush­ing his fin­gers along her bare thigh. “I guess we won’t know unless they come true.”

“Then in my case, we should know by sun­rise.” With that she pulled away from him, and he lis­tened to her foot­steps in the grav­el. When she’d walked a few steps far­ther than her orig­i­nal spot, he gave in to his curios­i­ty and checked over his shoulder.

Jer­ri had looked over her own shoul­der to meet his gaze from the grow­ing shad­ows of the tree. The crack­ling fire was drowned out by the pound­ing in Corey’s ears. With­out anoth­er thought, he spun on one heel and fol­lowed her, Kev on his heels. He caught up with her at the front door, where she slipped a key card  behind the waist­band of his pants, com­ing way too close to his erection.

“Room one-oh-five. Five minutes.”

Corey wast­ed no time in get­ting Kev set­tled into their own room on the third floor. The place was all but aban­doned. Every­one in the coun­ty must be at that bon­fire. Corey grinned. When room one-oh-five opened silent­ly to reveal Jer­ri Carlisle’s naked body reclined on her bed, he decid­ed that maybe wish­es real­ly did come true at Crim­son Dawn Ranch.

Makes you want to find a hand­ful of red dirt, right? And maybe a sexy dream come true too.

I’m throw­ing in win­ner’s choice of my back­list to the grand prize pot, but I’m hold­ing a spe­cial con­test for my read­ers here. All you have to do is com­ment, and you’re eli­gi­ble to win the very first down­load of my brand-spank­ing new release Cov­er Sto­ry, com­ing to ebook stores every­where on Mid­sum­mer’s Day, June 24th.

Good luck!