Six Sentence Sunday time.  Now for a peek at Pryor Davies from Double Take.  



“You don’t even know the effect you have on people.” Pryor was inches from her, caressing every bit of her face with his stare.

She certainly had no response for that, at least not a verbal one. Her body, however, didn’t seem to have a problem finding a reaction. The way his eyes floated over her with a string of thoughts parading carefully behind them made her skin prickle with heat and her blood rush south.
Six Sentence Sunday!  More from Double Take ... meet Tristan Davies.






She nodded, but it wasn’t just his company she wanted. In the room, circulating around them like thick smoke was the feral attraction she couldn't ignore.

He stood over her, lean muscle and olive skin flowing under his khaki shirt. Shannon had known his tenderness, recognized it in the glimmer of his eyes when he looked at her, even through the narrow eye sockets of his mask. She knew his strength, too—his uncompromising intent, the fight that wouldn’t be distinguished. The two sides of Tristan…she desired both.


Six Sentence Sunday #1

SIX SENTENCE SUNDAY! - I'm not a virgin anymore. This is my very first SSS offering and I'm starting with a little something from my latest release, Double Take. Let's start with the beginning, shall we?



Shannon took in the sight of them. Two sleek chiseled frames, perfectly male, unmistakably powerful, standing in nothing but the low hung cotton underwear they’d slept in. She followed the valleys at each of their hips, suddenly grateful for the ten sets of military style sit-ups neither started the day without. Identical bodies stood languidly over her only an arm’s length away, radiating with confidence and compassion and sex. She couldn’t love either of them more, though her reasons for loving each had proven unique if not complex. The Davies twins were one of a kind and no one else but Pryor and Tristan could better prepare her for what she needed to do.


Tough Girls Need Love Too


I’m a firm believer that a character doesn’t have to be perfect to be loveable. It’s often more interesting to have a look through eyes that are slightly jaded and bear the scars of life.  The human experience isn’t always all peaches and cream.  When we have the opportunity to grow with a character through her anger and fears, we get the privilege to experience her joy with more intimacy. 
A “bad attitude”, as others would call it, is a lot of fun to write. I love the chance to let my inner bitchiness out.  But at the root of that sour tongue is usually a damaged ego just crying to be stroked by the right person.  It isn’t that a tough girl doesn’t want to be taken care of, it’s just that she’s been forced to take care of herself. It’s a hell of a lot more scary to risk another let down in a long line of disappointments than to keep on trucking in survival mode.
I’m toying with a new story that doesn't yet have a name.  But here’s the budding start of a romance that I hope gives a peek into the heart of a tough girl who needs love too.



"Ow!"  Hot coffee in my lap while I'm trying to merge onto the freeway is not the way to start the morning—impossible to manage the gearshift and a Styrofoam cup at the same time.  I might be a girl who's good with her hands, but this would take a magician.  It’s pretty fucking ironic to be delivering dry-cleaning with a stain on my pants, and so goes my day.
I would turn around and go home to change, but that would make me late and I can't afford to lose this job; not while I'm on parole. 
"Come - on!"  Not another old lady puttering her way to Wal-Mart, I can't take it.  I should try to be patient; it's my need for speed that got me locked up in the first damned place. Boosting cars with my ex and his friends seemed like a great way to spend the summer, at the time.  Too bad I was the only one who took the heat for it and that jerk took off to God knows where.  
And there it is again, gaining on me quickly in my rear view, taunting me like it does everyday—that sleek sculpted beauty.  I can't hear its low rumble over the pounding base of hip-hop swelling my eardrums.  But, sure as shit, I can sense that Camaro hovering behind me every time.  The windows are tinted black—as black as the paint job.  I have no clue what’s inside, but by the way that thing moves, I'd say it's got to be male.  Of course, I could be wrong.  After all, I drive like a bat out of hell most the time.  Not today, though.  Today my coffee cup has me driving like a little girl, and I can only watch as he pulls up next to my VW GTI, waiting for me to make a move.  It slows, waiting, looking perhaps.  I imagine he is looking right at me, asking me … do you want some of this? 
I'm thinking about tossing the stupid coffee right out the window, throwing my second-hand hatchback into fifth and giving him a run.  Too late, he's already gone.  Tomorrow.  No, tomorrow I'll still be on parole and a speeding ticket is the last thing I need.
"You got eight deliveries before 12:00," my boss barks, with the raspy jingle of the entrance bells punctuating his command behind me.
I don't even say hello, because he never bothers to answer me back.  I just take the clutches of tailored suits and pretty dresses belonging to somebody with a better life and get back in the car.  Fuck Tom and his lack of manners.  When I made it clear that he wasn't going to get any bonus pussy for hiring an ex-con, he was done with me.  Now, I get about three sentences out of him a day; suits me just fine.
The job isn't all bad.  I know my way around this town better than anyone, so I can always manage to finish well ahead of when I'm due back.  I'll hit the desert outskirts and kick up the hatch back in the sun, let it beat down on me with its healing warmth.  Behind red-hot eyelids, I conjure my own version of revisionist history and rewrite the last three years of my life.  Mostly, I imagine I don't get caught.
Everyday by dusk, I'm finished with my stops, but Tom always makes me straighten the place up before I go.  It’s a mad rush to get out … in time to catch the Camaro.
The whole thing is ridiculous, yes, I know.  But, it's become a bit of a routine for me—a game of sorts.  We must work the same hours, and live in the same direction from town, because if I leave at exactly 5:30, I'll see him for sure, and it thrills me every time I do. 
In the evening, he doesn't pass me.  He rips around the spattering of commuters on the freeway that runs through my town, only to hover like a specter behind me, matching my speed for the three exits I stay for.  After that, I don’t know where he goes or what he does. I can only imagine and I have a pretty damn good imagination.
When tomorrow comes, I'm ready.  No coffee this time, my hand is poised on the gearshift as I obsessively glance in the rearview, looking for him.  Today I'll see if he'll chase me, I'll test our little game, force his hand and see who’s holding the cards.  The energy I feel radiating from that sleek, black testosterone-laden machine could be a complete fantasy.  Today I'll give a little pinch and see what happens.
Today, however, there's no Camaro.
It’s a disappointment, though who would want to admit it.  The whole thing is silly. 

“Get these over to Club Minx over on Rte 85.” Tom barks just before quitting.
“Wouldn’t you rather make the delivery yourself?” I sass him with cock of my head.
“Ha, ha.  Very funny.  Just make sure they pay you everything, crafty sluts tried to stiff me the last time.”
Not hard to get over on you, I quip silently, and let the door swing closed behind me. 
The strip club isn’t hard to miss.  It’s the last neon sign at the edge of town, beyond that it’s just coyotes and moonlight.
I pull up and wonder if I’ll recognize any of the strippers inside.  In a small town like Gopher Creek every one ain’t exactly going to be a lawyer or a veterinarian.  I’m sure I had homeroom with at least one of those chicks.
Inside, the action hasn’t really started yet, but the place is all polished up and ready.  Curiosity about what goes on in this place had me beg my X-boyfriend to take me, but it turned out the only place we ever went together was court.  What a loser.
Nobody even glances in my direction; bartender and the waitresses are all busy setting up.
“Hey, I have a dry cleaning delivery.”
The guy with the shaved head wiping down the bar doesn’t even look up.  “Over there,” he says with a thumb in the general direction of the back.
I save my thank you for someone who gives a damn and sling the clear plastic covered corsets and studded boy shorts over my shoulder.  Through the curtain and down the hall, the techno music is getting louder and the smoke is getting thicker in my lungs.  I quit when I got out, another dirty habit left behind. In front of the door where it’s all coming from is a guy with a look on his face that tells me he recognizes me too.
“Last time I saw you, you were trying to steal my car,” he says grinning too much to be talking to the girl who popped his door lock last summer.
 Exactly what Mr. Perfect Football Captain is doing in this place, I have no idea.  I fix my jaw and remind myself he isn’t better than me.  “I didn’t know she was yours, promise.”
He laughs.  “Would it have mattered if you did?”
The wallpaper is looking pretty interesting right about now.  It beats staring back into those prying blue eyes.  I shrug.  “I don’t know, maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“We had auto shop together.  We weren’t friends, Zach.”
“No, I guess we weren’t.”
“Can I give these to you?” I ask, doing my best to get the hell out of there.
“I’m covering security for my cousin.  I’m not the housekeeper.”
“The attitude is new.”
He shakes his head. “I’m sorry.  Kind of had a fucked up morning.”
“I kind of had a fucked up year.”
“Your own fault,” he says with a bashful smile, reaching for the dry cleaning.
The way he’s looking at me makes my stomach hurt.  “That will be forty two bucks.”
“Hang on.”  He knocks on the door and it opens with a pile of curls and a pair of pouty lips.
“What ya need, cutie?”  she says, doing as little as possible to cover herself since even I can see the spill of her cleavage in his face.
Zach blushes and it makes me want to punch him in the arm.  “Got your dry cleaning here.”
“Oh, thanks babe.  Come in.”  She ushered him through the door and shut it before I could say anything.
“Hey!”  I bang my fist next to the glittering star in the middle. I’m not sure what I’m more pissed about, the way she snatched him away or the fact that she’s about to stiff me.  I bang some more.
Zach reappears and I snatch the two twenty’s and leave the ten in his hand.  I’m three steps in middle of heading to the front door when I figure I should give an explanation.  “Don’t worry about the two bucks, I don’t have any change.”  Truth is I couldn’t take another second of being in there with him and that gorgeous face of his and the way he was chewing on his lip like he had something else to say.  What else was there to say?  Zach was a dead-end daydream I started in high school that was nailed shut the minute I got caught in the Mustang convertible his dad apparently bought him for graduation.
By the time I get outside, I’m practically running to my car.