Today's Spooktacular Spotlight Author is Susan Hayes
She's brought us Eternal Bonds to sample!!
You Can Find it Here
Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00E9XWUNE
Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/eternal-bonds
Duncan Masterson lives apart from his vampire brethren and has vowed to never bring another mortal into his dark world. Only his fiercely loyal human guardian, Jared Evans, knows the truth about who and what he is. For nearly a century, Duncan has held fast to his vow, until the day he finds the beautiful Tabitha Blacke lying dazed and bleeding after a rogue vampire attack. Duncan realizes he must break his vows in order to protect her from the evil that is prowling his territory. When both Duncan and Jared find themselves falling for their lovely houseguest, they decide to claim her together, forging bonds that will change all of their lives forever. As trouble draws near, their bond will be tested and sacrifices will be demanded of them all. The two men know they'll do whatever it takes to keep their beloved Tabi safe, but will their love be enough to see them through?
How About A Sample
One minute they’d all been sitting around the table and the next minute Tabi found herself the filling in a man-sandwich straight out of her wildest fantasies. She dragged a hit of air into her lungs and caught the scent of both men as they surrounded her. Her breasts instantly tightened and her pussy tingled as she felt the hard, muscled bodies of both men press into her. Two hot, handsome bodies that had moved so fast they’d been a blur. That thought snapped her back to the present with a crash.
“Let me go!”
“No, lass. Not until you’ve calmed down.”
“You’re telling me to calm down again? Didn’t you learn anything from the last time we had this conversation? You can’t just tell me to be calm every time the weird-shit-meter hits eleven!”
She felt Jared’s chest vibrate with laughter and she turned her head to glower at him. “And you! Care to explain how you did that? No one moves that fast unless they’re from the planet Krypton!”
“Boss? I think we’re going to have to explain.”
“Indeed,” Duncan sighed. “Did you have to move like that? You scared her.”
“Me? You were the one who had her ready to bolt like a scalded cat!”
“Guys? Hello? She is standing right here and she’d really like some answers!” Tabi was getting tired of being talked about like she didn’t have ears. In an attempt to get some breathing room she worked a hand between herself and each of their chests intent on pushing them away, but the act of rubbing her way up their hard bodies started another line of thinking altogether. Her thoughts derailed into a pileup of hot fantasies and lust, and instead of pushing she simply left her fingers splayed across two solid walls of male muscle.
Both men pushed in closer, until she was caught between twin pillars of sex and heat that had her blood simmering and her brain mushy. Jared covered her hand with his so that it was held firmly just over his heart while Duncan turned her until his mouth could capture hers. This time his kiss was gentle, tender and intended to comfort, and Tabi was too overwhelmed by her desires to do anything else but tangle her fingers into Duncan’s shirt and pull him in closer as she answered his kiss in kind.
Jared lifted his hand from her shoulder to sweep her hair back from her neck, dropping delicate kisses along the edge of the bandage.
“Mine,” Duncan growled in warning and tugged her harder against him, pulling her a half step away from Jared.
“No,” Jared growled back and moved in behind her, sandwiching her between them.
Duncan lifted his head and Tabi gasped as she saw his eyes. They were incandescent, glowing so brightly that it was as if there was a fire burning inside him.
This time Tabi did push away from him, straight back into Jared’s arms.
“What are you?” She managed to keep from screaming the question at Duncan, hanging onto her sanity by the barest of threads. What the hell had she just been kissing?
Jared wrapped his arms around her and stepped back from Duncan, taking Tabi with him. “Boss, you need to chill.”
Who were these two, the masters of understatement? “No, he needs to stop growling and glowing and tell me what the hell is going on! And both of you need to stop kissing me until I get some answers. My brain doesn’t work well when it’s drowning in hormones.” Oh god, she just said that out loud.
“Hormones?” Both men echoed her last word and Tabi nearly screamed with frustration. “Out of everything I said, you two focused on that word?” she snapped and tried pulling herself out of Jared’s embrace. She managed to twist slightly, but that was all. He was impossibly strong.
“This is going well,” Jared quipped in rueful tones.
“You’re not helping,” Duncan snarled, revealing a pair of long canines as he ran a hand through his hair, pulling it out of its customary tie. His eyes were only glowing a little now, but Tabi was too busy staring at his mouth and fighting Jared’s hold to really notice.
“You’ve got fangs? When did you get fangs?”
“Oh yeah, this is going fucking brilliantly.” Jared tightened his hold on Tabi and dropped his mouth to her ear. “It’s all right, honey. Neither of us is going to hurt you, but you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep struggling.”
Tabi stopped trying to get away and went still, finally accepting there was no point, not when Jared was so much stronger than she was. “Answers. I want answers right now or I’m going to start screaming.”
“Sure thing,” Jared drawled and loosened his hold on her slightly as he nuzzled her hair. “Duncan there is a three hundred year old vampire and I’ve been his guardian and companion for more than seventy-five years. You got your throat torn open by another vampire, and that’s why Duncan had to bring you back here.”
She’d heard enough, these men were insane. Tabi drove her heel into Jared’s instep and let herself sag straight down, slipping partially out of his arms before he could recover. She gathered her strength and used all the power in her long legs to drive herself up and away from Jared, breaking free and sprinting for the back door she had noticed earlier. Better sock feet in the snow and risk freezing to death than to spend another minute in this house.
She didn’t even make it to the door. Something large and moving impossibly fast passed her and then turned to block her way and she screamed as she slammed into it. She lashed out with her fists, but it felt like she was punching stone. Her hands hurt but she didn’t seem to be making any impression. She slashed out with her fingernails, desperate to get away, but someone caught her wrists, drawing her arms behind her as she fought and screamed again. Tabi felt herself being lifted and she kicked with both feet, hearing a grunt of pain as she connected with flesh.
Good, I hope that hurt! she thought to herself as the blur in front of her took shape and she realized she was staring up into Duncan’s golden eyes. He looked pissed. He also looked incredibly turned on, and the look he was giving her had Tabi’s knees trembling with something other than fear. He didn’t look like he wanted to hurt her. He looked like he wanted to fuck her senseless. Holy shit, she was in serious trouble.
“Enough!” Duncan commanded, and Tabi felt her body obeying instantly.
“Stop doing that!” she snarled, too angry to question the wisdom of challenging something who had fangs and eyes that glowed. Instantly she felt control of her body return to her. That was when she noticed he had four fresh scratches running down his cheek.
“You clawed me.” Duncan touched his face and brought away his fingers with a look of surprise as he spotted the traces of blood on the tips.
“You kidnapped me, stripped me naked, and then started growling and sporting fangs, and you’re worried that I scratched you and messed up your handsome face? Really? In my book we are not even close to being even yet,” Tabi grumbled, trying to ignore the fact that his hair was down and his mouth was inches from hers and if she just leaned forward a little—what the hell was wrong with her? He was a psycho! Hadn’t she had enough of dangerous, controlling men in her life?
“Mousy my ass. You brought home a hell cat, boss. I think we should seriously consider—”
“Not another word, Jared. You’ve said quite enough. Tabi, I apologize. This was not how I wanted to do this.”
Tabi managed to rein in her out of control libido and corral her scattered wits. “Do what? Make sure I need a lifetime’s worth of counseling? Scare me half to death? Just let me go, please? I promise I won’t tell anyone anything.”
“Come to the living room and we’ll talk. I’ve already given you my word no harm will come to you. I know you don’t have any reason to, but I need you to trust me. To trust us.”
“Remember what I said about trust being earned? You two currently have a negative balance.” She tugged at her wrists, still pinned behind her back by Jared. “At least let go of me. You’ve made it abundantly clear there’s no point in trying to run away. Whatever you are, you’re both too strong and too fast to be human.”
“I told you, he’s a vampire and I’m his guardian. That was the truth,” Jared told her as he released her wrists.
“You’re clearly not the diplomat in this arrangement,” Tabi grumped and stepped sideways so there was finally a bit of space between her and the two men who seemed determined to turn her on and then terrify her.
“I’m the brawn, not the brains,” Jared told her, chuckling.
“That doesn’t make any sense. If he’s the vampire,” she pointed to Duncan. “Shouldn’t he be stronger than you?”
“When he’s awake he is. But even vampires need their naps.”
“I do not nap!” Duncan snapped. “Now, can we please go to the living room and we’ll try and do this like civilized folks and not babbling barbarians.” He shot Jared a look of pure annoyance and Tabi caught herself on the verge of giggling.
I’m losing my mind. There is no way I should be finding any of this funny.
Both men reached for her and she darted out of their grasp, determined to keep her distance until she had some answers. “Point me to the living room and I’ll make my own way, thank you.” She’d make it there under her own steam, even if she had to crawl. Every time she touched one of them her hormones overrode her brain, and right now she needed to be thinking clearly.
Duncan inclined his head toward a doorway and then headed through it without another word. Tabi followed, ignoring the pain in her heel where she’d stomped on Jared’s foot and the lingering weakness that still plagued her. As she entered the living room she had to refrain from goggling. The place was massive and looked like it had been taken stone by stone from a castle somewhere. Where the kitchen had been completely modern and sleek, this part of the house was completely different. Dark wood paneling lined the walls, and the windows were covered by heavy velvet drapes that were such a deep shade of burgundy they almost looked black until the firelight hit them. The fireplace was a massive and ornate affair, but she quickly realized that despite its ancient appearance it had to be a modern design, because the fire was gas-fed. There was even a heavy velvet curtain that could be pulled across the room, cutting it in half and creating a cozy area around the flickering flames. Tabi picked out a chair near the fireplace and settled herself into it, happy to be sitting down again. Whatever had happened to her out in the parking lot, the effects were certainly lingering.
As the others got settled, she watched, oddly disturbed by how at home Duncan looked surrounded by all these trappings of another time. With his long blond hair and leonine features, he seemed more warrior than healer at the moment. Duncan looked like he belonged here, and that thought set her to wondering if it was possible he really was as old as Jared had claimed. There was only one way to know.
“All right, Duncan, it’s time for you to be honest with me. Are you really a three-hundred-year-old-vampire? And if so, what the hell are you doing working as a doctor?”
A Little Facetime With The Author
K.S. Hello and welcome to the blog. I am very excited to have you here. Why don’t we start off with a small introduction? Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Susan Hayes and I hear voices in my head… Er, scratch that. I mean I’m an erotic romance author. I’m somewhere between 39 and “I’m not telling” and I live on an island, which I consider an advantage when the zombie apocalypse comes.
K.S. Any interesting writing quirks or stories you would like to share with my readers?
My muse runs on caffeine, cookies, and background noise. If one of these is missing, she sulks. It’s not pretty. She’s actually pretty difficult to work with, we’re looking into counseling.
K.S. When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? What sparked the desire to pen your first novel?
I don’t think there was a time I didn’t want to be writing. It’s part of who I am. The path to writing my first novel was a convoluted one that started as a freelance comedy writer and somehow took a few left turns to my current occupation. It’s been an amazing journey so far.
K.S. What genre do you write?
Erotic romances, with a number of subgenres including sci-fi and contemporary, but I do love my paranormals. Vampires, ghosts, and werewolves, oh my. If it goes bump in the night, I want to write about it.
K.S. What would you say has inspired you most in your writing career? Or, who is your favorite author and why?
I have more sources of inspiration than is probably legal, but Stephen King is high on the list. His book “On Writing” lives on my desk and he was the first author to truly scare me into leaving the lights on after reading some of his books.
K.S. What does your family think of your writing?
They are proud of me, though my Mum has banned my Dad from reading my books. Something about “there are things a father doesn’t need to know his daughter knows about.”
K.S. What was one of the most surprising things you learned while creating your book/s?
The more books I write, the more ideas I get. When I started on this path coming up with plot ideas was not easy. Now the trouble is staying on course long enough to finish one book while new ideas and characters pop in and start demanding attention with alarming regularity.
K.S. What inspires you?
I lost my little brother a few years ago to a heart defect we didn’t know about. He went to sleep and never woke up. He was the kind of person who took life on at full throttle, chasing his dreams. He taught me life is far too short to spend waiting for good things to happen, you have to go after them.
K.S. Where can we buy your novel?
You can find Eternal bonds at:
Siren-Bookstrand http://www.bookstrand.com/eternal-bonds
Amazon: http://amzn.com/B00E9XWUNE
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/eternal-bonds-2
K.S. Do you have a website, fan site, or Blog that we can visit?
website/blog: http://www.susanhayes.ca
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Susan-Hayes/551945384831723
K.S. Do you have any closing advice to aspiring writers?
Don’t write what’s trendy. Write what you love. Your enthusiasm will shine through.