Two very different men, each struggling with his own lust and desires. Can they find a happy medium?
Ethan Harte returns to his old stomping grounds in Chicago a changed man. He grew up on the South Side, running with older boys and playing stickball in the streets. A one-night encounter with a brooding stranger named Darius has left him half-man, half-creature, with a thirst for blood that's hard to slake.
Cullen Ryder, a South Side Chicago detective, has been on his own since his lover was killed in a car crash three years earlier. Disillusioned, bitter, and more than a little lonely, he's intrigued when former classmate Ethan comes back into his life.
Ryder's life the past thirteen years has been about being a detective, and he prides himself on being a damn good one. But when he finds out exactly who and what Ethan is, and what he does to survive, their new bond is tested. Can Ryder live with the knowledge, and does he want to?
Reader Advisory: This book contains one character from Night Shift, though the two books can be read as stand alone titles.
General Release Date: 13th December 2013
Ethan Harte drew the collar of his worn pea coat tight around his neck and shivered. It’s fucking freezing here. He chuckled at the irony, having just arrived back in Chicago from the sunny state of Florida.
“December in Illinois,” he muttered to himself. Not the most idyllic time for a visit home but things had been getting a little too hot in Tampa and he’d needed to get away.
Home. The word swirled around in his head. Another bitter taste of irony washed over his tongue. There had been no one left in his family to come ‘home’ to for nearly ten years. Both his parents had died young. His father had passed from untreated syphilis, which he’d no doubt contracted from one of the many whorehouses he’d frequented in his life. Ethan had always felt his mother had died of shame after his father’s revelation, although the official cause of death was liver failure due to alcohol consumption.
He’d been an only child, and if there were aunts and uncles or grandparents in his life, he’d never known them. His childhood had been pleasant enough, both parents had worked and while they hadn’t had a lot they’d usually had what they’d needed. Or so I thought. “Who knows what a person really needs?” he mused aloud.
He debated walking past the old homestead but darkness was waning and it wasn’t getting any warmer. Instead, Ethan headed towards Armour Square Park. Hookers and street people used to hang around there all the time. In an effort to spruce up the city and playing up the ‘Chicagoland’ moniker, much of the area had been rejuvenated and remodelled. But if a person knew where to look, the seedier sides could still be found.
Bingo. Small groups of street people clustered on various corners of the park.
“Hey, baby!” A thick-waisted, bleached-blonde woman beckoned him. “You got a car, somewhere we could go?”
Her skinny, red-headed friend smacked her on the arm. “If he had a car would he be out here walking?”
“Good point, that.” He ran his tongue across his upper teeth, flashing just a hint of fang, and both women backed off. Ethan chuckled and kept walking until he found a woman who met both of the criteria he had created for himself. First, she was alone. Big mistake on her part. And second, she had some meat on her bones. He hated the feel of a bone-skinny body beneath him, no matter the reason it was there.
The plain, simple fact was that the scrawny ones died faster. It was never his intention to kill anyone, but the euphoria of feeding was almost an orgasmic experience and sometimes he had trouble deciding when he’d had enough. If he partially drained his victim they’d recover with a few days rest and fluids. But when he dragged it on for too long, when it felt too good to stop, occasionally he’d totally deplete their blood supply and the victim would die before help arrived, if it ever did. Pity.
He rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the act. By the time the short, mousy brunette had spotted him he’d already clamped one hand over her mouth and was dragging her backwards into a dark, secluded doorway.
She whimpered beneath his grasp, her heavily mascaraed eyes wide with fear.
“Shhh,” he whispered in one ear. “You’re going to be just fine. You won’t feel a thing.” He bared his fangs and clamped firmly onto her neck.
The woman tensed then went completely limp in his arms. Perfect. Now I can relax and enjoy it. He sighed as the warm, metallic-tasting honey coated his throat.
She had a dime-sized red heart tattooed at the top of her left breast. Ethan focused on that as he indulged. His eyes rolled back once and he nearly passed out but he forced himself to stay focused and take only what he needed.
The thick, lush breasts did nothing for him sexually but his cock couldn’t have been harder. He avoided preying on men for that reason. It would be far too easy to take advantage of someone with diminished capacity and he’d never been a rapist. But he didn’t want to tempt himself.
Ethan sighed as he drank. Hell, until a year ago he’d never been a vampire, either. Now, he did what he had to do to survive, and tried to keep the collateral damage to a minimum.
Jenna Byrnes could use more cabinet space and more hours in a day. She'd fill the kitchen with gadgets her husband purchases off TV and let him cook for her to his heart's content. She'd breeze through the days adding hours of sleep, and more time for writing the hot, erotic romance she loves to read.
Jenna thinks everyone deserves a happy ending, and loves to provide as many of those as possible to her gay, lesbian and hetero characters. Her favourite quote, from a pro-gay billboard, is "Be careful who you hate. It may be someone you love."
You can find Jenna on Facebook.
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