Excerpt Monday

Happy Manic Monday everyone! Today is Excerpt Monday again.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site.

This excerpt is from a work in progress so please forgive the roughness. It's a paranormal erotic romance which took over my life a couple weeks ago. Now that the first draft is done maybe I can get some sleep again. LOL. I hope you enjoy it and the other excerpts listed on the link above.




No one could call Spice weak, at least not to her face, yet she returned to Chicago with nothing but the clothes on her back. If only the strong survived then why did she feel like such a loser?

Narrow, box-like homes lined the street as she peered at the addresses in the dark. The bus driver dropped her off a block away with directions. Cold wind blew into her thin trench coat, she tried to pull it closer but her teeth started to chatter anyway.

Her sister lived here? She pulled an envelope from a pocket and checked the return address once more. It was correct. Maybe Sugar rented, she doubted a librarian’s salary enough to afford house in the North West Side of Chicago.

The dark brick brownstone sat close to the curb. A wide set of granite stairs led to the front door. Her sister’s Christmas lights still hung from the window and around a tiny evergreen tree struggling to live in the small front yard.

She could relate to it.

It was February. Sugar should have brought those decorations in awhile ago.

She sighed and stared at her feet. They hadn’t spoken in years. Things in Vegas had gone from bad to worse for her during that time. She didn’t want her twin sister to know but now she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

She knocked.

The wind picked-up and she shuffled her sneaker clad feet to get keep numbness at bay. No one answered but she could see a light in the window. This was a bad idea. Sugar didn’t care about her. She spun around and took the first step. Tears burned in the back of her eyes, she couldn’t remember the last time she cried.

Warm yellow light streamed from behind her. “Forget your keys, Sugar.” A male voice asked from the doorway.

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder but saw only his silhouette.

“Oh my God, you cut your hair. Daedalus is going to freak.” The laughter in his comforting voice disappeared and he moved closer. “Don’t cry.” He wiped a tear from her face. “It looks great.” With a grin, he ruffled her short blond curls.

She couldn’t help but smile back.

He thought she was Sugar, her twin sister. Something in his voice sounded familiar. The face didn’t ring a bell though but shaggy brown hair fell around most of it. He had a nice, easy-going smile. It would be wonderful to come home to a smile like that every night but it belonged to her sister.

Her grin faded.

He wrapped his strong, thick arm around her shoulders and pulled her inside. Laughter drifted from the living room where three men and an oriental woman were setting up a board game.

One of the men, who had short cropped red hair, looked up. “Where’s the food? You were supposed to grab some grub on the way home from work.”

“We’ll order pizza.” The guy next to her squeezed one more time before walking into the next room, which looked like a huge kitchen.

“You cut your hair.” The woman spoke with a thick oriental accent and sprung across the room to run her fingers through her hair.

She retreated and bumped against the entrance wall. This game of pretending to be Sugar used to be fun as kids but not anymore. With her hands raised, she kept the strangers at bay. Sugar had everything she wanted, a loving man, friends, and a home.

“Daedalus let you cut your hair?” A short man built like a body builder approached them.

The awe in his voice snapped her out of her self-pity and the protector inside reared its head. This was the second reference to someone allowing her little sister to do something. “What do you mean ‘let me’?” What kind of relationship did Sugar have? She needed permission to cut her hair? Maybe destiny brought her back to Chicago to save her little sister from some monster. Again. All those bad things happening to drive her here couldn’t all be coincidental. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Where is my sister and what are you doing in her house?”

They glanced at each other. “What?”

The one in the kitchen stuck his head out of the door, his bright, blue eyes wide as he stared at her. “Spice?” The smile he’d given to her when he thought she was Sugar returned but wider.

Her heart skipped a beat. In the light his face seemed familiar as well. “I know you.”

“You should, we were only neighbors forever as kids.”

“Eric!” He had grown. Stupid, of course he’d changed but the skinny, lanky bottle-cap-glasses-wearing nerd developed into a charming, handsome I-wanna-snuggle-you-on-a-cold-night kind of man. “Hi.” All the jobs as a hostess, a bartender, and the most recent, a stripper taught her how to talk to men the way they liked. With him grinning at her like a happy puppy, her mind went blank.

Thanks for stopping by today.
Links to other Excerpt Monday writers are availabe below.
Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

EXCERPT MONDAY