Out Now!
Buried
Pleasures (Medusa’s Consortium series book 3)
by K D Grace (@kd_grace)
#newrelease #urbanfantasy #uf
Blurb:
When Samantha Black shares her
sandwich with a dog, his owner, Jon—a homeless man living in the Las Vegas
storm tunnels—gives her a poker chip worth a fortune from the exclusive casino,
Buried Pleasures. All Sam has to do is cash it in. Sam is in Vegas for one
reason only—to get her friend, Evie Holt, away from sinister magician, Darian
Fox, who holds her prisoner in an effort to force Sam to perform at his club,
Illusions. A neon circus tent of strange and mystical acts, Illusions is one of
the biggest draws in Vegas, and he’s hell-bent on including Sam in his
disturbing plans.
The shadowy Magda Gardener will do
anything to keep Sam from cashing in that chip. She knows that Buried Pleasures
is the gate to Hades and cashing in the chip is a one-way ticket across the
River Styx, which runs beneath the storm tunnels of Vegas. Jon is really Jack
Graves, owner of Buried Pleasures, and Graves is really the god of death,
himself, and if things aren’t already confusing enough, he and Magda know what
Sam doesn’t. Sam is the last siren. That her song can kill is only the
beginning of her story. Jon wants her safe on his side of the River, protected
from Fox’s hideous magic. But even Death fears Magda Gardener, who is none
other than Medusa, and the gorgon has her own agenda. If Sam is to understand
her heritage and win the battle against Darian Fox, not only will she have to
trust her heart to Death, but they’ll both have to work for the gorgon, whose
connection with Sam runs deeper than any of them could imagine.
Buy links:
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/buried-pleasures-k-d-grace/1127222027?ean=2940154583531
Add
to Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36401609-buried-pleasures
Rated R
Excerpt: So much more than La Petit Mort
With a soft clink, Fox dropped the key in a small
ceramic bowl on the dresser, not bothering to lock the door behind him. There
was no need now.
He heard the rustle of bedding and
a soft female moan before his eyes fully adjusted to the gloom. Then he saw the
shape of her, duvet thrown back in spite of the chill, the pale silk of the
negligee rising and falling with her anxious breathing. He always asked that
they be clothed in white silk. Occasionally there was blood, and the red of
blood against white silk made the experience more formal somehow, and it always
felt like such an occasion should be formal.
As he became used to the gloom, he
could see that she had been well-groomed for the occasion, fully made-up and
hair freshly coifed, just as he had requested. It was a condition that wasn’t
strictly necessary, but made the whole experience seem a little more
ceremonial, a little more festive. After all, presentation was a key ingredient
in every good restaurant, wasn’t it? Why should his situation be any different?
“Gabriella, you look exquisite
tonight, my darling. I can’t tell you how much I’ve anticipated being with you,
having you here in my bed.” He removed his jacket and hung it carefully over a
cedar hanger on the back of the door. “Did I not promise you that the time
would come when I would invite you into my own home, into my own bed?”
Of course it wasn’t his own bed. He
never took them to his bed. He had several other rooms in several other places
where he took from them what he needed, though this one was special. This one
was for feasting. He carefully undressed by the side of the bed where she would
be able to admire his every move. She moaned softly and writhed, not taking her
eyes off him, needing him almost as much as he needed her. Almost.
At his leisure, he took in the
curves that were still luscious enough to be tempting—the rise of nipples, the
dilation of pupils, the rhythmic shifting of hips, all of which he could now
make out. Ripe fruit, he thought. She was ripe fruit. The experience was always
most ecstatic, always most satisfying, when his chosen had not yet passed her
peak, when he had not used her so much that her looks had suffered, nor her
hunger for him weakened. He needed her hunger as much as he needed her beauty.
The two always went hand in hand. He needed her hunger to be her driving force,
driving her to him over and over again, until all strength was gone. Most often
he controlled his hunger, careful not
to allow himself more than what was necessary to survive and thrive.
Tonight, however, he was drained
and starving from effort and exhaustion, but from excitement as well, from the
knowing that Samantha Black was capable of so much more than even he had
anticipated. Tonight he would take deeply from the ripest fruit, take as though
it were the first and the last fullness of summer, and Gabriella was just at
that point of fullness.
“I’m going to make love to you,
darling.” He didn’t even try to disguise his hunger. Anxious anticipation was
as much a part of the ritual as savoring the moment, and he wanted her to know
how much he hungered for her, how much he needed her. “I’m going to make you
come as you have never come before, my sweetheart.” He slid onto the bed next
to her, his left hand stroking her soft, dark hair, his right cupping himself,
making himself ready. “Would you like that, Gabriella? I know you would, I know
how impatient you’ve been.”
There was a soft whimper, and the
woman shifted her hips and threw back her head with a little gasp as he slid a
thumb across her heavy bottom lip. He was hard, always hard when he hungered.
It was a part of the ritual, a part of the consuming, a part of fulfilling his
need.
Carefully he slipped down the
straps of the negligee so that he could admire the fullness of her breasts. Yes,
presentation was so important -- ripe cherry nipples against silken white
fabric, so succulent, so ready. Her skin was the color of expensive mocha, and
for a moment, he took in the feast for the eyes waiting for him. Then he cupped
her sex, and she arched up, her eyelids fluttering beneath lush, dark lashes so
perfectly made up, so perfectly prepared to meet her lover.
“La petite mort,” he said. “It’s what we all long for, isn’t it, my
sweetheart, over and over and over again, we long for it. It’s what we dream
about in the darkest hours of the night. It’s what we wake up longing for,
goose fleshed, slick and heavy with need from those elusive dreams of perfect
love, perfect union, perfect dissolving of the self into the other. Oh, my
beauty,” he slid a hand between her thighs, and her tongue flicked over her lip
in concentration, in anticipation, “I’ve kept you waiting too long. I do
apologize. La petite mort is a small
gift for a long wait. So tonight, my dearest girl, I shall give you something
far grander than the little death. And our joining, our perfect dissolving into
one another, will be beyond anything you could ever imagine.”
He positioned himself above her and
she opened to him, rising up to meet him in gasps and groans and whimpers that
neared desperation. Oh yes, he would give her so much more than la petite mort, and then, in the instant
when her body dissolved in pleasure, he would take it all back, all of it and
so much more.
There was breath and then there was
blood, and there was the life force coursing through the beautiful Gabriella.
That life force entered his body through sex, through making love. And truly he
did make love, for the gift that the lovely creature writhing beneath him, no
longer strong enough to keep her legs grasped around his waist, was giving him
was worthy of lovemaking. The taking of the life force in such a way was sex
raised above and beyond ecstasy. He seldom partook to the end. He usually made
it last for months, sometimes even years, depending on how powerful the life
force was.
But Gabriella had no particular
power, nothing but her exquisite beauty to linger on. He saw such as her as
fast food, really, a needed energy boost in desperate times, and this was one
of those times. Her sacrifice would ensure that he was focused and ready for
whatever obstacles Graves could throw in his way where Samantha Black was
concerned, because he would have her. He had to have her.
The woman beneath him shuddered
with release, and he took her mouth more fully, swallowing back the harshness
of her breath to blend with his own, teasing him to join in her ecstasy. She
would climax over and over, and that would be her final memory. She would come
to her death in rapturous pleasure, and she would not even feel that moment
when all of her breath, all of her life force, all of her power, passed to him,
and the darkness took her.
Her eyelids fluttered again and
again, for now she truly had not the energy left for more than the flutter of
eyelids above huge, dark eyes. Even the quiver low in her loins had transferred
itself to him, and he felt her orgasms as though they were his own, as though
through the breath, through the coupling, he had become her and she him. He had
taken her into himself as she had him into her, so open, so inviting, so
willing.
“You see,” he whispered against the
seashell hollow of her unhearing ear, “I have given you so much more than la petite mort, just as I promised,
darling. So much more for both of us.”
*****
Author Bio:
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, K D Grace believes
Freud was right. It really IS all about sex—sex and love—and that is an
absolute writer’s playground.
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening or walking. Her
creativity is directly proportional to how quickly she wears out a pair of
walking boots. She loves mythology, which inspires many of her stories. She
enjoys time in the gym, where she’s having a mad affair with a pair of kettle
bells. Her first love is writing, but she loves reading and watching birds. She
adores anything that gets her outdoors.
K D’s novels and other works are published by Totally Bound,
SourceBooks, Accent Press, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press,
Black Lace, and others. She also writes romance under the name Grace Marshall.
Find K D
Here:
Websites: http://kdgrace.co.uk/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor
Pinterest:
http://www.pinterest.com/kdgraceauthor/
. The first book in the series, Clammed Up was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel, the RT Book Reviews, Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Amateur Sleuth and was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. She is co-editor/co-publisher of Level Best Books, which produces anthologies of crime stories by New England authors. She writes at her home overlooking the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Barbara blogs with the 
novels, the 
and the 
. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives with her husband and son in Oklahoma. Please visit her online at 
