It’s Tease Me Tuesday, & I’ve got some questions for you:

Who’s your favorite author?

Who rocks The Dungeon & the romance world like no other?

Who surprises you again & again with goodies galore?

And finally, a la Telly Savalas—Who loves ya, baby?

That’s right—ME!  Or to be more grammatically correct—I do! :dancer

Even though the release of MUST LOVE VAMPIRES is still a month away, today I’ve got the teaser of all teasers for you!

After turning in the manuscript for MUST LOVE VAMPIRES to my editor, I had this teeny-tiny kernel of an idea.  I’d ended Sebastian & Chuck & Aidan & Chloe’s story happily enough.  (Believe me, you will not be disappointed. :coffin )  But I had this thought in my head of what might be happening with them a little farther down the road, after all the He’s a vampire?! shock & awe wore off. :spidey

So I wrote an extra added epilogue to the story that didn’t make it into the book.

But how am I going to read it if it isn’t in the book?! you might be asking yourself. :elvira

To which I would have to refer you back to the first set of questions.  I mean, do you really think I’d string you along with all of this tease-ing, & then let you down? :uhoh

The wee little extra happily-ever-after for Sebastian & Chuck, Aidan & Chloe has become…

***drum roll, please***

The cover is awesome, thanks to Hot Damn Designs.

The title rocks, thanks to Moi.

And thanks to Storywonk, ONE LAST BITE (an epilogue to Must Love Vampires) is available as a FREE E-BOOK DOWNLOAD for YOU!!!  For everybody!

So DOWNLOAD YOUR COPY TODAY!  Even if you don’t own an e-reader, you can download a PDF copy or read it right at your computer.  (Use the Smashwords link below & choose from the long list of options available.)

*Amazon.com (Kindle)

Barnes & Noble.com (NOOK)

Smashwords (other)

Just please, please remember that this is an EP-I-LOGUE.  It all takes place after the main portion of the story.  So you’ll definitely want to save it until after you’ve bought & read MUST LOVE VAMPIRES or you’ll ruin a really fun, sexy time for yourself. :face

But other than that—enjoy!

And spread the word…I want everyone to know about this free epilogue & enjoy a very special happily-ever-after for two couples I dearly love. :drinkonme

(*Note:  Amazon is taking its own sweet time getting ONE LAST BITE (an epilogue to Must Love Vampires) loaded, but it really will be there eventually.  Until then, you can still download it to your Kindle via Smashwords!)

…don’t come back EVER!

For the last three weeks, Mercury has been in Retrograde.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Mercury in Retrograde is the astrological version of Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong will go wrong.  Or, as I’ve come to describe in over the past few weeks, it’s like Murphy’s Law on crack!

Sometimes, I don’t think we (or I, at least) even notice when Mercury in Retrograde.  This time around, however, it kicked my ass. :ohcrap   So many things when so wrong one right after the other that I actually kept a list!

First, my computer started to crash constantly.  Now, it does this sometimes.  Nothing wrong with it; I’ve had it checked.  But much like people, my PC just picks a day to get a bug up its butt.  Some days, nothing; other days, it can crash 6 times before breakfast.  At the beginning of Merc-in-Retro, it crashed more often than I blink.

Then, for no reason whatsoever, I woke up one day with a massively sore throat.  Lasted two days, then disappeared.  Which is definitely yay! but it left me totally hoarse.  I mean, I’ve sounded like a mouse—or an 80-year-old, pack-a-day smoker—the entire month of August. :littlevamp

Then I noticed the hot water heater was leaking.

Then the front screen door didn’t latch properly & Tigger—aka The Escape Artist—got out.  (Thankfully, he didn’t get far, but it still scared the bejeezus out of me.)

Then the battery in the car died.

And the cats started hocking up hairballs almost constantly, when normally they very rarely throw up at all.

Then I set a bowl in the dishpan…didn’t drop it or crack it, set it gently…& the bowl under it shattered into a million gazillion pieces.  It literally exploded, shards flying everywhere.  One even hit me in the eye…mid-blink, thankfully, or I’d have been in real trouble.  But it was absolutely bizarre to have that happen when the bowl that broke hadn’t been touched at all.

Then my 92-year-old grandmother broke her wrist.

And the water heater continued to leak, causing me to be on the phone & in the basement sixteen hours out of every day trying to get it fixed/replaced.  Oh, & I learned that the reason the electric bill has been astronomical for the last year is because of the leaking hot water heater!  (Water drips out, more water flows in, all of it being heated & heated & heated…  It would have been so nice if somebody had clued me in on that one, y’know? :face )

Then the recharge to the car battery didn’t take & it’s dead again.

Then the Art Fact Sheet I was supposed to be filling out for my April 2012 Harlequin Desire would not save properly.  I tried to fill the dang thing out three times before I gave up.  Thankfully, when I went back a few days later, it worked the way it was supposed to & I got my AFS done just in they nick of time. :chip

Then my hip started to go wonky.

And I felt the earth…move…under my feet.  (aka EARTHQUAKE!!!!! on the East Coast)  WTF?!

Then I spent an entire day replacing a part on the hot water heater, only to have it start leaking again before I went to bed that night. *SOB*  And I had to get back on the phone, go to Lowe’s, schedule a delivery & install, deal with getting the entire unit replaced…

And in case you couldn’t figure it out, the writing has TOTALLY SUCKED through all of this. :biteme   I have tried so hard to keep at it & keep working, but every time I turn around, Mercury in Retrograde comes out of nowhere to drag me away by the hair & start kicking my ass again… *SOB SOB*

And my hip/leg/spine got so out of whack, I could barely walk & had to find a chiropractor ASAP.

And Hurricane Irene moved in.  (Luckily, it’s not expected to do much damage this far inland, but other folks are evacuating & in serious trouble which is very concerning… :flash )

Ohmigosh, I think that’s it.  I mean, it’s enough, isn’t it?  Can you think of anything else that could have possibly gone wrong the past three weeks?  WAIT—don’t answer that!!!

To say the least, I am beaten & battered & unbelievably relieved that Mercury in Retrograde has finally gone on its merry way.

I won’t mention that Merc-in-Retro happens three times a year, or that it’s expected back in November.  No, I won’t mention that, because it’s way too likely to cause suicidal tendencies.  Let’s enjoy the next couple of months before the astrological Crapfest starts all over again.

But I’m curious to know how the rest of you have fared during Merc’s little path of destruction.  Have you been pulling your hair out, too, or were you completely clueless that anything was going on?

(If your answer is the latter, the rest of us hate you, btw. :purplebat )

Happy Sunday!  I hope everyone’s doing okay, what with Hurricane Irene & our recent earthquake.  (The East Coast isn’t doing very well this week, is it? :vampire )

But I’m happy to report that—as far as my limited knowledge of astrology goes—Mercury in Retrograde has officially passed & we can hopefully get back to a less crappy version of normal! :elvira

So…setting aside any miseries Mercury in Retrograde brought on…what are you happy about &/or grateful for this week?

I AM HAPPY to finally have a brand-spanking-new hot water heater!  If you’ve been following my tweets, you know what a complete pain in the butt this was. :purplebat   Apparently, the darn thing has been deteriorating from the inside out for over a year, but did I have a clue? No, I did not.  Thankfully, it’s under a lifetime warranty, Whirlpool was wonderful about that.  No arguments, not beating around the bush.  But to make sure the unit really was dead & needed to be replaced, they first asked me to replace a heating element to see if it fixed the problem…& kept us from having to deal with the issue of actually getting a new water heater into the house & the old one out.  Total PITA either way, but sadly the replacement part did not work, so we really did have to go with a total swap.  The whole ordeal took forever & the guy who installed the new unit was kind of a jerk (knew everything, hated animals), but it’s done now, & the new water heater is slick & shiny & energy efficient.  Yay!

I AM HAPPY that I’ve found a new chiropractor & am feeling soooooo much better than last week.  Don’t ask me what I did—it wasn’t an accident or injury (although I wasn’t treating my body very well while dealing with the dang hot water heater)—but something happened somewhere that made my shoulder ache & put my hip & entire left leg out of whack.  At first it was just a nuisance, but the one day it hurt so much I could barely walk.  I was limping around like Dr. House & really, really needed a cane!  That was the day I decided to get off my butt & actually find a new chiropractor instead of just talking about it.  So I did!  He’s very nice, very cute, & very good with is hands.  Unfortunately, he’s also married, so I’ll have to stick with just letting him adjust my spine. :vamp

And I AM HAPPY I finally got to see Angels & Demons.  Yeah, yeah, it’s been on my DVR for a while now, but it’s a long one, so I kind of had to work myself up to it.  Then I heard it was going to be on USA & thought, Oh, boy—I’d better watch the full, unedited version before I catch parts of it on regular TV.  I’ve since discovered that USA plans to air it “unedited & uncut” so I probably wouldn’t have had to rush :face but oh, well.  I’ve seen it now & loved it (totally figured it out, but the journey was oodles of fun *vbg*), & will likely add it to my collection, right along with The Da Vinci Code.

Your turn!  Tell us your happys & your gratefuls for the week.  (And yes, I realize those probably aren’t real words, but let’s pretend they are. :fangsmiley )

Now to announce the winner of our most recent Free Book Friday giveaway—Katherine Garbera’s Taming the Texas Tycoon…

:dancingbat  Cathy Ward!!! :dancingbat

Congratulations, Cathy! :drinkonme   Please contact me with your real name & mailing information, & I’ll get your book out to you as soon as I can!