Time to pick a new Hunk of the Month to hang out in the WIPs sidebar in September.  And I’m going a little dark & dangerous with these guys in honor of my upcoming dark & dangerous (& okay—sexy & funny) release, MUST LOVE VAMPIRES.

Hot in Bed

Hot for You

Hot Sheets

Hot Naked Nap

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 )