ROCK IDOL by Veronica Tower

Today on our Cyber Launch Party Blog, we're celebrating Veronica Tower's sexy new IR romance!

ROCK IDOL by Veronica Tower

Reality With A Twist Series

Ember Blaze had it all and lost it—teenaged pop star turned middle-aged loser—but all of that changed when she became a judge on America’s new hit talent show, Rock Idol.

Now she has wealth, fame and respect again—everything she’s been missing for the past two decades—but a hot young contestant is turning her world topsy turvy. He’s got blond hair, blue eyes and a smile that has half the women in America swooning—and he wants Ember even more desperately than she wants him.

But after working so hard to get back on top, can she really risk everything for a few moments of stolen passion and the chance to learn to love again?

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~Excerpt~

        Someone knocked on Ember’s dressing room door. It was twenty minutes before the start of the show and a bad time for interruptions. Hans had finally finished applying her makeup but couldn’t decide what to do about her hair.

At the sound of the knock, Hans threw up his hands in despair. “What is it now? Do they not know that there is an artist at work in here?”

He stormed across the room to the door and flung it open. “What do you want?”

Rick Rogers stood in the hallway with a single red rose in his hands and the same terrible striped shirt that he had worn in last week’s competition. “I, um, need to speak to Ember for a minute.”

“And I need sixty more minutes to finish creating perfection. He glanced at the rose in Rick’s hands and grinned. “But you probably think her perfection comes naturally. You may have three minutes and then I shall play God by once again creating angelic beauty with these two hands.”

Hans stepped out of the dressing room and closed the door behind Rick.

Ember stood up. “What’s on your mind?”

Rick crossed the room to join her. “I wanted to bring you this,” he said, “and to thank you again. You really helped me pull out all the stops last week. And I,” he handed her the rose, “thank you.”

“You didn’t have to bring me flowers,” Ember said. In truth she was slightly uncomfortable that he had done so.

“It’s just one rose,” Rick told her.

But it was a red rose, Ember noted, red for love and passion.

“Well, I’m sure you’re going to do even better this week,” she told him.

“I hope so,” Rick said. “I’ve worked hard, but the competition is fierce. It’s good to know you’re pulling for me.”

Where was Hans? Ember wondered. He needed to get back here and end this awkward conversation. “Would you like another piece of advice?” Ember asked.

“Of course,” Rick told her. “I’ll do anything you tell me.”

“Lose that shirt,” she said. “It makes you look-”

“This shirt?” Rick interrupted. “I can’t do that. It’s half my luck!”

 The bad half, Ember wanted to say, but what came out was something else entirely.  "What's the other half?

“This,” Rick whispered.

He leaned close and kissed her—his lips pressing gently against hers, warm and tender.

Taken completely off guard, Ember shocked herself. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t slap him. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, opening her mouth to let his tongue greet hers.

His strong hands gripped her waist as hers slid of their own accord around his back.

A knock sounded on the dressing room door, startling Ember into stepping back from Rick and breaking the embrace. She was breathing hard and her heart was racing—but whether with passion or fear of discovery she wasn’t certain.

The door opened and Hans reentered the room. “I cannot give you another minute. Even God, Himself, must have some time in which to work his miracles.”

Rick pulled himself back together. “I’ll be singing for you tonight,” he whispered, then turned and hurried from the room.

Hans watched him go, admiring his backside until the door closed behind him. “It is such a shame that boy is straight,” he said.

Then he turned back to Ember. “Sit down, dear, we only have fifteen minutes to finish making you radiant.”

Ember sat down in her chair—her mind a jumble of confused thoughts and sensations.

“You’ve dropped your rose,” Hans noted. He stooped down, picked it up and handed it to her. “And is that a smudge on your lipstick?”

He picked up the lipstick tube and set about correcting the flaw. “Perhaps it’s not a shame the boy is straight after all, hmm?"

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HIGHLAND JACK by LaVerne Thompson

HIGHLAND JACK by LaVerne Thompson

 

After 500 years Laird Jack Buchannan thought it was time to take a companion to walk with him through eternity. And since this was the modern age he'd try finding true love through a reality television show. But what he found instead was a witch who cast a spell on him.

Serissa Helstrom was a white witch who on a lark decided to join a friend on a reality television show. Not for one second did she take it seriously, until she found herself falling for a vampire.

Or was he just messing with her mind?
 

 

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There were several squeals of excitement, even Jil turned to look at her and grinned. All the women began fluffing or smoothing their hair and adjusting their clothes. Kevin left the plane, but the assistant stayed and everyone rushed to peek through one of the windows for a first glimpse of Jack as he got out of the Range Rover. There was more than one gasp as over six foot of prime cut stepped out of the limo and planted booted feet on the tarmac.

“Ohmygod!”

Serissa wasn’t sure who said that but she couldn’t agree more. She’d remained in her window seat and the cool air from the vent blew right on her, but her skin felt heated and flushed from just the sight of him. For the last couple of months this entire thing had all been fun and games. A means to get her out of the slump she seemed to be in, just another lark she embarked on with her best friend Jil. After seeing Jack, that changed. Mine! The word rose up from the depths of her soul and shook her to her core. She shuddered at its strength and glanced up at the women leaning over to look out the windows. They all wore the same shell-shocked expression, Serissa was sure she did too. Jack packed a punch.

Maybe that’s all there was to it, he had some serious pheromones going, and she wasn’t immune, she was after all only twenty-seven a youngling. Some witches lived well into their hundreds. The women lined up again and after a lot of giggling and posturing one by one they left the plane. She and Jil were the last ones, they hugged and wished each other luck. By the time her turn came around her mind still churned in confusion from her strong attraction to the man. The closer she got to him the stronger the emotion. She barely heard what he’d said to her because she’d realized why they’d all had such a strong physical reaction to him. Her especially. Vampire.

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PANIC BUTTON: LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND by Gilbert M. Stack

PANIC BUTTON: LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND by Gilbert M.Stack

When Angie Specter won a slot on the Reality TV show, Panic Button: Lighthouse Island, she promised herself she wasn't going to be involved in a showmance. She's a serious contestant and wants that $250,000 prize. Showmance contestants are weak and foolish, and Angie has no intention of being used by some handsome guy. That is, until she meets Hank. Not only is Hank Cross very handsome, he's as strong and capable as Angie.

When the show's crazy host begins using terror to drive contestants off the island, Angie and Hank quickly figure out that if they don't help each other, they may not live long enough to push their Panic Button.

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~Excerpt~

At the bottom of the stairs he turned to look at them and grinned. “Are you coming?” he asked.

Hank was the first to step forward and follow him down the stairs.

“It’s funny, but he’s actually got me nervous about going down there,” Ronnie confided in a hushed whisper.

“It’s just a cellar, right?” Angie said.

“Sure,” Ronnie whispered back. “It’s just a dark and lonely cellar, probably covered with critters—rats and bugs and—”

“Shut up!” Heather snapped before hugging herself.“I hate spiders!”

“I’m waiting!” the Keeper told them.

Angie stepped forward after Hank thinking that—sexist stereotyping or not—it would have been nice if Rook, the other big strong man, had volunteered to take the lead with Hank.

The cellar smelled dank and moldy and it was definitely far too dark with only the one lantern eliminating its very weak light. She moved closer to the Keeper so she could see better. “Can you make the light in that lantern brighter?” she asked. “I can hardly see anything down here.”

The Keeper smiled and Angie immediately wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Of course, not being able to see was part of the atmosphere he was trying to create.

Hank put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and Angie instinctively moved closer to him. His hand slid around her back and pulled her slightly closer yet. It felt good to have that little extra assurance that she wasn’t alone down here.

The Keeper waited, apparently patiently, while the other contestants filed down the stairs. When they finished congregating, he started to speak again. “This is John Lamb’s cellar. When he was alive and in control of this Residence, I’m quite certain that it was packed with supplies and perhaps some of the items he’d scavenged from the wrecks of ships. Unfortunately, the British took everything he had after they murdered the man.”

He angrily shook his head from side to side, then looked up and smiled most unpleasantly. “Well, almost everything I should say.”

He stepped away from Angie and Hank to stand in front of Rook, staring closely at him for several seconds before moving on to Ginny. “Can you imagine what they left behind, Miss Freeze?”

Ginny looked far more frightened than any of the rest of them, and all she could do by way of a response was to jerk her head from side to side.

The Keeper moved on, stopping in front of Ronnie.“In 1752, four years after John Lamb first took up residence on this island, the slave ship, Madrigal, was breached on those evil shoals out there. Somehow—and I really don’t know how it happened since all of the slaves should have been chained in the hold of the vessel—two of those savages actually survived the wreck to wash up on the shores of this island. Lamb captured them, of course, and sold them to a friend in Charleston for a very tidy profit.”

He stopped talking and tried to stare Ronnie down, but she glared back at him so ferociously that he decided to move on to the professor. “But the incident made the first Keeper think about the future. He was alone on the island with only his servants, his wife and his young daughters.

“What if there had been six savages instead of two? What if they were more physically recovered when he had discovered them? What if they hadn’t been broken by their journey in the dark holds of the slave ship? What if they had tried to harm him or his little girls? Lamb decided that it would be prudent to use some of his profit on the savages to make preparations in case he should be blessed with a similar bounty in the future.”

Tobias’s face clearly showed his revulsion at the story, which made the Keeper almost cackle with glee. He stepped away from the professor and went to the nearest wall where Angie could now see a pair of two foot chains had been affixed to the stone floor about two and a half feet apart. At the end of each chain was an ugly iron manacle.

“Oh no,” Ronnie whispered. In the deathly silence of the cellar she might as well have shouted the words.

The Keeper looked in her direction. The lamp wasn’t bright enough to illuminate her clearly, but he could obviously make out her shadowy shape. “Unfortunately, the sea can be a most stingy lover and she didn’t gift Keeper Lamb with any more slaves.” He sighed and shook his head as if this were truly a terrible thing. Then he knelt down beside the chains and picked up one of the manacles. It was a large, ugly, barbaric piece of steel.

“They were quite expensive, you know. They have locks actually built into them. They were made in London and shipped here to help the king’s governor with his constabulary duties, but then items always have a way of going missing from government inventories, don’t they?

“But they remained down here with the rats and mice and no new savages came to require their services. But Keeper Lamb was an enterprising sort of man—gifted in finding uses for all of his resources. And it occurred to him one day when he was beating one of his daughters that this was a much better way to discipline the girl than sending her to her bedroom.”

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