Yep a long title but all are true...
So yee haaa... The Furnace is now available from Evernight here
The cover is amazing...
The blurb is...
Don’t piss off the furnace
man.
It might be a standing joke
around the glass factory— he’ll mix you with the sand and burn you, leaving
nothing left to discover—but Lindsey Earnshaw is about to find out the truth
behind it.
Placed there to spy on the
place on behalf of the government, a warning message brings forth not only a
dead body, but also the one man she’s never forgotten.
Michael Hoult cannot believe
his eyes, when his ex-wife turns out to be the receptionist on duty. Having to
drug her in order to not blow his cover will not earn him her renewed
submission, neither will whisking her away to the Death Isle.
Duty first, though. It cost
him his marriage all those years ago, but with Lindsey now working for the same
side, can they not only catch a killer, but also rediscover each other?
Your tease is the beginning...
All of the prologue... (shhh)
“So tell me husband dearest,” the voice was laced with
sarcasm, “just what does my darling other half do, that means when I try to
contact him his phone goes to voicemail every bloody time? How can a director
of a whisky company be unavailable every minute of the day and night?” She was working up a fine head of steam and Michael
could imagine he could see smoke coming out of her ears. Lord, how he loved his
feisty lady. Nevertheless, it would have been easier to deal with sulks and
tantrums. Not this icy cold contempt, which was about to turn to red-hot but
not explosive. That wasn’t his lady’s way.
Even so, she looked ready to
murder someone. Or cut their balls off, and he was right in the firing line.
Petite and slim but with curves in all the right places, her blonde hair was
all over the place as she poked him in the chest with one non-bitten red-tipped
nail. Fuck-me-red varnish and perfectly manicured. Bloody hell. His cock hardened to a painful rod and his balls stiffened
with anticipation.
Poor sods, he thought. There wasn’t
a cat in hell’s chance any of that particular area of his body was going to get
the relief it wanted. Unless his own hands got busy, and the likelihood of that,
at that moment in time, was a big fat ‘not a scooby’.
“Since when did you not bite
your nails?” he asked with interest. He’d never known her without ragged nails,
which she had always been at pains to hide. These perfectly shaped talons were
definitely cum-inducing. “Looking good, pet. I like the varnish.”
“Good for you,” Lindsey
retorted. “Zero out of ten for observation. I haven’t bitten them in over a
year, and I’ve had them professionally done for at least ten months. But, oh yeah,
I forgot, you wouldn’t know that. After all, you’re never here to notice, are
you? Oh and silly me. On the odd occasion you do turn up, well, why look at my
hands when all you’re interested in is my pussy? Fuck me, and flop. Well fuck
me, no more fucking me is on the cards, mate. Not till you ’fess up.” She took
a deep breath followed by what sounded suspiciously like a sob. “Who is she?”
He stared at her blankly. What
was she talking about? He smothered a yawn. Lord, he was so bloody knackered
all he wanted was sleep. Then to make love to his wife, sate himself in her.
Play a little and try his new nipple clamps out on her luscious tits. Ha, and
that, he reckoned with a sinking feeling, was as likely as flying pigs. Why oh
why was his working life so incompatible with his home life? Why did he have
the tingle that informed him love was not enough? Now it seemed his wife
thought he had someone else in his life. Surely not as…?
“She?” Michael asked warily.
“She, who?” It couldn’t be his boss. He was a guy. Someone who he was damned
sure wasn’t on Lindsey’s radar. There was no one else, unless…Oh fuck.
“Whoever you’re screwing,” Lindsey
said impatiently. “’Cos it sure as hell ain’t me.”
“I’m not screwing anyone,” he
protested, well aware how pathetic he sounded. “I love you, Lins, you know
that.”
“Do I?” She raised both
eyebrows, her unusual blue-green eyes cloudy, her lashes dark against her pale
skin. It was one of life’s mysteries why her hair—everywhere except her lashes—was
blonde.
Her expression was reflective
and somber, and a slash of color over her high cheekbones was the only
brightness he could detect. And that, he knew, was from temper.
“I wonder, Michael, I really
do. I love you, I thought I knew you, and I sure as hell believed in ’til death
us do part. Now though? If you’re not playing around and dipping your wick
elsewhere, what the fuck is going on?”
Fuck? From Lindsey, who never
swore. Fuck several times and pussy
in less than a minute. Hell, he was deep in the shit. And sadly, he could say
nothing to defend himself. As for playing? What
the… Just before he made an even bigger mess of everything, Michael
realized she didn’t mean their sort of playing.
“Cat got your tongue?” Lindsey
demanded harshly. “Oh no I forgot: we don’t have a cat. A cat needs looking
after and you, I quote ‘didn’t think it fair as you were away so often’. Must
be nice to think about things like that. Maybe you should have had the same
thoughts about a wife.”
He winced. She didn’t notice,
as she was so caught up in her ire.
“You know.” She poked him
again. Those talons were sharp. Michael was glad of his t-shirt.
“Look, Lins…” he began. He
didn’t get a chance to say what he wanted her to look at before she narrowed
her eyes, glared—she had a good line in glares—and broke in.
“Nope. You look,” she commanded.
“Think on this. Ask yourself something. Go on, say to yourself, ‘is it fair to
have a wife when I’m away so often?’ You said it enough when I asked for a dog.
Even though I was around and with more than a little spare time on my hands,
your argument was that you—you mind
you—wouldn’t be able to give it the attention it deserved. A wife, though? You
obviously don’t give her the same courtesy. Which is shite. Because you know, it’s
as bad neglecting a human as an animal. Something you do, all the time.” She
held her hand up to stop him voicing an opinion. “Let me finish.”
After her previous knock back,
he actually hadn’t intended to add anything. How could he when sadly,
everything she said was true?
“And another thing, how come
if I phone your office the call is diverted?” Lindsey went on, oblivious—luckily—to
his rigid stance. “How come for that matter you allegedly work from home a lot
as well, but you’re never here? That you have two passports and I only ever see
one? How come…oooft…!” Lindsey glared
at him as he shut her up most effectively by covering her mouth with his hand. Enough
was enough. He waited for her to bite him.
Her eyes widened and the angry
glint went out of them. Instead she looked defeated. Sad, resigned and reconciled
with something he decided he wasn’t going to like.
“I tell you what I can,” he
said quietly. Even that was too much to say, but sod it, this was his wife. His
wife, his life and if he wasn’t mistaken, his marriage at stake. Was the bloody
job worth it? “And I shouldn’t even say that. Hell, Lindsey, I love you. I
wouldn’t cheat on you. Never ever.” It had never even crossed his mind. She was
all he wanted.
Lindsey sighed and her breath
tickled his palm. Michael lifted his hand with care as she smiled with such a
sad expression on her face he could have cried. That weary, haunted look of
despair was all his fault.
“I accept that you’re not
cheating on me with a woman.” She half laughed. “Or a bloke, for that matter, but
it’s not going to change, is it? You are cheating me out of something. Whatever
it is you do, and please grant me the intelligence to know it’s not just all
whisky related, you’re not going to share it with me. That’s cheating in my
book.”
He shrugged as if his heart
wasn’t splintering into tiny little bits that bombarded him with pain. The sort
of pain he didn’t know was possible to receive and still stay upright. “I can’t
tell you anything. There’s nothing to tell.”
She shook her head and bit her
lip. Her face was white, her expression resolute. “Really?” she said. “I’m
sorry to be a skeptic, Michael. More sorry than you’ll ever know, but I can’t
stay in a marriage where one of the partners isn’t open and honest,” she added,
sadder than he’d ever seen her. “I accept you’re not playing away, but you’re
doing something you’re not sharing with me. I can’t live like that, always wondering,
never sure. Hell, you might be a spy or a bloody drug dealer, for all I know
about it.”
Little did she realize. “I despise
drugs and anyone who has anything to do with them.”
“So you’re a spy.” She laughed
and thankfully didn’t look at him. “That’ll be right. So Mr. Bond, go and make someone
else’s life hell. I’m there already.”
He had a nasty suspicion he
was about to join her, but he had to make one last plea for another chance.
“Lin…oh shit.” His phone blared out its insistent ‘answer me
now’ noise. “I’d better take this.” It had to be his proper boss. He recognized
the tone.
“Yeah oh shit,” she mimicked. “Story
of our life, eh? Your phone rings and you disappear. Well hey, I’ll save you
the need to think up a reason why a director of a whisky company has to go to
Bora Bora or Tierra Del Fuego or wherever. I’ll go first, and not to there.
Where I go will be up to me. And no, I won’t bother to tell you where or why either.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his three-day-old stubble. “I could say so long,
it’s been good to know you.” She swallowed and the noise was like a death knell
to him. “But I’m not sure at the moment if that is true or not.”
Michael watched, silent and unmoving
as she took one step back, then another, before she turned around. Her eyes
glistened with tears and two red spots showed on her otherwise ashen cheeks.
“I did love you,” she said
softly. “But it wasn’t enough, was it?”
Don’t
go. But he
didn’t say it aloud. What right had he to beg her to stay? In a marriage where
he was away more than he was home, and he told more lies than truths.
Catch the other #MidWeekTease posts here
Happy reading,
love,
both of me, Raven and Kera xx
