I’m so excited to be participating in the Easton Book Festival this weekend! Having spent much of last year planning my wedding, it’s been a long time since I’ve been a part of a big author event and this one won’t disappoint! Over 200 authors will be there, doing readings and book signings, hosting workshops and participating in panel discussions. I’m especially honored, as I’ll be doing a little bit of everything!
Here’s the breakdown of what I’ll be doing and when:
Author Expo Book Table – First United Church of Christ Social Hall 27th, North 3rd Street, Easton PA – 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Saturday, October 26th
A Sultry Performance Reading – Quadrant Book Mart & Coffee House – 20 North 3rd Street, Easton, PA – 11:30 AM, Saturday October 26th
Self Publishing Panel Discussion – State Theatre Gallery, 453 Northampton Street, Easton PA – 12:30 PM, Saturday, October 26th
Editing and Pacing with Jessica Lauryn – Northampton Community College, Classroom One, 25 South 3rd St. Easton PA – 4:00 PM Saturday, October 26th
Check out the full schedule of events for ALL participating authors, complete with parking info HERE!
If you’re an aspiring author, or an experienced author in search of a bit of enjoyment and perhaps a refresher, don’t miss my workshop on Editing and Pacing, Saturday at 4 PM. I’ll have giveaways for the first attendees, so be sure and arrive early!
I’m also very excited to be doing a reading from A Sultry Performance! Though I’m more of a writer than I am an actress, I promise not to disappoint. In the meantime, here’s a teaser from Chapter 1, to warm things up a bit! I hope to see you Saturday!!
The cloud of blue smoke, emanating from the stage at the far end of the room, was a presence all its own. The mist was flashy—vibrant, exotic. It showcased the very prominent display taking place within its epicenter, an assembly of the most provocative dancers in all of Briarcliff Manor.
The seven long-legged women were dressed in identical ensembles, which did little to cover their breasts, rears or any other portion of their voluptuous figures. All but one stood at almost the exact same height, and each wore a pair of translucent high heels that caught the neon glow of the stage lights below. Drawn like moths to the enticement of their flame, the men seated around the room were all silent, many of them barely breathing as the blast of house music quickened the beat of their already-racing hearts. Among them, polishing off what had to be his fifth drink, Chris Gordon sat, staring at the woman in the center of the group, unable to take his eyes away.
“That’s her, all right.” Evan Masters, Chris’s partner by day and employer by night, placed his empty glass on the table. “As I wouldn’t imagine was the case with many of your previous targets, this one isn’t easy to miss.”
“No, she isn’t.” Chris gave Victoria Morrow, the woman he’d been studying for the last several minutes, a lingering look. The dancers were moving quickly about the stage, but Victoria had fairer skin than the others and she was the tallest one by far. Even with her legs bent, her narrow, hourglass figure—clad in dominatrix-wear that made a string bikini seem conservative—was impossible to miss. Intending to wet his dry mouth, Chris brought his glass to his lips. Apparently his was empty, too.
Though Chris was the stage manager, and Evan the director of Rabourn Theater, a very upscale playhouse just a few doors down from the building in which they were seated now, Chris often felt more like an amateur detective as he seemed to spend the majority of his time investigating matters of personal concern on Evan’s behalf. The gig had begun several years ago with Chris looking for something with which to occupy his mind in his spare time and it had quickly become work he thrived on. He enjoyed what he did, and many of his assignments were relatively uncomplicated. That was, they had been uncomplicated until last winter, when he stumbled onto information leading him to believe that his late wife, Evelyn, whose death he’d presumed for the last seven years to be the result of a tragic hit-and-run, had actually been murdered.
“Of course, finding her is the easy part.” Chris’s British friend inclined his head in the direction of the stage. “It’s gaining an inside track on the lovely Ms. Morrow and her bastard of a manager that I imagine might be something of a challenge, even for an accomplished sleuth such as yourself.”
Chris was highly accomplished in his self-taught, Columbo-style profession. But, he’d never done anything like this.
For years, Chris had been working to help Evan reshape Rabourn Theater into something more artistically progressive, blindly following in his friend’s example as Evan worked to complete the task laid out for him years before by Augustus Nathanson, Evan’s former mentor and once partner of the theater’s late founder, Baron Rabourn. Both Chris and Evan had believed they were on the right side of a battle between two men perceivably as passionate about theater as they were. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Augustus Nathanson, a man driven by greed, lust and obsession, had executed a plot on Rabourn’s behalf to con Bruce Lancaster, owner of the venue formerly known as Sovereign Theater, out of his business. Their plan succeeded and when Rabourn showed Nathanson the door, as had always been his intention, Nathanson snapped, and he laid the groundwork for an internal artistic movement, intending to seize control of Rabourn Theater and mold it into a vision more fitting with the one inside his twisted imagination.
Contrary to what had once been common knowledge among their circle of friends, Nathanson had had, not one, but two men serve as his apprentices—Evan of course, and Oakley Sutherland, owner and manager of Sultry & Sensational, the nightclub they were seated in tonight. The establishment had begun more or less as a smoke screen, serving primarily as a place of meeting and inspiration to the members of their organization, prior to Evan’s stepping down as the group’s unofficial leader. It was the hottest game in town as far as dancing women were concerned and it had originally been owned by Nathanson as well. Uncertain as to what Nathanson’s agenda for Sutherland was with respect to the theater, Evan had had his concerns about the man for some time and though Chris had never shared a personal stake in Nathanson’s mission, he definitely shared Evan’s opinion about the obnoxious, arrogant, notoriously-violent man Nathanson had made his second right-arm.
Evan’s not-yet-then wife Hannah had been terrorized and attacked by Nathanson, prior to the bastard meeting his demise. But, prior to learning who the mastermind behind that plot was, Evan had suspected Sutherland was to blame and he’d asked Chris to look into the matter. Eager to learn if Oakley Sutherland was hiding anything where the theater was concerned, Chris had eagerly taken on the assignment. Stumbling onto the fact that Sutherland had been having an affair with his own wife however, and that it had happened during the window of time just before she’d been hit by a speeding car was something he’d not only been unprepared to learn, but something that had ripped his insides from his body.
Chris had been trying to find proof that Sutherland was Evelyn’s killer for the better part of a year. In all this time, he’d found no evidence whatsoever.
“She’ll talk,” he said, his voice sounding harder than he’d expected it to. “Assuming she knows the truth, which, considering she’s sharing a bed with my wife’s killer, I have to assume she does.”
Chris focused in on the leader of the Sultry’s dancing team, whom he knew by reputation kept primarily to herself. In that sense, Victoria appeared to be as secretive as the man she was entangled with. On the other hand, Chris had known her for years, as one of Rabourn Theater’s most talented dancers, as a fellow member of Nathanson’s society and as a dancer in the club he and many people in his own social circle frequented. As best as he could tell, Victoria wasn’t assisting Oakley with anything underhanded and she seemed to be a nice person. That made what he was about to do even more complicated.
Chris gazed at Victoria, allowing himself to take an even closer look at her than he had before. Contrary to what Evan and probably everyone else around that place thought about him, he had been with less than a handful of women since his wife died and he doubted he had examined any of them this closely. His plan didn’t require a complete examination of Victoria’s figure. He couldn’t seem to help himself.
The leader of the dancing team was beautiful. She had cream-white skin and long brown hair that looked smooth to the touch. Her legs were nicely-formed and they seemed to run on forever before meeting the delicate curves of her hips. The woman was all curves and sensuality and the costume she was wearing drew further attention to her well-proportioned breasts, which were large and firm-looking and appeared to be just a tad lighter than the shade of the rest of her skin. Admiring them from where he sat, Chris imagined what they would feel like if he were cupping them in his hands. His face and neck becoming hot, he undid the top button on his shirt.
Wishing he’d saved a swallow of beer, Chris noted that while other features of Victoria’s were undoubtedly as soft as the ones he was surveying, there was a hardness in the depths of her dark blue eyes. The cause of that hardness was unclear, and how a woman who was so classically beautiful could become the lead dancer in a shady nightclub was beyond him. The life she’d led couldn’t have been easy. Reminding himself that nothing beyond the surface was ever evident, that Victoria could have been sitting in the passenger side of Oakley’s car the night Evelyn was hit for all he knew, Chris released a staggered breath and shook his head, preparing himself to do what needed to be done.
“I know I don’t need to tell you about getting around a woman, but be careful.” Evan raised his hands in applause as the dancers struck a lingering pose before vacating the stage. “The last time I tried to do something similar, it really didn’t end well.”
Chris furrowed his eyebrows, not entirely sure of whether Evan was referring to Cassidy Sanderson, one of the dancers, with whom Evan had had a very awkward encounter in the midst of trying to protect Hannah from Augustus Nathanson’s unhinged son, Sebastian, or if he meant Hannah herself, Hannah who, in addition to being Evan’s wife, was also Rabourn Theater’s majority shareholder. Evan and Hannah had had a bumpy road before getting together and as the two battled one another for control of Rabourn Theater Evan had worked on Hannah, attempted to make her soften so-to-speak. Chris was about to do something similar where Victoria was concerned, but his plot wasn’t nearly as conniving as Evan’s had been. Though Evan’s actions had been the result of Nathanson’s manipulations, Evan had been fighting for control of Hannah’s family’s legacy and he’d done so after having been intimately involved with Hannah years prior. Chris and Victoria didn’t know one another from Adam.
“Careful’s my middle name,” Chris assured his partner in crime. He glanced at the six women who’d walked onto the stage, and observed, just as he’d expected, that his target was not among them. He got to his feet. Making it look like he was walking to the men’s room, he wove his way between the high-top tables, to the far back corner of the room. Instead of pushing through the door at his right he kept moving, not stopping until he’d reached the corridor that led to the area behind the stage.
The idea of confronting Victoria Morrow in her dressing room bothered him. But he really didn’t have a choice if he wanted to make this encounter happen any time during the next century. Chris checked to make sure that no one was paying attention to him. He held his breath and entered the dark, closed-off hallway.
The wooden doors that lined the hall were all closed, but light seeped through the cracks beneath them. Laughter and high-pitched chatting emanated from within the source of that light. Unsure as to where to begin, Chris turned to the door on his right, attempting to determine whose voice he was listening to on the other side when he caught the sound of another door closing behind him. He turned just in time to see a tall brunette woman at the other end of the hall, wearing a long black coat and sending a blast of cold air his way as she opened the back door. Victoria.
A gust of winter wind struck Chris’s face and ears as he opened the door Victoria had just closed. He reminded himself that he was doing this for his daughter as much as he was for himself and he tugged the zipper on his jacket as high as it would go as he looped around the building, keeping a steady pace as he followed his target up the block. She was moving very quickly, giving him the impression she was in quite a hurry to get to wherever she was going. Her long hair blew against her face and her unbuttoned coat flapped against her back like a cape. It couldn’t have been more than forty degrees outside and the woman was walking around in the equivalent to underwear and a coat that wasn’t even closed. If the circumstances were any different, he would have called out to her and insisted she go back to the club and put on something that would keep her from freezing to death.
As he fought to keep up with her, Chris stared at Victoria’s high-heeled feet, which were moving at a remarkable pace. It was hard to believe that this woman—immune, apparently, to painful footwear and frigid temperatures—could be engaged to a man like Oakley Sutherland. Tailing her from one block to the next, he pondered whether the same clever lines had been used on her that he assumed had been used on his wife. Victoria was a mystery to him but Oakley was a certifiable nut-job. If she didn’t have a reputation for being so tough, he almost would have been concerned about Victoria’s welfare.
As they wandered along what had to be the fifth block, Chris asked himself where the heck Victoria could possibly be going. Was she meeting someone? A friend? Her drug dealer? He’d never known her to use drugs, but they were well past the vicinity of the theater, headed in the direction of completely uncharted territory. Chris kept up a steady pace in spite of himself and watched in astonishment as Victoria’s heels clanked against the sidewalk for yet another three blocks. He was just about to call out to her when she turned and entered a small, gated park. His frozen limbs breathed a silent sigh of relief but he was disturbed by the fact that she had gone into a park after dark alone. She could be mugged, raped, worse—what in the world was she thinking?
Thankfully, Victoria didn’t venture too far into the park. The gated section of grass and concrete wasn’t particularly large either—some fir trees lined the back fence, a couple of benches stood beneath them and a fountain had been built in front of all of it, facing the road. Victoria strode down a cement path and sat on the fountain’s base. She tugged her coat closed and adjusted her position several times before settling on one that apparently made her comfortable.
It was after 3 am. But the fountain was still going and Victoria closed her eyes, rolling her shoulders backward and then forward, as though she were at home, in her bed. Chris was almost glad he was there as someone obviously needed to be keeping an eye on this crazy woman, who, for all of her rumored smarts, didn’t appear to have any common sense when it came to the dangers of nightlife in New York. Incidentally, however, she had provided him with the perfect opportunity to obtain what he’d come for.
Chris took a deep breath as he stepped out of the shadows. Victoria didn’t flinch, nor did she open her eyes.
He approached her. “Peaceful night, isn’t it?”
Bright-blue irises shot out from beneath their lids. Almost tumbling backwards into the water as she placed a hand against her rising chest, Victoria exclaimed, “Oh my God. Are you crazy? You scared the hell out of me!”
“I can see how I might have taken you by surprise—” Chris sat beside her, “seeing as how you’re sitting alone, in a park, at night, where any man could come along and do anything he wanted to you.”
Victoria pursed her cherry-red lips. “Clearly. But I’m not a woman most men want to mess with.”
“Given your nightly profession, I hardly see how that could be the case, Victoria.”
“Patrons don’t typically seek me out after a performance and follow me up the street,” Victoria snapped. “You may think you own the stage at Rabourn Theater but you certainly don’t own Sultry & Sensational. Who the hell do you think you are?”
Chris shifted his eyes, which had found their way to the sections of skin Victoria’s coat failed to hide. He’d only known her on a professional level prior to the start of this conversation, but he hadn’t expected her to be this defensive with him. Her words were as sharp as daggers. But, being this close to her, knives were the very last thing on his mind. He could see what other men found so appealing about her—she was stunning, with eyes like sapphires, hair like silk and skin like the finest of porcelain.
Like Evelyn, Victoria too had probably been sucked into Oakley Sutherland’s web. He needed to stay strong. Shaking his head, Chris forced the empathetic thought out of his mind.
“This may sound strange, seeing as how I followed you here without you knowing it,” he said, “but I was concerned.”
“Concerned?”
“I saw you walk out of the club half-dressed and when I realized you were alone I became concerned for your safety. I called out to you, but you were too far gone to hear me.” Chris pointed to her shoes, which ran up the length of her calf in a zig-zag pattern and had what looked to be six-inch heels attached to them. “You move pretty quickly in those things. I’m impressed.”
“You don’t even know me. Not that most men who frequent Sultry & Sensational think knowing a woman is particularly important, or that there’s such a thing as foreplay.”
Becoming aware that she’d just given him the perfect lead in, Chris slid closer to Victoria, closing off the distance between them. “I know we’re essentially strangers. But I’m not most men. And for the record, I’m very big on foreplay.”
Chris fingered Victoria’s collarbone and when her mouth opened in surprise he slid his hand into her hair and kissed her. Her mouth was warm and inviting he glided eagerly against its softness, reaching, with his free hand, inside his pants pocket. The woman beside him tasted like peppermint. She smelled of lavender and tea roses and he hardened in spite of himself, pressing, almost painfully, against the inseam of his jeans.
Victoria was a sexy woman. Becoming even more aware of this, Chris worked to hold his phone steady while he explored the velvety contours of her mouth. She tasted as good as she felt and her feistiness intrigued him more than he’d believed. Victoria was kissing him back, coming at him with fire hot as his own and he slid his tongue inside her mouth, almost forgetting, as he savored her sweetness, what it was he was supposed to be doing.
His target’s high-peaked breasts pressed against his chest. His hand ached to touch them but Chris assured himself he’d lose whatever self-control he still had if he gave into his instincts. Attempting to distract himself, he brought the hand that had been stroking Victoria’s hair down the delicate curve of her back. The brush of skin against skin only sparked the fire inside him and he placed his hand against Victoria’s bare thigh, sliding his palm beneath the weight of her jacket. Cold sweat danced along his burning forehead. A car sped down the road. The roar of its engine hummed in Chris’s ears, making him hesitate for the length of a heartbeat.
Suddenly aware of where he was and what he was doing, Chris opened his eyes as the woman beside him drew back. “Victoria—”
She slapped him, branding his skin with the sting of her palm. “How dare you! We may not be exchanging bracelets on National Friendship Day, but in spite of my nightly profession, as you refer to it, you know damn well that I have a fiancé! Where the hell do you get off?”
Chris fought to hide a smile. Bringing his brows together, he slipped his phone inside his back pocket. “My apologies, Ms. Morrow. This was only supposed to be about ensuring your safety. I overstepped. In turn, I can see that you’re a capable woman who’s more than up to the task of looking out for herself. You have a good night.”
Chris got to his feet. The wave he offered was met with a scowl as he turned and left the park. Tonight had been a success. He’d done what he’d set out to do, and he’d set the stage beautifully for what was going to be the next part of his plan.
Except, something had thrown him for a loop. Because it wasn’t only an erection he’d gotten as he was kissing Victoria Morrow. Her mouth had had a major effect on him, one as strong as the woman on the other side of it. Being that close to her, he hadn’t been able to control himself. Had that car not come by when it had, he wasn’t sure he would have stopped what he was doing at all.
Chris wondered whether he really could see this thing through to the end. Because only one other woman had ever had that sort of effect on him. And if he intended to get that woman the justice she deserved, he had a feeling the ride ahead of him was going to be anything but smooth.
.
Did you enjoy this excerpt from A Sultry Perfromance? Check out another excerpt HERE!
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