Aliyah Burke ~ Sensuality in Romance

This month I’m part of the Share the Love blog, which highlights all the Coming Together stories and the charities they support. My story, Love Under the Endless African Sky is in support of Amnesty International. All proceeds from this story go to AI and thanks to ARE for allowing that to happen. So, my blog comes out tomorrow and in honour of that, I thought I’d share a snipped of that story. It’s a short story for $0.99 if you buy it single at ARE, or you can purchase it in the Coming Together: At Last (vl.2) in ebook or print. Thank you for supporting the charities!! If you click on the covers it’ll take you to the buy page.

“What’s the chance you’ll leave willingly with me?”
“Slim to none.” She turned her attention back to the men who were talking amongst themselves.
He sighed again. Ryder took off his sunglasses and touched her cotton-covered shoulder. “I can’t protect you if you don’t let me.”
Her brown eyes met his gaze. “I’m not asking you to protect me. I know the danger. It’s the same danger that was here when I first got here. It hasn’t changed, and I’m not going to let my father’s insecurities send me home.”
“I can’t leave you here unprotected.”
The smile she flashed him made his knees melt. “I’ve not had a protector in a long time, Ryder Matthews. What makes you think I need one now?”
“The fact your godfather asked me to do it.” He leaned in close, inhaling the evocative scent she wore. “And I’m not about to go against the colonel.”
She blinked slowly and held his gaze. “Your eyes are amazing.” He arched a brow at her words and enjoyed the flushed look her skin acquired. “I mean,” she cleared her throat, “you are more than welcome to stay and work. Or you can leave.”
“I’m not leaving without you. But, when I say I’m staying with you, I mean with you, same tent and everything.”
Her eyes darkened before she pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Suit yourself.” Then she put her attention back to the task before her.

Love is taking a few steps backward maybe even more…to give way to the happiness of the person you love.
~A.A. Milne

Morning y’all. Just wanted to share that I have a new release out today. This is the second story in the Kemet Uncovered series which is co-written with Taige Crenshaw.

Here is the blurb.

I am the goddess of time, immorality, and the cycle of life/death. Slow to anger, easy
to smile. Now I work with babies and the young of humans since they are
innocents. It was there I met him. Rhodes Liatos. A man unlike any I’ve known
before. He challenged my disheartened beliefs of the human race. He taught me
many things one of which was how to love. He is a man who loves life and has no
fear of death, what happens when he learns who I truly am?

Devi

The story is available at Total E-Bound and is BW/WM. Enjoy and have a wonderful day!

Finished a ms!!! Yay! It’s raining today and we’re supposed to actually get snow. So, I get to make lemon bars. Don’t know, just seems like they fit with a cold wet, snowy day. Hope everyone has a wonderful day!!

Hope everyone has a terrific day! I get my GS cookie order today and am going to try and finish a ms. Then comes the boring stuff and more cleaning (although I did get a good amt done yesterday).

It’s finally Friday!! What’s the weekend plan? Reading? Relaxing? I am writing, reading a bit (excited about that) and getting some overdue cleaning done (not so excited about that bit). Oh, and baking some stuff.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.
~Maya Angelou

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. This Wednesday in preperation for the next releasing story (this coming Monday, 20 Feb 2012) in the Kemet Uncovered series, Devi, which I co-authoured with Taige Crenshaw I thought to give you a small snippet from Talios. Enjoy!

“Candace, I’m sorry, I—”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses—I can’t believe you just did that. What were you thinking? That I’d say to the guard, sure, let him in and then think I would fuck Keaton, hoping that we’d be done in time?” Anger surged higher in her. “What kind of person do you really take me for?”
“I came in and heard what I did and saw him between your legs and…” he raked a hand through his hair.
“And what?! Decided suddenly, because I didn’t tell him I wouldn’t come in to work, that I would let him fuck me?”
His eyes flashed dangerously and he stepped close. “I said I was sorry, Candace.”
She struggled to get her emotions under control. “So you did. What do you need? I’m assuming you came because you needed something. So, what?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“Congrats, you did. I have work to do. I’ll call Aaron to escort you back outside.”
She didn’t get one step away from him before he hauled her up against his chest. “Candy,” he purred in her ear while his hands sprawled across her stomach .
“Hell no, Talios. I’m not the kind of woman you can think is sleeping with another man one second and then think I’ll cave in to you the next. Let me go.”
“Never.”
She ignored her body’s reaction to him, just as strong as it had been the very first time she’d met him. But she’d be damned before she would allow him to dictate to her. Candace struggled and he loosened his hold.
“I think you’re still stuck back in the time when you could get whatever you wanted. I know you said you could manipulate whatever, but I’m not going to be manipulated, Talios. So don’t try it.” She pushed free. “I have work to do. At least another forty-eight hours’ worth. If—and I do mean if—I’ve forgiven you by then, I’ll call you. But right now you need to stay away from me. I don’t like this jealous side of you and I still need to work out all the other stuff you told me. Just give me some space.”
He reached for her again but she backed away, holding up her hands in an attempt to keep him from touching her. Lord help her, all she truly longed to do was crawl into his embrace and let him love her, over and over until neither of them had energy to move. But this was not something she would take lightly. She’d worked hard for her respect and camaraderie with her co-workers and having a jealous man acting like this…hell, no.
“I’m not an object, Talios Ellis, and I’m not yours. I was with you because I wanted to be, but if this is how you act…” She shook her head. “You need to leave—I have work to do.”
His gaze bored into hers and she felt a pressure in her skull. Snapping her head up, she glared. “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.”
Without waiting for a response, she walked away and headed back to where Keaton had returned to work on the next thing they had to do. While she didn’t see Talios leave, she knew when he was no longer in the room with her. There was no rational way to explain it—she could just feel it. Shoving him from her mind, she got back to the task at hand.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!!

Hope everyone is having a good day. Writing hard to have free time for Westminster watching tonight. Best of luck to all my friends who are up there. Hope to see y’all in the groups!!