Something I liked...

I've been working this novel forever. Getting the words to flow and still convey the mood of a moment is often difficult. Here is something from AT ANY PRICE. I'm trying for dark frustration, a bit of confusion and male denial. If he can't control it, it must not exist.



Harsh control marked grim features as he flicked locks on old fashioned windows and swung them open to breathe the night. It was the predator’s hour, far past midnight but still a long way from dawn. This was his time.

The ground’s lights were muted as a low-lying mist glided across white-pebbled paths. Damp and dark, the night softened sharp angles of manicured order into nature’s abandon. A sliver moon peeked from heavy cloud cover, a perfect night for shadows that moved with more than a breeze, and not necessarily on a combat mission.

This night should be filled with soft moans and breathless whispers. A bolt of arousal shot down his gut to lodge low in his belly. Finally alone in the night, he didn’t want to fight the female hunger reaching for him with the writhing mist. She was molten need. He could all but feel supple flesh burn under his hands with the white hot pleasure of an angel sweeping his dark soul up to gaze on heaven’s gates.

What the fuck!? He’d never held an angel in his life and didn’t want to. A female who knew what to do with the type of aggression battle bred was his preference. And heavens gates were nowhere near the neighborhood he took her to.

Uncanny knowledge of which way an enemy would jump, night vision better than twenty/twenty and the heart of a predator had always been his. Natural abilities that edged on phenomenal were the weapons that made him a deadly opponent. But those abilities had never brought him the type of awareness he was feeling now.

Trusting his instincts had kept him and his men alive. This was the first time he’d questioned them.

Outside a breeze picked up, pushing the mist into swirling agitation and he felt her, the essence of a woman. He knew her the same way he’d often known there was an enemy unit in a place it shouldn’t be. Instinctive, deep in his bones was knowledge he couldn’t explain but had never been wrong. With her it was more. He felt more. She was needy tonight. Her body ached in frustration and she moaned as she threw off covers. Unable to sleep, she was… NO!

There was no female slipping in and out of his soul. The hard evidence that his body disagreed with him throbbed between his legs. Alex stretched, flexing layers of tense muscle to deny the sudden sensation of gentle hands sliding down his taut body. A scent drifted on the air but he chose to consign it to the night blooming jasmine far below. There were no soft sighs fading into shadows.

Men did not go into heat. Whatever his problem was, it would pass. It had to be a reaction to the way these titled women had lost there minds in the effort make their daughters a queen. And Time Magazine had called him the savage royal. Amazing.