Welcome to New Adult Scavenger Hunt! This bi-annual event was inspired as a way to give readers a chance to gain access to exclusive bonus material from their favorite authors…and a chance to win some awesome prizes! At this hunt, you not only get access to exclusive content from each author, you also get a clue for the hunt. Add up the clues, and you can enter for our prize–one lucky winner will receive one book from each author on the hunt in my team! But play fast: this contest (and all the exclusive bonus material) will only be online for 72 hours!
Go to the New Adult Scavenger Hunt page to find out all about the hunt. There are THREE contests going on simultaneously, and you can enter one or all! I am a part of the TEAM RED, but there are also blue and purple teams for a chance to win a whole different set of books!
If you’d like to find out more about the hunt, see links to all the authors participating, and see the full list of prizes up for grabs, go to the New Adult Scavenger Hunt page.
LET THE HUNT BEGIN!
***MEET DONNA ANNMARIE SMITH, AUTHOR OF:
Donna AnnMarie Smith is a New Adult Romance Author of the Paranormal series, The To Fall Trilogy, and Contemporary novels of The Cove Series. She lives in Arizona with her husband and three children. When she’s not writing a sexy romance story or reading one, Donna can be found listening to country music, and the little television she does watch is either related to food or zombies. She’s known to rock jeans year-round, and she has yet to turn down a good taco. Donna is active on social media and loves to hear from her readers.
Currently, Donna is working on her next project in The Cove Series and plans to return to her Paranormal roots, because things aren’t quite finished in the To Fall universe.
For more information, please visit Donna-AnnMarie-Smith.com.
***The Silent Cries of a Magpie: Part One***
Her only option is to escape…
The plan was perfect. Maggie Davis was getting out of her nowhere beach town and leaving for a bright future hundreds of miles away. The college scholarship was set, the job was secure, the apartment paid for, and there might be a futon involved. She was even bringing her dog along for the ride. That’s the thing about plans, though. One freak storm can ruin everything. Now stuck in a life that she was praying to escape from, Maggie will have to figure another way out.
There’s nothing he can do but hide…
Hiding from a memory is damn near impossible, but Mason Scott is desperate to forget. Though he knows how to dull the pain, lose himself, he’ll never be free of the one night that will haunt him forever. And fate rears its cruel head when Maggie is thrust into every aspect of Mason’s life, a reminder of the piece of his heart that was ripped away from him four years ago.
All that is left for them is to be silent…
Secrets are best left unspoken. That’s something Mason and Maggie know too well, but just as Mason is ready to take down his walls for her, the unthinkable happens. Now Maggie will have to decide if she should stay and fight, or stick to the plan.
And run.
***Excerpt from The Silent Cries of a Magpie: Part One***
Chapter 32
Maggie
Leaving the basement, I noticed broken glass by the bar, so once the wine was delivered, I returned to clean it before someone got hurt.
Not a clue where a dustpan would be in this place, I knelt and swept the pieces up with paper towels. There was a trash can under the stone counter and I dumped my first load, and then returned to the floor with wet paper towels to catch any shards I’d missed.
“Just can’t help yourself, huh?” The wet clump flew out of my hand and my skull narrowly missed the counter when I bolted up to Mason’s deep voice.
How did he do that sneaking up thing? The guy was huge and weighed two of me. It just wasn’t physically possible. Any paranormal explanations my brain was working on were silenced by what was in front of me.
Even standing, I had to arch my head all the way back. He was too close, too tall, too… There was simply too much Mason.
Towering over me, each wave of heat that rolled off him sunk into my skin. It was infuriating really and my blood pumped through me faster, harder, palms itching to do some damage to that perfect…well, everything of his.
Damp board shorts hung so very low on his narrow hips, and there might have been an outline of something that my gaze tracked over for an indecent second. Or minute. An eight pack a village of women could use as a washboard was on full display, along with a trail of hair that had me fantasizing about where it ended.
His hair shone almost black, sticking up in all directions. With his eyes shielded by reflective aviators that were pointed down at me, he looked…good. Dangerously good.
The struggle to keep my eyeline above his broad shoulders was a total fail and they shot back down to that bulge I should not be noticing.
Somehow, with legs not much more than putty, I was able to stay upright inside the little space he’d left between himself and the bar. He did it on purpose. I knew that now. Mason took no shame in exploiting any advantage he could use.
“I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. There are a lot of bare feet around here.”
Sliding closer to me and eating up the two inches left between us, I caught the scent of JD on him. I hated that Mason smelled like Dad, erasing that delicious, spicy musk that was his alone.
Mason set the sunglasses on top of his messy hair, still glistening with water droplets from the pool. “Sticks, my family thinks you’re a fucking saint.”
Ah, there was the asshole I knew.
Chin kicked up, my back straightened as the citrine bands in his mossy eyes glimmered at me beneath long, dark lashes. The smirk working over his full lips confirmed that he knew just how much I wanted to deliver a world of hurt to his man parts right now. My knee was burning for it. A knee that was currently between thick, corded thighs that were spread wide over me and I swore he was closer than a second ago.
Mason’s hooded gaze darkened and then drifted over my features as though he were looking at me, really looking at me for the first time. And that heated stare killed the ten witty comebacks that I had ready to launch at him.
Instead, I went with, “You’re not very nice.”
Hell, I really should have gone for a junk punch.
He exaggerated jerking his head back as though I’d slapped him, but his hips were now a centimeter from mine, and so was something else that I suddenly no longer wanted to inflict pain upon. “Ouch. Did you get that insult from this morning’s Sesame Street? Did Kermit finally tell that pig off?”
Okay, so there were a few pop culture references that I could handle.
“Those are The Muppets,” I stated.
“What?” he laughed out, flexing each and every hill and valley in those abdominals. His stomach really was a thing of beauty, especially when his board shorts were ready to slip past that fantastic V of muscle. Like now.
What were we talking about? Oh, right.
“Kermit and Miss Piggy are The Muppets. Maybe you should learn to insult people with a more accurate tongue.”
A wicked grin crept over his mouth. The muscles in my belly coiled tight and low, and I sucked in a sharp breath that never made it to my lungs. Leaning over me, Mason forced my back to hit the counter and my heart tripped over itself. As the chill of the stone pressed into my back, warmth lit up my insides, and the chlorine lingering on all of his exposed, bronzed skin teased my nose. Large hands thumped down on either side of me, trapping me in his cage, and I swallowed. Hard.
Mason’s head slanted forward until his soft lips tickled the shell of my ear. My body locked and it seemed like everything inside me came to a standstill.
His scruff scratched my cheek and a pleasant shiver rolled through me, desperate for more, wishing to feel that rasp of hair all over me. His whisper came out husky and thick like a fog wrapping around me. “Hmm, we’re both right. Check your history. Kermit was on Sesame Street, but Miss Piggy wasn’t.” His head dipped and his lips brushed over my pulse point, lingering, torturing me.
Oh. Dear. God. My eyes rolled to the back of my head.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my tongue, Sticks. It’s pretty fucking accurate and I know just what to do with it.”
And then I was thinking about his pretty fucking accurate tongue and I was ready to argue that he didn’t know what to do with it just so he would show me and prove me wrong.
I never wanted to be more wrong in all my life.
Something hot and velvety stroked the column of my throat. My blood sparked and the flames spread from my core to between my legs in such a rush that my head went light. I’d had the warm fuzzies, but never like this. This was… Oh, my fucking hell. This was an ache that I’d never felt before and I squirmed a little just to quell it, but it only flared brighter.
Dragging down precious molecules of oxygen to keep from passing out, my lips parted and I licked them, but my mouth had gone dry. From out of nowhere, my breasts felt heavier, nipples tightened to hard points and the friction against my cotton bra built with every inhale.
I felt like someone had ignited my fuse and if he didn’t touch me soon, I’d implode.
I may have inched closer to him or him to me, I didn’t know, but he was near enough to hear my heart pounding. Bringing his head back up, my eyes had anchored to his mouth, ready to beg him to kiss me, touch me, strip every article of— Why is he smirking?
Oh… Damn him.
He was such a bastard. How was I this stupid? How gullible was I to think a man like this could see me for more than what I was? That Mason Scott could want me? Not in a million years. He was playing with me, jerking me around and he knew just how to do it. I hated that I was attracted to him. I hated that he knew it. But most of all, I hated that I really couldn’t hate him. Didn’t mean I would stop trying.
“Was the party boring you or did you run out of JD?”
A dark brow cocked and some kind of noise hummed in the back of his throat as if his brain cells were actually forming thoughts. “More whiskey is tempting, but I wasn’t looking for it, and if I was bored before, I’m not now.”
Long lashes fanned his cheekbones and shielded his brilliant eyes. In the next strained heartbeat, I realized he was staring right at my mouth and that knowledge arrowed heat to my center.
Mason’s head tipped to the side again. I didn’t dare move as his lips grazed my jaw and then I felt his teeth gently nip my ear. “Not bored in the slightest, Sticks.”
Regardless of what my brain was screaming at me, I was about one second away from tearing my clothes off. That mouth of his was going to ruin me.
Time to gain control of this.
“Why do you call me Sticks?”
Lifting his gaze up to mine, he didn’t answer, not right away. Those peridot eyes glittered like bright gems underneath hooded lids while he considered me. I was ready to try a different abort tactic when his hand left the counter and then relocated somewhere that so wasn’t the counter. He hauled me against him and all doubt gone, he was very much a man. For every part of me that was curved, he was straight. Everywhere that I was weak, he was strong. In all the places that I was soft, he was…hard.
The organ in the middle of my chest beat to unsafe rhythms and my lungs froze. I felt three large fingers slide into the thin fabric of my pocket, and I was pretty sure the other two fingers joined in cupping my ass.
Heat whipped through me and then his friend lust slammed into me a second later. My nipples were furled so tight they hurt, and I was certain what was happening between my thighs was unnatural. I was pretty sure I was ready to mount him when a small blue tube appeared before my eyes.
“ChapStick. Sticks. You had two on you the first day I met you.”
He still hadn’t moved away and I still didn’t want him to, but that grin so needed to be punched off his face. With a sledgehammer. What made him think he could stand this close? Touch me like this? More important, why had I let him?
Well, I knew why. Hormones. Those little bastards could be blamed for anything.
“You could have just told me,” I snapped. “You didn’t have to molest my butt.” Okay, so the anger was more for me, but since he was within my bubble, he was going to get a piece.
A laugh burst out of him and his hand slapped the bar. “Molest your…? Oh, my God. For a proper ass molestation, you need a minimum of five seconds and both cheeks. That was not nearly enough time to qualify as molesting. I copped a feel.”
He was such a cocky asshole, and I desperately wanted to kiss him, regardless that he would taste like a whiskey flavored cocky asshole.
“Okay. Why not Chap, Chaps, or Chappy?”
Mason’s eyes narrowed at me. “Because those are dumb.” They were dumb, but I’d never admit it or that my nickname was kinda growing on me.
Shifting over me, the two clamps he called hands landed on my hips and drew us back together. My body went to his because I was the metal and he was the magnet. I couldn’t fight it. I didn’t want to.
Thoroughly confused, I had no clue what was happening or what to do with myself, so I did nothing. My arms hung down at my sides, fisting my hands to keep from doing something stupid like grabbing his hair and shoving my tongue into his mouth.
I really wanted to do something stupid.
His gaze fell to my lips once more and they separated on their own accord. Now I’d lost control of some of my motor functions and I blamed him. He was also to blame for the fact that I’d risen to my tiptoes, and the slide of his hard chest against my aching breasts sent a flash of hot need to zip through me. My head felt too light, my body too boneless, brain too clouded.
Just as his warm breath skated over my cheek, mouth nearing mine, I caught another scent of whiskey and the haze in my head cleared. Sort of.
What was Mason doing? Maybe I was hallucinating. Nope, pretty sure all that hard body surrounding me was real. But even if this was reality, this wasn’t real. Not to him anyway. He was drunk. Plain and simple. That was the only explanation. He’d sober up and be mortified when he realized he had his hands on me, lips a mere breath from mine. I had to stop this. He was too wasted and not in his right mind. Things between us would be even worse if that were possible.
More than ever, I wished I had been struck by Acute Mute Syndrome, because what I said next was something I never wanted to say.
Ever.
Thanks for reading! Want more Mason and Maggie?
Visit my website Donna-AnnMarie-Smith.com for all the fun links and smexy teasers!
P.S. I love being stalked!
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****
It’s S.D. here again … back to the scavenger hunt after that steamy little excerpt! *whew* Seriously, that sounds like an awesome read. Don’t forget to enter the contest for a chance to win a ton of signed books by me, Donna AnnMarie Smith, and more!
To enter, you need to know that my lucky book number is 18.
Add up all the favorite numbers of the authors on Team Red and you’ll have the secret code to enter for the grand prize!
***CONTINUE THE HUNT***
To keep going on your quest for the hunt, you need to check out the next Team Red author, Karen Kincy!
GOOD LUCK!
S.D. Wasley 