A romantic suspense is supposed to deliver equal doses of love, attraction, desire and sex along with spine-tingling fear, adventure, and a walk in the dark side of forbidden passions.
My new series, Desiring Danger, explores the dark side of passion, the thin line between passion and obsession. There’s a dark side in all of us, and whether we mean it or not, our strongest desires bleed over the edge when something we want is just out of grasp.
The fun and scary part for the writer is to immerse and discover these dark and forbidden emotions, then magnify and act on them through the story. Sometimes, what’s hidden in the shadows is the very force that drives the story forward, makes the characters take the largest risks, and slams them when they least expect it.
In this series, I include short snippets from the villain as they stalk that which they also most desire. Love Will Stay, Book 1 and Taking Me Back, Book 2 both start this way.
Here’s an excerpt from Book 3, my work in progress, All You Want, where town busybody, Tami King, has her eyes on the handsome but aloof sheriff, while a stalker has his eyes on her.
Chapter One of All You Want, Book 3 in the Desiring Danger Series
He hates her guts, but he’s a patient man.
He doubts she even remembers him.
He was aware of her before he could even speak. He lurked near her crib, and he hid in her closets. She was loud and bold, the little princess born with a golden spoon in her mouth.
His mother made him be nice to her, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t hate her. So he bided his time, and he did things to her that she’ll never know about.
Oh, they were small victories. Tiny things. Like the time he brushed her toothbrush on his ass, and the poison ivy he rolled her pajamas in. He was careful to cover his tracks, and even though his mother suspected and she warned him with her frightened eyes, she never knew how much he hated that blond little fairy with the sapphire blue eyes.
He grits his teeth and grinds his molars, clenching his fists until his knuckles would pop. He kneels on the damp earth and brushes the pine needles off his mother’s tiny gravestone.
“Oh, isn’t she the prettiest girl you ever laid eyes on,” Mooma would say while ironing and folding the little monster’s many dresses. She was always buttering up her employers with her constant praise and adulation of the pampered puffybutt. It was a wonder anyone could breathe when all the hot air went to pumping up the prissy petunia’s poufy head.
The tinkling of the piano would draw him to the window, and he’d press his forehead against it to stare at her. He wasn’t allowed to stare or speak to her after his voice turned, and he was relegated out to the barn. But his mother always kept him apprised of the princess’s many accomplishments.
Her flowing hair was light as wheat, and the blue in her eyes were those of an enchanting goddess. The sparkling tones of the piano tinkled and plinked like a colorful waterfall of crystal bells, and rays of sunlight enfolded her like a golden bath showering her from heaven.
A kick on the seat of his pants sent him sprawling. His mother was always cross with him. “Get back to work, you lazy bum. They raised the rent again, and I’m working my fingers to the bone for you.”
He picked up the ax and hefted the weight in his hand. How easy it would be to blot her beauty with ugly, dark-red spurts of blood.
But he was a patient man, and patience was a virtue.
One day, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
He raised the sharp axe, swung it high and hard.
Thwack.
A wedge of hard oak exploded into splinters.
He kisses the cold, dead gravestone and vows to his mother. “This is for you, Mooma. This is for you.”
Rachelle Ayala 