**Updated 4/2/21 - the MidWeek Tease blog hop is closed.**Welcome to the world of a true shapeshifter - Sundown's world. His kind can take on any form they choose - which gets pretty interesting for Sundown's lover, Fallon.
This week for the MidWeek Tease, I have a couple of excerpts from The Back Stairs and the beginning of Fallon and Sundown's story. Be sure to check out all the MidWeek Tease offering using the list at the end of this post. Enjoy!
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He smiled, and I melted inside, but I kept my best officer of the law face sternly in place.
“I heard it on the grapevine, Lieutenant. The fire marshal made us stop using smoke signals because it sent the boys in the station house into a tizzy.”
I knew the man he spoke of, and my cop composure cracked as I grinned at him.
“That would do it. Listen, whatever your name is, someone’s son is dead, and I need to find out who killed him, and why. If you don’t have any pertinent information, I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
He regarded me coolly, his green gaze strangely familiar. I’d seen him somewhere before, and it would bug the hell out of me until I remembered where.
Why had Muffin told me to come here? My cop instincts, which were pretty good, said this fellow had told me the truth when he said he didn’t know Carlton. Those same instincts whispered the man was hiding something, though. But who didn’t have secrets?
“Come in and have a seat, Fallon. I happen to have some very good Kona coffee beans. I’ll grind up a few and put on a pot to brew.”
The hair on my arms prickled with unease. “How do you know my name? I didn’t give it to you.”
My business card simply said, ‘F. Roxbury’. I didn’t give my name to Muffin, either. As for the coffee, Kona was difficult for me to turn down.
“Word travels around here.” He took a step backward and motioned for me to take a seat at his table.
I took a breath to tell him I was leaving, and caught the aroma of fresh-brewed java beneath the scents of sandalwood and patchouli. I was tired of getting jerked around, even by a man so incredibly sexy. Put it on to brew, my ass.
“You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you? I don’t need pseudo-intimate conversation any more than I need to flirt.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t listen very well, Fallon.”
“Listen to what? I’ve a mind to haul your scrawny carcass down to the precinct house and let someone else pick your brain for answers, but I don’t have a legitimate reason to have you interrogated. Yet.”
“Tough talk, but you don’t mean any of it. Please, Fallon. Come. Sit at my table, and think of nothing but my very good coffee.”
Would it be so bad to spend half an hour talking with this attractive young man? Heaven help me, he drew me, a tired moth to his steady flame. And he had my favorite coffee, already hot.
Words echoed in my memory. I tried to pull them in so I could hear them again. What had Muffin said? More importantly, it was what she hadn’t said. She didn’t actually say anyone here knew Michael Carlton.
“I’ll sit at your table on one condition.”
He tilted his head, a smile teasing his full lips. “Oh? What is that?”
“You tell me your name.”
Was it victory I saw in his green eyes, or desire? I needed to know if they were the same. His chin lifted as his gaze locked to mine.
“You can call me Sundown.”
_*_*_*_
And later...
Sundown shook his head. “She didn’t see Michael Carlton, dead or alive, or anyone else go in or out of the alley until your people showed up.”
I clamped down on my anger. “That’s good to know, but I need to hear it from her.”
“Do you?” He cocked his head to the side. “You’re out of luck, Fallon. She is gone from here, and it is beyond my ability to bring her back.”
“Why’d she send me here, then?”
His green eyes flashed with his inner fire, anchoring me where I stood. “So I could give you want you needed, Fallon. What you need me to give you again.”
“Don’t be so damn sure of yourself. I don’t need you.” I lied, and he knew it, the knowledge reflected back at me in his level gaze.
“Come inside and tell me you do not need what I offer you.”
I didn’t think I could. My resolve to bully him into giving up Muffin’s whereabouts waned with every pheromone-laden breath I took. I stood inside the ring of warmth and scent that surrounded him. My erection relentlessly swelled toward completion, and I couldn’t stop it.
“I can’t compromise my investigation further, Sundown. Carlton’s parents are flying in to claim the body. I need to have answers for them.”
His fingers grazed mine, the gentle touch heating my blood.
“I knew you were a good man. I trust you, Fallon. Will you trust me?”
“I trust you to be nothing but trouble.”
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ABOUT THE BACK STAIRS:
Fallon Roxbury has a nose for trouble and the uncanny ability for landing in the middle of it the moment he finds it. While investigating the gruesome murder of a young male prostitute in the red-light district, Fallon gets a whiff of something very strange. Forensics has unidentified hairs. Very unidentified hairs, like nothing in any of the textbooks. Following a tip from a person of interest, Fallon meets Sundown, an apparent hustler who knows a lot more than he will admit.
Getting personally involved with Sundown breaks every rule in the police manual, and in Fallon’s own personal code. Sundown is like a drug, and Fallon can’t stop at just one hit. When Sundown is forced to reveal the truth, Fallon’s world is turned upside down, and he’s left with only two options: check himself in for psychiatric evaluation, or accept a new reality with a strange shift.
Shapeshifters, that is.
The Back Stairs (Book #1 of the Sundown saga) is available at:
KC Kendricks
Website: www.kckendricks.com
twitter.com/kckendricks
