SM Johnson ~Thursday Morning Coffee~

Good morning, darlings!

I had a topic all picked out for Coffee and sitting right there in my brain when it was time for Bloody Monday. And then I started a huge push to completely finish the first draft of DeVante's Choice so I could shoot it out to my early readers, and somewhere in there I forgot what that topic was going to be.



Heck, I forgot that today is Thursday.

We are not always terribly organized around here (smile).

It's been one heck of a busy week. 8 year old Sprite tested and earned her "yellow-with-a-black-stripe" belt, which, basically, is an advanced yellow belt. She goes to karate camp later this month, and at the end of that, she'll get to test for orange.

She is already tougher than I am. I held up my hands last night for her to punch, and quickly decided that I need to invest in some kick-boxing pads, because she packs a lot of power behind that punch.

Daughter #1 just graduated from a private college. Yay! One down, one to go. And I even remembered to order a cake for the party. Go me!

So... how about a sneak peek of DeVante's Choice? This is kind of later in the book, but I don't want to give too many details and spoil other parts of the story. Suffice to say that the blood drinking thing really gives Emily the creeps.

DeVante's Choice, excerpt

Emily was completely discombobulated. She'd been lying beside DeVante on his bed, finally worked up to this whole blood sharing business, because, God, anything had to be better than another night of lessons. DeVante could be so sincerely tedious with his damn lessons that Emily thought she might absolutely lose her mind.

No more.

The first night was about learning to walk. Tonight was even worse. He taught her this submissive pose that he liked – which could have been kinky as hell – but just… wasn't.

He'd put her on her knees on the floor, forehead touching the ground, expecting her to wait silently for a verbal release.

When she wasn't angry, she was giggling, and when she managed to stop laughing – quite at his insistence – she wiggled her ass and tried to get him turned on. But he wasn't having any of that. He refused to see the humor in it – Emily supposed because he was so deadly serious – and she thought the whole exercise was ridiculous a hundred times over.

He kept saying stuff like, "If Roderick can learn it, you can learn it."

"You have to make me want to," Emily had told him. "Offer a reward."

"I am offering a reward. Immortality. Isn't that enough?"

"Nope. That's not an immediate enough reward. It's like a deferred reward, and I can take it or leave it, you know that. You need to find, oh... I don't know... some words of praise that warm me up inside and make me want to please you."

"All you have to do is be obedient."

"Yeah, but you have to make me want to be. If you know me as well as you claim, it shouldn't be that hard."

"If you would stop arguing, it would not be hard."

"But I was born to argue with you."

"No. You were born to destroy me."

"Oh, come on, that's a bit dramatic, don't you think?"

"Not at all. I have become soft. I rarely follow my own code these days. It is very disturbing."

"Blah, blah, blah. I'm just saying, if you make kneeling on the floor at your feet a little more attractive, I would be happy to do it."

"You would be happy to drive me insane. I should know that by now. I do not know what ever made me think you would be compliant."

"After all, you know me so well," she said.

She couldn't help baiting him. He was so rigid in how he wanted things to be – no, how he fully expected things to be – that upsetting his apple cart was pure joy. It probably was about as safe to bait a vampire as a shark, but Emily amused herself endlessly in her head with planning how next to aggravate him.

She wondered what he'd think if he knew that?

But he must know. And he must like it, because he kept coming back for more.

So let him bend on this one. It wouldn't kill him.

Surprisingly, he tried to bend. "What do you want me to say?"

God. He wasn't exactly bursting with romance, was he? Emily shrugged. "Just think about it. Can we be done now? Aren't there rules and stuff you need to tell me? I know how much you love your rules."

He tried to explain "the rules" to her, but she asked more questions than he cared to answer, baited him more times than he cared to respond to, so finally Emily gave in to one of his requests.

"Okay, since we're just pissing each other off, I'll give, and we can do the blood thing."

Just the tiniest acquiescence and she found herself on the bed, DeVante looming over her and grinning, all flashing eyes and teeth and nefarious purpose.

Oh good Lord. "That's it? This is it, you're just going to bite me and then get me to bite you? No build-up, no romance?"

"It's the moment, not the build-up to the moment, that matters, love."

And just like that he was attacking her throat.

Only it wasn't like an attack. It was like the most incredibly intimate interaction she'd ever had with a human being. Well. If he still counted as a human being, which she suspected he didn't.

It was like he crawled right into her skin with her, and every nerve ending she'd ever had that experienced longing, he filled, immediately, with utter perfection. She could hear his heart pounding out her name, Emily, Emily, Emily... and her own heart seemed to be answering, all her everything rushing into him. She moaned aloud, completely lost. It felt like all her life and all her dreams and all her hopes belonged to him, and she'd just been borrowing all of that, just holding it for him until this moment. 


Without him she would be lost, she would be broken, she would be unable to live.