I don’t do resolutions, but I do have some goals for 2014. One of them is to post more regularly here — book promos, yes, but also “slice of life” posts about what I’m doing, what weird things are going on in my life, and of course sneak peaks at my WIPs. I’m currently finishing up Two to Tango, but last night I found a shifter M/M short story on my desktop that I was trying to write for an anthology and couldn’t finish because, well,  it was in November and I was still suffering with The Plague. Upon re-reading the 2K I’d gotten done, I realized it would make a truly tasty Romance On the Go short and got stuck in. it’s now titled Trickster, I’m currently at 4200 words and I’m hoping to have it done and ready for submission by Sunday. And since I can’t wait that long, here’s a sneak peak at the opening to Trickster!

Delaney Smith knew he was screwed the moment that delectable, mouthwatering scent hit his shifter nose and kicked his libido into overdrive. It was bad enough to smell a mate in a human area like his office building. But to smell one while he was in the office and about to start interviews with potential employees? Fate obviously needed a laugh as much as anyone else, but damn, did he have to be the butt of the joke?

Growling softly, he slipped a hand under the table and ground the heel of his hand into his eagerly swelling cock. If he could, he’d slough off the interviews onto his partner Scott Devlin and hunt down the source of that amazing smell, the shifter who would become the other half of his heart. But no, Scott had to pick today to be in Austin for a meeting with a client, and their general manager Nola Moss was somewhere on the Caribbean on a freaking cruise of all things with her new mate. Which meant he was the only hiring manager currently in the Trickster Tech offices, and they desperately needed some temp programmers for their lucrative new contract with Lone Star Credit Union.

Whoever he is, I’ll find him later. I’ve got his scent, he can’t get away from me. While coyote shifters didn’t quite had the olfactory gifts of wolf and other canine shifters, they were still superb trackers, and there was no way he would ever forget that scent; sharp salt, the blood hint of iron, overlaid by the musk of clean, healthy male and some (thank God) mild deodorant and body wash that didn’t shrivel his nose hairs.

And then there was that luscious ribbon of mate pheromone that grabbed him by the dick and made him want to yip with glee. His balls ached, and the urge to shift and hunt down his mate produced a full body shiver. He took a deep breath through his mouth, but even cutting his nose out of the equation didn’t help. Now he could taste his mate.

Shit. Just start the damn interviews. Then I’m going to go find him.

Delaney stood up, grateful that the cut of his suit jacket covered his erection, and headed out to the foyer where Aimee the receptionist told him the first interviewee was waiting. A youngish man with fashionably nerdy glasses and a slightly too large suit perched on one of the upholstered chairs, obviously trying not to fidget with the portfolio in his hands. Plastering on a neutral smile, Delaney walked up to him, hand out for a shake.

And stopped as the mating scent smacked him hard in the nose. His cock didn’t just throb, it pulsed, so rigid that he could have pounded nails with it. Details from the human’s CV flowed through his mind; Mark Fellowes, 29, computer programmer with extensive experience in financial security protocols. Firmly at the top of Scott’s hiring list, to the point where he wanted to hire Fellowes if everything worked out after the contract. Also human as the day was long, according to the background check they ran; not a drop of shifter blood in any of his bloodlines.

And Delaney’s mate, according to his nose. Oh, fuck me with a chain saw.