Cold Like Snow by Sita Bethel

Title: Cold Like Snow

Author: Sita Bethel

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: July 23, 2018

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male, Male/Male Menage

Length: 65400

Genre: Paranormal, paranormal, ghosts, established couple, musicians, mild BDSM, ménage

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Synopsis

When René moves into his new home, he didn’t expect it to come with roommates. Two handsome roommates, to be precise. Too bad they’re ghosts.

The fact that they’re dead doesn’t stop them from running their fingers through René’s hair or tackling him onto the bed. It’s not long before things escalate and René finds himself with two ghost lovers that treat him better than any living partner ever has.

However, they can’t eat, can’t go far from the house where they died, and their fingers feel like icicles against René’s skin. The longer René is with them, the more he can sense them, but nothing can reduce the chill of their bodies against his. Still, it might be worth the hypothermia.

Excerpt

Cold Like Snow

Sita Bethel © 2018

All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

René stood in front of the doorway and ran his finger over the outline of the key’s metallic surface before wedging it into the lock and stepping inside his new house. The cold air puckered the skin of his arms and neck. He rubbed his shoulders to keep them warm as he looked around. The flooring throughout the house was black-and-white linoleum. A wide living area faced him—to his left was a fireplace, straight ahead stood double glass doors leading to a small garden, and to his right a half bathroom, dining area, and kitchen. Between the dining room and the glass door, a staircase with a thick cherrywood banister curved up to the three bedrooms and a full bathroom.

René walked to the staircase and stopped short of the first step. He examined the black-and-white squares. They looked clean at first glance, but since he was searching, René noticed the thin rust-colored lines between the tiles. It was why he had bought the house. He’d heard the two previous owners had died after falling down the stairs. Afterward, the old building fell victim to exaggerated ghost stories. True, it did make the building more affordable, but the real reason it appealed to René was because he loved ghost stories and all things macabre. Ever since he was a child, tales that made others grimace had made René smile. He squatted to the floor and reached out to graze his fingertips against the tiles.

A long sigh escaped from between René’s lips. He stood and headed to his moving truck. After several hours of carrying boxes in, he decided to save the larger furniture for the next day. René lit a fire; orange light crawled across the floor and walls. He unrolled his sleeping bag near the hearth and slipped inside. The old house creaked. The silence in the house amplified every other noise, which echoed like a lullaby and soothed René into a hard sleep.

At dawn, before René was fully awake, he dreamed someone dragged their fingers through his hair. He rolled on his side, muttering, “It’s too cold to get up.” The next time he opened his eyes, sunlight brightened the room through the garden doors. He sat up, rubbed his face, and remembered the odd dream of being petted. He smiled at the dream as he stretched and moaned. René slipped out of the sleeping bag and shuffled toward the kitchen to make coffee.

The day labored on as René set upon the tedious mission of dragging his furniture inside his house by himself. Most items—the bed, the office desk, his baker’s rack—he had dissembled before loading into the rental truck, but a few pieces—the washer, dryer, and sofa—he had to strap to a dolly with bungee cords, making it slow to get them inside the house. There was nothing better to do during the constant back and forth than think. He’d spent most of his thirty-four years of existence rushing past his own life. He’d sped through junior high and high school as fast as he could, desperate to get away from the small-minded town where his aunt and uncle had raised him after his parents died of heat exhaustion during a camping trip. After he graduated, René fled to the nearest city, waiting tables to scrape up enough cash for a small apartment while he earned his associate degree. He jumped into a relationship with the first guy who openly pursued him, infatuated by the bold, flirtatious attitude that René never experienced from any of the guys back home. Even after his heart broke, René hurried straight to the next boyfriend, who ended up being much worse than the first.

He learned his lesson after that one, sticking to casual hookups as he focused on work and his studies. Once he finished school, René was desperate to find a job where he could afford more than ramen noodles and dollar-store socks. Now he was at a point in his life where he wanted nothing more than to appreciate everything he obtained and accomplished over the years. He escaped the small town. He made enough money to pay his bills. He finally bought a house. René wanted a chance to breathe and enjoy it. Perhaps find a decent partner who wanted to settle down, or at least get a dog.

He went through an entire box of granola bars and a pot of coffee before he decided to go to the store for groceries.

When he returned, René made a sandwich for lunch and then continued to set everything in order. By the end of the day, each stack of boxes sat in the correct room and the furniture was more or less placed where he intended to keep it. Too exhausted to assemble the bed, René spent another night in his sleeping bag near the fireplace, feeling like a strange post-modern male Cinderella.

In the early gray dawn, he had the same dream. Fingers, barely felt, ran through his hair and gingerly touched his cheeks and collarbone. René exhaled with content at the soft, misty caresses, and he wished ghosts were real before sinking into a deeper sleep.

In the morning, he started unpacking in the kitchen until he found the toaster and a skillet. After eating breakfast and unpacking the kitchen, he assembled the bed. Two nights on the floor had his shoulders stiff. René cursed as he balanced the sideboard of his bed frame in his lap and worked the first screw in one turn at a time. For the cost of a six-pack of beer and some pizza, May would have been more than happy to help René both move his furniture and set up the bed, but René relied on his best friend too much already. The next time May visited, René wanted to go out and have fun, not unpack a mountain of boxes, so he finished tightening the first screw and wondered where his bag of extras had disappeared. René groaned when he saw them on the other side of the room. He would have sworn he’d set them beside his lap when he started, but apparently he hadn’t. By the time he pushed the box spring and mattress onto the completed frame, René was worn out. He dropped onto the bed and made snow angel motions with his arms and legs before resting.

“Forget unpacking. I should just go to sleep,” René spoke to the bed, having no one else to talk to.

His muscles ached from carrying boxes and furniture, and the bed was firm but soft enough for him to sink a little. René shut his eyes and pulled a deep, intentional breath into his lungs. Daydreams played out behind his closed eyelids. It’d been awhile since anyone else had been in his bed with him, and he imagined a mystery lover sneaking to his bedside, sitting beside him, and kissing his stomach as he unzipped René’s pants. His fantasy spun out of control. The mattress felt like it really did shift with the weight of another person sitting close. René sat up and shook his head to rid himself of the ridiculous daydream. He made the bed before going downstairs to finish unpacking the living room.

By the third night, the house resembled a home. René examined his progress in the living room and nodded his head in satisfaction. As he stood in place, René’s hair slid against his shoulders, as if someone had brushed the long strands away from his face. He froze a moment, wondering if his imagination played tricks with his mind again, but the distinct pressure of a hand lighted on his shoulder and fingers ran down his cheek. He blinked, trying to process the strange sensation of being touched by invisible hands.

“Hello.” René’s voice sounded loud in the visibly empty living room.

The touching stopped after he spoke.

“Wait, don’t leave,” René said, afraid he’d somehow startled whatever had interacted with him. René’s gaze darted across the living room, searching for any indication that he wasn’t alone. Nothing was out of place. René sighed, his shoulders slumping forward. “I didn’t imagine that,” he whispered, to convince himself he hadn’t daydreamed the experience.

An idea drifted into René’s head. He spoke to the air in a bashful tone. “If you can hear me, would you follow me. Please?”

He walked up the stairs and opened the door to his office. Stacks of boxes lined the walls and surrounded the desk like strange cardboard obelisks. René pilfered through the boxes until he found one labeled office odds and ends.

He pulled the tape from the top of the box and set aside small statues of gargoyles, skeletons, and imps. With both hands, René removed the old Ouija board from the cardboard box. He’d never used it before and only owned it for the aesthetic, but now he sat on the tiled floor with the board in his lap and the heart-shaped planchette under his fingertips.

“I know this is dumb,” he said. “I know this is a stupid toy, but why not use it? Crap, I hope I’m not talking to myself. I just want to—” A breath hitched in René’s throat as the planchette scrawled across the wooden surface of the board.

“Oh good! I was hoping you’d want to talk. Hold on. Let me get a pen.” René rummaged through another box until he found a pack of pens and a notebook. He held the paper in his lap so he could write down the letters. “What’s your name?” René asked, but to his disappointment, the planchette only swerved in between the yes and no options at the top of the board. He frowned, thinking of what he might be doing wrong. Another question came to mind. “How many of you are here?”

The pointer swerved to the number two on the board.

“What are your names?” The planchette moved without him touching it, freeing up his hands to write each letter.

Marcus.

Bastion.

“Really?” René raised an eyebrow. It was a rhetorical question, but the heart planchette spelled another sentence.

“You have a problem with our names?”

“No.” René smiled. “My name’s Rembrandt. Our mothers should be slapped. Call me René, though.” A nervous chuckle slipped past René’s lips. “Not that I can hear you say my name.”

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Meet the Author

Sita Bethel obtained a B.A. in Creative Writing at Arkansas Tech University; however, she learned how to write fiction on sites such as Archive Of Our Own and fanfiction.net. She keeps coloring books near her computer for when she’s “writing,” and owns an awful lot of dice for someone who’s never played a tabletop RPG. Sita Bethel currently lives in Arkansas, teaches Zumba Fitness and Salsaton classes at a local gym, and hopes to someday own a fortress of solitude staffed with incompetent henchmen.

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Dark City by Sarah Kay Moll

Title: Dark City

Author: Sarah Kay Moll

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: July 23, 2018

Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Female, Male/Male

Length: 74200

Genre: Contemporary, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mob, murder, family drama, gay, bi, in the closet, BDSM

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Synopsis

Jude has a tender heart. Yet he was born into a criminal empire and groomed from childhood to step into his father’s violent footsteps. To survive, he created a second personality. Ras is everything Jude isn’t—cruel, remorseless, and utterly without fear, as incapable of love as Jude is of malice.

But when Ras meets a ruthless socialite, he begins to feel a strange stirring of emotion, a brush of Jude’s passion against his own dark heart. Meanwhile, Jude finds himself with a knife in his hand, the evil in Ras’s soul bleeding into his own.

As the walls between them crumble, they could lose everything—their lovers, their family, and their hold on the dark city itself.

Coming together could break them…or make them whole.

Excerpt

Dark City

Sarah Kay Moll © 2018

All Rights Reserved

1: Jack of Spades

Around me, the hallway is silent. No soft brushes of footsteps on the dark green carpet, no huff of breath, no rustle of clothing. But a fragment of a second before he strikes, I know he’s there.

I raise my hand, grazing my fingers over a thin metal wire but failing to stop it from circling my neck. My attacker jerks my head toward him with the noose, the cold wire digging into my skin. Like any trained Special Forces soldier, he’s turned his back to mine, intending to yank me over his shoulder like a duffel bag and strangle me with my own weight. I have only a single second before my feet leave the ground, and I use it well, launching myself into the air. I backflip over him, turning through the still, stale air to land on cat feet facing him. The wire, made long to give better leverage, loosens enough for me to pull it over my head.

I throw a kick, a downward thrust toward his knee. Graceful as always, he steps easily aside. He answers it with a quick punch, fist flying toward my jaw, but my arm is already there, deflecting the blow harmlessly away.

I barely dodge another jab, a decoy strike before he grabs my arm, twisting it behind me and pushing me up against the wall. A picturesque landscape in a gilt frame crashes to the floor by my feet.

He jerks the captive limb once and pain shoots up and down my arm like sharp splinters of bamboo. He’s always believed pain to be an excellent teacher, so it’s become a frequent companion.

When he releases me, I turn to face him, shrugging my right arm a few times to work the pins and needles out.

“You heard me,” he says, approval softening his stern features, the crooked nose—broken three times over his forty-five years—the steely line of his mouth, the sharp angle to his jaw.

“It wasn’t exactly that, sir,” I say. “It was more like I sensed you. I didn’t hear much but I knew you were there.”

“Even better. Go get something to eat. I’ll be there in a few.”

“Yes, sir.”

I continue down a hallway lined with dim lights encased in stained-glass sconces. Narrow latticed windows let the deep blue of twilight fall over me.

The kitchen I step into at the end of the long hall is brighter, cheery white-yellow light over dark wooden counters. My mother stands at the stove. Beside her, sausages in a cast iron skillet hiss and spit.

“It smells good,” I say. On rare nights, Mom lets the housekeeper go home early and cooks something herself—the rich, salty flavors of her homeland.

“Hello, Jude,” she says in her faint voice, delicate as a flower’s petal and rarely louder than a murmur. Her soft smile fades as she walks toward me and runs a gentle finger across my neck where there must be a red line from the garrote. “Your father needs to be more careful.”

“My father knows what he’s doing.” I trust him, and I don’t want her to talk like that when he might overhear.

She sighs, turning back to the stove as my brother Eli walks in. He’s wearing his date-night clothes, groomed and stylish as someone on a magazine. He hates to hear how alike we look, but we do both have thick black hair, a striking contrast to our pale skin, and the same high cheekbones.

We take after our mother, who looks a little like Snow White, gazing wistfully out into the dark gardens. They’re January-dead right now, brown and crumbling, but flourish in the summers; rows and rows of blushing rosebushes, a pale cobblestone path laced between.

“Mom.” Eli puts his hands on her shoulders and says something in Russian.

She turns to face him with a smile, responding in kind. I listen to their murmured words, but only understand a few. I wasn’t allowed to speak Mom’s native language since we came to the city, and somehow I’ve managed to forget almost everything I knew. It means Mom is close to Eli in a way she can’t be with me. She reaches up to pat him gently on the cheek, affectionate as always.

While they talk, I get a beer out of the fridge for him so he’ll have to look at me for at least a few seconds. His hostile green-eyed gaze doesn’t linger as he takes the cold bottle from me.

“I thought we could take the horses out tomorrow,” I say.

“No.”

“But you haven’t ridden Sun in months.”

He glances at the stove, but Mom has stepped out of the kitchen. “Fuck off, Jude. I’m busy.” He turns and walks to the table. I follow and he sighs, setting his beer on the wooden surface with a clunk.

“Do you always have to look at me like that?” he says.

“Like what?”

“Like so sad. You look like a fucking puppy I kicked into the bay.”

I cross my arms, as though I could block his stinging words and hide the part of me that feels just like a puppy he kicked into cold water.

“You’re an asshole,” I say. “I just wanted to spend time with you.”

“You want to step into the gym and say that?” He walks toward me, an intimidating frown on his face, taking full advantage of the six inches he has on me, his bulky frame. By now, I’ve given up the hope I’ll ever be as big or as strong as he is. But I’m faster, darting like quicksilver, elusive as water when we spar. As we’ve grown up, I’ve become his equal.

I hold my ground, looking up at him. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

“Fucking waste of my time.” He steps away and turns back to the table. It’s my victory, but I don’t feel any triumph, just the usual weary guilt.

Mom sighs, standing in the doorway. She doesn’t say a word, so used to our fighting she only tries to stop us if we’re actually hitting each other. I should be more careful to keep it from her.

Dad comes in. He catches my eye with a warm, proud smile that makes me feel a little better. My mother turns her face up toward him, and he kisses her on the cheek. Her features are angular but beautiful, her slender neck clad in a gray turtleneck that doesn’t quite cover the bruise at the base of her jaw. Dad must have been drinking last night. He doesn’t mean to hurt her, but he can’t always help himself. I should have been here to stop him.

“Smells good, Nadya,” he says.

She gives him a timid smile. “For you, Vance. Mama used to make it when you visited us. You remember?”

“Of course I do, honey,” he says.

Mom puts plates on the table in the breakfast nook, a small alcove surrounded by tall windows edged with lacy curtains. They let the darkness encroach on us, stars absent in the overcast sky.

“Do you have plans for tonight?” Dad asks. Eli and I both know he’s talking only to me, Eli beneath his notice as always.

“Brienne’s throwing a party,” I say.

“Oh, Jude,” Mom murmurs. “Shouldn’t you stay and study? Have you studied one time since you were suspended?”

“That’s right,” Dad says. “You’re back to school on Monday. Fucking shame. I had something pretty interesting planned.”

“I don’t have to go.” I’d much rather work with Dad, like I’ve been doing since I was thirteen. Now that I’m eighteen, I’m an expert in everything from smuggling illegal drugs to running protection rackets.

“You do have to go,” Dad says. “I had to pull a lot of strings to get them to take you back, so don’t fuck it up again, hear me?” A cold, steely wire is threaded through his words, and I know I’ll have to be careful.

“I don’t know why you care,” Eli says. “Jude doesn’t learn anything. He doesn’t even try. When I was—”

“He’s learning plenty,” Dad says, talking over Eli as usual. “You’re not there to learn calculus or some shit. You’re there because that’s where the mayor and city councilmen and CEOs of major corporations send their kids. When they run this city, you’ll be glad you know their names.”

“They’re not going to run this city,” I say, grinning. “We are.”

Dad chuckles. “Don’t get cocky. But I do have the feeling that someday soon, we’ll be able to do a lot of expanding.” He stands. “You can’t go to the party tonight. I need you boys with me. We have work to do.”

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Meet the Author

Sarah Kay Moll is a wordsmith and an amateur homemaker. She’s good with metaphors and bad with coffee stains, both of which result from a writing habit she hasn’t been able to quit. She lives a mostly solitary life, and as a result, might never say the right thing at parties. She’s passionate about books, and has about five hundred on her to-read pile. When she does go out, it’s probably to the library, the theater, or the non-profit where she volunteers.

Sarah lives in a beautiful corner of western Oregon where the trees are still changing color at the end of November and the mornings are misty and mysterious. She spends her free time playing video games and catering to her cat’s every whim.

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