Astraphobia (Or Stay Calm and Let the Lightning Strike!)

Buy Lightning HERE!

By Taryn Kincaid

Are you afraid of thunder and lightning?

Do you shiver and shake, cowering with the cats and dogs under the bed? Or do you dance with abandon in the rain, turning your face to the heavens, blinded by the sheer romance of the light?

Remember when Michael Corleone first sets eyes on Appolonia, the great love of his life, in Sicily? She’s a raven-haired vision and he’s struck dumb by love at first sight. In Italy when it happens that way (at least according to Godfather lore), they say “è stato un colpo di fumine”— it has been a stroke of lightning.  (Apparently that is the more elegant kissing cousin to “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.)

In Lightning, my debut 1Night Stand story, my heroine, Lily Night, has good reason to be afraid. So does the hero, Campbell Jones. She’s a succubus and when her electrolyte balance goes haywire, lightning strikes during sex, zipping across the night sky, and occasionally putting her partners out of commission. Along with wiping cell phone service in spooky Sleepy Hollow. Maybe the Eastern seaboard.

Since their fateful prom night, when Lily accidentally landed Campbell in a coma after a night of hot, unbridled passion, she’s been wary of sex with mortals. And a sex-shy succubus is not a good thing. As for Campbell, he’s been thinking about the girl who dumped him at the emergency room and raced out of his life. And wondering about those strange supernatural powers he’s had ever since.

So, yeah. You might say they have reason to be afraid. To be very afraid. Bwahahahahahah!

The awesome Valerie Mann, one of the instigators of the 1Night Stand series, was my editor for both Lightning, and Thunder, which is coming soon—check out the neat trailer for Thunder (created by fabulous Decadent author JoAnne Kenrick) at the top of this page. 

Valerie took this picture at an amusement park haunted house:

 (I sure hope she isn’t trying to tell me something!)

                              

  Cracked me the hell up, though.                             

So where do you stand when things go crack and bump in the night? Scaredy cat or fearless?

Let me know and I’ll pick a random commenter to get a copy of Lightning. (And some other Lightning and Thunder swag!)

Here’s an excerpt:

“A little higher and more to the left.”

Lily Night narrowed her eyes as the building maintenance man shifted her framed diploma on the freshly-painted wall opposite her desk. She tried not to ogle the firm ass encased in a pair of tight jeans or the way the man’s shoulder muscles rippled beneath his T-shirt.

Maybe if I pop an Altoid, I’ll have an excuse to wipe away the drool.

She refrained from jumping the handsome worker dude’s bones. The last time she’d dallied with a human, the encounter had not gone well. Vivid images of that long ago prom night bombarded her. Campbell Jones had been a young, strapping, hunk-and-a-half football player and they’d started their date full of hope and expectation and lust. When he’d adjusted the fragrant gardenia corsage on her wrist, she’d inhaled his crisp, citrus scent and thought she might swoon at the sight of him in his tux. The black material stretched across broad shoulders that mirrored the promise of the bruising man he’d be in his prime. But she’d all but sucked him dry as flashes of lightning crackled over their heads. By the time dawn painted the sky, she’d turned him into a mere shadow of his former self. Literally.

And briefly knocked out cell phone service in the lower Hudson Valley, as well.

She’d sworn off humans ever since. Instead, she pulled all-nighter after all-nighter to evade the dreams in which men called to her—and to avoid the university dating scene that inevitably led to frequent and addicting sex.

Mortals. Bleh.

TARYN KINCAID is a multi-published author of sensual romance. Visit her at:

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