*From Shelly Laurenston's August 2013 Newsletter
Back Cover Copy: Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life’s irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad’s untimely and unexplained demise.
That’s where Vic Barinov comes in—or his house does. Vic can’t step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he’ll have to woo her at high speed: all hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge…
EXCERPT: (Unedited/Unproofed)
BITE ME
Coming From Brava
April 2014
As always, Livy’s plans did not turn out as she’d hoped. Although she’d planned to be back in Manhattan the night of her father’s funeral or, at the very least, early morning after, she’d ended up staying another full day in Washington. Although she’d helped her mother contact the many life insurance companies so that she could lay claim to Damon’s money only because it meant her mother most likely wouldn’t bother Livy for the next few…years.
Her mother often forgot how annoying she found Livy until she had to spend some “quality” time with her only child. Then all those memories came flooding back and Livy didn’t have to worry about seeing her mother—or putting up with her—for ages.
And despite Livy’s suggestions that she leave, Toni insisted on staying. Which, in the end, was good. Because the woman knew how to get people through an airport as quickly as possible.
“Sit here,” Toni said, pushing Livy down by her shoulders so that she sat on the one piece of luggage she’d brought with her. “I’ll get a taxi and we’ll be out of here.”
Toni went off and Livy rested her elbow on her knee, her chin on her fist, and gazed off across the busy streets surrounding JFK Airport. As she waited, obscenely long legs and massive bodies began to march by her.
She didn’t move or anything, but she did notice the squealing girls and the crowd of people following the full-human males walking by. It was around that time she heard a low male voice bark, “I am not a football player. Now get out of my face.”
For the first time in days, Livy smiled. She couldn’t help it. What exactly did the man expect? He was seven feet and two inches tall. Nearly four hundred pounds. And even with that handsome face, wickedly sharp cheekbones, and dark brown and gold hair that hung in ragged layers almost to his shoulders—he was terrifying looking. Of course people thought he was on a national sports team. Their other option was murdering serial killer from a “Friday the 13th” movie.
Livy waited until Vic was a few steps from her before asking, “Hey, mister. Can I have your autograph?”
Snarling, Vic replied, “I am not a—Livy?” Vic stopped right in front of her, gazed at her. “What are you doing?”
“Selling my ass on the streets for a few bucks.”
“Times that tough?”
Thankfully, Vic had learned how to deal with what very few called Livy’s sense of “humor” not long after they’d met. Which was good because Livy really didn’t know how to not ask people strange, disorienting questions. As an artist, she found their confusion fascinating.
“Tough enough,” she replied. “Hi, Shen.”
“Hey, Livy. Like your hair.”
Livy smirked at Shen’s running joke. As a honey badger, she had black hair with the white streak off to the side while Shen, as a giant panda, had white hair with big swipes of black through it. He was also munching on that damn bamboo crap. With his fangs, he was clearly a predator. But for whatever reason, although they had the digestive system of carnivores, giant pandas ate bamboo. The problem was that pandas needed a lot of bamboo in order to survive. A lot. So every time Livy saw the man…he was eating.
Still, it was fun to watch him hang around poor Vic Barinov. The hybrid didn’t know what to do with the sweet, but sometimes chatty, six-foot panda who was nearly as wide as he was tall. Something else Livy and Shen had in common. Massive shoulders on relatively smaller human bodies than most shifters were used to. Oh. And they were both Asian. Well, as Jake liked to say, “Livy is half Asian, half Polish and allllll honey badger!”
Livy, however, had much less in common with Vic, but they’d worked together once when helping Toni rescue her baby brother from Delilah’s cult.
“Before we go any further,” Vic said to Livy, “my house?”
“What about it?”
Vic raised an eyebrow.
Livy rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been back since the last time you threw me out.”
“I didn’t throw you out. I asked you nicely to leave so I could call the contractor to fix all the holes you’d put into it.”
“I had to get inside, didn’t I?”
“But you have your own place.”
“I ran out of honey.”
“So you came all the way out to Westchester for honey?”
“You have really good honey.”
Vic blew out a breath. “Just tell me if I’ll be facing holes when I get home.”
“No holes.”
“Do I have any honey left?”
“Yes. You have honey left.”
“I don’t know why I’m getting the tone. You’re the one who keeps eating all my honey.”
Livy smirked. “When you have rum-infused honey in your cabinets—you’re asking for it.”
That made Vic smile, something he didn’t do very often. Then again…neither did she.
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