Need more stand-alone short reads and novellas?
Check out Abby’s other titles!
Butter Queen
Pumpkin King
Fighting For Dylan (book four in a six-author MMA series!)
Hot Off The Press
The Halloween Bet
The Christmas Pickup
From the Small Town Bachelor Romance series
Take Me Home
Game Face
Written in the Stars
Walk With Me
Stay the Night
Come and Get It
Nephilim’s Captive: A Divine Giants Romance. (Book One of seven in the paranormal romance series Sons of Earth and Heaven.)
Duets
Pumpkin and Spice
Comfort and Joy
***
Marrying Up
Shacking Up
***
Maid for the Billionaire
Made for Marriage
***
Doctor Dave
Officer Max
***
Saved for Me
Matched for Me
***
Off-Season Stud
Midsummer Fling
***
His Vinyl Vixen
Her Hi-Fi Hunk
***
Fencing Her In
Doing Him Good
Need more stand-alone short reads and novellas?
Check out Abby’s other titles!
Butter Queen
Fighting For Dylan (book four in a six-author MMA series!)
Hot Off The Press
The Halloween Bet
The Christmas Pickup
The Greenbridge Academy series
Swim Coach (book one)
Grumpy Dad (book two)
Benefactor (book three)
Headmistress (book four)
Queen Bee (book five)
Bake Sale Queen (book six)
An excerpt from book three…
Chasing the Night
By Abby Knox
Book Three in the Big Easy Shifter series, release date TBA!
Chastity, 8:30 a.m.
The bride’s cousin from Baton Rouge was having a rough morning.
Chastity DuChamps opened one sleep-crusty eye. She shouldn’t have done that. The sunlight streaming through the blinds instantly seared right through her eyeballs and into the back of her skull.
Whenever she visited her cousin Rosemary in New Orleans and slept overnight in one of the many guest rooms overlooking the lake, she always woke with a slight bit of confusion over where she was, at first. But that feeling would dissipate in a few seconds as wakefulness took hold. There was always the lovely four-poster bed, and a huge window seat with lush pillows and blankets. She would often be awakened with the aroma of coffee and fresh beignets made by Aunt Betsy.
This morning was not anything like that.
This little room was not becoming more familiar to her the more she woke up. She peeked around for clues. The only thing 100 percent certain was that she was definitely not in her aunt and uncle’s mansion in the Garden District. This room had a fucking popcorn ceiling, for starters. And these sheets were not Egyptian cotton.
How she got here was another mystery. The only clear memory was she had started the evening at Rosemary’s bachelorette party last night, which had begun at the mansion with a five-course dinner. Having been excited to get the party started as early as possible, Chastity had picked at her food and drunk mass quanitites of champagne. The hours following that were a haze of tipsy, silly giddiness. And then the bar hopping started, at which point things got hazier, more silly and possibly wandered into the territory of downright poor judgment. And what was a bachelorette party without some breathtakingly stupid choices? Chastity was sure there were plenty of other families’ bachelorette parties that were nothing more but tea and cake, but those people were not the kind to celebrate her cousin Rosemary.
Rosemary, like Chastity, was a panther shifter and a constant source of headaches for the DuChamp clan. She liked to do things her own way and not be controlled by her daddy’s money. Judging from Chastity’s current state of not knowing where she was, and feeling like a live jazz band was hoofing it through her skull at full volume, she’d say the party was a roaring success.
Chastity gingerly rolled to one side, stood up and realized she had been asleep in her party dress. She had a pattern of its sequins embedded into the skin of her arms. Those arms were now searing with the pins-and-needles sensation of having been slept on for a very long time. Shaking them awake, she thanked god her legs were working, if a bit wobbly, because she had the urge to pee more than she had ever had in her life. She looked around. There was a door to a small room in the corner. That had better be the bathroom, she thought, because either way she was going to pee in it.
It was indeed a bathroom, and after she had relieved herself, she checked her reflection in the shabby little wall mirror.
This was the one day she was thankful for bad lighting. Never mind that she had obviously skipped her nightly makeup-removal-and-moisturizing routine, because the real story here was the giant hickie peeking out of the neckline of her dress.
She watched her eyes grow huge and fearful in the mirror.
Had she been making out with a giant leech? Because that was the only level of suckage that might possibly have produced such a bruise. No way that was going away before the wedding in two days. Shit. Forget about her own mother killing her; that old lady would have to get in line behind the bride Rosemary and Aunt Betsy.
Focus, Chas. Focus. Where are you? And who were you kissing last night? Chas closed her eyes, and then she sniffed. A man’s scent. All over her. Like, really all over her.
She did not hate this scent, whoever it was. Too bad he wasn’t here so she could interrogate him about this giant hickey.
She stumbled back to the bed to look for her phone. Surely the GPS could tell her where she was and how to get back to the mansion. She could probably enlist some of the other bridesmaids to help her sort her evening out. She really didn’t want to bother Rosemary with any of this.
As she dug through the mess of sheets and blankets, Chas got her biggest clue about the night’s events. There, in the middle of the bed, was a small spot of blood. Her mind raced. Did that really happen? The ache between her legs and her sore thighs gave her the answer. Yes, some serious shit happened, and happened rather enthusiastically, she surmised.
Whoa.
So…not a virgin anymore. On the one hand, mission accomplished. On the other hand…dammit, I missed the whole thing.
Now she was desperate to find her partner in
