Now that you’re good and soaked, steeping in the excerpts we’re raining on you this month, let me share yet ANOTHER EXCERPT.  (Let’s see how many raining metaphors I can stuff into one paragraph, shall we?)

Here’s the last one from Bonnie Edwards single author anthology, Thigh High (Aphrodisia, 1 Feb 08).

I think this one has my favorite title of any short story I’ve ever read….

Thigh High: Twinkle Twinkle Little Thong by Bonnie Edwards

DM’s voice rolled over her, whiskey smooth, pebble rough. With the deft hand of a master, he took her into the realm of the sensual. Throaty and hot, the distinctive sound rolled like rumbling skies around the master cabin. The poetry he read of love, loss and betrayal followed paths he created along her searing need, until she found her most needful flesh and with a lover’s touch, tipped herself over the edge toward release.

Fingers slid through slick tender flesh, moist and plump. Around. Around. Trickles of need whispered to her womb deep and empty.

Her whole life was empty these days. But she couldn’t think of that, not when release beckoned. Her breath slowed, deepened as her lungs reached for air. Her heart thumped, pulse beats rose as sensation took over again, thought drowned.

His voice came back seductive and deep and pulled her again into the quiet of rising expectation. She closed her eyes as his voice entered her, hot against her heart. The remembered weight of a chest pressed to hers, of thighs pushing with power between her own, flesh sliding into flesh, pulling along nerve endings so taut they screamed. His voice in her ear, strong, sexy and low, carrying her along. Taking, stroking her neck, her chest, nipples and down with slow strokes of his tongue.

With two fingers inside, she rolled her precious pearl of nerves with her other hand until she crested, weak and small.

Music rose all around, sweeping through her as the last pulses ebbed. It was enough. It had to be.

She wasn’t about bar prowls for sex and she couldn’t have a relationship. Not now, maybe not ever again.

Rolling to her side, she listened to the song he played for her, just for her, full of pain and loss. When it was over, she threw back the covers and went to wash her hands. . . .

Francesca Volpe couldn’t remember squat about numbers. Never could. So she wrote important ones down until they stuck in her memory. Sooner or later, she’d remember the combination of this safe. But sooner wasn’t now, so she yanked at the piece of paper in her shorts pocket and flattened it out on the wall in front of her while she dialed the combination.

Finally, the safe door clicked open.

Blown away by the fact that she even had to use a safe, she dug way into the back. Fiona’s thong was in here somewhere.

Cold, hard diamonds against warm, soft velvet filled her hand and she lifted the scrap of material gently. Fiona should have kept the thong in the designer’s box, but no; her sister had decided the rich didn’t give a rat’s ass about their possessions so she didn’t have to either.

The thong caught on a corner of a thick manila file. Anxious not to tear the velvet, she set it down, then pulled everything that could possibly be in the way, out of the safe.

She took out a fireproof box that contained so many important papers her head swam. It held her sister’s will, her sister’s house deed, her sister’s insurance policy. Next came file folders, then a copy of her parents’ will. Everything came out, even the ownership papers for the yacht.

A yacht for cripes sake.

Frankie Volpe was standing in the saloon of a yacht with four staterooms. Up to her armpit in a wall safe and she still couldn’t believe it. Go figure!

And since when was a living room called a saloon? They belonged in old westerns, not on million dollar floating palaces.

She leaned in tight to the wall and winked at the scruffy brown dog that had all but adopted her. “Hey boy, how you doin?”

He cocked his head and wagged his stubby tail. She’d decided he must’ve had it caught in a door when he was a puppy. It wasn’t cropped exactly, more like he just lost the tip. He was her kind of dog, lost, lonely, a little rough around the edges, but lovable.

“Ah! Got it. Finally.” She pulled out the thong and set it carefully on the coffee table in front of the leather settee. Looked more like a built in sofa to her, but she still had a lot of boating terms to learn.

She considered the thong. Diamonds, glittering and cold, littered the front V of black velvet. She shivered to think of all those sharp edges so close to the joy button. Oh, ugh.

The deep safe had been stuffed full. She took care to set all the papers and files back into the safe in reverse order, to be sure it fit.

When she turned back to talk to Scruffy, all she saw was his stubby tail and wet feet heading top side. He’d snatched the thong off the table and taken off with it!

“Hey! You little pervert! Give me back that thong!”