BelleBooks: Of Blood and Bone Release Day!

As most of you will already know, I am a huge fan of Courtney Cole's books.

I constantly rave about the Bloodstone Saga!

I'm so happy to share with the world that Courtney's latest book Of Blood and Bone is out today!

As a little boy, Luca Minaldi was told he was a monster. As an adult, he knows it is true.

He lives in Malta, a fairytale-like place filled with sunshine and sea, beauty and secrets. And Luca’s darkest of secrets is the best kept of them all.

Eva Talbot arrives in Malta for the summer to finish up her doctoral dissertation. When she meets Luca, a mysterious and handsome shipping tycoon, there is an instant attraction, a disturbing and beautiful energy that she has never felt before. But she senses the darkness that lives within him. Eva is hired to care for his mother, who suffers from dementia, but it is Luca who Eva will eventually risk everything to save. Her life becomes a swirling chaos of darkness and romance, of secrets and mystery. And the question that emerges will become the most important answer of all.

Can she save Luca from the darkness that plagues him without losing herself? The answer is a matter of life or death.

About Courtney

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds).Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.

Here is a teaser from the book!

“Evangeline,” he says softly, his dark eyes glued to mine. “I’m so sorry about the other night. I wish I could remember. I wish I could take it back.”

“I don’t,” I tell him honestly. “I really don’t.”

He gazes out the window for a scant moment more, seemingly deep in thought, before he crosses the room to me. He kneels in front of me and looks into my eyes. In this moment, he is as vulnerable as I’ve ever seen him, as I’ve ever seen anyone. He’s completely open to me, hiding nothing.

I want so desperately to kiss him.

“I can’t,” I tell his dark eyes, praying that I don’t fall into them. “I want to kiss you right now. But I can’t. You’re my patient. There are ethics…”

Luca shakes his head, his hands on my knees and his gaze upon mine. “You aren’t my doctor, Evangeline. You’re my friend. I’m simply talking to a friend who wants to help me tonight. You’re not licensed to practice medicine in Malta, remember? So where does that leave your ethics?”

He smiles wolfishly and waits without moving. He’s offering himself to me. I know that. And it is against his better judgment. He has told me that, as well. Yet here he is, on his knees in front of me.

I suck in a breath and inhale the air that is so charged with everything that Luca is.

Whatever that is.

It is dangerous on many levels. I know that.

I reach out unsure fingers and trace the top of his shoulders, moving over the contours. They are so broad, yet so slender at once. He’s perfectly built. Strong, lithe and powerful. I drop my head. I know that I don’t want to resist him anymore. For the first time in my life, I’m going to do something that my heart wants to do, not what my head tells me to do.

I grip him tighter with my fingers and pull him to me. He folds in between my knees, pressing me to his chest. I can hear his heart thumping rhythmically against mine as my fingers linger on his warm back.

He dips his head and presses his forehead to mine, staring into my eyes. His are a smoldering and stormy black.

“I’m afraid to get close to you,” he tells me. “I’m afraid for you.”

“I’m not,” I whisper. “I’m not afraid of you. Kiss me, Luca.”

Even I can hear the thick desire in my voice and Luca hears it too.

He groans and covers my mouth with his own, muffling the sound with my lips. He is pressed so close that he seems to absorb me. Every plane of his body is against every plane of mine. I don’t know where he stops and where I start, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is him and me and this.