What Happens After Dark by Jasmine Haynes

Happy Halloween!

What Happens After Dark comes out tomorrow, Nov 1, 2011! The second book in my sexy, emotional DeKnight trilogy, the series continues with the characters from Past Midnight, this time giving you Bree Mason’s tale (the accountant). What Happens After Dark is a dark story seething with emotion, about love, sex, life, death, illness, and tragedy. Yeah, yeah, I know the stereotype about accountants, but really, they aren’t all boring!! But they certainly aren’t all nice either!

As with all fiction books, this is make-believe; still, a writer can’t help but put bits and pieces from his or her own experience. That’s what makes every story different despite common themes, because we bring pieces of ourselves into everything we write. In this book, you’ll meet a character named Marbury, an awful man. Here’s where I blended fiction with personal. Marbury is patterned after a boss I had several years ago. The incident I remember most from my brief time working for my personal “Marbury” (who shall remain unnamed) concerned a raise. I felt I deserved one. Don’t we all!? So I practiced what I wanted to say, enumerating all the reasons why I deserved it. I, of course, thought they were all very valid. I was as polite as could be, too, when I sat in the chair opposite him and gave him my prepared speech. Oh my God! He went ballistic. He called me a prostitute and some other horrible names. It was quite traumatic. But despite his blustering, I stuck to my guns. And I did get that raise. I was proud of myself for remaining steady in the face of his tirade. It had an added benefit, too! That experience helped me create Denton Marbury in Bree’s story. I hope you hate him as much as I did, LOL!

Here’s a blurb on What Happens After Dark, A DeKnight Novel, Book 2.

By day she’s a mild-mannered accountant.
After dark, she’s a willing slave to his wildest fantasies.

Bree Mason longs to be a successful career woman, but secrets keep her chained to the past, afraid to take that next step. And at night, her frustrations are released by the domineering Luke Raven, who gives her what she asks for and more in a sensuous game of master and slave…

But to take control of her life, Bree will have to look within and face the demons of her past. Luke knows the ins and outs of Bree’s body, knows what makes her gasp and sigh and beg. But now he’s willing to push their relationship to the limit—to stand by her side in the light of day and take the greatest risk of all…for love.

I’ve given you all an http://www.skullybuzz.com/newsite/books/bookwhathappensafterdark.html of the prologue on my website. But I thought I’d do something different for today, an excerpt featuring the above-mentioned Denton Marbury! You won’t find this anywhere else but on my blog (or in the book itself!).

What Happens After Dark
A DeKnight Novel, Book 2

The outer office consisted of Clarice seated at a very big desk with her computer monitor, keyboard, and phone all within reach, and a host of office machines lining the walls, including a combination printer with scanner, fax, and copier, a color printer for presentations, and of course a coffeemaker and large refrigerator. Denton Marbury was a large man.

The high-speed printer was spitting out documents while Clarice talked on the phone’s headset and tapped on the keyboard. She’d fashioned her honey blonde hair into a ponytail on the crown of her head. At close to fifty, she seemed a bit old for ponytails, but she’d once confided to Bree that a tight ponytail was cheaper for stretching out the wrinkles than cosmetic surgery. And it seemed to work for her.

She held up a finger to keep Bree for a moment, her polish the most amazing neon orange that actually seemed to glow. Marbury was closeted in his office. Whenever Bree had an appointment with him, he always made her wait, sometimes only a few minutes, but always long enough to show his superiority.

But with his office door closed, escape might very well be hers. Bree merely waggled the manila envelope of documents, mouthed “I’ll leave them,” then slid the package onto the edge of Clarice’s desk.

She almost made it out the door.

“Bree.” The deafening voice raised her hackles. Even when Denton Marbury was trying to whisper, he boomed. The sound matched his body. He was six-foot-three and wide like an ex-football player who’d stopped pumping iron long ago. Because he was tall, she didn’t think of him as fat; she wasn’t even sure he was, there was just so much meat to him. He wore a light brown shirt, brown tie, and brown pants, and all the unrelenting brown seemed to amplify the bulge of his belly.

Okay, if she had an appointment, he kept her waiting. But if she was trying to sneak in, he had some unnatural radar to catch her. He always had to get his pound of flesh, so to speak. “Mr. Marbury, I have to run. Erin needs me right back.”

“Why, I just talked to Erin and she said your father’s ill and you’re working half days.” He smiled. He had the square jaw, fleshy lips, and perpetual five o’clock shadow of the Fred Flintstone cartoon character. He held up his watch. “My understanding was you were on your way home.” He didn’t offer sympathy or condolences. Not that she’d have known what to say if he had.

She certainly shouldn’t have lied, though. She shouldn’t have offered an excuse at all. But he always made her feel as if she owed him something. “I have to run another errand for Erin, then I’m on my way home.”

“What do you have to do for her?”

Most people would never even ask the question. If you were making an excuse, they’d let you get away with it. Because really, what skin off their nose was it? It wasn’t his business anyway. But Denton Marbury always pushed her. He was a total asshole, and if she wasn’t so pathetic, she’d tell him so.

“Denton, Roger says he needs to talk to you.”

Marbury didn’t bother to glance at Clarice as he snapped out, “Tell him I’m busy.”

Clarice was silent a beat, then clucked her tongue. “He heard that, and he says that if you’re too busy to talk to him, he’s too busy to write you a check.”

Bree wondered why she couldn’t think of something pithy and brilliant like that to tell him when he was bullying her.

Marbury growled. “Fine. I’ll be there in a second.” Then he turned back to Bree. “We need to schedule a time to go over the documents.”

Bree wanted to say that they were self-explanatory. At least for anyone who knew accounting and did DKG’s taxes, but with certain people, it was just better to avoid confrontations. “Fine,” she told him. “I’ll look at my calendar when I get to work tomorrow.”

“Be sure to call me,” he said. Not okay, give me a call when it’s convenient or that’ll be good. No, he had to say it like she was a bimbo who would forget or simply ignore him.

Wouldn’t she just love to ignore him. “I will.” But gosh, with all the stress she was under, she was sure she’d promptly forget.

Behind him, Clarice shooed her away with a get-while-the-getting’s-good hand gesture. Bree was well aware that Clarice had come to the rescue with that phone call.

Leaving, she felt like a frightened mouse scurrying away from the cat with the huge claws. She didn’t know why she let Denton Marbury intimidate her. He wasn’t even that smart or great at tax work. She’d had to call him lots of times about errors she found in the tax forms when she reviewed them. He always managed to make it sound as if her work papers were at fault. Not. But she could never tell Erin. She didn’t want to be caught in the middle. Besides, it was humiliating to have to ask Erin to fight her battles.

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I hope you enjoyed this little excerpt of What Happens After Dark. Next week I’ll be returning to give you Chapter 9 of Beauty or the Bitch. So be sure to come back!

Here’s a complete list of The DeKnight Novels in order:

Past Midnight
May 2011

What Happens After Dark
Nov 2011

The Principal's Office
February 2012