Burn Card by Laura Baumbach

Las Vegas criminalist Cody Baxter struggles to save himself and his kidnapper before Cody’s lover, Gil, finds him — and rescue becomes revenge. 

The locker room of the crime lab smelled like an odd combination of flower-scented body sprays and manly deodorant. Coed, so there were separate showers. It was essentially a room full of rows of metal clothes lockers divided by wooden benches.
  Mid-morning, only a dozen or so officers and criminalists working for the Las Vegas crime lab were in sight, most having just finished an off-hours shift or overtime. This was a place to wind down from a long shift or rev up for a new one. 
  Only three hours into his usual dayshift, Cody Baxter was neither finishing nor preparing for a new day. But he was changing his clothes. He pulled a fresh black T-shirt out of an open locker and tossed it onto the bench behind him. It was identical to the shirt he was wearing except that the one he had on was torn, dirty, and splattered with what looked like dull, dark stains of a faintly deep red substance.
  His locker was directly across from the main entrance to the room. He contemplated going and shutting the door, but he decided it took too much energy. Let the gawkers look.
  Using his open locker door as a partial shield, Cody dropped to the bench, his jeans-clad legs slightly parted, balancing his small, wiry frame in a ready stance. A guy couldn’t work with body fluids, debris, and dead bodies and not get dirty occasionally. While his compact, toned body was nothing to be ashamed of, he preferred to draw as little attention as possible when he occasionally needed to change his shirt. He was a private kind of guy, liking it best when people ignored him and let him do his job. The less attention, the better.
  Lord knows he’d had enough attention this morning to last him for a long while. Even now, a copy of the offending paper lay on the end of the bench, the pages folded back to reveal the smiling candid snapshot of him and media darling Gil Turko. 
  The T-shirt just cleared his head, forcing spikes of dark hair to stick up at all angles. A recently abused muscle spasmed. Breath caught in mid inhalation, Cody waited for the twinges to pass, the lean muscles of his abdomen clenched while his arms were left encased in the soft cotton of the shirt, his movements briefly frozen.
  He flinched, worked his shoulder to loosen it up. “Ah! Damn it.” He let out a long, tired breath. “Whoa. That hurt.” Folding the soiled shirt, he laid it in the bottom of his locker. He jerked only a little when an unexpected hand lightly touched his bruised arm. 
  “Hey, you need to see a medic before we go back out? You’re moving slow, bud.”
Working the shoulder more vigorously, he ignored a fresh stab of pain. Cody shook his head and grunted an unconvincing, “Nah.”
  “You sure? You took down two big guys, Cody. One of them had at least six inches and a hundred pounds on you.” Eric Wren propped a foot on the bench beside Cody and leaned his arm on his knee, a casual stance that had the added benefit of blocking Cody from the view of the busy traffic in the hallway. 

It's Vampire Author Hour at Realms of Love. This week's Realms of Love Author Chat has Jeanne C Stein joining hostess Lizzie T Leaf and YOU Monday September 8 at 9 PM EDT/6 PM PDT. Jeanne C Stein is the author of the wildly successful Anna Strong Chronicles. She's got some exciting news about the series to share with us. Lizzie T Leaf writes humor with heat including the hilarious DEAD Faint and Waking up DEAD. Be sure to register/log in early for this exciting chat.
   
Anna Strong was a tough-as-nails bounty hunter until the night she was attacked by a vampire and changed forever

Since then, Anna has struggled to adapt to her supernatural status while clinging to the vestiges of her humanity. Avery - the sinister vampire who transformed her - is dead, and Anna learns that she’s entitled to his vast fortune. Then a predatory werewolf comes forward, claiming to be Avery’s widow. She demands the entire estate and makes it clear that she and her pack think nothing of killing Anna and those who matter to her to get what’s owed them. Now Anna must protect those she loves from a werewolf out for the two most precious things in the world: blood and money.

We learned this about Jeanne Stein from an interview she did at PopSyndicate.com. Stop by the chat Monday night to learn more.

Who is Jeanne Stein? Jeanne Stein is a woman of a certain age who finds herself in the incredibly wonderful position of starting the career of her dreams at the time of life when most sane people are thinking of retiring. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

How long have you been writing? A very long time. Decades. It’s only been in the last four years that I found my niche. 

What inspired you to write about protagonist Anna Strong? I’ve always been attracted to the vampire genre. It’s sexy, romantic, thrilling, scary. It appeals to the part of us that wants to live forever. It appeals to the part of us that wants to be super strong and super smart and fearless. Anna Strong is all that. And she’s intensely loyal and protective of the ones she loves. It’s very easy to write about a protagonist you admire and I admire Anna greatly.

After a night of passion Deb Stein wakes up to the scent of pine and the discovery her life has changed forever.  Now instead of the glare of paparazzi flashbulbs, she’s in the spotlight as Dovey Divine who takes it off for a roomful of lusting strangers.  Her goal now is revenge on the man who turned her into one of the living dead.

Aaron Lowell’s one night stand left him consumed with guilt in taking his partner to the dark side.  He knows she’s out for blood his blood and he can’t blame her anymore than he can forget her.

It is widely rumored that Lizzie T Leaf is the terrestrial manifestation of a love goddess from a distant planet. She busies herself tantalizing men and entertaining all with her writing of vampires, toy soldiers, cougars and phone sex.