Torture that hero! Naomi loves it.

Boundless as the Sea is proud to welcome author Naomi Clark to the blog today! She's one of Evernight's own, but she's also branched out in other directions, and this latest offering is a taste of her talent. But we'll let Naomi tell us more...oh, and remember to comment for a chance to win a free copy of this book!

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I love a tortured hero. Ever since I first read Catherine Cookson's The Girl as a teenager and fell in love with Ned Riley, I've been a sucker for them. Ned was a classic – moody, unreadable, but passionate and utterly devoted to Hannah through good and bad. Can any of us really say we don't have a soft spot for the bad boy with the heart of gold?

My Brides of Darkness novellas have let me really dig in and write some bad boy/tortured heroes. It's a world of curses and magic, full of mysterious alpha males and the women they fall for. My newest addition to the series, Bound by Night, features Daghan, a cursed monk seeing redemption, and Adeline, a woman fleeing an arranged marriage and determined to win her freedom. I loved writing them together. In a short story, you maybe can't explore your characters as deeply as you'd like, but I hope I did a good job of showing these two lost souls coming together (occasionally literally as well as figuratively!). I like that Adeline is able to help Daghan start to overcome his dark past and offer him hope for the future. And I like that Daghan is determined to protect Adeline and help her find the freedom she wants.

A good tortured hero, for me, has to be seeking redemption, you see. He has to be able to move past the angst and pain and find love and happiness again. In a short story, it isn't always possible to give a clear-cut happy ending (and actually I like a little ambiguity in my short fiction), but in BOUND BY NIGHT there's the promise of happiness for both Daghan and Adeline. I think he ends the story a little less tortured than he starts it – I think that's what we all want for our brooding bad heroes, right?!

Coming soon. Don't miss any of Evernight's Free Reads!

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What's Night and Chaos all about?

Ryan’s past isn’t just haunting her. It’s trying to kill her.

Ryan McCarthy fled Applied Paranormal Theory and Tactics, her father and her lover six years ago, desperate to build life away from the weird science and supernatural experiments of her childhood. But everything she hoped to escape comes back with a vengeance when she's kidnapped and tortured by a possessed APTT employee out for revenge on the man responsible for his possession: Ryan's father.

Now, reunited with the lover she abandoned, Ryan is forced back into a world of danger and darkness she no longer understands, pursued by enemies with powers she can't fathom. But Ryan's not entirely powerless herself. ; She'll have to use every trick she knows—as well as the mystic gift she hates—to stay ahead of those enemies. And that will be easier said than done.

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A taste...

Van lapsed into silence again. He took up the shower head and began rinsing my hair off, his bare fingers stroking my throat as he did so. I was a little too shell-shocked to protest, or pretend it didn’t feel nice, so I let him, and his caresses became bolder, his fingers sliding down my chest towards the slope of my breasts. “Don’t you ever think of anything else?” I murmured, closing my eyes.

“It’s been a long time, Ryan.”

It had been a long time for me too. And I did want him, God knows I always wanted him. Sex, passion, love, those things had never been problems for us. APTT had been the problem. APTT had been the thing that came between us time and time again.

Once my hair was rinsed clean, he shut off the shower head and pulled the plug. I stepped out of the bath, reaching for the towel hanging over the radiator, but he caught my hand. “Let me?”

Suddenly feeling short of breath and unaccountably shy, I nodded, avoiding his eyes. It had been comforting, him washing my hair, and I needed a little comfort right now. Where was the harm?

He stood behind me and wrapped the towel around me, drawing the soft material gently down my arms and around my torso. His fingers rubbing over my skin, through the barrier of the towel, were unbearable tantalising, sending little waves of excitement through me. I sank back against him with a sigh as he passed the towel over my breasts and down my hips. I could all too easily imagine him doing other things with my body, and given the hard erection pressing at the small of my back, so could he.

When he stroked the towel between my legs, I jumped, a small gasp escaping me. I wriggled against him, not sure if I was trying to break the contact or intensify it. Either way, he held me still, muttering sweet nonsense in my ear as he dropped the towel and moved his fingers in its place.

“Van, please,” I whispered, shuddering as he slid his fingers inside me, stroking me with rough tenderness.

“Please what?” he growled, his breath hot on the curve of my shoulder. He bit my throat lightly and ran his tongue over the spot. “What do you want, Ryan?”

I caught his right hand and squeezed his gloved wrist as I rocked against him, increasing the pressure of his fingers inside me. “Please.” It was all I could say, mindless with pleasure at the feel of his body again. Oh, it had been too long, way too long since a man had held me, touched me, and no man had ever touched me like Van. He slid another finger inside me and my knees buckled, the beginnings of a wild orgasm building inside me.

He twisted his right hand free of my grip and slid it up my stomach to cup one of my breasts. “You like this?” he asked me, pinching my nipple just a little too hard. I swooned again, hot and breathless and only capable of nodding. I liked it far too much. Loved the feel of his hands on me, in me. I was going to burst if he didn’t stop.

But the glove was annoying me. I wanted him as naked as I was, wanted flesh against flesh. Call it a power thing. I caught the edge of the glove and tugged.

“No –” he began, alarm replacing his husky whisper. “Ryan!”

Too late. I whipped the glove off and stared down at his hand. Suddenly all the warmth and arousal in me drained away. I cried out and pulled away from him, my heart leaping around my chest in horror and disbelief.

“Van!” I cried, staring at the gleaming metal I’d uncovered. “What happened to your hand?”

He raised the metal hand and smiled wryly at me. “APTT business.”

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Author bio:

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she's not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once. Find out more at her blog , on Twitter at @naomi_jay, or on Facebook.