Inspire (The Muse) - Softcover

Carmack, Cora

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0988393522 ISBN 13: 9780988393523

Publisher: Cora Carmack, 2014

Synopsis

Kalliope lives with one purpose. To inspire. As an immortal muse, she doesn’t have any other choice. It’s part of how she was made. Musicians, artists, actors—they use her to advance their art, and she uses them to survive. She moves from one artist to the next, never staying long enough to get attached. But all she wants is a different life— a normal one. She’s spent thousands of years living lie after lie, and now she’s ready for something real. Sweet, sexy, and steady, Wilder Bell feels more real than anything else in her long existence. And most importantly... he’s not an artist. He doesn’t want her for her ability. But she can’t turn off the way she influences people, not even to save a man she might love. Because in small doses, she can help make something beautiful, but her ability has just as much capacity to destroy as it does to create. The longer she stays, the more obsessed Wilder will become. It’s happened before, and it never turns out well for the mortal. Her presence may inspire genius. But it breeds madness, too.

About this title

From the Author:

Inspire, for me, combines all the best things I love about writing contemporary romance with the freedom and creativity of writing fantasy. In places, it reads just like a normal romance. At other times, there are huge other-worldly twists. But at it's core, it's still just a story about two people falling in love and trying to find a way to be together against what feels like impossible odds. 
Enjoy this sneak peek: After a few turns, he pulls up in front of a simple duplex. It's boxy and gray and not anything special, but I'm suddenly overwhelmed with curiosity for what I might find inside. He pops open his door and turns off the car. 

"Hold on a sec." 

His door slams shut, and I watch him jog around the front of the hood. He pulls my door open and then his eyes dart down to the floorboard. 

"How are your feet?" 

I swallow and shrug. "They're fine." 

He gives me that already familiar expression of doubt, and I laugh. "Why do you bother asking me questions if you're not going to believe what I say?"

"Because maybe one time you'll slip up and tell me the truth." 

"My feet are fine, and I'm not drunk." I slide out of the car to prove my statement, but I know it's a mistake the second my sore feet hit concrete. I try to hide my wince, but it's not exactly something one controls with conscious thought, so instead my face ends up doing this weird twitch thing, and he gives me a knowing smile that makes me want to punch him. Or kiss him. 

Maybe a little of both. 

I keep my chin up and take a few steps past him, enough to push the door closed behind me. I turn, intending to head for his door with whatever dignity I can manage to scrape up. I take two hobbling steps before he's at my side, sweeping me up into his arms. 

Dignity is long gone when I squeak and try to hold onto him with one arm while desperately yanking on the hem of my dress with the other. 

"No one's around but me," he murmurs. The side of my breast is smashed up against his chest, and the vibrations when he speaks move through me, distracting me from my panic. "And I promise not to look." 
I don't even answer him. I haven't the slightest clue what to say. 

Me. At a loss for words. I spent centuries learning how to speak to men, how to capture their interest, how to maneuver in their world, and now I'm undone by this dichotomy of a man and his not quite smile. 

"Hold on to me," He says, and I wrap both arms around his neck in answer. He drops the hand at my back to search for his keys, and I tighten my arms around him, drawing myself closer to his chest. I catch my breath at the sensation, glad for the thickness of his leather jacket that hides the way my breasts have become swollen and tight and gods... this is wrong. So very wrong. But I'm not sorry. 

I hear the jingle of keys, but I don't know how he manages to get the door open because his eyes never leave mine. Our faces are so close together that when he leans forward to push the door open, my lips accidentally brush his jaw. He sucks in a breath and closes his eyes. Stepping over the threshold, he shuts the door behind us, and I don't think. I just act. 

Before he can lower my feet down to the gray carpet below me, I tilt my chin up and touch my mouth to his. His arm returns to my back, his fingers curling around my side, but other than that, he doesn't move. Doesn't kiss me back. 

I press a little harder, willing him to respond because if he doesn't... if I read all of this wrong... that would be the icing on the terrible fucking cake that is this night. 

I pull back, already squirming in an attempt to get him to put me down. 

"I'm sorry. I--"

He drops my legs, but loops that arm around my waist too, keeping me up and against him, my toes still off the floor. I don't look up at him and he says, "Kalli." 

His voice. It's so smooth and warm, and I just want him to keep talking to me. I could forget everything about tonight, ignore it all to listen to his voice. 

"You're really sober?" he asks. 

He must take my scowl as truth enough because as soon as I open my mouth to reply, his lips slam into mine, hot and hard. 

He pulls my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking and nibbling and driving me crazy. I thread my fingers through his hair like I've wanted to do since the first time I saw him. One of his hands slides up my side, grazing the curve of my breast before trailing up to my neck. A thumb runs along my jaw, and he tilts my head back, taking control. 

Passion. 

It comes from a Latin word that means to suffer. And that's what the slick thrust of his tongue against mine is--a suffering so sweet that my head spins. 

His mouth slants over mine, rough and possessive, and all I want is to be closer to him. Slipping a hand beneath the back of his shirt, I follow the slopes and valleys of his muscled back with my fingers. When he drops to my neck, grazing his teeth and then tongue over my pulse, I dig my fingers into his lower back. He groans, and the feel of his hot breath where my neck meets my shoulder pulls goose bumps across my skin. So, of course, I do it again, slipping my hand farther up and then dragging my nails down. 

He says my name, and I say his back. 

"Wilder."

He traces two fingers over my swollen lips and groans. "This mouth has been driving me wild since the first time you smiled at me."

***
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After you read, I hope you'll consider leaving a review. Even if it's only a few sentences. Good or bad, reviews help up visibility for a book and can help other readers decide which books to purchase. Thanks so much for reading! <3 CC  Read more books by Cora Carmack:  The LOSING IT series1- LOSING IT1.5- KEEPING HER (a Losing It novella)2 - FAKING IT3- FINDING IT3.5- SEEKING HER (a Finding It novella) The RUSK UNIVERSITY series1-ALL LINED UP2-ALL BROKE DOWN3-ALL PLAYED OUT The MUSE series (a New Adult fantasy)1- INSPIRE2- INFLICT (coming soon in 2015)

About the Author:

Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She's done a multitude of things in my life--boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. She's a New York Times and USA Today bestseller... and a nerd (mostly the nerd part).

About this edition

• Publisher: Cora Carmack
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0988393522
• ISBN 13: 9780988393523
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 332