Author Override: Colette Gale

Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation…

I’ve always loved Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera. It’s rich, it’s lush, it’s sensual and erotic…but Christine ends up with the wrong guy!

So about five years ago, after watching the play and movie umpteen times, I decided to take matters into my own…er…hands (considering the to-die-for appeal of Gerard Butler in the movie, however, I must admit there were other things I would have liked to take. In hand.).

It was obvious to me, and to pretty much every other woman I’ve talked to, that the passion, the attachment, the sex between Christine and Erik (the Phantom) is beyond belief–and how she could throw it away just because he has to hide half his face is beyond me!

(Well, okay, he might have accidentally killed a few people…but that was in a different version of the story. Definitely not mine.)

Plus, I couldn’t stop wondering what actually happened during the “Music of the Night” scene. I mean, that bed!–not to mention the way Erik’s hands were all over her body while he was seducing her with song. But, alas, it was a family production (or at least PG-13), so Webber had to close the door on that scene…

…but that didn’t mean I had to leave it shut when I wrote my super-sexy version. Which I did, and the book was released in 2007 as Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of the Phantom of the Opera.

Since then, I’ve “seduced” several classic stories, including The Count of Monte Cristo (published as Master) and the Robin Hood/Maid Marian/Nottingham legend (think Richard Armitage in BBC’s Robin Hood), which was published as Bound by Honor.

I’ve recently been working on a serialized story of Jane’s Erotic Adventures in the Jungle. I’m sure you can’t guess what type of story inspired this project! Currently, there are two short novels available about Jane and her adventures in the Madagascar jungle.

Here’s an excerpt from the first novella of the series, Entwined. This is Jane’s first night in her bedchamber high up in a treehouse. Unbeknownst to her, a lean, muscular man who lives in the jungle has perched on her windowsill…watching.

He was very near the large window, watching the woman with the fire-like hair. She couldn’t see him; he was in the shadows, hidden by thick leaves and vines. Like the big cats, he’d moved noiselessly, making his way from branch to branch to tree to tree until he was just outside the large opening.

If he reached out a finger, he could touch the wall. He sniffed silently, and amid the familiar scents of the jungle—the flowers, the damp soil, the underlying decay of plant and animal, the proximity of a tree monkey—he smelled something new. He smelled her. Musky and sweet and exotic. Something he’d never scented before; but an essence that drew him.

He couldn’t pull his eyes away as she took off her dress—that was another word he’d learned in the books—and saw all of the roundness there. The jouncing and the curves and the smooth, hairless, ivory skin…and a patch of fire between two legs. He wanted to touch that fire.

His heart was pounding and there were other parts of him pounding too. Never. He’d never seen anything he wanted to touch, to smell, to taste so badly.

And he was not the only one who meant to touch the woman. In the darkness, his face turned fierce and he forced back an angry growl. The tall man had tried to touch the woman, to take from her, to mate with him, and she hadn’t wanted him to.

She’d fought with him, but the foul man had his hands on her body, his red, wet mouth, his fingers leaving dark marks on her ivory skin. Her face had been frightened and angry, and the foul man’s expression had been hungry. Deprived.

Now, he gripped the rough bark of the tree. Though the woman had fought and struck at the foul man, the sight of the two bodies writhing and twisting caused his breathing to change and his face to heat. His veins pounded, blood surging through his body. He didn’t want to see the woman hurt, he had to do something…but the images made his insides move. Made them heat and tingle and…want.

And so he helped her. He could mimic the sound of any creature in the jungle, and he chose to growl the most threatening sound he knew: that of a hungry, angry tiger. He smiled to himself in the dark when the foul man had jumped away, stumbling off of the woman, panic and cowardice blazing in his face.

And when the woman closed the door behind him, he knew she was intelligent and strong.

And he wanted even more to touch her.

Unseen and silent, now he watched her for a long time as she lay, uncovered, on her bed, in the soft yellow glow of a flame.

He could tell when she fell asleep, for her breathing changed, her body relaxed. Her head turned to one side, her vibrant, burning hair covering a cheek and curling over her neck and shoulder.

Heart pounding, he slid down to the branch on which her nest rested. His fingers curled over the edge of the wall and he sniffed. Hot sensation rushed through him. Her smell was beautiful, and it made him feel almost the way he did when he breathed the smoke burning from the special negaru plant.

He wanted to bury himself in that delicious, compelling scent, his face and nose close to her skin and in the warmest parts of her curves. He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying his breathing. He couldn’t make a sound or she might waken.

Then, silent as the tiger he’d mimicked earlier, he climbed into the nest. Heart pounding, he stood next to her pallet, in the shadows and looked down.

Such a thing of beauty. He could hardly breathe. The burning hair lay spread all over her pallet and her white shoulders, down over her belly…almost to the second, smaller, shorter patch. Round white globes, tipped with small pink flowerbuds, rose and fell with her easy breaths.

He tightened his fingers into his palm to keep from touching her.

Suddenly, she shifted in her sleep. He stilled, slowing his rough breathing into silence. She gave a soft moan and a sigh, and as she moved, her hand rose and slid to cover the short, burning patch between her legs.

Her foot shifted and her legs opened, showing a large portion of the pallet between them.

He reminded himself to breathe, to draw in air, for his vision seemed to tilt and sway. He couldn’t pull his eyes from her. His body felt hot and engorged and he watched breathlessly as she moved her fingers.

They fluttered between her legs, shifting delicately into the short, burning fur…then they tensed and straightened, and she began to rub herself. It was rhythmic and steady, and it reminded him of the mating movements he’d seen in any number of animals. Her legs shifted helplessly, her head turned from one side to the other and the hair covering her face fell away. Her body arched and relaxed as though she were reaching for something…longing for something.

Her mouth was open and she was making sounds…soft, panting sounds that tugged pleasure deep inside him. Her particular smell grew stronger, more delicious, filling his nostrils and making his clenched fingers tremble. He wanted to taste her…touch his lips to her smooth skin, find the place of that essence and drink.

She moved her other hand, using her fingers to massage the rosy pink tip on one of the soft globes. They moved lightly over the little point, then in small circles around and over it. His keen eyes saw it shudder and tremble when she drew in a deep, long breath.

He noticed the fingers between her legs had become damp and slick, gleaming in the moonlight. Her white hand moved more rapidly and urgently there in the dark shadowy space between and her breathing had become so loud and labored that he might have thought she were in pain if he hadn’t been watching for so long.

This was not pain.

It took every bit of fortitude he had—the same strength that had helped him to kill a feral tiger in a hand-to-paw battle, the same control that had kept him alive when he left the ape family that had raised him from a young child—to keep from touching her.

But he inched closer to the place where she lay, watching from the shadows that would obscure him if she opened her eyes. His fingers loosened, wanting to reach for her, and the blood pulsed through his body—hard and fast and hot. The leather piece he wore to protect his male parts lifted straight out in front as his rod throbbed and shivered.

He was waiting…waiting…but he didn’t know what he was waiting for. She made a sound that sent a renewed shock of heat and sharp pleasure bolting through him, a soft cry of surprise and need, and then all at once, she gave a low gasp and arched up. Her smell exploded even more strongly, and then she was whimpering and shuddering and shivering.

He knew, somehow, that this was what he’d been waiting for. His rod was so hard it was painful, it dripped moisture from the tip, and he knew if he touched it, it, too would explode.

Her hand, glistening and damp, fell away, relaxing open-palmed on her hip. The beautiful, musky smell rolled off her in waves, and now he could see that part of her between her legs…sleek and dark and beckoning.

He wanted there.

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