Shock Waves. Colleen Collins

      

      Wicked, wicked thoughts raced through his mind.

      Bill stared at Ellie, trying not to think how drop-dead sexy that fishnet cover thing was over her red bikini. Very teasing. Very exciting. She was all grown-up and hot and sexy in that get-up. Enough to make a man howl at the moon.

      “What’re you thinking about?” she asked.

      With another woman, that question would have stopped him cold. But with Ellie…well, it was different. He was tempted to detail his lusty thoughts to see if she was as keen to get busy as he was.

      “Something about you, Ellie,” he said instead.

      The heat from the sun poured down on them. But it had nothing on the sizzle between them. Her expression encouraged him, told him to go for it, to seduce her into indulging in the kind of no-regrets wickedness dominating his mind.

      With that kind of invitation, who was he to refuse?

       COLLEEN COLLINS

      Deep into the writing, while Colleen Collins was weaving threads of glam-rock and glam-goth into the story, she heard in an old Lou Reed song the name of someone she once knew – Jackie in “Walk on the Wild Side.” Jackie Curtis had been her neighbour back in Hollywood, and they used to talk about life and writing and what they wanted to be someday. He was so low-key and easygoing and funny, she had no idea he’d been one of Andy Warhol’s superstars until someone told her. And she didn’t know he was in “Walk on the Wild Side” until she wrote this book. A tip of the hat to you, Jackie, all these years later.

      Dear Reader,

      I had a challenge with this book – to develop a glam-goth character who’s made over into a Malibu beach babe. The latter I understood, having grown up in sunny Southern California and spent time frolicking on its beaches. It was a summer ritual during high school for a bunch of us to rent beach houses (with a few brave-hearted teachers as chaperones) and “hang” in bikinis for a week of flirting, swimming and catching some rays.

      But glam-goth? I was clueless. I did research on YouTube watching Marilyn Manson and Siouxsie Sioux videos, watched an entire series on Lou Reed, read up on glam-goth makeup and clothes, but it all felt too remote, too distant. Then I found GiGi-D L’Amour, a glam-goth diva extraordinaire, artist and disc jockey who took me under her gothic wing and patiently answered my many questions. Thank you, GiGi!

      Also, big thank-yous to two of my favourite authors and good friends, Dawn Atkins and Cindi Myers. Dawn and Cindi are not only talented, but fun to work with! A big thank-you to my editor, Wanda Ottewell, whose guidance and good humour always keep me on track, and to Shaun Kaufman, who diligently read all six story drafts – including the wrong one I gave him accidentally.

      So get ready to read about a glam-goth chick in a beach-babe world as she not only experiences a few shock waves, but starts a few of her own…

      Happy reading!

       Colleen Collins

      PS Check out my upcoming books at www. colleencollins.net.

      SHOCK WAVES

      BY

      COLLEEN COLLINS

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To GiGi-D L’Amour, who graciously shared her glam-goth world so I could better develop Shock Waves’ heroine, Ellie. Any inaccuracies are the author’s, not GiGi’s.

      1

      COME JOIN the hot, hot, hot Sin on the Beach festival! That’s right, beach babes and beach dudes, we’re talking hot games, hot competitions, hot bodies to help us kick off the second-season launch of the hottest TV show this season!

      Twenty-nine-year-old Ellie Rockwell—glam goth girl, coffee shop owner and serious Lou Reed fan—read the announcement on the kiosk again, certain she was suffering from heatstroke. Or having a heart attack. Or both. Hardly what a woman on her first vacation in five years should be having.

      “Sin on the Beach,” she murmured, glancing over at the people setting up booths and tents along this stretch of Malibu Beach. It was one thing to read about this festival at her coffee shop, Dark Gothic Roast, located twenty miles inland in fast-paced, hyperstressed Los Angeles, quite another to be standing on the very sand where the TV show was filmed.

      Everybody and anybody knew better than to call Ellie on Thursday nights between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. when Sin on the Beach aired. She got teased a lot for loving this show, as though goths were narrow-minded enough not to like anything that wasn’t black and morbid and reeking of Edgar Allan Poe. Okay, she could do without all the sunshine and tanned bodies on the show, but she dug the buffed actors in Speedos. Especially when they starred in the occasional mystery story line full of shadows and danger. Plus, the night scenes were to die for—moonlight gilding the water, the ocean spilling its secrets and the occasional body onto the shore, the rhythmic tumble of distant, dark waves.

      She continued reading. The festival promised games such as Truth or Bare and Hot Shot Photo Scavenger Hunt, surfing competitions, limbo contests, something called Good Vibrations. Even nearby bars were getting into the festival mood by holding karaoke sin-alongs, and…

      Her heart stilled.

      What was this?

      She leaned forward, clutching her black silk top while reading the fine print at the bottom of the poster.

      Hey, you! Want to be an extra on Sin on the Beach and earn beaucoup festival points doing so? Then come to the open audition the first morning of the festival! If you’re 18-30, act wicked, dress cool and have a rockin’bod, meet here on Tuesday, August 15, 7:00 a.m. sharp. Be hot, be sinful, be ready!

      For a wild, giddy moment, Ellie imagined herself as an extra on Sin on the Beach, looking killer in a black bikini, cavorting in the waves, maybe being the one who found the dead body in a mystery plot and getting to rip loose a bloodcurdling scream. How groovy would that be?

      She scanned the ad again. Wicked, dress cool and have a rockin’ bod…

      Her short black hair was wickedly spiked, but she seriously doubted that’s the kind of wicked they had in mind. Dress cool? Unless they were into the Mistress of the Dark look, she doubted they’d use that word for her wardrobe, most of it custom-designed by yours truly. Although, lifting everything from cappuccino machines to bags of coffee beans kept her in shape, so humility aside, she could probably pull off the rockin’ body.

      Wicked. Cool. Rockin’.

      She blew out a sigh.

      One out of three wouldn’t cut it.

      Just as well. She expected to hear any day that her business loan had been approved, which meant starting next week she’d begin the expansion of Dark Gothic Roast into the remodeled former warehouse in East L.A. The space was so large, she’d decided to try selling her clothes designs in one of the commercial spaces while overseeing the rental of the others. The enormity of her plans excited and scared the crap out of her. Rather than fret and worry until she got the news, she’d opted to adopt the pragmatic “what happens, happens” attitude.

      Until then, she’d chill, do her caretaking thing. Which meant she needed to ensure her brother, Matt, crossed paths as often as possible with her friend Candy and encourage her other friend Sara to occasionally pry herself off her laptop.

      Speaking of which, time to call the mother ship and see how things were going. She flipped open her cell phone and punched in the speed-dial for Sara.

      “Hello?”

      “It’s El. Expecting it was your uncle calling again, hmm? Everything