I need opinions on the cover for "Unfinished"!

Chime in via comment -- please give your opinion! Which one is better?

"Unfinished" is finished!

::happy dance::

I just finished the draft for "Unfinished," Lilith and James' story. It's in the hands of my editor now!

Readers can look forward to a very revised version of Legs, plus the new Unfinished eBook, coming out on Amazon within the next 4-6 weeks. Watch here for more!

A sample from "Unfinished Business"

I'm very close to finishing, so here's a sample to keep you interested. Historical fiction with romantic elements, set in Boston in 1912:

Alone now, James looped through the memory of the morning meeting. Lilith's dress had been conservative, a high-necked white cotton Gibson Girl shirt and v-cut jacket made to emphasize broad shoulders Lilith lacked. The gray heather jacket, made of a fine cloth James couldn't afford even if he spent a year's salary, nipped in tight at the waist, her ribs narrowing to a point so simple in diameter that he wondered if he'd even need both hands to close the space. The three-quarters sleeves showed she was a modernite, not afraid to show wrist, and James wondered how free thinking she was in bed.

Her skirt dropped off from under the tight waist, made of a fine white materials that he thought was linen, as it was an off-white color and slightly wrinkled. Three horizontal stripes along the hem of the skirt, perfectly matching the heather tone of her jacket, finished the look. She was a fashion plate, but an odd mixture of old-fashioned Boston style and progressive dress.

The woman was as tiny as he was big. He was close to triple her weight, he assumed, and would just as well be able to eat her entire head as plant a passionate kiss on those poisoned lips. He wondered what she looked like without the armor, or wearing a simple, flowing silk dress. Again, arousal plagued him, and he cursed his lack of undergarments. The morning had been a blur of hangover and plying last night's woman from his bed, and in the rush to do his hair and find a presentable business suit he'd found himself without anything clean. The thick wool of his buttoned suit pants scratched against his hard bulge and he willed thoughts of Lilith Stone away, thinking instead of the night's lecture before him. Dr. David Burnham was in town, talking about Ellis Havelock's findings on the sexual invert and its importance in human development and society.

The erection lingered until he found himself on the edge of an enormous hole in the middle of the road, nearly pitching down a good twenty feet into an open sewer pit. That did the trick. Construction on the Charles River Dam had been ongoing for months now, and his bosses bemoaned the interference in the roads, making the commute to the office damn near impossible.

The water table rose and runoff from Beacon Hill flooded some of the lower parts of the Back Bay, leading to flooding. Getting from South Central Station to the common was hard enough. Avoiding these unmanned pits was harder. What wasn't hard, anymore, was the other brain James' body used for the wrong thoughts at the wrong times. He thanked God he hadn't absentmindedly fallen down that enormous hole, for he'd surely have broken a leg. Or worse. Such an ignominious way to harm oneself while being distracted by Lilith Stone.

Note: like that little dig at Seth? Heh.

More from my upcoming prequel to "Legs"

Here's a sample:

Nothing to fear. Nothing to fear. She chanted the words in her mind like an Eastern yogi muttering to himself along a verbal journey to nirvana. Of course, a yogi would not need to ruminate over the silly phrase. He would simply be enlightened.

Lilith held no illusions of her own enlightenment when it came to this strange fluid.

She was frightened. No chant would cure it.

Perhaps Dr. David Burnham could.

His office was as peculiar as his receptionist. Both were large, dark, and shabby. While Burnham seemed to have taste – the oak-lined walls in the reception area and New Hampshire granite floors attested to that – the anteroom was a man's room, decorated by and for men. An oddity for a doctor who treated women for the most part.

“Who is your decorator?” Lilith asked the receptionist, using a finely-honed, clipped voice. Leaving people no choice but to answer an authoritative question had served her well for years. She didn't really care about the answer. How the subject replied, though, revealed everything she needed to know.

Silence. Her face was bent down over a manuscript. Thick black waves of hair streaked with the occasional craggy grey, like broken guitar strings, were twisted into a knot at the base of her head. Tea-stained cotton covered the woman in a tent-like dress, her bosom rising over a misplaced drop waist. The effect made her appear to have stuffed a pillow in a bra the size of a saddlebag.

Tipping her face up slowly, the receptionist's sharp eyes belied her mollasses demeanor. Raven black, pupils blending into the iris like spilled ink. An angry scar from right nostril to ear, covered with a sad attempt at pancake powder.

“I wouldn't know. The doctor has kept his office as such since I began working here, Miss.” Gravel mixed with sand came forth in her voice, the words infused with an Irish lilt. Lilith wondered who gave her that scar.

And then the receptionist stood, towering a good foot over Lilith. “Excuse me while I attend to a pressing concern,” she said. Limping away, the woman's gait appeared to cause her great pain. Lilith snatched a glance at the desk. A small placard read “Mary Murphy,” a name you could shout in south Boston and hear fifty women cry “aye!” on any given day.

And concern she held for Mary dissolved when Dr. Burnham stepped through a door that was built into a wall panel. He seemed to materialize from nowhere, a spirit at a séance.

“Miss Stone? Do come in. I apoligize for my tardiness.”

She glanced at the clock. He was two minutes late.

“If two minutes is tardy, Dr. Burnham, then you are as exacting a physician as I would wish to see. You inspire confidence.”

“I seek only to find answers, Miss Stone. The rest is a byproduct.”

An arched eyebrow was her reply.

She had come to the right place.

Nothing to fear, indeed.

Sample from "Unfinished Business," the prequel to Legs

It's #SampleSunday on Twitter, and that means serving up some fun for readers. I'm working furiously on Legs' prequel, whose working title is Unfinished Business:

Lilith Stone never expected to be staring into her father's eyes when she lost her virginity.

But she was quite pleased. At first.

The early autumn evening was the perfect setting for John Alastair Stone's annual Beacon Hill event, the party that would fuel the society pages of newspapers within one hundred miles for weeks to come. Though Stone now lived in Toronto with his wife, Anna, and daughters, Lilith and Julia, he'd been born, raised, and machine-honed by the Mayflower pedrigreed family that had lived on Beacon Hill for generations.

The Harvard-Boston Aero Meet was the topic of choice, as most of the party's guests had attended the airplane show. President Taft had been in town, and John Stone had met with him, a fact he worked into every handshake, each conversation, and any offhand comment he could. Former Mayor Fitzgerald monopolized as much of Stone's attention as possible, discussing a business venture with the billionaire. Lilith gratefully took the opportunity, out from under her father's surveillance, to achieve her goal.

That night, Lilith positioned herself with Jack Reed, her father's new lawyer, and flirted until he knew exactly how to get her.

And then she let herself be caught.

The gardens were lush with ripe, turned Japanese maples and oak trees pregnant and laboring to drop their gold, pumpkin and adobe leaves on the New Hampshire granite stone floor. A bundle of mature hostas under a small maple tree provided ample ground cover and shade for Lilith and Jack.

“Are you sure?” he murmured into her lips, his mouth a buffet of red wine and garlic.

“Of course,” she purred, irritated by the question. She was done with her maidenhead, ready to discard it like a broken pen or an old, torn towel. It did her no good, and at twenty-eight was a nasty reminder that she'd held onto her virginity for all the wrong reasons. In the beginning she was a good girl and stayed pure because her mother insisted. After a few years, though, she found that remaining a virgin was easy; finding a man worth sleeping with was the hard part.

No man met her standards.

And now her hymen was a niggling bother, something that she'd likely lost years ago riding horses at Daddy's country estate, but whether the actual membrane was intact did not matter to Lilith. The symbolism was critical.

She needed to free herself from the straightjacket of her untouched vagina.

Jack seemed nice enough. A social-climbing lawyer, she knew he'd view this as a conquest but would, if need be, remain discreet. She also knew that she would not be discreet, and that she could trigger her father's temper with one careful whisper hissed within hearing distance of the worst Boston gossips.

Having a twenty-eight year old, unmarried daughter was a source of great embarrassment to John Stone. Knowing she'd given herself up to a lawyer, a near servant in her father's eyes, would be unforgiveable.

Lilith smiled through another sloppy kiss. Jack took it as encouragement and a slow hand slid up her ribcage, searching for a breast. His other hand slid up her leg, past the garter clasp and under her panty line to find her already wet.

He groaned and she threw herself into the kiss, less from passion and more as an object lesson. This is how you kiss someone when you make love. This is how it feels when his hand caresses your inner thigh. This is how it feels when he places your hand on his clothed bulge. This is how you grasp an erect –

And then he was in her. Her thoughts stopped as she hitched, her maidenhead suddenly reporting in, nerve endings screaming as something deep inside her tore. The pain brought tears to her eyes. Lilith hadn't cried in years, but this was a keening pain.

So slight and light, like a bird, that he could hold her against the tiny tree trunk and enter her, then withdraw slowly, then enter again, Lilith's body tensed under his command. Which wasn't much of a mastery, really, but more the practiced hand of a man used to drunken encounters at parties. He seemed to know what he was doing, though her panties chafed against the joint of her groin and now his grunts quickened. She knew, from reading and talking with female friends, that he'd be done soon.

And then her father's voice boomed into the open air above their heads.

Now she began to enjoy herself.

“What a lovely night for a party, Fitzgerald.” A voice replied, its tone accented with an Irish lilt, but Lilith couldn't make out the words.

“What's the return on investment, then?” her father asked, his voice conspiratorial and cunning.

He paused, then his tone changed, a smile coming through his words as the sound of his voice pitched downward. “And, apparently, young love is in bloom, even in this late autumn!” They were caught.

His baritone laugh carried through the garden and Jack froze, deep inside Lilith, holding one hip in his hand, helping to widen her.

She pulled back and Jack's face made her laugh, his features a mask of horror, a guttural, yet silent, scream trying to come out. If her father, the richest man in Toronto and one of the richest in Boston, learned he'd slept with his daughter, not only would Jack lose his job, he'd likely be blackballed forever.

“Lilith!” he hissed.

“Kiss me,” she said, shifting her head to the right, the light from a gas lap on the upper balcony spilling over her forehead and eyes.

Jack stayed still.

Lilith looked up, her head bent back, and met her father's eyes.

She wiped the smile off his face. Saw red coals of anger ignite in his eyes. Watched him whip around and stomp off the balcony.

Regret flooded her veins just as instantly as the triumph had flushed through them.

Jack pulled out of her and began tucking himself back into his pants. “Your father! He heard us. What was I thinking? What were you thinking? I was drunk. You, you...tricked me!” Jack hastily made up his clothing, buttons half done and jacket askew. He wouldn't meet her eyes and she hardened.

“How did I trick you? Did I cast a spell and force you to place your penis inside my vagina?” She arched one eyebrow and now viewed him with disdain. For all she'd thought she would feel about losing her virginity, she'd not expected to find the man she'd slept with to be so mousy.