2009 EPPIE AWARD FINALIST Mother Earth is one hot, sexy Mama, and in this tribute to nature and the environment, Selena Kitt pays homage to her beauty, her grandeur - and her conservation. Who else could tackle topics like global warming, strip mining, animal endangerment and environmental toxicity, all while making it hot, hot, hot? This anthology includes six sexy and environmentally provocative stories that will rock your world-and arouse and raise more than your environmental awareness. Stories include: The Break, Cry Wolf, Genesis, Law of Conservation, Lightning Doesn't Strike Twice, Paved Paradise and Core Deep. -------- Warnings: This title contains erotic situations, graphic language and sex. -------- EXCERPT: "Luke?" He rolled toward her, pulling the down comforter with him, but didn't answer. He listened to her shrugging off her coat and unzipping her boots in the dark. The wood stove burned low, giving off a little light, but not much. He waited until she came to the bed, sitting on the edge, before he spoke. "It's not safe to cross." He felt more than saw her shrug. "I made it." "Do you have a death wish?" Mia stood, pulling off her shirt and dropping it to the floor. "Probably." Her jeans followed, and she slid under the covers beside him naked. "But it's colder at night--I thought the ice would be a little more frozen." "And no one to save you if you fell through." His hands found her in the dark, touching someone else's flesh for the first time in a year. His fingers sank into the softness of her hip, pulling her belly to belly with him. The silence stretched long and Luke felt the weight of it before she finally spoke. "You know as well as I do the current would take me before anyone could reach me." He pulled her close, wanting to melt the sudden chill. Mia softened against him, letting him hold her. Her skin was cold and he rubbed her to warm it. "I missed you," he admitted. It was always this way, every time he touched her. The constant rat wheel in his head stopped spinning the minute she slid her slender fingers over his chest. "I don't want anything to happen to you." "I'm okay." She touched her forehead to his. Her breath smelled sweet, like carrots. "No you're not." She smiled against his mouth. "I know." Their first kiss in a year--it was like starting kindling under a log, slow to catch at first, but growing brighter the more they fed it. Her lips were soft and warm, but trembling, and she stiffened when he slid his thigh between hers, rolling her on top of him in the darkness. He wanted to keep her--that was his desperate, secret wish, one that he didn't want her to know and tried not to convey in the way he advanced. Luke had long years of practice in approaching a wounded animal. Mia wasn't feral, like most. She was a trapped bird, heart beating fast, wings flittering, hard to keep still long enough to free her. Something in her was always struggling, and he longed to calm her. His strokes were long and light, top to bottom, his hands moving down and over her behind. He sought the hair-tie she used to keep it back, freeing the dark length and letting it spill over him in a silky cascade. It tickled his nose but he didn't move as she softly pressed her mouth to his. It was just a matter of timing. He let her go and she sat up and straddled him, her fingers tracing over his collarbone, down his arms, along his sides, pressing his belly hard as if testing him for solidity, finding his edges and boundaries. The soft clutch of her thighs against his hips and the radiant heat of her sex shifting against his lower belly made him long to grab and take her. It's been too long. Still, he waited, listening for the change in her breath as she rocked against him, shifting her body lower with every wave.