Skyrockets and firecrackers and sparklers, oh my! A fitting theme for #1lineWed and gollygeewilligers, I actually had two snippets to choose from. One, from Jen and Wiz’s story is way to close to being a spoiler so I pulled this one from the Moonstruck Mafia stories. It started out as a writing exercise at one of my RWA meetings. The assignment was to write about a second date and this is what I came up with. Hope you enjoy.
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Callum exercised his iron-clad control to keep a smile curving his lips as he faced the woman sitting across the table from him. Delilah. Even her name grated on his nerves. They were only an hour into their second date and it was already an exercise in futility.

The woman didn’t know when to shut up. Clothes. Hair. Make-up. Kim and Kanye. Who freaking cared? She didn’t work, lived in an uptown apartment financed by Daddy, who, according to Delilah, was the second coming of Rockefeller.

If he’d been the least bit attracted to her, Cal might put up with her gossip-gabbing mouth. His gaze dropped to glistening red lips. Nope. Negative. The idea of them touching him anywhere—anywhere—triggered cold dread along his spine.

A frisson of awareness skittered across the edges of his perception—something shy, illusive. And totally intriguing. He searched the restaurant looking for the cause. He quit breathing when his gaze collided with that of the woman six tables away.

She was…he didn’t know, couldn’t think for all the fireworks going off in his brain. Mine. She was. And he would claim her. Just as soon as he poured Delilah into a cab and sent her on her way.

Too bad Delilah noticed the direction he was looking.

“What is she doing here?” His lamentable date focused on the woman and sounded like a feral cat as she hissed the question.

“You’d be knowin’ her then?” He asked casually, and very, very carefully, aware that his Irish was coming out. Interesting, that, and something to contemplate later. First he had to deal with the woman sitting across from him He eyed the inch-long crimson nails Delilah displayed. Those could be lethal.

“My sister.” The amount of venom in those words was enough to poison every customer in the place. “The one my parents disowned.”
Even more curious, he studied the other woman. Her dark hair glistened with red and gold highlights and her eyes were a blue that shaded toward gray. Delilah was a brassy blonde with hard blue eyes that reminded him of that weird water in amusement park rides. He could see a few similarities in the shapes of their faces, but the sister’s mouth? Yeah, he could imagine those lips on every part of his body.

“Callum!” Delilah’s voice was whip-sharp. “Go tell her she has to leave.”

“Do what, ya say?” His gaze skimmed over her, his expression tensing.

“I was here first and I won’t be able to eat a bite with that bitch in the room.”

He choked back a laugh. The only bitch in the room was the one sitting across from him. He leaned back in his chair. “You don’t want to share space with her, you know where the door is.”

Delilah’s face drained of color and then suffused with red as her anger surged. She rocketed out of her chair and leaned over the table as her hand snapped out, fingernails leading the way.
*
The man’s movements were almost lazy as he blocked her sister’s blow. The approaching waiter halted, frozen stiff by the expression on his face. Sophie had never seen any man look more ruthless and she’d grown up in a viper pit of alpha males. A part of her brain wondered what her father would do if confronted by that look.

When she’d realized her sister was here, she’d almost turned around to leave but the stubborn streak that kept her chin up in the face of the bullshit that was her family, forced her to stay. Then she’d caught a glimpse of Delilah’s date. By every ounce of femininity she possessed, she was aware of him. In a visceral way that touched all of her. ALL of her. Her skin crackled like someone was tracing sparklers over it and she would swear the skyrockets were bursting across the ceiling above her head.

She didn’t move, hypnotized by the snake-like reaction of her sister’s date. The man brushed away Delilah’s attack and then the maitre ‘d and two burly busboys descended. Sophie slipped out of her seat and all but ran to the ladies room. When she returned, the man occupied her table, looking as cool and controlled as a king cobra.

He rose and held her chair. Hesitating, she felt those sparklers again. She sat before her legs betrayed her. He sat and offered her his hand.

“Callum Fitzpatrick.”
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Writers, any fireworks in your WIPs that you want to share? Readers, are you a fan of fireworks?