Title: The Legend of Arturo King
Series: Legendary Rock Stars #1
Author: L.B. Dunbar
Genre: Adult, Contemporary Romance
Release Date: January 27, 2015



My name is Arturo King, and I’m told I’m a legend in music. My band is called the Nights and we got our start at the underground Round Table in New York City. Raised by a foster father, I didn’t know the extent of my inheritance until I was twenty-one, and it was all more than I bargained for. I wanted to play the guitar and rule the world with song, but I learned I have a mother from old money, a dead father who was once a real estate mogul, and a record company that needed some rebuilding. Mure Linn, my friend and mentor, has been by my side through it all, teaching me to play, strengthening my lyrics, and guiding me in the music industry. There was one area he couldn’t guide me, though, and that was love. Guinevere DeGrance changed everything for me, I suppose, including the reason I’m here learning the legend of my life without remembering any of it.

The legendary rock star series begins…




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Excerpt

The Legend of Arturo King by L.B.

Dunbar ©
 
I closed in on the last line of the

refrain and turned to look at Lans, signaling the direction of the crowd and

the shift of the song. I had been clutching the microphone on the top of its

stand, both hands wrapped around it, holding firm. I often told myself to think

of the mic as a woman. Caress it in passion or clutch it in lust. It made no

difference as long as this prop seemed an extension of my instrument, my voice.

I released the mic slowly and shifted my own body slightly to angle to the

right toward Lans. Glancing over the crowd, what I told myself would be one final

time before I pulled my head back into the gig on stage, I saw her.
She was a vision in white.

Literally. Her long flowing dress stood out amongst the crowd of dark T-shirts,

darker jeans, and occasional bare skin. Her skin was bare in places as well. Slender

arms hung at her sides, completely exposed. The pull of the dress bodice was up

around her neck in some fashion that also exposed her shoulders, an area that I

found could be very sensitive on a woman. Her shoulders just might redefine

sensual in my brief opinion as I further took her in. The dress fell to the

floor, but I could sense that those hidden legs were long, and the way the

dress hugged the undisclosed portions of her body, I knew she was slender,

sleek, and sumptuous in all the right places. Her hair looked dark, long and

wavy, but the blue glow of the floor lights hinted at some brighter highlights.


I couldn’t make out the color of

her eyes at first, but then she stepped forward under a light as if she were

coming to me. They were lake blue and I felt them pierce my soul. I saw a

sparkle in them as my own locked with hers. She stood still for a moment,

suddenly frozen in my trance. I watched her lick her lips and I felt that lick

in my pants. I didn’t want to look away as a wave of … something … crawled

through my body, but she did.
She turned to her left, but I

couldn’t see who stood there in the shadows. Her head returned forward and she

seemed to be listening to the guitar, taking in the stage, but refusing to look

again in my direction. I felt like I was willing her to notice me instead of

the blank stare she focused above the bands’ heads. I almost turned to see what

could be so interesting behind me. Almost, but I didn’t dare to look away from

her.
She moved after a slight shift

again from her left. She was obviously parting ways from someone near her and

she slowly made her way through the crowded pit floor. As if the audience knew

someone otherworldly was within their presence, the crowd parted slowly as she

approached each person, making a clean-cut line across the wooden floorboards

without another glance in the direction of the stage. Watching her walk sparked

an extra beat in my heart and a throb in my pants. If she was sensual just

crossing the floor, I dared to imagine what she would be like in my bed.
My vision focused solely on her

subtle movement. Silky, I would have described her. She moved slowly, as if she

were a ribbon sliding, slipping, through dark water. The white dress continued

to glow from the dim blue lights, accentuating her slither through the waves of

people. I was only vaguely aware of the guitar riff coming to an end at my left

and I reached blindly for the microphone. This was a move that took no thought

for me. It was as natural as breathing to hold the warm metal. I felt a slight

catch in my throat as the words were climbing to escape my vocal cords. Lans

hit his last note and I held my breath for the pause before a new cord was hit

and the words burst forth.

It was the last look, of last night
In the last moment,
That took my breath and made me see
You might be lost before you found

me.

            You cried my name, as you came,
            I took that pain and
            Made you see, you might be lost,
            But you found me.

            My own words took on new meaning as

I trailed her final motion. This tune had a new emphasis and I knew I was

singing to her like a siren calls a sailor. There was just something about her

presence, even if I felt she was suddenly ignoring me. She seemed to pause as I

poured myself into those lyrics. You found me echoed in my head as I pinned her

with my eyes. She moved her long hair over one shoulder, causing me to suck in

a breath at the full exposure of her alabaster back. From behind, she was

completely revealed; only a slip of cloth at her neck must hold the dress over

those supple breasts I massaged with my eyes moments ago, and even without full

light I knew that toned back held dimples at the base above the low sling of

material that clung to her backside and draped down to the floor.
            I noticed her breathing was slightly

accelerated as her graceful shoulders lifted like a shrug and it certainly

couldn’t be from overexertion crossing the crowded bar floor. She moved as if

she floated. She had not returned my gaze, which I knew she must feel caressing

across her soft skin. It could only mean one thing to my veteran assessment of

women. She wasn’t interested, and that never happened to me. Women were always

interested in me.
I realized suddenly where she

stood. She had paused before a door to the left of the bar. I knew this door.

It was made to blend seamlessly into the wall, looking like heavy olden bricks,

like the surrounding walls. Only the keypad to the right gave away any

semblance of a passageway. A person needed a special access code to pass

through that door into the hall behind.
I watched her press her fingers

deftly across the silver numbers and push the door gently inward into a

darkened passage beyond without a single glance back over those sexy shoulders

in my direction. I had to know who she was as the door closed, cutting off my

view of her. It was almost instantaneous that I knew I wanted her, but this

whole scene could only mean two things were true: she was somehow connected to

Leo DeGrance, and she didn’t want me. And I believed them both. Almost.










I’d like to say I was always a writer. I’d also like to say that I wrote every day of my life since a child. That I took the teaching advice I give my former students because writing every day improves your writing. I’d like to say I have my ten-thousand hours that makes me a proficient writer. But I can’t say any of those things. I did dream of writing the “Great American Novel” until one day a friend said: Why does it have to be great? Why can’t it just be good and tell a story?

As a teenager, I wrote your typical love-angst poetry that did occasionally win me an award and honor me with addressing my senior high school class at our Baccalaureate Mass. I didn’t keep a journal because I was too afraid my mom would find it in the mattress where I kept my copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that I wasn’t allowed to read as a twelve year old.

I can say that books have been my life. I’m a reader. I loved to read the day I discovered “The Three Bears” as a first grader, and ever since then, the written word has been my friend. Books were an escape for me. An adventure to the unknown. A love affair I’d never know. I could be lost for hours in a book.

So why writing now? I had a story to tell. It haunted me from the moment I decided if I just wrote it down it would go away. But it didn’t. Three years after writing the first draft, a sign (yes, I believe in them) told me to fix up that draft and work the process to have it published. That’s what I did. But one story let to another, and another, and another. Then a new idea came into my head and a new storyline was created.

I was accused (that’s the correct word) of having an overactive imagination as a child, as if that was a bad thing. I’ve also been accused of having the personality of a Jack Russell terrier, full of energy, unable to relax, and always one step ahead. What can I say other than I have stories to tell and I think you’ll like them. If you don’t, that’s okay. We all have our book boyfriends. We all have our favorites. Whatever you do, though, take time for yourself and read a book.




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