Carnaval

By Tula Neal

Carol Edwards is a conservative young woman, determined to do her research on Brazil's main African religion, Candomble, and then get out of the country as quickly as possible. She didn't count on becoming a vessel for the goddess Oxum who leads Carol in an erotic exploration of both Brazilian culture and of her own desires. Carol's research trip becomes an amazing sexual journey of discovery through the music, food and, most of all, the people of that vibrant South American country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moon Mountain Press
• Release date: Nov 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301975259

Book preview

Carnaval

by

Tula Neal

Copyright 2012 Tula Neal

All rights reserved.

Cover photo courtesy of Oleg Gekman & Dreamstime.com

Cover by Joleene Naylor

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re–sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, please consider purchasing another of the author’s books. If you downloaded this book for free from a pirate site, please post a review at a site such as Goodreads to help out a hardworking author.

Chapter One

Carol hugged her satchel to her chest as the car hurtled down a narrow exit off the freeway, entering a neighborhood of neat, concrete houses in pastel colors. The coast was about a half hour behind them now, the high–rises and impressive colonials left behind as they raced through the vanishing night to Sao Pedro. She didn’t want to miss anything. She glanced at her watch for perhaps the tenth time since they’d left her hotel. Sao Pedro was supposed to be two hours away from Rio, they couldn’t have arrived so fast. A squeal of the brakes and they came to a shuddering stop.

"Do not worry, pequenha," the taxi–driver said over his shoulder as he grabbed the spray of anthuriums from the passenger seat and threw himself out the car. "You will be there on time. I’ll be back in un momentinho."

Carol bristled. The dark, muscular man had irritated her from the start. First, he’d been late. She’d been waiting in the lobby of her hotel on Copacabana Beach since four thirty that morning before he showed up, beaming and giving her the once–over just like they were meeting in some bar. Second, he hadn’t even really apologized, just said something about his life being bagunça, whatever the hell that meant. She’d never heard the word before, was pretty sure it wasn’t on her language tapes. And now, third, they hadn’t even made it out of the city proper but here he was stopping someplace. Hadn’t even asked her permission, just drawn up in front of the pink house and gone inside before she’d realized what he was up to. She wondered who the flowers were for and why they couldn’t wait. She supposed he’d bought them from some roadside stall before he picked her up but she hadn’t even noticed them when she’d got in the car.

Carol folded her arms and waited. People got kidnapped nearly every week in Brazil but she wasn’t afraid. The houses glowed pink–gold as the sun rose to claim the day. Small gardens in front of each house flaunted blooms in hot, tropical colors.

Somewhere in the neighborhood, a radio played. A woman’s thin voice floated over an insistent drum beat. Carol was pleased her Portuguese was good enough to follow along. The song told the story of a happily married woman who fell in love with a beach boy, the same age as her only son.

Carol had never heard the tune before but she hummed a few bars, experimentally, as if testing her affinity with the adulteress. She leaned forward until her head rested on the seat in front of her and closed her eyes. Darkness dissolved behind her eyelids. She was not Carol. She was the woman in the song. Older, her skin looser, her belly marked by pregnancy. She lay on a bed in a light–filled room and heard the boy’s quickened breathing as his smooth, lithe body jerked over hers. She watched his face contort and looked into his eyes, dark with need and a gloating sense of his own power over her.

Bite me, she whispered. The boy bent his head to her breast, suckled her nipple, bit down on the hardened flesh.