The winner of the $25.00 gift certificate is posted at the end of this blog!

This is kind of a random blog today. For my own sake, I NEED to do a Report Card so that you can all scold me, and I can get mad at myself and get to work! On the other hand, I’ve been gone so long that I’ve missed making a few little announcements. So read on!

Real quick recap. I wrote 3 pages this last week. 3 FREAKING PAGES. Nuff said? 3 FREAKING pages a week will get you a book in a FREAKING decade. So puh-lease, tell me how lazy I am. Or better yet, how you’re waiting anxiously for the next story. I need to picture your grasping hands reaching through the monitor to wring my neck if I don’t get to work.

So, on to other more interesting things…

I have a newish interview up at Coffee Time Romance. Check it out if you’d like to know a little more about what was in my crazy head when I wrote Darkness Captured! Interview at Coffee Time Romance

Thought you might like a sneak peek at a book that’s coming out in July 2011. I have a short story in this compilation, entitled Hot Out Here.

Twenty-five unashamedly modern romances with a strong erotic element aimed at the women’s market. Twenty-five unashamedly modern short romances which don’t shy away at the bedroom door from the crème de la crème of contemporary romance writers, including Lilith Saintcrow, Louisa Burton, Anna Windsor, Susan Sizemore, Michelle M. Pillow, Rebecca York, Charlotte Stein, Shiloh Walker, Victoria Janssen, Saskia Walker and Cathy Clamp.

This is writing which is more direct, less euphemistic, and frankly accepting of sexuality – fiercely hot stories of flesh and blood and feelings which will entrance and beguile romance readers.

Here’s a little snippet!

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Beads of condensation, glittering jewel-like in the sputtering candlelight, ran in rivulets down the sides of Jason’s ice-cold beer.

Detail I shouldn’t have been able to note, given the fact I wasn’t anywhere near him.

As I lowered my nephew’s toy binoculars, I reflected that I had indeed sunk to a new low. You see, my bedroom window conveniently overlooked Jason and Robert’s fenced backyard. A fact that never registered with the previous tenants, but one that proved too delicious to ignore after the arrival of the handsome duo.

I began a furtive surveillance at once. One that had me cringing in embarrassment each time I greeted them in passing and feeling even more ashamed when we struck up a friendship.

We’d shared meals, drinks, watched football games together on their wide-screen TV. And still, I peeked into their backyard, waiting for those moments when they popped outside to mow it or catch a few summer rays. Their bodies gleamed with sweat while raw lust warred inside me along with the fear that I’d mess up our relationship if I let the guys know how I really felt.

My convenient perch on the windowsill afforded me a window into their private lives, and I was hooked from the very beginning. They’d become an obsession, one frustrated by the fact they treated me like a kid sister rather than a woman one of them might desire.

And therein lay another problem. I’d resisted the urge to seek a deeper relationship because then I’d have to choose. My libido was completely fickle, lusting after Jason’s muscled physique, then sighing over the possibilities of what Robert’s tall, bony frame and large feet hinted at. That their personalities were perfect bookends, fierce and funny, confused my heart as well.

Lucky me, I licked the sweat gathering on my upper lip while this night one of the handsome men living next door tilted his bottle and took several long sips. The look of pure bliss that softened his otherwise stern features made my chest ache.

I watched the movement of Jason’s throat as he worked it down, imagining him sipping at my overheated flesh. My skin began to tingle. My nipples beaded, crowding uncomfortably against my lace bra. My thighs clenched as a delicious wash of arousal seeped to wet the crotch of my plain panties.

The sigh he emitted as he set the bottle on the table was echoed by my own painful groan. Watching either of them had never caused my heart to skip a beat like that hint of a moan sliding on the tail of Jason’s long exhalation.

Sure, it was hotter than hell out there. I too felt the effects of the enervating heat. Record temperatures had strained the region’s resources and planned service interruptions began that night. But something about that sigh felt…un-subtle, exaggerated, maybe even dramatic. And Jason was too straightforward a man for that.

I blotted sweat from my forehead, asking myself again, What am I doing?

Only this time, my peeping hadn’t been deliberate. I’d rushed home from work and showered quickly to beat the brown-out. Then I’d stripped to my underwear, pulled back the curtains, and opened the window, hoping for a breeze to cool my skin. Sitting limply on the sill, I waited for the world to flicker into life again.

That’s when I’d noticed him, sitting in a lounge chair alone in the dark.

He wore his usual work “uniform”—khaki trousers, white shirt and a tie. Tonight, the tie hung loosened and askew, his collar opened beneath it.

I could see it all despite the lack of electricity. Moonlight silvered his dark hair and reflected bright as a beacon against the white shirt. The golden light from the large Citronella candle leant warmth to his skin and the amber bottle he held between his hands.

As always, he was lovely to watch, but tonight his expression drew my attention more than his breath-stealing features. A sullen slanting of his brows, a bit of pout plumping his masculine lips, an edgy energy to his slight movements—he was either irritated or aroused.

Wanting an answer to the “either-or,” I watched. My forte is observation; my people-radar exquisitely tuned to body language and a voice’s tonal cues. My curiosity and my lust were caught. No way could I back away from my window now.

The bottle tapped the table as he set it aside. A long-fingered hand tugged the knot of his tie, dragging it from his neck.

When he began to undo the row of buttons down the front of his shirt, I settled deeper on the sill, leaning closer, but taking care to keep my pale body hidden behind the sheer curtain.

The edges of the shirt parted over a broad, nicely muscled chest. My gaze zeroed in on taut, lean abs dusted with dense fur the same color as his close-cropped black hair that stretched nipple to nipple then ran along a thin dark line to slip beneath his zipper.

His hand stroked his chest, scratching through the hair, the faint crinkling sound causing my own chest to tighten, my nipples to surge.

A light sheen of sweat glimmered on his chest and belly. Again, my tongue swept my lips, tasting salt, and I imagined I lapped the dew right off his skin.

When a lazily roaming hand slid over his belly, I tensed, fascinated as he swept the flat plane. Would he be hard or desk-soft? He looked firm. So, I enjoyed fantasizing that he was and touched my own stomach, following his path.

His hand slid down to the knot bulging behind his fly, and he cupped it. Squeezed.

My own hands itched to replace his and grew still, clenching against the fantasy of holding his burgeoning cock as it roused. My cheeks heated and my breaths shortened. No need to tease my own body into arousal, moisture already soaked my panties.

The buckle opened, and the belt slid sinuously from the loops as he lifted his hips and pulled it free. A flick of his thumb and the button at the waistband of his trousers opened. His zipper rasped as it slid down.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And the winner of the $25.00 gift certificate (from her choice of Amazon.com or B&N) is…Chelsea B! Chelsea, send me an email to let me know what addy you want your prize sent to!