Yesterday’s winner is Melissa P! Melissa, contact me to arrange delivery of your prize! ~DD

Gotta love male/male romance. The only thing that makes it better is throwing in another m or an f. Sexual tension increases enjoyment, because anything worth having is worth working for. In my PowerUp! series, about psychic ex-government agents now living as civilians, a large group of convoluted personalities mesh and grind…in more ways than one.

I write m/f romance, and I write m/m romance. The woman point of view is easy. I’m a girl. I write men from what I know of them. And I know a lot.

Pause.

That might not sound right. I meant that I’ve spent a lifetime surrounded by men. All my best buds growing up were guys. And my professional life was male-dominated. I was surrounded by men in the Marine Corps, where I spent five years as a communications officer. And then I went to work for a trucking company, managing drivers. Again, heavy on the testosterone side.

Maybe that’s why I like m/m romance so much? I don’t know. But I’m fascinated by strong male characters. Men like Avery Holton and Nathan Kraft, who rub each other the wrong way before they get it right, in Fortune’s Favor Avery was a major in the Marine Corps. Nathan worked for Uncle Sam learning secrets. He’s a touch-telepath, a man gifted with psychometry—the ability to know things by touching an object associated with the person who carried it. These men but heads and generally fight their attraction to one another. But when danger comes calling, they have to rely on each other. I love the whole enemies turned friend dynamic, so I decided to use it with these stubborn men.                       

I loved the characters, and I love the story. I hope you will too. One lucky commenter will receive an electronic download of Fortune’s Favor. Good luck! Contest ends tonight (August 17^th) at 9 pm. Winner announced then.

Nathan Kraft needs more than the life he’s currently living. Once an agent for the Psychic Warfare Program, he’s now reduced to helping civilians get in shape at the PowerUp! gym, where his buddies and he continue to train their minds in secret. He’s always up for some excitement, in the form of a job or a man, but lately he’s getting neither. Then he’s assigned a job, one like he used to do for the government, except this job involves his past.

Avery Holton has butted heads with Nathan since they first met a year ago when he joined the staff of the PowerUp! gym. Nathan gets impressions from touching objects. Avery sees the future. Nathan is fun, loves men, and craves adventure like a drug. Avery likes discipline, is quiet but not closeted about his bisexuality, and does the job like a professional, a carryover from his days in the Marine Corps. Thrust together on a mission that links to Nathan’s childhood, the pair will have to learn to trust each other. It will take all their psychic skills and an acceptance of their growing love to defeat an evil out to get Nathan and everyone he loves…before it’s too late.

Avery had matured past the point where boys kissed and told, and even at that young age, he’d never shared his personal life. He didn’t hide the fact that he liked men and women sexually, but he didn’t see the need to show it off either. Unlike Nathan, who had nothing better to do with this social life than parade an endless supply of pretty boys under Avery’s nose.

He scowled, remembering how each and every one of Nathan’s conquests had made him feel—annoyed, angry, possessive. The confusing need for Nathan made him want to go against his hard and fast rule of no fucking around with coworkers. Maybe if he’d gotten the man out of his system, he could react normally around him.

Then again, he and Nathan didn’t usually work together, not on PWP-type missions. The gym was different. Since he’d been put on the night shift, he and Nathan cleaned equipment, helped out gym-goers, and worked out themselves. Nathan had height and brawn but not a killer instinct. Oh, he boxed well enough, and he could wrestle with the best of them. But Avery instinctively knew best how to handle an opponent. With Nathan, he would muscle the big man down flat on his back. Then his fantasies intruded, and he’d see himself straddling Nathan’s face and shoving his cock in that warm, wet mouth. Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t forget! The Cowboy Lust Blog Tour continues!
Today’s stop is Ramblings from This Chick! ~DD

Less than a week until IF I WERE YOU! I just can’t believe it is finally going to be here. I’ve waited for this book for what feels like a lifetime. I say this because the story was born when Diego, my DH, and I were buying and selling storage units, long before the shows existed.

Oh what an experience that was. Well, DH found a journal in one of the storage units and started reading and from there he was convinced that I had to write a story. And after years of hearing him say this–I finally did.

Looking back, who would have know how buying and selling those units could have influenced my career. I remember the first time we got a until, our house was packed with boxes and we didn’t know what we were doing. All we knew was the furniture was worth money. We took pictures and it sold fast so we had to clean it out. And what did I find? A sex drawer. Oh yes. I did. Can you say GLOVES? There is nothing sexy about cleaning out someone’s sex drawer. You can imagine what might have been in there! I won’t share:) Your imagination might be more fun. In fact, this seems like a good time to share a sexy excerpt to get back to sexy!

EXCERPT:

Rounding the corner, I enter the hallway, and Chris is suddenly there in the narrow passage with me, pressing me against the wall, his powerful thighs framing mine.

My hand goes instinctively to his t-shirt-clad chest. I am immediately aware of the intimacy of the touch, of my body’s reaction to the man who has betrayed me. “Don’t shove me against another wall and try to intimidate me, Chris.”

“I’m not trying to intimidate you. I was protecting you, Sara.” His hands move to my waist, scorching me, and my reaction to the sizzling touch is instant. I cover his hands with mine, trying to control what he does next, but it doesn’t help. Now, my hands are on his hands and his hands are on my body.

“Call it what you want,” I ground out, “but you had no right to do what you did.”

“He had to know he couldn’t manipulate your dream. Money, and my many resources at your disposal, does that.”

His words knock my anger and my breath away, and confusion consumes me. His actions and his words conflict at every turn. “Why would you help me? You said I don’t belong in this world.”

“Because I won’t watch him gobble you up and destroy you.”

I remember his words, and understand now that he wanted me out of this gallery, not this profession. “Because he’s a dark, messed up, arrogant asshole who will play with my mind and use me until there is nothing else left of me I recognize.”

“That’s right.”

“And yet you say you’re worse.”

He stiffens and cuts his gaze, seeming to struggle before fixing me in a turbulent stare. “I am, Sara, which is why you should run as far away from me as you can. And I should step back and let you.”

“Then why aren’t you?” I whisper.

His eyes hold mine, and what I see there, the depth of his desire, overwhelms me. He flattens his palm on my belly and I tremble beneath the touch, and he has to feel it too. “Because,” his voice low, seductive, his hand traveling up the center of my body, “I can’t stop thinking about you, and everything I want to do to you, everywhere I want to touch you.”

His hand presses to the swell between my breasts, and my nipples ache with a wish he would touch them. His boldness ignites something sultry and dark inside me, a side of me that defies the good-girl school teacher who is appalled I haven’t stopped this. I want him. I want him here and now, and any way I can have him.

And when his gaze lowers to my mouth and lingers, I know he is thinking about kissing me and I have never wanted to be kissed so badly in my life.

“Do you taste as good as I think you do?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for my reply.

Suddenly, his fingers have tunneled into my hair and he’s dragging my mouth to his. I am all soft submission, yielding to the moment, to the man. I melt into him, welcome the hardness of his body pressed to mine. And when his tongue presses past my lips, a long, wicked caress, I taste his hunger, his need. There is possessiveness to his kiss, to his hand on my back, molding me closer. I am lost in the ache that has become my need for this man, this stranger I cannot resist. He says he’s protecting me; he says he’s dangerous. I am conflicted, and sure I should be angry with him, but I am completely incapable and unable of processing why.

Want to win? Just comment for your chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card.

Want to win $75? I draw every week on Saturday through August 24^th. Every time IF I WERE YOU hits 100 new bookshelves I draw for $75. If it hits 500 new shelves that week I draw for $75 5 times. You can win more than once.

The details are here:

https://www.lisareneejones.com/win-75-every-time-if-i-were-you-sells-100/

I look forward to your comments!

Lisa Read the rest of this entry »

The Authors After Dark Grab Bagszzz Contest

Yes, bagszzz, as in three of these pretty nylon totes stuffed full of goodies!
There will be three lucky winners!

What’s in the prize packszzz?
Things too numerous to mention, but which include: author’s water bottles, note pads, nail files, koozies, bookmarks and trading cards, and tons of other kitschy stuff. Stuff you HAVE to have, including my mini bondage kits—okay, so they are office kits with paper clamps and twine to hang your Post-its, but I like the mini-bondage set angle better. And of course there will be books, some signed, some not. Whatever I could grab or was given to me to give away. Three winners will get a very nice stash!

What do you have to do to win?
Post comments on this blog from now until the contest ends! Each time you post counts as another entry!

This contest ends August 30th! 

Here’s a question to start today’s conversation:

If you were offered five acres of property anywhere in the world, where would you want that property to be located? And no, you can’t turn it and sell it for something else. You have to LIVE there or vacation there for the rest of your life!

The authors who contributed to the this awesome anthology are all pitching in posts and prizes for this blog tour. You’ll want to visit every site and post a comment for multiple chances to win! Don’t worry if a date has passed, the prizes won’t be awarded until after the last date of the tour! Join us!

August 13:  All I want and more
August 14:  Delighted Reader Book Reviews
August 15:  REVIEW ONLY  Reviews by Molly 
August 16:  Novel Reflections
August 16:  STOP 2  Queen of the Night Reviews
August 17:  Ramblings From This Chick
August 20:  The Menagerie Authors
August 21:  Wickedly Wanton Tales
August 21:  REVIEW ONLY The Brunette Librarian
August 22:  Seductive Musings
August 23:  Love to Read Romance
August 24:  Erzabet’s Enchantments
August 28: Long and Short Reviews

The list of prizes includes:

* Cowboy Bad Boys (digital) by Randi Alexander
* Reader’s Choice of any backlisted ebook by Lissa Matthews
* Reader’s Choice of any backlisted ebook by Charlene Teglia during her stop
* Reader’s Choice of any backlisted ebook by Cari Quinn (x4)
* “I’ll show you my e-reader if you show me yours” T-shirt (Large size) from Kimber Vale
* Reader’s Choice of any backlisted ebook by Delilah Devlin during her stops (x2)
* Signed copies of Cowboy Fever by Delilah Devlin to two winners
* Love in Short Order (digital), a romance by Michael Bracken writing as Rolinda Hay
* Stud (digital), an erotic romance by Michael Bracken writing as Rolinda Hay
Plus the $50 Amazon GC grand prize!

Movie Moments of Stillness – A Creative Necessity

Movie references tend to creep into my stories a lot; in my most recent paranormal release, In the Company of Witches, my heroine Raina (half-succubus, all witch) is a big fan of the movie Titanic, and she and Mikhael, my hero (a Dark Guardian, something like a cop/sorcerer), end up necking in a theater where they’re showing New Moon (I’m not ashamed to admit it – I LOVE the Twilight movies!). Anyhow, though I’m a bit of a movie addict…(ahem – 500+ DVD library and counting!), the movies serve a creative purpose, as any source of good storytelling does. In fact, this week they helped me turn a flat, ugly scene into something worth reading. To make that happen, I employed what I call the “Moment of Stillness” exercise. Let me explain, with a few less parentheses (lol).

There’s an amazing movie called The Legend of Bagger Vance, with Matt Damon and Will Smith. It centers around a golf game between Matt Damon’s relatively unknown character, Junuh, and golf legends Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen. During the movie, there’s a part where Bagger (Will Smith) tells Junuh to watch Bobby Jones when he steps up to the ball to take his swing. Once Bobby arrives at the tee, everything else disappears. He clears his mind completely, and when he does, a synergy of instinct and experience happen—and so does a great shot. It’s as Bagger tells Junuh: “All we got to do is get ourselves outta it’s way.”

I have noticed this theme in other movies. In Finding Neverland, Johnny Depp portrays playwright J.M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. Caught in writer’s block, he strikes up a friendship with a widow and her children. As he gets lost in the enjoyment of being with them (rather than worrying about his stale play), he starts “seeing” a new story, Peter Pan. There’s an extraordinary scene where the boys are jumping on their beds but, in J.M.’s imagination, he sees them bounce, bounce, and then begin to fly through the air, finally soaring out the window, just as will eventually happen in the Peter Pan story.

In Star Trek – Insurrection, Captain Picard meets a people who have slowed down the aging process. In a lovely moment with one of the female leaders of the community, he is sitting by a stream with her where she helps him “stay in this moment”. We see a hummingbird’s wingbeats get so slow we can see the delicate wing structure, everything in slow motion.

Final example – Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law. In both the first and second installment of these incredible movies, there are times Sherlock, with his amazing ability to anticipate action and reaction, shows in slow motion what will unfold and plans his response to it, all before it happens. Though in reality, it all happens very quickly, it is slow and steady in his head, the rest of the world tuned out.

Anyhow, this process of slowing down the mind, opening it up, “getting out of its way” is vital in almost every creative endeavor. It becomes absolutely essential to find this method when you evolve from doing something you love merely because you love it, and doing it professionally. Business and creativity have always had an uneasy relationship. For instance, the athlete who is pure poetry on the broken asphalt of the inner city basketball court, must learn to hold onto that craftsmanship when playing for a million dollar contract, with the demands of team owner, fans, etc piled on his back.

On the same note, writers have to make the transition from scribbling away in their glorious solitude, where getting published is no more than a distant pipe dream, to being an author who writes on deadline, meeting promo requirements, answering copious amounts of email, social networking, etc… Yet every subsequent story must be a creative and fresh as the ones they created in the beginning, in their little private cubbyhole.

Impossible? Nope. Not with that moment of stillness. At the beginning of this post, I claimed that “moment of silence” had really helped me this week. I was working on the latest book in my Vampire Queen Series, Taken by a Vampire, which features a threesome—Evan, my vampire hero, his Scottish servant Niall, and Alanna, the rigidly trained Inherited Servant who has come under their protection until her treasonous Master is apprehended.  My editor needs a partial sooner than expected, so over the past several weeks I’ve been typing furiously, getting that first draft vomited out onto the pages (yeah, no better way to put it than that). But now I’m in the first edit. I can do the “barf to meet deadline” for only so long before my soul shrivels up into a husk.

So I take a deep breath, slow it all down. Surround myself with that creative stillness, and tap deeper into who and what my characters are, where they are, etc. As such, what was a pretty bland, bare-bones section became the following, which I like much better, even though this is still only a rough first draft. I’m too proud to give you the first version for comparison; just imagine blah blah blah, vomit, vomit, vomit, and you’ll have the essence of it – grin. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks so much to everyone who followed me around the blogosphere this week!
Winners should be named shortly! ~DD

I wrote my very first cowboy story in 2007. It was a short story and my first attempt at writing in first person. Something I wrote for a friend who was starting up a new publishing company. I loved this cowboy so much, I wrote another and another…

Post a comment here today and you can win a free download of COWBOY.

Caught in a sudden thunderstorm on a lonely stretch of Texas highway, I pull into a dingy little diner to wait out the rain, never dreaming the cowboy of my dreams would follow me inside. Now I have a couple of choices, play it coy and safe? Or go for the big brass buckle…

Lightning clawed the dark like a crow’s foot, illuminating thick thunderheads that glowed yellow-green and ominous. The color of the sky before a tornado twisted its nasty tail.

Glad to be out of the rain and safe from the jagged, streaking light, I shivered against the cool vinyl booth as another flash lashed out like the end of a whip, lighting the horizon so intensely that for a moment the darkened parking lot was bright as high noon.

That was when I saw the large pickup roll in, pulling a horse trailer. It ground to a halt beside the diner’s plateglass window. The driver wasn’t going to bother trying to park it in the flooded lot.

I heard the muffled slam of the truck door, but the end of the lightning strike flickered out, plunging the parking lot back into darkness. The driver would be soaked before he even hit the door. Only twelve feet, but the rain was coming down in sheets. I’d been lucky, arriving before the worst of the storm struck. Mostly dry, I’d peered through the window at the deepening night, waiting for a lull. Read the rest of this entry »

Fox’s Folly is a first in a couple of ways. It’s my first male-male book, though I’ve written a few m/m short stories, including one that was published as standalone ebook. It’s my first prequel. It’s the prequel Foxes’ Den (Duals and Donovans: the Different 2), which is why, though Fox’s Folly is a Duals and Donovans book, it doesn’t have a series number. And it’s the first book an editor specifically sparked me to write.

At the time my Samhain editor, the fabulous Linda Ingmanson, accepted Foxes’ Den, which is a menage involving a married male couple—witch Paul and fox shape-shifter Tag—and the kitsune they both come to love, she said she’d love to see a book about how Paul and Tag met. At the time, I wasn’t sure how they’d met, only that it had involved some element of danger and, given Tag’s character and his connection to the god Trickster, probably some element of oddness. I let the idea stew in the back of my mind for a while and then it came to me. Las Vegas! They meet in Las Vegas, where they’re both fish out of water. Donovan witches are very connected to nature and not very connected to the more materialistic aspects of mainstream human culture. Duals (my take on shape-shifters) simply don’t like cities, where their animalsides feel confined and they’re more likely to have trouble from the repressive Agency. But what if Paul and Tag had to be in Las Vegas for some good reason? Say, to catch a magical serial killer?

And so the book was born.

PS: Stop by my blog, https://www.teresanoelleroberts.com, and leave a comment on the CONTEST! Win a Copy of Fox’s Folly for—you guessed it—a chance to win a copy of the book.

What happens in Vegas lasts forever…if you’re lucky.

A Duals and Donavans story

Las Vegas is the wrong place for an inexperienced witch like Paul Donavan. But he has no choice; his family owes a debt of honor to a half-fae casino owner, whose guests have been dying under mysterious circumstances. The normy police haven’t connected the dots between the deaths, and the owner has called in his marker.

When Paul literally runs into fox dual Taggart Ross, the instant, powerful attraction between them bristles with red flags. Not only should there be no sparks between him and this “hillbilly with a tail,” the fact is a dual couldn’t have committed murder-by-magic. But until he’s got proof, caution rules.

Tag’s own suspicions are on high alert. Magic killed his favorite uncle, and Paul, who senses Tag’s dual nature way too easily, should be a prime suspect. Except Tag’s libido responds to the witch in a way that shouldn’t happen.

Whatever this thing is between them, the raw sexual energy feeds a power that becomes their best hope of drawing out the killer before he, she, or it strikes again. Until love gets involved, and things get real complicated, real fast…

“I think we’re here for the same reason. Does the name Randolph-Macon McNeil mean anything to you?”

“One of the five people who’ve died under mysterious circumstances lately at the Excalibur. Sixty-two, professional gambler, fox dual…” He spoke dispassionately, as if reciting facts from a report. Then he paused, and a look of horror crossed his face “Was he family, Tag? I’m so sorry…”

“My uncle. I’m here to find out who the fuck killed him and take him down hard.”

“No, you won’t. We will.” Paul’s voice was soft and professorial, but something in his tone made the words ring in the air with the force of an oath before the gods.

“Really? Do you mean that?” Tag tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but that wasn’t the fox way. He was tough, tougher than most, but he’d loved his uncle.

And he hated to admit it, but he needed all the help he could get. He’d gotten into this figuring he’d find the killer and then call in reinforcements, but if Uncle Randolph was the fifth victim, and a fae had asked for help dealing with it, Tag needed magic, not just muscle. “Really?” he repeated, feebly aware he should be saying something wittier but unable to make his brain work at proper speed.

“Really. I got drafted to do this. For you, it’s personal. Hearth, heart and home fuel magic. We’ll be stronger together than we are alone. And you look like you shouldn’t be alone.”

The next thing Tag knew, Paul’s arms were around him.

Damn, Paul could kiss, and his hands, even when they weren’t touching anywhere Tag would normally consider an erogenous zone, sent heat through Tag’s body. Maybe it was magic, or maybe the guy was just that talented. At this point, Tag didn’t care. All he really cared about was seeing how long they could go without thinking about dead people and just focusing on sex, or at least the yummy preliminaries to sex.

Tag was fumbling with the buttons on Paul’s dress shirt—too formal by comparison to what everyone else seemed to wear in Las Vegas, almost silky under his hands although it was cotton—when someone knocked at the door. “Housekeeping always shows up at the worst times,” Paul muttered before throwing himself into kissing Tag so thoroughly that Tag forgot not only the persistent knock on the door but the day of the week and the reason he was in Las Vegas. He was working up to forgetting his name when the door opened, and a man walked into the room.