Good Morning Everyone,

I’m so excited to show a peek at my upcoming 1NS Trading Up Releasing 4/18/13!

If you haven’t ever read a 1NS series book you are missing out! I don’t even know the exact number of books out from various authors we have at this point. I’d like to say well over a hundred stories as we have a 1NS Paranormal and 1NS GBLT line as well.  I never thought I could work off of a detail sheet with to create a story….but here I am on my third 1NS. My previous 1NS stories are Tell Me No Lies a paranormal 1NS and Burn Me if You Can, an IR 1NS.

There is just something so mystical about Madame Eve that makes me want to keep creating characters that need her assistance in finding love, and if not finding the love of their live, opening themselves for a chance to find love in the future.

I also wanted to do a story with some sensory deprivation, and I’d never done more than a short scene with one sense taken away. I really enjoyed the challenge of taking it to the next level and really having fun.  Not to mention taking away the first moment a couple meets in person where they decide prematurely what will and won’t happen with the date.

Camilla’s deal breakers make finding a man to fit her wants, needs, and desires darn near impossible. For years she’s been primped and primed to be the perfect political daughter, when all she really wants to do is let loose a little without her world collapsing.  When a friend sends her Madam Eve’s way she figures she may just have the chance to explore a bit without being outed.

Jonah Black’s career is heading for a change. While his friends have dubbed him married to the military, he can’t deny that his focus has been off centered. While they enjoy the pleasures of life and wives, he has nothing to come home to.  When offered the chance for a 1NS, he signs up and is unprepared for the exotic woman picked for him.

The flames licking inside her were too much to take, along with his roaming hand.  She leaned forward and grasped the chilled wine goblet as a lifeline. When he nudged her lips to take a second taste, she pressed the together, holding her finger up and then laughing because he couldn’t see it in the dark. She took a long cool sip, more from Jonah’s effect on her than the food. She licked her lips then tucked herself against him, momentarily satisfied.

“Better?

“Mmm.” Cam sighed. “When’s it your turn? I’m having all the fun.”

“I’m having a good time feeding you.”

“You’re not hungry?” In the dark, his heart pounded against her cheek.“I’m hungry, all right. Ravenous, even.” Jonah caressed her thigh. Cam had no doubt his eyes would scorch her to her very soul. His lazy trail along her skin left her smoldering in need. She let him ply her with another skewer to distract from the throb at the apex of her thighs. She sucked a piece of pineapple he held between his fingers. Juices trickled down her chin. He mopped the stream of liquid with the pad of his thumb and heard him  nosily sucked it off.  Holy bananas, she wanted a taste of him now. Her mind kept rewinding to the feel of his finger parting her lips.

“I uh- need to use the ladies room.” Cam pressed the button on the table for assistance. Cesaire instructed.  Seconds later, her guide assisted her out of her chair and slid it back in.

“Here we go, Ms. Knox.”

She stepped awkwardly away from the table.  Along the way, she heard soft sighs and giggles. Definitely some hard-core kissing action. The idea of giving in to the dark side and making out in public heightened her ardor. A loud bang startled her. She jumped, almost losing Cesaire’s grasp.

“Don’t worry Ms. Knox. Almost there.” A few more steps and he ushered her into a space where dim lighting burned her dilated pupils for a moment before her eyes adjusted. He sat on a lounge chair between two doors marked Men and Women. The dim glow brought her normal self-conscious thoughts raging forward. In the dark Jonah couldn’t see her physical flaws. Would that change once he saw the real her?

Comment and leave an email address I’ll pick a winner for some swag!

This bundle of Mahalia’s books is available now for only $5.88!

Writing Sex: Making Readers Feel It

I write erotic romance with BDSM and spanking.  I’ve been doing it for a long time, since well before Ellora’s Cave was born.  I was doing it so long ago that my first sales were to some of the many small press erotic publications common before the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web, and at the time I’d never even talked to another author writing erotic romance. In fact, other than the writers in those magazines, I didn’t know of any others. I had no critique groups or partners and I pretty much taught myself how to do it.  I learned mostly by imitating others.

Since then, I’ve sold a lot more stories and read a lot of erotic romance stories for contests and on free sites. Many of them didn’t really work for me and usually for the same reasons.  Here are three of the most common mistakes I’ve run into.

–          Describing the action with no emotion. Spanking and bondage stories lend themselves to this shortcut and I see it quite a bit. After a nice bit of dialogue to build up to the scene, one character begins spanking the other. How does the author describe the action? “Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.” Or “Spank, spank, spank, SPANK, spank, etc.” And the spankee shrieks “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” And that’s it until the spanking is over. Other than sort of describing the sound, this really shows me nothing. What I really want to know is what it feels like—either to the spanker or the spankee or, preferably to me, both. I’ll bet you’ve read some of those bondage stories that lovingly describe every twist and turn of the rope, every knot, but not what it feels like to be so bound, to be helpless and at someone else’s mercy.

–          Describing just the physical sensation. Yes, I want to know how it feels. I want the author to make me experience the burn of a spanking as well as the heat and arousal, the glorious pleasure when the beloved touches you just there, the helplessness when your movement is restricted by loving bonds. But I also want to know what’s going on in the characters’ heads as well as their bodies. I want to know why they’re in this position, why they’re letting the other do this to them, what they’re risking, and what they want from it.

–          Detailing a sex scene that doesn’t change anything between the main characters. In an erotic romance, every scene, including every sex scene, has to serve the plot and the development of the characters. It’s all about the story. Even when the story is super-sexy, if there’s no plot, no emotion, no risk, no danger, nothing to make us care about the characters or worry about what will happen to them, then it doesn’t work as a romance or even as good fiction.

The principles of good story-telling apply even to erotic romance. Show, don’t tell. Give us interesting characters and make us care about them. Build the tension between the characters. Don’t make it easy on them. Make them earn their happily ever after or at least their happily for now. And most of all entertain the reader. Grab her attention and keep it until the very last word.

Bio: As the author of more than a dozen novels, novellas and short stories for Ellora’s Cave and other publishers, Katherine Kingston makes her characters work hard for their happily-ever-afters. She writes erotic romances in a variety of genres including contemporary, medieval historical, fantasy, futuristic and paranormal. Most of her stories include kinky elements, especially BDSM and spanking. She invites you to visit her home on the web at https://www.katherinekingston.com.

 

 Secret Santa Sir: When Maggie gets a note from a very unofficial Secret Santa during the office’s holiday gift exchange, she’s surprised to be tempted by it. This Secret Santa offers to help fulfill her wilder sexual fantasies, those fantasies she’s never admitted to anyone else. Normally the very professional, uptight Maggie wouldn’t consider doing anything so risky. She wants a husband and family, but she also has kinky sexual fantasies and no man has ever moved her. Maggie agrees to Santa’s proposal, and her first few anonymous encounters with him are a revelation, showing her levels of sensuality she’s never experienced before. But when she meets the man behind the gifts and the glorious kisses, her life gets seriously complicated. As Maggie begins to fall in love with him, she faces two choices—longing for husband and family, and continuing a relationship that fulfills her in ways she never believed possible.

 

Kyle’s Bargain: In a desperate attempt to save the small strip shopping center that houses her own bookstore and a few other small retailers, Meg Travis tries to blackmail developer Kyle Harrison into going with her to talk to the people his project is about to displace. He offers her a bargain.  He’ll give her two hours of his time if she’ll agree to spend a night with him in his bed, and he won’t press charges if she’ll accept the punishment he proposes. He refuses to tell her what that penalty would be. Both honor their promises, but neither is prepared for the attraction that blazes between them in the process, turning duty into joy and punishment into pleasure.

 

This past Saturday, I took a watercolor class. I know that doesn’t sound edgy or exciting, and you certainly wouldn’t automatically think, “Danger, Will Robinson!” stepping into class, but I had butterflies. What if I sucked?

It was last year about this time I accepted a challenge to join the Art Guild and participate in a Studio Tour. The tour was set for October. What would I have for people to look at or possibly purchase if they came out to see the studio my mom, daughter, and I shared? I learned how to make some simple jewelry. It was a hit! I still experiment with that, make pieces when I’m trying to relax, and play with color and composition a lot. But I really wanted to see what else I might be able to do. When a class was offered in town with a well-respected artist, I said, why not? Then went on a shopping spree. Who knew you needed so much “stuff” to paint?

The class was an all-day workshop. Every level of experience welcome. I’ve never painted in my entire life, so I was the bottom of the rung. I chose a simple shape. I wanted to paint a single pear. The instruction told me to add two more. Said I’d done a good contour drawing. He probably said it to build me up, but hey, I glowed!

Then I had to apply paint. He was teaching us to paint “loose.” And we only had an hour to complete our piece once we wet the paper. Literally. I used a paint brush and wet the areas of the watercolor paper I wanted to have the paint run—which was all around the pears. Then I went to work. I placed the paint where I wanted it, shaded the areas I thought should be shaded, added the reds and purples at the sides because I liked the way they made the yellow pop. He showed me how to drag the paint down. See the streaks underneath the pears? Yeah, I did that on purpose. 🙂

I don’t think my pears are half-bad. I’m getting them framed. And I’ve signed up to take an oil painting class.

So what have you done lately that took you out of your comfort zone?

Hi, everyone! I want to thank Delilah for being the ever-gracious host and allowing me to be on her blog. If you don’t know me, my name is Melissa Schroeder and I write sensual to erotic and historical to futuristic romance.

I just released the reissue of my futuristic action adventure erotic Telepathic Cravings which includes three interrelated stories featuring three different couples.

I love writing futuristic books and it started with the first book in this anthology, Voices Carry. The publisher I wrote for at the time wanted books with 80’s song titles and I came up with an idea of a world where anyone with paranormal abilities was considered dangerous and it took off from there. I love to invent the world from the ground up and let’s be honest, I like to blow shit up. I seem to do that a lot in my futuristics. I have an inordinate amount of women who like to shoot at things and ask questions later. It probably goes back to my love of Star Wars, The Fifth Element and of course, my favorite, Serenity. The space opera is one of my favorite escapes in movies. Doesn’t matter how bad I feel, I can always lose myself in the world and I hope I give that to my readers.

TELEPATHIC CRAVINGS

ALL ORDERING OPTIONS    READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

A Federation under siege. A Counter-Terrorism Department overworked. Paranormal abilities outlawed. But when no one suspects what you can do, criminal Voices Carry. Called by lust and longing, three telepaths risk their lives to put their skills to work for the Federation Counter-Terrorism Department.

VOICES CARRY

When a criminal organization stealing secrets jeopardizes her boss’ life, secret telempath Shana Adams risks everything to uncover the truth and save Marcus. Draws into a dangerous web of passion and suspicion, she’ll offer Marcus more than her body to survive.

LOST IN EMOTION

Alien Gorgons, Federation enemies? No contest. Telemphatic anti-terrorist agent David Adams can fight anything. Anything, that is, but his feelings for Genoa, the sassy, sexy spy he’s been charged with protecting.

HARD HABIT TO BREAK

Once a powerful paranormal, psychically crippled Drug Enforcement office,  Nolete Ashford has rebuilt her life from ashes. Now she’s on a mission to stop a drug that is killing paranormals. Nothing to it, no problem-until she’s assigned to work with Drake, the one man she could never forget.

~~~~~~~~

Catch up with Mel all over the web:

WEBSITE | BLOG | FACEBOOK FAN PAGE | HARMLESS ADDICTS | HARMLESS SERIES PAGE | CURSED CLAN PAGE | TWITTER

Don’t forget to like For the Love of Military Romance and THE SANTNIS!

Melissa Schroeder is a national bestselling author of over 50 books. She is best known for her Harmless series, a BDSM series mainly set in Hawaii.  She is a military wife and brat, now counting down the days until she can say she is a retired dependent. She loves to cook, read, and avoid the killer bugs of the south. (they are real…they will eat your children). She loves to hear from readers!

Before I wrote my first romance novels, I imagined that realistic contemporaries with characters rooted in the everyday might be “easier” to create than paranormals, historical, or romantic suspense. (I can hear Delilah laughing now!) Since I’d been writing short fiction for years, I knew that writing isn’t easy, no matter what the genre, but it did seem like contemporaries might have advantages. If you don’t have to create a world from scratch, or vividly recreate an unfamiliar setting or time period, it should leave you more brain-space for the other aspects of writing a good book. Right?

Still, my first solo books were paranormals and fantasy romances, and I found, when I wrote my Duals and Donovans paranormals for Samhain and the Seasons of Sorania Cycle for Phaze that world-building is one of my favorite parts of writing otherworldly romances. What’s more, paranormal worlds and heroes and heroines with unusual powers offer all sorts of opportunities for angst and conflict. If the couple (or triad) are different species, they automatically have issues to work out. If they’re trying to cement a relationship while saving the world from super-powered evil, they’ll be too distracted to believe that love will conquer all or have the talk that lets them realize they’re on the same page.

Knowing the Ropes, my first solo full-length contemporary (I’ve co-authored several with Dayle A. Dermatis under the name Sophie Mouette) offered me new challenges. I’d chosen a setting I knew well, Boston, and a milieu I also knew well, the BDSM community, so only a small amount of research was needed. Developing quirky, interesting characters who clicked emotionally and sexually is always a fun challenge, no matter what the setting. But I’d made my hero and heroine click too well! In the first draft, Nick and Selene, without demons or government conspiracies to distract them from their smoking sexual connection and shared values, fell in love way too easily. They struggled a bit with integrating love and BDSM, but because I’d created bright, mature characters, they were able to talk through their problems readily. Great in a real relationship, boring in a novel.

Despite good advice from beta readers, I set this book aside for longer than I should have and went back to paranormals, thinking I didn’t have the knack for contemporaries. Then a conversation with an editor (not the one who ultimately bought the book) at a conference prompted me to revisit the draft. With time away from the work, I was able to see how to deepen the conflict, create areas of self-doubt that Nick and Selene couldn’t articulate because they didn’t fully understand them, make Nick’s misguided ex both more human and more a real threat to the relationship.

I’m at work on another kinky contemporary right now, as well as the next Duals and Donovans paranormal. The kinky contemporary is going well, but I may add an element of romantic suspense or a truly evil ex to future works in that sub-genre. I learned a lot from Knowing the Ropes, but I still find it easier to put characters into a juicy conflict with each other if they’re also uniting against an outside enemy.

Or maybe I just like inventing magical rituals and blowing things up.

Teresa Noelle Roberts writes erotica and romance—“doing what comes (super)naturally.” She loves writing slightly more than gardening, but can’t survive without either. Learn more at www.teresanoelleroberts.com or follow her on Twitter, where she’s @TeresNoeRoberts

They’ve got the sex factor in spades. But can love survive the “ex” factor?

Selene has harbored kinky, submissive fantasies most of her life, but her experience as a domestic abuse counselor leaves her leery of giving up that much control. Case in point: the ex-fiancé she didn’t love quite enough to test the limits of trust.

At a BDSM meet and greet, she sets out to learn how far is too far. Nick seems like the ideal dom to show her the ins and outs of ropes, floggers, and paddles—with no commitment clause.

After losing a sub he loved too much, Selene’s country girl common sense and smoking sensuality is like a dream that Nick never dared to have—a perfect blend of kink and long-term domestic bliss.

Yet it’s tough to figure out just how far they can push their limits when they’ve both agreed to a no-strings affair. Especially when an ex needs Nick’s muscle and Selene’s newly discovered skills to get out of a dangerous situation. And it may be too late for love to survive all the things they’re afraid to say.

Warning:  Sexy, kinky, geeky dominant guy. Smart submissive woman. Crazy ex. A little experimentation between girlfriends. And lots and lots of kinky sex.

Buy links:
Samhain|  Amazon| Barnes and Noble | Kobo
Excerpt at Samhain and here.

I’ve been feeling nostalgic for my vampires. Especially lovely, flawed, sexy Nic…

“…The electrifying follow-up to INTO THE DARKNESS is a breathless read. Devlin’s intricate vampire society is filled with compelling personalities. The chemistry between the characters is explosive, and the horrific villain will give you goosebumps…the ending will leave you begging for more.” ~4 ½ Stars and TOP PICK!, RT BOOKreviews

“…This is a deliciously edgy series with mind-blowing sex scenes that sizzle…Ms. Devlin’s DARK REALM series is devastatingly erotic and pushes the boundaries in both premise and sexual explicitness. Ms. Devlin pens in uncharted territory that will leave the readers breathless and hungering for more…” ~Paranormal Romance

For eight hundred years Nicolas Montfaucon has dedicated his life to preventing the rebirth of an immortal evil. But now a terrible storm has assaulted unsuspecting New Orleans—and the beast walks the earth once more. “The Devourer” has been awakened, and there is only one in the besieged city who can help Nicolas defeat the foul creature—a mysterious and beautiful enigma who haunts the handsome Revenant’s erotic waking dreams and enflames his passionate obsessions.

Chessa Tomas is not an ordinary policewoman. A vampire, she works only at night, patrolling a seamy and unseen underworld of roiling chaos. Though Nicolas is sensuality incarnate, Chessa wants no part of him or his kind—but she cannot close her eyes to the unholy malevolence that would consume their world. And Nicolas has uncovered the secret lust that rules her—a steaming, uncontrollable desire he intends to unleash, bending Chessa to his will by making her most forbidden fantasies real.

His brother had thought Hell a fiery abyss, but Nicolas Montfaucon knew better. It was wet, smelled like a sewer, and sounded like the rush of collective hopes draining toward the sea.

With a heartbeat as leaden as his footfalls, he followed the sound of flowing water. His rubber boots sank in the rain-soaked grass as he stepped off the cemetery’s entrance road to head toward the water’s edge. Bayou St. John’s previous sluggish ambience had given way to a torrent in the aftermath of the storm. Just as the security team had reported, the waters that breached the levee in the early morning hours spilled into the bayou, raising it well above any thousand-year flood plain.

They couldn’t have planned for a worse scenario. The mausoleum lay in the center of a newly etched basin.

A cold, tight knot of horror settled in his gut, numbing him to the elements, while a soft rain fell like God’s kiss of benediction before the coming battle. The prickling unease lifting the hair on the back of his neck was familiar, but one he hadn’t experienced to this degree since the searing heat and biting sand of Palestine over seven hundred years ago.

Quiet, muffled voices drew him deeper into the cemetery. He followed the blurred edges of a once pristine graveled path, now strewn with long tangled strands of Spanish moss and broken tree branches, around sturdy stone crypts—ones untouched by the raging storm that had drenched New Orleans and changed its landscape irrevocably.

He glanced toward the dark gray clouds giving his team cover for what they must do. At least God hadn’t added one more insurmountable burden to overcome this day.

“Erika, Pasqual?” he called softly as he approached.

They turned with dread tightening their pale faces.

He noted their quick sideways glances and knew their loyalties might be tested. Just the night before one quarry had escaped their net. Did they know his role in the deception that had allowed the newest Born female to flee?

“The crypt is submerged,” Pasqual said, nodding ahead toward the swollen bayou.

Nicolas followed his gaze and found the winged angel that graced the top of the Morel mausoleum, the bottom edge of her robe licked by foaming, lapping waves of dark water.

“We brought a pirogue,” Erika said, shivering despite the humid heat, “but the water’s so swift…”

Nicolas nodded. “I’ll go. We’ll have to tie off the boat on both sides of the bayou to keep it from being swept away.”

“The crypt was solid. The doors were chained,” Pasqual said, his voice strained. “Do you really think he could have escaped?”

Nicolas’s lips curved and tightened. “His sarcophagus was in the center of the cemetery. The bayou jumped its banks and carved a new path—straight through his prison. Do you think that’s coincidental?”

Erika’s brown eyes looked overlarge in her slender face. “How will we contain him?”

“If the doors are still locked, we’ll wait for the waters to subside to discover whether his coffin remains intact.”

“If they aren’t locked?” she continued.

He shrugged. “Then we prepare ourselves.”

“How do we do that?” she asked, a note of hysteria in her brittle voice. “No one’s got a standard operating procedure for the end of the fucking world.”

“Someone has to go into the water,” Pasqual said quietly, his expression dark and troubled.

“I said I’ll go,” Nicolas said, straightening his shoulders. “I placed him there. It’s my duty to make sure he stays.”

“Not alone, you won’t.”

Nicolas turned at the sound of another voice, one familiar and welcome.

A tall dark-clad figure stepped from behind a large oak.

Nicolas wondered if he’d just arrived or had chosen the most dramatic moment to appear. Simon Jameson’s long brown hair was plastered against his skull and touched the tops of broad shoulders clothed in a rain slicker.

“Simon, bad news travels fast,” Nicolas said, his tone dry.

Despite the dire circumstance that brought him here, Simon smiled. “A little bird told me we had trouble.”

Nicolas raised a single brow at the thought of the mage’s familiar braving the remnants of the storm. “Her wings must be sodden.”

Simon’s lips crimped in the semblance of a smile. “She’s tired and drying off.” Then his gaze turned to the sunken crypt. “I’ll go with you. You may have need of me.”

“I’ll be glad for the company.” Whatever the reason for the falling out between the powerful mage and the leader of the vampire sabat, Nicolas held no grudge against Simon. Their acquaintance was older, forged in blood and battle. “I’d appreciate any help you can provide.”

Sloshing footsteps sounded behind them as more of the security team arrived, carrying a long, slender flat-bottomed boat and poles.

Using ropes suspended between the trees, Simon and Nicolas fought the swift current to drag the boat toward the stone angel. Once the boat scraped the spikes atop the iron fence surrounding the crypt, Nicolas stripped, dropping his clothing to the bottom of the boat. Then he tied a rope around his waist and said a quick prayer.

“Hold this in your mouth,” Simon said, slipping a carved, polished red stone from his pocket. “You’ll need your hands free.”

Nicolas didn’t question why he should keep a rock in his mouth. If his friend thought it necessary, that was enough for him to know. Likely a protective amulet, anyway. He could use all the help he could get.

Urgency and dread filled him. He had to see the damage below the surface of the black water for himself. He set the cold stone on top of his tongue and clamped his mouth closed. Then he lowered himself over the side of the boat, gripping it hard, shocked by the force of the water dragging at his body. Nicolas clutched the edge of the pirogue and shot Simon a glance.

The mage stood in the bottom of the boat, coiling the rope around his brawny fists and arms, and nodded. “Catch hold of the iron bars, and I’ll let out the rope.”

Out of instinct, rather than need, Nicolas drew in a deep breath through his nostrils and submerged. The dark water roiled around him, battering him with stones and debris. He forced open his eyes against the current and grimy sediments, but could see only a few inches in front of his face.

For long seconds he held his breath then made himself relax against the urge to gasp. He didn’t really need the air to live.

The current slammed him against the iron bars surrounding the crypt. He held tight then circled the fence, handhold by handhold, until he felt the gate’s hinges. With his feet against the gate, he bent his legs and made a powerful thrust, which propelled him forward in the eddying waters, toward the door of the crypt.

He reached out, grabbing for the carved edge of the stone door frame and followed it downward to the latch. Where a heavy chain should have wrapped around the mechanism, he found only a drooping handle, bobbing with the current.

Still, the door was closed.

He braced his feet against it and pulled with all his strength to bend the handle upward and lock it closed until he could return with another chain.

At that moment, a dull pounding came from inside, then a powerful thrust slammed open the door, tossing him backward into the current, which swept him toward the gate.

Despite the murky water, he saw a pale, ghostly apparition appear in the entrance of the crypt.

Sweet Mother of God! Nicolas bit down around the stone that threatened to lodge at the back of his throat.

The monster swam in the doorway, his mouth opening in a hideous grin.

Nicolas ground his heels against the iron bars and pushed forward again, launching himself toward the demon to drive him back inside. If he had to hold him there for an eternity, he’d never let him out. He’d uphold his oath—one given over the grisly remains of his wife.

When he barreled into the demon, the creature’s body felt…less than solid…gelatinous. The pale flesh gave way beneath Nicolas’s grasping hands. His torso disintegrated in rotten bits of flesh, tugged apart by the rapid current.

Nicolas screamed around the stone while his hand reached through the disintegrating body to grasp the demon’s spinal cord.

The beast’s face remained solid for only a moment longer while his grin turned triumphant, mocking Nicolas, before the skin stripped away to reveal a skeletal grimace.

Nicolas squeezed his eyes shut as he let go his fierce grip on what remained of the demon’s prison, his body, trying to forget the familiar face the monster had stolen and worn for centuries—his brother’s.

* * * * *

Be sure to check out the snippets on these other authors’ blogs:

Leah Braemel
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
TJ Michaels
Taige Crenshaw
Felicity Heaton
HelenKay Dimon
TJ Michaels
Shiloh Walker
Lissa Matthews
Myla Jackson
Shelli Stevens
Mari Carr
Lauren Dane

A Slice of Southern Gothic Pie

Thanks so much for hosting me on your blog, today, Delilah! (I’m looking forward to the release of our next joint venture in Femme Noir Series – Possessed in the Big Easy!)

Having been born and raised in the Deep South, it’s hard to escape the influence of some of the greatest female authors of our time. Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Margaret Mitchell, Carson McCullers, and of course Harper Lee.

These authors captured the land of cavaliers and cotton fields at a time when the Old Guard struggled against modernization which not only brought electricity and other conveniences we take for granted to Southern cities and rural areas alike, but ushered in racial and gender equality. These books are set against a backdrop of red clay and stifling humidity, of respites in the shade of Spanish moss laden live oaks, and dark nights where Bourbon is one’s only companion.

Southern literature is also rife with secrets held onto to for generations, taboos risked, and tragedies suppressed. While most readers of Gone With the Wind think of Scarlett O’Hara as a bitch, she is the consummate Southern heroine who drags her loved ones out of a way of life that no longer works and into the dramatically changing world of Reconstruction Era Georgia. She sacrifices to protect her own. Harper Lee’s honorable Atticus Finch parents by quiet but larger-than-life example when he champions Tom Robinson, an innocent man accused of rape because of his race.

And while these Southern authors make us laugh and cry (and often want to strangle their characters), many of these classic tomes have tragic endings.

Though I penned my Southern Gothic romance, Every Waking Hour, nearly twenty years ago, I only recently submitted it for publication. On some levels, the book was too personal, the heroine, Grayson Garland, too edgy, too tragic. Romance readers wanted to sigh when the characters came together and Every Waking Hour isn’t that kind of story.

Inspired by the bastions of Southern literature, by stories told to me by my grandmother about how times had changed, and by my own skeletons in the cupboard, Every Waking Hour is the story of two women whose lives have been mapped out by their pasts, who struggle to find happiness in their present when secrets are imperative, and who don’t know if they’ll be able to share a future.

English professor Della Boyd has worked hard to carve out a career for herself in the male-dominated 1950s South. Having escaped an unpleasant childhood, she resolves to keep her nose to the grindstone and work her way up the university ladder. All that changes, however, when she meets her favorite author, Grayson Garland, whose androgynous beauty and taboo kisses cause Della to question everything she’s always believed.

When Grayson Garland returns to bury her father, the world renowned, eccentric Southern author sets the small town of Rome, Alabama on its ear. But the old antebellum mansion she once called home is haunted with dark secrets Gray is reluctant to face. Sultry nights in the arms of a pretty, oh-so-feminine professor provide ample distraction, but unless Gray can summon the courage to confront her demons, even Della’s love won’t be able to save her from herself.

It didn’t make sense that this would upset her.

Lesbian…

She swallowed thickly.

No. She wasn’t a lesbian. That was ludicrous. Lesbians were women like…like Gray. Women who dressed and acted like men.

“Della?” Gray’s voice startled her.

She looked over her shoulder as Gray quietly slipped out the screen door and then dropped heavily and somewhat unsteadily onto the step, balancing her glass to keep the bourbon from spilling. “Have you been crying? Is something wrong?”

Della dried her eyes and shook her head.

Gray gestured back toward the house. “I saw them, too.” She pursed her lips sympathetically. “Sorry.”

Della heaved a sigh. “I was never seriously involved with him.”

“You were involved enough to let him make you cry.”

It’s not that, Della wanted to confess. She couldn’t. It was so much more than that. Her whole world seemed out of tune, her whole way of thinking about herself. She didn’t know who she was or what she wanted any longer.

Gray waved her hand in dismissal. “To hell with ‘em.”

Della dabbed at her tears. “I’m just being silly.”

“Hey,” Gray said as she placed her glass on the step, drawing her hands back cautiously as if it might topple at any second. “Which car is his?”

“Why? What are you going to do?” Della asked.

Gray grinned, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief. “Which one?”

Della pointed. “That blue Ford. Why?”

Gray eased off the steps and stole across the lawn like a secret agent, looking back and forth to make sure no one was watching.

Della shot to her feet. “Grayson,” she whispered loudly. “Grayson, don’t.”

Gray reached inside the open window and switched on Will’s headlights.

Eyes widening, Della checked the door to make sure no one was looking out. She couldn’t help but laugh at this woman who’d won a Pulitzer Prize, playing a childish prank. If Will hadn’t deserved it, Della would have been appalled.

Triumphant, Gray returned to the steps, pride illuminating her face. “That’ll take the piss out of him.”

She’s beautiful, Della thought as if she’d just realized it for the first time. She’s really very pretty.

“It’ll most certainly put a kink in his plans to go home with little Miss Allie,” Della said and smiled, resting her hands behind her back against the screen door.

Gray’s own smile faded into something somber and thoughtful. She climbed the steps slowly, deliberately, her hand skimming the rusted iron handrail. Her eyes shimmered from laughing and from the booze she’d consumed. Della’s heart drummed. She felt like a rabbit under the spell of a fox, and when Gray’s languid gaze moved from her eyes to her toes and then slowly back up again, Della’s stomach clenched.

Gray didn’t stop her ascent until she’d closed the distance between them, until her face was only inches away. Her gaze dropped to Della’s parted lips. A delicious chill washed over her and her mouth went dry.

She stopped smiling. Her entire being filled with anticipation and expectation. She knew Gray was going to kiss her. It was something that only fifteen minutes ago, Della couldn’t allow herself to imagine, but now it was about to happen and she wanted it more than she’d wanted anything in her life.

Gray wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and then gingerly brushed her mouth across Della’s. She opened her lips to the softness, meeting the whiskey flavored tongue that tested and then retreated. So soft. The kiss was so soft and yet so devastating.

A husky moan tore from Gray’s throat and she deepened the kiss, cupping Della’s face in her hand, pressing her warm body close. The faint fragrance of Gray’s androgynous cologne wafted in the sultry night air.

Gray’s arm snaked around Della’s waist, drawing her impossibly close, crushing her dress against the hard thigh that pressed between her knees. Helpless, Della yielded to the incompatible softness of feminine lips that vied with powerful passion. She responded, meeting the invading tongue, tilting her head to give and receive more. She entwined her arms around Gray’s neck and held her head captive.

This was madness. It was fire and ice and Della dissolved in the embrace, the kiss. And, merciful heavens, the way Gray held her. So tightly. So closely. As if they could become one.

Desire unfurled and snapped like a standard in the wind, leaving Della powerless to do anything but submit. Dampness trickled inside her panties and she moved restlessly against the thigh pushing tight between her legs.

Gray groaned and her arms tightened, her kiss ever deepening. Her tantalizingly chilled fingers slipped from Della’s cheek, downward to where they worked inside the bodice of her dress, inching possessively under the laced edge of her bra. Sweltering passion contrasted the cool touch, pooling between her legs and when Gray cupped her breast and pinched her already hardened nipple, Della all but melted.

A little moan escaped her mouth as Gray’s lips moved to her neck, then to her ear where she raked her teeth against the earring there, then finally back to Della’s lips again. Della wanted this moment to last forever. This fervid passion. This recklessness.

Heat rolled up her spine and all the taboos and warning bells sounding in her head evaporated, leaving desperate physical need in its wake.

Without warning, Gray’s fingers fell away. The kiss ended. Della searched her eyes, shocked by the bleak darkness in the deep blue pools.

Gray turned away and sank back down onto the steps. She took her drink in her hands and stared into it.

 

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About Paisley Smith

Paisley Smith is a full time freelance writer and can usually be found in front of the computer either writing, chatting, promoting or plotting. It’s a glamorous life…working in one’s pajamas.

She attended college in the Deep South where she obtained a slew of totally useless degrees and developed an unrelenting sense of humor.

Her books can be found at Ellora’s Cave , Loose Id, and Cleis Press!

www.Paisley-Smith.com