Is Sex the Journey or the Destination? – A Guest Post by JL Peridot (@jlperidot) #giveaway

In stories and in life, sex can be an exciting driver for change. Desire stokes your energy and pushes you forward, waking you up, forcing you to appreciate what’s around you instead of sticking to the status quo.

When a friend of mine left her first husband, we were all shocked. To us, she was the heroine of a beautiful college romance that turned into the perfect life.

I tell her story with permission: one day, she met someone. She wanted him. She’d never felt this way before. Suddenly, she found she couldn’t settle for the first answer that came up when she wondered if Happily Ever After existed.

Whether or not this new guy was her hero, her desire for him thrust her marriage under a microscope. For the first time, she saw the stark incompatibilities, the lack of respect, the micro-aggressions and passive-aggressions that over the years told her to shut up and just be a good wife. She realised her husband had been antagonist material this whole time, and she was just too blind to see it.

Months after her marriage ended, I asked why she never hooked up with the new guy. She said even though her desire for him was “the beginning of the end”, she realised it was never really about getting together with him. She’d been deeply unhappy in her relationship for so long that it had become normal. She was sleepwalking through it, and figured that’s just what happiness must be like.

Yet somehow, her body knew that her head and her heart were out of synch. Every fibre of her being was determined to put it right. It tried letting her know through anxiety, through depression, through chronic illness, but nothing worked. Finally, it tried sexual desire — the beast that grows stronger, the more you try to ignore it.

A year later, she was a divorcee and the happiest I’d ever seen her, starting a new relationship with guy who later proved that heroes aren’t just found in storybooks.

In my novel, Chasing Sisyphus, my heroine and hero are undoubtedly attracted to each other. It’s no traditional romance novel attraction. They’re two good-looking adults who’ve been around the block enough to know there’s something there. The problem is there’s no way a wanted criminal and a cop can hook up. Not even in a corrupt city like Basilica.

So, what can they do? They can’t stop at the first answer that comes to mind: turning on each other and getting on with their lives. That’s what you’d settle for if it were with any old Joe. But when you want someone — really want someone — you look for a different answer. You can’t help it. Every fibre of your being pushes you towards it.

It doesn’t have to be about the sex, really. Sex, the act or just the mere idea of it, is there to wake you up. And with your eyes open, you can finally see the chapters of your life for what they are, and get back to creating your story.

Thank you, KD, for having me on your blog.

*****

Chasing Sisyphus excerpt:

Adria took a deep breath. Then another. The air was too thick in here. Shadows and sparks crept over her vision. Why was the floor moving?

She fumbled for the doorknob. No dice. Dried her hand on the towel and tried again. Cool air flooded in. Sweat prickled her skin. She blinked hard and rubbed water from her eyes. The dull carpet beneath her seemed to stretch on forever, a giant tilting landscape meeting a worn wallpaper horizon.

Detective Carver stepped toward her. He held out a cup and motioned for her to take it. She tucked a finger in the handle and clutched it in both hands. A dark crack streaked the rim like a wrinkle in a knuckle. Meanwhile, her own knuckles were pale.

“I guess I should thank you”—he smiled—“you know, for saving my life.”

“Don’t mention it,” she whispered, vision clearing as she sucked in a breath of fresh motel air.

The detective’s shirt hung, still wet, on the back of a chair. The contours of his chest and abdomen showed through his dark undershirt, accentuated by the sheen of composite fabric under lamplight. A shallow dimple creased the edge of his smile.

Details.

Anchors.

They’d come so close to not making it. But he’d cuffed her round the front. He was the sort of cop who’d do a thing like that. And the few seconds it bought made all the difference.

That’s why she went back.

He stood in front of her and knocked back his shot, the muscles in his wrist and arm flexing and twisting with the motion.

“Hey”—he looked at her—“something the matter?”

Heart racing, she downed her drink without a word and reached for him. She pulled his face to hers. His skin was warm. His breath was warm. Beneath the smell of liquor and earthy river water lurked the aroma of another person. A breathing person who caught her as she fell into him, as she kissed him, fumbling for something to hold onto.

The detective let go of his cup. It landed next to hers on the carpet. She kicked them both away. Her lips recognised him, recognised the sensation of life breathing between them both. Only this time, he was alive, too, hot and moving. His arms gripped her, holding her as she pushed her body toward him, against the growing need under his clothes. She was a buoy, slammed into him by waves in a storm. He clung to her, seizing fistfuls of her hair.

“What are we doing?” he gasped.

“We almost died tonight.”

She kissed him again, seeking his tongue where their lips met. Her nimble fingers worked the clasp of his belt. When it was undone, she peeled his undershirt from his muscular torso. His skin was cold beneath her touch, or were her hands hot from the shower? She looked at him. Right in the eye. She guided his hands up her waist and watched him intently.

“Fuck that, right?”

“Yeah”—he nodded—“fuck that.”

*****

Chasing Sisyphus blurb:

Bounty hunter Adria Yuan is hot on the trail of her final hit: a notorious hacker wanted by the city’s elite. With the reward, she can pay for her brother’s surgery and finally get out of Basilica City. Trouble is, her line of work’s not exactly legal, and she’s barely staying ahead of the cops who want her target, too.

Detective Rhys Carver may be a little unorthodox, but he’s a good cop. Born and bred in Basilica, he does his part to keep his city clean. As clean as it gets, at least. And with Adria suddenly in his sights, it’s going to take more than falling in love for him to let her go.

As the pair close in on their mark, they are unwittingly drawn into a high profile conspiracy that could thrust the whole of Basilica into chaos. Can Adria and Rhys set aside their differences, and their desires, to save the only home they know?

*****

About JL Peridot

JL Peridot never expected to write romance. She likes her stories with a little danger and only realised in her 30s that falling in love is one of the most dangerous things we do. From her home in Western Australia, she writes erotic romance, erotica, shopping lists and long-winded walls of text to her very patient friends.

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