Tag Archives: guest blog

My Writing Journey – A Guest Post by Tanya Jean Russell (@TanyaJRussell) #giveaway

I have been a bookworm my whole life and can often be found wandering the house, attempting to do my chores without looking away from whatever I’m reading, but I only began writing about five years ago. When I started I honestly thought I could just sit down and bash out the story that was swimming around in my head. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that it wasn’t actually that easy. Apparently writing is a craft and like any craft you need to actually learn what you’re doing.

So I took some courses and joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association (a real must for any budding romance writer – they and their local chapters are amazing). I have also spent the last few years working out where I sit on the planning or writing by the seat of my pants spectrum.

As someone who is notoriously organised (I love a list), I had expected to be a planner. I was wrong, very, very wrong! The one time I tried to plan a full novel, I was so bored with the story when it came to writing it that I totally ran out of steam and it remains unfinished on my computer to this day.

So I then tried to just write without planning. It started off great but I ground to a halt at around 30,000 words and I spent weeks feeling completely stumped as to how to proceed.

It turns out, I like to do a bit of both. When I write now I let the ideas float around in my head for a few weeks before I try putting pen to paper, or more accurately, fingers to keyboard. During that time I make notes in one of the many notebooks I carry everywhere. They are never very coherent but they let me capture the mental images I have of my characters and settings.

When the itch of ideas grows too strong I start writing and keep going until I get stumped, at which point the Post-its and whiteboard come out. I use them to corral my thoughts and spot where more work is needed. It’s the perfect blend of just getting the story out creatively, and planning.

The one thing I’ve really taken away in all of my learning is that I love to get advice and listen to everyone’s ideas and trying them all on for size. You never know which ones might fit!

*****

Shadows of Our PastBlurb

Jackson Halland has spent ten years running from a mistake that cost him everything, including Amory Parker, the woman he loved. With his gut-wrenching response to her reappearance, he realizes that if she will forgive him, then maybe, just maybe, he can forgive himself.

After ten years of working undercover Amory agrees to one final mission. Vowing to get justice for the woman she promised, and failed, to protect, nothing will stand in her way, not the prolific criminal she’s determined to bring down and certainly not coming face to face with the man she fell in love with on her very first undercover assignment, even if he has no idea who she really is, or the part she played in his past.

Buy Links

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadows-Past-Tanya-Jean-Russell-ebook/dp/B07B9SNHYN/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Past-Tanya-Jean-Russell-ebook/dp/B07B9SNHYN/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.evernightpublishing.com/shadows-of-our-past-by-tanya-jean-russell/

*****

Excerpt

Amory was so engrossed in her thoughts she didn’t hear the approaching sound of bare feet, padding on the smooth wooden floor, until a deep groan broke through them and she looked up to see Jackson. His mussed, dark blond hair was shot through with strands of gold in the overhead lighting.

The man was incredibly made. His arms stretching up and behind his head caused the bottom of his t-shirt to lift a few teasing inches, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of a tanned, rock-hard stomach. They weren’t the sculpted lines that came from the gym, but powerful, solid muscles. A fine trail of hair led the way to the top of his loose navy shorts. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, her gaze was transfixed.

His legs were long and thick, every muscle rippling as he moved down the stairs into the hallway. A rush of heat shot through her body, setting every nerve alight. Her stomach rolled as she absorbed the sight while a little lower everything tightened and tingled. She’d hoped that her memory had been flawed, tinted by the rose-colored lenses of what she had long since accepted was her first love. That clearly wasn’t the case. Rather than letting himself go he had become more impressive. The slenderness of youth had filled out, living up to the promise of overwhelming masculinity.

His lean muscles had broadened, and whilst the softness of youth had faded from his features, it had left a strong profile in its wake. Jackson had grown up all man. She gulped, heat flooding her.

The good feeling from her run was replaced by a more base desire to touch every inch of his perfect body. To pull it hard against her own and feel those muscular planes mold against her. She unconsciously licked her lips as she watched him.

As she met his eyes, the feeling of heat evaporated, replaced by a harsh chill of dread that sank through to her toes. His emotions were playing across his face and it was clear that, despite her DCI’s reassurances, Jackson had joined the dots and figured out who she was. The recognition clearly shocked him as his whole body jolted abruptly to a stop.

Unable to move, she stared helplessly as he began to walk toward her, his face a mix of unreadable emotions. As he reached out, her body began to respond to the heat that rolled off of him. The scent of his skin washed over her, but she moved back defensively. It was a tactical mistake, giving away that she knew who he was, that she had known all along.

“Amory?” he whispered, hope shining oddly through that one word.

Almost imperceptibly shaking her head, all her professionalism flew out the window, and with her heart sinking she managed a stuttered whisper, “N-n-no… No, you’re wrong. I’m Olivia.”

No amount of training was going to get her through this. Despite her only half-admitted hope that he’d see who she really was, Amory knew too much was at stake for this to happen, but it had. Now she had to endure the awful consequences of him recognizing her, the hatred that would follow this moment.

*****

Bio:

I live in England and am married to an amazing Elvis & Neil Diamond tribute artist, thanks to whom I have a house full of jumpsuits & trophies. This, of course, is a source of much embarrassment to our two teenage children!

I am a little obsessive about books and have an embarrassingly huge and ever growing pile of things that I just ‘have’ to read next to my bed.

I squeeze my daydreaming … ahem … ‘writing’ around my family and my day job in HR, and am convinced that chocolate & diet coke should be considered a well-balanced diet!

Author Links

https://www.tanyajeanrussell.com/

https://www.facebook.com/TanyaJeanRussellAuthor/

https://twitter.com/TanyaJRussell

*****

GIVEAWAY!

Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/tanya-jean-russell/

Use the Rafflecopter to enter for your chance to win an eBook copy of Tanya’s previous book, Broken Trust.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Naughty Book – A Guest Post by Janine Ashbless (@sinfulpress) #giveaway

I’ve been very naughty. I know, as an erotica author I’m supposed to be, right?  I’m supposed to use transgression and shock for erotic effect in my work. Well, in my novel The Prison of the Angels, which is all about – surprise! – fallen angels and their wickedness, there’s an intricate scene in which I turn the kinky sex up to eleven – and I kick it all off by quoting the Bible. Extensively. Egregiously. With malice.

My heroine, Milja, has a lot of issues by this stage in the trilogy. She’s a Christian who has betrayed God, according to all that she’s been told. She has a definite propensity for public exhibitionism and submission. And she is carrying a TON of guilt regarding how she has treated her angelic lover Azazel. So in a scene that is pretty much her ultimate guilt/BDSM fantasy, she finds herself naked and surrounded by a load of leering guys, and there’s a preacher excoriating her with bible verses.

The Bible’s got a lot of filthy stuff in it, if you know where to look. Much of it’s under the guise of condemnation: “I will shew unto thee the judgment of the Great Whore that sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication”. (Revelation 17)

That’s metaphorical of course – Babylon, the Great Whore, is a symbolic figure. But there’s a strong Biblical thread of denouncing nations/peoples/cities by slut-shaming them in the symbolic guise of errant wives and/or prostitutes who just can’t give up the game because they just love to fuck.

“She gave herself as a prostitute to all the elite of the Assyrians and defiled herself with all the idols of everyone she lusted after. She did not give up the prostitution she began in Egypt, when during her youth men slept with her, caressed her virgin bosom and poured out their lust on her.” (Ezekiel 23)

The Prophet Hosea, for example, was commanded by God to marry a “harlot” in order to provide a living sermon. “Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts. Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born.”

In Milja’s fantasy all this bubbles up to shame, frighten and excite her, because there’s really nothing like a sense of transgression and sinfulness to get people thoroughly overwrought:

“For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest: And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms. I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted.” – (Ezekiel 23)

And the filthiest verse in the Bible? That’s in Ezekiel 23 too: “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.”

That’s a simile even I would balk at, normally – but hey, it’s in the Good Book! Thank you, Biblehub!

xxx

Janine

*****

Excerpt from The Prison of the Angels:

The cold water flashed like white fire over every inch of my skin. It burnt my eyeballs and my lips and the inside of my throat, and beyond the white fire was a darkness so immense that it swallowed me whole.

I fell forever.

Something grabbed my wrist. Something so hot that it boiled away the darkness, so that there was suddenly light flashing in my eyes. I felt myself grabbed up bodily and lifted. I felt heat against my lips, blowing fire into my frozen lungs. I saw the wooden posts of a flight of steps, and then I pitched forward onto hands and knees in the shallow snow, choking up pond-water. In front of my blurred vision an inchoate swirl of darkness poured up the steps onto the lit porch and then disappeared. Unseen, something slammed against the door, a knock that made the house shake.

I was on the ground beneath the back porch of John’s house, I realized, shuddering.

Mama. Oh Mama. The thought seemed to come from nowhere.

Three times the knock sounded, and on the third the door burst open—outward, onto the porch—to reveal Egan in the lit room within; shaven, shirtless, and frozen mid-lunge for what I could only assume was a weapon of some sort.

He stared.

I tried to cry out.

“Milja?”

Grabbing his pistol he ran out barefoot onto the porch and looked around for enemies that were not there. Then he clattered down and pulled me up into his arms. I pressed my face to his neck and he carried me up the steps and over the threshold—not like a bride, but like a child he could hold tight against his torso, his wrists locked under my thighs. His skin blazed against mine. He hefted me into the kitchen and propped my ass on the table in front of the range.

“What the hell?” he demanded in a low fierce voice, sweeping locks of sodden hair back from my face. My hat seemed to have disappeared. “What happened, Milja? What were you doing out there?”

“Ice. I fell in the lake.” My jaw chattered. It was obvious I was telling the truth—I was soaked from head to toe, and after clasping me so close he wasn’t much drier himself.

“Feckssake, woman!” he growled. “What the hell were you thinking of?” He shucked off my coat, which lifted a sodden ton from my shoulders, then stooped to pull my boots off; ice-water spilt all over the floor.

I tried to strip off my gloves but my fingers weren’t capable of gripping anything.

“Come here, come here,” he said softly from where he knelt at my feet, grabbing my wrists and peeling away the useless gloves. He pressed my hands on either side of his warm neck, holding them there. They must have felt like ice-blocks to him, but he didn’t wince.

He looked like a knight kneeling before his queen, I thought. I could feel his pulse.

“I’ll go get towels, Milja. Are you going to be okay a sec?”

I nodded, though he probably couldn’t see it through the shuddering. He rose and hurried off, leaving me with the radiant warmth of the stove. I thought I should probably get the rest of my clothes off, but even after I struggled with my fly zipper my jeans seemed determined to cling to my bum-cheeks.

I heard the back door bang shut and I flinched.

Azazel?

Had he been gathering himself to come get Egan? Was he the one who had saved me from the black waters? Where was he now?

Egan came back in carrying armfuls of towels. “Alright?”

“I’m okay,” I told him, smiling through my shudders. He was still shirtless, and I could see the faint Ethiopian scars on his arm and chest.

He wrapped my hands one at a time in a towel, chaffed them dry, and then set them deliberately against the hard, hot wall of his torso.

Oh God.

Then he slipped all the buttons on my thick flannel shirt—the one I’d chosen this morning precisely because it wasn’t provocative or distracting—and he only slowed when he realized I was wearing just a bra-top underneath. My nipples stood in shamefully hard points under the stretch cotton. I tried to wriggle out of the long tartan sleeves of my shirt on my own, to spare his blushes, but everything clung like a freezing cold second skin and he had to help.

The shallow slash on my forearm wasn’t bleeding anymore, but each brush of his fingers felt like hot coals.

My wet garment made a slap as it struck the floor.

He draped a towel around my shoulders and another over my head. He started rubbing the water from my face and hair and scalp, his movements precise and gentle. For long moments I was buried in a soft darkness. I reached out, blind, to put my hands back on his bare ribs. I could feel his heart pounding beneath them, like a beast pacing a cage.

I have no idea when it all changed for him. When his grueling self-denial simply fell apart, like a garment worn and washed until the fabric was weakened beyond all use. All I knew was that he dropped the towel off my damp head, cupped my face in both his hands and—absolutely without warning—kissed me.

*****

Blurb:

Milja Petak’s world has fallen apart.

Her lover, the fallen angel Azazel, has cast her aside in rage and disgust. The other contender for her heart, the Catholic priest Egan Kansky, was surrendered back into the hands of the shadowy Vatican organization, Vidimus, after sustaining life-threatening injuries.

She has killed and she has betrayed. She is alone, homeless, and at the end of her tether – torn apart by guilt and the love she has lost.

But neither Heaven nor its terrifying representatives on Earth have finished with Milja.

Both her lovers need her in order to further their very different plans, and both passionately need her, though they may try to deny it.

Milja is once again forced into a series of choices as she uncovers the secrets Heaven has been guarding for centuries. But this time it is not just her heart at stake, or even the fate of a fallen angel.

This time, the choices she makes will change everything.

This time it’s the End of the World.

The Prison of the Angels is the third in the acclaimed Book of the Watchers trilogy, following on from Cover Him with Darkness, and In Bonds of the Earth.

Buy links:

Amazon

Kobo

iTunes

Google Play

Barnes and Noble

*****

Author bio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure. She likes to write about magic and myth and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Buyer beware! If you like dark romance and a hard-won Happily Ever After, try “Cover Him with Darkness,” “Heart of Flame,” or “The King’s Viper.” If you prefer challenging erotica, go for “Red Grow the Roses” or “Named and Shamed” instead. All her other books lie somewhere on the spectrum between.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology ‘Geek Love’.

Born in Wales, Janine now lives in the North of England with her husband and two rescued greyhounds. She has worked as a cleaner, library assistant, computer programmer, local government tree officer, and – for five years of muddy feet and shouting – as a full-time costumed Viking. Janine loves goatee beards, ancient ruins, minotaurs, trees, mummies, having her cake and eating it, and holidaying in countries with really bad public sewerage.

Her work has been described as:

“Hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “Vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.” (Portia Da Costa)

Author Links:

Janine Ashbless website: http://www.janineashbless.com/

Janine Ashbless on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janineashbless

Sinful Press website: https://www.sinfulpress.co.uk

*****

GIVEAWAY!

Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/janine-ashbless-4/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Man in the Mask – A Guest Post by Lady Divine (@FrancescaHartz @sinfulpress)

Everyone wears a mask of one kind or another.

In romance novels, masks tend to be elaborate, lavishly decorated things, hiding the identity of the mysterious lover from the (more often than not) naïve hero/heroine.

But, in real life, our masks tend to be far less erotic … and much more complicated.

The average human being doesn’t only wear one. They become layered, one over the other. We switch between them throughout the day, showing the face we need for a given situation – parent, spouse, sibling, employee, neighbor. On occasion, one will fall away when we don’t need it anymore, but we tend to add more as time goes on, piling them up until it sometimes becomes difficult to remember who we were to begin with.

Masks can take us away from ourselves.

But sometimes they show who we really are.

And the effect is broad. In the search to find ourselves, it may not even be our own mask, but someone else’s mask, that reveals the truth about us.

There are so many different kinds of masks. In my life, I’ve worn many – masks of compassion, nurturing, confidence, protection. In my work as a professional Dominant, I’ve seen hundreds more – men and women peeling away who they have to be in their vanilla lives and wearing, for my eyes only, the masks they show no one.

This concept of masks has always fascinated me – the idea of becoming more yourself by changing what people see, either literally or symbolically. In my story for Sinful Press’s new anthology Sinful Pleasures, “The Man in the Mask”, I decided to combine both the mask of a man longing to remember who he was with the elaborate mask of the romantic lover. At his birthday party, with every person he knows in attendance, Miguel decides to turn back the clock on his life by doing the one thing that most people would find unthinkable – cheat on his husband with a beautifully submissive masked stranger.

But that’s what we see on the surface. Beneath their masks, Miguel and his anonymous lover aren’t necessarily who they appear to be.

You can find out more about this story, and many of my other writings, by following me on Tumblr – https://lady–divine.tumblr.com (or https://lady-divine-writes.tumblr.com for a more safe for work version ;D). You can also find me on Twitter @FrancescaHartz, or on Instagram at ladydivine91 as I embark on my latest adventure, which is as far from professional Dominant as I could possibly get – fledgling freestyle skater 😉

Stay safe, stay sane, stay consensual – but remember to play dirty as often as you can 😉

Francesca Hartz

a.k.a. Lady Divine

*****

Excerpt from “The Man in the Mask”

Sinful Pleasures

Shhh. We have to do this quick,” Miguel says, reaching around the body of the man standing in front of him to undo the buttons of his shirt. “My husband is going to come looking for me soon.”

“O-okay,” the man acquiesces. “Well, then, do you think I can at least look at you while we…?”

Miguel stops unbuttoning and clamps a hand over the man’s mouth before he can say another word.

“No talking!” he snaps. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and it’s going to stay that way. Got it?”

“Is that what you want?” the man asks in a softer voice, hoping Miguel won’t object.

“What if it is?” Miguel replies, his accompanying chuckle cruel. He’s indifferent to the man’s feelings because tonight, he’s not a man. He’s a puppet. A toy. An instrument for Miguel’s use…for his pleasure. “It’s what you must want, too, yes? Otherwise, why do you come here wearing that mask?”

The half-mask the man has on is an odd sort of accessory. It’s lavishly decorated, almost gaudily so—blood red around the eyes and trimmed in gold sequins, swirling filigree designs, and accented in gold dust and rubies—a dramatic shield obscuring a face of pale skin, meticulously styled brown hair, and stunning green eyes.

“Because I was t-told…” The man stutters to a stop when Miguel’s fingers brush his skin, playing through the hairs on his chest. He begins again, wishing he had taken one last shot of the whiskey they’d been serving downstairs. It might have strengthened his voice. “I was told that if I wore it, I would meet the man of my dreams.”

“So, you admit to coming here of your own free will?” Miguel asks. Consent is essential to him. Without it, he’ll dismiss this man now, no exceptions.

It would be a shame not to get the chance to have him, but there are others willing to take his place.

“Yes,” the man replies.

“Say it,” Miguel demands. “Word for word. Say you are here of your own free will.”

“I am here of my own free will.”

“Even though you know what I might do to you?” Miguel has to wonder if this man truly knows anything about his unconventional tastes, his unusual cravings. “Even though you know what a night with me might entail?”

“Yes,” the man answers without hesitation. “I know, and I consent.”

*****

Sinful PleasuresBlurb

Sinful Press welcomes you to lose yourself in Sinful Pleasures.

Join us as we weave our way from mainstream erotic romance to surreal sex-filled dreamscapes and everything in between, created by some of the best new and established voices in the erotica genre.

Janine Ashbless, Ella Scandal, Sonni de Soto, Jo Henny Wolf, Lily Harlem, Lady Divine, Gail Williams, Samantha MacLeod, Tony Fyler, Ellie Barker, Lisa McCarthy

Buy links

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Google Play

iTunes

Support your small publisher and buy the paperback direct

*****

Author Bio

Lady Divine is a professional Dominatrix living and working in Southern California, and that’s where most of her writing inspiration comes from. She is also a wife and a mother, a classical musician, a photographer, and a greco roman wrestler, as well as an LGBTQIA+ advocate. Lady Divine can be found gracing the internet at www.lady–divine.tumblr.com

Defining a Little Sweet Heat by Becca Dale

Hi, K D. Thanks for letting me drop by to visit with you and your readers today. This tour has been both interesting and fun since the stops have almost all been in the UK. It has been an interesting experience indeed.

I thought I’d take a moment to tell readers about feel of my writing. Although The Millionaire and the Girl Next Door is the mildest heat level I have written in a long while, my work runs the gamut from heated to steamy. However, the underlying sweetness never goes away. No matter how Alpha the male or how explicit the sex, passionate tenderness remains beneath it all. In the case of the Millionaire and the Girl Next Door, Jake must face Christa’s family, an emotionally wounded ghost, and the heroine’s own fears. It is those fears that slow him down again and again. He wants but he won’t take until he has her trust.

This heroic attitude drives my heroes and can be a pain in the backside when I want them to get down to it and they give me the lecture in my head about good things coming to those who wait. They don’t care what I want. Their goal, no matter how worked up they might get, is always to satisfy their woman’s needs. I, as the author and supposedly the woman in charge, seem to have no choice in this. Maybe because my own husband offers this type of consistent consideration, my heroes cannot be anything but exactly what my heroines need. Now sometimes, as in the case of Erotic Healing, what the heroine needs is to break down her barriers and get well and thoroughly screwed. Other times, as in my latest release from Decadent Publishing, The Millionaire and the Girl Next Door, the heroine needs time, patience, and a generous dose of understanding before she can let her hair down and say let’s have some fun.

So tenderness and deep emotion run through all my stories. Even in the ones with true Alphas, or the ones with a little kink, the sweetness never goes away. Most of my writing is labeled erotic or sensual romance because I walk the fine line between the two, but no matter how hot the sex, readers consistently label my work as sweet because love and consideration remains at the core of every hero.

Be sure to check at the bottom for a chance to win books from Decadent Publishing. Have fun, and thanks again for letting me hang, K D.

The Millionaire and the Girl Next DoorThe Millionaire and the Girl Next Door Blurb

Tired of chasing his family’s need for money and power, millionaire Jake Wescott heads to Freewill,Wyoming and the beautiful piece of heaven that calls to him.

The girl next door, Christa Dunham puts family first, and she’s determined to protect them from the city boy before he ruins their hunting grounds or steals her heart and then walks away when the lonely nights get too long.

Neither of them expects the attraction that pulls them together nor the lost spirit who wants to drive them apart. Confronting the past leaves them both anxious to find a love beyond a lifetime.

Read an Excerpt: http://www.decadentpublishing.com/product_info.php?products_id=652&osCsid=34ipt9g1f8e41i1lqa1qrdac84

Buy Links : http://www.authorbeccadale.com/#!books/cnec 

About the Author

Becca Dale writes erotic romance with a passionate soul. Her work skirts the very edge of sensual versus erotic romance, which is why fans often use the term sweet-heat, and she tells her editors she is naughty enough. She also strives to make her characters true to life, the type of people readers might know or could meet in the grocery store who just happen to have great sex lives.

Website: http://www.authorbeccadale.com/

Blogger: http://beccadale.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/becca.dale.71

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeccaDaleAuthor

Contest:

This is stop four on a five day blog tour. Every comment you leave, takes you one step closer to winning anything from my Decadent Publishing backlist and your choice of any Western Escape title. In addition, drop by my website to link to Decadent Publishing’s Give a Reader a Reader. You could win 45 eBooks for you and a loaded Nook eReader for a friend. Join the fun!

Tomorrow’s stop: http://www.snifferwalk.org/

Yesterday’s stop: http://zarastoneley.blogspot.co.uk/

Guest Blogger: Zara Stoneley

Hi KD, Thanks for having me here today.

Sex can be good, uncomplicated fun, or it can be something far different. It can be used to control, to tempt, to punish, to reward. It can make a simple relationship complex, or can be the most straightforward part of a complex relationship.

Riding HighIn ‘Riding High’ Roisin has finally found something she’s never had before – great sex. But it frightens her. She has important, life changing decisions to make and she’s afraid of making them for the wrong reasons, sex and lust, rather than good business and common-sense. She’s grown up seeing the destructive side of sex, watched her womanising father destroy her family life and then discovered her husband has a secret life she knew nothing about. And she doesn’t want history to repeat itself.

Saul, on the other hand doesn’t have a problem with the sex – it’s the nagging desire to hang around and look after her that bothers him. But he’s only doing it to try and make up for his father’s mistakes, right?

Never simple is it? We can’t always separate the lust from the love, and when other things are going on in our lives and emotions are running high, when there are other people involved, suddenly it can be difficult to know what we should be doing and why.

Roisin and Saul both want to be emotionally independent, because they think it’s easier that way. But I wanted to throw them both together, with no easy way out, and a sexual attraction that was impossible to resist, and then watch them work out the ‘why’. Why do they want to avoid involvement? Because until they understand the ‘why’, they’re never going to be able to work out the ‘what’!

 

Excerpt

His warm hands hit her waist, making her feel squishy inside; his warm lips on her neck made her feel something different altogether. She wriggled free and took a step backwards. Distance was what she needed. Distance from temptation

‘You’ll be fine, honest.’ The seductive drawl made a promise he probably couldn’t keep.

‘From where you’re standing, yeah.’

‘The business will be fine, you’ll be fine.’ He was shrugging as though she was a moron, as though it was all straightforward. ‘I’ll sort it.’

‘I don’t want you to sort it.’ She really didn’t. She was sorting this herself, picking her way. Making it work. And if it didn’t work? Well, she’d know exactly who to blame. She put the cup down, misjudged, and it hit the work surface hard, sending a splash of coffee.

‘Well. tough shit, darling, because I’m involved, we’re both involved.’

‘Huh. We’ll see. And I’m only involved if I decide to do it.’ If. That was the problem, though; she didn’t want any “we”. She wanted that one-night stand to have been a one-night stand. And the only way she was going to be able to consign it to honourable history was if she could keep as many miles as possible between them.

‘So you’ve changed your mind? You’re going to give up and go, just like that?’

She looked into the eyes that suddenly seemed darker, more controlling. ‘I didn’t say that. I haven’t made up my mind yet, so I can’t change it, can I?’

‘Fine.’

‘I’m not going to let anyone bully me into this if I feel it’s wrong for me. I’ll find something else.’ Somehow. Shit, what if she couldn’t?

‘Sure.’ He picked up the spoon she’d discarded and jabbed it into the sugar bowl.

‘You don’t take sugar.’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘I suddenly have a craving for something sweet.’

‘I can’t let anyone make up my mind for me, Saul, not even you.’ The spoon clattered into the sink. ‘Shagging me senseless last night doesn’t change anything, this is my decision.’ A muscle was twitching in his jaw; she was making him mad. But she couldn’t stop pushing; he had to know that if she did this it was on her terms. Alone.

‘I’m not out to bully you, Roisin.’ The tight, low voice had a warning tone. ‘I just thought this was a reasonable solution.’

‘What, a solution that suits me or just you?’

‘That suits everyone. This is about business, pure and simple; it isn’t about shagging you senseless. How many times do I have to fricking say that?’

‘Until you stop fricking doing it.’ Why the hell didn’t he get that? The fact that every time they did it, it made the whole thing harder, more complicated. ‘Why’ve you been shagging me at every opportunity, eh? Hunting me down before you came here? Coming back last night to soften me up?’ She pulled further away from him. Maybe she wasn’t being fair. But life wasn’t being bloody fair. She wasn’t sure she wanted to just stop this fling yet, and she didn’t want to walk away from a place she’d fought for unless she had to. This place meant more to her than he could ever imagine, she’d had more battles, more heartache to keep this place than in the rest of her life put together. But was it worth prolonging the agony? It would take more than divine intervention for her to be able to buy it back.

‘I didn’t hunt you down and you know it. That was something that just happened and we both bloody wanted it, so don’t pretend you didn’t. I didn’t need to soften you up, Roisin, I didn’t need to do anything. I just wanted you.’ He sat down and looked. And he looked like he was being honest, or a bloody good actor. ‘Admit it, Roisin, you wanted it too.’

‘OK, I admit it, I wanted it.’ She shrugged. What was not to like when someone attacked you with animal lust?

‘I’m not forcing you into doing this. I just don’t want to take everything away from you if there’s no need.’

‘I need this place.’

‘I know. Don’t worry.’

‘Sorry, but that’s easy for you to say. I do worry.’ He was making it hard to distrust him, making it hard to push him away.

 

Blurb

‘Have wild crazy monkey sex with the first man you bump into.’ Roisin Grant hadn’t intended to follow her best friend’s advice – but, sometimes, what you expect from life and what you get don’t match up. She never expected her husband would have a stash of home-made porn movies, with him in the starring role, or that he would die and leave her bankrupt. And she never expected to be faced with asset-stripper Saul Mathews and a choice. Walk away from her home and equestrian business, or call his bluff and help him deliver riding lessons of an altogether different kind.

An erotic novel with mixed themes including m/f, menage, sex in public and voyeurism.

Available from – Xcite BooksAmazon (UK)Amazon (US)

*****

About the author

Zara is a writer and lover of all things romantic, from the sensual to the sexual, who knows that naughty can be nice. She lives in the UK, but whenever she can she heads off in search of some sunshine and inspiration for her stories.

She love sexy high heels…good food….good wine….music…coffee (lots and lots of coffee)… and Italy. All things Italian from the countryside to the culture, the wine to the food…and of course the sexy men.

She’s been a consultant, a teacher, a mother, a wife, a lover… and has always been a writer and she’d love to hear from you.

Where you can find her-

Blog: http://zarastoneley.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter:  @ZaraStoneley

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ZaraStoneley

Email – zarastoneley@gmail.com