Angela Knight's Blog, page 5
April 4, 2016
Lesson 2 from my new class at Savvy Authors
Hi!I'm running BRAINSTORMING TO REVISION, an online class I teach, at Savvyauthors.com in April, 2016. The class will be conducted in the forums at the site, so you can read the lessons and respond at your leisure.
Registration for the class will be open through Wednesday, April 6, 2016. You'll find information about how to sign up here.
As I've mentioned, this class was born when I decided to document and write 12 lessons around the process of writing an e-book, Chain of Kisses, published by Changeling Press.
Here's Lesson 2, Brainstorming the Initial Idea
By Angela Knight
When I’m doing something for Changeling or one of the other paranormal e-pub, the first question I ask myself is, “What would be fun (and erotic) to write?”I already know this piece needs to be pretty short – 50 pages -- because I’m under contract with Berkley, and my editor wouldn’t like it if I did a paranormal novel for anyone else. Plus, I need to slide this in before starting my next novel. If I do ten pages a day, I can have it finished in five days. (I’ve done this recently, so I know it’s possible.) My Mageverse novels are a bit grueling, so for this short story, I want to do something fun, where I can cut loose and have a good time.If we’re talking 50 pages, I need a publisher that specializes in short and hot. Changeling Press fits the bill, so I’ll go take a look at their submission guidelines, here: http://www.changelingpress.com/submissions.phpAccording to the guidelines, they want: “Paranormal, Dark Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Futuristic, BDSM, and Action/Adventure romantic love stories. All submissions must be targeted for at least one of these genres. What's a Love Story? While there should be both highly erotic and romantic elements to the book, relationships and endings should be plot driven. We don't demand your characters trot off to get married at the end of the book, though we do ask for a HEA (Happy Ever After) or, in the case of serials, a HFN (Happy For Now). Please keep in mind, we've only got one heat level. Over-the-top hot! We can handle anything you send us as long as it meets our guidelines! We do not accept simultaneous submissions. We do accept multiple submissions. Length: We accept outside submissions from 10 to 28K for single titles. Serials from unsigned authors must be submitted as a completed set.”Whenever I decide I’m interested in a publisher, the first thing I do is look at their submission guidelines. Then I read a couple of their books to see how well they’re edited and what the quality is like, and whether I’d like to write something similar. Does their website get a lot of reader traffic? The more readers a site gets, the better the paycheck is. E-mail some of their authors and see whether they like the publisher and are treated well. Check them out with Preditors and Editors to see how they’re rated, here:http://pred-ed.com/ That site has listings for both agents and editors.If you’re offered a contract, read it very carefully and make sure they don’t want to keep your pen name or something. If they do, see if you can strike the clause you don’t like; often they will. Check the details of the contract with a lawyer or agent if possible, or other writers if not. You can easily be screwed otherwise. (I have been, and it wasn’t fun.)
Remember that the lawyer who wrote the contract was working for the publisher, not you. He wrote the contract to give the publisher the advantage. You have to look out for you.
Pay particular attention to how quickly the contract says they’ll publish the book, when, and what percentage of sales you get paid and how often, and what happens to your rights if they go out of business before they publish it. Also, which rights do they want? Those details are the kind of thing that can bite you on the ass, so you need to be careful.
I’ve been writing for Changeling for seven years, so I’m comfortable with them. They’re not going to go out of business, and I trust the publisher not to screw me.
Now that we know what market we’re targeting, let’s start brainstorming the book. I like to take a big whiteboard on an easel and just start writing down whatever comes to me, without criticizing the ideas, just letting them come. You can also brainstorm with Post-it notes on corkboard, or software on your computer, or a spiral notebook. Hell, cocktail napkins. Whatever works.
In my case, I find that writing my ideas on the whiteboard often triggers other ideas, and soon I’m zooming right along. There’s something about those big words and my handy eraser that frees me to play with ideas.
I know I want to do a captor/captive story. I haven’t done one of those in a while, and they’re always fun. The bondage thing Changeling wants is built right in to a C/c, and if you add a big, sexy hero, you’ve got all you need to get my motor running.
That last bit is really crucial to writing an erotic story. You can’t write something that doesn’t turn you on. For example, I’d never try to do a ponygirl story. Women playing at being horses just doesn’t do a damned thing for me. Not that there’s anything wrong with that -- it just doesn’t hit my buttons.
You need to identify what’s really hot to you, because that’s what you’re going to write best.
You also need to be honest with yourself about whether you canwrite erotic romance. Some people just don’t want to reveal their deepest sexual desires to utter freaking strangers. Like me telling this list I like bondage. Hey, Angela Knight is KINKY! (Like you didn’t know that just from reading Jane’s Warlord.)
If writing hot sex makes you squirm and imagine the reaction of your preacher, priest or rabbi, don’t do it. You won’t be able to pull it off. You’ll be happier writing more traditional romances, and you’ll do it more effectively and believably.
Once you have the basic subgenre, start with the obvious questions. WHY is she a captive? Why would a hero TAKE her captive? He’s got to have a good, heroic reason, or he’s not going to be sympathetic. And if he’s not sympathetic, the story won’t work. In 50 pages, you don’t have a lot of time to set up the characters. They’ve got to be instantly likeable as well as hot. You don’t have time to do a big growth arc from asshole to good guy. That might work in a novel, but not in 12,000 words.This is what I wrote down as I brainstormed the book last week. The italics are my commentary for this lesson.Why is she a captive?Hostage against someone’s behavior?War prize? He won and demanded her as his payment for not destroying her people?Why HER? Maybe she is an enemy general/princess. He is from a culture where men and women take sexual captives and practice dominance. (Note that it’s not just MEN practicing dominance. I wouldn’t want to live in a completely male dominated society, because it would drive me nuts. I just want to play submissive games in the bedroom, so I need to set up a more-or-less believable reason for the hero and heroine to do that. This is, after all, fantasy.)As the story opens, she is bound and waiting for him to approach. She is aroused but pissed. (I can really FEEL the potential in that scene. Imagine being all tied up as a big, sexy guy strides across the bedroom, his schlong leading the way…. YUM!)Is this TMI? Ah, deal with it.Futuristic. I like writing futuristics for Changeling, because Berkley limits me to straight contemporary paranormal (at least when I was writing CoK). When I get to play, I want to do something different. Besides, when you’re doing something like bondage, which has so many explosive political implications, you’re better off setting the story on another planet. Then you can just enjoy the fantasy without worrying about your NOW membership.He is hyper masculine. His people are very aggressive. They want mates who have proven their intelligence and skill in battle. He became fascinated by her when he fought her, which is why he decided to go after her. How did he fight her? Hand to hand wouldn’t work; he would have kicked her ass, unless she’s got super powers. He’s a big guy, and he knows how to fight.Maybe she’s a ship’s captain, and their ships battled in space. Female Captain Kirk type, swashbuckling, has had a string of lovers. (I don’t like virgin heroines when I’m writing a guy that dominant. A meek little virgin just wouldn’t be a proper opponent for him. They have to be equals, at least mentally, for a romantic conflict to work. Otherwise he just runs all over her, which means he’ll come off as a bully. A romance between a bully and a rag doll is just no damned fun at all.)Thing is, I have already done a captor/captive with two ship’s captains before. (“Roarke’s Prisoner” in Secrets 2 for Red Sage, which was my very first published romance.) So I have to find a way to give it a twist. Maybe they’re royalty. She’s the youngest daughter of the empress on a matriarchal planet. He’s the king of a neighboring empire. At one time, they were engaged, but she called it off because she was unnerved by her strong reaction to his dominance. He was aware of her reaction, and swore to have her anyway. She threatened to leave the empire and become a pirate if they forced her to wed him.Ehhhh. Not sure that works. He sounds like an asshole, and she’s no better.Continuing to brainstorm…They have known each other since childhood, when they visited one another’s palaces during various events. As a child, she had a crush on him. He was older, handsome, dashing. They were engaged when she was two and he was fifteen – one of those royal treaty things. (When you’re doing a story this short, you have to have the characters in love to start with. It’s very hard to get strangers to love in 12,000 words. Giving them a romantic past solves the problem. The story’s conflict is how they overcome whatever has been keeping them apart all these years.)At 17, he went into his empire’s military, where he got a reputation as a fierce warrior while fighting off an attempted invasion by reptilian invaders.When she was 17 and he was 30, they were supposed to get married. But she found him so intimidating and dominant, she broke it off and ran. The result caused a rift between their empires. Ten years have gone by. He is now 40 and she’s 27. She’s a mercenary ship’s captain. (I do a lot of mercs, because it’s a good way to involve a hero/heroine in someone else’s war.)He attacked her ship and defeated her in combat. He then demanded her surrender in return for the safety of her ship’s crew. Under the treaty between their people, he feels he’s still entitled to have her.Ehhhh. I’m Not Happy. He’s still an asshole, and I don’t like the idea of marrying a 30-year-old to a kid. He ought to understand why someone that young would get unnerved and run, given the kind of Alpha Male he is. What would give him a good reason to take her sexual captive ten years later?When she was five and he was fifteen (Reducing the age difference age difference ), her mother, the planetary empress, engaged the heroine to the hero, who is the son of the emperor of a neighboring planet. The mother’s planet was being menaced by an alien race of reptilian warriors who were on the verge of invading and killing everybody. The treaty gave her planet protection against the invaders; the hero’s father, the emperor, declared war on the lizards and drove them back out of his empire. The hero went to war and fought the aliens. He became a war hero and conquered several planets during the next twelve years.Now it’s a little more understandable. A lot of his people (maybe his best friend?) died protecting hers over that treaty, and she spat on it by chickening out and running away. No wonder he’s pissed. But now she’s the asshole; I have to work on that. When it’s time for her to get married to him at 17, (which makes him 27, which sounds a little better), her sister, the heiress to the throne, tells the heroine the elder sister wants him. The sister is a bit older and a little slutty. The hero does something (I have to figure out what; maybe the heroine saw him having really dominant sex with someone. Her sister? No, that would be kinda asshole on his part. Somebody else. He doesn’t know she saw them.) This incident freaked her out. She ran, rationalizing that her sister would marry him and everybody would be happy. But he wanted nothing to do with the sister; he wanted HER. The treaty was salvaged when the sister married his younger brother, but it was a great scandal, and the hero was PISSED. The heroine assumed a false identity as a spacer, then later became a mercenary captain. He has been hunting her ever since; it’s a matter of honor now. Too many warriors died for her world and SHE OWES HIM, DAMMIT.I’m still not happy about her. Running away was cowardly. The fact that she ran away from him has been eating at her for years. In retrospect, she bitterly wishes she’d married him as she was supposed to. Her cowardice almost resulted in the destruction of her people. Besides, he’s been a subject of her secret fantasies for years. So when he captures her, she’s secretly delighted, though she’s also outraged by his gall and a little frightened about what he intends to do.Now this is a little more understandable. Most of us have done something when we were kids that we regret, so I think readers will be more inclined to cut her some slack. This is also why I need to keep the age difference. If she were 20 when they were first supposed to marry, it wouldn’t work at all.So that’s my initial process. I come up with a rough idea, and then start brainstorming reasons for the characters’ actions that the reader can understand and sympathize with. I also rough in the idea for the paranormal world, but not in great detail. I figure out just enough to go on to the next step. Now I need to nail down the characterization for the hero and heroine before I can brainstorm the plot. So Wednesday’s lesson will be on creating the hero.Any questions?Oh, and I’ll do a crit for the first two people to submit rough plot ideas. First come, first served. Angela Knight
I hope you'll join us at Savvyauthors!
March 2, 2016
An Excerpt from my Spring novel, PALADIN
Here's an excerpt from my Spring, 2016 novel, PALADIN: Graven Gods Book One. It's the first of my self-published e-books, and I'm very excited! I hope you enjoy it.Let me know what you think!
Luckily, the gym I belonged to was one of those 24/7 operations for those with a need to pump iron at three in the morning. It was 7 AM by the time I got there, but there were a surprising number of gym rats trying to get in a workout before work.
Tony's Gym was an enormous space, with rows of treadmills, Stair Masters, and stationary bikes, many with people already puffing away on them.
Across the room from the cardio equipment stood the weight machines, with their stacked metal plates and complicated arrangements of belts and counterweights. Huge mirrors covered the walls, interspaced with posters of fitness gods with biceps bigger than their heads.
I exchanged a wave with my personal trainer, Jeff Mathers, who was busy with one of his other clients, an amateur bodybuilder who groaned as he did arm curls with every plate on the machine.
I straddled one of the recumbent bikes and started to pedal as if trying to win the Tour de France. The bike faced one of the mirrors, and I barely resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at it.
Sometimes my inner fifteen-year-old makes a break for it.
As I pedaled, I realized I was being stared at by a man who'd just walked in. I didn't recognize him, but I wished I had. He was a big, dark haired guy, with the kind of build you'd expect from someone who hits the gym at seven in the morning. His T-shirt stretched lovingly across powerful shoulders and the kind of biceps I'd written odes to when describing Paladin. He had long runner's legs, thighs stretching the black material of his sweats. Not muscle-bound, but lean enough to assume any position a girl had in mind. And I could think of several.
I heard Paladin growl.
You are a figment of my imagination, I reminded him.
"I'll show you a figment." The growl became a snarl. "I'll figment his ass into the middle of next week."
The hunk sauntered over and swung one of those brawny legs over the stationary bike beside mine. His face was as lust-inspiring as his body, with prominent cheekbones, a broad angular jaw, and a wide, sensual mouth with a certain cruelty about its curve.
"Quit leering at the man, Summer," Paladin ordered. And yep, he did sound jealous as hell. Which made me ridiculously happy. At least the guy next to me was real, dammit.
So I turned my head to give my fellow spinner a big smile, and realized he was staring back. Unfortunately, his expression was more Jeffrey Dahmer than Chris Hemsworth. He looked as if he was wondering how my liver would taste with a nice chianti. I looked away in a hurry.
He didn't.
I could feel him staring at me with a cold, reptilian focus. Jesus, why did every male I encounter lately want to kill me? What happened to dinner and a movie? Was it my toothpaste? Had someone switched my perfume for Eau d' Psycho?
I ignored him some more. He kept visibly fantasizing about me and basements.
The better part of cowardice drove me off the bike.
I picked a weight machine at random and sat down to do arm curls. He was still staring, meeting my eyes in the mirror. Chainsaws were dancing in his head.
"Look away, you bastard, or I'll kick your ass," Paladin snarled inside my head.
Unfortunately, Paladin was imaginary. Captain Black-and-Decker definitely was not.
I wondered what the hell to do. I could tell the clerk manning the customer service desk -- if I didn't mind looking like an utter pussy. "He's looking at me!"
Yeah. So not thirteen anymore.
Gritting my teeth, I pumped out another set of reps considerably faster than I usually did. Maybe I could intimidate him through sheer arm strength.
When I looked up again, he was standing by my machine, still giving me that evil glare. I hadn't even seen him get up and come over.
"It is you," he purred. "I thought you were dead, Paladin. I certainly did my best to kill you."
"Oh, shit," Paladin thought. It's Valak! I didn't sense him at first--he was shielding. Son of a bitch!"
I stared at Captain B&D, freezing in mid-rep, my jaw dropping. "Why did you call me that?" Was he some kind of stalker? "How did you know I wrote those books?" If he knew me from Facebook, I was going to unfriend his ass. Then I was going to delete every author photo I'd put up.
The stalker glowered in irritation. "What are you playing at? Do you think I wouldn't recognize the taste of your power, even after so many years? I sensed you days ago when your magic blazed over the entire city like a flare. I knew it for certain when you defeated my acolytes last night. And now here you are!" He bared white teeth. Surprisingly, none of them were fangs.
"You're high, dude. Get lost."
"So this is your new body." He eyed me with something between lust and greed. "How many generations did it take to breed such a combination of physical strength and magical talent?" His cruel mouth twisted. "As many as it took me to get those men of mine you slew twelve years ago? Fifteen generations of painstaking breeding and hard work. Twenty fighters, dead and lost. I was lucky to survive. If some powerless prick hadn't been passing by just as my host died..."
Oh, hell, this guy wasn't high, he was a paranoid schizophrenic. "I have no idea what you're talking about." My gut coiled into clammy knots.
He merely grinned. Evil radiated off him, reminding me of the Lovecraftian nasty I'd had the nightmare about. In fact, I realized with a chill, he felt exactly like that. "Come outside, Paladin. Let's finally finish this. I'm going to burn you out of her brain and take her for my own."
I slid off the machine's seat without taking my eyes from his. "If you don't get the hell away from me, I'm calling 911." My voice shook.
Now he looked downright offended. "What kind of game are you playing?"
"Apparently not the same one you are, Voldemort."
A deep voice interrupted. "What's going on?" Jeff walked up and loomed. I'd have kissed him if I could've reached his face. "Is this guy bothering you, Summer?" He gave Voldemort a menacing glower.
"Now that you mention it, yes." Please, please make him go away.
"Who the hell are you? You don't belong to this club," Jeff told Voldemort icily. "Time to go."
The gym rat he'd been training came over and joined the chorus of flexing. Ah, I love the smell of testosterone in the morning.
Voldemort considered the bunched and straining odds, looking more irritated than intimidated. "We'll finish this when there are fewer witnesses, Paladin." Turning, he stalked out of the gym.
The rest of us watched through the plate glass as he got into a white Lexus SUV and roared off.
Jeff frowned. "Paladin?"
"Character in the series I'm writing."
"Oh, yeah, the detective. I liked that book." I'd emailed him a copy. He turned and considered me. "That guy some kind of stalker?"
"I guess. I've never seen him before."
"Maybe you'd better call the cops and make a report," put in the bodybuilder. "It's a good idea to get stuff like that on the record, just in case he becomes a real problem."
He had a point, but I wasn't up to another chat with the cops. "I just want to finish my workout before I have to open my shop." God knew I needed to burn off some adrenaline. I dropped back down on the machine I'd been using and started absently pumping out reps.
Jeff blinked. "Since when do you do arm curls with two hundred and fifty pounds?"
I blinked back. "What are you talking about? You know twenty's my limit."
"That's what you've always said. Have you been holding out on me?" He nodded at the stack of plates.
For the first time, I actually looked at them, something I'd been too distracted to do under Voldemort's eyefuck. Oh, holy God, he's right. I'd been lifting the whole stack--a total of two hundred and fifty pounds.
I lost my grip on the bar, and the weights fells with a thunderous crash.
January 18, 2016
FROM MILD TO WILD: CREATING SEX SCENES THAT ARE MORE THAN THE SAME OLD BUMP AND GRIND
Here's a sample of my class, going on right now at Savvy Authors. You can still get in until Wednesday, so please sign up!
If you're interested, you'll find the link here: http://ce.savvyauthors.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventId=2625&pageId=489
Lesson 1: Introduction
FROM MILD TO WILD: CREATING SEX SCENES THAT ARE MORE THAN THE SAME OLD BUMP AND GRIND
By Angela Knight
If there’s one aspect of romance that we as a genre have trouble with, it’s love scenes. After all, many of us grew up being told that when it comes to sex, “Good Girls Don’t.” Or if they do, they’re not supposed to like it.
In reality, I think we’d all agree that a sexless marriage would be arid and dysfunctional. Not to mention doomed; what man is going to put up with a wife who doesn’t like sex? Yes, he may love her, but if she hates his body and hers to that extent, somebody’s in desperate need of some serious therapy. And what kind of husband would force his wife to do something she hated? I think the technical term for that is “rapist.”
We don’t publish that sort of thing anymore.
Of course, you could create a heroine who is sexually screwed up to that extent, but readers would expect her to have her head on straight by the end of the book.
Otherwise, your couple is not going to get that promised “Happily Ever After.”
Thus we have to assume our heroines like sex with their handsome heroes, no matter how virginal they may be, even in sweet romances where the bedroom door remains firmly closed. So our heroines do enjoy sex.
It’s romance novelists who don’t.
Or at least, many of us don’t like writing about it. All together now: “It’s just Tab A in Slot B!”
I’ll grant you, the mechanics of sliding Tab A into Slot B may be the same, but only if you leave out characterization, emotion and the development of the romance.
My husband and I have been married for 31 years now, and I have no idea how many times we’ve made love. But every single time is different, depending on what happened that day, what mood we’re in, and what we decide to do to spice things up.
Strawberries, anyone? Whipped cream? No chocolate, though: it gave me a rash last time....
THE CRAFT OF LOVE
As a writer, I pride myself on writing love scenes that are vivid and emotionally intense. Readers read romance because they want to experience – or re-experience – the humming thrill of falling in love with an incredible, sensual man.
In fact, romance novelists who expect to find success must pay more attention to love scenes now than ever before. The newest generation of readers have read Fifty Shades and whatever they've encountered on the Internet; they do not expect us to primly hold back because we’re afraid of being called sluts. They want us to show them what amazing lovers our heroes are, not just tell them that everybody had a really good time. What’s more, editors know that, and they’re looking for writers who are not afraid to deliver.
But selling books is not the only reason to write good sex. Love scenes provide writers with a way to depict emotional intimacy and romantic intensity with a power that can’t be achieved in any other way.
What’s the first law of writing good fiction? “Show, don’t tell.” There is no better place to show the sweet flowering of a romance than in bed. That’s where our characters are most naked – and not just physically.
Think about it. Why do sex scandals grab headlines? It’s because we all know that a person’s core character is revealed by what he does in bed. He can make speeches about family values all he wants, but if he’s fooling around on his wife, we know what’s really going on in his head.
The way our heroes and heroines make love tells us volumes about what they think of themselves and the opposite sex. If they’re tender and concerned for the other person’s pleasure, that says something. If, on the other hand, all your hero is interested in is his next orgasm, that says something too.
Even more revealing is the way in which his lovemaking changes throughout the course of the book. Yes, he may know how to make a woman’s toes curl from page one, but how does making love to this particular heroine affect him? Does his concern for her pleasure increase until his focus is solely on her joy rather than his own? That says volumes about his evolution as a hero. And it also tells you a great deal about how the romance has grown.
GROWING THE ROMANCE
Every scene in a romance must do one of three things: develop the characters, develop the internal or external conflicts, or develop the romance. Otherwise it should be cut.
That definitely includes the love scenes. You can write the most sizzling scene ever put on paper, but if all it does is give the reader a thrill, it should be either rewritten or cut.
If there’s one mistake I see erotic romance writers make, that’s it: love scenes that don’t do anything. Sex scenes that are only there to give the reader a buzz may be fine in porn, but that’s not what we’re writing.
The focus in a romance is always the romance: the growth of love between two people, with all its rocky missteps and luscious pleasures.
Which is why those three-page generic love scenes you find in some romances are every bit as bad as pointless erotica. If you’re including a love scene solely because your editor demands it, you’re doing something wrong. And you’re missing a golden opportunity to advance your story.
It’s my intention with this class to demonstrate how to craft love scenes that make your romance truly romantic.
Over the next month, I will post a total of fourteen lessons, one each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You are welcome to ask questions whenever you like, and I will do my best to answer. Post your questions to the forum.
On Tuesday and Thursday, you may also post a love scene in the forum for critique. I will do my best to critique each love scene, but if there are a lot of posts, it may take me a couple of days to get them all done. I am also on deadline with a book, which may also cause delays in critiquing. Still, one way or another, you will get your crit.
Lessons will include:
The three functions of love scenes in romance
Character development
Heroes
Heroines
Mapping the romance with love scenes
The First encounter
Middle encounters
Last love scene of the book
Conflict
Creating appropriate levels of sensuality, whether for erotic romance or traditional
Sensual detail
C, F and P words – what language should a romance writer use?
Conclusion
I may also add other lessons as I go, especially if you ask a question I think needs more attention.l Also, if you think there's something I'm not covering, please let me know, and I will add a lesson. I want you to be happy with your experience in this class. My objective is to help you all grow as writers, gaining confidence and skill as you learn more about writing love scenes.
Thank you so much for taking my class.
Angela Knight
If you're interested, you'll find the link here: http://ce.savvyauthors.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Calendar.eventDetail&eventId=2625&pageId=489
Lesson 1: Introduction
FROM MILD TO WILD: CREATING SEX SCENES THAT ARE MORE THAN THE SAME OLD BUMP AND GRIND
By Angela Knight
If there’s one aspect of romance that we as a genre have trouble with, it’s love scenes. After all, many of us grew up being told that when it comes to sex, “Good Girls Don’t.” Or if they do, they’re not supposed to like it.
In reality, I think we’d all agree that a sexless marriage would be arid and dysfunctional. Not to mention doomed; what man is going to put up with a wife who doesn’t like sex? Yes, he may love her, but if she hates his body and hers to that extent, somebody’s in desperate need of some serious therapy. And what kind of husband would force his wife to do something she hated? I think the technical term for that is “rapist.”
We don’t publish that sort of thing anymore.
Of course, you could create a heroine who is sexually screwed up to that extent, but readers would expect her to have her head on straight by the end of the book.
Otherwise, your couple is not going to get that promised “Happily Ever After.”
Thus we have to assume our heroines like sex with their handsome heroes, no matter how virginal they may be, even in sweet romances where the bedroom door remains firmly closed. So our heroines do enjoy sex.
It’s romance novelists who don’t.
Or at least, many of us don’t like writing about it. All together now: “It’s just Tab A in Slot B!”
I’ll grant you, the mechanics of sliding Tab A into Slot B may be the same, but only if you leave out characterization, emotion and the development of the romance.
My husband and I have been married for 31 years now, and I have no idea how many times we’ve made love. But every single time is different, depending on what happened that day, what mood we’re in, and what we decide to do to spice things up.
Strawberries, anyone? Whipped cream? No chocolate, though: it gave me a rash last time....
THE CRAFT OF LOVE
As a writer, I pride myself on writing love scenes that are vivid and emotionally intense. Readers read romance because they want to experience – or re-experience – the humming thrill of falling in love with an incredible, sensual man.
In fact, romance novelists who expect to find success must pay more attention to love scenes now than ever before. The newest generation of readers have read Fifty Shades and whatever they've encountered on the Internet; they do not expect us to primly hold back because we’re afraid of being called sluts. They want us to show them what amazing lovers our heroes are, not just tell them that everybody had a really good time. What’s more, editors know that, and they’re looking for writers who are not afraid to deliver.
But selling books is not the only reason to write good sex. Love scenes provide writers with a way to depict emotional intimacy and romantic intensity with a power that can’t be achieved in any other way.
What’s the first law of writing good fiction? “Show, don’t tell.” There is no better place to show the sweet flowering of a romance than in bed. That’s where our characters are most naked – and not just physically.
Think about it. Why do sex scandals grab headlines? It’s because we all know that a person’s core character is revealed by what he does in bed. He can make speeches about family values all he wants, but if he’s fooling around on his wife, we know what’s really going on in his head.
The way our heroes and heroines make love tells us volumes about what they think of themselves and the opposite sex. If they’re tender and concerned for the other person’s pleasure, that says something. If, on the other hand, all your hero is interested in is his next orgasm, that says something too.
Even more revealing is the way in which his lovemaking changes throughout the course of the book. Yes, he may know how to make a woman’s toes curl from page one, but how does making love to this particular heroine affect him? Does his concern for her pleasure increase until his focus is solely on her joy rather than his own? That says volumes about his evolution as a hero. And it also tells you a great deal about how the romance has grown.
GROWING THE ROMANCE
Every scene in a romance must do one of three things: develop the characters, develop the internal or external conflicts, or develop the romance. Otherwise it should be cut.
That definitely includes the love scenes. You can write the most sizzling scene ever put on paper, but if all it does is give the reader a thrill, it should be either rewritten or cut.
If there’s one mistake I see erotic romance writers make, that’s it: love scenes that don’t do anything. Sex scenes that are only there to give the reader a buzz may be fine in porn, but that’s not what we’re writing.
The focus in a romance is always the romance: the growth of love between two people, with all its rocky missteps and luscious pleasures.
Which is why those three-page generic love scenes you find in some romances are every bit as bad as pointless erotica. If you’re including a love scene solely because your editor demands it, you’re doing something wrong. And you’re missing a golden opportunity to advance your story.
It’s my intention with this class to demonstrate how to craft love scenes that make your romance truly romantic.
Over the next month, I will post a total of fourteen lessons, one each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You are welcome to ask questions whenever you like, and I will do my best to answer. Post your questions to the forum.
On Tuesday and Thursday, you may also post a love scene in the forum for critique. I will do my best to critique each love scene, but if there are a lot of posts, it may take me a couple of days to get them all done. I am also on deadline with a book, which may also cause delays in critiquing. Still, one way or another, you will get your crit.
Lessons will include:
The three functions of love scenes in romance
Character development
Heroes
Heroines
Mapping the romance with love scenes
The First encounter
Middle encounters
Last love scene of the book
Conflict
Creating appropriate levels of sensuality, whether for erotic romance or traditional
Sensual detail
C, F and P words – what language should a romance writer use?
Conclusion
I may also add other lessons as I go, especially if you ask a question I think needs more attention.l Also, if you think there's something I'm not covering, please let me know, and I will add a lesson. I want you to be happy with your experience in this class. My objective is to help you all grow as writers, gaining confidence and skill as you learn more about writing love scenes.
Thank you so much for taking my class.
Angela Knight
November 7, 2015
Chapter One: Temporary God
Dear Gang: Here's the first chapter of my December book, the first in a new paranormal series called Paladin and Summer: Temporary God. I'd love to know what you think of it. Please let me know by commenting on My Facebook Page. You may have to like the page to comment.
This series isn't part of the Mageverse or Time Hunters: it's completely new and will be self-published with e-book versions available at Amazon, B&N, Apple, ARe, Kobo, etc. A paperback is not currently planned, because of the expense.
Anyway, thanks! Do let me know what you think.
Paladin kissed me. Deep and starving and desperate, as he sometimes did when he returned to me. It poisoned him, the job he’d taken on because somebody must. Because some subconscious need of humanity cried out in the darkness for justice. For balance against the vicious and the murderous and the uncaring.
For light.
The voices called him, sobbing demands he serve. So he answered, and did.
Then he came home to me and woke me with a mouth that burned and seduced, demanding and male on mine, drawing me out of velvet sleep to the hot, desperate taste of him.
His lips teased me open, his tongue slipping over my lower lip until I moaned, waking, drinking him. Tasting blood and magic, currents of sparks rushing from his lips into mine, lighting up the darkness of my room. Light flowing into me on the thrust of his tongue.
His kiss tasted of ozone, an electric glitter that lit the darkness behind my closed lids as he spilled power into me. Power and the copper penny tang of blood.
They’ve bled him, I thought, with a stab of pain and panic. They’ve hurt him. And if they hurt him, he could have died. The thought of Paladin dead stabbed me to the heart. I’d rather die myself.
“Shhhh.” He soothed me, fingers seeking nipples drawn tight by his kiss. Light spilled from his hands, pouring from his skin into mine, turning my fear into need. Building need into excitement, into wild desire. Pleasure rushed in with the magic, flowing along my nerves, liquid and warm, flushing out the fear with the warm tidal rise of delight.
My pussy grew slick as I arched into Paladin’s hard strength. He rolled my nipples, squeezing harder, making me feel the sharp edge of want. Hands playing over my skin, trailed by sweet neural sparks.
“Did he hurt you?” I managed, fighting to focus on what really mattered. “I can taste the blood.”
“Hardly.” Paladin snorted. “The blood is his. It would take more than Gerald Moss to lay so much as a spark on me.”
“What happened?”
“The usual. Valak has been sending out the dregs of his priesthood to kill for him. Moss wasn’t particularly challenging to either track down or eliminate once I found him. Frankly, I don’t want to talk about it. You’ll remember it later anyway, whether I want you to or not.” His voice dropped to the soft growl that made my pussy even wetter. “We have more interesting things to do now.”
I groaned as his hand slipped between my legs, finding slick flesh, danced around the erect nub of my clit. Pleasure floated up in a long spiral like sparks from a candle flame, swirling with the smoky delight from my nipple as strong fingers tugged with delicate care.
A river of dancing sparks…
#
Light woke me, color shimmering beyond my closed eyelids.
I opened my eyes to find sparks dancing in the dark. Flashes of cobalt blue, cyan and turquoise orbited my fingertips as my hand curled, palm up on the quilt. I smiled in muzzy wonder at the floating fireworks, as I lay on my side, sleep drunk. Dreaming. Gotta be dreaming.
Kisses. I’d been dreaming about kisses. Paladin’s kisses.
It was a hell of an improvement over the clawed, furry hand I’d once seen grope its way over the edge of the mattress. I’d woken from that particular nightmare standing all the way out in the hall, heart thundering so hard my ears pulsed with sheer animal terror.
My dreams could be fanged, nasty bitches. Even Paladin couldn’t keep them away.
But this time the sparks didn’t vanish when the fog of sleep lifted. I raised my hand, watching dancing light trailing my fingers. What the hell is that, I thought, charmed and bewildered. Static electricity?
No, you might get a lone snapping spark from scuffing your feet across the carpet, not this coruscating comet tail in the dark.
I rolled out of bed, watching my hand trail glitter. As I straightened beside the bed, a roil of energy poured from the base of my brain, making gooseflesh rise on the back of my neck, then spread rapidly across my shoulders and down my arms. I spread my fizzing fingers, and the sparks spun out of my hand into a ball that floated weightlessly above my palm. It felt warm, like sunlight on skin. The blue tattoo on my palm glowed, sparks floating lazily upward toward the ball of light.
Weirdest dream ever.
Because that's what it had to be. There’s no such thing as magic. Yeah, all the armchair physics I’d read insisted that when you got to the quantum level—even deeper than neutrons, electrons and protons, down among the quarks and elemental forces—weird shit happened. But out here where us humans live, magic was impossible.
Yet that globe of sparks still orbited over my palm, stubbornly existing.
I glanced around. Nope, no Tinkerbell. No Paladin either, more’s the pity.
And yet…and yet as I gazed at the globe in hypnotized wonder, something happened. My consciousness seemed to expand beyond the limits of my body, until I could feel the big Victorian house around me—the creaking floorboards covered by worn Persian carpets, the circling sweep of stairs, the elderly kitchen, dining room, the parlor and the bedrooms with all their antiques, the long, high-ceilinged dojo that made up the third floor.
And a warm, familiar presence. My mother’s ghost, I thought with helpless yearning. Of all my lost childhood, the memory of my mother was the part I’d give anything to recover.
I blinked dry, open eyes. I felt awake, not that that meant a damned thing, not with my dreams. So why were sparks fizzing around my hand like carbonation floating over champagne?
Summer, watch it! Valak senses you. You’re in danger! A female voice, ringing my mind with sweet, high notes, not Paladin’s deep whiskey rasp. My mother’s ghost?
Whoever she was, she was right.
Hair rose on the back of my neck as an icy exhalation of terror blew away the wonder. My hands started to shake, my mouth flooding with adrenaline-flavored brass. My head jerked as I instinctively scanned for the source of the fear.
Evil. I could feel it out there in the city somewhere. Far too intelligent, impossibly old, swollen like a tick with stolen magic and other people’s blood. It knew I was there, and it wanted to kill me. Rip my soul apart like cotton candy, and gobble me down in great bloody bites.
The way it had killed my mother.
I blinked, and it wasn’t sparks floating over my hand, but a blazing blue fireball. My palm felt singed as if I held my fingers over a sizzling griddle. My left hand burned too, violet and hot.
Something ran up the stairs in thumping bounds. I whirled toward the sound, instinctively backing away.
The bedroom door slammed open so hard it bounced against the wall. I screamed as blue glowing eyes shot across the floor toward me. I tried to dodge, but the thing slammed into my shins. I staggered and almost fell on my ass. Pain slashed my ankles. The fireball winked out.
The room flooded with illumination as both bedside lamps and the ceiling light flashed on, though I hadn’t touched the switches. The ink-black shape yowled, sounding panicked, and pain raked my skin.
My cat.
She had both forepaws wrapped around my ankle, needle claws dug deep as she howled a cycling wail of terror.
"Calliope! Get off!" I hopped, glad I hadn’t obeyed my first impulse and kicked her across the room. The furry little psycho refused to let go. She lifted her head, staring off into the distance as her clutch became almost protective. Her wail dropped into a deep basso growl that sounded like something a hell of a lot bigger than a house cat.
“Dammit, beast!” I reached down and peeled her off my ankle as she spat kitty curses. Writhing in my grip, she hissed at me, her blue eyes crazed. Every long black hair on her body bushed, making her look twice her normal size. "Calliope, dammit, calm down!”
She quit yowling to hook her claws in my sleep shirt. Clinging, she began to shake in racking quivers, a pitiful ball of fuzzy cat panic. I forgot about my own scare and hugged her, stroking her silky ears and murmuring the sort of nonsense people say to terrified cats. My ankle stung like a bitch; she’d probably clawed me bloody. I’d tend it later. The important thing was to convince Calliope she was safe from cat-eating monsters.
Thoroughly awake now, I turned off the lamps and the overhead light and got back into bed, cuddling the cat in the crook of my arm. Her agitated tail lashed back and forth, beating softly against my ribs. "I guess I'm not the only one who had a nightmare, huh, baby?”
With me curled protectively around her, Calliope finally calmed down. Running a hand down her ebony back, so did I.
I must have dreamed those sparks the same way I’d dreamed Paladin’s kiss.
I’d grown up sleepwalking. Every couple of weeks I'd wake shaking, convinced I'd almost died. My dreams were intense: the smell of burning skin, flashes of agony and desperate effort against tattooed men in robes and armor.
I’d use the dreams as inspiration for scenes in my books: Richard Paladin battling demons, his big body launching punches and spinning kicks, his sword an arc of light as magic flashed in his pale eyes. Night after night I dreamed, until repetition rendered the horrific almost routine.
But that thing just now had been another order of magnitude worse than the worst of those. Distilled evil, looking at me. And hungering.
More terrifying than any dream I’d ever had.
Summer, go to sleep. You're having a nightmare, Paladin murmured, his deep voice soothing, hypnotic.
I obeyed him, letting my head drop back on the pillow. He might be nothing more than the voice of my writer’s subconscious, but he seemed so much more.
The room filled with the thrum of Calliope’s purr. She’d quit shaking at last, though her blue eyes glowed in the dark, worried and watchful.
Sleep reached up and gulped me down.
#
When I woke the next morning Calliope was gone. There wasn't so much as a black cat hair on the embroidered white wedding ring quilt I’d inherited from…someone. Mother, grandmother, great-grand, I didn’t know which. Not my aunt; Mary didn’t sew. I wondered if the cat had really been there last night. Remembering the scratches stinging my ankles, I knew how to find out.
Rolling out of bed, I examined my body. If it had been real, there should be a set of claw marks, maybe a puncture or two from Calliope’s efficient teeth. But my skin was unbroken. Guess I had dreamed the whole thing after all.
Too bad, I thought, remembering the dancing sparks that had looked like one of Paladin’s spells. It would be cool to be able to work magic, to summon energies science had never discovered.
But as for that other thing—the Lovecraftian horror that had contemplated me in the dark—I was relieved that sucker wasn’t real.
I’ve had people gush about how lucky I am to be creative. Yeah, right. Let’s swap nightmares. See what you say the morning after.
#
The next morning I dressed for the day in my usual blend of styles—hipster with a dash of neo-Goth, covered in nutty Cosplay goodness. Today I wore black jeans, a pair of Wonder Woman Converse All Stars, and one of my favorite snarky T-shirts — Darth Vader on a star field background intoning, “The NERD is strong in this one!”
Next came the makeup; smoky blue, blending into green toward the center, then a sweep of black liquid eyeliner and over a thick coat of mascara. The dramatic color made the most of my blue eyes, particularly given the way my black hair shaded into blue and violet at the tips. That matched the swirling tattoos on my forearms, curls of blue and violet. My palms were marked with sigils, one blue, the other violet. They were pretty cool, which is why I’d given them to Paladin, my fictional hero.
I didn’t actually remember getting those tatts. I just woke up with them one day eight years ago, when I was seventeen. Judging from the psychic fog that surrounded the event, I blame beer. Shit like that is the reason I don’t drink anymore.
My foster mom, Mary—actually my aunt—had given the ink a long, worried look, but to my surprise, she didn’t jump me about it. I’d figured she’d ground me until the next ice age.
So between one thing and another, I looked like a character from an urban fantasy novel, which is the whole idea. Science fiction writers and bookstore owners are expected to be a little weird.
After breakfast—Captain Crunch for me, Tender Vittles for Calliope—I scooped up cat and purse for the trip to the shop. Leaving the beast at home wasn’t an option; she’d avenge her loneliness on every stick of furniture I owned. A pissed-off cat can do a surprising amount of damage to hapless antiques. I liked the house too much to leave it at Calliope’s dubious feline mercy.
Besides, bookstores and cats go together; my customers loved the fluffy little terror as much as I did. They adored sitting in the cluster of shabby armchairs that occupied the middle of my shop, cat purring in somebody’s lap, drinking coffee and reading used paperbacks. These days, a bookstore needs all the customer-bait it can get.
I looked up at the house silhouetted against the bright blue October morning. It had that charmingly creepy quality some Victorians have, with its mansard roof of fish scale slate, cream siding, and white porch. Geometric details were picked out around the windows in slate gray trim, while the window frames themselves were painted a deep burgundy.
My eyes strayed to the top floor, then slid quickly away. Some things you just don’t want to think about first thing in the morning.
New day, I reminded myself. Lots of shit to get done.
#
Purse slung over my shoulder and Calliope in my arms, I headed for the bright blue Kia Soul parked at the curb. The Kia had been a gift from my aunt when I got my library science degree four years before. A particularly nice gesture, since I had come into my inheritance by then and could’ve bought the car myself.
My aunt always did stuff like that — give me more than I had any right to to expect. I suspect she was trying to make up for my mother’s loss. Personally, I thought she’d already gone above and beyond, considering she’d taken me in, which was more than some women would have done. Especially given that her husband hadn’t appreciated acquiring an amnesiac tween dependent.
I’d always suspected I was one of the reasons the couple broke up, though Mary had insisted that was a more a result of her ex’s general asshattery.
It had been three years since she died, but I still missed her.
I put Calliope into the cat carrier seat belted into the passenger seat, and she huddled behind the wire door looking grim. She’d never liked my driving.
We roared out of the driveway a bit faster than we probably should have. I was supposed to open the shop at ten o'clock, and I was running late. Last night's…dream, sleepwalking episode, whatever you wanted to call it, had resulted in my hitting the snooze button a few too many times. My eyes felt gritty, and my muscles ached.
With the cat rumbling complaints from her carrier, I drove past my neighbors’ Victorians, Craftsmans, and Colonials in their manicured postage-stamp lawns. In Graven’s Morgan Heights neighborhood, people treated their yards like children, nurturing the azaleas that grew in the shadow of elms, magnolias and pines with the fanatical attention of helicopter parents. Elaborate gardens, like elaborate old houses, were the rule rather than the exception in Morgan Heights. Most of the homes dated back at least a century, and some went all the way back to the founding of the city two hundred years ago.
I had no business living in a neighborhood that nice. By all rights I should live in some skanky apartment complex, while working my ass off at a couple of minimum wage jobs in order to afford rent.
Instead, my mother had left me the house, the strip mall our bookstore occupied, and several other properties, including an empty big-box store my real estate company was still trying to rent out. There’d also been half a million in cash and investments. Apparently it was old family money, though exactly what my ancestors had done to make it was anybody’s guess.
God knew it hadn’t come from running the bookstore. The only one who’s ever gotten rich selling books is Jeff Bezos.
I wasn't exactly Richard Paladin when it came to solving my life’s assorted mysteries. Either the clues weren’t there, or I was too dumb to recognize them.
#
Flights of Fancy occupied one end of the strip mall a couple of miles from the house. My tenants included a Chinese restaurant with decent buffet, a tattoo parlor that was not responsible for the art on my arms—I’d asked—and a consignment shop whose owner seemed to find me somehow menacing.
Today it just so happened that Jennifer Stone got out of her car at the same time I emerged from mine. She was a pretty forty-year old, with red hair, blue eyes and a fifteen-year-old son who liked to come into my shop. Dave Stone was a great kid, a carrot-top like his mother, tall, blue-eyed and surprisingly athletic for such a devoted nerd. A participant in the weekly Magic the Gathering tournaments, Dave adored Calliope, which got him automatic cat-lover points with me.
I had no idea why his mother seemed to find me so intimidating.
"Hello, Jennifer,” I said over Calliope’s sharp black ears as she rode regally in my arms. “Pretty day.” It was the kind of cool, piercingly clear morning that made October in South Carolina a luminous delight.
Waving vaguely without looking at me, the woman speed-walked to her shop. The door opened and closed with a jangle of agitated bells before I even made it across the parking lot.
“What the hell is her problem?” I muttered to Calliope.
I unlocked Flights of Fancy, pushed the door open, and released Calliope. The cat thumped to the floor and ghosted off ahead of me, soundless as a puff of smoke. The string of bells attached to the door jingled.
Turning on the lights, I surveyed the room with satisfaction, breathing deep, enjoying the dry, dusty smell of ink, books and old paper.
I loved that smell. It always reminded me of summer mornings at Mary’s shop in Charlotte, sprawled on my stomach reading while my aunt worked. Or sharing a giggle with her about the handsome hunk on the cover of some romance.
In Mary’s bookstore, I was no longer the target of mean girl witticisms. I was Harry Potter, or Bilbo Baggins, or Jason Bourne. And I always won in the end. I definitely preferred being the hero. Being the victim sucked.
In the three years since I’d returned to Graven, I’d turned Flights of Fancy into a haven for my fellow nerds. There were posters celebrating anime and superhero movies, models of the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon hung from the ceiling, and a cardboard Harry Potter rode his broom over the children’s section.
I also held Magic the Gathering card game tournaments every Saturday afternoon, and elaborate costume contests for Halloween. Then there were the demos I gave showing people how to make cosplay armor out of foam, or the science fiction novelists I booked to do signings.
As a result, kids like Dave Stone who didn’t necessarily have a hell of a lot to do on Saturday night now hung out at my shop. And bought SF novels, comic books, Magic the Gathering card decks, and Dungeons and Dragons manuals.
But really, I was motivated less by profit than the need for friendship. I’d spent too many lonely years as a kid when my only friends were Calliope and Mary.
And Paladin, once the imaginary companion of my lonely childhood, now swashbuckling magical hero.
Going to the antique china hutch against one wall, I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a coffee filter and the bag of expensive coffee I kept there. The customers loved the brew as much as I did, which was how I justified buying it.
Still, I had to be careful. I might have money now, but running a business is expensive. If I didn’t watch it, I’d burn through my cash and end up flat broke.
Luckily my most profitable customers never set foot in the store. I loves me some Internet. Fulfilling the needs of my online clientele kept me prowling flea markets, yard sales, weekend comic book conventions, and estate sales.
It's amazing what people will spend money on, especially when it comes to collectable comics, rare Magic cards, and first editions hardbacks.
Though it would help if Paladin's books took off; at the moment my royalties were just barely paying the shop’s electric bill.
And yes, I was aware of the irony of a bookseller writing e-books. More than one brick-and-mortar shopkeeper has lectured me about being a e-traitor on my Facebook page.
But I was a writer first, and I wanted to be published. The big New York publishers didn't bite, which left self-publishing as my only option. Sue me.
And why didn't New York bite? Was I that bad?
My answers to that question usually ranged from I'm awesome to I suck, depending on whether I’d gotten any one-star reviews on Amazon that particular day. Being neurotic is as much a hazard of the writer’s life as carpal tunnel.
While the coffee pot hissed and burbled, I opened a package of cookies and arranged them on a delicate china plate painted in peacock feathers. Not that I’d see anybody until school let out that afternoon. But I was an optimist—and I liked cookies. Luckily, I had a fast metabolism, or Google Earth would carry pictures of my ass.
Munching happily—Mmm, Oreos—I sat down at my desk and pulled out my phone and its small bluetooth keyboard. I hated typing on the screen. I like using all ten fingers when I write, not just my thumbs.
Opening the Paladin's Quest document I’d stowed in Dropbox, I sipped my coffee and let my eyes slide out of focus.
Some writers know exactly where their books are going. They write plot outlines and diagram the conflicts and fill out character sheets listing everything from their hero’s eye color to his favorite ice cream flavor.
I envy people like that. Which is to say, I hate their well-organized guts.
I never have any frickin’ idea what I was going to write until I sat down at the computer and wrote it. Don't get me wrong, I’d tried plotting my books. Unfortunately, the results ended up sucking worse than that Star Wars movie with Jar Jar Binks. I finally gave up on it and went back to writing my old disorganized way.
Now I sat in my bookstore inhaling the scent of other people’s words and staring at the screen. Until I could see him.
“Hello, Paladin,” I murmured.
“Hi, baby,” he replied, in that deep, low croon he seemed to reserve for me. He sat with his feet up on his desk, his chair balanced on two legs, his hands laced over his flat stomach. Watching me watch him.
I loved watching him.
Paladin was not a very big guy — about a foot shorter than Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden or Lee Child's Jack Reacher, maybe 5’10” or so. He was also built like a mixed martial arts ass kicker—all powerful shoulders, brawny tattooed arms, and big callused hands with scarred knuckles, each with a magical sigil tattooed on the palm.
His face went with the bruiser looks: broad and harshly handsome, with a crooked nose and the pale, icy gaze of an arctic wolf. His dark hair hung to his superhero shoulders, thick and unfashionably long.
In between investigating insurance scams and trailing cheating husbands, he also worked pro-bono for every crime victim with a sob story. The man was a sucker for a crying woman or a pitiful kid.
Paladin’s Quest was an illustration of the kind of trouble his soft heart could get him into. He’d been suckered into going to work for a twelve-year old girl named Chantel Brown who’d hired him to find out who’d really killed her mother. The cops, being the cops, thought it was her father. Chantel was just as convinced Daddy had nothing to do with it. She’d hired Paladin with one hundred bucks in wrinkled bills: the sum total of all the Christmas, birthday and good-grade money she’d accumulated in her decade and change on the planet.
And yeah, the storyline probably was wish fulfillment on my part. I’d have hired Paladin when I was a kid, but since he’d been busy being my imaginary friend at the time, that wasn’t an option.
So I rested my hands on the keyboard, closed my eyes…
And began to type. Thanks for reading! More to come. Look for the book in December, probably around Christmas.
This series isn't part of the Mageverse or Time Hunters: it's completely new and will be self-published with e-book versions available at Amazon, B&N, Apple, ARe, Kobo, etc. A paperback is not currently planned, because of the expense.
Anyway, thanks! Do let me know what you think.
Paladin kissed me. Deep and starving and desperate, as he sometimes did when he returned to me. It poisoned him, the job he’d taken on because somebody must. Because some subconscious need of humanity cried out in the darkness for justice. For balance against the vicious and the murderous and the uncaring.
For light.
The voices called him, sobbing demands he serve. So he answered, and did.
Then he came home to me and woke me with a mouth that burned and seduced, demanding and male on mine, drawing me out of velvet sleep to the hot, desperate taste of him.
His lips teased me open, his tongue slipping over my lower lip until I moaned, waking, drinking him. Tasting blood and magic, currents of sparks rushing from his lips into mine, lighting up the darkness of my room. Light flowing into me on the thrust of his tongue.
His kiss tasted of ozone, an electric glitter that lit the darkness behind my closed lids as he spilled power into me. Power and the copper penny tang of blood.
They’ve bled him, I thought, with a stab of pain and panic. They’ve hurt him. And if they hurt him, he could have died. The thought of Paladin dead stabbed me to the heart. I’d rather die myself.
“Shhhh.” He soothed me, fingers seeking nipples drawn tight by his kiss. Light spilled from his hands, pouring from his skin into mine, turning my fear into need. Building need into excitement, into wild desire. Pleasure rushed in with the magic, flowing along my nerves, liquid and warm, flushing out the fear with the warm tidal rise of delight.
My pussy grew slick as I arched into Paladin’s hard strength. He rolled my nipples, squeezing harder, making me feel the sharp edge of want. Hands playing over my skin, trailed by sweet neural sparks.
“Did he hurt you?” I managed, fighting to focus on what really mattered. “I can taste the blood.”
“Hardly.” Paladin snorted. “The blood is his. It would take more than Gerald Moss to lay so much as a spark on me.”
“What happened?”
“The usual. Valak has been sending out the dregs of his priesthood to kill for him. Moss wasn’t particularly challenging to either track down or eliminate once I found him. Frankly, I don’t want to talk about it. You’ll remember it later anyway, whether I want you to or not.” His voice dropped to the soft growl that made my pussy even wetter. “We have more interesting things to do now.”
I groaned as his hand slipped between my legs, finding slick flesh, danced around the erect nub of my clit. Pleasure floated up in a long spiral like sparks from a candle flame, swirling with the smoky delight from my nipple as strong fingers tugged with delicate care.
A river of dancing sparks…
#
Light woke me, color shimmering beyond my closed eyelids.
I opened my eyes to find sparks dancing in the dark. Flashes of cobalt blue, cyan and turquoise orbited my fingertips as my hand curled, palm up on the quilt. I smiled in muzzy wonder at the floating fireworks, as I lay on my side, sleep drunk. Dreaming. Gotta be dreaming.
Kisses. I’d been dreaming about kisses. Paladin’s kisses.
It was a hell of an improvement over the clawed, furry hand I’d once seen grope its way over the edge of the mattress. I’d woken from that particular nightmare standing all the way out in the hall, heart thundering so hard my ears pulsed with sheer animal terror.
My dreams could be fanged, nasty bitches. Even Paladin couldn’t keep them away.
But this time the sparks didn’t vanish when the fog of sleep lifted. I raised my hand, watching dancing light trailing my fingers. What the hell is that, I thought, charmed and bewildered. Static electricity?
No, you might get a lone snapping spark from scuffing your feet across the carpet, not this coruscating comet tail in the dark.
I rolled out of bed, watching my hand trail glitter. As I straightened beside the bed, a roil of energy poured from the base of my brain, making gooseflesh rise on the back of my neck, then spread rapidly across my shoulders and down my arms. I spread my fizzing fingers, and the sparks spun out of my hand into a ball that floated weightlessly above my palm. It felt warm, like sunlight on skin. The blue tattoo on my palm glowed, sparks floating lazily upward toward the ball of light.
Weirdest dream ever.
Because that's what it had to be. There’s no such thing as magic. Yeah, all the armchair physics I’d read insisted that when you got to the quantum level—even deeper than neutrons, electrons and protons, down among the quarks and elemental forces—weird shit happened. But out here where us humans live, magic was impossible.
Yet that globe of sparks still orbited over my palm, stubbornly existing.
I glanced around. Nope, no Tinkerbell. No Paladin either, more’s the pity.
And yet…and yet as I gazed at the globe in hypnotized wonder, something happened. My consciousness seemed to expand beyond the limits of my body, until I could feel the big Victorian house around me—the creaking floorboards covered by worn Persian carpets, the circling sweep of stairs, the elderly kitchen, dining room, the parlor and the bedrooms with all their antiques, the long, high-ceilinged dojo that made up the third floor.
And a warm, familiar presence. My mother’s ghost, I thought with helpless yearning. Of all my lost childhood, the memory of my mother was the part I’d give anything to recover.
I blinked dry, open eyes. I felt awake, not that that meant a damned thing, not with my dreams. So why were sparks fizzing around my hand like carbonation floating over champagne?
Summer, watch it! Valak senses you. You’re in danger! A female voice, ringing my mind with sweet, high notes, not Paladin’s deep whiskey rasp. My mother’s ghost?
Whoever she was, she was right.
Hair rose on the back of my neck as an icy exhalation of terror blew away the wonder. My hands started to shake, my mouth flooding with adrenaline-flavored brass. My head jerked as I instinctively scanned for the source of the fear.
Evil. I could feel it out there in the city somewhere. Far too intelligent, impossibly old, swollen like a tick with stolen magic and other people’s blood. It knew I was there, and it wanted to kill me. Rip my soul apart like cotton candy, and gobble me down in great bloody bites.
The way it had killed my mother.
I blinked, and it wasn’t sparks floating over my hand, but a blazing blue fireball. My palm felt singed as if I held my fingers over a sizzling griddle. My left hand burned too, violet and hot.
Something ran up the stairs in thumping bounds. I whirled toward the sound, instinctively backing away.
The bedroom door slammed open so hard it bounced against the wall. I screamed as blue glowing eyes shot across the floor toward me. I tried to dodge, but the thing slammed into my shins. I staggered and almost fell on my ass. Pain slashed my ankles. The fireball winked out.
The room flooded with illumination as both bedside lamps and the ceiling light flashed on, though I hadn’t touched the switches. The ink-black shape yowled, sounding panicked, and pain raked my skin.
My cat.
She had both forepaws wrapped around my ankle, needle claws dug deep as she howled a cycling wail of terror.
"Calliope! Get off!" I hopped, glad I hadn’t obeyed my first impulse and kicked her across the room. The furry little psycho refused to let go. She lifted her head, staring off into the distance as her clutch became almost protective. Her wail dropped into a deep basso growl that sounded like something a hell of a lot bigger than a house cat.
“Dammit, beast!” I reached down and peeled her off my ankle as she spat kitty curses. Writhing in my grip, she hissed at me, her blue eyes crazed. Every long black hair on her body bushed, making her look twice her normal size. "Calliope, dammit, calm down!”
She quit yowling to hook her claws in my sleep shirt. Clinging, she began to shake in racking quivers, a pitiful ball of fuzzy cat panic. I forgot about my own scare and hugged her, stroking her silky ears and murmuring the sort of nonsense people say to terrified cats. My ankle stung like a bitch; she’d probably clawed me bloody. I’d tend it later. The important thing was to convince Calliope she was safe from cat-eating monsters.
Thoroughly awake now, I turned off the lamps and the overhead light and got back into bed, cuddling the cat in the crook of my arm. Her agitated tail lashed back and forth, beating softly against my ribs. "I guess I'm not the only one who had a nightmare, huh, baby?”
With me curled protectively around her, Calliope finally calmed down. Running a hand down her ebony back, so did I.
I must have dreamed those sparks the same way I’d dreamed Paladin’s kiss.
I’d grown up sleepwalking. Every couple of weeks I'd wake shaking, convinced I'd almost died. My dreams were intense: the smell of burning skin, flashes of agony and desperate effort against tattooed men in robes and armor.
I’d use the dreams as inspiration for scenes in my books: Richard Paladin battling demons, his big body launching punches and spinning kicks, his sword an arc of light as magic flashed in his pale eyes. Night after night I dreamed, until repetition rendered the horrific almost routine.
But that thing just now had been another order of magnitude worse than the worst of those. Distilled evil, looking at me. And hungering.
More terrifying than any dream I’d ever had.
Summer, go to sleep. You're having a nightmare, Paladin murmured, his deep voice soothing, hypnotic.
I obeyed him, letting my head drop back on the pillow. He might be nothing more than the voice of my writer’s subconscious, but he seemed so much more.
The room filled with the thrum of Calliope’s purr. She’d quit shaking at last, though her blue eyes glowed in the dark, worried and watchful.
Sleep reached up and gulped me down.
#
When I woke the next morning Calliope was gone. There wasn't so much as a black cat hair on the embroidered white wedding ring quilt I’d inherited from…someone. Mother, grandmother, great-grand, I didn’t know which. Not my aunt; Mary didn’t sew. I wondered if the cat had really been there last night. Remembering the scratches stinging my ankles, I knew how to find out.
Rolling out of bed, I examined my body. If it had been real, there should be a set of claw marks, maybe a puncture or two from Calliope’s efficient teeth. But my skin was unbroken. Guess I had dreamed the whole thing after all.
Too bad, I thought, remembering the dancing sparks that had looked like one of Paladin’s spells. It would be cool to be able to work magic, to summon energies science had never discovered.
But as for that other thing—the Lovecraftian horror that had contemplated me in the dark—I was relieved that sucker wasn’t real.
I’ve had people gush about how lucky I am to be creative. Yeah, right. Let’s swap nightmares. See what you say the morning after.
#
The next morning I dressed for the day in my usual blend of styles—hipster with a dash of neo-Goth, covered in nutty Cosplay goodness. Today I wore black jeans, a pair of Wonder Woman Converse All Stars, and one of my favorite snarky T-shirts — Darth Vader on a star field background intoning, “The NERD is strong in this one!”
Next came the makeup; smoky blue, blending into green toward the center, then a sweep of black liquid eyeliner and over a thick coat of mascara. The dramatic color made the most of my blue eyes, particularly given the way my black hair shaded into blue and violet at the tips. That matched the swirling tattoos on my forearms, curls of blue and violet. My palms were marked with sigils, one blue, the other violet. They were pretty cool, which is why I’d given them to Paladin, my fictional hero.
I didn’t actually remember getting those tatts. I just woke up with them one day eight years ago, when I was seventeen. Judging from the psychic fog that surrounded the event, I blame beer. Shit like that is the reason I don’t drink anymore.
My foster mom, Mary—actually my aunt—had given the ink a long, worried look, but to my surprise, she didn’t jump me about it. I’d figured she’d ground me until the next ice age.
So between one thing and another, I looked like a character from an urban fantasy novel, which is the whole idea. Science fiction writers and bookstore owners are expected to be a little weird.
After breakfast—Captain Crunch for me, Tender Vittles for Calliope—I scooped up cat and purse for the trip to the shop. Leaving the beast at home wasn’t an option; she’d avenge her loneliness on every stick of furniture I owned. A pissed-off cat can do a surprising amount of damage to hapless antiques. I liked the house too much to leave it at Calliope’s dubious feline mercy.
Besides, bookstores and cats go together; my customers loved the fluffy little terror as much as I did. They adored sitting in the cluster of shabby armchairs that occupied the middle of my shop, cat purring in somebody’s lap, drinking coffee and reading used paperbacks. These days, a bookstore needs all the customer-bait it can get.
I looked up at the house silhouetted against the bright blue October morning. It had that charmingly creepy quality some Victorians have, with its mansard roof of fish scale slate, cream siding, and white porch. Geometric details were picked out around the windows in slate gray trim, while the window frames themselves were painted a deep burgundy.
My eyes strayed to the top floor, then slid quickly away. Some things you just don’t want to think about first thing in the morning.
New day, I reminded myself. Lots of shit to get done.
#
Purse slung over my shoulder and Calliope in my arms, I headed for the bright blue Kia Soul parked at the curb. The Kia had been a gift from my aunt when I got my library science degree four years before. A particularly nice gesture, since I had come into my inheritance by then and could’ve bought the car myself.
My aunt always did stuff like that — give me more than I had any right to to expect. I suspect she was trying to make up for my mother’s loss. Personally, I thought she’d already gone above and beyond, considering she’d taken me in, which was more than some women would have done. Especially given that her husband hadn’t appreciated acquiring an amnesiac tween dependent.
I’d always suspected I was one of the reasons the couple broke up, though Mary had insisted that was a more a result of her ex’s general asshattery.
It had been three years since she died, but I still missed her.
I put Calliope into the cat carrier seat belted into the passenger seat, and she huddled behind the wire door looking grim. She’d never liked my driving.
We roared out of the driveway a bit faster than we probably should have. I was supposed to open the shop at ten o'clock, and I was running late. Last night's…dream, sleepwalking episode, whatever you wanted to call it, had resulted in my hitting the snooze button a few too many times. My eyes felt gritty, and my muscles ached.
With the cat rumbling complaints from her carrier, I drove past my neighbors’ Victorians, Craftsmans, and Colonials in their manicured postage-stamp lawns. In Graven’s Morgan Heights neighborhood, people treated their yards like children, nurturing the azaleas that grew in the shadow of elms, magnolias and pines with the fanatical attention of helicopter parents. Elaborate gardens, like elaborate old houses, were the rule rather than the exception in Morgan Heights. Most of the homes dated back at least a century, and some went all the way back to the founding of the city two hundred years ago.
I had no business living in a neighborhood that nice. By all rights I should live in some skanky apartment complex, while working my ass off at a couple of minimum wage jobs in order to afford rent.
Instead, my mother had left me the house, the strip mall our bookstore occupied, and several other properties, including an empty big-box store my real estate company was still trying to rent out. There’d also been half a million in cash and investments. Apparently it was old family money, though exactly what my ancestors had done to make it was anybody’s guess.
God knew it hadn’t come from running the bookstore. The only one who’s ever gotten rich selling books is Jeff Bezos.
I wasn't exactly Richard Paladin when it came to solving my life’s assorted mysteries. Either the clues weren’t there, or I was too dumb to recognize them.
#
Flights of Fancy occupied one end of the strip mall a couple of miles from the house. My tenants included a Chinese restaurant with decent buffet, a tattoo parlor that was not responsible for the art on my arms—I’d asked—and a consignment shop whose owner seemed to find me somehow menacing.
Today it just so happened that Jennifer Stone got out of her car at the same time I emerged from mine. She was a pretty forty-year old, with red hair, blue eyes and a fifteen-year-old son who liked to come into my shop. Dave Stone was a great kid, a carrot-top like his mother, tall, blue-eyed and surprisingly athletic for such a devoted nerd. A participant in the weekly Magic the Gathering tournaments, Dave adored Calliope, which got him automatic cat-lover points with me.
I had no idea why his mother seemed to find me so intimidating.
"Hello, Jennifer,” I said over Calliope’s sharp black ears as she rode regally in my arms. “Pretty day.” It was the kind of cool, piercingly clear morning that made October in South Carolina a luminous delight.
Waving vaguely without looking at me, the woman speed-walked to her shop. The door opened and closed with a jangle of agitated bells before I even made it across the parking lot.
“What the hell is her problem?” I muttered to Calliope.
I unlocked Flights of Fancy, pushed the door open, and released Calliope. The cat thumped to the floor and ghosted off ahead of me, soundless as a puff of smoke. The string of bells attached to the door jingled.
Turning on the lights, I surveyed the room with satisfaction, breathing deep, enjoying the dry, dusty smell of ink, books and old paper.
I loved that smell. It always reminded me of summer mornings at Mary’s shop in Charlotte, sprawled on my stomach reading while my aunt worked. Or sharing a giggle with her about the handsome hunk on the cover of some romance.
In Mary’s bookstore, I was no longer the target of mean girl witticisms. I was Harry Potter, or Bilbo Baggins, or Jason Bourne. And I always won in the end. I definitely preferred being the hero. Being the victim sucked.
In the three years since I’d returned to Graven, I’d turned Flights of Fancy into a haven for my fellow nerds. There were posters celebrating anime and superhero movies, models of the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon hung from the ceiling, and a cardboard Harry Potter rode his broom over the children’s section.
I also held Magic the Gathering card game tournaments every Saturday afternoon, and elaborate costume contests for Halloween. Then there were the demos I gave showing people how to make cosplay armor out of foam, or the science fiction novelists I booked to do signings.
As a result, kids like Dave Stone who didn’t necessarily have a hell of a lot to do on Saturday night now hung out at my shop. And bought SF novels, comic books, Magic the Gathering card decks, and Dungeons and Dragons manuals.
But really, I was motivated less by profit than the need for friendship. I’d spent too many lonely years as a kid when my only friends were Calliope and Mary.
And Paladin, once the imaginary companion of my lonely childhood, now swashbuckling magical hero.
Going to the antique china hutch against one wall, I reached into the cabinet and pulled out a coffee filter and the bag of expensive coffee I kept there. The customers loved the brew as much as I did, which was how I justified buying it.
Still, I had to be careful. I might have money now, but running a business is expensive. If I didn’t watch it, I’d burn through my cash and end up flat broke.
Luckily my most profitable customers never set foot in the store. I loves me some Internet. Fulfilling the needs of my online clientele kept me prowling flea markets, yard sales, weekend comic book conventions, and estate sales.
It's amazing what people will spend money on, especially when it comes to collectable comics, rare Magic cards, and first editions hardbacks.
Though it would help if Paladin's books took off; at the moment my royalties were just barely paying the shop’s electric bill.
And yes, I was aware of the irony of a bookseller writing e-books. More than one brick-and-mortar shopkeeper has lectured me about being a e-traitor on my Facebook page.
But I was a writer first, and I wanted to be published. The big New York publishers didn't bite, which left self-publishing as my only option. Sue me.
And why didn't New York bite? Was I that bad?
My answers to that question usually ranged from I'm awesome to I suck, depending on whether I’d gotten any one-star reviews on Amazon that particular day. Being neurotic is as much a hazard of the writer’s life as carpal tunnel.
While the coffee pot hissed and burbled, I opened a package of cookies and arranged them on a delicate china plate painted in peacock feathers. Not that I’d see anybody until school let out that afternoon. But I was an optimist—and I liked cookies. Luckily, I had a fast metabolism, or Google Earth would carry pictures of my ass.
Munching happily—Mmm, Oreos—I sat down at my desk and pulled out my phone and its small bluetooth keyboard. I hated typing on the screen. I like using all ten fingers when I write, not just my thumbs.
Opening the Paladin's Quest document I’d stowed in Dropbox, I sipped my coffee and let my eyes slide out of focus.
Some writers know exactly where their books are going. They write plot outlines and diagram the conflicts and fill out character sheets listing everything from their hero’s eye color to his favorite ice cream flavor.
I envy people like that. Which is to say, I hate their well-organized guts.
I never have any frickin’ idea what I was going to write until I sat down at the computer and wrote it. Don't get me wrong, I’d tried plotting my books. Unfortunately, the results ended up sucking worse than that Star Wars movie with Jar Jar Binks. I finally gave up on it and went back to writing my old disorganized way.
Now I sat in my bookstore inhaling the scent of other people’s words and staring at the screen. Until I could see him.
“Hello, Paladin,” I murmured.
“Hi, baby,” he replied, in that deep, low croon he seemed to reserve for me. He sat with his feet up on his desk, his chair balanced on two legs, his hands laced over his flat stomach. Watching me watch him.
I loved watching him.
Paladin was not a very big guy — about a foot shorter than Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden or Lee Child's Jack Reacher, maybe 5’10” or so. He was also built like a mixed martial arts ass kicker—all powerful shoulders, brawny tattooed arms, and big callused hands with scarred knuckles, each with a magical sigil tattooed on the palm.
His face went with the bruiser looks: broad and harshly handsome, with a crooked nose and the pale, icy gaze of an arctic wolf. His dark hair hung to his superhero shoulders, thick and unfashionably long.
In between investigating insurance scams and trailing cheating husbands, he also worked pro-bono for every crime victim with a sob story. The man was a sucker for a crying woman or a pitiful kid.
Paladin’s Quest was an illustration of the kind of trouble his soft heart could get him into. He’d been suckered into going to work for a twelve-year old girl named Chantel Brown who’d hired him to find out who’d really killed her mother. The cops, being the cops, thought it was her father. Chantel was just as convinced Daddy had nothing to do with it. She’d hired Paladin with one hundred bucks in wrinkled bills: the sum total of all the Christmas, birthday and good-grade money she’d accumulated in her decade and change on the planet.
And yeah, the storyline probably was wish fulfillment on my part. I’d have hired Paladin when I was a kid, but since he’d been busy being my imaginary friend at the time, that wasn’t an option.
So I rested my hands on the keyboard, closed my eyes…
And began to type. Thanks for reading! More to come. Look for the book in December, probably around Christmas.
August 4, 2015
Without Restraint Facebook Party Pt. 4
Here's the fourth section of my contest to win prizes I'll be giving away on my Facebook Launch Party:
This is the grand prize question. First place is a Kindle Fire, 2nd Place is a $25 gift certificate to the online bookstore of your choice, and 3rd place is a signed copy of WITHOUT RESTRAINT.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult.
You can buy Without Restrainton Amazon and Barnes and Noble, among others.
Alex gasped, imagining being tied and helpless while that whip bit her ass and straining thighs. Frank’s feral gaze on her, hungry as the hard jut of his cock behind his blue-jeaned fly, accompanied by the click of riding boots. Building her heat until she thought she’d burst into flame from sheer lust. Until even he couldn’t take it anymore, and his zipper hissed, loud in the gasping quiet, and he thrust deep, so deep, seeming to fill her all the way to her back teeth.Her hips pumped helplessly, her mind leaped to the memory of the way he’d stalked her, that gorgeous cock swaying . . .The first notes of the Beatles’ “Let it Be” rose above Thumper’s delicious hum.“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Alex panted in frustration. She was so close . . .And her mother would be so pissed if she let the call go to voice mail. Mary Rogers knew her schedule as well as she did. Jerking Thumper out of her frustrated sex, Alex switched the vibe off and tossed it aside. Scooping up her cell, she swiped a thumb across its screen, cutting off Paul McCartney in mid-be. “Hi, Mom.”“Hi, baby!” Mary said, her voice sounding so loving it was hard to be pissed even under the circumstances. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”Alex managed not to grind her teeth. Her mother could detect emotional nuances better than a homicide cop grilling a suspect. “Nah, just killing time. What’s up?”“Nothing, dear. I couldn’t help noticing you weren’t in church yesterday. Remember, I told you I wanted to introduce you to that nice boy I told you about. The electrician?” Anybody under forty was a boy to her mother.“Yeah, sorry. Rough night.”“I really think you’d like him. He’s so cute, and such a nice man!”I don’t want a nice man, Ma. I want a man who will beat my ass with a riding crop. Which was not something she could say to her mother. Ever. “I’m not looking for anything serious right now, Mom. I don’t think it’s fair to start a relationship I don’t intend to pursue.”“You need to get back on the horse, honey. I know Gary hurt you . . .”You have no idea. She hadn’t told her mother what her ex-lover had done that last brutal night, explaining the bruises away as being the result of a fight with a drunk. Which had been perfectly true. She just hadn’t told her mother who the drunk was. If she had, the sheriff would have had to charge her dad, her three brothers—and probably Mary herself—with first-degree lynching.Hell, it had been all Alex could do to keep Cap and Ted from beating the fuck out of Gary, not that she hadn’t been tempted to let them go to it.Apparently he’d had that effect on somebody else. Someone who’d actually done it. So now she said only, with perfect honesty, “I’m over Gary. I’ve been over Gary.” Since he stopped using a flogger and started using his fists.Though he still didn’t deserve to die that way. She didn’t grieve for Gary, but she did pity him. “Good. You should be. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but your father and I never liked that man. I do not understand what you saw in him.”“In retrospect, neither do I.”Her mother, of course, pounced on the opening like SIG on a catnip mouse. “That’s why I think you’ll really like Jimmy. He really is a perfect gentleman. Why don’t you come to prayer meeting Wednesday, and I’ll introduce you?”Oh, God, no. Trouble was, she hated disappointing her mother.A flamethrower blast of guilt made Alex mentally writhe. If her mom knew what she’d done last night, where she’d been, what she’d been doing for years . . . Imaging the shock and horror on her parents’ faces, she shuddered.“Alexis?” Mary prompted. “Do you think you can make it?”“I don’t know. I’ve got work that night.”“Alexis Eleanor Rogers, your shift starts at midnight,” her mother said, exasperated. “You could be home from church in plenty of time to get ready, even if you and Jimmy go out for coffee afterward.”“I’ll see, Mom. Look, I’ve got to go. If I don’t get in my five miles now, I’m not going to get them in at all.”Her mother had been married to a high school coach too long not to understand the importance of working out. “Well, all right, dear. Love you!”“Love you, too, Mom.” Alex swiped her thumb over the screen’s end button and slumped back against the pile of pillows, flinging one arm over her eyes.
Facebook Launch Party Pt. 3
Here's the third section of my contest to win prizes I'll be giving away on my Facebook Launch Party:
There will be two questions based on this section. For each question, the first two people to respond with the correct answer will win a prize. So there are a total of four winners for this scene.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult. You can buy Without Restraint on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, among others. Which was why waking up with a cat’s ass in her face was so disconcerting. “Meow!” the ass said in a distinctly demanding tone.“Jesus, SIG, get your butt out of my face.” Alex batted the Siamese’s chocolate-tipped tail away from her nose.“Meow.” SIG Sauer turned and rolled his fuzzy head against her chin.“All right, all right, I’m up. Way to ruin a perfectly good wet dream, furball.”Tumbling reluctantly out of bed, Alex bent to pick up last night’s dress and hang it up in the closet, as she’d been too pleasure-drunk to do the night before. Scratching her ribs through the black Morgan County Sheriff’s Office T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she wandered into the bathroom, SIG bitching at her heels. She took care of business to the sounds of the cat’s increasingly irate Siamese curses.“Keep your fur coat on. I’ll feed you in a minute.”There were only four rooms in the old house, not counting the bathroom her great-grandparents had built onto the back porch five decades before. Alex padded out of the main bedroom, through the den, and into the kitchen, avoiding SIG’s affectionate attempts to trip her on the way.In the kitchen, an elderly white refrigerator hummed and rattled across from an equally ancient electric stove. A rubber dish drainer sat on the counter beside the stainless steel sink, dark brown to match the wallpaper’s crowing roosters. Yellowing lace curtains hung at the tiny window. The morning sunlight shone through them, casting golden light and lacy shadows on worn, brown-speckled linoleum.But old though the house was, she didn’t have to pay rent. She’d inherited it from her grandmother, and had been damned glad to get it. Besides, she was doing good to afford cat food on a deputy’s salary. Renovations were out of the question.Worn linoleum felt cool underfoot as she got SIG a can of cat food from one of the cabinets. The can opener ground over the sound of his increasingly frantic meows. “Oh, for God’s sake, you’d think you hadn’t been fed in a week.” Alex dumped the can into his bowl, and watched him plunge his head into it with a satisfied feline growl.Which reminded her of the much deeper growl Frank had produced while plunging his cock into her helpless cunt. God, what an arousing scene. As she filled SIG’s water dish, she tried to remember the last time she’d burned that hot for a man. And came up blank.No surprise. If she’d special ordered her ideal Dom, Frank would have been it: towering, chiseled, and just sadistic enough to be interesting. The mere thought of him made cream flood her pussy until she gave serious thought to going in search of her vibrator.
There will be two questions based on this section. For each question, the first two people to respond with the correct answer will win a prize. So there are a total of four winners for this scene.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult. You can buy Without Restraint on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, among others. Which was why waking up with a cat’s ass in her face was so disconcerting. “Meow!” the ass said in a distinctly demanding tone.“Jesus, SIG, get your butt out of my face.” Alex batted the Siamese’s chocolate-tipped tail away from her nose.“Meow.” SIG Sauer turned and rolled his fuzzy head against her chin.“All right, all right, I’m up. Way to ruin a perfectly good wet dream, furball.”Tumbling reluctantly out of bed, Alex bent to pick up last night’s dress and hang it up in the closet, as she’d been too pleasure-drunk to do the night before. Scratching her ribs through the black Morgan County Sheriff’s Office T-shirt she’d worn to bed, she wandered into the bathroom, SIG bitching at her heels. She took care of business to the sounds of the cat’s increasingly irate Siamese curses.“Keep your fur coat on. I’ll feed you in a minute.”There were only four rooms in the old house, not counting the bathroom her great-grandparents had built onto the back porch five decades before. Alex padded out of the main bedroom, through the den, and into the kitchen, avoiding SIG’s affectionate attempts to trip her on the way.In the kitchen, an elderly white refrigerator hummed and rattled across from an equally ancient electric stove. A rubber dish drainer sat on the counter beside the stainless steel sink, dark brown to match the wallpaper’s crowing roosters. Yellowing lace curtains hung at the tiny window. The morning sunlight shone through them, casting golden light and lacy shadows on worn, brown-speckled linoleum.But old though the house was, she didn’t have to pay rent. She’d inherited it from her grandmother, and had been damned glad to get it. Besides, she was doing good to afford cat food on a deputy’s salary. Renovations were out of the question.Worn linoleum felt cool underfoot as she got SIG a can of cat food from one of the cabinets. The can opener ground over the sound of his increasingly frantic meows. “Oh, for God’s sake, you’d think you hadn’t been fed in a week.” Alex dumped the can into his bowl, and watched him plunge his head into it with a satisfied feline growl.Which reminded her of the much deeper growl Frank had produced while plunging his cock into her helpless cunt. God, what an arousing scene. As she filled SIG’s water dish, she tried to remember the last time she’d burned that hot for a man. And came up blank.No surprise. If she’d special ordered her ideal Dom, Frank would have been it: towering, chiseled, and just sadistic enough to be interesting. The mere thought of him made cream flood her pussy until she gave serious thought to going in search of her vibrator.
WITHOUT RESTRAINT Facebook Launch Party Pt. 2
Here's the second section of my contest to win prizes I'll be giving away on my Facebook Launch Party:
There will be two questions based on this section. For each question, the first two people to respond with the correct answer will win a prize. So there are a total of four winners for this scene.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult.
You can buy Without Restraint on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, among others.
SCENE 2
“Judging by that kiss, it must have gone well,” Cap observed as red taillights disappeared.“Yeah. Alex surprised me. Subs don’t often manage that.”“Did she?” They turned back toward the big brick Colonial.“She challenged me to hand-to-hand.” Reading Cap’s lifted brows, Frank added, “No kicks or blows. It was more of a judo thing. Two out of three throws.” He felt his mouth stretch into a wicked grin. “Winner fucks the loser.”Cap laughed as they walked back into the house. The basement soundproofing was good; no audible cries or thumps sounded from downstairs. “Sounds like you won either way. I assume you did win?”“Oh, yeah. After I underestimated her on the first engagement and she put me on my ass. She’s good. Got me in a joint lock. Could have snapped my elbow like a bread stick.”“I’m not surprised. She’s been training with Ted for years.”“That’s what she said. I gather he’s something of a badass.”“Former Green Beret.”“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I piss him off. He’s pretty fucking protective.” They passed through the living room with its stone fireplace and elegant wine leather furniture.Just beyond that, the Millers’ kitchen looked something out of the Food Network programs Frank had grown addicted to. White-painted cabinets piped in burgundy surrounded stainless steel appliances that testified to Joanna’s love of cooking.Cap walked over to the coffeemaker that steamed and burbled on the gleaming black Silestone counter. Frank inhaled appreciatively. The air smelled like fresh beans from somewhere they grew expensive coffee. “What’s the story with this ex-Dom of hers?”“Like I said, he was a dickhead.” The old SEAL turned to the refrigerator and pulled out a tiny white pitcher of cream, then rattled around in drawers and cabinets looking for the sugar bowl, mugs, and a couple of spoons. “Most of us become Doms because it turns us on when a woman gives herself. Then you have your plain vicious bastards. It can sometimes be tricky for a sub to tell the hardasses from the assholes until things get the hell out of hand. That’s what happened with Alex—fell in with a Dom who liked to use his fists even more than a crop.”“Her Dom beat her?”“Once. Only once. And then she kicked his ass.” He poured them each a cup. “That’s why Ted kept giving you the stink eye. He feels guilty he didn’t figure out what Gary Ames was before the prick started using his fists.”Frank swore viciously.“Yeah, that’s exactly what I said when she told me.” He paused, doctoring his coffee as Frank did the same. “For what it’s worth, Alex made ol’ Gar pay, but the cocksucker did get in some nasty shots—including kicks—before she managed to put him down. He had thirty pounds and two inches on her, so she had to work at it.”“You and Ted bury him in the county landfill?”“I was seriously tempted, but Ted convinced me jail would suck at my age. I hate it when Ted’s the voice of reason. Sure sign you’ve fucked up somewhere.”“I admire your self-control.”“Wasn’t easy. For what it’s worth, Alex made sure the little shit was charged with domestic violence.”“Good for her. Did he get any time?”“Probation. Apparently he’d never beaten the hell out of a woman before, so the judge decided to give him a stern talking-to.”Frank wasn’t surprised. South Carolina law treated criminal domestic violence like one man beating another man in a bar, instead of the brutal act of betrayal it actually was. “So where does this future corpse live?”“Sorry, ’fraid somebody beat you to it. Literally. Clubbed him like a baby seal a month ago.”“And you say he’s not in the landfill?”“Hey, don’t look at me. Alex’s daddy wasn’t exactly a fan either. Luckily, we were all in Columbia with ten thousand of our closest witnesses.” When Frank lifted his brows, he explained, “Her father’s the Harrison High football coach. They were playing Irmo.”“Alex is Ken Rogers’s daughter?” The man was practically a legend. He’d led the Harrison Hawks to four state championships and was universally worshiped by every man who’d ever played for him. In Morgan County, that seemed to be most of them.“Yup.” Cap bared his teeth over the rim of his cup. “As for the douchebag ex, his murder hasn’t been solved. Hell, they only managed to ID him from his tatts.”“Sounds messy.”“Oh, it was. The killer did a really thorough job on his head with some kind of thick, heavy object. Flashlight or a rolling pin or something equally well deserved.”Frank toasted Cap with his mug. “Long may he rot.”
WITHOUT RESTRAINT Facebook Launch Party PT 1
Here's the first section of my contest to win one of a number of prizes I'll be giving away on my Facebook Launch Party, here: https://www.facebook.com/events/69102...
There will be two questions based on this section. For each question, the first two people to respond with the correct answer will win a prize. So there are a total of four winners for this scene.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult.
As Frank stared in stunned hunger, she balanced on first one foot, then the other to slip off the fuck-me heels. “I want you to prove you can master me. Two out of three falls.”It wasn’t that unusual for a sub to undress at a BDSM party; half the women here weren’t wearing a stitch. But Frank hadn’t expected Alex to strip before they’d even finished negotiating.He watched hungrily as she rolled the stockings down the sleek muscle of thigh and calf. However he’d thought their first scene would go, this wasn’t it. “Two out of three falls? Are you suggesting some kind of fight?” He didn’t fight women. Not if he could help it anyway; sometimes the women had other ideas.“More like a practice bout. No punches, kicks, or choke holds—you’d kill me.” Alex sounded utterly matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “Just joint locks and throws. And pins. Loser taps out of the hold.” She looked up from rolling the other stocking down her calf. She’d bent almost double to do it, making him imagine all the erotic possibilities of a sub that flexible. “Unless you don’t want to.”His cock lengthened, on the verge of escaping his waistband. Frank ignored its dicky demands; he needed to know exactly what she intended. “So you’re not talking about me actually hitting you? Because there’s a big difference between flogging somebody with a deerskin cat and punching her with my fist.”She snorted. “I have no interest in trading punches with you, Frank. You’re too far out of my weight class.”“Yeah, I am. What do I get if I win?” Whenhe won was more like it; not only was he a SEAL, he outweighed her by a hundred pounds of muscle. She didn’t have a prayer.Alex grinned at him as if reading his mind and shifted her weight, calling attention to those lush female curves. “What do you want?”“You.” He showed his teeth and let the hunger show.She smiled. “If you win, you get me.” When his head tilted in question, she clarified. “Sex. With a condom. However you want it.”His smile broadened, and he started pulling off his boots. “I’ll win.”“Maybe. I don’t intend to make it easy.”“Good.” After dropping his socks into his boots, he stood, barefoot. And looked down at her from his seven-inch height advantage. Her eyes drifted down his bare torso to the fly of his jeans, which bulged from the pressure of his erection. “Dicks are off-limits,” he added quickly.“Well, not completely, I hope.” Alex glanced around before he could come up with a suitably suggestive response. “Let’s put the mats out.” Bending, she grabbed one of them to pull it into position in the center of the room. The sight of her round, perfect ass as she bent made his mouth go dry. Dragging his attention back to business with an effort, he caught the other mat and wrestled the bulky thing around beside the first one.Frank straightened as she stepped onto the padded surface, falling into an easy crouch that did interesting things to her breasts. He moved to face her, his attention on those pale globes. Her nipples looked as pink and tempting as candy.“What’s your safeword?” He referred to the emergency code a sub used to let the Dom know something had gone wrong during the scene, whether physically or mentally.“Red for stop, yellow for slow down. Green for okay.” The stoplight system was commonly used because it was so easy to remember. “Stop,” ironically, was the one word that was never used, mostly because some subs liked to scream it when what they really meant was “Keep going!”When he hesitated, Alex smirked. “We going to go, or are you just going to stand there looking sexy?” She crouched like a knife fighter.“Oh, we’re going.” Frank felt a hot smile spread across his face.
He’d heard of a lot of inventive ways to play BDSM games, but this was a variant he’d never tried.
There will be two questions based on this section. For each question, the first two people to respond with the correct answer will win a prize. So there are a total of four winners for this scene.
Please note that you can't participate if you're under 18, because this content is strictly adult.
As Frank stared in stunned hunger, she balanced on first one foot, then the other to slip off the fuck-me heels. “I want you to prove you can master me. Two out of three falls.”It wasn’t that unusual for a sub to undress at a BDSM party; half the women here weren’t wearing a stitch. But Frank hadn’t expected Alex to strip before they’d even finished negotiating.He watched hungrily as she rolled the stockings down the sleek muscle of thigh and calf. However he’d thought their first scene would go, this wasn’t it. “Two out of three falls? Are you suggesting some kind of fight?” He didn’t fight women. Not if he could help it anyway; sometimes the women had other ideas.“More like a practice bout. No punches, kicks, or choke holds—you’d kill me.” Alex sounded utterly matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “Just joint locks and throws. And pins. Loser taps out of the hold.” She looked up from rolling the other stocking down her calf. She’d bent almost double to do it, making him imagine all the erotic possibilities of a sub that flexible. “Unless you don’t want to.”His cock lengthened, on the verge of escaping his waistband. Frank ignored its dicky demands; he needed to know exactly what she intended. “So you’re not talking about me actually hitting you? Because there’s a big difference between flogging somebody with a deerskin cat and punching her with my fist.”She snorted. “I have no interest in trading punches with you, Frank. You’re too far out of my weight class.”“Yeah, I am. What do I get if I win?” Whenhe won was more like it; not only was he a SEAL, he outweighed her by a hundred pounds of muscle. She didn’t have a prayer.Alex grinned at him as if reading his mind and shifted her weight, calling attention to those lush female curves. “What do you want?”“You.” He showed his teeth and let the hunger show.She smiled. “If you win, you get me.” When his head tilted in question, she clarified. “Sex. With a condom. However you want it.”His smile broadened, and he started pulling off his boots. “I’ll win.”“Maybe. I don’t intend to make it easy.”“Good.” After dropping his socks into his boots, he stood, barefoot. And looked down at her from his seven-inch height advantage. Her eyes drifted down his bare torso to the fly of his jeans, which bulged from the pressure of his erection. “Dicks are off-limits,” he added quickly.“Well, not completely, I hope.” Alex glanced around before he could come up with a suitably suggestive response. “Let’s put the mats out.” Bending, she grabbed one of them to pull it into position in the center of the room. The sight of her round, perfect ass as she bent made his mouth go dry. Dragging his attention back to business with an effort, he caught the other mat and wrestled the bulky thing around beside the first one.Frank straightened as she stepped onto the padded surface, falling into an easy crouch that did interesting things to her breasts. He moved to face her, his attention on those pale globes. Her nipples looked as pink and tempting as candy.“What’s your safeword?” He referred to the emergency code a sub used to let the Dom know something had gone wrong during the scene, whether physically or mentally.“Red for stop, yellow for slow down. Green for okay.” The stoplight system was commonly used because it was so easy to remember. “Stop,” ironically, was the one word that was never used, mostly because some subs liked to scream it when what they really meant was “Keep going!”When he hesitated, Alex smirked. “We going to go, or are you just going to stand there looking sexy?” She crouched like a knife fighter.“Oh, we’re going.” Frank felt a hot smile spread across his face.
He’d heard of a lot of inventive ways to play BDSM games, but this was a variant he’d never tried.
July 9, 2015
Armored Hearts excerpt
Here's an excerpt from my July 17th book from Changeling Press....(Note: if you're under 21, please take a look at this instead.)
Captivity makes the heart grow kinkier… When interstellar mercenary Captain Nick Rand rescues a beautiful enemy from his own men, he thinks she’s the answer to his vampire prayers. On the verge of starvation thanks to the destruction of his hemosynther, he’s in desperate need of a female blood donor. Lieutenant Zara Tahir needs him as badly as he needs her. Without Nick’s blood, Zara’s overactive immune system will kill her. But Zara has no intention of embracing captivity. She’s willing to exchange blood for blood, maybe even play a kinky game or two with the handsome vampire dominant. Still, he’s the enemy, and she can’t allow herself to see him as anything more.Then Rand’s enemies make things a lot more complicated…
Zara found herself impressed by the enemy vampire’s iron will. If anything, he had to be in worse shape than she was. That was saying something, because every cell in her body was howling its need for release, for the lushly erotic sensation of fangs sinking into her throat, drawing off the brutal pressure that had been building behind her eyes for weeks.Never mind that he was her enemy, never mind that she didn’t even know his name. Their bodies recognized each other on a level that went beyond politics or war or anything but raw sexual craving. Each could fulfill the other’s hungers. That was all their bodies knew. All they needed to know.She followed him into the temp shelter he’d seemed to pick at random. It was wrecked and empty, clothes, e-flimsies and furniture scattered wildly, a mark of her fellow soldiers’ desperation as they’d fled. They’d been too badly outnumbered, in too poor a position, to do anything else. Falaran High Command had given the order to retreat, and they’d obeyed.Zara had volunteered to do her bit to delay the enemy, knowing what she was letting herself in for. It wasn’t as if she could have kept up with the desperate retreat anyway. Lieutenant Colonel Kassir had initially refused to allow her self-sacrifice, until Zara reminded the woman she was dead regardless. The last of the Falaran vampires had died in the Battle of the Sar Caverns
June 25, 2015
An erotic excerpt from WITHOUT RESTRAINT
It's been far too long since I've checked in here. But I wanted to give you a sample of WITHOUT RESTRAINT, my August book from Berkley Sensation. Look for it August 4. It's available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.By the way, this excerpt is NOT for people under 21. If that is you, please go take a look at this cat video. :)
The first novel in the explosive new Southern Shield series from New York Times bestselling author Angela Knight explores the intoxicating games between a female cop and a Navy SEAL—and the killer instincts of a secret enemy watching every move they make.
Atlanta deputy Alexis Rogers and Navy SEAL Frank Murphy know all about power and restraint, necessary force, and pushing their limits. When they meet in the darkness of a BDSM club, their skills are put to use. With each successive night comes a new adrenaline rush, and while they’re falling into something perilously close to love, their games are still too private, too extreme, and too daring ever to be exposed.
But their intimate lives are upended when a fellow deputy of Alex’s is killed. It’s not a tragic hazard of the job. It’s cold-blooded murder. And he’s not the last to be taken out. Now Alex and Frank have found themselves more vulnerable than ever—and exposed to a killer with a twisted vendetta who turns desire into the most dangerous sensation of all. ###
As Frank stared in stunned hunger, she balanced on first one foot, then the other to slip off the fuck-me heels. “I want you to prove you can master me. Two out of three falls.”It wasn’t that unusual for a sub to undress at a BDSM party; half the women here weren’t wearing a stitch. But Frank hadn’t expected Alex to strip before they’d even finished negotiating.He watched hungrily as she rolled the stockings down the sleek muscle of thigh and calf. However he’d thought their first scene would go, this wasn’t it. “Two out of three falls? Are you suggesting some kind of fight?” He didn’t fight women. Not if he could help it anyway; sometimes the women had other ideas.“More like a practice bout. No punches, kicks, or choke holds—you’d kill me.” Alex sounded utterly matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “Just joint locks and throws. And pins. Loser taps out of the hold.” She looked up from rolling the other stocking down her calf. She’d bent almost double to do it, making him imagine all the erotic possibilities of a sub that flexible. “Unless you don’t want to.”His cock lengthened, on the verge of escaping his waistband. Frank ignored its dicky demands; he needed to know exactly what she intended. “So you’re not talking about me actually hitting you? Because there’s a big difference between flogging somebody with a deerskin cat and punching her with my fist.”She snorted. “I have no interest in trading punches with you, Frank. You’re too far out of my weight class.”“Yeah, I am. What do I get if I win?” Whenhe won was more like it; not only was he a SEAL, he outweighed her by a hundred pounds of muscle. She didn’t have a prayer.Alex grinned at him as if reading his mind and shifted her weight, calling attention to those lush female curves. “What do you want?”“You.” He showed his teeth and let the hunger show.She smiled. “If you win, you get me.” When his head tilted in question, she clarified. “Sex. With a condom. However you want it.”His smile broadened, and he started pulling off his boots. “I’ll win.”“Maybe. I don’t intend to make it easy.”“Good.” After dropping his socks into his boots, he stood, barefoot. And looked down at her from his seven-inch height advantage. Her eyes drifted down his bare torso to the fly of his jeans, which bulged from the pressure of his erection. “Dicks are off-limits,” he added quickly.“Well, not completely, I hope.” Alex glanced around before he could come up with a suitably suggestive response. “Let’s put the mats out.” Bending, she grabbed one of them to pull it into position in the center of the room. The sight of her round, perfect ass as she bent made his mouth go dry. Dragging his attention back to business with an effort, he caught the other mat and wrestled the bulky thing around beside the first one.Frank straightened as she stepped onto the padded surface, falling into an easy crouch that did interesting things to her breasts. He moved to face her, his attention on those pale globes. Her nipples looked as pink and tempting as candy.“What’s your safeword?” He referred to the emergency code a sub used to let the Dom know something had gone wrong during the scene, whether physically or mentally.“Red for stop, yellow for slow down. Green for okay.” The stoplight system was commonly used because it was so easy to remember. “Stop,” ironically, was the one word that was never used, mostly because some subs liked to scream it when what they really meant was “Keep going!”When he hesitated, Alex smirked. “We going to go, or are you just going to stand there looking sexy?” She crouched like a knife fighter.“Oh, we’re going.” Frank felt a hot smile spread across his face. He’d heard of a lot of inventive ways to play BDSM games, but this was a variant he’d never tried.Eyeing her tempting curves, he lunged, meaning to trip her and pin her to the mat. Shouldn’t take long, he assured his impatient cock.Alex stepped to the side, smooth as oiled silk. Before he could whip around, she seized his wrist, kicked one foot out from under him, and fell backward, jerking him over. They landed on their backs, Alex at a right angle to his torso, his captured arm trapped between her strong thighs. Both hands gripping his wrist, she levered his arm across the fulcrum of her hips. If she chose, she could easily break his elbow, crippling him permanently.And it hurt like a son of a bitch.He tried to roll toward her, but she had his chest gripped in her legs. There was no way to reach her in this position, no way to fight her hold, despite his far greater physical strength. It was a classic Juji Gatame, a combination judo throw and joint lock, expertly applied.“What dan black belt are you?” Despite the painful pressure she was exerting on his elbow, the sensation of her bare pussy against his trapped arm made his cock jerk.“Don’t have a black belt,” Alex told him cheerfully. “I’ve just been studying Krav Maga with Ted for the past five years.” The deadly fighting style was a hodgepodge of martial arts techniques from Judo, Karate, and similar fighting systems. Unlike most modern martial arts, it wasn’t a sport. Israeli commandos had created it for use against terrorists. If you studied Krav Maga, you weren’t fucking around.Alex cranked back on his wrist until the vicious pain nearly tore a yell from his throat. “Tap out.”He did, thumping the mat with his free hand despite howls from his male ego almost as loud as his elbow’s. She released him. As he rolled to his feet, Alex did the same, meeting his gaze with cool, watchful eyes.That was when Frank realized this was a test. “Smart. Better to find out if I’m a hot-tempered prick with twenty people ready to come running if you scream.”“Given the towering SEAL thing, yeah. I can handle most guys, but you’d take me apart.”That stung. “I don’t hurt women.” Honesty forced him to add, “Unless they want me to.”“Sorry, but my last master was an asshat.”“He the one that demanded you kiss his boots?”“Among other body parts. I’m afraid I’m not real good at being anybody’s slave girl.”Frank unzipped his jeans and stripped them off, freeing his cock to bob at her. Now as naked as she was, he gave her a slow, hot grin and gestured for her to come at him. “Let’s find out what you are good at.”Anything you want to do, Alex thought, eyes widening.Naked, he appeared even more powerfully built, between brawny shoulders, narrow waist, and legs elegant and strong. The thick length of his cock jutted, its shaft curving upward above the furry, heavy weight of his balls. Gray eyes glinted at her, hungry and intensely male. His smile shone white and predatory as he spread muscular arms wide, hands flexed and ready.Frank had underestimated her once. He wouldn’t be doing that again.A cautious woman would have hung back, forced him to come after her. Alex had never been cautious. Sinking into a combat crouch, she darted in, seeking a grip on his wrist. He knocked her hand aside, pivoting clear with fluid skill. They circled in a flurry of attacks and blocks, attempted throws and dodges. She was faster and a bit more agile, but he had the advantage in reach and strength.Spotting an opening, he stepped in and hooked a foot behind her ankle and his arms around her waist. A twist of his hips, and she found herself flying, held securely in his grip. He hit the ground first, taking the impact of their landing before rolling over on top of her.Now she was the one trapped. His long legs coiled around her calves as he pinned her wrists to the mat. She bucked, writhing against his hold, but he was too just strong.Bracing on his knuckles, he reared over her with a hot half smile. “Tap out.”His erection pressed into her belly, burning and hard. She swallowed at the raw eroticism of being helpless, the feral need in his eyes. “Why should I?”“So I can put you down again—and fuck you.” Leaning down, Frank kissed her, his mouth moving over hers in a slow brush of velvet and heat. His tongue slipped between her lips in an erotic thrust. When he drew away, his gray eyes gleamed. “Hard and fast and balls deep.”Alex licked her lips. “Maybe I’ll take you down . . . and fuck you.”“Well, as long as one of us gets fucked. Tap out.”Instead she writhed. Deliberately. Slowly. Mostly to stoke the heat in that wicked Dom stare, to feel his cock thrust against her belly. “Not yet. I want to see if I can get loose.”“You can’t.” He lowered himself on flexing arms until his mouth hovered a breath above hers. “I’ve got you. You’re mine—if I decide you’re worth keeping.”She bared her teeth. Snapped, just short of that taunting mouth. “You want me to tap out, I’m going to need a hand free to do it.”He freed one wrist, his gaze challenging. “So tap.”“Okay.” Quick as a cat, Alex darted a hand between them and tapped his cock twice. It bounced against her belly, and she wrapped her fingers around it for a slow, teasing pump. His eyes widened. Glazed, just a little. “Well?” she breathed. “Think I’m worth keeping?”Frank growled like a puma, a rumbling note of threat. Grabbing her hand, he pinned it to the mat and leaned down to seize her nipple in his mouth. He began to suck, drawing hard, his tongue lapping sensitive flesh.Alex moaned at the sweet, swamping lust. “I thought . . .” she panted, “you wanted to take me down and fuck me?”“I’ve got you down. Maybe I don’t see any reason to wait on the fucking.”
I hope you enjoyed it!
Best,Angela Knight
Angela Knight's Blog
- Angela Knight's profile
- 1024 followers
Angela Knight isn't a Goodreads Author
(yet),
but they
do have a blog,
so here are some recent posts imported from
their feed.
