"The Beginning and the End"

One of my favorite stories I have ever written is "The Beginning and the End." It's the story of a woman who finds her husband's online journal of mischief, and soon she is on her own journey of payback. It's featured in Sex and Submission.

Here's a preview:

One day – it was two years, three months, and two days ago – I found your journal.

I stumbled upon it that day while cruising cyberspace. My friend Christy, the one from the spa – you do remember her, right? She always hated you – anyway, she sent me a link to her Live Journal account, and when I clicked on the link, surprise of surprises, someone was already logged in. You had forgotten to sign off after your last confessional. I hadn’t heard of Live Journal until that day, but I was very familiar with it a few hours later. Yes, indeed.

That’s how I learned about her, or the many hers, however many there were. I lost count, even with all the code names you had given them, like Reddie (cause it was all natural) and Blondie (because that was all natural, too) and Uprising (because those girls weren’t natural at all but they looked pretty damn good anyway).

But there was that one that kept your attention, through that whole year you were keeping the journal and even longer than that, the one that you couldn’t shake no matter how many women you took for a ride while you were pining after her. She was short and blonde with a great smile and freckles over the bridge of her nose. She was married with a four-year-old daughter and she would never leave her husband, no matter how many times she screwed around on him, because he made the big bucks and she loved her SUV too much to say goodbye. She drank too much, mostly in private but more with you, and she hated it when you smoked.

I didn’t even know you smoked, until I read it there on the journal. I’m not sure which was the biggest shock: the affair you were having, the one-night cheats you were committing (stepping out on a wife and a girlfriend, you stud, you), or the fact that you, who would not tolerate cigarette smoke under any circumstances, preferred Marlboro Reds in a box.

You probably don’t remember that day. You came home to find me in the kitchen, cooking your favorite dinner of chicken sherry and baby potatoes and asparagus. You dropped your briefcase and wrapped your arms around me from behind, kissed that sweet spot under my ear and told me you loved me. I told you that I loved you too, instead of asking how many times it had happened. I told you to take off that tie and change into your comfortable clothes, instead of telling you that I knew the last year between us had been a lie. I asked you if you would mind uncorking the wine and you went at the job like a puppy eager to please, while I was proud of myself for never once hitting you upside the head with the cast iron skillet.

Maybe I kept my mouth shut because I had already decided what I was going to do. I look back on it all now and I think maybe I knew, as soon as you described the way she moaned the first time you slid your hand between her thighs there underneath the bar, the way you didn’t care much who saw. I think I decided then to keep my mouth shut.

That night I faked it. Twice. If you noticed, you never said.

I tortured myself with that journal for a week. During that time I pulled out the calendar and studied the times you were with her, saw that they coincided with business trips, and determined that she didn’t live close to us, but about two hours away.

Then you went on another business trip, and I went to the bar.

Sex and Submission is published by XCite Books -- go here to find out more.

Who is YOUR Favorite Heroine?

Today over on Lust Bites, we're talking about our favorite flawed heroines. What character makes you want to slap some sense into her? What leading lady do you admire for her strength in the face of adversity? What protagonist lingers in your mind long after the book is finished? Who makes you want to BE like her?

We're having fun over at Lust Bites! Come join us.

"In the Liquor Store"

"In the Liquor Store" is featured in Five Minute Fantasies 2, published by Xcite Books. Here's a preview:

The old wooden floor creaked and shifted under our feet as we made our way down the narrow aisles. Bottles of every size and fashion stood at attention, their colorful labels touting the brand of the liquor within. A low and sultry guitar rang out through the ancient radio on the counter.

Daniel hummed quietly along with the melody as he lifted a bottle from a rack and examined it. He gently replaced it with the tiny clink of glass on glass. I looked up at the ceiling of the old liquor store, taking in the rough exposed beams from which hung all sorts of artifacts: guitars, fiddles, ancient bottles, even a voodoo doll here and there.

The place smelled of old wood and even older wine. This was a liquor store that had been in business for decades, and it showed in the vintage bottles on the highest shelves. There was a wine cellar in the basement, or so the sign said – it promised to hold only the best wines. Daniel turned a corner at the back of the store and I followed slowly, exploring everything around me but the liquor. The store was a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of history and I was duly fascinated.

“Honey, come look at this,” Daniel said. His voice came from the far corner of the store. I made my way around a freezer full of tall bottles of dark, rich lager.

Daniel stood in the back of a darkened aisle. Here the bottles were dusty and old. There was stepladder to one side. This must be where they kept the overstock merchandise. Even the freezer was dark, but I could hear the motor quietly humming away.

“Did you notice that no one is here?” Daniel asked.

I looked up at the counter. There had been an older man there when we came in, but he had tipped his hat toward me and excused himself to take care of a shipment. There was a little truck outside, and he headed for it with an air of purpose. It appeared that he hadn’t returned.

I smiled up into Daniel’s face. His dark hair looked almost black in the dim light. His eyes were no longer their placid shade of brown – they looked just as black as his hair. I shivered, remembering the voodoo doll hanging from the rafters.

Daniel’s eyes searched mine for a moment before he bent his head to kiss me. His hips came up against mine. Something hard stirred against my belly and I giggled into his mouth as his tongue traced my lips.

“Daniel,” I scolded.

“No one is around,” he whispered back, his lips trailing up my jaw. “You know, I’ve been in this liquor store a million times, but I’ve never once fucked in it.”

“Daniel, for shame!” I laughed, and he looked around, his eyes on the front door of the old liquor store.

“No one is here. Just a quickie, honey, come on. Let’s do it,” he whispered urgently.

I was already getting caught up in the spirit and thrill of possibly being caught. I was always the kind who fantasized about a public kind of encounter, but never had the guts to go through with it. This, though – it wasn’t entirely public, was it? And even if we got caught, what would the punishment be? A scolding, a fury in the eyes, or a barring from the store, perhaps – but what more than that? What did I have to lose, really?

“It has to be fast,” I whispered into his mouth. I found his belt buckle and quickly opened it. Daniel moved back just enough to give me room. I unbuttoned his slacks, then pulled the zipper down.

“Here on the stepladder,” he ordered.

“But it’s old – and rickety – “

“Where is your sense of adventure?” Daniel hissed.

I laughed as he picked me up and set me on the old wooden stepladder. He nibbled on my neck. His hands found my long skirt and clenched into the fabric, pulling it up inch by inch as I pushed his slacks open and pulled him free of his boxers. He was long and hard and ready to go. Daniel moaned softly as he throbbed in my hand.

“Fuck me,” I whispered.

I'm going excerpt crazy over the next few weeks, so I hope you're enjoying them!

You Know You Think About Sex Too Much When...

Today I was baking some cream-cheese Jalapeno Poppers for lunch. (They are my own personal snack-food addiction, thank you.) Anyway, I was reading the back of the box to make sure I had the right oven temperature. I wasn't thinking about sex at ALL. Promise. But then I came across this little gem:

"Watch closely as overheating may cause loss of filling."

*faints with laughter*

"Blame It On the Champagne"

The latest set of naughtiness from Xcite Books hits the shelves next week! The Five Minute Fantasies series, a set of three books filled with down-and-dirty smut, is available through the Xcite Books website.

Here's a preview of my short story in the first volume, "Blame It On the Champagne."

I blame it all on the champagne.

Or maybe I should blame the high heels. I wasn’t accustomed to them, after all. I don’t go to things like that awards show every day. I’m a quiet, simple kind of girl. I don’t go for the glamour and flash and glitz of the celebrity thing. How I found myself smiling for a camera and signing autographs is usually a bit beyond my realm of comprehension. I just write the songs.

And last night, I spilled champagne on Mitch.

Actually, it wasn’t just spilling champagne. It was running into him out on the carpet (not the red one, silly, the green one – it was the after-party-party, you know) and then landing in his lap. Well, almost. He wasn’t sitting down when I ran into him. But by the time I was done with him, we were both on the floor.

Later we were on the counter. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

So there I was, dressed to the nines and my date was nowhere to be found. Alan wasn’t a date in the first place, not really. He was more of an escort, a guy from a record label who just happened to need a cutie on his arm and I was a cutie who just happened to need an arm. Perfect. I didn’t even know his last name.

The show was over and I had a choice: Go home and go to bed or go to the afterparty and hope that I met someone to go to bed with. I’m not one of those prudes who thinks that emotion has to accompany the sex. Hell, no. Give me a good-looking stud and a few shots of choice alcohol and I’m bound to do damn near anything. Then I might write a song about it. Fucking doesn’t pay the bills, but it does make for good inspiration.

So that’s how I wound up in the middle of the party with a glass of champagne in one hand and the other fiddling with my little clutch purse. I was talking to some up-and-coming artist with an independent label, one of those who has dreams much bigger than any bank account could ever help, and he was getting around to asking me if I would write a song for him. He wasn’t interested in anything more than that, and that certainly wasn’t what I was looking for. The evening wasn’t all about business, was it?

I drank my champagne and smiled and said that I would come up with something. His manager could get with my publisher and they could talk it over. He smiled and immediately started looking for other people to talk to, anyone who might be willing to talk business and give him that oh-so-important push up the music industry ladder.

I downed the glass and when the waiter came around, I plucked another from the tray.

I wandered from one little group to another, mostly eavesdropping on conversations, finding nothing of interest. I plucked olives and cheese cubes from the catering table. There was sushi, and I had a bit of that, not because I liked it but simply because it looked good to act like I liked it. Sushi bars were all the rage around town, God only knew why. I always preferred a good cheeseburger.

I thought about switching to something else to drink and then changed my mind. Wasn’t it true that if one mixed their liquor, they wound up with a hangover? Or was that mixing liquor and beer? I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I wanted to get laid but I wanted to remember it.

After another thirty minutes of wandering aimlessly, I gave up. Everyone was in the mood to talk business. It was almost one in the morning, and I never understood those who wanted to talk business long after the time for business had passed. So far as I’m concerned, anything after midnight should be strictly personal, not professional.

I took my glass with me as I walked the other way down that green carpet. It was always odd to walk out of a high-class party like that. When you came in, there were flashbulbs everywhere. When you came out, there was nothing but trash along the sides of the carpet and all the well-wishers and reporters were long gone, probably sitting in front of their computers and coming up with ways to edit what you just said into something more interesting. It was a sad and lonely time, to come walking out of one of those things, especially if you were alone.

I took a deep swallow of the champagne. I wasn’t paying much attention. That’s when I ran into Mitch.

He was walking into the party, more than a little fashionably late, and I walked right into him. It was like running into a brick wall. My champagne splashed all over me, all over him, all over the carpet. He was just as surprised as I was, and didn’t have a chance to keep his balance. He went down on his rump with a surprised groan, and I landed right on top of him. My little purse went flying, and so did the champagne glass. It rolled across the carpet but didn’t shatter.

He looked right into my eyes. His were a deep blue, and they were filled with amusement.

“Howdy,” he drawled.

Then he laughed out loud. The man was soaked with champagne, and that suit looked like it had to cost a fortune. His hair was curly and a little too long, and in his ear was a diamond stud. He smelled great. His face was covered with stubble, the kind of stubble that is intentional. He might as well have had the word metrosexual written on his forehead in neon paint.

He was sexy as hell, and I was sitting right in his lap.

I started to get up. It was hard to do, considering I was wearing fuck-me pumps with three-inch heels. He reached out to steady me, and instead of doing that, his hand wound up on the curve of my calf. He was holding me right where I was.

“I’m Mitch,” he said conversationally, as if we were sitting at dinner instead of sitting on the floor. I was very aware of the presence of something hard underneath my thigh. Whether it was his keys or something else, I had no idea. I ground against him a little bit, just to find out. The amusement in his eyes darkened into something else, and I had my answer.

Check out Xcite Books to get more of this story and other great naughty tales.

Brace Yourself -- It's the Blind Date

Invariably, the blind date turns out badly from the beginning. Your date is late. Or he shows up on time, but is ten inches shorter than you – and you're wearing flats. He actually does wear a pocket protector. Or he's covered with tattoos, which wouldn't be too bad, but all the ink on this guy was used on naked pinup girls. He's got serious social anxiety and asks you to let him sit facing the door – just in case. Perhaps he goes on and on about how much he still loves his ex-wife. Or maybe his womanizing reputation leads to snarky glances from every woman in the restaurant. Then there are the ones you will never, ever forget.

My latest Learning Curve column is up at For the Girls! This time I take on that dreaded rite of passage for every single person who ever dove into the dating pool -- The Blind Date.

Eeek!

"Better Than Brazil" is in Erotic Tales 2!

I've always loved working with Justus Roux -- she's an incredibly good editor. I was happy to work with her again in Erotic Tales 2, where she has included my story "Better Than Brazil."

A good bit of excerpt, perhaps? Here you go:

They made love that night over the telephone. It was a series of words and suggestions that became a blur of sensation. Angela was so caught up in the moment that she didn’t realize how far across that line they had stepped until he murmured, “Come, and I will come with you.”

And they did.

The next day she looked Brazil up on the map. It was in South America, a place she had never been. They were at war there, weren’t they? War with everything, but the only things that came to mind were drug lords with big houses and Lear jets and fast boats that made their way up the Mexican coast. Brazil hosted the Amazon. She spent a whole day reading about it, about the River basin and the favelas and the political unrest. She was interested because Ronaldo was a part of it but more importantly, it was a part of Ronaldo.

He was in that country right now. But he would be back, and she would be here. In the meantime she had his letters, those finely printed pages that she had folded so many times, they had permanent creases that pulled the notes closed when she wasn’t holding them in her hands. She had those letters and those memories of his voice rolling over the phone line. It would have to be enough.

When the phone rang late at night two days later, the last thing she expected was Ronaldo’s voice. It was filled with laughter and that usual glimmer of mischief.

“Are you having a good time?” she asked with smile.

“Open your door,” he said.

Angela swung around in her chair and looked at the window. A shadow fell across it. Her heart leapt into her throat, just as it had when she read that letter. She stared at the shadow, at the broad swath it cut across the blinds.

“Angela. Please,” he said softly.

His skin was bronze under the porch light. He was shorter than she expected. His eyes were darker than they had seemed in the pictures. His hair wasn’t quite as long and his smile wasn’t quite as broad, but it was Ronaldo. He slowly flipped the cell phone closed and slipped it into the pocket of his soft leather jacket. His eyes never left hers.

“You’re in Brazil,” she said helplessly.

“I couldn’t stay away,” he replied.

And since I'm a tease, I'll stop right there...if you want more, you can get it here!

Author Discrimination: It Touches Everyone Who Picks Up a Book.

Discrimination against authors affects everyone. That discrimination can start a chain of events that moves along on the momentum of complacency, and eventually prevents that book from finding its way into your hands.

Laura Baumbach, a M/M romance author who attended the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Houston, Texas dealt with this very issue a few weeks ago. She has written about it on her Blog.

Once you're done reading her entry, go to the comments -- the RT defense is interesting, to say the least.

The more I thought about this situation over the past week, the more troublesome it seemed. Ms. Baumbach writes M/M romance, which RT claims is not their "target audience." As a result, RT had no problem removing her promotional materials from the convention tables -- at the convention she paid to attend.

The first question that pops to mind is this: If M/M romance is not their "target audience," why in the world would RT accept her money and then run ads on her behalf, promoting her M/M romance novels? And why would they accept her money to attend a convention, where, presumably, their "target audience" will not be interested in anything Ms. Baumbach has to offer?

Ca-ching, ca-ching, baby.

About the promotional materials, I wonder: If she wrote straight erotic romance, or even F/F romance, would her materials have been removed? If the photograph on her promotional materials was of a naked woman tastefully covered with a sheet, would it have been removed? I seriously doubt it. However, a naked man tastefully covered with a sheet? Apparently we cannot have such things available for viewing, especially at a Booklover's Convention filled with consenting adults.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The problem is much bigger than the double-standards in this situation.

If you think this doesn't affect you, think again. If you read books, discrimination toward an author at ANY level of the publishing game directly affects you. Tasteful promotional materials not allowed at a networking function like the RT convention? That means less people know about that author's work. That leads to less opportunity to get the word out to you. That equates to less sales, which means bookstores won't pick up the title as readily. That means an empty space on the bookshelf, filled with another book which has been deemed "more appropriate" by some powers-that-be. Those powers-that-be are made up of people who don't know you at all, who assume you like what they have deemed "mainstream." Your choices are suddenly limited.

The sad part is, you wouldn't even realize it unless the author kicked up a big fuss, long and loud and rowdy, to let you know someone ELSE chose for you -- long before you had a chance to choose for yourself.

It happens more often than you can imagine. The only way to fight against it is to make your voice heard, loud and crystal clear, and hopefully the voices of bigots will be drowned out by the voices of those who truly give a damn.

You don't like M/M romance? That's fine. It's your choice. But that's the key -- it's your CHOICE. How would you feel about having that choice taken away from you?

Ms. Baumbach has my full support, and I hope she has yours, too.