Monthly Archives: January 2016
Mid Week Tease: Cross Current #MidWeekTease #MWTease
It’s Wednesday? Awesome! Because I have a little teaser for you from the beginning of Cross Current (Olympic Cove #4). No, it’s not very sexy but I haven’t gotten to that point. Yet. Muwahahahaha…
Enjoy, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!
“If you’ll sign here, please.”
Matt Taber wrote his signature on the indicated line.
“And here.”
Another line, another signature.
“And one last time.”
The same slightly scrawled name, black ballpoint ink pressed into grooves. The lawyer’s office printed out their documents on the nice heavy paper made for laser printers, not the thin general purpose stuff.
Nothing but the best for the death of a marriage.
“That should do it,” his lawyer said. He exchanged a nod with the other lawyer, their steps done in this particular dance.
Across the table, Matt’s now-ex-wife Nancy sat with her hands neatly folded, a politely blank expression on her face. After ten years of living with her, he still couldn’t read it.
Then again, he didn’t have to try anymore. Giving her a brusque nod, he stood and followed his lawyer out of the conference room.
“That went pretty well, I’d say,” the lawyer said. “Although I still think we should have held out for community property.”
Matt shrugged. “I don’t want anything from her.”
That wasn’t quite true. But it was far too late in any case. And God knew the last thing he wanted from her was money.
He nodded through the rest of the lawyer’s litany, agreeing to stop by the office for the final payment. And then he was alone in the granite-clad hallway, surrounded by expensive air and time that was counted in billable hours.
“Matt.”
He turned. Nancy stood at the door of the conference room, elegant as always. Today she wore a cream tailored jacket and skirt over a champagne silk blouse that would go straight from a divorce lawyer to her VP office at a major bank without anyone batting an eye.
The regret washed over him again. I loved you, I really did.
I’m sorry.
She pursed her mouth as if hearing his thoughts. “I’m not going to give you some ridiculous platitude about how this is the best thing for both of us,” she said, kind and blunt at the same time. “I wasn’t happy and I wanted out, simple as that. But I also know you’re hurting right now, and I’m sorry about that. You’re a good person, Matt. You’ll be able to find someone who’s a better fit for you.”
Matt let a slow breath roll out. “I thought you weren’t going to give me some ridiculous platitude.”
One black eyebrow rose in an elegant curve, her equivalent of a laugh. “You have a point. I’ll be back from Hong Kong in a month. Will that be enough time for you?”
“Yeah, plenty.” The house on Chinook Lane had been hers before their marriage. He admired the building, but never felt at home there. It was like living in something out of an issue of Architectural Digest. “I can swing by and check the mail every couple of days if you like.”
“No, I already put a hold on it at the post office. But I appreciate the offer.”
“Okay.” He stared at the woman who, with a handful of signatures, had gone from his wife to a stranger. “Well. Have a good flight.”
“Thanks.” She leaned forward and brushed cool lips across his cheek, then turned and walked away.
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Heterodyning, Artistry, and David Bowie
Firstly, my heart goes out to Mr. Bowie’s family, friends, and everyone whose lives he touched. He made all us weird kids feel like there was a place for us on Planet Earth, after all. And while I’m fully aware that he didn’t want to die, I must also say that the careful planning around Bowie’s last album Blackstar gives us a poignant goodbye and provides a superb close to an extraordinary life.
(Also, I swear to God I had no idea until today that he’d played an Eastern European soldier who becomes a high class prostitute in between-the-wars Berlin in the movie Just a Gigolo. I think I need to see that toot sweet.)
Secondly, the lovely thing about art is how it’s basically creative Brownian motion. A work of art or artist inspires another artist, who then inspires yet another artist, and so on and so on. For example, this is the exact train of thought I’ve had over the past hour or so:
Man, I’m going to miss David Bowie.
I want to listen to “Life on Mars.” Need to find that on YouTube.
Hmm, I also really like Jessica Lange’s version of “Life on Mars” from AHS: Freak Show. I’ll watch that, too.
Ooh, Jessica Lange singing “Gods and Monsters” on AHS: Freak Show. I need to watch that again, as well.
You know, “Gods and Monsters” would be amazing background music for a love scene with Dean and Castiel.
It’s got to be dangerous, seducing an angel.
“He seduced an angel — now all hell’s going to break loose.”
That would make a great tag line for a novel.
How would I do this? It can’t be too close to Supernatural, more original.
Huh. Why would an angel want to talk to a human anyway? It’s not like we’re all that interesting.
Unless…
OOOOOOOOOOOOH.
Embittered Iraqi vet Mitch Barsky has his life turned upside down when he’s drafted by the angel Jegudiel to help him find the angel’s lost charge, a two-year-old girl named Nayyirah who is destined to save mankind. The child has been hidden from both Heaven and Hell somewhere in the Middle East, and Mitch and Jed must risk their lives and souls to rescue her. But a dangerous situation becomes even more volatile when the vet and the angel, against all the rules, fall in love.
Because I need another series. And this will be a 3-book series, that’s very clear. Oh, my God. THANKS DAVID, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD.
Marvelous Monday Reads: One Hour Girl @LeTeishaNewton @AnchoredBooksPR
Happy Monday, folks! Today I have LeTeisha Newton on to talk about her new book One Hour Girl, coming on February 29, 2016. Take it away, LeTeisha!
What drove you to create One Hour Girl?
Because it was time. I think that One Hour Girl, for me, is a piece I created to speak to so many women out there that are victims of domestic or child abuse and how they survived it. It doesn’t have to be a public badge anyone wears, but it can fiddle with everyday life, the way you look at yourself, and how you deal with others. Celeste was a woman who used negative coping mechanisms to get through her past and it took an equally messed up man to help her. But he wasn’t all about making himself her source of happiness. He wanted her to love herself and see herself the same way he did, and that helped her heal. Isn’t that how life is? How love should be?
What is the Lost Series?
The point of the Lost Series was to create a series of stand-alone books that could be read completely separate, with no overlap, and no cliffhangers. They are tied by a common theme of lost souls, real people, finding love they way they have to. One Hour Girl is a gritty contemporary romance, and the flagship book. Scarred, Book 2, is more a dark romance with BDSM elements. Phenomenal, Book 2.5 is a MMA Fighter romance about an underdog fighter who has lost everything struggling to get to the top again, and the woman who is willing to help him get there. Each of the books, and the ensuing ones to come, wil satisfy different readers, and that’s what I was going for.
Totally get that. So how did you pick your hero and heroine?
I’m one of those authors that know my characters faces long before I write their stories. They are real to me. I know them, and I live them. Royce was drool worthy and I needed to give him an equally beautiful heroine. Because of the world they live in,their looks mattered quite a bit. Celeste moonlights as a high-dollar escort. Royce is L.A.’s most eligible bachelor. That contrasts with darker, rougher Ethan and River of Scarred, Book 2. They are equally scarred physically and mentally. Their look is much different. My characters look like their worlds.
So you already have the other books in the works?!
Oh yeah! Don’t want to leave my readers in a lurch LOL! One Hour Girl is out in February 2016, Scarred in May of 2016, and Phenomenal will be in a NOLA Boxed set with 8 other AMAZING authors, so we will keep that a bit under wraps, in August 2016!
He thinks I’m his forever girl, I saw it in his eyes. I wished I could have slapped the look off his face and hit him with the same jarring finality I’d learned I didn’t mean shit.
I’m not a forever sort of girl.
I’m not even his for the night.
He’ll be lucky if I’m his for the next hour if he doesn’t pay me for it.
And then Royce Mattherson stormed my defenses. Took all the poison inside of me and pushed it out through my pores. He tasted the taint on my skin and still decided to love me. He terrifies me. Exhilarates me. Frustrates me.
And he always gets what he wants.
Always…
Story Excerpt
I watched Celeste’s eyes widen and she tried to shift from under me, coming out of the daze as she looked over at the hustling waiter. I gripped her hips, pinning her beneath me.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” I assured her. “You seemed to have ruined my dinner, and I’m famished.”
I licked my lips, feeling desire and pride swell within me as her gaze tracked my movement and a warm flush appeared under her skin. I pressed my hips between her legs, hissing at the heat of her pussy against my cloth covered cock.
“I think I’ve found something to eat…right…here,” I told her, letting go of her hip to push my hand between us and cup her sex.
She moaned, head tossed back. I waited long enough for the waiter to run behind the counter and away before I claimed her mouth again. This was my place, my money, my rules. No one would disturb us, and I wanted to see how wild she could get. I wanted to control her.
I rubbed my fingers against her in a circular motion as I devoured her mouth. She gripped at my jacket, pushing it off my shoulders. It couldn’t fall to the floor because I wouldn’t stop caressing her, but it was out of her way enough that she went for my shirt next. Buttons popped as she ripped my shirt open and ran her nails down my chest.
Ground zero.
My cock was hard and pulsing in my pants. I moved my hand from between us and ground against her. She cried out, rolling her hips against me. I liked that. I fucking loved how she gave into her passion. She didn’t fight it, she didn’t apologize for it. The way she responded to me made me feel like a god.
I sucked my way down the side of her neck, paying attention to any hitch of breath, and shift of her body. I noticed that her nails dug when I nipped over her pulse. She sucked in a breath when I traced her cleavage with my tongue. Her breath rushed out in a whoosh when I pulled the neck of her dress down far enough to suck her nipple into my mouth, bra and all.
I noted it all, and logged it to memory. She was mine. So what if it didn’t make sense? So what if I was fighting an uphill battle against a woman who didn’t believe in giving herself. We weren’t talking about love. We were talking about enjoying a spark with another person that we’d never feel again.
I could give her everything she needed, but the emotions. She just needed to learn that people like us? That’s all we needed. I let her nipple go long enough to pull her into my arms and force the dress up and over her head. I tossed the dress over my shoulder as I used my other hand to pop her bra. By the time she lay back on the table she only had her delicate black thong and heels on.
Beautiful.
Her breasts were slightly rosy with desire. It was such a pretty color against her bronze flesh. I captured her slightly darker nipple in my mouth, grinding my hips against her. Her fingers tunneled through my hair as she held me to her. Rolling her nipple with my tongue just to hear her cry out again, I traced the inside of her thighs.
“So pretty. How good will you taste?” I asked her. I kissed my way down over her stomach, stopping long enough to dip my tongue in her navel. Her body shook under my hands. Or maybe it was my hands. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. The most important thing for me was to drink her down. To hear her scream my name.
I nuzzled her groin. It was bare, and the skin there was smooth. I nipped the sensitive flesh and then licked away the sting. Her skin was like spun honey, sticky and moist, and so fucking amazing. The crease on the inside of her thigh where it met her groin demanded attention and I followed the line down with my tongue.
I took a moment to sit back and grab my chair. I sat back down and looked at her pussy. My breath came out hard and raspy as I admired the tight lips and nub peeking out from its hood. Moisture leaked out of her, making her shine. All for me. I’d done that. Gripping the backs of her thighs, I pushed her legs up and out.
“Royce—” she started by I popped her ass to shut her up.
“You chose this, and it’s what I want. Has anyone, ever, just pleased you? Have you ever had someone who couldn’t think of their own pleasure because it was intrinsically combined with yours?”
She stared at me, so I popped her ass again.
“Answer me.”
“No,” she said finally. “Never.”
“You won’t be able to say that after tonight,” I promised her.
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About LeTeisha Newton
Writing professionally since 2008, LeTeisha has spanned from Fantasy to Interracial Romance on her road to getting the jumping characters out of her head. Most days she’s pretty color blind, unless it’s a great shade of red (then she can’t ignore it). Other times she’s plotting her next twenty books and then remembering that the computer can’t read her thoughts and doesn’t type at lightning speed. Either way, she just can’t seem to get enough of quill to paper…or eh…keyboard strokes, apparently.
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Money Making Methods for the Modern Erotic Romance Author
Or me, in other words. I love writing, love my books, ADORE my readers to bits, and I’m very glad that my income is going up every year. But it’s still not what I would call a living wage, and so I subsidize my writing income with my other love — making stuff. Usually jewelry, but that also includes knitted and crocheted items, character dolls, and pretty much anything else that comes together on my workbench.
That jewelry that I usually offer on release days and FB parties? The stuff from Belaurient Arts? Yeah, that’s mine, and rather proud of it I am, too. And to ward off any complaints of, “Why are you making jewelry or knitting stuff when you should be writing?” be aware that doing this other stuff is actually part of my writing practice because while I’m beading a necklace or wire wrapping a cabochon or knitting a shawl I’m also telling myself stories to keep myself entertained, which then gets used when I sit at the keyboard.
Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh, yeah — a few days ago a friend of mine sent me a large wodge of jewelry odds and ends from his late mother’s belongings. (I love it when people do that. So far I’ve have three friends say, “I’ve got a buttload of beads and stuff that I’ll never use — you want them?” Why, yes, yes I do, thank you very much.) This particular treasure trove delivered some adorably kitschy items, one graduated bead necklace that I think is jade (it passes most of the surface tests but I’ll need to do a density test for sure), some nice 70’s style vintage earrings, and a bunch of odds and ends that have been tucked away in my racks of jewelry bits for future use. I was really, REALLY happy when I found these silver filigree clip-on earrings. Their rhinestones were long gone, but luckily my favorite rock and gem store have a very nice selection of rhinestones and I was able to reset them with capri blue square stones that look fabulous against the silver.
The other set that I was very pleased with was a pair of horn Celtic knots. They’d been wired with dull goldish beads through the knotholes, but the wire was steel and didn’t go with the warm tones of the horn at all. So I cut those off, drilled four holes in each necklace for gold eye pins (let me take a moment to thank Dremel for their awesome products which make this jewelry designer’s life a lot easier), wired up six 6mm tiger’s eye beads with fancy head pins and gold spacer beads, added those to the eye pins, hung everything on gold French ear wires, et voila — awesome earrings for people who like Celtic or tribal jewelry, natural materials, tiger’s eye, or any combination thereof. These would be perfect for someone who goes to Burning Man, I suspect.
So after putting a bunch of new pretties up at the Etsy site, I was rewarded with two sales of a combined five items, the payment for which goes into my How Nicola Is Going To Pay For RT Fund. And I still have to put a sterling silver and 14K gold tree of life pendant and a really nifty blue and bronze beaded necklace up tomorrow, as well. And then figure out where I’m going to get the stuff I need for a density test. And work on Cross Current, of course.
Speaking of the HNIGTPFRT Fund, Empress of Storms racked up a total of $514 dollars as of this evening, and if the current pattern holds true I may make $1K on it by the end of its first quarter. Not too shabby for a self-pubbed book in a genre I’d never tackled before, eh? Now if I could only sell the movie rights to Peter Jackson…
So far January is turning out to be rather nice
I’m happy to say that the first week of 2016 has been enjoyable around Casa Cameron. Ramón is still looking for work, which is a bit of a fly in the ointment, but he’s ridiculously talented and I have faith he’ll have a job toot sweet. He’s keeping busy with various electronics stuff in his Fortress of Solitude, and we’ve received shipments of arcane computing gear that have had him grinning in anticipation. I can’t tell if he’s building a quantum computer, a transporter, or a new machine for dispensing kitty kibble, but he’s busy and that’s all that matters.
In personal news, my buds Karl and Colby came to town on Monday and we wound up having beer and hard cider at Whole Foods (we were supposed to have lunch at Tallywackers but it’s closed on Mondays and the WF down the street had a mini bar area in their beer and wine section) with their friend and Colby’s traveling companion Oliver. Two hours of listening to details of Colby and Oliver’s new religion, Karl talking about his plans to make a documentary about women who like gay porn, M/M romance, and the like, and laughing like drains was wonderful.
On the writing front Empress of Storms continues to sell well, I’m back at work on Cross Current and Behind the Iron Cross, and I’m mulling over the plot for an Empress sequel. I have also purchased an absolutely ridiculous amount of yarn and have four projects going in the living room alone. Expect pictures of socks, shawls, and fingerless gloves in the very near future.
And to those fellow Eastern Orthodox folks who celebrate, Merry Christmas!
Nicola Cameron Writes 