Hello, lovelies! This week I’m teasing you with another snippet from To My Muse. Lily and Tom are busy looking for party clothes when the right dress changes everything for both of them.

Many thanks to Angelica Dawson for hosting us, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!

The interior of Huffington’s was just as luxe as the exterior, but instead of a tall, thin, snooty saleslady we were approached by a curvy woman only a little taller than me with huge doe eyes and a bright smile. “Mr. Morrison? Mrs. Chapman called ahead and told us to expect you,” she confided in a warm alto. “I’m Taffy Carlyle Huffington.”

“Um, Huffington?” I said faintly. “As in…” I waved an index finger around the store.

She beamed at me. “Yes, I’m the owner. I hope you don’t mind, but Ana sent over your estimated measurements and I took the liberty of picking out some dresses for you to try on.” She headed towards the back of the store, waving for us to follow. “We have a number of things to go through, so we’d best get started. Mr. Morrison, take a seat and I’ll have someone bring you a drink.”

Have you ever met someone who radiated calm and absolute confidence, and simultaneously made you feel like you had been admitted to some utterly cool inner circle? That was Taffy. I suspected she could organize a tea party for the Queen on the fly and wind up with a damehood at the end of it. While Tom took a seat in an area that screamed “upscale man cave,” she showed me to a large changing room with an actual chair, a table, one of those old-fashioned standing screens that had probably been in some Western bordello, and a large three-way mirror. Along the wall opposite the mirror was a small clothing rack that held dresses in an array of luscious colors that were perfect for my skin tone. Clearly Ana had clued Taffy in on my complexion as well as my measurements.

“Let’s start with the Christian Serrano,” she said, plucking a magenta number off the rack and handing it to me. “And we’ll take it from there.”

What followed was the absolute best hour of dress-up I’ve ever experienced. I got to try on dress after dress, preening in front of the three-way mirror while Taffy studied my silhouette and offered tasteful suggestions. We finally settled on a gorgeous sapphire blue number with a strappy halter neckline that showed off my boobs and made me look like a pin-up model. “That one, yes,” Taffy said with a firm nod. “Why don’t you go show Mr. Morrison?”

Grinning, I skipped out of the changing room and over to where Tom was perusing a copy of Variety. “What do you think?” I said, twirling.

A huge grin bloomed on his face as he studied me. “Oh, yes,” he purred. “That one, definitely.”

I remembered that I hadn’t checked the price tag. “I didn’t ask how much it was. If it’s too much, we can go with another dress–”

“No.” He was out of his chair with that, pacing around me and taking in every inch of the stubbed sapphire silk. At least, I assumed that’s what he was doing. “No, you’re wearing this one. I don’t care how much it costs. It was made for you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very.” He mimicked Taffy’s definite nod, taking my hands and holding them away from my body. “You look absolutely spectacular, Lily. You have to have this dress.”

His hands were warm and felt marvelous around my own. For one moment I wished with all my heart that this was real, that we really were dating and I was showing off a gorgeous dress for him. And later we could go somewhere private where he would help me take it off, and then…

Something must have shown on my face because his grin changed, growing softer. “Would it be absolutely horrible of me to say that I really want to kiss you right now?”

My lips parted on their own recognizance, damn them. And then I remembered. We’d agreed on a handful of public kisses. “Oh, right,” I mumbled, trying to hide my disappointment. “Okay.”

He hesitated. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

Dammit, I could feel tears rising. I blinked hard. “No, that’s not it. I just wish…” I had to be honest with him about this, if nothing else. “I wish you really wanted to kiss me. That it wasn’t an act.” I tried to smile and felt my lips tremble. “Sorry. I’m being stupid, I know. Guess I’m not a very good actress.”

Those beautiful chocolate eyes darkened as he moved closer, enough for me to feel the warmth from his body. “This isn’t an act, Lily. I really do want to kiss you. May I?”

After a moment of not breathing from pure shock, I sucked in a gulp of air. Thanks be to every god and goddess out there, it kicked my brain into gear. “Yes.”

“Good.” He leaned down and our mouths met. Remember how I’d said that our kiss yesterday was good, definitely in my top five? This one blew all of them out of the water. It’s next to impossible to describe without going into the purplest of prose, so just imagine finding your soul mate, the people who’s destined to be your other half, and then imagine them kissing you for the first time. Chemistry, desire, delicacy, awareness of the other, a willingness to please, and a simple, perfect happiness–it was all there. I forgot about Nathan, the script, my fibs, everything. All I wanted to do was melt into Tom’s arms and stay there forever.

At some point I noticed that someone was clearing their throat repeatedly. When I finally, reluctantly pulled away from Tom’s delicious mouth, I saw Taffy shaking her head in amusement. “Much as I hate to interrupt your moment, this might not be the best place for it,” she murmured. “Also, you haven’t paid for the dress yet, Mr. Morrison, so let me get her out of it before you start tearing at the seams.”

Oops. His hands were on my waist, fingertips gently digging into the fabric. And somehow my arms had gotten around his neck, as well. I may have been clinging to him, I’m not sure. And I’m pretty sure that hadn’t been his wallet pressing into my stomach. Hoo boy.

Color spread over his cheekbones as he stepped back, casually tugging his shirt lower. “Er, yes, of course,” he said through an unrepentant grin. Then he winked at me.

I knew exactly how he felt.

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Hello, lovelies! Here’s another snippet from my very first contemporary romcom, To My Muse. Lily and Tom are still in bed after their host mistakenly gives them one room, and some truth is about to surface. Heh, heh, heh…

Many thanks to Angelica Dawson for hosting us, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!

Tom sighed. “I’m hoping this doesn’t happen, but I feel I should warn you in case it does. Nathan might collar you at some point and give you a speech about not breaking my heart. If he does, just smile and agree with him.”

Ooookay. “Should I know the background for this?”

“Oh, hell. I suppose so.” He shifted onto his back, lacing his hands over his chest. “I told you we met during a run of Titus Andronicus, yes? At the time I was dating a woman named Cate. We’d been together for a year and were very serious about each other, or at least I thought so. She was everything I wanted in a partner—bright, funny, talented, incredibly empathetic. She worked with disabled children in North London and painted beautiful watercolors as a hobby. I was madly in love with her, and she said she loved me just as much.”

The romance writer part of my brain poked its nosy head over the parapet. “But something went wrong.”

There was a long pause. “You could say that,” he finally said. “I was planning on asking her to marry me after the run finished. The second-to-last weekend, there was a flood at the theater and we had to cancel the performance. I got back to our flat in time to catch her in bed with on of her colleagues.” He huffed out a soft, humorless laugh. “After he left she burst into tears and explained that he’d been going through a rough patch at work and she had only meant to comfort him, and somehow they’d fallen into bed together. And because I knew how kind and gentle she was, I believed her and wanted to beat the shit out of him.

“Until the next day, when he texted me. I still don’t know how he got my mobile number. He told me that they’d been having an affair for the last two months, and that he wanted to marry her. When I confronted Cate, she insisted he was lying, that he was obsessed with her and was clearly trying to break us up. And then he texted again and said they’d gone to Paris together not a month before, and sent pictures of them kissing in front of the bloody Eiffel Tower. She’d told me she was going to a teaching conference in Brighton that weekend.”

I winced. “Jeez. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. As I soon found out, her colleague wasn’t the only man she’d been fucking that year, only the most recent.” He cleared his throat. “I’m not proud of this, but I got into her Facebook page. She used to use my laptop to check it sometimes, and she’d added the password to my browser. Sometimes I think she did that on purpose so that I’d find out.” I heard an audible swallow. “She’d been with at least five other men that year. There were pictures, love notes, everything. When I confronted her, she burst into tears and claimed that it was my fault, that I left her alone too much when I was in a play or doing telly work.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” I snapped. “If she wasn’t happy, she should have said something. Or pulled on her big girl panties and left. But fucking around behind your back is not cool.”

“I did point that out. She said that she couldn’t bear to leave me because it would be like abandoning a kitten on the high street.”

Ouch. Bitch certainly knew how to hit a guy where it hurt.

“After that, I was packed up and out of there within the hour,” Tom continued. “Luckily I ran into Nathan as I stormed down the street to the theater. He and Ana insisted that I stay with them until I could find another flat. They let me stay with them for months until I’d worked my way through everything.” Another soft breath. “We’ve been friends ever since. It’s why I want to give him this role. He’s done so much for me, and I want to do something for him, now that I have the chance.”

The pain in his voice pulled at me, and I wanted to hug him so badly. “Well, if it helps at all, I think you’re a good person,” I said instead. “Hollywood is so full of people all out for themselves. It’s nice to see someone who wants to do something nice for someone else for a change.”

“Yeah, it isn’t the easiest of cities. Or industries, for that matter. That’s one thing I don’t like about acting — the falseness of it all. Lying through perfect smiles, and complimenting people you hate, and shoveling so much horseshit just to get some work. If nothing else, Cate did me one favor by breaking up with me the way she did. She crystallized my hatred for dishonesty.”

I went very still at that. I was lying next to him thanks to a big fat lie. “Oh. Um, well, I can’t blame you,” I said in a small voice.

He snorted. “I must sound like the biggest hypocrite in the world right now, considering how you’ve wound up here. I’m sorry about that, Lily. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave in the morning.”

Great, more guilt. “I’m here because I want to be,” I said as firmly as I could. “You have an amazing property and I want to write the screenplay. And Cate was an idiot. You deserve better than that.”

A quiet sound, not quite a laugh. “That’s what Nathan and Ana said. I don’t suppose you’re single?”

That stopped me breathing for a moment.

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Hello, lovelies! This week I’m teasing you with another snippet from my very first contemporary romcom, To My Muse. In this scene, Lily and Tom are staying overnight at Sir Nathan Chapman’s luxurious Palm Springs home for a party the next day. The problem is, Sir Nathan thinks they’re a couple and has put them in the same guest room. Now they’re trying to come to an agreement on how to share a room platonically. Needless to say, there are going to be complications. Muwahahaha…

Many thanks to Angelica Dawson for hosting us, and make sure to hit the list after the teaser to see other great Mid Week Teases!

Tom let me have first crack at the bathroom (more aquamarine and blue Moorish tile, a bathtub I could do laps in, and a separate glass-enclosed shower that looked sinfully luxurious. Also, a bidet, because Europeans). After I finished getting washed up, brushing my teeth, and sticking my impossible hair into a ponytail for the night, there was nothing left but to head back out there.

He was sitting at the little table reading a paperback copy of La Popessa when I came out. Looking up at my entrance, he gave me a quick, unconscious once-over, smiling when he saw the motto “This IS my lingerie” on my nightgown. “Did you leave any hot water for me?”

“Gallons,” I promised, padding to the bed. Grabbing a handful of pillows, I nodded at the rug. “Okay if I put these down here?”

“Please.” He headed into the bathroom to get ready for bed while I set up a mini-pallet for him using the pillows, coverlet, and an extra blanket I found in the armoire. Fluffy rug or not, the whole thing was still on tile, and I worried about how comfortable that was going to be for him.

When the bathroom door opened I turned around. “I think—”

And nearly swallowed my tongue. Tom was wearing dark blue boxer shorts and nothing else. And yes, I’d seen him practically naked before but this was live. Lean and muscular without being ridiculously ripped, he had the nicest scattering of curly dark chest hair that led downward in a treasure trail across clearly defined abs. Not only that, but he had that lovely arrow-shaped band of muscle that some guys get on their hips.

And I had to share a bedroom with him and couldn’t touch. Vishnu, what did I do to piss you off this time?

“I hope this is okay,” he said hesitantly, glancing down at himself. “I tend to run warm when I sleep, especially out here, so I usually don’t wear anything. Clearly that’s not on tonight, but I’m happy to put on a shirt if you want.”

Have you ever tried to sound cool and collected through a mouthful of drool? It’s not easy. “No, that’s okay,” I mumbled. “Um, is the set-up on the rug good enough?”

“It’ll be fine.” Tom padded over to the folded coverlet, stretching out on top of it. With nothing else to do, I climbed into bed. “Thank you, Lily. For everything.”

A pang of guilt prodded me. He had no reason to thank me for anything. I was here on, if not false pretenses, then extremely dubious ones. “You’re welcome. Can I turn off the light?”

“Go ahead.”

I did and the room went dark. Unfortunately the filmy saffron curtains didn’t do crap about the outside light, dim as it was. After a few minutes I opened my eyes and could pretty much make out everything in the room.

A sigh wafted up from the floor. “I think I might have been wrong about this rug.”

Another thing to feel bad about—I’d put him out of the bed that should have been his. I rolled over to the edge of the mattress, peering down. Tom was a collection of grey shapes, his arms and chest pale against the dark coverlet.

Okay, Nayar, my subconscious said, time to cowgirl up and do the right thing.

Which is what, exactly?

The bed is built for two. You do the math.

Are you out of your damned mind? I cannot ask Tom Morrison to sleep with me!

Yes, you can. You’ve slept on the floor before–you know how you felt the next morning. You want Tom hobbling around tomorrow?

Well, no–

All right. Tell him to grab the other side of the bed. If he doesn’t want to, he’ll say no.

He’ll think I’m hitting on him! And I’m not! Although yes, I wanted to, but this was just too tropey even for me.

So make it clear that you’re not. And if he tries something you don’t like, use that move Theresa taught you. I could feel the smirk radiating from my subconscious. But he won’t. He’s not into someone like you. Beautiful people breed with their own kind.

That was true. “Look, this is ridiculous,” I said. “We’re both adults, I know you’re a decent guy, and I assure you that your virtue is safe with me. Take the other side of the bed.”

I couldn’t make out his face clearly but I saw his head turn towards me. “Are you sure?”

I swallowed. “If you don’t, I’m going to spend the rest of the night feeling bad about you being in pain on the floor. It’s okay, really.”

“God, thank you.” He got up, grabbing the pillows and blanket and heading to the other side of the bed. “I was picturing myself limping around tomorrow night and trying to pass it off as a skiing injury or something.”

I tried to ignore the mattress dipping as he got in beside me. “Or you could just tell people I write romance,” I said quickly. “That way, you can say you pulled a groin muscle while we were working out a sex scene for my new book.”

Aaaand an awkward silence fell. Just as I was working out how best to crawl out of bed and sleep in the bathtub, he laughed. “Do you actually do that?”

The one time I had asked Kirk to help me plot out a sex scene, he’d acted as if I had just asked to peg him with a Colby Keller replica. “No. My characters are usually pretty tame about sex positions,” I admitted. “The one time I wrote a menage story, I used Barbie dolls to get the positioning right. I usually focus more on emotion and sensuality than athletics.”

“Yes, I noticed.”

Awkward silence, part deux. “You know, we’re actually doing a romance trope right now,” I blurted.

“It is?”

“Yeah. Hero and heroine have to share a bed for some reason. Unresolved sexual tension sets in, and either they finally give in and jump each other or spend the night acutely aware of each other but unwilling to cross boundaries because it’s too soon in the book for them to have sex. Or the writer doesn’t do that kind of story.”

“Ah. I see. What kind of story are we in?”

Not the kind I wanted, clearly. “Well, if I was writing this, we’d go to sleep because we’d just met that morning and there isn’t enough buildup to account for a believable love scene yet,” I said.

“So no leaping on each other in a crazed frenzy. I can see that. But we’d be acutely aware of each other.”

Why was it suddenly hard to breathe? “Well, yeah. If this was a romance novel. Which it isn’t, obviously.”

“Mm. Maybe it’s a romantic comedy? Beautiful but quirky writer accidentally winds up in dashing hero’s hotel room, saves him from sex-mad actress after his body, and hijinks ensue. The script practically writes itself.”

Now my stomach was doing Olympic-caliber flip-flops. He thought I was beautiful? He’s being nice, you idiot. Besides, he’s talking about a romcom, not reality.

Misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and in retrospect my panicked anxiety-induced plan was actually kinda funny. Yeah, that was a pretty good description of what was going on with us. Of course, the problem with romcoms is that there’s always some sort of disaster that splits up the couple around the end of act two.

I cleared my throat. “Quirky?”

He chuckled softly. “I thought you’d say that. Do I get any points for using ‘beautiful’ first?”

“Meh. This is a romcom. The female lead is always beautiful, and the male lead is always handsome.”

“Are you saying I’m handsome?”

Actors and their egos. “You know perfectly well you’re handsome.”

“Still, it’s nice to hear, especially from my beautiful leading lady.”

“Beautiful quirky leading lady.”

He shifted, turning on his side to face me. “That’s not an insult, you know. This morning you wound up in my hotel room through a key mixup. You picked up on my silent pleading without missing a beat and gave Claudine the verbal smackdown she’s richly deserved for quite some time. Then you turn out to be this smart, funny screenwriter who actually knows the subject material of my dream project, and you once again indulge my panicked begging and agreed to come to Palm Springs, stay at a complete stranger’s house, and pose as my girlfriend. Most women would have run screaming long before we got on the plane.”

The way he put it, I did sound kind of quirky. Also more than a bit badass. “Well, helping you out with the Wicked Ho of the West was the least I could do,” I said modestly. “As for everything else, it’s just what I do.”

“And I’m grateful for it. Speaking as the hero in this romance, of course.”

“Of course.” I was liking this man more and more with every passing moment. And I couldn’t make a move because he wasn’t into me, goddamnit.

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