Raspberry Sorbet

Paisley, struggling with the side-effects of a tragic incident in her past owns a sorbet shop on the ground floor of a midtown Atlanta high-rise. She has developed an embarrassing crush on Stephan, budding tech entrepreneur and lover of raspberry sorbet whose company occupies the top floor of her building. Though she doesn’t realize it, her crush is very much reciprocated and then some but before he can act on his feelings Stephan has to deal with an internal threat to his business. Fortunately for both of them, he has cleverly figured out a way to navigate the perils of the Dark Web while pursuing Paisley…at least he hopes so.

First off, I can’t get over how gorgeous this cover is! Taria Reed, showed up and showed out. This is the third book in the Luscious Love series, following Buttercream and Milk & Honey. The story actually came to me a long time ago, when I was pregnant with my now 15 year old son, Luke. I craved raspberry sorbet like crazy, so, of course, it was almost impossible to find the stuff. I was on bedrest and being an absolute bitch about it, and one night Whit started singing Raspberry Sorbet, to the tune of my favorite Prince song, Raspberry Beret. I’d give anything if I could remember the lyrics, but they have, unfortunately been lost to the mists of time, but we laughed hysterically all night over them.

When Prince died, I knew I had to do an homage story for him as he’s meant so much to me. This story is it. With any luck, it will be out before Christmas. I’m trying not to make promises I can’t keep, but I will keep you posted on my progress.

I plan to get at least two stories out in 2020. My output has slowed significantly, and I apologize, but my real life is insane these days, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. Anyway, thank you so much for your nearly two decades of support and know that I love all of you so very much.

Pussycat Death Squad Muster Roll

PDS meow

Another brilliant suggestion from one of my super-fans, she thought I should provide you guys with a list of the members of the Pussycat Death Squad. These are the ones that I already have a story plotted out for. In my head-canon there are sixteen members, but that number changes as more are recruited and others retire, and yes, some are killed. There might be others at some point as well.

Pussycat Death Squad Muster Roll

Lelia Assad McBride – leader hand-to-hand combat Pussycat Death Squad

Vries St. John – supermodel and stealth assassin The Lion in Russia

Astaria Ibrahim – sniper Pussycat In Peril

Karyis Kendall – jewel thief Diamonds on the River

Grace Murdoch – helicopter pilot Fall From Grace

Sarai Said – chemist, poisons and explosives Fall From Grace

Giselle Henry – computer hacker

Cesaré Shahidi – supermodel and combat specialist

Believe it or Not…

…but this picture inspired the entire Christmas at the Meadowlark series. I knew I wanted to do a series about foster children, and that vague notion hung around in the back of my head for years until I saw this picture of Lee Byung Hun. Immediately I knew that he was Butch, MIA love of Sugar Baby’s life. Lisa and I started brainstorming and the story came together rapidly after that.

It’s funny how these things sometimes happen. It can be a photo, visiting somewhere or even a meal and you just know you’ve got to write a story. It’s one of the most amazing (and sometimes annoying) aspects of being a writer.

Sorry for the Delay, but Superstar Will Be Here Soon

Good morning to all my readers. I owe all of you an apology for the long-delayed release of Superstar. I returned to working full-time this spring and it has taken a great deal of effort to coordinate my new life. I think I’ve hit my groove now, but will probably limit my writing to the weekends only, at least for now. Superstar will be released this month. I also plan to release Love Me Some Him, which is Deringer’s story and Lisa and I have an amazing Christmas surprise as well. So stay tuned. Love you so much, and appreciate you, too.

Drawing the Stud

I just realized I haven’t given y’all a sample from my next book, Drawing the Stud. My first book with Ellora’s Cave. It should be out late summer. Here’s the blurb:

After a couple of dates Pace decided Jay’s overbearing alpha tendencies were too much so she stopped seeing him. Now her brother has gone missing with millions of dollars of client money. She’s forced to make a multi-million dollar wager with Jay in order to save her brother from a lengthy jail sentence. She’ll get the money, but only if she agrees to be Jay’s mistress. Jay welcomes a second opportunity to get Pace into his bed, but knows he has to play his cards right, otherwise she will run again. Before long they’re all in for a high stakes love affair, but when the chips are down can he ante up enough to overcome her fears?

“This is all I’ve thought about all day,” he murmured as he continued to kiss the back of her neck. “I screwed up so many times today I’m amazed I didn’t go bankrupt. The texture of your skin. It’s so soft, so silky. Your scent is like a drug I can’t get enough of.”

Pace leaned her head to the side giving him more access. The glide of his tongue against her bare flesh inexplicably turned to liquid fire as it raced over the nerves of her body. She turned in his arms and stood on tiptoe so she could reach his mouth. Their lips met in a conflagration of raw need. Again and again she sucked on his tongue in a carnal imitation of what she’d love to be doing to his cock. Loving every inch of it.

“Tell me you want me, Pace. I won’t have a sacrificial virgin in my bed,” he practically growled as he assaulted her neck again.

Pace shuddered helplessly in his arms so caught up in the sexual vortex that for a moment she had no idea what the hell he was talking about. Sacrificial virgin? She struggled to remember their previous conversation. Oh yeah, right. “I want you,” she whispered pulling his head back up so she could look into his eyes. “I want you.”

“Thank God,” he whispered fervently as he lifted her off her feet and into his arms. He stormed back into the bedroom and practically threw her on the oversized bed before following her down.

He leaned over and forcefully captured her mouth. Before Pace even had a chance to gasp, his tongue was mating with hers. He pulled her closer, and she groaned with delight from the feel of his body pressing her into the mattress.

Her head spinning as though she’d been caught up in a cyclone, Pace struggled to breathe or even think. All she could do was feel the feverish desire this man started in her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, frantically trying to get closer.

He slid his hands down to grasp her hips grinding his erect cock against her. She arched her back to return the pressure gasping aloud at the stimulation directly on her clit. Eager for more. To feel his body more tautly pressed against hers.

It seemed she’d been waiting forever to feel his hands on her body and now waiting even a second longer was too much. His hands reluctantly left her hips and moved to the front of her crisp white top. So slowly as to be deliberate tease, he undid each button, pausing after each one to place a lingering kiss on her exposed flesh. By the time he finished Pace was nearly out of her mind from the exquisite torture. She wanted his hands on her throbbing breasts and suddenly he was there. He pushed the cups of her bra up to bare her flesh to his feral gaze.

She’d always thought her breasts were too large but the look on his face removed that notion. He looked like a starving man and she was the buffet. So much so that, for a moment, she feared he meant to devour her, then she arched her back reveling in his gaze. His desire made hers burn even more brightly. As he lowered his head almost reverently she expected a fevered possession. Instead, the touch of his mouth was soft, drugging.

When he reached her almost painfully hard nipple, he encircled it with his tongue again and again ratcheting up her need to a fevered pitch. Pace’s head fell back. She was strung out, unable to do anything but feel the incredible sensations his tongue triggered in her body. Her pussy was swollen and wet, begging for his possession. Each time his tongue touched her nipple, her clit throbbed even more fiercely and she thought for a moment she’d come just from him loving her breasts. She moved her hips against him, desperate to ease the throbbing emptiness in her pussy.

Jay gasped and moved his hips away from hers. He’d never in his life been so close to coming with all his clothes on. If she did that just one more time… His grip became bruising as he moved his mouth back to hers, devouring her, taking everything she had and still it wasn’t enough. He had to have all of her. Her tongue. Her mouth. Her skin. The very essence of her and even then, he feared it wouldn’t be enough. He returned to her mouth again. Desperate, crazed. Out of his mind with need. She was his. She had to be his. Nothing else mattered. Just this. He sucked on her tongue starving for her. When he moved down to her neck, he heard her gasp as she felt the sharp bite of his teeth. He sucked strongly the primitive need to mark her as his own overwhelming him.

He took a deep breath and then another. He was going too fast. Lust pounded through his veins filling his cock to a pounding intensity. He had to have her now. Jay inhaled deeply trying to slow down, but the aroma of their mutual arousal overwhelmed him, intensifying rather than lessening his arousal.

“Now Pace. Now,” he said, rising up from her just enough to look at her. Her face was soft, her lips swollen and wanton. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he couldn’t contain the powerful hunger to consume her.

“God, Pace, I’ve got to have you,” he groaned, capturing her lips again. As his tongue tangled furiously with hers, he moved his hands back to her breasts, grasping the tips and teasing them into even greater arousal.

She shifted under him raising her torso from the bed. He felt a moment of panic. Damn it, she was bailing on him.

“Help me get this shirt off,” she murmured struggling to sit up. He helped her pull it off and she shifted to unfasten her bra releasing the bounty that was her breasts. With another dexterous movement, she unfastened her skirt and raised her hips to slip it off. He stared down at her his mouth watering at the sight of the silky black panties and the rounded thighs exposed by her thigh high stockings. God! If he’d had any idea…. He stroked the silken thighs again and again, then leaned down to bury his face at the apex of her thighs still covered in black silk.

“God baby. Now. Now.” He reached up and slowly slid her panties down her legs, deliberately taking his time in an effort to regain control. It was fruitless, his mind was focused on one thing and one thing only. The complete possession of her. It took him a moment to realize the low growl that filled his ears was coming from his own throat as he was reduced to nothing but animal instincts.

Jay spread her legs and used his fingers to stroke her pussy lips apart. Her aroma filled his senses and he brought his head forward to capture her clit gently between his lips. Pace let out a groan of utter surrender. He stroked her with his tongue, then licked her in long forceful strokes. Again and again he alternated between sucking gently at her clit and licking the length of her slit with the flat of his tongue. Her keening cries filled his ears. Higher and higher as he brought her closer to orgasm. He felt her thighs begin to tremble on either side of his head and he moved even more quickly shoving two fingers inside her steaming hot pussy as he sucked more firmly at her clit. That was all it took. With a high-pitched scream, Pace tumbled over into orgasm. As he brought her to completion, Pace grasped his hair in her hands and held him as close as possible to the source of her pleasure.

His mind had all but shut down, but he leaned over to the bedside table to remove a strip of condoms. He ripped one off with his teeth. When he knew she’d had a chance to recover, Jay slid down until he was flat on the bed. His hands went to the fastening of his jeans and he opened them, frantically freeing himself before sheathing his cock with the condom. Pace sat up and then slid one leg over his hips to straddle him. Grasping her hips, he slowly lowered her onto his erect manhood. Feeling her tight wetness around him, Jay clenched his teeth and his head strained back, as he struggled for control. Though she was incredibly wet, her body briefly resisted his penetration. Gritting his teeth, he slowed down to allow her time to adjust. When she sighed and leaned forward to brace her hands on his chest he grabbed her hips and raised and lowered her onto his throbbing penis. With each stroke, the pleasure intensified to dizzying heights. Pulling her forward so he could take her mouth again he breathed against her lips.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. So fucking good.” He moved his lips to her neck and then her shoulder. The urge to bite was irresistible and he took the flesh between his teeth. Then it was as though his body shifted into another gear and took over from his mind. His hips moved almost of their own accord as he held her hips steady in a bruising grip to receive all of him. Again and again he thrust into her. Arching his back until it was nearly painful with each stroke. Then it wasn’t enough. He had to have more. He lifted her off his cock and paused to give her an apologetic kiss in response to her murmur of disappointment. He turned until she was under him. Raising her legs until they rested on his shoulders he spread her thighs apart as wide as possible. The delicious gasp she gave when he slid back inside her luscious pussy was nearly enough to send him over the edge.

Pounding into her like a madman, the drive to come took over leaving him helpless in its thrall. Just when he thought he’d die if he didn’t come, his orgasm hit him, springing up from his balls and exploding at the base of his skull like a gunshot. He arched back as he came in what seemed like an endless stream. Beneath him, Pace cried out and he felt her pussy clench around him as she came again.

Writing Inspiration

Some of you might recall that the Pussycat Death Squad was inspired by Libya’s Muammar Quadaffi and his all-female Amazonian Guard. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the fourth book in the series, tentatively titled, Pussycat in Peril. In that book the series returns to Laritrea, where Astaria, who some of you might recall from the first book, finds herself trapped in a post-revolutionary Laritrea (Libya). I’ve done a lot of research on Libya, really, most of Africa over the years and I think the post-colonial period is an absolutely ripe settings for romance books.

One of my favorite authors, Roberta Gellis, wrote the Heiress Series a while back. One of the books, English Heiress was set in France during the Revolution. The heiress is stranded there and the hero has to go in and rescue her. I wanted to do a book like that, but a contemporary, and now with revolutions popping up all over the place, I finally got my chance. I’m so excited. It probably won’t be out until some time next year, but it will be so much fun.

A Question for Romance Readers, Writers and Possibly Lawyers

As we all know the arrnged marriage is a common trope in romance. I’ve read stories where someone had to get married to inherit money, or were ordered to marry in a will. Recently I read an article that said you can’t compel someone to get married in a will, but damned if I can find the article. I thought it might be a post on one of the romance blogs, but no luck there, either. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Holla.

First Page: Goddess of Milan

The music boomed through the loudspeaker. Vries could feel it thrumming through her chest as though the bassist was picking out the rhythm on her ribcage. She moved with the beat of the music shaking her hips, feeling the silken swish of her vintage Pucci maxi skirt against her legs with each step she took in the platform heels. She made a striking figure and she knew it. It was her job to always stand out in a crowd, to draw attention wherever she went. A role that oddly enough lent itself even more to her more sinister vocation. The spotlight did a great job of concealing that which she didn’t want seen. She spotted her target almost by accident. The tall man with the thick mane of graying hair would probably blend in almost unnoticed were she not deliberately looking for him. Years of experience had given her almost a sixth sense for these things.

She made her way across the large room until she was standing nearly directly behind him. Smoothing her damp palms over her skirt she continued moving to the beat. This was always the worst part of any assignment, the moments right before the strike when she had time to question herself and her technique. She had no idea who this man was. She preferred it that way, it left her with fewer doubts. She trusted her handlers to only give her the cases where her target needed killing. Still she wondered about the morality of what she was about to do. Of course, there was little room for that kind of thought in this world of realpolitik. Eliminating the bad guys by legal means was both time-consuming and messy. And she knew that afterwards, the doubts would go away, and she would feel nothing but pride in a job done well. After a few seconds she reached up to remove her signature platinum Afro pick from her mammoth Afro. She automatically checked the safety lock on the mechanism and glanced down briefly to ensure she’d filled it properly. Then she sidled up behind the man. It only took a moment for her to jab the pick into the back of the man’s hip with a smooth, practiced gesture. The man reacted quickly to what she knew to be a sharp, but momentary prick. She smiled apologetically; the music was much too loud to allow conversation, so she gestured toward her large designer bag as the culprit. He waved it off as inconsequential, not knowing as she did that he was a walking dead man.

The slow-acting poison would take nearly a week to kill him, but kill him it would. Its effect would mimic that of a heart attack. He probably would never remember their meeting at this Paris fashion show, and if he did, no one would ever connect his death to such a brief encounter. Continuing on her way she returned the Afro pick to its customary place in her hair and made her way backstage. She was due to strut down the catwalk in less than ten minutes. Vries St. John was on.

Virgin Heroes

I’m piggy-backing this off a thread on Karen Scott’s blog. I like virgin heroes. I like them a lot. I don’t care for the “rake,” reformed or otherwise. I stopped reading regencies because they are so unrealistic in this regard. Dudes would’ve been eaten up with STDs. Syphilis, in particular, was far more virulent back in the day. Your body parts would literally fall off. (Yeah, I’m a disease and history geek, which you would know if you read Try a Little Tenderness. Koss is only a virus hunter because I’ve read so many books on the subject I figured I might as well put the research to good use.)

If you’ve read Try a Little Tenderness, and seriously, if you haven’t, well, I’m hurt. IMO, it’s probably one of my best books, at least that’s what Crystal Hubbard says, and she’s like a writing jedi master, so there! Anyway, if you’ve read the book, you know that Koss, the hero, is one sexy geek virgin. Socially awkward, he started college early. None of the college girls would date someone so young, and now he’s a professor and his students are his age, but off limits. Koss is probably my favorite hero. Twist, one of the heroes of Rock Star Weddings, is also a virgin. He lied about his age and joined the band young. The groupies scared the all living hell out of him, so Naysa, the heroine, is his only lover.

How about you? How do you feel about virgin heroes? Have you read a lot of them? Diana Palmer, who used to be a guilty pleasure of mine, does a lot of male virgins. I understand the hero of Outlander is also a virgin, but, and I know I’ll be flayed for this, I’ve never read the book. In my defense, it seems that I always hate the books others love. People rave so much about Son of the Morning that I finally read it despite my misgivings about time travel books. Plus Lisa and I are working on a project that involves time travel. I wanted to see how a master storyteller like Linda Howard handled it. I hated it! Not the time travel aspect. That was fine. No, it was the rest if the book I loathed. For one thing, there was no romance. For another she went back to fourteenth century Scotland, to live! While pregnant! Are you kidding me? Less than twenty five years before the Black Death?! How many different ways can you say, hell no? I still haven’t read Lord of Scoundrels for the same reason.

Sorry, I digress. Back to virgin heroes. I think I like turning the usual trope on its head. I really like pairing my virgins with a sexually experienced woman, but I imagine it would fun to have two virgins figuring out love together. Would you like to see more virgin heroes? Do you like them? Have you read many?

Holiday Stories

I’m a sucker for a holiday story, and I think a lot of readers are too. I’d really like to do another holiday story. Santa Baby is one of my biggest sellers, and I had a great time writing it. I’m kicking around another story, Crystal Ball which would be Tree Tolbert’s story. She’s a designer and best friend of Andi from Morning Star. This would be a New Year’s Eve story.

But I’ve been thinking, there are so many books around the traditional holidays; Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc… I think it would be cool to come up with a story for an odd holiday. (Any day but Groundhog’s Day. I HATE that movie!) Some of you might remember that my first book was written chapter by chapter on the old Mindkandy Interracial site. In honor of the 10th anniversary of that momentuous occasion, I’m thinking about doing that again. So first, you guys have to pick a holiday. Christmas, Valentine’s and New Year’s are out, but any other holiday is all good. But here’s the fun part–y’all come up with the plot and I’ll write it, a chapter a week on the blog.

It has to be a romance, but the rest is up to you. So post your ideas on the thread and we’ll vote to see whose idea gets chosen. Then it’s off to the races…oooh Derby Day. Cool with hats and mint juleps. This won’t be a formal thing, but let’s go with a couple of weeks to collect ideas. Come on y’all, show me what you’ve got.