Tuesday, October 31, 2017

50 Shades meets Beauty & the Beast

Amazon : Barnes & Noble : iBooks : GooglePlay : Kobo

It's the time of year for spooks and goblins so I've decided to put my monster story on sale for a very short time. Grab it quick for $1.99 (regularly $3.99)

This adult fairy tale has all the classics – a curse, a beast, and the beautiful woman destined to save him . . . Or does it?

Cursed with insatiable lust and slowly transforming into a beast, the master of the castle sends his gamekeeper out to the nearby villages to choose girls to satisfy him. When the gamekeeper chooses her sister, Serena offers herself instead and is swept away to the castle, sure she will be driven mad by the Beast's demands.

Except his demands are not so unwelcome, and Serena finds herself wanting to please him, confusing the Beast, and then terrifying him. If he gives her his heart, he will only lose it when he finally transforms and she abandons him. Why bring on more pain? She is there to be used, nothing more. But Serena refuses to be just an object for sexual satisfaction.

She wants to be everything to the Beast. She wants him to love her.

Excerpt:

Serena stared at Lord Damen. Just looking at him gave her alternating waves of heat and chill. She wanted to feel his arms wrapped around her and she wanted to run as far away as possible. Slowly she rose from her chair, setting the delicate cup of cocoa on the tray. “My lord, do you require me?”
Lord Damen looked her over scornfully. “I desire you again. I shall three or four times a day. Can you endure it?”
Serena wondered why he asked. Did she have a choice? Though the thought of three or four times daily made her knees shake. “If you ask it of me,” she finally said. Her voice seemed to fade without her permission and she cleared her throat before continuing. “Where would you like me? On the floor here by the fire or would you prefer one of the couches?”
He glanced at the floor and then at the couches. “The wall is fine. I only need to slake myself on you.”
Slake himself on her. How romantic. But then what did she expect? Roses? She’d been kidnapped, albeit legally, from her village for her body, not because he’d seen her in the distance and fallen madly in love with her. “Yes, my lord.”  She walked to the wall, gathering her skirts in her hands.
 “I will do that.” Grabbing her hands away from the fabric, he pressed her hands to the wall over her head. “Interesting hair arrangement.”
“It was not of my choosing.” Serena stiffened her lower lip to stop it from shaking. His face hovered inches from hers, his eyes glittering coldly as he stared into her. Did he need to pick at her too? If only she didn’t find herself wanting him to see her as beautiful. The clean masculine scent of him, carried by the heat of his skin, enveloped her.
“I disgust you, don’t I? Just the sight of me makes you tremble with fear,” he said softly. His voice held a deadly note.
Serena shook her head. “No, my lord.”
“Am I expected to believe that you are trembling from eagerness? That you desire me so that you shiver from wanting?” he snapped. He caught both her hands in one of his so he could pull the diamond tipped pins from her hair. “Tell me the truth, Sweet Serena. I’m a beast and I frighten you like a tiny rabbit is afraid of a hawk.”
Serena bit her lip. His eyes were drawn to the slight motion. “No—yes. I am a little afraid of you. I don’t know you yet.” 

Amazon : Barnes & Noble : iBooks : GooglePlay : Kobo

Monday, October 30, 2017

Diving into Dreams, and extremely NSFW Excerpt from At the Heart of the Stone




Hello, I’m Roxanne D. Howard, and I write erotic contemporary and paranormal romance novels. Today I’d like to discuss the power of dreams in our writing. 

I know several authors who keep a dream journal in their nightstand, and jot down the dreams they remember upon waking. Paul McCartney once said in an interview that he dreamt the song, Yesterday. He composed the melody in a dream, and upon waking, he played it on the piano. He had to shop it around to friends and family because he believed it was a song from his past or childhood, but as it turned out, it was completely inspirational.

Dreams have the power to inspire us and lay the cornerstones of what can be come worlds in which our characters live. Since humankind has existed, we’ve studied dreams and tried to make sense of them. Sigmund Freud believed that nothing we do occurs by chance, and that every action and thought is motivated by our unconscious. He believed that our urges and desires that don’t fit into societal norms are repressed into our dreams, and that’s how they are released.

So how do we write our dreams? There are times when we wake up that we hardly remember what we dreamt about, which is why it’s important to keep a writing journal, or a memo app on our phones handy. The littlest line or recollected visual description can make the biggest difference.

Let’s talk about writing space. In his memoir On Writing, Stephen King likened writing to a wakeful, dreamlike state. “Your writing room should be private, a place where you go to dream… the space can be humble, and it really needs only one thing: A door you are willing to shut.” As a mom to two rambunctious girls, I can testify that this is nigh to impossible at times when you’re running the kids from school to ballet class, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. What I’ve learned to do is create my own four walls and pseudo room when I open my laptop. My new three-part series which comes out on October 25th was written mostly at the kitchen counter.

While ideally you can be more creative in a quiet, isolated environment, it is possible to write while the kids are going to town on the playground at McDonald’s or having fun in the bouncy houses at the fun center. If you can create those mental four walls when you have a moment to spare, you can transpose your dreams into a story.

While I’d love to be able to say I had an erotic dream like the ones Lark has in At the Heart of the Stone which inspired the story, Lark just walked as a fully formed character into my mind with a story to tell, and I went from there. However, a lot of lines I get for my novels do come from my dreams, and I’ve learned not to ignore them as they come along.

What interesting dreams have you had which have inspired you? Comment below. 




Book Trailer:

Enjoy this extremely NSFW love scene excerpt from my first romance novel with Loose Id, At the Heart of the Stone.
Excerpt:


Neither of them said much as he drove. He turned up the music for a while; perhaps he understood her need to escape everything and wanted to give her legroom. Or maybe he was in a quiet, contemplative mood himself.
Lark watched the tall, golden tares in the wheat fields and some harvested pastures pass by in areas where the forests broke off before they rejoined. She blocked everything from her mind and tried to phase out a little, relaxing against the comfortable seat. The ears at the tops of the tares all swayed toward the left, as if pointing at something she couldn’t see. Their uniformity and the way they moved with the breeze calmed her. There was no pressure to have to say anything or strike up conversation with Niall, and it was nice.
After a while, the Explorer slowed down. She turned to Niall. “Why are we stopping?”
He switched off the music and drummed the steering wheel with his fingers. “Whenever I need to think about stuff, the last thing I want is a bunch of people around me. Sooo…”
Lark braced herself against the dashboard and let out a grunt as he drove uncouthly off the side of the road, straight into an unfenced, overgrown wheat field.
“We’re going to give you someplace to think.”
The view from her window grew obscured by golden tares as tall as the SUV, oscillating over the windows like underwater kelp. She rocked around as he drove over bumps and patches in the ground.
“Uh, Niall? Do you know where you’re going?” She held on to the grab-handle above her window for dear life as the SUV shook, and he drove farther into the field with glee.
“Not at all, but I’d say this is good enough.” He chuckled as he slowed the Explorer to a stop and put it in Park, killed the engine, and turned to her. The jungle of wheat canopied the windows like a soft sky. It was so quiet and still, she could hear both of their breathing.
“Wow,” she said in a hushed voice.
He nodded in silent accord. He seemed to consider something and then eyed her. “Wait a second. You’re not claustrophobic, are you? I’m sorry, I didn’t think to ask.”
“No.” She closed her eyes and relaxed against the headrest. Something about the silence of the car and being secluded with him compelled her to talk to him, and she found herself opening up to him about everything—her mother, her brother, Gemma, her reluctance to discuss it all with Maisie, what happened with Charles. Niall remained quiet and attentive, listening with a careful demeanor as she vented, nodding a few times when she spoke about her pain over Charles’s infidelity and the uncertainty in starting completely anew. “Charles told me to stay away from you,” she said after a while.
He shook his head, guffawing. “Yeah, that’s convenient, for him. What do you want?”
She bit her lip. I want you. “I-I’m not sure at the moment. I know I don’t want to give him a second chance, though. What he did burned me. I could never do that to someone.”
“He’s a class A twat, Lark; the same kind of git who used to pick playground fights and belittle me and my brothers for wearing hand-me-downs and being poor. Be glad you found the courage to stand up for yourself and break it off. I don’t understand why someone of your caliber was with a guy like him.”
She rubbed the side of her forehead. “He was different when we first got together. He changed, but I was too blind to see it. Charles is a big baby when he doesn’t get his way, that’s all it is.”
Niall narrowed his eyes. “He shouldn’t be telling you what to do, though. What pisses me off is he doesn’t care who you are inside. You could be anyone. You’re a convenience for him, because with you he would have gotten to have the beautiful, successful trophy wife, plus a little on the side. Don’t look like that; it was clear after talking to him for a few minutes.” He put his arm over the back of her headrest and leaned in, his familiar face a mix of anger and passion. “Now, let me be clear about this, Shakespeare, because this may be my only chance to tell you this before you go back to London. I don’t know what these dreams mean, but I know I care about you in a way that is terrifying for me to admit to. I’m not saying this out of nowhere, and I think you can feel that. This may surprise you, but you and I, we’ve more in common than you’d think. Besides the dreams, I mean. For my own reasons, I’ve a hard time letting people in.”
He reached for her hand and placed her palm on his chest. She could feel the steady rhythm of his heart beneath his T-shirt.
“You know, where it counts? I haven’t been intimate with a woman since my wife died, but since I met you, everything has seemed to connect. It’s insane, but you have me at full throttle with a mere glance.”
Lark gasped. “Are you saying you haven’t had sex in twelve years? At all?”
He nodded.
Lark scoffed. “Oh, come on. You’re pulling my leg. I have a hard time believing that. I mean, please!” He was a walking sex god. Of course, that might be her being biased from her dreams, but still. There was no way.
He sighed, and when a dark shadow passed across his striking features, she realized he wasn’t joking. “I did try to,” he ruminated. “After I got myself sorted out—and it took years—I took women out and tried to get into a relationship many times. But for the longest time, I felt guilty for the way I’d been with Melanie and responsible for what happened. I couldn’t move on. I’d no desire to. I didn’t feel worthy.”
“Why didn’t you feel worthy?” He wouldn’t look at her, and an alarm bell went off in her head that his reluctance could have something to do with his health. “Oh. So, I don’t mean to pry, but do you have an STD or something? Is that why you haven’t had sex?”
He lifted his head, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “What? No, not at all! I’m clean and always have been. I’ve only ever been with Melanie.”
“Same here.” It seemed only right to lessen his burden in divulging his personal life by sharing some of her own. “With Charles, I mean. He was my first.” She shifted her fingers nervously in his hand. “Of course, God knows how many women he’s slept with. He swore up and down that he wore a condom every time, but…” She bit her lip and looked away. That particular wound was still too fresh.
“Doesn’t make it any easier to bear, eh?”
She nodded, and he massaged her fingers. His skin was warm, and she instinctively moved closer.
“Are you taking any birth control?”
When she met his eyes, a thrill shot through her at the intensity in them. Why was he asking? Her heart began to race a little faster. “Yes. I, uh, have an implant in my arm. It’s long-lasting. I have to change it out every three years.”
“Good to know.” His voice dropped a notch, and he stroked her face with his free hand.
She cleared her throat. “Niall, that stuff you said, about feeling like you don’t deserve to move on? It’s all in your head. You’re an incredible person. Of course you deserve to.” She ached for him. She knew the extent of his passion; to punish himself for so long was unthinkable. “Do you mind if I ask what happened to Melanie?”
He exhaled and ran his thumb over her hand, then held it to his chest like he needed it there. “I’d rather not talk about that now. But someday.” A gleam of pain laced his eyes, and something told her not to push.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“Thank you.”
He smoothed his hand down her arm, caressed it. His eyes darkened as he leaned in, and his chest rose and fell a little quicker. She wanted what he wanted, just as badly, but she knew she needed to be responsible, conscientious. “Niall, no. We should stop doing th—”
He ate her words with his kiss, drugging her with his hot mouth as he moved over her, cradling her face in his hands. He kissed her with intense hunger, like he could never have enough, and the voice of doubt, of guilt, that needled her, floated further away the more he kissed her. This was certainly not Charles kissing her. This kiss contained passion, emotion, and strange magic. No boy—or man—had ever kissed her like this. And definitely not Charles. In fact, she couldn’t recall ever feeling this spark with Charles.
Her seat suddenly jerked backward, and before she could tell who’d moved it, Niall was over her, pressing the hard line of his body into hers as the seat reclined. His lips adored her throat, and he trailed a line with his tongue, making her shiver, making her want him.
“Love, I won’t push you. But I have to touch you. I can’t be this close to you and not touch you.”
Niall lifted his head, searching her eyes for consent. Lark bit her lip and nodded before she could stop herself. He paused, then yanked down his jacket and peeled off his shirt. She drew in a breath as she saw his warm, muscular body, the intricate black tattoo above his heart. It looked almost primal: a sun with a star in the middle. She traced it with her fingers, curious about its origin. Niall’s eyes were ablaze as he watched her. He roughly balled up his jacket and shirt and tossed them over the seat. Then he placed his hand over hers, his eyes dancing with tremulous intent. With his other hand, he undid the button and zipper on his tight jeans, and she eyed his hardened cock, straining to get out.
A sigh of relief left him once his cock was freed from its confines, and it jutted proudly out, tenting against the cotton of his boxers. She wanted to touch him, to feel him. She spanned her fingers and raked them down his broad, well-defined chest; first grazing his flat nipple, then gliding them over his ripped abs, and finally lingering on the sharp V of his hip flexors, which all but begged to be stroked. He caught her wrist and shook his head.
“No. Don’t,” he said, his breath coming in quick gasps. “I swear I’ll lose all control and take you this second. Right now, I want—need—this to be about you.”
Lark frowned and withdrew her hand, then met his gaze and saw the blatant sexual appetite he was carefully keeping banked. A hot pulse began in her pussy at the allure in his eyes. This wasn’t rejection; it was delegation, and right now, she was the designator.
He bent down and pushed her shirt up and off, his knifelike gaze never leaving hers. The intensity she saw in it told her he was about to take her on a journey. He flung the shirt over her head. She leaned forward to unclasp her bra, then shivered as her breasts sprang free. Her dusky-pink nipples puckered as if they wanted to kiss his lips.
Niall groaned and moved forward, cupping her breasts and seizing a nipple in his warm mouth, laving the underside with his tongue while he caressed and massaged the other with his warm fingers. She breathed heavily and held on to his shoulder. She carded her free hand through his impossibly thick dark curls as he licked and sucked, teasing her with his teeth. She undulated beneath his touch, wondering how it was that he could incite her so. She wanted to lose herself in him. It scared her a little, how much she wanted him.
She’d never known such a feeling before, had never experienced anything like this with Charles, her one and only partner. She frowned. She didn’t want to think about Charles right now.
Niall undid the button on her jeans. Lark kicked off her shoes, then lifted her hips as he slid the jeans down her thighs, taking them off. There was not an inch of skin that he didn’t touch, or a shallow breath they didn’t share. His gaze roamed her body. She shifted beneath its intensity, her self-consciousness rearing its ugly head. She sighed. Niall was such a beautiful man. What would he think of her? She didn’t have to wonder long. His breath warmed her neck as he trailed his nose along her cheek, and she felt him smile.
“You’re exquisite, Lark. It’s all I can do not to take you right now.”
She drew him closer, unable to tell him what his words meant to her. She licked his neck; its salty tang left a spicy imprint on her tongue she hoped would last forever. His words were like lighter fluid thrown onto the fire burning inside her. She pulled him down and kissed him ardently.
His hands caressed the dip of her waist, went around to the curve of her back, and then over her ass. She hooked her ankle over his, desperate to feel him against her. Despite her prodding, he took his sweet time. Though it must have been torturous for him to go so slow, she loved that about him; how he mapped her out like a mystical mountain, worshipping her with his lips, venerating her with his hands and teeth and tongue. Niall slid a large hand beneath her panties. She gasped and closed her eyes, pleading with him to hurry while she rotated her hips toward his touch. His teeth lightly scraped her throat while his hand made a slow descent past the light hair on her mound.
Lark bared her throat to him while she rubbed his back, his bum, anything she could touch. His hand dipped into her pussy, and she opened for him, letting out a little gasp as he moved his thumb over her clit and then into the dewy wetness inside.
“Niall,” she murmured, then jerked violently when he thrust two fingers into her.
“Do you like this?”
He began moving slowly in and out of her. God, their dream sex did not in any way compare to the real thing.
“I love it,” she purred. Desperate to touch him, she moved her hand down his chest until she felt the unmistakable bulge through his cotton boxers. He sped up his thrusts, going in deeper, and she fell back against the seat from her half-seated position, too distracted by the sensation as her hips thrust in time with him. She slid her fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers, and the moment she touched the seeping tip of his hard cock, he bucked against her; his fingers inside her became unremitting, pounding her. “Niall,” she whimpered. “Oh yes!”
He pressed his lips to hers, tender despite the burning friction between them. He pulled back, and she looked at him. “Lark, I have to taste you. Please.”
Lark searched his eyes. There would be no turning back, but damn it, she wanted it, wanted him. She slowly nodded, her insides dancing. Yes. Hell, yes!
He drew back, the side of his mouth lifted as he yanked down her panties. He took her legs in his hands and draped them over his shoulders. She pressed her feet against the warmth of the console behind him and scooted as far up the lowered seat as she could go to give him room to work.
“I’m going to open you up, Lark Braithwaite,” he said, his voice low with desire.
True to his word, he spread her out like a sacrificial lamb. He stared unabashedly at her body, taking his time. She flushed with arousal and embarrassment as he made love to her with his eyes alone.
“Every single inch of you is perfect,” he murmured, trailing his hand down along her inner thigh.
Lark squirmed a bit. It had been a long time since anyone went down on her. Sex was always a way to destress after a hectic week, to unwind or regroup; up until now, she’d never actually used it for her own personal pleasure. Charles never had any interest in that sort of thing. She watched as Niall moved his face closer to her dewy nether lips, then licked her pussy from bottom to top with the flat of his tongue. She jumped. Hot blood rushed through her core as her heart sped up. She moaned and closed her eyes as he used his supple tongue on her sensitive clit, swirling around it like an ice-cream cone.
“Look at me.”
She opened her eyes and sucked in her breath as she watched him stretch her pussy lips to better expose her, lifting the hood of her clit and working her aching nub with the tip of his finger as he alternated between using his tongue and little licks along her entrance. She lifted her ass toward him. It was too much and yet not enough. She bucked against him, all rationale disappearing from her desire-clogged mind.
She slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting as he moved to suckle her exposed clit in slow drags, his soft tongue darting out every few seconds to stimulate it. Her thighs were shaking. He stilled them with his elbows. He reached up and pulled her hand away from her mouth.
“Don’t you dare be quiet, Lark,” he growled. He blew a breath of warm air against her clit, and sweet vibrations shimmered through her already oversensitive body. “Let me hear you.”
“Oh!” she cried out.
He growled his approval and did it again before licking her. His arousal pressed against her hand, and she squeezed him. He moved his hips against her hold.
“It’s just you and I, love. You and I.”
He feasted on her, and she let him. Niall shoved two wonderful fingers into her sopping wet pussy, filled her to the brim, and pumped them in and out, driving her absolutely mad with lust. Those animalistic noises—were they coming from her? She should be embarrassed, but she was too far gone at the moment to care. Her body was on fire, and all she wanted to do was crawl all over him. She let go and gave herself over to the pleasure he wielded like a sword, gyrating her hips and writhing into his face to get closer, closer to him.
Something told her she’d seek him out again and again. She would never have enough of this man. He thrust deep into her just then, hitting a particular spot in her back wall. Her body began to quake, sending delicious shockwaves up her spine. She squeezed and stroked his hard cock, while he held her captive to his touch. There was no escape. Then he curled his fingers inside her, and an orgasm ripped through her. Niall watched her, his rapt attention on her face.
Like an overfilled dam brought to the breaking point, her nectar burst forth, and he lapped it up, his face buried deep inside her, his hands gently stroking the undersides of her thighs.
Her whole body began to tremble. Tendrils of need were rapidly growing inside her as she realized she wanted him. She wanted him to take her, fill her, fuck her—anything. She just needed this itch scratched. As if sensing a change in her, Niall resurfaced, breathing hard, his lips and chin glistening with her essence. He moved over her with blazing eyes and dived into her mouth, his tongue roughly claiming hers. She tasted herself, sweet and heady, and she sucked his tongue, hoping he’d take the hint. He removed her hand from his cock and laid it on her stomach, where he trapped it with his.
He groaned into her mouth and shifted his hips closer to hers, yanking down his boxers and pumping himself against her. She released his tongue, and he pulled his face back. All he had to do was say the word, and she’d surrender.
He put his forehead against hers and dipped the glistening head of his cock through her slit, gathering her wetness and rubbing himself deliciously against her, bumping her clit with each stroke. She shivered at the contact.
“I want to come on your pussy, Lark.”
Not what she had in mind, but she knew he was respecting her, trying to assuage how she felt and what she wanted, as he’d promised. She nodded, opening her legs wider for him, thinking he might want to watch her pussy as he got himself off, as Charles always had. But he sat up a little, ignoring what lay between her legs, and gazed instead into her eyes. She breathed deep, locked in the depths of his vast, green eyes as he increased his pace, his muscles tightening as he focused solely on her face, furiously pounding his cock into his hand and grunting openly. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen, made more prevalent by knowing he did it with her in mind. She broke their stare and glanced down to watch him work his long cock. He was bigger than what she’d grown used to. She licked her lips. What would he taste like? His cut-off moan brought her attention back to his face, and she realized she was licking her top lip. Niall leaned forward and braced himself on one hand against the headrest above her.
“I’m about to come.”
“I want you to,” she said, her breath hot against his neck.
He kissed her on the lips and shifted a bit, then guided the tip of his cock around her clit and pussy as he ejaculated. A bit of semen splattered onto the edge of her hand, but she didn’t care. She raised her hips as he called out her name and spurted all over her pussy.
“Oh fuck. Oh yes! Lark!”
He threw his head back, the tendons in his neck straining as he released himself on her. She couldn’t believe this was all for her—his raw passion, the evidence of his desire made manifest. Lark blinked the tears from her eyes. He was beautiful.
“I like seeing you like this,” she admitted.
He relaxed his shoulders as the last of his climax washed over him. He smiled down at her, then moved his hand over her mound, smearing his essence all over her entrance. Without warning, he shoved two fingers inside, and she arched her back. “Mmm!”
He put his mouth next to her ear, his voice husky. “I want my seed inside you for the rest of the day. I want you to remember this, Shakespeare.”
She put her arms around his shoulders and clamped her thighs around his hand, not about to forget this anytime soon. Their lips met in a slow, gentle kiss, and Lark laid her head back and tried to breathe. Panting like a man who’d run a mile, Niall collapsed on top of her and laid his cheek against her breast. She could feel spent liquid heat dripping from his cock onto her, pressing against her thigh. Stroking his back with the flats of her palms while his fingers stayed buried inside her, she kissed his sweaty forehead and watched the wheat sway outside the car windows. The waving wheat almost sounded like the ocean, the faint, sweet smell of it like a perfume. Sated, she hooked her right leg over him and pushed back some hair that had fallen into his eyes.


 


Blurb:

Dreams are the perfect shelter for our fantasies, safe havens to step inside without changing our daily lives. For Lark Braithwaite, all that is about to change. During the last six months, Lark has dreamt of a mysterious Irish lover who knows what she wants and gives her exactly what she needs. In her waking life in busy London, things aren’t as ideal, as her long-term relationship with Charles, her controlling fiancé, has hit a dry spell.

When Lark is called home to Oregon for her father’s funeral right in the middle of a high-stakes corporate merger, she heads back to face the demons from her past. What she doesn’t expect is to meet her dream lover in the flesh. Niall O’Hagan steps straight out of her fantasies and right into her life, and the powerful connection they share rocks her foundation. Although she's dealing with the bitterness of being betrayed by Charles and his jealousy, Niall soon stirs Lark’s awareness of the superficiality of her existence and reawakens not only her sexuality, but her soul.

At the Heart of the Stone Buy Links:
 



 

Books by This Author


With Boroughs Publishing Group:
Sonnet Coupled

With Loose Id Publishing, LLC.:
At the Heart of the Stone
Chicks Dig the Accent
The Costa Mesa Series
Costa Mesa 1: Batten Down the Hatches
Costa Mesa 2: Toe the Line
Costa Mesa 3: Overboard



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