Jacqueline C. Thomas - Romance Novelist

Sex

The Last Steps are Always the Hardest

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Doesn’t the old adage go something like it’s the cobbler who’s wife never has shoes? I work in public relations and marketing for a living, and yet when it comes to preparing a marketing strategy for The Lake Michigan Affair, I feel like I’m a deer in the headlights. Ugh what? Marketing, what is that? A book, what is a book? How do you market a book? I find myself having this conversation at minimum three times a day right now, especially in moments when my attention is required or bedtime.. fun, fun.

A strategy is coming together, and the landing page for the book is now set up on this website for it. The whole thing is so odd to me, that I wanted this book to be published for so long and suddenly here we are. If I’m being totally honest it is the last few steps to get this book out that I am finding to be the hardest. It’s not a crippling fear that people won’t like it, because I know taste is subjective. I’d love to use the excuse that I’m just so damn busy, between my career and homelife, but I absolutely hate that excuse too. Maybe it’s just that these last few steps really are difficult.

I am very lucky to have my husband helping me in this endeavor as my publisher. He’s written and published several books though our website Anglotopia and my main cheerleader in bringing my work to market. I am so grateful for his help because while I do know how to lay out a book in InDesgin, I’d rather cut my front lawn with my teeth, LOL! I hate stuff like that, and he’d very good at it.

So here we are just about ten days out from launch and still so much to do! In these next ten days this is where words and plans turn into action to get this book out the door, and off to a great start! It is time to prepare Sebastian and Rosalie for success.

Not quite time to raise a glass yet!

Book Review Time

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I love to read but it feels like a guilty pleasure when I actually get to do it with Grad School wrapping up. I had the pleasure of reading two extraordinary books recently, as well as re-reading my first book as a result of #KissPitch and being the worst beta reader ever for my dear sister who has written the most amazing collection of travel stories. It may not seem like a lot but it actually is a lot of reading. So, check out what this romance author has been reading.

 

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

I received this book as a birthday present from my husband. He saw the British press had not stopped raving about it since its release, and thought it would interest me. He was not wrong. Three Women is a work of non-fiction. Taddeo follows three American women and their journies with sexuality, a woman who has an affair, to another woman who is in an open marriage, to the teenager who has a sexual relationship with her high school teacher. As a romance author, what induces love, sexuality and lust is always of interest to me. I picked up this book as a character study but soon realized I would be selling it desperately short to approach it that way.

From the first page, with its gripping honesty, I could not pully myself away. The stories are heartbreaking and TRUE. Each story is unique and thought-provoking but the one story that particularly resonated with me was the story of Lena, a married mother, who had an affair with a high school fling. Her first sexual experience is heartbreaking, and she marries a man who doesn’t seem interested in physical affection. Despite her best efforts, to entice her husband, he is simply unwilling- even repulsed by the idea. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had his own traumatic sexual backstory. (I am not saying that those who are asexual have trauma).

Lena talks about craving a man’s touch, and she finds it in the arms of a high school boyfriend, who is married as well. I found myself rooting for them, even though they were both married. It is heartbreaking and beautiful to see Lena’s struggle.

With so much amazing work out there to read and our non-stop news cycle, it seems that not much sticks with us for very long, but this book will stick with me forever. The brutal, beautiful, heartbreaking honesty in which these women tell their stories is incredible. I literally could not put this book down!

 

American Queen by Sierra Simone

 

While out in Los Angeles last month I made sure to stop in The Ripped Bodice in Studio City, California, a romance bookstore. While I was there the cashier highly recommend this book to me, making sure to inform me that this one is more erotica than romance. I like a good steamy read every now and then so I purchased it. The premise of this work of fiction, follows Greer, the privileged granddaughter of a former Vice President, her love interest Maxen Colchester and his best friend, and current VP Embry Moore. I’ve never read a book by Simone so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The opening two paragraphs of this book are a master class on how to start a book. I was hooked from the start!

I started reading this one on the flight home from L.A., a red-eye flight, where the two travellers on either side of me slept. I am not ashamed that I read romance and erotica, but let me tell you, this one made me blush! At one point during the flight, I had to put the book down, it was that steamy- my eyes had third-degree burns! From start to finish the sex scenes in this book, leave NOTHING to the imagination. It left me, who is not prudish at all, slightly uncomfortable.

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!     

Greer falls for Ash or Maxen and they begin a sub/ dom relationship. I have read several books with this sort of sexual play and my normal reaction is like, “eh, okay.” The relationship in this book bothered me more than most of the other books in the genre that I have read. Greer is sexually inexperienced and is suddenly eager to please Ash at his beck and call. I just don’t get it. I am not passing judgement on sexual interests in any way! The whole sub/ dom thing is so not my jam. At one point Ash whips Greer with a belt and she talks about how it hurts so good. All I could think to myself was, “if someone hits me with a belt, I am going to grab it from them and hit them with it!” Yes, I know I am missing the point here. I just find myself asking, where is the line between violence and sexuality?

Then, we find out that Greer looses her virginity to Embry, who is Ash’s best friend after Ash breaks her heart one night. The whole scene where she loses her virginity is hot- unrealistic, but hot. So now we have a perfect love triangle between Ash, Greer and Embry. I really wondered where Simone was going with it. Later on in the book, Greer finds out that Ash and Embry have a sexual relationship too! Woah, everyone is sleeping with each other! Greer finds this out in the most awkward way too. The book culminates on Ash and Greer’s wedding night, where they invite Embry in to essentially be a thruple.

A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with a therapist about different types of relationships. At the time this therapist was treating a woman who was in a relationship with two men. Together, the two men and she had made a thruple or a couple of three. The therapist told me about some of the research they had done on the topic and the one thing that came up time and again- it never works out in the long run. All I could think to myself was that their relationship will never work! Sure it might be hot, and convenient for now, but down the road, things are going to get messy.

The last scene in the book, the wedding night, I found more thought-provoking than sexy. Greer asks her new husband and his best friend, Embry to sleep together in front of her before they turn their attentions to her. The culmination of this wedding night ends with the two men making a Greer sandwich. This made me wonder, would anyone want a wedding night like this? Am I a square? I don’t know. Again, I am not judging as long as all involved parties are consenting adults.

I think for me as a romance writer, the set up was there for a sexy, heartfelt love story between Ash and Greer, but somewhere it jumped the rails. There is so much with this book, incest, threesomes, sub-dom, gay sex, you name it. If you rated hotness on a scale, this book would be nuclear, but I would argue at the expense of what could have been a great love story.

Adventures in #KissPitch Land

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Normally I try to post at least once a week, but I am in the midst of a transition, I have taken a new job, one that I have worked my whole career towards. I also finished the book I’ve been writing over the holidays. I love that story where the love interests rescue each other. So much hurt, and baggage and two people have to make the decision to look past all of the distractions and just love each other… swoon! Anyway, with a job transition, finishing up grad school, and finishing a novel, life has been BUSY! So busy in fact, that I almost missed #KissPitch, the Twitter pitch contest for romance writers.

I saw the announcement of the annual pitch contest two days before Valentine’s Day, the day of the event. How perfect is that, a romance pitching event on Valentine’s Day! I woke on the morning of Valentine’s Day still unsure of if I was going to pitch or not. I rolled over as my alarm clock went off and asked my husband if I should pitch or not. His response was tepid. As I got ready for the day I thought more about it, and thought maybe I should pitch one of the other finished books that I haven’t tried to query yet. I purposed this idea to my husband, who initially said,” yes, pitch the one with the PR lady.” He meant the book, What Was Meant to Be. It is the story of two best friends who have chemistry, ignore it while moving on with life and then through tragedy, can no longer ignore the obvious. It also has one of my most favorite scenes that I have ever written in it.

I thought about it and thought about the other finished works I had that I could pitch and my very first novel, that I rewrote over the fall, was ready to go too. It had been edited, although not professionally (confession moment!) I thought I would put that one out there too. I adore that book not only because it was the first one I ever wrote, but the male love interest, David is DREAMY! Sailing in Silicon Valley is about a young woman who falls in love with her brother’s older boss, David.

So as I drove to work I crafted my pitches and my strategy. The contest ran form 9 am EST to 9 pm.EST. Part of my strategy is to have my pitch retweeted as many times as possible, the goal being that it is seen more. I also wanted to retweet fellow romance authors who were pitching on the same day. I figure the more romance out there, the better, am I right? Spread the love folks. Anyway, I sent my first pitch out at 9:30 am, for What was Meant to Be, here it is:

“Everything changes in one tragic moment for best friends Gabe and Lis. Clinging to each other to make it through the aftermath, Friendship turns to passion, then love but a lot stands in the way of their happily ever after, like her absentee husband. #KissPitch #CR”

I sent out my second pitch around noon, for Sailing in Silicon Valley, here it is:

“Naomi is visiting her brother for the summer in Silicon Valley when she falls hard for her brother’s sexy, older boss. David isn’t expecting to fall in love with his most brilliant employee’s little sister. What begins as a steamy fling turns into so much more. #KissPitch #CR”

I had moderate success with both pitches and watched eagerly as those who meant well liked my pitches. In a Twitter pitch contest, only agents are supposed to like the pitch, supporters who want to be helpful are supposed to retweet instead. Each time I’d get a notification from Twitter that someone had liked one of the pitches, I’d eagerly hop on and investigate. By 3 pm. I had felt dejected. I thought about recrafting the pitches and sending them back out, you’re allowed to do up to four pitches in total. I thought about it and decided to just retweet what I had already put out there myself, and get on with my day. I did one last check-in at the end of the day and saw I had another like on the Sailing in Silicon Valley… and wait for it…. it was from a real AGENT!! AHHHHHHH! After I stopped doing the happy dance around my office I began to investigate the agent, it turns out I had pitched a different book to her almost a year ago to the day! This agent is like my dream agent.

I called my husband and told him this amazing news, not quite believing it myself. After the elation waned, fear set in, real fear. I had not had the manuscript professionally copyedited yet. I can envision my fellow authors reading this, screaming at the screen, “Then why did you pitch it!?!?” I had a plan, to run through it again, hire a copyeditor on Upwork and have it in the agent’s inbox before Monday. I only had to submit the first 50 pages after all, and a query letter. All Valentine’s Day evening plans went out the window, I had work to do. Dreams don’t come to you, you have to go out there and get them! So roses, steak dinner, romantic movie, all of it had to wait, I had work to do. I put the first fifty pages up on UpWork and shortly got a rejection for the project due to the adult content. It has a love scene in it. Panicked that I wasn’t going to be able to have someone else look at it, I reached out to my best friend. She was a senior assistant for the state government for her entire career, and nothing gets past her. She told me to send her the pages and she’d turn them around quickly too.

By Sunday morning I had my query letter done, and the first fifty pages of the manuscript had been scoured. I submitted them. Submitting a query is like no other experience I can think of. There’s excitement, adrenaline, reassurance, hope… then you hit send.. then comes fear, angst, nervousness… It is the worst. Meanwhile, I continued to pour over the book. My poor husband looked at me wondering if we were ever going to have a real Valentine’s day celebration. Aside from checking my inbox relentlessly, we did have our date. Word came on Monday morning of a polite decline from the agent. I knew that it was unlikely that this might be “it” my big break, but I still hoped.

So, that was an adventure and a learning experience for sure. I learned that one had better have work ready to be sent asap when pitching. I also learned that my writing has improved as I re-read through the re-written manuscript. I think I may table my current manuscript making the query rounds and might try this book instead. If it doesn’t work, there’s always another one waiting in the wings.

Back to Half Moon Bay

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It’s official, I have my writer’s groove back! Hallelujah!!! I wrote a very honest post a few weeks back about having difficulties returning to writing after going through a traumatic surgery. I couldn’t seem to focus, but more importantly the creative muscle just wasn’t flexing. I wrote about how dishearting and terrifying this was. I had made the plan to return to my first completed novel to rewrite it. I chose the project because I didn’t have to build the world, or the characters, the groundwork was already done. All I had to do was enhance, organize, and tell their story. Simple right? HA!

I learned through this process that rewriting so so much harder than writing from scratch. When you write from scratch, you have the freedom to create, when you rewrite there are limitations, you have to write in the world already built. The story is a romance between a woman visiting her brother in Silicon Valley for the summer, and she falls for her brother’s boss, a tech giant. I loved revisiting this steamy love story, which takes place in Half Moon Bay, California. My thought process for choosing this to help me get my groove back was that I loved this story, it was the work that wooed me to love writing.

There were parts of this process that were so much fun, especially adding rich detail into the story. Describing the feeling of his hair as she ran her fingers through it, how he thought she smelled to him, these seemingly small details made such a massive difference when I wrote them out. All the while I had to be careful to keep in mind the framework I was supposed to be working in, keeping with the narrative of the story. I loved doing this part of this rewrite, it made the characters so much more….more everything!

For as fun as it was, it was difficult too. There were entire chapters that didn’t make it into the new version. Have you ever killed an entire chapter? It’s brutal but necessary. Then there were the chapters that had all of the components to move the narrative forward but they were in the wrong order, a full chapter rewrite, ouch. I found chapter rewrites to be the most challenging and the most rewarding. The work was gruelling, and as cliche, as it sounds, I did have to kill my darlings, the things I loved in the book, in order to streamline the story and make it tight.

Being a full-time working mom and a graduate school student, to say that time is precious is an understatement. Another difference in a rewrite vs. a “regular” write is that I really had to pay attention to details. For each chapter I worked on, I would reread the chapter before it, before working on the next one, this helped keep continuity and move the narrative forward in a succinct manner. This means I spent as much time reading the book as I did writing it! On days where I was lucky enough to be able to write for a few hours, I would read large parts of the book. I was very strict with myself, knowing the importance of doing this. Re-reading the most recently completed chapter before writing the next one, made this process feel painfully slow. As someone who has limited time, this was an exercise in patience. It was important though, moving deliberately through the book in a slower way gave time to let ideas and plotlines “marinate.”

With NaNoWriMo coming up, I knew I needed to have this book done before I participated. I know I only have the bandwidth to work on one project at a time right now. I was so committed to getting this book done, I got up at 5 am. to write before work. This is a huge thing for me! I am not a morning person! If I didn’t have to be a functional person, I would be happy to write into the early hours. Life is quiet in the middle of the night. Each night before bed, I’d set my coffee pot to brew at 4:45 am, and my laptop on my nightstand. When my alarm would go off, I’d grab a cup of coffee and then sneak off to our spare bedroom, curl up on the bed and start writing. It was just me in the dark, with only the glow of the screen, and my characters. I fell in love with writing like this! If you haven’t tried it, I highly suggest it! There are very few things in life that will have me hopping out of bed in the morning happily, and this was one of them. What was even more amazing is that I found that my creative muscle would be in overdrive all day. I would come home from work, do homework, kids, dinner, bath etc. and race to get back to my computer.

Last night I “finished” the rewrite. I use quotations because as any true writer will tell you, a book is never finished, you just get it to a point where it is good enough. As I wrote my last sentence, tears welled in my eyes. I started this project as a lifeline back to writing. I needed these characters and a world already built, like writing training-wheels. My plan worked, I found my writing groove in such a strong, powerful way. As I stared at my computer screen looking at 106,000 words, I wiped tears from my cheeks and shut my computer. This book will always be incredibly special to me because it was the first thing I ever wrote, and it came flying out of me. Now, this book taught me how to rewrite but more importantly, it wooed me again.

So the plan for Come Sail Away With Me, as it is titled? I need to let it sit for a couple of months. I need to step away from it, it needs to rest. In the meantime I will be doing NaNoWriMo, the idea for this year’s project came while I was rewriting CSAW. Sometime this winter I will pull it back out and reread, editing and tweak along the way. From there, it is off to a professional copy editor and then….. query time! I’ve decided I am going to try to seek representation for it. Let’s see if this story shares it’s magic again and snags an agent.

McKinley Park Chapter 17

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Ben took a shower and made some lunch, stopping by his front window to check on Rachel’s house each time he walked past. He turned on the Cubs game but wasn’t interested, he was frustrated with Rachel. He understood her fear but, he also wanted her to trust him. He knew it was going to take time. He got up to take his plate back to the kitchen when he heard a knock at the door. He put the plate back on the coffee table and went to answer the door.  Rachel stood on the front porch.

“Okay, let’s go. If I don’t go do this now, I will chicken out.”

He could see how conflicted she was. He grabbed his keys off of the table next to the door and locked it behind him. They got into his car, the heat from the sun making it feel like a sauna. Rachel stayed quiet as they rode along. Ben reached out and laced his fingers over her hand and squeezed gently. She squeezed back.

“I am really proud of you.” Ben said softly.

Rachel gave him a half smile.

He picked up the hand that he held and pressed a kiss into her palm.

“Trust isn’t easy for me Ben. I’m scared.”

“I know and that is why it means so much to me that you are trusting me. I won’t let you down. Look, I hope the future sees us together, happy as a family, but if it doesn’t I will still protect you and the boys from Rhett and his family. I promise you. Your protection is not mutual with us having a relationship.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

 Twenty- five minutes later Rachel sat at Ben’s desk as an officer went over the paperwork with her. She felt safe sitting in Ben’s chair. Ben went to go get her a cup of coffee from the kitchen while she completed the paperwork. He didn’t want to hover and make her feel pressured by him. As he walked into the kitchen he saw Marty drinking a cup of coffee in the break room.

“I thought you were taking some time off?” Marty said, as he finished coffee.

“I am. I’m just here with Rachel. She’s pressing charges against Rhett, and petitioning for an order of protection for her and the boys.”

“That’s a big step for her. In the file there were a noticeable lack of charges filed by her, most were filled by the state on her behalf.”

“Yeah. This has got to stop.”

“I hear ya. You really love this girl, don’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?”

Marty laughed.

“If she is here filing, she really loves you too, you know,” Marty said as he crunched the paper cup in his hand and flung it into the trash can.

Ben tried not to smile.

“Hey I am glad you are here anyway. I wanted to let you know, Rhett’s alibi is solid for the night Serena was attacked and the rest of the nights we have. He wasn’t even in town for Serena. He was partying his ass off out on the coast.”

“Shit are you sure?”

“Yeah it all checks out. Sorry man. Don’t worry though, he isn’t off my radar. I get get the same read you do. He knows something.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well we questioned him, and even with his attorney there, he was so cocky. There’s something about him, slimy. Be careful there, he’s got some powerful friends too.”

“I met his father this afternoon, when he came to get the bastard’s car. I didn’t like the look of him either.”

“Hey, have you asked Rachel about Rhett?”

“I tried. She shut down when I brought up their sex life. There is more there I know it. She just isn’t ready to tell me.”

“Would it help if I talked to her, I mean since the two of you are involved? It might be less uncomfortable for her?”

“Yeah maybe, but give it a day or two. She’s been through a lot. I know there is trauma there. It is like part of her is holding back and I think it has to do with that piece of shit.”

“Well give it some thought.”

“Did you get anymore information on Duke?”

“You mean did we find all of him?”

“Yikes, that bad?”

“This wasn’t a murder, it was a hit. Someone wanted to shut him up.”

“Danwood?”

“That would be my guess. I put a call into Yee to let him know what was going on. A bit of penance for last night.”

“Good call.  I should get back to Rachel. Keep me up to date?”

“Yeah. Enjoy your time with her.” Marty nodded out towards the main room where Ben’s desk sat.

Ben looked in that direction to see Rachel walking into the kitchen.

“All done.” She took a deep breath as she said it.

Ben walked over to her and put his arm around her. He kissed the top of her head.

“I am proud of you.”

She gave a half smile, the tension in her body radiated in the small space of the kitchen.

“Hi, I’m Marty. I am Ben’s partner.”

“Oh, it is nice to meet you. I am Rachel.”

“It is nice to finally meet you. Ben talks about you… a lot.”

“Uh oh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s a good thing. I am happy to see him happy. You two will have to come out with my wife and I sometime.”

“That would be fun. Thank you for the invitation.”

“We should get going.” Ben chimed in.

“It was nice to meet you, Rachel.”

“You too.”

“Call me if you get anything big?” Ben asked as they stepped out of the kitchen.

“You got it.” Marty patted him on the back.

Ben and Rachel walked out of the station. He opened the car door for her. Before she got in she reached out and hugged him tightly, laying her head on his chest. He brought his arms around her and held her close to him. They stood there on the sidewalk, with the car door open, in each other’s arms.

“Thank you.” Rachel said quietly.

She looked up at him after she said it. Ben caressed her cheek.

“Thank you for forcing me to be brave.”

“Honey you are making this choice, I would not force you to do anything.”

“No, I know, it was a figure of speech. You know it is so weird, I was so afraid to do this and now it is done and I am not afraid anymore. I thought I would feel awful afterwards but I don’t. As cliche as it sounds, I feel light, like a huge weight has been lifted. So thank you.”

“I am glad to feel that way. You are stronger than you know Rachel. You are not alone, I am here and I will always have your back.”

She leant up on her toes and kissed him. A few officers walking in began to hoot and holler at the two of them. Rachel stopped kissing Ben and buried her face in his chest, her face blushing. Ben gave them the finger as he laughed, the officers laughed in return. They both got into the car and Ben pulled away.

“I’m kind of hungry. Are you hungry?” Rachel asked.

“Well it is almost dinnertime, do you want to get something while we are out?”

“Sure.”

“What do you have a taste for?”

“Chinese?”

“That does sound good. Where do you want to go?”

“What about Happy House on Hasted?”

“My favorite. That sounds good to me.”

Ben and Rachel ate dinner, and had ordered enough food for leftovers for three days after. Ben pulled into his driveway and parked the car. Rachel leant over and kissed him. He wanted her. They both got out of the car, as he came around to her, she put her arms around him and kissed him again. The intensity of their interaction was almost inappropriate for being out on the street,  but they were shielded by the darkness of early evening. They kissed their way to his front door, as they both tripped over one of the stairs to the the front porch. Ben caught Rachel before they both fell.

He  fumbled with his keys in the door, never breaking away from her lips. He opened the front door and they spilled into the foyer, Ben closed the door behind them. Ben wanted to take her right there in the hallway, propping her against the wall.

“Ben wait.” Rachel said breathless. “We have to slow down a bit, please.”

She pushed him towards the couch. He sat as the back of his legs hit it.  She climbed on top of him and he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her and she kissed him back. He pushed her blouse off of her shoulder and kissed the exposed skin. Ben moved her hair out of the way and kissed her neck as he felt her hips move against him. She moaned as he kissed back down to her collar bone. He reached up and tried to undo more buttons on her blouse. She reached down to help him. He pushed it off of her shoulders and she helped but got caught by the buttons on the cuffs of her sleeves. Ben had went back to kissing her and had not noticed Rachel’s arms were caught in her sleeves. She began to panic, being trapped. He reached for her clasp at the front of her bra, as she still struggled to free her hands. Ben had been too eager and was moving too fast to notice.

“Stop! Please stop.” Rachel cried out.

Ben stopped right away, and noticed her arms were stuck. He looked at her face and saw she was on the verge of tears. She looked away embarrassed as Ben reached out to free her arms.

“I’m sorry honey, I didn’t notice you were stuck.”

Rachel brought her arms around to the front of her and got off of Ben’s lap. Ben stood up, as she stood in front of him, her arms across her body, sheilding her nakedness.

“Can I please have a glass of water?”

“Of course. Rachel I am really sorry.”

She nodded  and walked towards the kitchen, in only her bra and pants. Ben followed her and grabbed a glass of from the cupboard and filled it. He set it on the counter next to her. She picked it up and took a drink from it. Clutching the glass, she walked over to the large windows at the back of the kitchen. Ben stayed quiet, he wanted to give her the space she needed. He stood at the counter.

Rachel turned back around.

“Ben I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were stuck.”

“I shouldn’t have freaked out like that. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, it’s just that…” she stopped talking.

Ben walked across the kitchen to her. He held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her in to him, slowly. He wrapped his arms around her, his warm skin on her cool back felt wonderful to her.

“Rachel you can tell me anything, nothing will change the way I feel about you.”

“Can we go upstairs to your bed?” She took a step towards the stairs.

“Yes, but wait,” he reached out for her hand. “We don’t have to sleep together if you don’t want to.”

She cut him off.

“Ben I want to, I really want to. I just needed to calm down. Can I ask a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Can we just go slow? I just have a hard time moving too fast. I need to stay in the moment, and going slow really helps.”

“Of course.”

Rachel kept ahold of Ben’s hand and walked upstairs with him. She let go of his hand once they got into his bedroom and walked over to the bed. The room was dark, with only the light from the street light outside to illuminate the room. Rachel undid her bra as Ben could see the yellow light from outside reflecting off of her perfect breasts. She undid her pants, her back to the wall where Ben could not see. As she slipped them off Ben followed her lead and began to undress. She slid into the bed completely naked and he followed suit.

She scooted over to him, meeting him in the middle of the bed. He wrapped his arm around her, and kissed her gently. He reminded himself to go slow, pay attention to her body and not to touch her ass or the back of her thighs. The more he kissed her the more he felt the tension ease from her and her body began to respond in a pleasurable way.

Ben kissed down her chest again and took one of her nipples into his mouth as he spread out his hand on her stomach an slowly moved it downward. Rachel ran her hands though Ben’s hair. He loved the feeling of her fingers in his hair. His hand inched lower, as he moved his mouth back to hers. He kissed her gently as his hand made it’s way to it’s destination. Ben cupped her most sensitive spot and paused watching for any signs of hesitation. He felt her hips buck towards him and he took the invitation, still moving slowly, paying attention to her body. He  slid his fingers inside of her slowly, and she began to ride his fingers. It took everything in Ben not to come undone, it was so simple but so incredibly sexy at the same time. He looked at Rachel in the lamp light, in pleasure, and he kissed her again.

She wrapped one arm around him and copied his movements as she took him into her free hand. Him sitting in her warm hand, while he continued to move on his hand inside of her, ignited a sense of urgency in him that he fought back. He wanted to make love to her, going slow savoiring it all.

“I have to grab a condom,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

If he didn’t pull away soon, he would be spent and this bliss would be over. He rolled over and opened the drawer on the nightstand. It was the fastest he had ever put a condom on in his life. He rolled back over to Rachel who embraced him again, with her arms and her tongue. He moved his body gently to move her onto her back, looking for any sign of hesitation. She rolled herself easily, and welcomed him into her body. As he pushed in, he was sure to go slow and make eye contact with her.

Her body was better than he had remembered it from the last time they had slept together, and he would have classified that as heaven. He could see the whites of her eyes in the lamplight as she looked at him. There was a connection there. He knew in that moment something special had happened. This was more than just sex for the both of them. Ben leant down and kissed her.

“Ben” she whispered, “Can I get on top?”

Ben slid his arm under back and rolled the both of them so she was now on top. He could see her smile at his skill. She began to ride him slowly. He ran his hands up her stomach and cradled her breasts. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was getting close, and he fought it, he wanted this to be just as good for her, if not better. He reached up and brought her mouth to his, kissing her. That intense kiss was all she needed, Ben could feel her finish before he could hear her. She sat upright and grabbed his hands and put them on her hips as she continued to ride through the waves of her orgasm. She threw her head back as a moan from deep inside her escaped. Watching her on top of him, enraptured in pleasure, was more than he could fight off. His own orgasm came racing through his body, so intense he could feel his fingers tingle.

Ben was relieved he had made it that long. Sex with Rachel was the best sexual experience of his life. He never had to fight to stay in the game before, but there was something with her that was different. She laid down on top of him, resting her head on his shoulder as they both caught their breaths. He wrapped his arms around her back and moved them up to her face. He took her head into his hands and kissed her mouth.

“Rachel you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” He kissed her again.

“I love you,” she said back to him after their kiss.

Taboo Sex: What is Society’s Safe Word?

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I spent last weekend with engrossed with Tiffany Reisz’s The Siren. It is supposed to be the work she is most known for. I adore her writing and while it is considered erotica, and it really is, the story is fantastic. I have read three of her books up until that point. The first book I read by her was The Red, it was steamy, but the story was amazing too. She just released another book earlier this year called The Rose. which was a masterclass in storytelling. She is an amazing storyteller, so I was eager to read her most well-known work, The Siren. 

Without giving too much away, the story in The Siren is what I would consider strong S&M. This is a story about the S&M lifestyle, something alien to me. Now, I just want to be very clear here, I am in no way making a judgment call on anyone’s preferences in the bedroom. As long as all who are participating are consenting, of age adults, then all the power to them. I really tried to understand the love, and lust in this type of relationship, but I really struggled with it. 

When Fifty Shades of Grey came out, I remember people being shocked by the “rough stuff.” I have heard the joke that if Christian Grey had been poor, the book would have had a very different slant. Full disclosure, I haven’t read the series, but the whole thing got me thinking about taboo sex, romance writing, and erotica writing. There is something fun about writing the taboo, the forbidden, and the unorthodox. As I continued to think about that, two big stories broke, the Jeffery Epstein story and R. Kelly being brought up on Federal charges. Both cases dealt with older men and underage girls. 

I just want to be very clear, I am not making a connection to S&M play and sleeping with underage girls. It is strange what makes people “tick” sexually. Adult entertainment is filled with images, and videos of women as close to the required age of consent as possible. One of the sexiest romance novels I ever read was between an older man and an 18-year-old girl. It just got me to wondering if pushing the boundaries in writing sex is a responsible thing to do?

I am not saying that in R. Kelly’s case or Epstein’s case that they read a romance novel with taboo sex and it influenced them, that would be ridiculous. It just made me ask questions. As I said earlier, as long as all parties are of age, not coerced, not getting hurt and are willing parties, then all the power to them, to experience intimacy how they chose. The question I found myself asking, is what classifies sexual behavior as taboo and what part does writing sex play in that?

I mean think, twenty years back, S&M was a taboo topic. If you told me then about the success of Fifty Shades, I would have said you were nuts, no way that would ever be mainstream. What classifies sex as taboo? I do think there are some clear lines, like sex with underage participants, and sex where people get hurt, are no goes. That being said, take my current work McKinley Park into account, the subplot is about a murder and a rapist. Rape is a taboo subject. Many feel that it should not be written about at all, that writing about it glorifies it. I respectfully believe it is about framing it, is the subject written to glorify or denounce. 

I am all for sexual expression, period. I just wonder with erotica becoming more mainstream, which I support, does it continue to push the line of acceptable versus taboo? Is that a good thing? What do you think? If you write sex, do you think you hold some responsibility in this discussion? I would be interested in knowing what you think. Let me know in the comments below!