Read In Bed!

It’s available now!

blurb: Elle and Dan haven’t quite achieved their goal of having sex in every room of their new house–but almost! Marriage hasn’t dampened their hunger for one another in the least, and their relationship is as hot and passionate as ever. But when Dan brings up the subject of having a baby together, Elle finds herself conflicted. Between her dysfunctional family background and her fear of how a baby might change their life together, Elle’s not sure she’s ready for the big step. Dan doesn’t bring the subject up again, but the issue takes hold in Elle’s mind. And as their frequent lovemaking sizzles with unquenchable desire, Elle’s heart is filled to the brim with love and the longing to give Dan everything.

Excerpt:

“Hot,” my brother said in a no-nonsense tone. “Don’t touch!”

The little girl reaching for the canister of fireplace matches pulled back her hand and gave Chad a reproachful look. But she didn’t reach again, just turned her attention to the stack of magazines on the coffee table.

“Sorry,” I said. “I should’ve put those away. We’re not baby-proof, I guess.”

My younger brother laughed and shrugged. “The princess needs to learn. Don’t worry about it, Elle.”

The little girl – my niece! I had a niece? How had that happened? I was an aunt. My baby brother had fallen in love and adopted a child and had a life.

“What?” he asked as I shook my head in wonder. “No, Leah. Don’t tear Aunt Elle’s magazines. C’mere to daddy.”

He held out his hands and the girl made her way around the coffee table to take her place on his lap. She grinned, self-satisfied, and looked every bit the princess her daddies believed her to be.

“I just almost can’t believe this,” I told him, knowing he’d understand. “You’re a daddy! Chaddie, it’s just incredible.”

He beamed. My brother looked better than I’d ever seen him. He’d gotten slimmer, and impossibly taller. He’d cut his hair, and it emphasized the leaner lines of his face. He’d gotten older.

Hell. We both had. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I looked in the mirror often enough, after all.

Chad kissed the soft, round cheek of his daughter and stroked the length of her black curls. She settled contentedly against him and kicked her chubby legs. He let her crawl off his lap to sit on my couch.

“She’ll crash in about fifteen minutes,” he said confidently, though to my eyes Leah looked about as far away from sleep as a kid could get. “Then we’ll really catch up.”

I watched my niece gnaw on the edge of one of my expensive, dry-clean only pillows and bit my tongue against the words that would have made me sound like my mother. “I’ll go make some coffee, okay?”

“Sure.” My brother grinned, though the force of his love was directed at his daughter now, and not so much at me.

I didn’t mind, I told myself in the kitchen as I ground beans and measured them into the brand-new, complicated coffee maker Dan had bought when we moved in. I still wasn’t entirely sure how to work it.

I didn’t mind that my brother was happy. I was, in fact, nearly overwhelmed with happiness on his behalf. We’d grown up in a house fairly devoid of joy, and I’d been an adult before I’d even begun to allow myself to believe I wouldn’t be pretty miserable for my entire life. Instead, he’d met Luke. I’d met Dan. We’d both managed to escape the past and make a present; I had no reason to believe we wouldn’t both create a joyful future, too.

Hell, I’d even forged a relationship, of sorts, with my mother. Chad hadn’t managed that yet, though I hoped the fact he and Luke had moved back to Pennsylvania from California with the only grandchild my mother could claim would change that.

It absolutely wasn’t that I was jealous of my brother.

“Coffee –” I bit off the words when I saw Chad put a finger to his lips. Leah, sprawled on top of the cushions and covered with her blanket, had indeed fallen asleep. Chad made a barrier with more pillows to keep her from rolling off, and gestured to me.

We broke our silence in my new kitchen, with all its new appliances and dishes and pictures on the walls. Chad took the coffee from me with a grateful gasp and drank back half his cup in a large gulp.

“God,” he said. “I swear to you I’m living on caffeine now. She’s finally starting to sleep through the night, but it’s been a hellish six months. The pediatrician says at twenty-two months she should be sleeping through with no problem, but she’s having adjustment issues.”

I liked to sleep. Really, really liked it. Was pretty unfunctional without enough sleep, as a matter of fact.

“So, has she said anything about us?” Chad didn’t waste time. He got up to pour himself more coffee and helped himself to a muffin from my fridge. Only the slope of his shoulders gave away his tension.

“Oh, Chaddie, do you want to know?”

He turned. “Yes, Ella. I want to know.”

He’d used my old name, the one my mother still insisted on using. Point taken. “She asked if I’d seen her. Meaning Leah. I said yes. She wanted to know….”

The words lodged in my throat. I shouldn’t be embarrassed to repeat them. Chad was the one who’d always called my mother The Dragon Lady, after all. He wouldn’t be surprised, but he would be hurt. I didn’t want to hurt my brother, not even by proxy.

“What?”

I sighed. “She wanted to know how dark she was.”

Chad’s expression went so carefully blank I knew he was furious. “Uh huh. What did you tell her?”

“I told her,” I said, “to stop being so damn ridiculous.”

He smiled. “Did you?”

“I did. I can’t make excuses for her, Chad, but you know how she is.”

“It’s bad enough I’m gay, I know. But that I have a black daughter…God. What will the neighbors say?” Chad grimaced and slugged back more coffee. “And she wonders why I don’t come home.”

“At least she’s asked you to,” I pointed out, drinking my own coffee. “At least she’s not pretending you don’t exist.”

He made a derisive noise. “If she doesn’t accept Luke or Leah, then she still doesn’t really accept me. End of story. She can kiss my ass.”

I knew his partner’s name, of course, and his daughter’s, but hearing them together that way made me giggle. “Luke and Leah.”

“What about them?” He must have heard it, too, the sound of two names that paired brought to mind one of the most easily recognized film references from the past thirty years. “Very funny!”

But he was laughing, and my kitchen filled with giggles and chortles we tried to stifle so as not to wake his child. All our best efforts went to ruin in the next minute, because I heard the front door open and a booming voice carry down the hall.

“I’m hooooome!”

Leah’s thin, high wail followed a moment later. Chad was already off his chair and I went after him. We were too late, both to shush Dan and to quiet Leah.

“Hey, there, little girl,” Dan was murmuring, the child in his arms already when I came down the hall and into the living room. Leah looked up at him with wide eyes, but no more tears.

My heart melted.

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I have a new Spice Brief coming out June 1, and you can see more about it HERE.

You’ll be able to buy it at eharlequin.com, too — and Fictionwise, on Amazon (for Kindle) and other places.

blurb:
Elle and Dan haven’t quite achieved their goal of having sex in every room of their new house–but almost! Marriage hasn’t dampened their hunger for one another in the least, and their relationship is as hot and passionate as ever. But when Dan brings up the subject of having a baby together, Elle finds herself conflicted. Between her dysfunctional family background and her fear of how a baby might change their life together, Elle’s not sure she’s ready for the big step. Dan doesn’t bring the subject up again, but the issue takes hold in Elle’s mind. And as their frequent lovemaking sizzles with unquenchable desire, Elle’s heart is filled to the brim with love and the longing to give Dan everything.

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Well, hello.

I could say I’ve had some time to process this news, but the fact is, I really haven’t, so I’m gonna get right to it and announce this and then I can move on with my day, namely, taking a shower and having some breakfast and then writing.

Because I really have to, now.

I just sold two more books to Spice– WAHOOOOOOOO!!!!! And one of them is a sequel to Tempted, so for all of you who wanted Alex to get his HEA, he will. Only time will tell with who, obviously, since it’s not written yet, but I can be pretty sure she’s gonna give him a run for his money. Going along with the book will be a Spice Brief, told in Alex’s POV, about his version of what happened that summer. So for anyone who wanted to get inside Alex’s mind, this will do that. And after that I have no clue what I’ll do, since I hadn’t thought much about it, but I do have this idea…about…a man and a woman…who…um…yeah. I’ll figure it out.

And, in addtion, I’ve been told I’ll be writing two OTHER books, as yet to be determined, but not for Spice. So now I have to really think hard on what that means and what I’ll do and what sort of books I can really get behind because I’d been tossing around an idea here or there but hadn’t actually, you know…written anything. But they want me to write something, so I think it’s time to pull something out of the brain box and dust it off and get it started.

Because you all know how much I LOVE to write in the summer.

No, I won’t be stressed out at all. :)

Then again, I do better with deadlines and projects to keep me busy, and it’s not like I don’t love what I do. So. It will be fine. I might have to hire a baby sitter and escape to the coffee shop, and I KNOW I’ll be up late every night, but that’s the way it goes in the summer.

It’s all about balance.

And now, to the shower, to I might be fresh and clean when I sit down again and start typing away on my nifty new keyboard that is teeny weeny tiny.

And normally I’d be all excited because tonight is Thursday which means Supernatural. But. It’s over for the season and WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!! (I’m imitating Dean)

Have a great day, all! I’d better get to typing.

M

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It’s big. And shiny. And I loves it, I does. The keyboard is taking some getting used to.

I was away for the weekend at my RWA chapter’s annual retreat. Got work done, ate a lot, bothered my roommate, had bad dreams again, saw a ghost cat.

I’ll have pictures later when my photobucket account lets me back in.

We watched Supernatural…SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!

And when I came home, there was my new computer, all ready for me to use it. So I set it up and now I’m typing away on it and figuring out how to make sure all my other stuff is saved appropriately and then fixing up my old desktop for that man I live with to take over…

And it’s end of the year crazy round these here parts with gym shows and all manner of nutty things. So I’m trying also to write. And my feet are cold today! BOTHER!

So that’s it from here, catch youse later when I can put up some pics and when I’ve done with my writing for the day.

M

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So, I’ve finished editing and submitted my novel Beneath the Veil to my agent so she can send it out for the world to love. (It’s much shorter now.)

I’ve finished writing/polishing/submitting the proposal for my follow-up submission to Black Lace (working title is No Reservations) so my agent now has THAT to send out for Adam Neville to love. We hope.

I’ve cleaned my desk. I even used a cleaning wipe! Yes, I did!

Now, it’s back to edits on SWITCH, which I hope to finish by the end of next week, so that I can finish writing Pleasure and Purpose while at my local writing chapter’s annual retreat.

I’m also wearing my SHIN/SUPERMAN T-shirt that my sister bought for my birthday.

My goodness, I do appear quite…pneumatic…in that photo.

Now. Back to Switch!

M

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Well, I’m finally recovering from RT 2008. By this I mean I’ve unpacked my suitcase, paid some bills and organized (though not cleaned off my desk,) and started to get back into the swing of family life. You know. Yelling at the kids, doing laundry, generally being the domestic diva I am.

I didn’t feel well at the convention, unfortunately, and I wasn’t alone. But even so, I came back energized, writing-wise. No, I didn’t come up with a brand-new, shiny, full-fledged idea the way I did last year when Lauren and I brainstormed Taking Care of Business while standing in line. (Though we did talk about a followup to that book!) But I did come home with inspiration and ideas for layering some themes into the edits for my current WIP, Switch.

I finished SWITCH before I left for RT and had planned to let it sit for awhile while I worked on some other things, but while there my mind kept turning back to it. Switch hasn’t been an easy book for me for many reasons. For one, it took me a lot longer to write than usual, partly because I stopped a few times to work on other things and partly because I struggled with the writing of it. I was really glad to have finished the first draft because it meant I could take a break from it, so to discover when I got back from RT that I really wanted to dive back in was…suprising.

Here’s the thing: I take a lot of my work from my life — not things that have happened to me, necessarily, but feelings and emotions and situations that make me THINK about “what if.” I don’t live everything I write about (my goodness, who has time?) but I do…FEEL it. I do feel what I write. Sometimes I feel it first and hold onto that and use it. Sometimes during the writing I start to feel the work, instead, which is also interesting.

I’d had an inkling about what Switch was meant to be for a few months, and it was pretty far from what I’d first anticipated the book to be. In its first incarnation it was a story about dominance and submission, a woman who finds misplaced notes in her mailbox meant for an anonymous person being given increasingly erotic commands. She discovers she likes the content of the notes — craves it, in fact. But when she discovers who the notes are really for, everything changes and she becomes the note WRITER instead of the note receiver.

The book is still “about” that — it’s what happens, anyway. But somewhere along the way a minor, throwaway character became more important, and now he’s an irreplaceable part of the story. I didn’t expect that.

And somewhere, somehow, the book became about choices. The ones we make, good or bad, right or wrong, and how sometimes no matter how much you think you want something, in the end you don’t take it because not having it is better for you. Sometimes, as Paige, the heroine says, you walk away.

So now I have to finish entering all my receipts and put some laundry away and take a shower and have some breakfast, and then I need to crank up the iTunes and get lost in this world again. But you know what?

I feel it.

M

PS — I was so happy to hang with my lurvely agent the glorious Laura Bradford (or LB as I like to call her) and Lauren Dane, Anya Bast and Ann Aguirre and Vivi Anna, and we missed Cynthia! NEXT YEAR IN ORLANDO!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of my favorite photos –

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Yay! I’m pleased to announce I just sold two books to Berkley Sensation. The first is a three-novella project tentatively called Pleasure and Purpose and I’m one third finished with it. Wheeeee!!! The second is…undetermined, but I have a couple options.

AND I HAVE CORNED BEEF FOR DINNER!!!!!!!!!!

M

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Ok, so these are the things I have to do today: Write a blurb to send off to an editor for a novella I’ve been asked to write…may I just say how very very cool it is to be asked to submit something to an editor I’ve never worked with, for a publisher I’ve never submitted to?

It’s cool.

I also have to work on some synopsiseseses for a three-novella project I’m hoping to submit. One novella is done. All I have to do is finish the blurby things for the other two, and that’s good to go.

And, of course, I have to work on Switch.

Oh, and my next Spice Brief. And the novella for the antho. Yeah. So, I’ve got lots of work to do and unlike yesterday, I can’t let you watch me while I do it. But if you missed me yesterday, don’t fear. I’ll be live streaming again next week, probably. For more information, see my Watch Me Work page.

I don’t feel like I have too much to do and yet I can’t quite seem to make myself get started. Story of my life!!!

M

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January 26, 2008
2-4pm
Lebanon Valley Mall
Lebanon, PA!

Hope to see you there!

M

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Today I got up early. Exercised. Drank lots of water. Ate much less. Wrote! Yes, I wrote! Took care of business. Put together my awesome new desk chair (pics to come) and generally got back to work.I worked on Switch today. I’m actually thinking I might have a clue about this book, after all. Ah, good feeling!Happy New Year!And oh, btw, Tempted is now available in case you didn’t already know. :) M 

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