Filed under: Coming Soon, fiction, romance | Tags: erotica, interracial, suspense
So I got some news that put me over the freakin’ moon this week. First, I realize that this news is a bit late and it defies all reason that I didn’t know this sooner, but Model Lover was the March 2010 bestseller for Cobblestone Press. Yay! Awesome. Yay!
Second spell of deliciously delightful news is that my good pals at Cobblestone are also going to publish my follow up to Model Lover, Fan Mail. Yes, yes, yes. Alicia Langerud and Tommy Touhy who were just kids in the first story are all grown up and about to embark on a suspenseful, dark, and sensual journey in this thriller.
Here’s a peek at it:
In this follow up to Model Lover, supermodel Alicia Langerud and Detective Tommy Touhy have unfinished business. Their breakup six months ago was ugly, nasty, and fodder for gossips and speculators worldwide. Everyone wants to know what the Bad Boy did to break America’s sweetheart’s heart. Only they know the truth behind what happened that night… and one reporter who holds their livelihoods in his hands. Even worse. Alicia has started receiving disturbing messages from a stalker, a stalker hell-bent on curing her of her “heart disease.” Frightened for her life, Alicia must rely on the man who once drove her away to save her life.
Unedited Excerpt:
Her thoughts were a jumble, her body numb. She could only reach behind her and push the door closed. No one could see inside. No one could see this.
A bang at her door made Alicia jump. Though she had no memory of retrieving it or making a call on it, her cell phone clattered out of her lap onto the floor. She blinked. How long had she been sitting there? Another bang and a familiar voice called, “Alicia! Alicia, are you hurt? Alicia, if you dont answer, I’m going to break the door down!”
She wanted to tell him that it was open, but she couldn’t. Her mouth wouldn’t work, her throat wouldn’t work, her tongue seemed stuck to the roof of her mouth. But she heard the door knob jiggle and she turned to see him step inside. His key was in the knob. Apparently, they both had forgotten he still had one.
“What the h–” He went silent and dread choked the air between them.
He dropped to his knees beside her and turned her face around so that they were eye to eye. “Are you okay?”
She blinked.
He patted her cheek lightly, “Alicia, baby, are you okay?” He checked her over by gently running his hands over her skin.
She was sure she nodded.
“Did you see him?”
She murmured something unintelligible.
“The man who did this, did you see him?”
She shook her head and a shudder rippled through her body.
“Did you check through the rest of the house? Did you see if he, he–”
Her eyes watered and tears dotted her cheeks and she felt absurd. She had cried more in the past twenty-four hours than she had when shed gone through puberty. “No.”
Tommy nodded then rose. He pulled a handgun from the holster under his leather jacket then slowly, carefully made his way deeper into the apartment. Alicia watched him disappear into her kitchen. He came out again, then rounded a corner and disappeared again into her hallway. In ten minutes, he came back and dropped to her side, his eyes studying the walls. He ran a hand over his face and looked truly shaken. She hadn’t seen him drained of color and sickened this way since his mother died. Finally, he told her, “I believe he was long gone before you got home. From the looks of it, you haven’t been here yourself for a couple of days. You were in Borneo, right?”
Because the possibility that the perpetrator had still been in her apartment when she arrived had not occurred to her, the knowledge that he was gone only inspired a second bout of alarm. Her eyes widened and she began to shake.
“He’s gone, baby,” Tommy soothed her and pulled her into his embrace. “He’s gone and I’m here and you know I’ll never let anyone hurt you. You know I’ll always keep you safe.”
Alicia clutched him close, desperately. And he held her just as hard, his lips pressing to her brow and into her hair. In his arms, she did feel safe, and she did believe that he could always keep her safe.
If he wanted to.
The problem was Tommy didn’t want to.
–
I cannot wait for you to read this story that is as much psychological as it is sexual! Check back for a release date!
Aubrey
http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com
You can read Model Lover here.
All in for High Stakes Lust!
Almost two years later, hard-shelled Shelley Miller has tried to forget Ray. But when tragedy strikes there’s no one else she can turn to. All she has to do is give in; tell him she needs him. But she can’t.
Exasperated that Shelley would contact him after so long with the exact same hang-ups, still pretending the feelings don’t run deep, Ray tries to leave it alone, but he can’t.
When he sees her again all bets are off. Ray has to have her and this time she needs him more than he needs her. For once, she’s not just going to have to ask for what she wants, what she needs.
A Sexy Excerpt from If You Asked Me To:
Shelley had gone right to sleep. Ray wasn’t so lucky. He found himself checking on her through the night. He just needed to see that she was there, that she was okay.
Sometime after four, he went to the bathroom. When he padded back into the bedroom, he found that she had turned. He crept closer to her trying to tell if she was up or not.
She rolled over and her eyes, black quarters in the night, fluttered open. She smiled, or at least he thought she smiled and raised her blanket. Ray slid in beside her without question. With an incomprehensible mutter, she reached for him. Ray slipped his arms around her and his chest beneath her head so that her silken hair slid across his skin. Her body was small and warm and soft next to his.
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and she slid against him with a purr. She was wearing some satiny top, but the shape of her breasts and her hard nipples were clear against his chest. Skin to skin, he wanted it to be skin to skin. He slipped his hand under the edge of the night shirt. The tips of his fingers grazed the softest skin he’d ever felt. A trail up over her hips, down into her waist, up higher to graze the outside of her breasts. He pressed his hips back, almost off the bed, trying to hold off the inevitable confrontation of his arousal.
In the dark, her face was pressed into his chest, but Ray wanted to see it, wanted to be able to watch her. For just a moment he didn’t know. Could he continue to hold her this way without taking the plunge? She rubbed her cheek against his chest and whispered something. He couldn’t hear her, but he took it as encouragement and eased into the center of the bed turning fully on his back. He dragged her over him biting down on his lips when her legs, also clad in the silky pajamas, parted over his.
She raised her head looking down at him in the dark. Ray stroked her hair back from her face.
“Kiss?”
“Kiss,” she responded with a brilliant smile and pressed her lips to his. But her smile was short-lived.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she responded. “I d-don’t do this sort of thing all the time.”
Had it been another woman, a woman without this disease, he wouldn’t have believed it. Had it been a woman with just these mesmerizing, twinkling black eyes, strong cheekbones, and generous lips he wouldn’t have believed it. But he believed it and he knew what it meant. She wasn’t going to pull away from him. She wasn’t going to get scared and tell him to fuck off. She was going to trust him in this.
For a moment, he looked up at her, studying her. Then he gently rolled her over onto her back and undressed her. He wished the room wasn’t so dark, that he could see her body better, but there was time for that. He wanted her so badly it hurt and he had to wonder why this woman in particular was able to push him so far.
XOXO,
Aubrey
All in for High Stakes Lust!
OK, so I’m taking a big breath and, well, now I’m releasing it. It looks as if I have just received a contract offer and I’m ecstatic! Hugely! I can barely contain myself, lol! This contract is for a romance (I don’t think it’s quite erotica) that is near and very dear to my heart… and also the scariest romantic piece I think I’ve ever done.
Why is it scary? you ask, or maybe you didn’t but I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s scary because the heroine of the story is physically impaired. Yep. She has a debilitating disease and it is not just a side note about her. Shelley’s condition is up front and center in the novella If You Asked Me To.
I started this story with the hopes of donating it to a charity anthology. The anthology’s purpose was to emphasize the fact that we all need love, to be touched, and to connect on the most primitive of levels with another human being. I ended this story figuring out that it was way, way, way too long to be a part of an anthology. First things first, I had to become engaged with Shelley, I had to be her just a little bit and let her be me just a little bit, so that a reader, any reader wouldn’t pity her, disease or not, and would relate to her instead. We’re all a bit damaged in one way or another, and intense friendships–love for characters–are born from the bond of adversity. Building that, however, takes time, and space and growth. OK, OK, so I admit it freely, I just couldn’t keep the story short 
.
In paying respect to Shelley, I had to make her real, making her both strong an vulnerable, in paying respect to the romance, I had to give her a man, a gorgeous, sexy, man who was also both strong and vulnerable, and just a little flawed so that he, too ,was real. Then Ray Costas took over! Somehow, in all of this, writing a romance about a woman with a “disability” turned into writing a romance about a man trying to love a woman with a “disability”. And you know, I have to say, I like it better this way, and I’m hoping you and other readers will, too.
Ya know what else? I did mention that at it’s heart, this story is a romance, but, you guys know me, It has to be, has to be, HAS TO BE hot! Yep, there is one scene, that I literraly fantasize about at least once a week, and hell I wrote it! LOL!!! So come on, If you’d like to ge t a sample of the story, go ahead, click here: http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com/home_files/IfYouAskedMeTo.htm
Aubrey Leatherwood
http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com
Filed under: fiction, life, new release, Obsession, publishing, romance, writing | Tags: Spark Of Desire
I just got the author copy. Oh yeah, it’s here, live and in my hands. My mom will be so proud!
Filed under: fiction, romance, writing | Tags: aubrey leatherwood, cobblestone press, erotica, model lover, models
Cover for Model Lover
“Every rugged, long-blond-haired, blue-eyed, beefy inch of him seduced her…”
OK, so there’s no denying it. I easily fall in love with a hot leading man, but come on, I’m not the only one. I think as romance and erotica authors, we have to have a visceral response to our characters. They don’t all look the same or move with the same swagger, but they all make our hearts beat faster, stronger.
My most recent infatuation is Blair Langerud, the Nordic heartbreaker in Model Lover, who knows just how to use his good looks to get what he wants. Only, what happens when he comes across a veteran, a woman who has been around the most gorgeous of men her whole life and has made a trade of her own good looks? You get to find out when Blair meets Pam Lane, model agent extraordinaire.
Here’s an excerpt for you:
–
Pam ran her fingers through his hair.
“It’s clean, of course.”
That didn’t stop Pam from leaning over him and sniffing. The heavenly scent of Old Spice greeted her. Old Spice?
“You wash your hair with Old Spice? You can’t wash your hair with Old Spice.” She stepped in front of him. “What will your sponsors say?”
Blair grabbed her and pulled her close until she had one knee on the loveseat. He buried his head between her breasts. “Keep interrogating me, and I’ll ask why you’re so familiar with the smell of Old Spice. I’m sure neither of us wants the answer to that.”
“There’s gray in here,” she remarked.
He didn’t say anything.
“A whole lot of gray at the root.”
He grunted.
“You really are older than me.”
“Are you going to cut it, or just play around up there?”
Pam laughed. His hair was indeed peppered with gray. She could just imagine how it was going to look sheared, sexy, rugged, mature. She sighed and wavered close to him, accidentally brushing her breasts against his back.
She heard his intake of breath the same as her own. And she smiled at the way his muscles tensed and his body heat licked out at her.
Enough of that. Her thumb flicked against the switch on the clippers, and they began a low hum. The sound, though still low, went a little shrill as she made her first swipe at the side of his crown.
A silken lock of gold hair flittered over her forearm. So odd how up until that moment, this intimacy between them had been so comfortable, so connected. And now, now with this delicate touch of him, his falling hair against her skin, something had changed between them.
She came around and studied his magnificent face. With her clippers in one hand, she used the other to run fingers through the satiny length of hair still hanging on the left side of his head. He turned so that the tip of his nose stroked the delicate inside of her arm. His lips then followed the path, a kiss on her wrist, the inside of her elbow. When she started to pull away, he clasped her hand and brought his lips to place a kiss on her palm. He stood then, his body all steel as he pulled her against him. His arm locked around her waist, and his steely blue eyes held her gaze.
Pam dropped the clippers. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this, Blair.”
“I think I’m ready enough for the both of us,”
–
Model Lover comes to you Friday, March 12, 2010 from Cobblestone Press.
Aubrey Leatherwood
http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com
http://www.cobblestone-press.com
Filed under: fiction, new release, romance | Tags: aubrey leatherwood, cobblestone press, erotica, interracial, model lover
- A picture may be worth a thousands words, but a touch… a kiss…
Hello Pals!
Let’s see:
New contract – check
Wild Rose will be publishing my short Traveling Violations. I’m in the middle of editing right now. Maggie is trying to get home from a year spent as a preschool teacher in Korea when she’s stopped in Secondary Inspection by Customs. Trapped there for three hours, her only saving grace is Jake. Jake has hung around because he likes her, or does he really think she’s a drug mule?
Request for full – check
Freya’s Bower sent a request for the full manuscript of the prequel to The Rock Star’s Retreat. Bear D’Amato, the drummer for Touchstone, has to go on tour soon and he’s not looking forward to it. One of the guys in the band just broke up with his supermodel girlfriend and he’s taking it suspiciously hard. Another is divorcing his wife because he caught her cheating on him. A third is caught in a bad marriage that looks good on the outside, but it rotten on the inside. When elementary school teacher Maureen rolls into his brother’s garage with squeaky brakes, he seizes the chance to take a vacation from his life. But Maureen isn’t a vacation, she’s a lifestyle and he’s got to admit that he’s been hiding a few things from her.
Print contract – check
Lyrical Press will be publishing Spark Of Desire in print format in May. Info and excerpt here.
Dream Job Search – check
I applied to work in Abu Dhabi public schools. Yeah, Abu Dhabi on the Arabian Peninsula. I’ve already passed the initial screening and now have to go to Atlanta for an in-person interview. This is a dream job. Excellent pay, excellent benefits, challenging work, great weather. I could take a long weekend and visit the Pyramids from there.
Latest WIP finished – no check
I’m writing a novella follow up to the follow up to Rock Star (making it the 4th title in what was not supposed to be a series <cough>.) I’m most of the way through it, but not quite finished. I’ve been busy.
Filed under: fiction, writing | Tags: aubrey leatherwood, awards, CAPA, erotica, the people you know; the sex they have
Badge for Cupid and Psyche Award Nominees
I was already thrilled, already ecstatic when I found out that The People You Know; The Sex They Have was nominated for a Psyche Award over at The Romance Studio. But imagine my super-duper happiness at finding out that I am also a nominee for Favorite Erotica Author 2009 in the Cupid and Psyche Awards as well. Really, Me? Woo hoo! Now, before I start thanking my mom, God, and the Academy, I have to confess to being a little bit choked up. I’ve always just been happy to write. I don’t do it for the money. I don’t do it for the fame. I do it because I’ve always done it, love doing it, and live for those rare occassions when someone truly has a Vulcan mind meld with me on where I’m coming from in a story (yes, I did say Vulcan mind meld). Writing is not my job, it’s my love and having readers love what I’ve created or my “portfolio” means everything to me.
Happy,
Aubrey
http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com
For the purpose of qualification, I am calling an intermediate writer one who has finished at least one book but has not yet been published. When I say “at least one” I’m not kidding. I thought I was the only loon who just wrote books and stored them on my hard drive, but when I had dinner with Natasha Moore a few months ago she admitted that she too had several finished titles ready to go on her computer when her first was published.
1. Get out there and establish your name. I have been told by reliable sources in the know that an editor who is on the fence about acquiring your book will check the internet for you. Do you have a website or a blog? Do you have any kind of web presence that shows you know how to market yourself? Make no mistake, you will be marketing yourself and if you appear clueless it can become a mark against you.
2. Be careful what you say in your blog. You as a person can believe anything you want, but once you get out there you must remember that you are branding and marketing yourself. I have seen writers get roasted and served on toast for a unthought through comment. Be aware of everything you say online. Remember, what happens on the internet, stays on the internet.
3. Keep writing. WooHoo! You finished a book! Is that the only one you have in you? Publishers and agents don’t want to hear that. They want to know you have a career ahead of you. Besides, it’s going to take a year or so to grind through the editing cycle once you sign the contract. If you wait until the book is out to start the next one by the time you get it published, any interest you wll have generated will have evaporated.
4. Follow no rule off a cliff. I don’t remember who I first heard this from, but it is perfect. I know I said in the beginning writer essay to follow every rule faithfully but you’re more grown up now. With at least one book under your belt, you can start to tinker with the rules to see where you can break them to good effect. Just be prepared to have critique partners and editors tell you to stop doing it.
5. Study the market. What ever market it is you’re aiming at, now is the time to really get familiar with who publishes what and what’s popular. While you’re writing your first novel, it’s too constraining to be trying to write to a market, but once you’re through one, then you can start looking around to see what’s out there. I’m not saying you need to hop from sweet romances to vamipire horror because that’s big now. That’s actually a really bad idea because by the time you finish your book and get it ready to sub, the market might be glutted and nobody will want to look at your baby. But being aware of what’s going on in the market is a good idea the same way being aware of other cars on the road is a good idea. You might not want to own a Mercury Grand Marquis, but when it’s coming up behind you, you probably want to know where it’s at and how fast it’s going.
6. Support your buddies. You’ve got some writing buddies now and you need to support them. When they have a new title coming out, you should make mention of it on your blog. If you read it and liked it, you should talk about it. (If you didn’t like it, you should figure out how not to hurt their feelings and keep your darn mouth shut to the rest of the world.) I frequently post ads for novels written by friends. It’s pretty easy to pop together the HTML and post it. In turn, when my books come out, they post mine. Also good is commenting on other writer’s blogs. They feel better because they don’t feel like they’re talking to themselves and you get traffic to your blog. You should also try to visit other (non-writing) blogs. You can get some good traffic from those to and the different persective is always good.
Finishing that first book is always monumental. Then you realize you haven’t climbed the mountain, just the foothills. But the company is good and the work is fun. (It is fun, isn’t it? Because if it is’t fun, you need to just go watch TV. Writing is too difficult and requires too much sacrifice for it not to be fun.)
~Charlotte
Hey Amusees,
Grayson posted from her newest WIP and I figured I’d post a double dose of two new WIPs which are related!
The first is Model Parent (working title):
Confirmed bachelorette, Pamela Lane, is not interested in a husband and kids. She’s already got more than she can handle taking care of the models contracted with Lane V Modeling Agency, as well as some of their overreaching parents. When she finds a new model destined for greatness, of course she expects the minor to come with an over-protective father, but who knew he would look so good?
Unedited Excerpt:
“Let me see her sheet.”
As she reached for the clipboard clutched to her partner’s chest, Valeria smacked her on the back of the hand. “Her name is Alicia. That’s all you need to know.”
When Pam told her team to help control her workaholism, they’d gone a little too far. “You know this is having a reverse affect on my stress-level.”
Valeria only smiled.
Pam sorely wanted to say something about Valeria’s cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, but she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She took it out and looked down at the screen.
That was not a sigh. That was not a sigh. That was not a—
“Did you just sigh?” Valeria arched an eyebrow at her over an even wider than normal smile. “Awww…”
“I hate you,” Pam mouthed as she made her way away from the shoot and toward her office.
“Hi!” her voice was light, airy, teenager-y. New. Even when she had a crush on someone as a kid, she hadn’t sounded like that.
“Hello, beautiful,” a deep slow rumble caressed her from the other end.
She let her eyes roll closed for just a second. Maybe it made sense that she melted when she was with him. Yes, that made sense. But his ability to reduce her to warm pudding with only a voice disturbed her more than a little bit.
“What’s going on?” She asked hoping she sounded cool and not at all breathy.
He hesitated. “Not much. Just wanted to hear your voice.”
Sinking into a chair in her office, Pam covered her eyes with her palm letting herself be consumed by the moment. “I’m glad you called.”
“I missed you.”
Pam wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this. Did anyone in the world know how sweet he was? Anyone? Did anyone know that he wasn’t an enigma at all, rather an open book? Heart on his sleeve.
“I missed you, too,” she murmured back before adding, “Even if I did just talk to you last night.”
“But you didn’t see me.” He sounded steady, manly, not at all pouty. Okay, maybe a little bit pouty.
“Don’t pout. Did you forget a little thing called Fashion Week? We’ve been swamped since it concluded. And we had to get work completed ahead of open call today.”
“Then after you should have spent the night with me.”
The second is Fan Mail
picking up where Model Parent left off
Bad boy , Tommy Touhy, is out for blood when he catches a perp who’s been stalking Alicia Langerud. Luckily for the stalker, Tommy’s pulled off of him before he can do any lasting damage. But Tommy is unsettled. Alicia is a beautiful, gentle woman who deserves protection. She’s also one hundred percent under his skin, has been since they were kids. Can Tommy resist when she attempts to thank him for saving her life?
Unedited Excerpt
Tommy’s biceps twitched violently, aching. His jaw hurt and shook as his teeth ground together from strain. Something hard, small, and cylindrical bored into his back. It felt like a beer bottle and while it hurt like hell, Tommy wanted it to stay whole. He prayed it didn’t burst beneath him. He growled at the thought.
Blood, sweat, and saliva dripped onto his face. Desperately, he thought he felt the bottle contracting, a subtle squeeze before it popped. In his mind eye, he saw a pair soft blue eyes, wide with terror. His anger redoubled and so did his strength. Tommy drew in two deep and quick breaths. Then with everything he had left, he pushed up, hard, while swinging his left leg. The guy outsized him by at least twenty-five pounds, but Tommy managed to reverse their positions with the maneuver. He slammed the man’s wrist against the floor so his knife clattered to the ground. But the asshole wasn’t done fighting.
A heaving breath and a sickening attempt at a smile came before he rasped, “You don’t think I know you. I know who you are.”
Tommy drew back his fist and punched the guy as hard as he could. The man was going to have a broken nose.
Blood flowing freely now, not just from the corner of his mouth, but a fountain from his nose, the man tried to laugh. “She will be mine. Mine forever. Not yours anymore. She—“
He struggled to get up, but Tommy was stronger and he was really, really pissed. Another hard and fast jab. Now, the bastard was going to have to have his teeth removed from the inside of his cheeks.
Though the talking stopped, the rebellion remained, and Tommy wasn’t satisfied. A third blow sent the man into the oblivion of unconsciousness, but Tommy’s anger wasn’t appeased. He saw those blue eyes in his mind again, heard her voice as it wavered telling him “Tommy, I’m so scared.”
The wicked looking knife glimmered for him. He reached for it but jerked his hand away when the backup he hadn’t waited for, arrived. But an angry haze still blurred his vision, and his heart still pounded. His skin itched and burned like he was being attacked by tiny flames. His fist connected again anyway. And again. And again, until two officers dragged him off the guy.
Like a raging bull, Tommy stumbled around, loping in circles and breathing hard, his fists clenched. He needed to get a hold of himself. He really did. But some things, some things were unforgivable. What this man had done, could not be forgiven, and Tommy was damn near certain he could have killed him.
Finally, when he could breathe again, the paramedics demanded to check him over. A couple cuts and bruises, nothing to write home about. But, when he looked down and realized there was blood caked into his Christian Audigier t-shirt and dripped onto his Superdry pants and Diesel shoes, he wasn’t near anything. He wanted beat the bastard until he pissed himself all over again.
Aubrey Leatherwood
http://www.aubreyleatherwood.com
