I suppose I have to thank the good folk at "cobra pill super disk" for motivating me to post today, since I had to log in to delete their spam comment. I've been remiss--to say the least!--this year. Mostly because, hey, with the Oberon series still off-line, what's the point, right?
Which isn't to say I've been idle, I've had three new releases this year. Check out
my author page at
Liquid Silver Books for details on the LA Love Lessons series.
I really enjoyed writing those books--all in various permutations of first person--and there might be another trilogy in the series yet to be written, but for now I'm on to other projects.
For example, while I'm trying to figure out what to do about Oberon, I've just completed a first draft of a novella in what I'm privately calling my Oberon-X series. Short stories (well, sorta, this one's 35K) about Oberon characters set
outside Oberon.
After a solid year of writing nothing but first person erotic romance, writing
Sea Change--third person and not really erotica--was er, interesting, to say the least. Also, the book features Cara and Liam and takes up about six months after
And Shadows Have Their Ending leaves off. Those two have always been a handful and I swear they spent most of this book arguing with
me about whether or not they were going to do what I wanted them to do.
We compromised. And ended up with more sex and less bad flashbacks/memories than I'd originally planned. And a story that's probably even
less genre-specific than Oberon itself. Which means it'll be even harder to sell. But, not to worry. Maybe I'll decide to give it away, anyway, to good little readers of the entire big-ass series.
If you're out there--and can prove it--drop me a line. We'll talk. lol!
But, in the meantime, since I'm here and all. How about a sneak-peek excerpt?
This scene takes place on the first evening of Cara and Liam's four day cruise to Catalina and Endenada...and yes, I did have a lot of fun researching this book. ;) In this scene, they've just gotten finished with the Life Boat drill and are heading back to their cabin to dress for dinner. Cara is about to drop a bomb-shell. She's come up with a plan to 'cure' herself of her aversion to being touched (the result of a brutal, life-threatening attack nine months earlier), one that Liam is going to find totally insane..."You did great back there," Liam said, much later that day, as they headed down the stairs to their cabin following the life boat drill.
"Thanks." Cara loved the note of approval in his voice, loved the warm glow it gave her. She grinned at him happily. Then her gaze fell on the life vests he carried, draped casually over one arm, like they were no big deal—just harmless chunks of nylon covered Styrofoam, nothing at all to get upset about—and her grin dissolved again. She hadn’t done all that great, and she knew it.
She’d handled the people okay, better than she’d expected in fact. It wasn’t that she hadn’t noticed the crowd congregated on the deck around her, or that she hadn’t felt short of breath, hadn’t felt threatened, hadn’t felt like the walls were closing in on her—even if she was outside. She’d noticed and felt all of it. But Liam was there, big, solid, dependable; ready to protect her from anyone who might try and touch her, anyone who’d want to hurt her. Not that it was likely anyone would. She knew that. But with Liam there, she hadn’t even had to worry about ‘what if?’
Then he’d slipped the life vest over her head and the panic set in. Cara’s heart had started to pound and she’d dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming, to keep from tearing at his hands in an effort to get the vest back off again. I can do this, she thought; I can. I can. But the way it squeezed her neck and pressed on her shoulders was too visceral, too vivid a reminder of the hard plastic collar the EMTs had fitted around her neck the night she was attacked; of the brace that had kept her immobilized in the hospital. She felt the trembling start deep inside her and clenched her fists tighter as she fought to keep it all in. She still thought, at that point, that she could make it, that she could hold it together and pretend it was all okay. If she could just focus on her breathing, she was sure she could manage it. But then he’d started to strap the vest closed and the weight and the pressure against her chest was more than she could bear.
"Stop." The single word was all get could get out. It emerged as a whisper, barely audible, but Liam’s fingers froze.
"What’s wrong?" he asked, but in almost the same instant she watched his eyes go wide as understanding hit and he had the vest off her again—just like that—even before she could answer. "You’re okay," he soothed. "Calm down. Deep breaths. You’re all right now."
She nodded, gulping for breath, wishing he would hold her, knowing he wouldn’t—that he couldn’t.
"Having trouble with your life vest, Miss?" an unfamiliar voice asked and Cara shook her head at the crewman who stood only a couple of feet away, watching them. "Then I’ll have to ask you to put that back on now."
Cara’s gaze flew to Liam’s face. She stared at him, imploringly. "Liam, I- I can’t."
"I’ll take care of it," he replied, his voice low and soothing. Then he turned to the crewman. "Can I speak to you for a minute, Sir?"
Cara watched as Liam’s hand closed firmly on the other man’s shoulder. He walked him a few feet away to where they could not be overheard by the other passengers. While the two men spoke earnestly with each other, she shrank back against the bulkhead, trying to stay calm, trying to be as inconspicuous as either her five-nine frame or the scars on her face and arms would allow.
Within a couple of minutes, Liam returned, his cop swagger more apparent than usual "See? Everything’s fine," he told her. "We’ll just chill here until the drill’s over. Then, when the crowd thins out, we’ll go back down to the cabin." And Cara had nodded, grateful for the first time since she’d met him that Liam was a cop. She’d never thought she’d say it, but it was nice to be on the right side of power for once. Still—
"That was really hard," she told him as they threaded their way through the narrow corridor where their room was located.
Liam nodded. "I know. I should have realized sooner. I’m sorry."
"What are you sorry for?" she asked in surprise. She was the one who should be sorry—for her weakness, for her inability to cope, for being such a loser. She hadn’t always been this way and she hated what she’d become. "You saved me. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there." Probably, she would have screamed her head off, sobbed like a baby, thrown such a fit she would’ve ended up strapped to a bed in a hospital somewhere, sedated until she didn’t even know her own name.
"Well, you’ll never have to find that out, will you?" Liam asked, adding, when she gazed at him questioningly, "I’ll always be there for you, Cara. You know that, right?"
And Cara nodded, saying, "Sure." Thinking, maybe. Thinking, no, probably you won’t. Not unless her plans for the week worked out. At the moment, things weren’t looking too good. "Race you to the cabin," she said to avoid any more conversation.
"Careful!" Liam shouted after her as she took off, as fast as her damaged leg would take her. Then the ship rolled and knocked her off-course. Oh, shit, she thought as she started to pitch into the path of an oncoming passenger.
There was no way to avoid him, no way to regain her balance in time. She could already imagine how the next several seconds would unfold; how it would feel when she landed against his chest; how his hands would close on her arms in an attempt to steady her—or himself. Her skin crawled in anticipation, her nerves shrieked. No. Stop. Don’t touch me. She braced herself for impact. It never came. Instead, Liam lunged past her, grabbed the man’s arm and hauled him from her path. As Cara’s shoulder bumped harmlessly into the wall, she heard the passenger’s angry cry of protest, "Hey!" and Liam’s response, calm, contrite, "Oh, sorry, my bad. I thought you were about to fall."
"What? No, I wasn’t," the man replied, sounding doubtful and slightly confused as he added, "But, uh, thanks, anyway."
"Sure thing," Liam answered, "Any time." Then he turned to Cara who was breathing hard. "Are you okay?"
And once again she nodded yes and thought no. Seeing Liam react like that, racing to her rescue, all muscle and speed, was doing bad, bad things to her insides. She felt molten, breathless, crazed; as though every hormone in her body had taken to jumping up and down and screaming loudly, he’s a guy! You’re a girl! Do something about that!
Which was the whole goddamned problem, wasn’t it? She couldn’t do anything about it and if the frustration was making her so totally nuts her hormones were in revolt, she could only imagine what it must be doing to him.
"Well, just take it easy," Liam suggested as he unlocked the cabin door. "At least until you get your sea legs. All right?"
"Okay," she agreed, finally catching her breath, hardly even aware what it was she’d just agreed to. She smiled up at him as he held the door open for her, slid past him and into the cabin and came to an abrupt halt a couple of steps later. Whoa. Gasping, she took in the change to the room’s decor. The two narrow bunks which previously had faced each other across the width of the cabin had been moved into the center of the room and pushed together to form one double bed.
"Aw, crap," Liam muttered behind her. "Right. I’ll just go get the steward to change them back."
"Wouldn’t you rather just leave them the way they are?" Cara asked, forcing herself to get unstuck and move forward. It’s now or never, she told herself, heading for the smaller of her two suitcases, unzipping it quickly before she could lose her nerve.
"Well, sure," Liam said cautiously as he closed the cabin door behind him and followed her into the room. "But, do you really think that’s a good idea? I mean, I don’t know how much sleep we’ll be able to get this way and I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you’re not ready for. That’s not what this trip’s about. It’s about relaxing, having fun..."
Cara nodded as she turned around again to face him. "I think you should tie me up."
Liam blinked in surprise. "You think I should— what?"
"Tie me up. You know, in bed? With these." She tried to hand him the bondage gear she’d purchased in anticipation of the trip, but he backed away, eyeing the collection of straps in her hands as if they were live snakes.
"Cara...what are you talking about? What is all this stuff?"
"Well, here," She indicated the wide, woven nylon straps. "See, these get slipped under the mattress, right? And, apparently, they’re adjustable too, so they can be made to fit any size bed. Then the rings at each end hang out at the sides of the bed—you know, two at the top and two at the bottom. And then these—" She held up one of the soft leather cuffs. "Go around my wrists and ankles. Then you attach the clips on the cuffs to the rings on the straps and—"
"No." Liam shook his head. "Absolutely not. Forget it."
"I don’t mean right now, you know," Cara explained, exasperated by his response. She needed him to be supportive—and he wasn’t even trying. "We have to go to dinner first, right? But I was thinking, I dunno, later? Like, tonight, maybe? Or tomorrow..."
"No," Liam repeated, looking distracted as he sat down on the bed. "Not happening. Not now, not later, not ever."
Cara’s eyebrows rose. "Well, why not?"
"Why not? Because it’s insane, that’s why not. It’s crazy! It’s—what the hell are you thinking?"
"I’m thinking it might be a good way for us to solve my problem."
"By tying you up?" He gestured toward the closet, just inside the cabin door, where he’d stowed the life vests. "Okay, was that someone else up on deck with me just now? Because you don’t do well with restraints—remember?"
"That was different," Cara said, her spirits sinking under a wave of disappointment. So. He didn’t really think she’d done so great during the drill after all.
"Different how? What makes you think you won’t freak out just as much with this stuff? Restraints are restraints. Trust me on that, sunshine."
"That’s not the point," she said as she dropped the straps and cuffs on the bed and sat down—not exactly next to him, but close enough that either one of them could, if they wanted, reach out a hand and touch each other. At the thought, her heart began to race, fearful and hopeful all at once. Touch me. Don’t touch me. "Look, Liam, it’s like this. I know you love me. I know you’d never do anything to hurt me. I know that when we—" She stopped to catch her breath again. "I’ve always known you’d be gentle. I could tell that about you right from the start. And sometimes, when I was with Gregg, when I knew it would be bad, when I knew I’d done something he’d want to punish me for—"
"That wasn’t ever about something you did," Liam insisted. "Don’t blame yourself like that! What he did to you was not your fault. He just liked to hurt people."
She nodded, not caring, trying to make a point. "I’d close my eyes and try to imagine it was you. I was never as afraid if I could pretend I was with you, Liam, I always knew I’d be safe."
© 2007 PG Forte All Rights Reserved
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the_crones_nest's journal
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