Geoducks Are for Lovers

 

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Food writer Maggie Marrion is just getting back on her feet after a horrible year, or two, or three. With their twentieth reunion approaching, she invites four of her closest friends from college for a weekend at her beach cabin on Whidbey Island. What she doesn’t expect is her best friends, artist Quinn Dayton and part-time erotica novelist, Selah Elmore, to play matchmaker. The two plot a surprise that will make the weekend, and her life, a lot more interesting. Gil Morrow, a former grunge musician turned history professor, joins them as Selah’s date for the weekend. Facing his own ghosts, Gil decides he’s waited long enough to get the girl. With the support of college sweethearts, a hot lumberjack, a few wishing rocks, and the world’s largest burrowing clam, Gil reminds Maggie that forty-something isn’t too old for second chances. Can we learn to love the life we have and let go of who we expected to be? What happens when the generation from The Breakfast Club and Reality Bites meets The Big Chill? Come spend a weekend with these Generation X-ers as they share laughter, tears, life’s ups and downs, old stories, and new beginnings

Excerpt

“We’ll see how the night goes.”

“Is that a challenge, Maggie May?” Gil leans forward and catches her eye, then puts his hand on her leg above her knee, and squeezes.

The heat of his hand warms her and her muscles clench.

“Maybe.”

Gil licks the corner of his mouth. “Good to know.” Leaning back, he keeps his hand on her thigh.

Mentally, Maggie fans herself. The fire in front of her isn’t the only one she’s playing with tonight.

Quinn and Ryan eventually make their way out to join the group on the beach, carrying the s’mores supplies along with metal skewers from the kitchen.

“I can’t believe I’m offering this after the meat feast, but who wants dessert?” Ryan gestures the platter of goodies.

“I’ll never turn down chocolate or Nutella.” Selah gets up to grab a skewer and marshmallow.

“I need to taste Maggie’s Nutella s’more,” Gil says, squeezing her leg. “Mind making me one?”

“If I can stand, sure.” She pushes off the sand, using Gil’s leg to prop herself up.

“Charred or not charred?” She waves a marshmallow in front of Gil.

“Charred, of course.” He grins.

“Heathen,” she teases and sticks the marshmallow directly into the flames. Pulling the flaming ball of goo out of the fire, she blows on it before handing the skewer to Gil. ‘Hold this, and no eating it.”

Carefully grabbing a graham crack, she smears on a dollop of Nutella, and then places the charred marshmallow on top before adding another cracker.

She licks a big dollop of Nutella off the side, getting some of the warm chocolate on the corner of her mouth.

“Here.” She hands him the sticky mess, noticing that Gil shifts his legs and squirms.

“You missed a spot.” He gestures to her lips before biting the s’more.

Maggie licks her lips, trying to get off the Nutella. She glances at Gil, who closes his eyes and moans.

“Good?”

“Mmmm…. Hhmmmm… mmmmm” is all that comes out of him. Still with his eyes closed he reaches up to swipe off the Nutella from chin with his thumb. It’s Maggie’s turn to quietly moan as she watches him lick his thumb.

“Food porn as foreplay?” Quinn asks as he sticks his own marshmallow into the flames next to Maggie.

“What?” She asks, completely unaware of where she is.

“You have it so bad.” Selah chimes in from behind her. “Move out of the way or toast another marshmallow.” She bumps Maggie with her hip.

“More,” Gil says, opening one eye as he pops the last of the s’more into his mouth.

“Best s’more ever?” Maggie asks, grabbing another marshmallow.

“Best ever.” Gil winks. “More.”

“Greedy.” She chars another marshmallow.

The rest of the gang is likewise toasting and moaning over their creations.

“Where was this when I used to smoke pot?” Quinn asks.

“I’m grateful Nutella wasn’t around in college. I’d be as big as a house,” Jo says, eating a perfectly toasted but not charred marshmallow.

Maggie hands Gil another s’more, which he snatches from her like a starving man.

“You okay there, big guy? Can I make one for myself now?”

Gil gives her a stink eye but nods his head, his mouth too full to respond verbally.

Maggie sits back down next to Gil with her own s’more. She takes a bite, closes her eyes and moans. She can’t help herself.

When she opens her eyes, she catches Gil licking the s’more right before biting it.

“What the hell?” She tries to save her s’more from his greedy mouth, but he is too quick.

“It was dripping and going to land on your shirt. I was trying to be a gentleman and protect your clothing.”

Maggie stares at him.

“Not buying it?”

“No.” She licks her lips where the melted marshmallow makes them sticky. She watches Gil staring at her lips.

“Can I help you with that?” He offers, his eyes flicking to her mouth, then back up to her eyes.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“I’m not sure about that.” He reaches out his index finger, swipes under her bottom lip, and shows her the chocolate.

Before writing full time, Daisy Prescott worked in the world of art, auctions, antiques, and home decor. She earned her degree in Art History and endured a brief stint as a film theory graduate student. Baker, art educator, antiques dealer, blue ribbon pie maker, blogger, content wrangler, freelance writer, fangirl, gardener, wife, and pet mom are a few of the other titles she’s acquired over the years. Born and raised in San Diego, Daisy and her husband (aka SO) currently live in a real life Stars Hollow in the Boston suburbs with their dog, Hubbell, and an imaginary house goat. Geoducks Are for Lovers is her debut novel. She is busy researching her second novel.
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The Domino Effect

The Domino Effect

Jill Elaine Hughes

New Adult Erotic BDSM Thriller

Date Publsihed: 3/27/13

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A New Adult erotic BDSM thriller. Set in Cleveland, Ohio and the Ukraine, DOMINO is the story of a young, shy college girl's sexual awakening through art and bondage. An American version of THE STORY OF O, with elements of classic international thrillers, DOMINO can appeal to the classic erotica reader as well as New Adult fans.

  

Plot Summary:  

21-year-old college student and aspiring journalist Nancy Delaney’s nose for news smells a hot story idea when it comes to international playboy and artist Peter Rostovich. But as she works to get her story, she soon becomes intimately entangled with the mysterious Rostovich, who finds her irresistible. He becomes Nancy’s ticket to sexual awakening, and she soon discovers she has an appetite for bondage, too.

And there’s far more to Rostovich than just his art — he’s involved in a strange, violent criminal underworld that kidnaps Nancy and spirits her halfway around the world, where she’s held prisoner and made to serve as private Dominant-for-hire somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Will the sexual powers Rostovich helped awaken in her be Nancy’s only hope for escape?

Excerpt

I paused at the door before entering the gallery. The storefront had a large window hung with white curtains and posters that proclaimed “OPENING TODAY: Peter Rostovich.” The posters had old-fashioned black block letters on a white background, and gave nothing away about the art that might be inside. Typical gallery protocol, of course. The point was to get you to go inside, and preferably to spend money on the art. Between the couple of press gigs I’d already done and hearing about the openings Hannah had covered over the years I knew the ropes, at least when it came to how they handled publicity. Actually understanding the art was a different story . . . .

But this exhibit’s sensual art---if you could call it that---held my attention. As the exhibit progressed, so did the bondage levels. By the middle of the exhibit---the gallery was one long series of adjoining rooms arranged in a straight line---the thread, neckties and yarn had progressed to things like leather straps, ropes, and plastic cable ties---along with a few full-on money shots of models’ genitalia. Nothing in-your-face or super-crazy, like what you’d see on the pages of Penthouse, but plenty of exposed cocks and well-trimmed lady parts. Still, it wasn’t the money shots that troubled me as much as the plastic cable ties.

Plastic cable ties? What did something like that really have to do with sex, anyway? It seemed like an odd choice. They evoked images of Home Depot, not the bedroom. The photos featuring them were especially strange given the sharp contrast, and it seemed the artist had made a special point to use them on the darker-skinned nudes to make them all the more prominent.  There was even a pile of them set out against a black velvet cloth on a whitewashed pedestal, alongside a hand-lettered sign that said “PLEASE TAKE ONE.”

I did, fingering it absently between my fingertips while I studied a black-and-white silver nitrate print of a model’s well-manicured hands superimposed on what I supposed was her naked thighs, her wrists tightly bound together with a set of thin white cable ties. The plastic straps left deep indentations in her skin, made all the more prominent by the photographer’s use of harsh lighting and stark composition. From a distance the photograph was more abstract, and reminded me almost of a Georgia O’Keefe print, but up close the sheer sensuality was unmistakable.

“Put it on,” said a raspy male voice just behind me. “Tie it tight. I can help you if you like.” Underneath the scratchy, breathy overtone the voice was a startlingly deep, with the slightest hint of an accent, but I couldn’t quite place what kind.

I spun around. Standing just to my left was a tall, slender man with an angular jaw and broad shoulders. He had a slight stubble of beard, along with reddish-brown hair and arresting gray eyes that reminded me of dry ice. He wore dark blue slacks and a lighter blue oxford shirt with the collar open, no tie. The clothes were simple, but I could tell from their cut and the quality of the fabric that they were very expensive. His shoes were sleek, black, and European looking with square toes, and he wore a silver Movado watch with multiple dials and matching silver cufflinks. Even his scent seemed luxurious---a hint of bay rum with undertones of sandalwood and jasmine.

“Here, let me,” he said, taking the cable tie from my hand. And then, even before I knew what was happening, with a few swift movements the cable tie was fastened tight around both my wrists, its slick, cold surface digging hard into my skin.

My press kit and purse crashed to the floor. The room began to spin, and dark clouds crept into my field of vision. Everything went blank.

Jill Elaine Hughes:

JILL ELAINE HUGHES is a journalist and playwright  as well as a New Adult fiction novelist.  As a reporter,  she has contributed to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago  Reader, Washington Post, New Art Examiner, Cat  Fancy magazine, and numerous other media outlets.  Her plays have widely published and produced in  New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta,  and many other U.S. cities, as well as in the UK and  Australia. Before self-publishing New Adult fiction,  she published many erotic romance novels under the  pen names “Jamaica Layne” and “Jay E. Hughes” for  publishers like Ellora’s Cave, Virgin Books, Decadent

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