Strumpetings

new paperback cover
new paperback cover
new ebook cover
new ebook cover
Apprivoisé (Dishabille, Morphoses, Force Majeure) - Arden Aoide

Replacing the old cover (which I quite like, but it doesn't imply "erotic romance"), with a new paperback and ebook cover.

A Tease of Something in the Works

“Did your mother ever call you Shulamith,” Jared asked innocently. He had been watching her for a short time as she methodically and efficiently chopped the onions, carrots, and potatoes for their stew. She was more adept with the large knife than even he was. He wasn’t quite sure why kitchen work made such a difference. Maybe it didn’t, and Shula was just very good with her hands.

 

He didn’t know why he enjoyed watching it.

 

She gasped as the knife slipped from her grasp and she nicked the tip of her finger holding down an onion. He was at her side grasping her hand with muttered apologies. He had meant to shock her with his new found knowledge, but he hadn’t meant to hurt her. She pressed her lips together, because she knew her place. She gasped again when he pressed her finger to his lips. “I won’t tell anyone,” he whispered.

 

“How did you find out?” She was afraid she might cry. She hated being named for a harem girl. She liked to believe that her mother did it to make a point.

 

“I didn’t really. Your name. Shula. I’ve never heard it. I looked through your family Bible and no one on either your mother or your father’s side shared that name. But, everyone had sacred names. First and middle. I saw a smudge by yours.”

 

“Father. He was ashamed. He tried to change it. But, it was too long–”

 

“Shh. Not now. Later.” His hands moved to both hips. He gripped tightly, and lifted her easily onto the counter. She sucked in a breath and held onto him tightly. The light in the room was waning, but it was the brightest light he’d ever been so close to her in.

He loved it when she was supplicant under him, trying to hide, trying not to spread her legs wider. He loved that by the end, she’s panting into his mouth, with her hands gripping his shoulders tightly. Maybe he went about it the wrong way, but she was his completely, and he never had to ask.

 

Except he found himself wanting her to want him. He was taught that it was her duty to make sure she was available to him and so far she hadn’t denied him. Was it fair for him to ask for that when she hadn’t a choice previously? He frowned and stepped back a few inches.

 

She dropped her hands from his shoulders. “Have I done something to…displease you?”

 

He opened his mouth, then closed it. It took a few moments to speak. “You are my wife.”

She nodded, unsure of his point.

 

“We didn’t get to choose, but I wasn’t…unhappy at the wedding, unexpected though it was.” He stepped in close to her again, and her legs spread for him. He pressed both fists on either side of her hips.

 

“I hated the entire thing,” she said in one breath, then stiffened. “I apol–”

 

“No.” He shook his head. “I want to know about now, Shulamith. Speak freely. I want you to always speak freely. I apologize for not making that clear. I apologize for having to make that clear.”

 

She relaxed minutely, but her eyes darted to his hesitantly. “I imagine that my life is much easier now than it would be if you were your father. I was going to end it…” She looked away suddenly.

 

“When I saw you at the church, I thought that you might. I’m not going to stand here and tell you that it would have been a waste, because my father would have been cruel.” He ran one hand through her very short hair. It was growing in unevenly, but he didn’t care. “Do you know why he chose me and not Josiah or Judah?”

 

“I thought it was because they were already betrothed.” She was a little caught off guard by how comfortable she was around Jared.

 

“Well, yes. But I was betrothed as well. Or nearly. I found out the day before we wed that the Johnston’s daughter in Gillespie County was going to be meant for me. She’ll be fifteen at Christmas, and they were going to sign her over. They have six girls, so they were putting them on the market early.” He pressed his cheek against her head, feeling the short strands.

 

She took a deep breath. “That’s horrible.”

 

Jared laughed. “Yes, well. I had a tantrum. Said that I wasn’t going to marry a child. I also might have mentioned that Mama would have been disgusted with him if she were alive and that he’d better hide all the knives because there was no way a beautiful girl like you would willingly share his bed. I might’ve given myself away right then.” He put his hand on her cheek.

 

She ducked her head a bit, not wanting to shake him off, but to avert her eyes. Submit. As she’d been taught. “Given yourself away?”

 

He laughed. “Josiah was born with a wife. Our family had a contract with the Hutchinson’s. Any girl they birthed within five years of him, then subsequently us, would be ours. There were a handful of considerations for Judah since they had only one daughter, and I remember that it was your name that came up. You Shula, were a household name. But then your mother died.”

 

“And that meant father could keep me until I was 18,” she whispered. He was so close.

“Yes, and Judah’s bride was picked and I knew that you would be the one for me. Except last year, Dinah died, and my father decided differently. When he saw you at the church, and what you’d done, you became my punishment.”

 

“I wasn’t aware that females had that sort of power.” She was speaking out of turn now. Even with his encouragement, and her desire to be heard, she was still habitually obedient.

 

He laughed quietly, and moved in slowly. “I am your shepherd,” he whispered close to her ear.

 

She felt desire so complete and finally undeniable that her knees squeezed his hips. Her breaths were harsh to her ears. “My shepherd? I don’t understand.”

 

“Do you know what Shulamith means?” He breathed against her cheek.

 

She shook her head, more to clear it than to exclaim a negative. “Father says that it was just another woman in Solomon’s harem. I tried to read more about it, but Father kept the Bible under lock and key.”

 

Jared hadn’t any sisters, so it was a strange concept to him. “Shulamith was married to Solomon, but she was in love with a shepherd. I think your mother named you thus, in protest.”

 

A bit of a weight lifted. “How would she have known?”

 

“She had many brothers, did she not?” Jared asked patiently.

 

“Yes,” Shula breathed. She felt tears prickle her eyes. Her mother wanted her to love. Of course she did. What mother wouldn’t? “Our children. I don’t–”

 

“Shhh. We’re not having children until my father is dead. There wasn’t a child clause in the contract your father signed with mine, and there wasn’t a new one.”

 

Shula breathed out, relieved. Then she remembered. “You want to be my shepherd.”

“Yes,” he hissed, and pressed his hands against her hips. He slid his denim-clad erection against her. “Are you fertile, right now?”

 

“Oh,” she gasped and shook her head. She would start in the next seventy-two hours. Her breasts were already achy. She lifted her head to look at him. She hadn’t done that, yet. Not while he was awake. She realized that had she told him that she wasn’t ready, he would have waited for her. He’d been loving, kind, and gentle in their lovemaking. She raised her hand to his face and sucked in a breath when he nuzzled her palm. “Why?”

 

“I won’t lie, Shulamith. You could have me begging for your touch within a second. I would worship you, if you commanded it.” He kissed her palm.

 

Her body seized with the blasphemy of it all. “Oh, God, why?”

 

He pressed his forehead to hers. Why wouldn’t she just kiss him already? “Is it so hard to believe that I desire you?”

 

She raised her hand to her hair. She shook her head to deny the possibility. He gripped her wrist and pulled her hand toward his heart. “I fell in love with you on our wedding day. I admired your beauty before, but it was your blatant disregard for beauty that made me want you. That makes you beautiful to me. The most beautiful thing that owns me utterly–”

 

She opened her mouth against his, just to breathe in his breath. Never would she let herself believe that love would be her fate. Duty had been drilled into her head since she was a child, but never this. Never something like this. She understood the significance of her name. She melted completely against him. She felt his moan before she heard it. She raised her arms as he lifted the shirt from her. He touched her with fingers and palms everywhere he could reach. Her bra had five hooks in the back that he pawed at ineffectually, before he growled and held her still. She felt the cold, blunt metal of the knife against her back, but before she could panic, she heard the blade sing and her full heavy breasts were freed of their confines.

 

Jared dropped the knife with a dangerous clang, and cradled her breasts. He’d not seen them in the light, and they were glorious. He knew at that moment that he was meant to worship her. He pulled her toward him and his hands went to her bottom. He was going to lift her, and take her to their marriage bed, but she’d spread her legs wider and moaned.

 

He was going to have her in the kitchen, next to the chopped vegetables. He kissed her deeply before pressing her backward. Her back arched against the coolness of the granite and the knife’s blade still under her, and his mouth found her nipple. He didn’t care if it was taboo. Her back arched even further.

 

He moved his hand up her skirt and began to pull the elastic of her knickers over. He was suddenly compelled to see, so he stood. And he stared.

 

Shula’s white lacy panties were soaked through, and he understood that to mean that she was ready for him. He moved his thumb over the wet cotton, down, then all the way up. Her hips bucked on the upward graze, and he did it again, curious at her reaction. He was taught that a woman was only fulfilled when he was inside her, preparing her for his seed.

 

He moved her panties over and saw an engorged protrusion, and he thumbed it curiously still. She bucked and moaned, and he moved his thumb rhythmically over it, torn between watching her face, or watching the moisture gather around his fingers as he grazed her.

 

“Please, Jared. Please,” he moaned.

 

“Shula, what do you want?” He asked with a reverent whisper.

 

“I don’t know. Idon’tknowIdon’tknow! Just–” She broke off with a sob and spread herself impossible wider.

 

He grabbed at his jeans, and effortlessly unbuttoned, unzipped and pushed them down. He settled into place, and pulled her panties to the side, thrusting in smoothly. He delighted in her arch and sudden shriek.

 

She was all laid out for him, nude from the waist up, breasts moving with each thrust, and he wanted to see more. He paused in his thrusting and grabbed a paring knife from the wooden block. Shula stared at him with wide eyes.

 

He smiled and looked down. The material was digging into her skin, so he quickly slashed both sides of the elastic in the thighs. He made a point to put the knife back into the block before thrusting into her again, then ripping off the rest of the cotton.

She was bared completely for him.

 

She felt her blush intensify. She was sure he wasn’t meant to look at her like that. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t meant to enjoy it so thoroughly. Was she supposed to deny him? He was her husband. She had pledged her obedience to him.

 

There was so much she didn’t know and didn’t understand. All she knew was, wrong or right, at that very moment, she felt free and happy, and she smiled. She smiled at Jared. “Thank you,” she whispered.

 

“I’m meant to be thanking you, I’m sure,” he said, quite out of breath. He looked down, and thumbed her clitoris until he developed a rhythm, before looking up again.

 

She closed her eyes tightly, confused by the tidal rush of pleasure. It was so intense that she wanted him to stop immediately, but she found herself asking for the unknown. “Jared, I need–”

 

He sped up, slammed into her harder, and pressed her clitoris.

 

Shulamith found God. And when she opened her eyes, her slack-jawed lover stared at her in awe.

 

 

Completely Hungover

Sing - C.D. Reiss

This is going to be my thoughts on books 4-7, not individual really, but overall.

Back in 2009, we decided to do a book purge. This was devastating and necessary. Of the books that made the cut, 70% were non-fiction, 25% were fiction books ranging from richly illustrated Grimm and Anderson, to Pullman, Chabon, and a set of Rowling UK hardbacks.

 

The 5% for the adults we kept in our room. Rice, Gaiman, Carroll, Bulgakov, St fucking Aubyn. My husband has a beat up copy of Death Instinct with Phillip Emmons on the cover instead of Bentley Little, and I have a half dozen translations of The Little Prince. And some of it, we kept up in the closet. Those include Roquelaure's Beauty series, The Pearl, Kama Sutra, and Tipping the Velvet.

 

We kept what we loved. We still had a ton of books, but we decided to build up a more practical ebook library.

 

Except for books we wanted to touch. And as soon as I can figure out if I want the bundle of the first three books, or the individual ones (it's the covers, I can't decide which I like best), these will be going up there as well.

 

I didn't read these as the author intended. I read the first three, loved them, thought the series was already ahead of the game with filthy and eloquent prose, and if you lopped off the epilogue, it would have been good. But, I'm a delicate flower and knew that if there were going to be seven parts, then it was going to stab me in the chest and twist. So, I cheated and decided to read the rest back to back. I'm glad I did. It does give you a bit of a hangover, though.

 

CD Reiss took every overused cliché in erotic fiction (and romance, I'd wager), and played a game of Mad Libs with it. Then I read Control and realized that this thing she was creating was going to be an erotic classic. No doubt. I'm picturing an 8x10 fully illustrated hardback. The potential is staggering. And the thing with Control, Burn, and Resist? They aren't filler novels. Control was probably my favorite out of the entire series.

 

Sing. Well. We knew it was going to hurt. But, it's already established that we're all masochists. Their relationship had been challenged for the whole series, but this was an entirely different sort of tragedy. Just when they're getting a grip on outside drama, they are faced with something that they had no control over. I cried. A lot.

And another thing. I'm probably about a one on the Kinsey Scale. Maybe a two if I'm looking at pictures of Christina Hendricks. I'll be blunt. I don't think I've ever cared to actually see, touch, taste, and smell another woman like I wanted to with Monica. She is my book girlfriend.

 

But Jonathan! Yes, I know. He's super. He's great. He's sexy. Awesome penis. Great in bed. A king. Yes. All that.

 

But Monica has the sexiest snatch* in all of erotic fiction.

 

This is the first story I've ever read that the heroine was just as arousing as the Hero. The BDSM scenes were fantastic, sexy, and completely realistic. Monica's issues, not with pain, nor sexual submission really, but of debasement and true humiliation were brought to the forefront with no apologies and no compromise. Monica was honest, and I think that's one of the reasons that this is so good. She would let herself cry, but she would call you a motherfucker while she did it.

 

And when I finally shut my Kindle app down after I finished Sing, my second thought was the Infinite Monkey Theorem. That I should just start pressing the keys. The bar is so high now. Stratospherically improbable. I'm humbled, but I'm inspired.

 

*so many choices, but I do enjoy a bit of titillating alliteration

At First Blush (The Immortelle #2) - Abigail Hawk,  V.L. Dreyer This is the second in this series that I've had the pleasure of beta reading.

It's a good one. We're introduced to another faction of immortals that might just be the most interesting "beings" I've ever read. Move over vampires, shapeshifters, and other sexy creatures, we've got a new one, or rather a spin on an old myth with a little human evolution, and their envoy is just...delicious.

I'm not sure if it was Ms Hawk's intent, but it was the fairy tale allusion that sucked me in, but I'm a sucker for those. The romance between Cijal (swoon)and Dawn (and how I loved that she seemed a bit of a wilting flower, but no, not so much, she's just a Good Girl, unless the situation calls for otherwise) is just beautiful really.

We're still teased about the worlds of the Immortelle and introduced to some diplomatic relations between the Cabal and the Nereidis and we get to see William Logan again, and we get an answer from an unanswered question in the first book. I might actually reread the first book so that I can see Logan in this light.

But I have a feeling that we're supposed to still be cautious of the Cabal.

I think the only thing that this story lacked was a good shanking scene, but my morals might be dubious at best.

And I can't wait to see the cover for this one! I've got expectations. :P



Gilgamesh - Derrek Hines I love this interpretation just as much as I love Christopher Logue's interpretation of The Iliad. I'd recommend some familiarity with the history and a good translation before reading this.

It is an absolute thing of beauty.
Submit (Songs of Submission, #3) - C.D. Reiss I very nearly can't take it. I've never read a series in which I needed a palette cleanser between books. Something less devastating/wrenching/annihilating. Something like [b:A Storm of Swords|62291|A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3)|George R.R. Martin|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328414586s/62291.jpg|1164465], maybe?

I might be prone to hyperbole.
Submit (Songs of Submission, #3) - C.D. Reiss I very nearly can't take it. I've never read a series in which I needed a palette cleanser between books. Something less devastating/wrenching/annihilating. Something like [b:A Storm of Swords|62291|A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3)|George R.R. Martin|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328414586s/62291.jpg|1164465], maybe?

I might be prone to hyperbole.
The Immortality Clause (The Immortelle #1) - Abigail Hawk,  V.L. Dreyer I had the honor of beta reading for this and I had to actually take my editing hat off because I enjoyed the story so much. The world of the Immortelle has so many possibilities and The Immortality Clause just scratches the surface. It gives us glimpses of the implications of such a world, but just enough to want more.

I realize that at the center of this story was the love story, and I like that this particular Universe wasn't overshadowed by it, but enhanced. The hero is indeed sexy, but the part I found compelling about him was that he wasn't quite jaded yet. He was still naive to his world, though he had an important part. You could feel him clawing for his humanity still, and he ultimately found that with the heroine.

I also like that my time wasn't wasted on too many pages of flowery romance. There was a point that I was concerned, when their relationship seemed at its plateau, but then we read of the heroine's transformation and the possibilities that brought forth. We are treated to another facet of this other world that I really can't wait to read more about.

Another thing that I really enjoyed, is nudging in a bit of history, ancient and modern. I really hope this is a constancy in this series because it makes it so much richer to me. This is my favorite genre and anymore, you have to be more and more creative, but you have to hook the reader on the incredulous, and the author does this flawlessly.

And I found myself Googling Auckland and did you know? It's not just Hobbits in New Zealand. I did not know that. :P
Tease (Songs of Submission, #2) - C.D. Reiss Words of advice: Make sure your partner doesn't work a double on the day you decide to read C.D. Reiss. I should have known better. :(
As You Wish - A. Violet End This was perfection. Perfection. Ms End masters the elaborate language of fairy tales and brings us a narrative that is utterly romantic, sexy, and satisfying.

I hope she continues with these. While I enjoyed her Grimm & Dirty Fairy Tales, this, this was a full fleshed out story that fairy tale enthusiasts will adore. And I adored it. I'm a collector of fairy tales and this is up there with Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

Perfection.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - A.N. Roquelaure,  Anne Rice *clears throat*

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with my life now.
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - A.N. Roquelaure,  Anne Rice *clears throat*

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with my life now.
Not His Kiss to Take - Finn Marlowe I read this for a taboo challenge and I'll first admit to how vanilla I really am: I had no idea there was such thing as a medical kink to this degree. The point was to push your boundaries and when I saw this particular kink as an option, I jumped on it because I knew it would really be pushing it.

And it did. There were a several scenes that had me squirming, some pleasant, some not. Some were utterly scorching. Utterly. Scorching.

As it is, once I finished the book, I decided it would be in my best interest to explore the niche a bit more. :D
Beg (Songs of Submission, # 1) - C.D. Reiss Let me get two things out of the way: I write in this genre and I dislike reading first person. I feel uncomfortable rating and reviewing things in my genre because I could be pimping a friend or kicking heads as I scramble my way up the ladder. I decided to review this anyway because I enjoyed it much more than I anticipated.

I've also read quite a bit erotica/erotic fiction of the BDSM variety the past year or so. You sort of get immune to it. You need something a bit more; a bit different. I read this one in particular because a friend here on goodreads gave it a very glowing and enthusiastic review, and I'm glad I paid attention.

This is a hot and sexy novella and I can't wait to have a few hours alone to continue with the next. I very rarely love a heroine, but I loved Monica. The chemistry between she and Jonathan made me blush at times and that was very refreshing for me. This book reminded me why I like to write and what I like to read. Intense dialog is pretty much my kink, and C.D. Reiss has me reevaluating my opinion about first person.

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