What do y’all think about my L? I love it! I love the corsets I use most often, too, but I love this L! I think as people see it more, they’ll associate it with me and that whole recognition and branding thing that I’ve been reading about will maybe take effect. Who knows. We’ll see…

Anyway, I’ve been writing, focusing heavily on the 3rd Blue Jeans and Hard Hats book, Forever In Blue Jeans. It’s been a long, LONG time coming, this book. I know you, my readers, are very anxious for it.

This is Cort and Blue’s story and it’s been interesting to say the least. They have a past that no one knows about prior to this book. I didn’t even know until they told ME they had a past. Talk about being taken for a ride. There are hurt feelings, angry feelings, there’s some angry sex as some issues are worked out.

I thought, though, that I’d share an unedited excerpt with you (unedited in that my editor hasn’t gone through it yet with the hacksaw). It’s not a kinky excerpt. It’s not a hot sexy excerpt. It’s just kind of a fun excerpt. I hope y’all enjoy it!

Excerpt:

Blue watched the man across the island from her. He was turning the plate, this way and that. He even took a good sniff of the cake and scrunched up his nose. She couldn’t blame him. The alcohol was quite strong in it.

Another thing she couldn’t do was believe he was sitting there. Of all the men in the world, this one shows up at her door as Decker and Buck’s electrician friend. He was still just as gorgeous as he’d been that night in Savannah when she’d picked him up in that bar on the river. His hair was a little longer in the front than it had been before, his eyes were still that bottomless dark chocolate brown, and his scruff, which given that it was early still in the day must have been on purpose made him so much sexier than the clean cut, close shaven man she shared beer and sex with. Though, damn, she’d take either version of him any day of the week.

He wore those really nice, but casual work pants, crisply creased down the center of the leg where an iron had been taken to them along with a crisply ironed button down the front blue cotton shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up his forearms revealing muscles and hair that matched that on top of his head.

But that he was there, in her house, in her kitchen…

He remembered her. She knew that the moment he drove up and spotted her. He remembered that night and he remembered what she’d done. Coward. She’d taken the coward’s way out and left while he was sleeping. She hadn’t wanted to, but after sex with him, talking with him, laughing with him, it really was the only option she had. She didn’t get close to men, didn’t get close to anyone really. She had Rosie and her aunt who’d just passed away. Well, and there was Neil, too, but being his best friend hadn’t been her decision or choice. He just kind of wormed his way in and refused to leave. But Cort… She didn’t know what to do about him now anymore than she knew what to do about him then. She wasn’t the fairy tale believing kind of woman and had never believed in love at first sight until she saw Cort walk up to the bar.

And then she’d left him, snoring softly in that big comfy bed, in that fancy hotel. Of all the sex she’d ever had, that had been one to make her sing. Every time he touched her, her blood boiled and she teetered on the edge of orgasm. Every time he whispered against her skin, she spread wider and lifted higher. Every time he looked at her, she ached all over from her head to her chest to her belly to her pussy to her toes. He was the one and she’d run so far and so fast and damn fate for throwing him back at her.

His fork clinked against the china plate and drew her full attention back to him and the piece of cake. Blue watched him take a bite, then she giggled when he sputtered as the alcohol hit the back of his tongue. She promptly handed him the glass of water she had waiting for him.

“Christ.” He continued to cough and his eyes began to water.

He’d been all proper and business-like with her since he’d arrived except for that little temper tantrum he’d had in his truck when recognition of her must have dawned. He hadn’t been quite so buttoned up when they’d met years ago and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was in part, her fault. She hoped not. She didn’t want to bear that guilt as well as what she already bore from running away at dawn.

He took a few sips of the water then gulped down the entire glass, his movements drawing her out of her thoughts. Again.

“What’s in that thing?” he asked, pointing to the piece of cake with his fork, staring at it as though it might bite him.

In a way, it had, she mused.

“That is vanilla bean bourbon cake, except I didn’t have bourbon. I had to use dark spiced rum. It’s the buttered rum glaze that really gets you, that adds the extra kick. It starts out with the sweetness of the butter, but then hits with the rum.”

“You might want to warn a guy next time.”

Blue took the glass and refilled it. She handed it back to him with a grin. “And miss that reaction? Not on your life.”

For the first time since he’d arrived, he smiled at her. A genuine, open smile and her belly tightened, sending a shockwave down between her thighs. This was not the tight, polite business smile he’d given her on the porch. She’d developed an instant hunger for him in Savannah and seeing him again, here at her home in Blue Ridge, that hunger was back and ravenous. She’d recognized him as soon as he’d recognized her. Her insides had flipped over and her nipples had tightened.

It had taken everything within her to greet him with courtesy and respect rather than with her arms thrown around his neck and her legs hitched around his waist.

She suspected he would have been shocked by it. Looking at him, watching him, the way he carried himself now, the proper, professional questions he asked, the hesitancy before he took the piece of cake from her, she was of the mind that he wouldn’t have welcomes such an overtly sexual greeting. All business and hiding that kind of attraction would be near impossible, though she’d been doing it since he arrived so it was entirely possible he could too. It was in the looks he gave her when he thought she couldn’t see them, however. It was in the way his fingers curled in then stretched out. It was in the way he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

He might be angry with her, hurt by her, even resentful toward her, all of which she would understand, but he wanted her, too. “Do you still drink only dark, imported beers?” she asked softly, figuring she would test the waters of…she had no idea. His eyes widened and he began sputtering again. Blue bit back a smile. She had to admit, catching him off guard was kinda fun.

“I, ah… I…” He drank half the glass of water. When he put it down, he glanced over at her, then away. “No.” The word came out sounding like a croak. It was cute. He took another long drink of the water and when he’d collected himself, he raised his gaze to her, solid and sure. “I haven’t had one of those since that night.”

“So, what do you drink now?” Inane, dumb conversation to be having and by the look on his face, he thought the same thing, but she wanted to… She didn’t know what she wanted right then. She just knew she had to try and get beyond that outward mask of his.

“Domestic swill.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t stomach the other anymore.”

His gaze hadn’t dropped from hers and she wondered if he was also saying he couldn’t stomach her. The idea of that hurt far more than she was willing or wanting or daring to admit. “I see.” She took his plate and put it in the sink.” Is working on my house going to be a problem for you?”

“Not for me, no. I can’t speak for you.” Blue didn’t believe in beating around the bush, especially one she intended to jump right on into. She was crazy, she knew it. Crazy about him, crazy to try and push him into admitting he still felt it. Lucky for her, she was Southern and crazy ran in even the best of Southern families. Crazy was often not only invited down to dinner, but expected to head the table.

She covered the glass pedestal cake plate and gently pushed it to the side, then offered up a smile. “I don’t have a problem with it, Cort.” She turned on her flip-flopped heel and walked out the back door toward the carriage house she occupied.

“I’m here to visit my friends and consider working on your house, though perhaps I need to reconsider the latter,” he uttered from behind her.

He’d followed her out of the house. The passion and desire still sizzled between them. The circumstances were a bit different and quite a few years had passed, but the sparks were there, if not a little rusty and frayed. “You want the job and it’s yours.” Statement, not question.

“You can’t know that I do.”

At the front door of the house and with her hand on the knob, she looked over at him. “You’re still here, aren’t you?” He didn’t like being read and he didn’t like someone else being able to predict him. She could see that in his eyes, in his defiant stance. Too bad so sad. He was just going to have to get over it. “Besides there are things I remember about that night aside from the sex.”

She stepped out of her flops and walked into the bright living room of her home. The walls were painted a pretty yellow, nothing too orange, nothing too white. It was a rich warm color, but bright enough to make one feel happy, cheerful. He followed her in and all the breath whooshed out of him. For a moment, she stood with her back to him, giving him some time to take it all in.

end excerpt

Have a good day!

~lissa