by Mlissa | Nov 29, 2013 | Holidays, self publishing
…And people are or have been out shopping. Gravitating toward the best sales EVER! The stores open earlier, the crowds are larger, the discounts deeper… And yet, I stay at home. I like a deal just like everyone else, but I’ve worked retails and restaurant and service on holidays, I’ve been away from my family, and I’ve worked the day after holidays… Once you’ve done that, something about flocking to the stores loses some of it’s luster.
I wasn’t always such a bah-humbug about it. I loved going to the stores the day after Thanksgiving as a kid. I didn’t know what it meant for those working though… Yes, I’ll pay more. Yes, my visit to the store isn’t going to make a difference one way or the other to anyone working or not. It’s just my personal preference.
There are online deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This Saturday is also Small Business Saturday… I’ll take part in all that. I am, afterall, a small business myself and as such, I’ve dropped the prices on my self-published titles to $0.99 through Monday at midnight, including my new releases Love and Tattoos and The Cupcake Cowboy. If you haven’t read these or tried some of my others, now’s your chance!
At All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon, the following titles are newly marked down for the holiday shopping weekend…
Do you shop small, local businesses? They can be more expensive than chain stores, I agree. I love the feel of them though, the personal touch, and the uniqueness of their stock. Of course, it’s also Rivalry Weekend in college football so any shopping I do will be done before noon! Priorities people! I’ll also do several handmade and food gifts. I love baking for people. What bugs me is that people look down their noses at it as being cheap, but when you really think about it, it’s not cheap at all. If you’ve gone to the grocery store to shop for anything, you know food isn’t cheap. It’s more difficult nowadays, yes with so many on different eating plans and diets and so many allergies. But even then, the possibilities are endless.
I like small and thoughtful, something that means something. Of course, there are always those who are difficult to make and shop for. Those who have everything, or buy everything all through the year, or who change completely and you don’t know them anymore or what they like… People talk about gift cards being impersonal, but c’mon now… Who honestly doesn’t love a gift card to their favorite stores? I know I do!
So, while you’re shopping, pick up my books that are on sale, gift them to someone, or to yourself… I’ve gifted books a ton and I know people who love to read, always love that!
For me, I’m going to refill my coffee and head into writing. The Sticky Cowgirl comes out in January!
~lissa
by Mlissa | May 18, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s been a very busy week for me and the weekend is no different. I’ve barely been on my computer. Needless to say my writing is taking a hit. However, thankfully, I can’t blame the races on that.
Today’s topic. You Were Always On My Mind. I always hear Willie in my head when I hear those words.
And I have the perfect story from which to pull a snippet.
“Green as in eco?” Blue was completely interested and found the idea fascinating. She could see that being a very lucrative business. Cabins like that could potentially bring in money from wealthy vacationers which would boost the local tourist economy. Of course, it was kind of going in the opposite direction of a bed and breakfast, which also would need to thrive on tourism. There was room a plenty for both kinds of accommodations.
She’d lived there all her life, as had Rosie. They knew drawing more people from outside could help the older businesses and more solidly establish the new ones. It would bring more attention to the mountains. Even though there would always be those who’d want to destroy the beauty with their money, there’d be others who’d want to preserve it, just as she did. “I wonder why no one has thought of that before. You’re talking for rentals?”
“Yeah.”
“And for buying,” Decker added, grabbing Rosie and holding her against the front his body. “We want to build a couple of cabins first and put them up for sale. Use a couple as demos and test cabins, but overall, we want to build to suit owners and if they want to rent them, so be it.”
Blue zeroed in on Cort. “So that really is why you left this morning? The only reason?” She didn’t try to hide her questions or ask it softly so no one else would hear.
And there it was, a guilty flush. He looked away but those dark blue eyes quickly met hers again quickly. There was heat there and vulnerability too.
He didn’t squirm or fidget or try to look away. He held her stare as he answered. “Yes.”
“It could have been handled better.”
“It could have,” he admitted. “But, in my defense, I did kiss you before I left. You just didn’t wake up.”
“You should have tried harder.” It seemed as though she were grasping for straws, but she needed him to know how she’d felt. He’d let her know how it had hurt him to be left. They didn’t handle it the same way. He did with openly hurt feelings and anger. She did it with pointed questions, and sarcasm. Life in their house wouldn’t be boring.
“I knew I’d see you again, so I let you sleep.”
“That’s exactly what I told her,” Rosie interjected. Blue shot her a look but all she received in return was a grin.
“A note, maybe?”
He let out a sigh through thinned lips as he clenched his jaw. “Look, I handled it wrong. I get that. So wrong it seems that I drove you to eat a whole pie. Next time I will shake you until you rattle, or roll you onto the floor to wake you before I leave. I was trying to be nice in letting you sleep since we were up half the night fucking.”
Blue snickered. Cort’s voice had gone from soft to loud, to louder, to almost yelling with each word. “For someone who doesn’t like to make a scene, you sure are making one.”
He looked stunned for a moment but quickly recovered. “Yes, I am.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair and glared at her without any real anger. “Are you going to tell me what you were thinking had happened and why you felt the need to eat pie or shall I take a guess?”
Blue shrugged. “I just felt like it.” She couldn’t help the defiant tone in her voice anymore than she could help the happiness she felt deep down inside at his appearance and his obvious irritation at her wayward thoughts. She knew that he knew what had crossed her mind. She didn’t have to admit it out loud.
“Right,” he said, not bothering to hide his skepticism. “And you can’t make pie?”
She shook her head. “Not like Rosie can.”
“Then I’ll definitely have to try some.” He studied her for a moment. “Let me see. You weren’t perhaps thinking that I left with no intention of coming back, were you?”
“Of course not.” There was no way she would tell him the truth. No. Way. Her shame at having left him followed her, but she wouldn’t let him know that she feared he would do the same to her. Especially after their time together throughout the weekend.
“Pretty little liar. That’s exactly what you thought.”
Blue shook her head but kept the eye contact.
He smiled. “Yes, you did.” But then he sobered. “Friday night, I might have. I might have taken you to bed and left as you did, pay you back with that same empty, panicked feeling in your chest that the best fucking thing to ever happen to you was gone, but you were drunk, and I couldn’t take advantage of you like that.”
Well, at least he didn’t make how he’d felt a subtle thing and the fact that he’d aimed her exact thoughts at her… “But at Rosie’s, you said we should fuck like rabbits to get it out of our systems.”
“Yes, I did. And we have fucked enough to make the rabbits proud, I think, but I wasn’t trying to get you out of my system, Blue. Shit, you’ve been with me every day for the last five years. I knew there was no way taking you to bed was going to do anything more than work you deeper inside me. I said that that night just because I was… Hell, pissed? I don’t know. Seeing you was the last thing I’d expected and the one thing I needed.”
She knew that feeling well. “So, where does that leave us?” Okay, so that question totally disregarded her resolve last night to live in the moment, but that was then and this was now, a few hours and one pie later. She sighed. “No, never mind. Don’t answer that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an unfair question. Spending one night together doesn’t make a relationship that has a future. It means one night of great sex and…God, Cort, I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what? Have a relationship?”
“Yeah. Or this.” She waved her hand in the air between them. “I’ve never been good with the interpersonal stuff, with the emotional stuff. I don’t know how to handle it. I want it. I want it so desperately with you, but I don’t know how to do it. I’ve never really had a relationship. Lovers. Friends with benefits.” She slid her gaze over the diner, focusing on the pie case. “And if this feeling is what comes with being in a relationship with someone, then maybe I don’t want it as much as I think I do. I’ll be as big as a house, always running to Rosie for pie when there are problems.” She buried her face in her hands. Who knew she would be the one so emotionally torn up? Who knew she’d be the one scared to death of… Well, anyone who knew her would’ve known she’d be scared of being in love. “Love hurts too much.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Cort reached out and gently tugged her hand away from her face, not letting go, but curling his fingers around hers. “You just have to trust it, trust your partner, trust me. And believe me, if I can, you can.”
“Everyone I’ve ever loved has left me.”
“Dying is different than leaving you, baby. They didn’t want to leave, they simply had no choice.”
“You have a choice, though. What if you want to leave?” She hated asking that. She was now the one showing her vulnerability, her insecurity. She, who posed for pictures of her tattoos, who traveled the country, who was undertaking a large renovation project, was scared and insecure. She’d done so much stuff on her own that now she was afraid of losing the one thing she wanted to hold onto.
“I can’t imagine that, but the reality is, Blue, that neither one of us knows what will happen. You might find you don’t love me anymore.”
She started to deny it, but had to admit he was right. The rational part of her knew her parents, her aunt, hadn’t left because they’d wanted to, but her broken heart had never completely healed. She was strong, independent, full of life, went her own way, but she was still aching inside to feel that connection with someone, have someone to spend the days with, and now, the nights.
This book wasn’t well received by readers, but I sure loved writing it and love these characters…
I have errands to run now before the All-Star Race and you have other snippets to read…
Myla Jackson
Lauren Dane
Leah Braemel
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
Jody Wallace
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
TJ Michaels
Mari Carr
~lissa
by Mlissa | Jan 5, 2013 | Uncategorized
There’s emotion in my writing for sure. Sometimes I even get called on it, in a bad way. It’s angsty. It’s hard. It’s definitely not sugar-coated or easy or glossed over. I like emotion in my books though. The ones I write and the ones I read. I don’t want light and fluffy and forgetful. I want ones that wrench my guts out, that make my heart pound, that make my eyes tear up, that make my stomach churn…
The books I find lately that do this are not the M/F books but rather the M/M books. I do find that a bit sad that I can’t find a good M/F book that gives me a good punch to the solar-plexis and makes me catch my breath… Even if it’s for just a moment… Even if it’s self-destructive in parts… Make me feel something. Love or hate it, make me FEEL something.
“Blue, we need to talk.” The words slipped from his mouth before he even realized they were on his tongue.
“Do we? Do we need to have another conversation about Neil and how I’m not sleeping with him? Or is it about us? Or not us? Are you even sure we need to talk? I thought we just needed to fuck, to have angry sex. Or is that what you need to do? Have angry sex with me until you…I don’t know until what. I’m so confused. One minute you act like you want me, the next minute you act like you want anything but me.”
He nodded and was proud of the fact that he didn’t wince at the chill in her voice. She also, toward the end, had sounded deflated, defeated. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want her to give up. “I know.”
“You know? Well good for you because I don’t seem to. Explain it to me, Cort. Explain to me what you know.” She sat down heavily in a chair at the kitchen table, her breasts bouncing, swaying and again, he was caught, momentarily unable to form a single, solid thought..
He debated suggesting clothes for the both of them, but if she was good with their mutual nudity, then so was he. He pulled a couple of cups from the cabinet, grabbed the press, and took both to the table before taking the cream from the fridge and picking up the sugar bowl, all the while very aware of her eyes following him. He set them on the table as well, pulled out a chair, and moved it in front of her, remembering at the last second they needed spoons to stir with. He got those and sat down.
It was his turn to sigh. He never, ever thought to have this conversation with anyone, her included, but Blue deserved the truth, deserved to know that she wasn’t the reason, only the excuse. If he wanted any kind of relationship with her, he had to open up.
God, he felt sick. He busied his hands by pushing the plunger down on the coffee press and pouring equal amounts into the cups. He took a deep breath and let the words pour out, not quite as smooth as the coffee had.
“Her name was Alicia. We met our junior year in college when I was playing baseball. Her boyfriend at the time was one of my teammates. She and I spent a few months trying to ignore each other because we both felt something, but eventually she broke up with him. He didn’t care and didn’t hold a grudge. She and I were inseparable from that moment on, and after graduation, we moved in together.”
“Were you in love with her?”
Blue never took her eyes off him and he fought the urge to shift against the wood seat of the chair. Neither had touched the coffee since he’d poured it. “Yes, I was in love with her.”
“Was she in love with you?”
He’d known the question was coming, but hearing it and actually having to form the answer made the knots in his stomach twist tighter. She’d asked it softly, almost hesitantly, and it was the first time he’ really allowed himself to believe she was as vulnerable in all this between them as he was. She had feelings for him the same as he had for her and listening to the tale about the woman that first broke his heart had to be as hard to hear as it was for him to tell.
The memory of the moment Alicia told him she didn’t want to marry him, the feel of his world finally crashing down around him after he’d seen the cracks in the walls for so long still had the power to make his chest constrict. “No. She was in lust with me. She loved me but not the way I loved her. I wanted to get married, her family wanted us to get married, all our friends thought we would get married. In the end, though, we didn’t. We didn’t want the same things out of life.”
“You wanted the white picket fence, and she wanted what?”
“Money. Her career. Hot Sex. A roommate. A friend. Anything but the white picket fence.”
“You didn’t figure that out in college?”
Cort shook his head and finally reached for his coffee, needing to do something with his hands. “Things changed after she was offered a very coveted associate position at a big law firm down in Denver. We went our own ways about two years after school, but we’d been over long before we actually split up. She moved away from Boise when I brought up marriage again. I went about it the wrong way. Told her I’d go with her if she’d marry me. She walked out the door without a word, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“And that put you off women?”
He laughed without humor or lightness. “No, I love women.”
“Okay.” She smiled and reached for her cup, a spoon, and the sugar cubes. “She put you off trying to find the kind of woman you wanted?” She lifted the cup and took a sip, spitting it back in almost immediately. “What in the hell did you do to the coffee?”
There was humor in his laugh this time. He took a sip of his own coffee and nearly spit it across the room. God, it was awful. “No idea.”
“Tastes like mud.”
She made a face and stuck her tongue out as though it could rid itself of the taste. He understood completely. He took their cups and dumped them in the sink at the same time she got up and grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge. She popped the top on both and set one down for him on the table and took a long swig of her own.
He was grateful and tipped his bottle toward her before taking a long pull. He sat in the chair again.
“So? Gonna answer my question? She put you off trying to find who? Suzie Homemaker?”
He flinched. She faced him with that pointed stare again, and he put off the answer some more with another swallow of beer, smiling inside at the smooth slide down his throat. He really didn’t like the name brand domestic ones. They were almost as bad as that pot of coffee. He called it ‘domestic swill’ yesterday. The small microbrewery ones, though, like the one she’d just given him, he enjoyed trying those out. “Something like that, I guess.” He tilted the beer and looked at the label. It was from a small town in Texas and he’d have to make sure to remember the name. He’d like to try it out again.
“Something like that you guess?”
She sounded as though she didn’t believe him anymore than he believed himself. “I don’t know, Blue. I just know that after she left, I lost the desire to settle down. She was supposed to be the one, and it blew up in my face.”
“Do you believe there’s just one someone meant for everyone?”
“I don’t know that either.” Two more swallows and he’d have to get another beer in order to finish this conversation. He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension building in his muscles. He didn’t do shit like this. Not anymore at least. Not since Alicia. He didn’t pour out his heart, and it was grating on him.
“And what about me?”
His gaze flew to her face. “You?”
“Yes. Because of her, you gave up on finding love again. What did I do?”
“You left.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. What did it make you want to do?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
Could he give her the truth? He scooted his chair closer to her, invading her space. She watched but she didn’t move to get away. “I wanted to find you. I spent all day after I woke up looking for you. I scoured Savannah from one end to the other looking for you. I sat in that goddamn bar all night hoping you would walk in. I stayed one more night hoping you’d come back to the room.”
She looked surprised, and for the first time in five years, something cracked in his chest.
“You did? You did all that for me?”
“I wanted you. I wanted you in my bed again. I wanted your smile as you straddled me. I wanted your laugh when I tickled you unexpectedly. I wanted to hold you against me and listen to you whisper your dreams to me. I wanted to hold you while you slept. I wanted everything, Blue, but you never came back, and each hour that passed, each minute that ticked by, I became more and more angry at you, at her.”
“At least I’m not the only one.”
“You didn’t have to leave.”
She looked down, fiddled with her fingers. “Do you ever wish it had just been a normal one night stand? That it had been nothing more than sex?”
He didn’t hesitate in answering. “Not for a second. Do you?”
“No.” One corner of her mouth lifted in a smile when she lifted her gaze back to his., then she raised her eyes back to his. His cock twitched. He’d known he was getting hard again. The old anger fueled his lust, and he was doing the best he could to ignore it. Now that she’d drawn conscious attention to it, he couldn’t any longer.
His cock filled almost immediately and stood proud, slightly to the left. His gaze dropped to her nipples, and the longer he stared at them, the harder they became. Two could play that game. If he looked lower, though, between her legs where he wanted to bury himself, he’d be a lost man.
He dragged his focus back to her face. No, they had to get through this once and for all. They needed to move on or move away. He couldn’t work on her house and be near her without wanting her. He couldn’t stay in the area and work with his friends without wanting her. Whatever the hell hold she had on him, it was there to stay. Five years hadn’t done anything but make the ache worse, and seeing her now, again, more beautiful than before…
“Cort?”
There was softness, a little pleading, a question. He had to ignore that too. Dammit, she wasn’t making this easy. “Why did you leave, Blue? Tell me why you left me.”
Please visit the following blogs for more Emotion-filled snippets…
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Delilah Devlin
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TJ Michaels
by Mlissa | Jul 7, 2012 | Uncategorized
I can’t get the song out of my head now! C’mon, y’all sing along too with Peaches and Herb in your head. If you’re old enough to remember the words, that is…
“Reunited and it feels so good
Reunited ‘cuz we understood
There’s one perfect fit and sugar this one is it
We both are so excited ‘cuz we’re reunited, hey-hey”
Okay well, now, back to present day…lol. Reunited is today’s theme and I have the perfect book for that. But it’s not the kind of sexy snippet you’re probably expecting. See, Buck (Sweet Caroline), Decker (Cracklin’ Rosie) and Cort (Forever In Blue Jeans) have been friends for years, but it’s been a long time since the three of them have been together in the same place… And it’s one of the reasons I love this book.
Snippet:
Cort stood against the deck railing of Buck and Caroline’s house. “Cabins, huh? I thought you just lured me up here to set me up with a woman needing an electrician.”
Buck grinned. “The cabins, for sure. The set-up? I ain’t copping to that.”
“Uh-huh,” Cort said skeptically. He knew them better than they thought he did. “Tell me about your business idea.”
“I want to construct cabins all up and down the mountains. I could see it the second I got up here. Everything is natural and awe inspiring.”
“I can’t argue with that. It is something else. A whole other world surrounded by these trees and all the nature, but aren’t there already a ton of cabins around here?”
“Yeah.”
Cort waited for Buck to elaborate, but when he didn’t… “Then what would make ours special?”
“Green.”
“Green? As in color or eco?”
“Eco.”
“Damn, Buck.” Cort whistled low. “You realize how expensive that would be? Not only for us but for the buyers?” Buck sat forward, an earnest look on his face and in his eyes. Cort knew that look well and braced himself.
“Look, we’ve all done a little eco building over the last few years. We all have some contacts in different areas. We can all learn, get the certification, but I think it would be our unique niche. Especially if we can make it more affordable. The cabins might be a little smaller, but I know we can make this work. I’ve put a lot of thought into it. I’ve made a lot of phone calls. There aren’t many green cabins up here yet. I think it’s a good time to do this.”
Cort couldn’t argue with that. The three of them could get any certification they needed and Buck was right, between them, they had all the contact names and numbers. He also couldn’t deny how often he’d thought of working alongside his friends. Maybe he–
“Have y’all seen the blue haze of the mountains in the distance?” Caroline spoke up from her seat on the arm of Buck’s chair.
The way Buck looked up at her when she said anything, the way he was always touching her, whether it be her hair or her back or just her arm, Cort had never seen his friend look happier, more content. Same way Decker was with Rosie. His friends had each found “the one”, and while he would never have admitted to believing in her for himself, he knew she existed, had in fact existed for the last five years.
“No.” Cort shook his head.
“Well, they’re called the Blue Ridge Mountains for a reason. The haze comes from the trees, from a chemical they emit into the atmosphere. It mixes with other chemicals in the air and creates a haze, moisture to protect the leaves from the sun. It’s one of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen.”
“It sure is. There are some mornings Rosie drags me out of bed just to look out over the mountains.”
Cort laughed. “You’re so whipped.”
“Not as whipped as she is.” Decker winked as he said it and grinned from ear to ear.
“Okay, okay.” Cort held up his hands in surrender. “TMI, man, TMI. Back to this business idea. Equal shares?”
Buck laughed and nodded. “Equal shares.”
“And you’re both certain you want to get into this?”
“I am.”
“Me too.”
Cort looked from one to the other of his two best friends in the world. He knew they wouldn’t steer him in a direction that was wrong or unstable, even though at the present time the construction industry was a bit on the unstable side. But the eco-boom going on would provide some interesting challenges, experiences, and income. He wasn’t one to shy away from the challenges, and it wasn’t as though he had a permanent address right then. He tried not to think of Blue, of her address and how it could likely be his too, of how things had been left when Neil arrived and gave Cort an excuse to leave.
Before arriving in Blue Ridge, he’d have said he didn’t care to settle down anymore. He was happy roaming, not being any one place for too long. On the surface, anyway. Deep down he wanted what he’d always wanted: the wife, the white picket fence, the kids, and pets. He wanted the summer evenings on the front porch and the Christmases complete with decorations and lights and midnight assemblies of toys.
He pulled himself from those thoughts and refocused on the conversation at hand. It was iffy that Blue would even have him for a lover now, much less as more. “How hands-on would we be?”
Buck slid back in his seat and wrapped his arm around Caroline. “I figure at least one of us would have to travel to each site pretty regular, and I want to do the actual building on-site. I don’t want to manufacture something and have it shipped in. I want to build on-site. I want to use as much of the natural materials of the land as possible. I know we’ll need to hire a few people, but for the most part, I want us to do the work. It’ll help keep some of the costs down and we’ll be able to keep an eye on everything from the ground up.”
“How much funding do you think it’s going to take outside of what we each contribute?”
Buck smirked. “More than I want to think about. My father will pony up some as an investment, and a few of his guys will be available to us as workers.”
“We always talked about going into business together. Now that Decker and I are in the same area, we’d hoped you’d consider joining us.”
“Yeah, man. It’s time, I think. We’re settling down, or at least Buck and I are settling down. I think it’s something we all would like and like Buck, I don’t think there’s a better place to do something like this.”
He couldn’t argue with either friend. “I assume you have figures and a business plan.” Cort was the more cautious of the three of them. Always wanting to know everything up front. Always needing to know where the exits were. It had served him well, but it also kept him from experiencing a lot of the spontaneous fun in life. Decker and Buck were forever telling him to lighten up, to just have fun, to just live in the moment without having to know all the details before making a decision.
At the same time, this was a big damn decision and a lot of damn money. Not that he didn’t have more than enough to put into this new venture, and they wouldn’t steer him wrong, but he needed to see all the facts and projections.
Buck nodded. “Yes, I have everything you need to look at.”
“Good. I’ll do that and get you an answer in a few days. When are you looking to get this underway?”
“I want to have everything in place by the time the ground thaws in the spring.”
“All right. That will give me enough time to finish up a few projects I’d committed to for the next few months.”
“You got more than Blue’s place to do?” Buck asked, taking a swallow of tea.
The move prompted Cort to pick up his own glass of tea. It was the best sweet iced tea he’d ever had. While he was a boy from out West, he had developed quite a taste for the Southern elixir. “Yeah. There’s a townhouse in Charleston, and in the fall, I need to head out to Texas for a job that was put on hold a while back. The guy thinks he’ll have the money to finish it up before winter.”
“If it would help, I can work on Blue’s place.”
“I’m the electrician.”
“I can do some.”
Cort grinned. “Yeah, but I can do it all. Besides, you’re not the expert on historical homes.”
Decker shielded his eyes. “Okay, you two. Put the dicks away. I don’t really care to see you compare whose is bigger.”
Caroline grinned. “You might not, but I wouldn’t mind seeing.”
“Like hell.” Buck held up his hands in surrender. “I give. You’re right, but if she needs any general work…”
“Yeah yeah. I can do that too, remember?” Buck had a lover he was head over heels for, but that didn’t mean Cort was going to give the other man any reason to spend an inordinate amount of time with Blue.
Good God, he was jealous. There was nothing to be jealous about, but damn… What the hell other explanation was there?
“I haven’t been out to the plantation yet, but Rosie said it really is beautiful.”
“It is. It’s been well taken care of, and it’ll be great as a bed and breakfast.”
“It’s not open to the public right now, though, is it?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think she’s concentrating on the renovations. It’ll need work after the electrical is done. Looks like electric light was added back in the forties, but the last work that was done was around the sixties or seventies.”
“So you’re rewiring the whole house?”
“Yeah. I’m going to hire some local guys, maybe from down in Atlanta to come and help me out. No way I can do it all myself. I need to go through the place, make some calls, and write up an estimate. It won’t be cheap, but she’ll get exactly what she wants.”
Buck nodded. “I’ve made a few contacts just over the Tennessee border. There are some local guys who grew up around these areas that might be willing to lend a hand.”
“You think there’s some that are skilled enough?”
“Won’t know until we start asking around. Might be good to train some of the young guys around here. A lot of them could stay, and the more that stay, the more work that’s needed.”
“Rosie said there’s a lot of tourism around this time of year and into the fall,” Decker added.
“Yeah. Busy times up here. Could draw more people if there were more places for them to stay. Not to mention, it could bring in a whole different type of clientele.”
“You’re really getting into this small-town thing, aren’t you?”
“I am. I never thought I’d like a town this small, but Caroline was right. It kind of grows on you.”
“And you?” Cort turned his gaze on Decker who looked him square in the eye. “You’ve always traveled everywhere, just like me. You’re okay here? You like it?”
“Yeah, man. I do. It’s time to stop roaming.” Cort wasn’t ready to admit he agreed. He only nodded and finished off his glass of tea.
“We’ve got time to see how it all shakes out. For now, though, I’m hitting the hay.”
Decker snorted. “That’s not all you’re gonna be hittin’.”
Buck grinned. “Nope. Y’all can show yourselves off Caroline’s porch.”
Cort and Decker watched as Caroline slid off the arm of Buck’s chair, saw the look in the man’s eyes when she went inside. Buck followed her through the glass doors and locked them firmly behind himself. “Well, I guess that’s our cue.”
end Snippet
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Have a great Saturday!
~lissa
by Mlissa | May 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
Ever had one of those ‘oh my bad’ moments? Yes of course you have. WE have ALL had one of those moments. A lot of us have had more than one of those moments.
But that’s what the snippet is about today… One of those moments.
My for shame moment, oops my bad moment is in the middle of the snippet.
Snippet:
Blue lifted her head just as suddenly as she’d laid it down. “What?”
“I do. I have since that night in Savannah, too. It happened before we even hit the hotel room. I knew I was a goner the second you laughed I was even happy about it. For the first time in years, I wanted someone. You. If I hadn’t thought for sure you felt it too, I’d have never taken you to bed. There was something different about you and me and how I felt. It had been a long time and it blindsided me. In a good way. I didn’t question it. I just went for it.”
Blue’s heart sank. “And then I left.”
Cort nodded. “And then you left.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?”
“Why wouldn’t you have taken me to bed?”
“One-night stands have never been my style. Even these last few years, the women… I was in relationships with them. Sex only, but we were always exclusive.”
“That’s why you didn’t wish ours had been a normal one.” She pressed her forehead to his. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He looked up from under his lashes. He stared at her so long she wasn’t sure he was going to say anything else or accept her apology. She did genuinely feel bad about leaving, and she could even put the argument out there that it had hurt her just as much to leave him as it seemed to have hurt him.
“I th–“
“Hey, B!”
Blue dropped her head to Cort’s shoulder again and groaned as the front door slammed open and shut. Neil.
“I brought your car back and thought we could–Oh! Oh my.”
“Go away, Neil,” she said without picking her head up.
“Right. Gone.”
“No, it’s all right,” Cort interjected. He nudged Blue backward a little, a deep red flush staining his cheeks. His cum was sticky as their abs slid apart.
She looked at him, reluctant to let the moment end, to let things go unsaid and unfinished yet again, but the resolve and shuttered look in his eyes told her things between them would have to wait. She scooted off his lap, and he was up and out of the kitchen before she could say anything.
“B, I’m sorry. I didn’t think y’all would be…” Neil said from the other side of the kitchen wall.
Blue stuck her head around the corner and dragged him closer by the sleeve. “You still could have knocked. You saw his truck out there. You’re not an idiot. What was happening was exactly what all of you were hoping would happen. Only sex didn’t solve or resolve anything.”
He screwed up his face in a look of pitiful disgust. “Not as good as you remembered it being, huh?”
Blue sighed and walked around him to clear the table. She dropped the empty beer bottles in the recycle bin that was built under one of the corners of the counter, then proceeded to wash the coffee mugs and French press. A smile crossed her lips as she remembered how awful that coffee had been.
“It was better than I remembered it being,” she said softly.
Have a good weekend and Neil, is nothing short of a menace… I love him.
~lissa
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