Rite of Summer update!

image

Like Rite of Summer on GoodReads

I finished my edits and author’s note and such last night; now it’s off to the copy editor to catch any typos and/or TERRIBLE MISTAKES that slipped through the cracks. 

My editor has been so awesome, guys. I can’t tell you how important having a good editor is to this process. (Jigsaw puzzles weren’t a thing until the 20th century. I didn’t realize that. But she did! It’s the little things that matter in the aggregate. <3 )

I have a blog tour booked for May; more details forthcoming as they get things organized at their end. There will be a giveaway going up soon as well. I have all the gifts, I just need to take some half-decent photos for the post. 

Mark your social diaries now — I’ll be doing an online launch party on June 2nd, currently looking at 6 pm – 11 pm Eastern time (7-midnight Atlantic, after which I turn into an incoherent pumpkin). I’ll have links up for the chatroom closer to the day. 

Heeeeeere we goooo!

Rite of Summer, teaser preview

To celebrate getting my edits in! Here’s the first page or two of the book, to whet your appetites for June. Text isn’t exactly safe for work, unless you’re my editor. <3

(Flag it as ‘to read’ on Goodreads, and be alerted the moment it releases!)


There were few things in the world asperfect as Evander’s prick.

It was neither misshapen nor too small, nor
curved oddly to the side. When it rose with his arousal, jutting hard and
red-tipped from the cloud of golden curls at the base, it was as magnificent a
creation as the tower of Pisa all the way over in far-distant Italy.

If Stephen were to write odes and sonnets—on
pricks in general or Evander’s in particular—they would not focus on the look
of it, but the feel. On the heavy weight that filled Stephen up and broke him
open, in arse or mouth alike; the heat of his skin, so soft when so much else
about him was rough; on the salt-slick slide as he thrust in over Stephen’s
tongue and held there, gasping.

Evander’s prick was the epitome of all
things that were erotic and beautiful in the world.

Loving the man would be easier if Evander
didn’t think so as well.

The thought veered too close to blasphemy; time
to focus on the task at hand.

The noise of the busy London street carried
on outside the shuttered windows of their lodgings. Inside, all was quiet but
for their panting breaths and the wet slide of spit and skin.

The uneven floorboards pressed ridges into
his knees, his lips stretched around the prick in his mouth. The taste of
Evander’s arousal mixed with the remnants of the wine they’d shared, passing
the same bottle back and forth until there was nothing left but dregs.

There was little hope of a breeze on the
best of days, and this sultry summer afternoon was not one of those. Evander
had persisted in wandering around in only his linen shirt and drawers, the
light garments clinging to his lithe frame and his blond hair sticking, damp,
to the back of his neck. Accompanied by the utterly obscene way he had lifted
the bottle to his lips, it had made their current position inevitable.

Stephen’s fingers clenched on Evander’s
thighs, dug in to the solid dips and curves of his muscles, stroked across the
smattering of fair hair. His own prick ached, hard and damp, his trousers too
tight and harsh where they rubbed. He dropped a hand to palm at himself. The
pressure was the barest edge of relief, muted by the wool and linen of his
clothing. He groaned aloud, the sound muffled around the thick cock in his
mouth. Evander thrust in reaction to the vibrations, his fingers clenching in
the bedclothes. Gasps spilled from his lips as he arched, threw his head back
and came.

“Come up here,” Evander ordered, the
command softened by the drowsy satiation in his voice.

Stephen swallowed around Evander’s prick
one last time before he pulled away. It fell from his lips with a wet and
obscene pop, to lie, gleaming, against Evander’s muscled thigh. Stephen let
Evander draw him up onto the bed and he crawled to his usual place, nipping
lightly at Evander’s flank as he moved. Salt tingled on his lips, both of their
bodies damp with the sweat of exertion in the midsummer heat.

Evander seized Stephen’s face in his hands
and kissed him, tongue delving into Stephen’s mouth. He licked in and Stephen
opened for him, passed back the taste of Evander’s own release from tongue to
tongue. His prick throbbed in further urgency at the heat of it, the taste and
feel of him. Evander consumed him, fire and molten steel.

Untitled

I am busy reworking my 2/3rds done first draft of She Whom I Love, because I actually isolated what had gone wrong from the beginning. And now I’m in love with this story again. 

I also added another smut scene. Part of it is below the cut, because… because, that’s why! F/F, regency, no content warnings except smut. (For those who have read chapters of Rite of Summer, ‘Sarah’ is also ‘Sophie.’ It will all make sense later, I promise.) Unedited. 

Meg tugged at
the lacing of her short stays and let them fall open. The pink silk brushed
away beneath Sarah’s questing hand, then the white linen beneath, exposing
Meg’s breasts. They were perfection, small, round and firm, her pink nipples
riding high and tight.

Sarah cupped one
in her palm, rolled her hand across the fullness, and Meg gasped when Sarah’s
palm smoothed over the hard pink of her nipple. Sarah bent her head and tasted
it, gently, with the tip of her tongue, circling and flicking, laving and
growing bolder with every whimper and gasp Meg made. Her skin was sweet, a
faint trace of powder lingering against the warmth of musk.

Her nipples
begged to be bitten, Meg’s hips starting to rise and fall with the press and
pull of Sarah’s mouth. She ran her hands up Meg’s thighs, still braced on
either side of Sarah’s knees, and tugged at the fabric enveloping her
legs.  

Sarah’s own body
burned, her breath coming in short pants, her heart pulsing loud in her ears. Her
cunt ached, empty and untouched. If Meg slid her thigh between Sarah’s, then
she could find the pressure she needed so desperately.

“Come here.”
Sarah cupped Meg’s bottom in her hands, rising up on her own knees to maneuver
them into a better position. Meg didn’t seem to understand, until she did,
pressing one leg between Sarah’s and riding high on Sarah’s own thigh. Meg’s
pantalets were a ridiculous affectation, just one more place for her to pin
lace. But they were split at the top, and the contrast between the rough edges
of the linen and the silken heat of Meg’s skin, the divot of her inner thigh,
the damp curls of hair, oh! Sarah could understand now why Meg wore them.

Rite of Summer – coming June 2nd, 2015

I have a finalized blurb, and a publication date! Rite of Summer will be available for purchase from Samhain  on June 2nd, and available for pre-order some time before that. I also got to submit my notes for the cover artist; I cannot wait to see what they come up with.

There are terrors worse than stage fright. Like falling in love.

Violinist Stephen Ashbrook is passionate about three things—his music, the excitement of life in London, and his lover, Evander Cade. It’s too bad that Evander only loves himself. A house party at their patron’s beautiful country estate seems like a chance for Stephen to remember who he is, when he’s not trying to live up to someone else’s harsh expectations.

Joshua Beaufort, a painter whose works are very much in demand among the right sort of people, has no expectations about this party at all. Until, that is, he finds out who else is on the guest list. Joshua swore off love long ago, but has been infatuated with Stephen since seeing his brilliant performance at Vauxhall. Now he has the chance to meet the object of his lust face to face—and more.

But changing an open relationship to a triad is a lot more complicated than it seems, and while Evander’s trying to climb the social ladder, Stephen’s trying to climb Joshua. When the dust settles, only two will remain standing…when they’re not flat on their backs.

Warning: Contents under pressure. Contains three men, two beds, one erotic piercing, and the hottest six weeks of summer the nineteenth century has ever seen. 

Book 1 of ‘Treading the Boards’