3 by Julie Hilden

I am totally excited by these Modern Erotic Classics, as I think I've said before!

*****



What's the greatest sacrifice you would make for love?



Maya and Ilan have an unusual marriage: Maya will tolerate Ilan's chronic infidelity as long as he includes her in the affairs. Initially, Maya finds these unorthodox threesomes as arousing as they are disturbing - but when her writing career takes off and she becomes more independent, Ilan feels threatened, and opts for sexual experimentation of another kind: one that plays on Maya's fear and ultimately threatens her life.



Meanwhile, Maya is drawn into a relationship with a fateful third character. When her new liaison begins to mirror her marriage to Ilan, Maya discovers that her lover, seemingly a stranger, knows far more about her past than she has revealed.



Brave, daring and deeply erotic: 3 is a compelling chronicle of obsession and power.



'Julie Hilden does what few writers can dare to. 3 is smart, sexy, strange and impossible to put down.' Dani Shapiro

Available from:


Amazon UK

Amazon US

*****

Excerpt:

It is the first Saturday in August when I walk up to the porch of the summerhouse and see them. I am supposed to be in the city this weekend but my interview is canceled, the actor called out of town. I see them through the fan propped in the window, through the transparent blur of its blades.

She is moving on top of him slowly, with such concentration that though she faces the window, though she could look right at me, she does not. I am only a few feet away from her. I have never seen her before.

I watch her glossy brown hair shift on her shoulders, I watch her empty eyes as she moves on him with calculation, with slack lips, with nipples so erect that the areolae wrinkle around them – as she moves with such pleasure, really, that who could hate her in this moment?
To love her, to want to be her, to want to touch her, yes. But not to hate her, not in this.

I watch her, and watch, too, a sliver of Ilan’s narrow chest beneath her, its pattern of hair that breaks across his sternum. I can see the necklace sliding on his chest as they move, the tiny
silver hand slipping back and forth, its touch faster and jerkier than Ilan’s own smooth caresses – than the touch of his hand moving on her downy back.

For perhaps five minutes, I don’t say a word. It seems a weird privilege: here is the life I don’t see, the life that goes on without me. I watch them as a ghost watches the living.

Then I say his name slowly, just audibly. She starts and looks around wildly. When she looks through the fan and sees me, she gasps.

Ilan does not start at all; not a flicker. But he lifts his head, sees me, and winces, and just like that he lifts her off him and at the same time off the bed.

‘You have to go now,’ he tells her.

She dresses insolently slowly. Her blouse fastens in the back with a line of ties – it is really just a square of cloth that settles on her breasts – and she loops each of the ties into a perfect bow.

‘Fuck you,’ she tells Ilan. ‘You fucking liar. I deserve better than you.’ Righteous anger, but controlled.

She and I brush past each other. It’s as if she’s preempted me with her anger; I want to shout at Ilan too, curse at him, but I don’t have the heart. ‘I should leave too,’ is all I say.

‘You can’t leave me, Maya. I love you.’

‘Was this the first time – the only time? I need to know.’

‘It started in college,’ he admits, ‘a few weeks after I met you.’

I shiver. I never expected to be chosen by myself, for myself alone. It had felt wrong – unlike me – to be chosen. Now, hearing this, I feel only a sickening familiarity, not surprise.

‘It never meant anything,’ he assures me. ‘I felt awful about it. I don’t know where it comes from. I thought, with enough therapy, I’d talk myself out of it. But all I do is confess, I don’t change.

'Look, can we at least sit down? I feel like any moment, you’re going to leave.’

‘Okay, but I’m not promising to stay.’

I sit down on the rattan couch. He stands behind me. I lean back and reach my head up to him – like a rabbit in a cage straining to sip from its water dispenser, the single round, hanging drop. And he leans down, princelike, to kiss me.

Then he starts to touch me. He slips his hands down my jeans, his fingers splayed, rubbing my clitoris insistently, with the slightest pressure. I moan quietly, move against him.

‘Don’t I know you?’ he says. ‘I know exactly what you want, don’t I?’

It agitates me as he rubs and rubs, softly, softly. He touches me the way he learned from me years ago – the way I touch myself. He studied it. The detail of his knowledge of me devastates. If I were to close my eyes, I could confuse his touch with my own.

But as he nuzzles into my shoulder, I smell sex in his hair and break away from him.

‘Would you at least shower?’ I demand.

‘No, you love that. Tell me you love it.’

In seconds my jeans are gone, my shirt is gone. He holds on to me, won’t let me leave.

‘It’s so soft,’ he says as he touches me. ‘You’re so wet.’

He gets a little bleat out of me as he rubs. Then I clamp my mouth shut. Ah, but then I relax it. I begin to breathe in the sex smell in his hair; I begin almost to like it.

‘Maya. Tell me you want this.’

‘I want it.’

‘I knew you did.’ And I do. And it is hours, then, before we can stop.

*****

About the Author:

Julie Hilden graduated from Harvard, and earned a law degree at Yale and an MA in creative writing from Cornell. After several years of practicing law, she has now turned to writing full time. Her first book, a memoir entitled The Bad Daughter, was published by Algonquin Books, and she has also written for Slate magazine. She lives in New York City.

*****

Other Modern Erotic Classics available:
The Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford
Lie to Me by Tamara Faith Berger
The Phallus of Osiris by Valentina Cilescu
Kiss of Death by Valentina Cilescu
The Flesh Constrained by Cleo Cordell
The Flesh Endures by Cleo Cordell
Hogg by Samuel R. Delany
The Tides of Lust by Samuel R. Delany
Sad Sister by Florence Dugas
The Ties That Bind by Vanessa Duriés
Dark Ride by Kent Harrington
3 by Julie Hilden
Neptune & Surf by Marilyn Jaye Lewis
Violent Silence by Paul Mayersberg
Homme Fatale by Paul Mayersberg
The Agency by David Meltzer
Burn by Michael Perkins
Dark Matter by Michael Perkins
Evil Companions by Michael Perkins
Beautiful Losers by Remittance Girl
Meeting the Master by Elissa Wald

A Sad Goodbye to Oysters and Chocolate, and a Promise

Many people have heard that Oysters and Chocolate is closing. This saddens me, because I loved the literary, varied erotica that appeared there. Also, Oysters and Chocolate was the first place to publish an erotic story of mine (the lesbian short, Make It Last). I've been in a bit of denial about this, but the time for denial is over -- the site is down, and the URL redirects to the editors' page on Amazon.

I wanted to note that I'm currently exploring ways to keep my O&C stories available -- a quest that has become more urgent now that the site can no longer be accessed. I'm proud of all 6 of the stories Jordan and Samantha published over the years, and I want to make sure that people can still read them.

Identity Crisis by Grace Marshall

I like KD Grace's erotic writing, so I couldn't resist the chance to learn more about her other nom de plume, Grace Marshall. Enjoy!

*****

Reclusive romance novelist Tess Delaney is the alter ego of Garrett Thorne, bad-boy brother of business tycoon Ellison Thorne. When Tess is nominated for the Golden Kiss Award, Garrett recruits PR specialist, Kendra Davis, to keep his secret and be Tess for the awards despite their mutual animosity. But when Tess is stalked by a rabid fan, an identity crisis is eclipsed by a battle for survival, and Tess Delaney, the woman who doesn’t exist, just might understand Kendra and Garrett’s hearts even better than they do.

Available from:

Xcite

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Other links will be added here as they become available: http://gracemarshallromance.co.uk/books/identity-crisis/

*****

Excerpt:

Garrett felt like a naughty teenager as they sneaked out the back door, through the gate of the privacy fence and down the alley. He wore a shapeless track suit with the black hoodie pulled up over his head and a scruffy pair of Converse sneakers that weren’t exactly meant for dancing. And Kendra, well she hardly looked ratty, in his opinion. She wore low rider jeans, and where they weren’t hugging her body like a second skin, they were full of threadbare, flesh revealing holes. The black sweat top she wore was cut short enough to show a tantalizing flash of her navel and hips bones when she moved just right. It slid off one shoulder to reveal the thin lacy strap of a red bra. She wore all of her russet locks tucked up under a leather beret. Her fashion statement was topped off with black ankle boots. She looked very, very dangerous. And hot. Of course she didn’t need to dress the part for either, he thought. He was already certain on both counts.

‘You live a little closer to The Boiling Point than Dee does.’ She took his hand and nodded to where the alley T’ed with the street, and then gave way to the park on the other side. ‘She never goes there, of course. Well she did once, but that was just for Harris, then he hated it.’ She giggled. ‘God I wish I could have been there for that.’

‘Am I going to hate it?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Probably not. You’re much more of a bad boy than Harris is, or is that all an act?’

The long line of shiny chrome Harleys out front of the squat cinder block building gave Garrett the first clue that this was not Dancing with the Stars. Kendra waved them away absently. ‘The Boiling Point’s not really a biker bar, but it’s kind of the warm-up act, I suppose you could say. Lots of bikers start off here before they head on to their usual haunts. Makes for an exciting mix. Later in the night there are almost no bikers. But there are always lots of interesting people.’

Any other time, Garrett would have been up for meeting interesting people, but tonight he couldn’t imagine anyone interesting him more than the woman on his arm. He paid the fee at the door and a surly man the size of small house with fire-engine hair and a scruffy beard stamped their hands with a red ink TBP.

Inside a live band had just begun to play to a full, but not yet crowded house. ‘The place gets raided from time to time,’ Kendra said. ‘I don’t know what all goes on. I just come here because it’s interesting.’

‘A good raid and us carted off to the police station will really give the press something to talk about,’ Garrett observed.

‘Don’t worry,’ she yelled to be heard above the band’s bass-heavy version of Highway to Hell. ‘They just got raided last week. They’ll be good to go for a while now. We can relax and enjoy ourselves.’ She pulled him onto the dance floor. ‘Best dance while there’s room. In a few hours it’ll be a real tit squeeze.’

Kendra Davis was just as stunning dark and dangerous as she was golden and romantic, as she was naked in his kitchen, and she definitely knew how to move on the dance floor. But it made Garrett more than a little nervous that he wasn’t the only one who seemed to be noticing the way the woman could shake her booty. He thought about asking her to try not to draw to much attention to herself, but he wasn’t even sure it was possible for Kendra Davis not to draw attention.

The place smelled of leather and beer, and sweat. Already there was a thick haze of pheromones invisible to the eye, but everyone there breathed them it, gave them off and reveled in the dark anticipation of what the night might bring. The look in Kendra’s eyes was bright and wicked, like she would do anything, try anything, like all the boundaries were suddenly negotiable.

And fuck, as amazing as she was like that, as much as he wanted to lose himself in the place, in the experience, there was no way he could keep from thinking about who might be watching her in that crowd, about who might be waiting for just the perfect opportunity.

As though she were reading his mind, she pulled him to her with a hand curled around his neck and spoke against his ear. ‘Oh would you relax, Garrett. Do you really think this is the kind of hang-out Tess Delaney would frequent?’

Then she slid both arms around his neck and let him pull her into a deep, hungry kiss. When it ended with an aggressive flick of his tongue, she offered a throaty giggle. ‘Marking territory, are we?’ Before he had a chance to respond, she returned the favor, plunging her tongue in deep, and tightening a fist in his hair to pull him closer.

He moved a hand to the small of her back and gave her the full frontal rub-up, enough to be sure she knew she’d gotten his cock’s attention. ‘You see where this is leading if you keep that up?’

She pulled away and gave his crotch some breathing room as the music settled into a heavy metal beat that filled the dance floor with lots of heavily booted bikers and their spandex and leather women. Garrett was surprised to find more than a few men in pressed jeans and designer polo shirts bellied up to the bar in the mix that looked like it was probably mostly low-brow. He wasn’t the only man who looked like he’d just come from a work out at the corner gym and Kendra’s shredded jeans seemed to be the fashion statement of more than a few women among a smattering of Goth and grunge and plain old red-neck jeans and tee-shirts with baseball caps.

With each song the band played, the dance floor became fuller and fuller. The strobe light flashed and the disco ball bathed the floor in sparkles as people rocked and strutted and sweated, and it became more and more difficult to tell who was dancing with whom. Garrett was about to grab Kendra by the hand and reel her back in so they could stay connected when a biker in a ZZ Top tee-shirt that smelled like an ashtray and looked like it might have been painted across his bulging pecs managed to slide in between them, turn his back on Garrett, and focus his full attention on Kendra. And suddenly all Garrett could see was his broad back.

‘Kendra,’ he called, but his voice was drowned out in the roar of Def Leppard. And that might have been okay if the man hadn’t been so fucking big. Kendra was certainly entitled to dance with whomever she liked. But he couldn’t see her. He fucking couldn’t see her! Not even her feet between the man’s shuffling boots. ‘Kendra!’ He called again. Louder this time. That at least got the man’s attention, but when he turned to see what Garrett wanted, and he could see beyond the biker’s bulk, Kendra was not there! The woman the man was dancing with had cropped blonde hair and a leather bustier several sizes too small.

‘Kendra!’ Garrett called out, louder this time, shoving his way past the biker, who pulled the blonde to him protectively. Frantically Garrett scanned the burgeoning crowd on the dance floor, scanned the women with hats. There were cowboy hats, police hats, even a few stocking caps, but there were just too many people, too many lights, too much noise. In his mind he could only think of Razor Sharp’s horrid email and Kendra’s response to it. Why the hell hadn’t he forced the issue? Why the hell hadn’t he made her tell him why she was so upset, made her tell him about the stalker Dee had mentioned. And fuck! Why had he let her talk him into bringing her here?

*****

Grace Marshall lives in South England with her husband and the growing gang of hooligan birds who frequent their feeders. When Grace isn’t busy writing something sexy and romantic, she’s busy digging in her ever-expanding veg garden or walking across the British countryside. She finds inspiration outdoors in nature, and most of her best story ideas come to her while she’s walking or gardening.
Grace is the author of the fast paced, quirky Executive Decisions Trilogy  published by Xcite Romance. The first and second novels in the trilogy are out now.

Grace Marshall’s alter-ego, K D Grace, writes critically acclaimed, best-selling erotic romance. Whether it’s sexy romance or romantic sex, between The Graces, there’s a story for you.

Find Grace here:
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/GraceMarshallRomance
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/GM_Romance

Get Laid Cover

I just got the cover for my forthcoming Ellora's Cave book, Get Laid, and it's a beauty! I particularly like that the male cover model is exactly the sort of hot Asian man I imagined as my hero.

In addition to Get Laid, I have another book coming from Ellora's Cave, currently titled The Fugitive's Sexy Brother. More details when I've got them!

Music Mondays: "Madness" by Muse

"Now, I need to know is this real love -- or is it just madness keeping us afloat?"
-- Muse

Review: Cowboy Lust: Erotic Romance for Women

Cowboy Lust: Erotic Romance for Women by Delilah Devlin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This collection reminded me of the kind of place that gets good after 11 p.m. The deeper I got into the book, the darker and more interesting the stories became. The last three stories, "Raney's Last Ride" by Chaparrita, "The Runaway Bride" by Delilah Devlin (the editor), and "She Don't Stay the Night" by Anna Meadows seemed like they came from a different, more mysterious book. They were less white, less safe, and included edgier sex and more flavor.

I enjoyed other unusual stories in the collection also, particularly the ones that took place in more creative settings, such as Cheyenne Blue's "Under the Southern Cross" (set in Australia). M. Marie's "Rough Stock" and Sedona Fox's "The Ranch Hand" also deserve commendation for including really interesting, active heroines who know what they want in life and love and aren't afraid to go after it.

The collection was a bit weighed down, however, by repetition of some less original themes. There are at least three "woman in need of roadside assistance hooks up with cowboy" stories. This seemed unfortunate to me, because I thought it played into a helpless woman stereotype that turned me off.

The biggest thing holding the book back from a higher rating in my opinion was a mismatch between "erotic" and "romance." While these two can obviously work well together, I felt that they interacted oddly in the case of this collection. Many of the kinky stories in the collection made me uncomfortable by playing fast and loose with consent (I actually enjoy reading noncon where a spade is called a spade, but I dislike "gray area consent" where someone ignores or downplays a woman's right to consent and everyone pretends that was totally fine and the guy is seen as someone admirable). Here, I think the trouble was the need to treat a situation as romantic even if that wasn't the true source of the turnon. Conversely, the sweeter stories tended to include sex that felt repetitive when one story was read after another. Romance novel sex works for me because of the length of emotional buildup that precedes it, and I thought it was tricky in shorter stories.

I should say I'm not someone who's obsessed with cowboys. I can get into the idea, but the word "cowboy" does not automatically turn me on. For those with a real cowboy fetish, the collection might have a different effect.



View all my reviews

The Power of a Kiss

Vanilla often doesn't do much for me, but this kiss rocked my world.



It's hot, but the real key here is the emotional investment I have in these two. I've noticed lately that a really well-written vanilla romance can get me aroused even when it's full of sexual acts I often find bland. By contrast, the kinkiest scenes leave me cold if there's no context. It's part of what's developed since I stopped being aroused by the mere transgressive presence of kinky sex. It's a lesson I've been trying to keep in mind lately. Sex needs context and a story to mean something.

I watched this kiss about four times when I saw this episode. Its power reminded me that awareness of human emotion is always the key to appreciating what's going on physically.