In Quarantine

I'm now a Ravenous Romance author - or I will be soon. I've just signed a contract* for my short story Quarantine, which not only will appear in the e-anthology Experimental: an anthology of Sex & Science (edited by Jamaica Layne), but will ALSO be published as a separate e-short. Yay! Yay yay!

I haven't got a publishing date yet but will post details when they appear on the Ravenous Romance site.

So, they said in the call for submissions that we could write around any Science theme - science fiction, robots, virtual sex, doctors and nurses even ... Guess what I picked as the theme for my jolly sex romp? The Ebola virus.

Hey, I like a challenge.

Actually no one contracts a fatal haemorrhagic disease in Quarantine - they just have to spend 23 days, after a lab accident, crammed in an isolation unit with someone else they don't like. Cue sparks flying.

The terribly scientific picture at top is of Kevin Bacon in the underrated Hollow Man. Since we've seen his botty we might as well take a look at the front too:

Mmm...

---

* 13 pages, and thus somewhat longer than the actual story!

Back to the Here and Now

Whew! - that was a lot of smut. Normal service has now been resumed.

Under cover of the Dark Enchantment posts I have been busy, I promise. I've written a short story (6K) for another Black Lace anthology, and that was subbed yesterday. I've played a number of games of Spider ... (What do you mean, that's not work?)

And I've been racing - or at least lurching - toward the conclusion of Heart of Flame, my Arabian Nights erotic romance. The sidebar gives my goal as 85,000 words but I am going to exceed that: I reckon I've got two chapters to go, or about another 8K. My hero and heroine have got it together at last, declared their mutual passion, and had a night of lurv in the desert. Now they've had a huge falling out and are making their seperate ways toward the climactic fight with the djinn. Will they be reconciled? Will they rescue the princess, against impossible odds? Will there be a happy ending?

Not unless I get my finger out and get writing, there won't.

Dark Enchantment - story 11: Darkling I Listen

Take a deep breath ... and breathe out ... and relax ...

If you've stuck it out all the way through these excerpts from the dark, strange and perverse stories in Dark Enchantment, you might be surprised to hear that the very last one, Darkling I Listen, is a gentle vanilla romance about first love. Okay, so it's set in a giant cemetery, with ghouls and a lynch mob and Death himself, but it really is quite sweet, honest. Oh, why am I bothering...

‘Let me comb your hair for you,' said the sorcerer. It was something he had never suggested before.

So, sitting between his knees with her back to him and holding the pall-cloth closed over her breast, she let him work the fragile ivory teeth through her locks. His hands were unhurried and careful. She liked the feel of them on her hair, the soft tugs of her scalp, the shivers that worked down her spine as an accidental brush of a finger tickled the nape of her neck. She could see his pale foot, as bare as the feet of the dead, that emerged from under the hem of his robe and rested on the step next to her. She could feel the solidity of his thigh and knee as she leaned against him. They did not talk. He never spoke very much around her, though he seemed to seek her company. His quiet hands, his dark eyes, the hint of a hooded smile now and then, were all she had from him to think on through her days alone.

She watched him twine her dark locks about his pale fingers, as if appreciating the contrast in colour. When he began to stroke her neck she shivered with pleasure and made no protest. After a moment’s hesitation he moved again, his fingertips caressing her skin, tracing the lines of her vertebrae, the curve of her shoulder, the hidden paths of her veins. The pleasure of the sensation was pure and elemental. She wanted to arch like a cat and purr, but she forced herself not to wriggle out of terror that he would stop. She was not used to being touched. No human had hugged her or patted her hair or held her hand in years, and her reaction to this now was almost too intense to bear. Her lips parted and her breath came quicker between them. Her eyelids fluttered, suddenly heavy, her eyes unable to focus.

‘Do you like this?' he whispered, his lips close to her ear. The question was too ingenuous; it did not do justice to the riot of sensation his fingers were evoking, so she only murmured agreement. In response his fingers slipped around to the front of her throat and stroked her down to her collarbones and up to her chin, which she raised for him. Her pulse was beating harder, faster, and she knew he could feel it. 'Yes. You like it,' he said, and 'Yes,' she replied.

‘Your skin is so warm.' His voice was low. 'Life burns under it, like sunlight.' His fingers descended to her breastbone and at his touch there she spasmed with shock, unable to help herself, and he cupped his other hand about the swell of her shoulder to still her. Then gently he drew the cloth from her grasp and let it drop, baring her breasts. She made a little noise then in her throat, her hands curved uselessly in mid-air, neither defending her modesty nor knowing where to go. Making up for the loss of the garment, a blush warmed her from top to toe. Long pale fingers swept down, tracing the curve and swell of her flesh, circling a nipple which tingled to aching. 'You have grown and changed, yet you are still Zulkais, my necropolis child. I hardly know what to do with you.'

‘Do this!' she told him, and heard him smile.

'And this?' he asked. His cool fingers found their target and closed upon the little bud of flesh, teasing with little circular caresses. Her nipple stirred to his touch, stiffening at once, her areolae dimpling. She felt suddenly as if her skin, too alive with sensation, did not belong to her at all, that it was as strange as a new garment. She leaned back into him, moaning a little, as he tugged at her. 'So soft,' he murmured: 'So tender. You are too young, Zulkais.' The maiden protested at that. He sighed then and his fingers played on her one after another like a harpist striking rippling chords. 'Not too young for love. But too young to love me.'

She pressed her face against his arm, the grey robe rough against her cheek, and begged, 'Don’t stop.' He slid his other hand down her spine and began to rub her back, low down, his fingers pressing into the muscle. She felt as if her whole body might open to let him in, as if her bones were turning to water.

'Do you know what you want?' he asked, and though she did because she had watched birds and animals and the ghouls and remembered enough of life outside the walls of her sanctuary, she could not bring herself to answer except by moving to his touch. She knew she wanted this to go on. She did not know how she could have lived so long without this exquisite taunting pleasure.

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Eyecandy Monday

Okay, so he's a tad young and pretty for my tastes, but I'm feeling generous today: the stubble gets him safely through the Janine decapitation filter. And he'll be gorgeous in 10 years' time.

Dark Enchantment - story 10: Janissaries

Brace yourselves. Janissaries, the 10th story in Dark Enchantment, is cold, hard and relentless. A BDSM gangbang. One slave and six ruthless soldiers who want to use, defile and degrade her. Have I taken leave of my feminist and ethical senses? No, actually - but you'll have to read the story to find out why.

Just as I think Rurik is going to add his own cream to my diet, he pulls me abruptly from his cock. Mouth open, lips wet, tongue displayed, I meet his gaze. He rubs his fingertips up his slippery shaft, and I see in his eyes he’s saving himself for something more than a blow job. Instead he pushes me into Darius’ lap and I go down with a gasp onto my second cock of the day.
There is no cream this time to sweeten the meal. This cock is the colour and hardness of mahogany, broad and impatient. His pubic hair clings in tight curls over his crotch and up the root of his shaft, his scrotal pouch is heavily wrinkled and almost blueish. And he is not the last. I am passed on down the line, one by one, because they are all divesting themselves of their clothes now. I am surrounded by cock and I abase myself willingly, as frantic as the most ardent of worshippers to forget my own misery in the giving of myself to my deity. Among those slab thighs, I bend to make obeisance. Cock is my god. These men with their brawny arms and their smell of sweat and leather, their broken noses and their callused hands; they are my gods. I know them as a priest knows those he bows and prays to every day. Each cock is different in taste and behaviour and appearance. Some are smooth, some veined and gnarled; some uncut, some shorn of their foreskins. Jaffez has a pronounced list to the right. Teodric’s helm looks too massive for the shaft it sits on. Milo seeps with excitement. Rurik’s balls clench so hard they seem to disappear into his body. Alain’s prick stands up so stiff it almost brushes his belly, but Darius’ is too heavy for that; though he gets hard he does not rise. Some of them like to sit back and let me lick, others prefer to thrust into my throat.
I can hear their desultory conversation, like the voices of indifferent gods: they are reminiscing about whores they have fucked and virgins they have despoiled, and comparing me unfavourably to them all.
Somewhere in the middle of this, a hand pulls the ginger plug from me. I moan with gratitude. Then cool and slippery digits probe my burning hole anew – and suddenly the ginger finger is back, but this time bearing a slippery load. They are using it, I realise, to stuff my arse with the honeyed cream. It slips in and out of me over and over. I feel myself filling with sweet dessert, which melts deliciously on my inflamed inner walls and oozes out, greasing my ring.
Then I get to Alain, and Alain has no patience. He picks me up bodily, turns me and slaps my behind down in his lap, spearing my slick anus with his prick in one savage thrust. My sensitised tissues seem to explode. I shriek, twisting in his grip, but he lifts me and slams me down even harder to teach me a lesson. The others curse his lack of manners, nearly choking with laughter. Ignoring them, Alain gets a good grip with both hands and begins to shaft me deep and fast, bouncing me on his thighs. The saffron cream squelches out over his balls.
‘Smack her tits!’ he grunts.
So I get one man on either side of me and they slap my breasts and my face in turn, stingingly, until Alain lets loose with a snarled blasphemy and blasts his spunk up my back passage. With a spasm of irritation he throws me aside, face down on the couch. I cling to the coverlet with clawing fingers, pressing my face into the cushion.
Almost as fast as he has discarded me, the others move in.
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Next - and last - excerpt on Monday, after the Eyecandy.

Dark Enchantment - story 9: The Red Thread

This is the story. The one I thought I'd never be allowed to write because it has a minotaur - the Minotaur - as a principle character and Black Lace Don't Do That. But it's all in the way you write it, I found out. (More details on how this got worked out on my website, under "Author's Notes" for Dark Enchantment.) I am fantastically proud of the end result!


The Red Thread is set in ancient Crete, of course. Our - *ahem* - heroine, the princess Ariadne lives in the royal palace. Below the palace is a labyrinth of cellars in which is trapped the outcast Asterion, and she enjoys sneaking down to see him.



I stuck my bottom lip out. ‘Let me sit in your lap. I want to.’

‘Why?’

‘I like it. Go on.’

He glared at me, his exhalations loud. But he didn’t stop me moving in to his knees. This time I didn’t sit demurely on one knee, though: I picked up my long skirt and straddled both of them, facing him. His legs were hard under my thighs and bottom.

‘Don’t you like this?’ I asked in my meekest voice.

‘You shouldn’t be doing it.’

‘I’m not a baby anymore, you know. Look.’ I gathered the flounced linen folds in my hands, drawing them up my pale thighs. Asterion looked down between us and seemed to stop breathing, as I revealed the dark delta at my groin. ‘I have fur.’

His brown eyes widened.

‘Would you like to touch it?’ I asked softly.

Very slowly, he shook his head.

With a moue of disappointment I let the cloth fall again, veiling my immodestly spread thighs. ‘Can I see yours?’

He groaned. ‘Ari -’

‘It’s not like it would be the first phallus I’ve seen, silly,’ I chided him. ‘I’ve been to the games, and seen the bull-dancers. And Cholios, when he’s on guard outside my room, he always touches himself when I walk past. And his sticks out under his chiton. He rubs it like it itches, but that just makes it stick up harder.’ With great daring I put out my hand to touch the bulge beneath Asterion’s tunic. He was wearing the simplest of short chitons, under one shoulder and pinned over the other, with no belt. Undyed linen, it had the labrys pattern of the royal household worked in red thread around the border. It might even have been a piece I’d woven myself; weaving was after all the principle duty of the women of the palace. ‘I just want to see.’

‘Why?’

‘To see whether you’re the same as other men.’

It was easy to pull the cloth aside; he did not stop me. A sigh escaped my lips. His phallus lay flopped in a curve on his upper thigh, smooth and soft-looking like the finest kidskin, but stirring restlessly even as I watched. His foreskin pouted, wrinkly.

‘Am I the same, then?’ He sounded a little bitter.

‘You look bigger. Can I touch it?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Strain was audible in his voice as he said, ‘Because if you touch it, it might get angry, and then I will hurt you.’

I bit my lip. ‘Will you hurt me with that?’

His chest heaved. ‘Yes.’

‘Oh.’

‘You are only little.’

I fiddled with the edge of my bodice, stroking my breast. ‘What if I were to stroke it very gently – would it get angry then?’

‘I fear so.’ His phallus stirred, straightening as it filled out. It trailed a smudge of wetness across his thigh.

‘But I can stroke you here.’ I ran my hands down his chest. ‘You like that, don’t you? It doesn’t make you angry?’

‘Ah,’ he grunted.

‘And I don’t mind you stroking me, Asterion.’ I took his hands and placed them on my breasts. They were warm, and they cupped and enfolded me. They felt so strong that I was washed with dizziness, and pressed myself into his caresses. ‘That feels nice, see. Just stroking.’

‘Yes.’

'Shall I tell you a story?’ I wrapped one hand around his phallus. It was definitely bigger now, and almost standing upright – and as I squeezed experimentally I felt it harden under my hand. Asterion did not object; he seemed mesmerised by my breasts, which he was playing with. I’d never touched a man’s phallus before. I was delighted how warm it was, how silky to the touch, how alive. My fingers could not quite circle its girth. It was difficult to take in all the new sensations and to talk at the same time.

‘This is the story...'


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Next excerpt on Saturday.

Dark Enchantment- story 8: Scratch

Yesterday was Edgar Allen Poe's birthday. How appropriate! The 8th story in Dark Enchantment is set in America, before it became the US, and is a tale of deviltry and cuckolding.

Maarten Gansevoort is a prosperous farmer happily married to his second wife Mercy - until the day her past in Salem Village catches up with her and her old Master pays a visit. Maarten finds himself spying on them through the bedroom door:

He could see quite clearly. The chamber with its shuttered windows, lit by candlelight. The big bed that he had made himself for his first marriage, spread with the cream quilt that Mercy had brought as part of her trousseau. Mercy standing at the side of the bed, facing the door, the stranger’s bare arms about her from behind. He had evidently removed his clothes, though Maarten could see little of him. Mercy’s own clothes were in disarray, her bodice unlaced, her shift pulled down from her shoulders, her big freckled breasts bare and cupped in the stranger’s groping hands, her plump brown nipples being plucked and flicked and pinched. Her neck was twisted at an angle and there was a look on her face of such painful need that Maarten Gansevoort caught his breath. Her mouth formed a quivering ‘O’ as if she were moulding it about some virile member. She writhed her sumptuous hips, grinding her ass cheeks into the stranger’s crotch, and covered his hands with her own as he mauled at her.

Nicholas Scratch licked at her white throat, chuckling, then turned her in his hands and pushed her to her knees. Suddenly his body was visible; the unblemished body of a muscular young man, perfect in every way. His stiff stood up rampantly erect from a nest of black curls, dark with blood against the paler skin of his thighs and belly. He took himself in hand and laid the other hand on Mercy’s head as if in blasphemous blessing. But all he was doing was pressing her lower. She put her face to the fat pouch of his scrotum and kissed it fervently.

Maarten Gansevoort loosed the drawstring of his breeches and slipped his hand inside his clothes, ashamed beyond words, yet aroused so much he could no longer wait. His own member was hot and sticky and as hard as smoked meat. He stroked himself, feeling his balls clench, feeling the length in his hand grow thicker and longer with every beat of his heart. To see his wife kneeling obediently before a stranger, to see the plump out-thrust of her skirted behind, the eager caresses of her hands upon his hard thighs, the flash of her tongue as she licked all the way up his cock and then took it in her mouth, slipping it deep into her throat – it was unbearable. The slurping noise she made as she sucked him, the look of satisfaction on the stranger’s face, the way his hand twisted in her hair, the bob of her head as she rose and fell upon him with unholy appetite…

The stranger’s eyes lifted to the door. His expression slipped from pleasure to triumph. Then the door cracked its latch and slammed wide open, back against the wall, splintering its hinges. Maarten Gansevoort was revealed kneeling in the doorway with his breeches open and his stiff in his fist.

Mercy’s eyes opened wide, and for a moment she detached from the false idol to which she was giving worship, leaving it plum-dark but shining with her spittle. Maarten felt as if the floor must open up and plunge him into the fiery pit of Hell at that very moment.

‘I see you’ve come to lend us your blessing, friend,’ said the stranger, greatly amused. He gestured. ‘Enter.’ Then, when Maarten only gasped and goggled, his voice hardened to a silky command. ‘You must be half a witch already, Goodman Gansevoort: there is a broomstick between your legs and I see by your face you have been riding it hard. Join us now. On your knees.’

His dignity gone, without any other recourse, Maarten shuffled forward on his knees almost to Mercy’s side. His whole body was aflame with shame.

‘See now. Your wife was just about to take Communion,’ said the stranger, directing her back to the glistening plum of his cock. With deliberate showmanship he delved deep down her throat, pumping long and smooth, pulling out to show his full length all wet from her suckling, then plunging in once more, all the time Maarten watching, unable to tear his eyes away. He knew when the stranger came off because Mercy nearly choked, eyes watering, nostrils flaring, struggling for breath as her throat worked frantically to receive his outpourings. When Nicholas let her go her mouth came away as milky and sticky as a nurseling’s.

‘Kiss her,’ the stranger ordered.

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Next excerpt on Thursday. Yes, it's the Minotaur story!

Eyecandy Monday

I love texture in a photo. It makes the difference between admiring it and wanting to climb right on in there.

And I abso-freaking-lutely LOVE this photography blog (mostly female models, lots of arty BDSM, some explicit closeups so Not Suitable For Work). Is it Italian? Spanish? I've no idea. A picture is worth a thousand words and these are guaranteed to inspire several thousand of mine.

Dark Enchantment - story 7: Chimaera

The title of the 7th story in Dark Enchantment, Chimaera, does not imply that a fire-breathing three-headed monster is one of the sexual participants. Well, not literally. He's certainly connected with fire.

Set in modern Turkey, this story starts at the Chimaera (which is a place) and moves on to Istanbul, as a newlywed bride is followed on her honeymoon by a stranger ...

I press on uphill, enjoying my anonymity in the crowd. Then I look behind me, down the slope, wondering if there is a view back over the Golden Horn from this side. And there he is trailing me, a head taller than anyone else, his eyes fixed on me as he cuts through the press of shoppers. My heart lurches in my chest, but that's not my only physical response. Suddenly I want to cry: it is so unfair! I already have the man that I want, the man that I love – why should my sex react so helplessly, with such heat, to this uncanny stranger? Why should I feel a suddenly slipperiness, an ache in my pelvis, the beat of my pulse at my wrists? Am I so faithless?

I turn away and keep walking, but I know he’s gaining on me. My mouth is dry but the skin between my breasts is damp. I wonder what Keith is doing. I wonder what will happen when my Chimaera catches up with me. I tell myself there is nothing he can do in a public place. I tell myself I will be a good and irreproachable wife, not the slut that Western women are reputed to be.

It goes quiet.

Like someone has switched off the soundtrack, it goes silent. The traffic, the voices, the screech of gulls – everything snaps off. I lift my eyes and see that everyone around me has stopped in their tracks, frozen in place. Hands are lifted, but do not fall. Mouths are open, but no words come out. A cloud of smoke from a wayside snack stall hangs motionless in mid-air, like a puff of candyfloss. I swing on my heel.


He’s almost at my side; the only moving thing in the whole city, apart from me, for all I can tell. He looks just as he did every other time I’ve seen him - still barefoot, even among the mess of the market. In sunlight his hair looks almost blue, it is so dark.

Still he doesn’t smile. He reaches out and lays his hand on the railing of the building at his right, and the iron gate swings open soundlessly at his touch. Let me get this straight: he doesn’t push the gate, but still it moves. I am distracted enough to glance at the structure beyond the rails. It’s the ruin of some traditional looking building, not too big. You see them around in the city, usually mosques that have for some reason fallen into neglect. This one doesn’t have a visible minaret though it does have a dome, so I assume it is a bath-house. Grey swathes of plaster hang from the stonework. The crumbling walls are overgrown with some sort of creeper that has withered to dried sticks in the Turkish summer. Back home kids would take one look and deliver the verdict Haunted.

He lifts his hand in a gesture of invitation.

I must be out of my mind. I must be begging for trouble. I walk past him through the gate, under the archway of the outer wall, into the derelict hamam. I hear him follow me, his feet quieter on the rubble than mine. We pass through an antechamber. We’re inside a room that must have been domed and tiled once, but is now open to the sky. Most of the tiles have fallen and are loose underfoot. I’m dreading the sort of squatter mess you’d find in any abandoned building, but not even a plastic bag defaces the artwork of time. It is absolutely silent in here too. My heart is in my throat as I turn to look at him.

He moves upon me with grace but with a terrible eagerness, gripping my arms and pressing me back against a pillar so he can kiss me. He tastes of cardamom. He tastes of sin. He’s more beautiful than I have words for, and my guilt at betraying Keith is no more than paper in the flame of my hunger for this man, burnt to ashes. His body presses against me, just at the groin so that there is no mistaking his intentions, and I feel like I’m going to melt or explode or both. His hands find my breasts, pushing up under my respectable long-sleeved blouse, fingers closing over the nipples jutting through the rough lace of my bra. I moan into his mouth, covering his hands with mine to make him squeeze me harder. He pulls from my lips so he can look down at me, his eyes alight with pleasure. We’re both panting.

‘Who are you?’ I ask.

He nuzzles my ear, licking the lobe, teeth teasing my skin. ‘Ifrit,’ he breathes.

It doesn’t occur to me that this is not a name.


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Next excerpt on Tuesday. Don't tell the vicar...

Dark Enchantment - story 6: The Scent of Hawthorn

There's been quite a bit of female submission going on in previous stories I've excepted from Dark Enchantment, so it's about time, I feel, that the men got theirs. And in The Scent of Hawthorn my hero really suffers: oh yes.


Set in Italy in the Dark Ages, this story is about a tough and burly knight who has made it his duty to hunt down the last pagan monsters and slay them. Herrick is a disillusioned idealist with an addiction to pain, and when he tries to take on a dryad with a penchant for killing peasants he finds he's bitten off far more than he can chew...

‘In this wood, man of iron, I am a goddess. The earth hears my whispers; the oak moves to my commands. Do you think you can kill me with that little blade?’

He was beginning to doubt it. ‘I can try.’

Her smile widened. ‘You learn too slowly. Shall we have another lesson?’ Then she threw herself at him. Herrick had no time for anything except to thrust the sword straight out at her breast, braced in both hands. She struck the blade full-on, dashed up its length and all over him – a hail of autumn leaves and stones, no more solid than that. The moment she was behind him she took form again, whirled, smashed the helmet from his head and kicked him in the back of the knee, folding him. He caught himself as he went down, but even as he turned and slashed there was movement in the grass all around him. Bramble tendrils whipped from the earth, tangling his feet and hands. In moments he was dragged over on his back, a spiny loop tight around his throat. Fragile in themselves, in numbers they pinned him to the ground. Then new tendrils grew and slid up his sleeves and under the edge of his hauberk, their passage like lines of fire drawn on his skin, emerging at the neck. Dozens and dozens of living strands, binding together into stronger and stronger cords. They tightened and flexed – and tore his mail shirt open. The bronze rivets first corroded and then stretched and snapped.

Herrick had seen thistles cracking marble slabs in Rome, or else he would not have understood that a living plant could be so strong.

Then the ground heaved beneath his back, a huge boulder thrusting him up until he was raised and spread and nearly snapped in half, the pressure against his spine almost unbearable. The brambles did not let go, but having ripped open his armour and shredded the cloth beneath they did nothing but tighten against his skin, a thousand tiny thorns speckling him with his own blood. He felt the air against his stinging flesh. He saw the tree-branches tossing overhead and the white petals of shed may-blossom fluttering down upon him, and he wondered if this was the end.

The dryad jumped up onto the rocks and straddled his hips. He couldn’t even raise his head to look down at those naked thighs.

‘So - Does the guest-bed suit you?’

He groaned.

‘A little hard on the back? What a pity.’ She bent and licked the blood streaks on his chest; he was surprised to learn that her mouth was warm. ‘Still, you did arrive at very short notice, without invitation. You must make allowances.’

His heart was racing; she must be able to feel its thud against her lips as she sipped from him.


‘Don’t blame yourself,’ he said through gritted teeth.

She chuckled, surprised. ‘Do you enjoy this, man of iron?’

‘Herrick.’

‘What?’

‘That’s my name.’ It seemed important to him that she should know it. He did not want to go nameless to death.

She mouthed the foreign word with distaste. ‘Is this how you expected it to end, Herrick?’

‘One day.’ And he was horrified to find that his strongest emotion was relief. Her teeth closed cruelly over his left nipple and he groaned from deep in his chest. Then she released the crushed nubbin of flesh and crept forward up his chest, breathing the smell of his sweat and his fear until her lips were against his ear.


‘Do you wish to hear the good news?’ He managed to swallow, and she took that for assent. ‘This isn’t the end, Herrick. Not yet. You are not going to die until I tire of hurting you. And in this place I can take to the brink of death and bring you back again, over and over, for my pleasure. Until your pain has brought me ease.’

Fresh damp sprang from every pore. His insides seemed to turn liquid. She raked claws down his chest and stomach, testing every patch of skin between the criss-crossed bonds. He rolled his eyes back and tried to call upon the mercy of God, but it came out sounding completely wrong somehow.

‘What’s this?’ Her voice was low with surprise. He strained to look down at her and found she’d reached his lower garments, had been sliding about on his crotch, had found something that should not have been there at all: his massive, stony erection, pushing up against the cloth, the swollen head seeping with such eagerness that it was making a damp patch. Herrick was washed by a crimson tide of shame.

Dear God give me strength to resist her, he begged.

She ripped his clothing to shreds, delicately. His cock thrust out blasphemously through the rent fabric, and jerked with eagerness as she traced the veins with the tips of her deadly claws - Like a dog rising to greet its mistress, he thought, sick with humiliation.

‘Oh Herrick. Now I know.’

‘No,’ he groaned.

‘This is a gift, isn’t it? A phallus like this, and a man like you, in my power?’

‘You’re wrong…’

‘Wrong? No. Men may lie, but this does not. It makes plain what it wants, Herrick.’ She slapped his prick with first one hand then the other, like a cat playing with a mouse. He burned with shame and twisted uselessly in his bonds, driving each pin-point of pain deeper.

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Next excerpt on Sunday.

Dark Enchantment - story 5: Cold Hands, Warm Heart

Phleurgh. (That's the noise a writer makes as the last of her brain dribbles out her ear. ) After several days of toil I have finally got a new page of notes for Dark Enchantment up on my website. So if you are interested in reading about the sources for the stories, the secrets of the writing process and my usual injudicious ranting - go into the main page, scroll down to the DE picture and click on the "author's notes" button.

Story 5 in the collection is the one of which Charlotte Stein said "In particular I loved the very nasty and disturbingly hot Cold Hands: Warm Heart" - read her full Amazon review here. It's a ghost story in the classic M R James style, set pre WW1. Two young gentlemen, Morgan and Thorpe, are sitting vigil for a ghost in Morgan's ancestral home. If the master of Levingshall ever spends the night there, local lore says that the ghost of a young woman wronged and drowned by his forebear will turn up and kill him. And sure enough a young woman arrives: cold, wet, pulseless and mute - but also oddly passive. Morgan sees the opportunity to take advantage ...

I unfurled a corner of the quilt in order to expose her arm to the fire. The skin was still wet. Droplets stood up in the delicate crease of her elbow. Water was still running out of her hair. I bit my lip. The counterpane should at the very least have blotted up this moisture. This was not natural.

‘Want my jacket?’ Morgan asked with ill humour.

‘She’s still soaked. I think the water’s coming from her.’

Cautiously, he circled back for a better look. ‘We could get her out of that wet dress.’

My mouth was dry, to make up for the cold water wicking into my clothes from the girl. Her linen shift was translucent where it adhered to her skin, and tented over the pebble of her nipple. That detail had not escaped Morgan either; he hunkered in front of her and ran his fingertips down the inside edge of her shift’s deep neckline. ‘What do you say, Alyse? Like to get out of your nasty petticoat?’

She didn’t respond to the name. But she took his hand and laid it on her full, teardrop shaped breast, and a hungry breathy noise issued from those pale lips.

‘Well, ghost or no, there’s no doubt what sort of a girl she is,’ Morgan murmured, his voice thickening to hoarseness.

‘I don’t like this,’ I stammered.

‘Really? You should get a handful of what I’ve got.’ He squeezed, and she moaned and surged into his grip, her shoulders writhing against my chest.

‘Morgan!’

‘Stop being such a bloody prude, man.’ He sniggered, and I could see the doubt and the nervousness evaporate from him. ‘She’s frantic for this; can’t you see? Maybe this is what she wanted all along, all those years. Think about it – she came to the house desperate to make the beast with two backs with Lord Price, and died unfulfilled. Maybe all she’s needed is for someone to give her what she wants. Maybe she just needs the Master of Levingshall to give her a good, hard seeing-to.’

‘Think about Cicely!’ I protested, as the girl rolled her head back on my shoulder, her lips parted, little breathy pants shaking her breasts as Morgan played with them. Her aroused nipples poked through the wet linen like accusing fingertips.

‘I’ve thought about Cicely until my balls are blue,’ he growled. ‘Don’t you dare reproach me Thorpe; I’ve had enough of waiting for what’s mine. Now the Lord of Levingshall is going to do his duty.’ He took hold of the wet cloth. ‘Let’s get you out of those wet things, shall we my girl?’ With a good hard pull and a twist, he tore her shift open down the front. Unnecessary, I thought. But I said nothing. I have always been weak compared with Morgan. And despite my protests nd my misgivings, it would be dishonest to pretend that the darker part of me was not moved by that girl moaning and writhing in my lap.

‘Take a look at those beauties!’

Her pale skin was marbled with blue veins and her nipples were only tinted with colour, but they stood stiff and responsive to his touch, beaded with running droplets of water. She reached out for him, her slim hands stroking his face, but he slapped them away, grimacing.

‘Your hands are like ice! What about the rest of you, girl?’ Morgan threw back the counterpane and completed the sundering of the dress with swift movements, laying her bare all the way to her pubic mound. She was as slender and as pallid as I’d anticipated, her private fleece cured to ringlets by water. He slipped his hand between her thighs and she writhed her hips as she parted them willingly for him. Then she uttered a moan – a real moan; a soft, thrilling sound – and arched against me. Despite my soaked and freezing clothes my cock stiffened at the unmistakable noise of a woman’s desire. Morgan had gone still. His eyes met mine.

‘What?’ I demanded, my voice unsteady.

‘Cold all the way through,’ he whispered, and his lips curved cruelly. I could see the muscles working in his wrist. ‘But wet there too. Gloriously wet. And she’s no virgin.’

Alyse’s hands reached for him again, pleadingly. He pulled back in annoyance.

‘Hold her arms out the way, Thorpe.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘What do you think? Hold her tight.’

Buy at Amazon UK (1 copy left at time of writing!) : Pre-order at Amazon US

Next excerpt on Friday.

Dark Enchantment - story 4: Ruby Seeds

Ruby Seeds is the fourth story in Dark Enchantment. It's a contemporary urban paranormal, and if you're paying any attention to the picture you've probably worked out that it's my take on the Persephone myth. It's a god thing...

Here Saffy (*cough*) is at a party, and has met a man out on the hotel balcony:

‘Are you cold?’ he murmurs, tracing a line of goosebumps up my arm.

‘A little.’

‘Shall we go back inside?’

‘No.’

His gratification is undisguised. He knows I am his for the taking. ‘Well,’ he suggests; ‘my jacket, then.’ Slipping it off, he furls it about my bare shoulders. I ease away from the rail to make it simpler for him, and am enveloped in his warmth and the perfume of his skin and whatever male scent it is he wears. My sex responds to the pheromone shock by blossoming into wet petals. He runs his fingers down the lapels of the jacket, those big knuckles just brushing the jut of my breasts, his grip saying I could pull you to me, his eyes promising a rough landing. I’m still holding my glass. When he looks down it’s there between us, tilted toward him, the carnelian contents threatening to spill.

Then Patrick lifts an eyebrow, the merest brush of his fingertip outlining the ring on my third finger.

‘We’re separated,’ I whisper. Most men don’t care, even when they do notice.

‘Ah.’

‘Nearly a year now.’ I don’t know why I have to say that, and I’m annoyed with myself as the words slip out.

‘Shall I?’ He moves to take the glass from my hand – but I’m quivering with tension and in the exchange I manage to spill a little down the side and onto his fingers. I laugh and lift the flute and his hand in both of mine, so that I can lick the dribble first from the cool hard glass and then, my eyes never leaving his, from his fingers. I lap those knuckles and suck one long finger into my mouth, teasing the sensitive skin with my tongue even as I hold it captive. ‘Oh God,’ says he softly, with reverence.

I take the glass and throw it over my shoulder. It hits a bush somewhere in the garden below. He touches my mouth with his other hand too, as if wondering how much I can fit between my full lips.

‘There’s got to be a quiet room somewhere…’

‘No.’ I pull my lips from his fingertips. ‘Out here.’ I watch the look of surprise and doubt and delight flash in his eyes, and I lay my hand on his shirtfront. Under the cool cotton his stomach is warm and flat. I slip a button and ease my fingers in through the gap, finding firm flesh. That’s too much for him; he finally steps in to close the gap between us, his thighs brushing up against mine, his hands taking my hips. His lips scout gently across my upturned face, checking for hostility and finding not even token resistance

‘We’re a bit visible,’ he murmurs.

‘Then we’ll have to be careful.’ He has a lovely hard bulge of anticipation in his trousers already, I’m pleased to find. ‘I promise not to scream if you don’t.’ I lick his bottom lip, then catch it in my teeth and give it a teasing nip, just as my hand goes to work on his cloth-covered erection. As our tongues meet he gives a thick little groan. Then he surprises me by taking the initiative and sliding his hand up between my thighs. He doesn’t have to lift the hem of the dress far to find the velvet mound of my pussy under the flimsiest of silken triangles. It’s shaven smooth, a fact he discovers as his fingers stroke me softly through the cloth. His tongue stirs my mouth in assured counterpoint to the movement of his hand.

I can’t help the noise that escapes as he finds the edge of the silk at the crease between thigh and pubic mound, but my moan is kept private by his lips. It’s a secret between us – like the secret movement of his finger slipping beneath the fabric to caress my bare flesh, soft and slow. Like the secret rush of heat to my sex. Like the hidden cleft of my sex-lips that he inevitably finds. Suddenly I’m not soft velvet under his hand any more, I am hot liquid melt and his fingers are delving the shallows of my furrow, back and forth. Our tongues still dancing together, we shift our stances very slightly and I ease my legs open to make room for his hand.

Buy at Amazon UK : Pre-order at Amazon US

Next excerpt on Wednesday

Eyecandy Monday

Now his face I like - he can keep his head!

This week I finally got round to updating my Myspace page (welcome to 2007, Janine) and lo and behold, finally found the option for getting rid of the nasty grey background and putting in a colourful theme. I got VERY excited, flirted briefly with the "gothic" template and then found "evil" and fell in love. "Evil" means big orange tentacles! All hail Great Cthulhu!!!

*ahem* Back to erotica sometime later today with another short story excerpt.

---

P.S: 24 hours after adding evil tentacles to my Myspace, I was asked by a total stranger to playtest a Cthulhu scenario being commissioned by Chaosium. See how effective serving the Great Old Ones is? Bwa ha ha...

Dark Enchantment - story 3: And Their Flying Machines

The third story in my new collection Dark Enchantment is a steampunk romance - a whole new genre for me! The story includes some coercion, so you have been warned.

Plot: Victoria City is embroiled in a war. Charlotte is a nicely-brought-up young aviatrix who, much against the wishes of her parents and fiance, persuades the dour and burly Chief Engineer McGregor to allow her to fly for the ornithopter corps. But the night before the critical battle, when they are alone, the Chief inexplicably turns on Charlotte...

‘Oh now. Don’t you go disappointing me, your ladyship.’ His pelvis pressed against hers and she found it difficult to believe how heavy he was; how hard. His hand worked her breast, more teasing but equally as implacable. ‘You’re no coward.’

She tried to reply but he kissed her words away like he would eat her protests. Then he drew back. His breath was hot on her lips, his grey eyes boring into her brown ones. She didn’t understand why her body was responding to none of her commands, why it was awash with heat and as limp as boiled laundry.

‘Have you ever touched a man’s prick?’

She whimpered.

He abandoned her breasts to fumble at the fly of his trousers, popping the buttons. His lips curved tauntingly. ‘Have you touched Lord Atherstone’s prick?’

She couldn’t answer. The world made no sense to her anymore and the room was spinning away into darkness. The only thing in her world was his hard body and his hard eyes and the hand that was taking hers and guiding it to his crotch as he released his proud erection.

‘Was it like this, then?’ He folded her fingers around an incredibly hot thick length of flesh and she shook from head to foot. Comparing Lord Atherstone’s slim dart to this thing was like comparing a Skylark Celestial to a gunship.

‘Ah.’ For a moment the fire in his eyes dimmed, as he visibly enjoyed the sensation of her fingers on him. ‘Lass.’ He smiled. ‘You should take a closer look.’ Stepping away, he pushed her to her knees in front of him. She came eye to eye with his flushed and turgid cock.

Charlotte now discovered that men of the lower orders did not shave their body-hair. His balls nested, bulging, in dark curls. And his member – well, she had only a prior knowledge of Freddy Atherstone’s to draw upon, but if this was a typical working man’s cock then it was as honed and strengthened by labour as the rest of his body. A spill of clear moisture slicked the swollen glans that thrust from his foreskin.

‘Like it?’ His voice was misleadingly tender. ‘Not too indelicate for you?’

Then he pressed her to his crotch, rubbing her face in his scent, on the stiff pole of his arousal. He wasn’t particularly cruel about it, just very thorough - as if he were marking her. When he’d rubbed every inch of the contours of her face with his prick he stroked back her tumbled fringe with his fingers. ‘Put it in your mouth.’

Charlotte obeyed him. He was the Chief and she was a pilot. He was in control.

She’d done this before. She'd done it with Freddy. When they’d been playing tennis together or dancing, and he was limping with arousal, he liked to shoot his seed into her throat. Freddy tasted yeasty and sour. Chief McGregor, she found, as she wrapped her lips around the blunt plum of his cock-head, tasted of smoke and machine oil and salt. He spoke, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying because of the blood roaring in her ears. He pushed himself deep into her mouth, down to her throat, until he found the point at which she choked, and then he pulled out again. She laved his slit with her tongue, no longer thinking or trying to think.

Buy at Amazon UK : Pre-order at Amazon US

Next excerpt on Monday, but don't worry: there will be Eyecandy too.

Dark Enchantment - story 2: Pique Dame

Dark Enchantment is officially released today (and is back in stock at Amazon UK after being sold out on pre-order yesterday)! Yipee!

The second story, Pique Dame, is a contemporary paranormal about an opera company staging a production of the Tchaikovsky opera of the same name - which is itself all about gambling, sex and ghosts. As the lead soprano Tanya and the lead tenor Elliot find a dangerous attraction growing between them, the ghost that haunts the theatre starts to take a personal interest...

I was just putting my earrings on when Elliot lifted the curtain and looked in on me.

‘Hey.’

‘Hi there.’

We stood smiling at each other, not entirely sure of ourselves. Elliot’s silence before he next spoke was just that little bit too extended. All of a sudden the room felt too warm.

‘I was wondering if you would like to go out for a drink, Tanya.’ His invitation was measured and polite, but it could not be construed as casual. His eyes said everything.

‘A drink?’

‘There’s the bar at the Hilton.’

‘I’d love to.’ I ran my hand over the back of a chair. ‘But I can’t.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Hm?’

‘I’m…’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m married.’

‘Ah. Fair enough.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘So am I,’ he admitted.

‘I’d have liked to though,’ I blurted out as he turned away. ‘You know.’

He held me with his gaze one beat longer. ‘Yes. I know.’ A moment of aching frustration passed between us, unspoken. Then he stepped in toward me and I thought that he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He took my hands in his and I thought how big and warm his were compared to mine. And I thought I was sure I was capable of denying myself - but not if he pushed it, not if he took control, not if he touched me. Please, I thought: just kiss me and it won’t be my fault.

Stooping, Elliot brushed his lips to my cheek. ‘I think it’s probably a good job we’re not on tour together, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘Goodnight, Tanya.’ He left me breathless and shaking - and alone.

I sat down heavily, feeling the air go out of me like from a punctured tyre. I should phone home, I told myself, my fingers fluttering over my face. I should speak to Tim and his voice would remind me who it was that I loved, who it was I could come home to every night and find always pleased to see me, pleased to slide into bed beside me, pleased for my success and my passion and my pleasure in an art he understood not at all. Tim would have bought a bunch of flowers to congratulate me on my opening night, and would have a bottle of my favourite wine open. We would make love because I’d be too wired and hyper to sleep, and it would be quite wonderful and satisfying.

None of which made one whit of difference to how I was feeling now. My panties were soaking. My insides churned, craving Elliot’s touch, the smell of his skin and his cologne, the sound of his voice. His beautiful, perfect voice. For a few moments I relived in my head our lovers’ scene on stage, hearing again our two voices intertwining passionately, seeing his body moving down on mine. It was too much to bear. With a quick glance out through the curtain I ascertained that there was nobody else in the changing room. Well, I told myself wryly; this wouldn’t take long. I stood with one hand on the glass of the mirror, hitched my skirt with the other hand, and delved into my panties. If I need to come quickly, that’s the way to do it: on tiptoes, my legs straining, my thighs braced. A peek of white cotton and a flash of mouse-brown hair under the folds of my skirt was the only visible naughtiness, but my fingers confirmed that I was slippery, that my clit was engorged and stiff. I fingered myself with quick vibrating movements. In the mirror I could see the tension in my jaw, the deep hunger in my eyes, the strain of my breasts against my tight blouse.

What if he comes back? I asked myself. What if he comes back through that curtain to ask me again? Would I be able to stop in time or would he catch me working off my frantic desire for him? Would he stand and watch, delighted, or would he pull up the back of my skirt and wrench down my knickers and stuff me hard from behind with his eager cock, just as I deserved?

Reflected behind me, in the shadow behind the costume rack, two eyes glinted. A dark figure stirred.

Buy at Amazon UK : Pre-order at Amazon US

Next excerpt on Saturday

Dark Enchantment - story 1: Dishonour

My new collection Dark Enchantment kicks off with Dishonour, a short, straightforward story which takes us back to the iron-age Eternal Empire of my novel Divine Torment. The plot: Surya is a young noblewoman with a crush on Lord General Mershen. Unfortunately civil war intervenes, Surya's family is on the losing side and the next time she sees him it's because the Emperor has sent Mershen to execute her. Then Surya shocks him by insisting she doesn't want to die a virgin...


He closed on her, his hand gripping her arm. ‘This is wrong,’ he rasped.

‘And what you’re going to do isn’t?’

He flinched. ‘Have it your way.’ Seizing her by the shoulders he whirled her sideways and slammed her against a pillar, nearly knocking the wind out of her. His hands were rough and determined; he tore straight through the fastenings of her robe and wrenched the cloth open, ripping the thinner material beneath to bare her breasts. Surya shut her eyes, shrinking back into herself; he was too big, too strong, too fierce. He smelled of sweat and horses. Under his armour he was all hard muscle and his thighs were crushing hers. His hands grabbed her soft little breasts like he wanted to squeeze the life from them.

I asked him for this, she told herself. I will bear it. I will endure it. It’s what I wanted.

He was panting hard through clenched teeth. This wasn’t even lust: it was anger. Anger at her for rejecting his honour, anger at an Emperor who would insist on such a task – and most of all anger at himself. Involuntarily she cried out as his fingers bit painfully into her flesh. Without warning he went still, one hand on her shoulder, one squashing her left breast, her nipple pinched between his fingers. With his head bowed over hers, he made a noise almost like a sob. Then, ‘Surya.’

She bit the inside of her lip to staunch the tears that were burning at the back of her eyes.

‘Do you really want this?’ he groaned.

She whimpered. Then he lifted her face to his and kissed her. His lips were dry and a little chapped, and there was no anger in them at all, just deep pain and a fervent, haunted desire. She shook beneath them, opening to him, dissolving as his kisses soaked into her. He tasted of wine and blood and exhaustion, but he was warm on her cold skin and she pressed trembling against him. A tear she had not held back slipped down over her cheek and he caught it on his thumb before brushing his lips across the planes of her face, as if he were tasting her skin.

‘Have you prayed to Tesub?’ he breathed, his mouth hot at her ear and throat.

‘Hhh?’ She was incapable of speech at that moment.

‘Ask her to accept your maiden sacrifice.’ He was pulling at the strapping of his breastplate. His words burned.

‘Ah.’ Of course; it was the ceremony for the wedding night: to offer one’s maidenhead to the goddess as a pure sacrifice. A woman who did not – oh gods he was kissing her throat now and her whole body was shaking with the heat of those kisses – any woman who didn’t risked dying impure and being rejected by the gods. Oh. The tears were back again, brimming in her eyes. ‘I don’t know the words.’

He pulled back momentarily to look her in the face. ‘Nor do I.’ He shrugged his breastplate off and laid it to the floor. ‘Think. You must have heard women talk.’

‘Yes.’ Think? She couldn’t think. His big strong hands were on his belt now, uncinching the kilt of straps that protected his thighs. There was blood all across his scraped knuckles. There was a green stain on the front of his tunic from the breastplate. She touched the fabric, feeling for his heartbeat beneath the padded linen. He grabbed her hand and pushed it down to his crotch. Beneath his tunic and calfskin breeches something surged hungrily to greet her.


Buy at Amazon UK - out Thursday! : Pre-order at Amazon US



Next excerpt on Thursday.

Eyecandy Monday

Feel like getting dirty?

My new book is out in the UK this week! So starting tomorrow I will be posting an excerpt every other day from one of the 11 short stories in Dark Enchantment. Doing my best to keep ya'll warm this January!

Here be the blurb, btw: "In the follow-up to her peerless first collection, "Cruel Enchantment", Janine Ashbless brings you more breathtaking tales of lust and magic, dark fantasy and even darker desire. An unearthly stranger who pursues a newlywed on her Mediterranean holiday, an opera production where emotions run out of control, and a ghost who wants one thing only from the descendant of her murderer are just three of the seductive and stylishly written stories that will tease, tempt and transport you to fantastic realms where dreams - and nightmares - can come true."

Getting satyrical

Happy New Year everyone! I'm back from my holiday in the Wild Wild South and am currently hoping the house will heat up sometime before June.

Following on from the Pan post earlier ... I do seem to have randomly acquired a bunch of faun/satyr pictures of varying levels of naughtiness. So here they are:

Now that's culture, eh?

Ooh - here's another one, hiding in the wrong folder. I need to get my pictures sorted out.