The Affair - out now in the UK

Blow the trumpets and wave the flags one last time - this really is the last Black Lace anthology to be published in 2009/10 and possibly - we have no idea what's going to happen to the imprint - forever.  The bright side is that it's available now in the UK and will be released in the US etc ... um ... sometime in the next couple of months. So buy it as a collector's item!

Subtitled A Black Lace Collection of Thrilling Assignations (yes, the Amazon picture is wrong, bless my soul), this anthology is themed around illicit relationships and features stories by Charlotte Stein, Portia Da Costa, Shanna Germain, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Gwen Masters and Justine Elyot. Oh yes, and ME with my story The High Ground. Which is about two couples who know each other through their orienteering hobby.

Orienteering is officially the least sexy subject on the planet, according to the internet. I know this because when I put "sex orienteering" into my search engine (with NO filter) it didn't come up with any rude pictures for pages! Orienteering is strong enough to cancel out random porn!

Actually, there's not much running going on in The High Ground. The story is about Jill, who thinks her husband Dan is carrying on with her friend Fiona. So she goes and confides in Fiona's husband Miles, who is a cold 'n' scary lawyer and a fellow runner. The two hatch a plot to catch Dan and Fiona in flagrante. But things don't go quite as Jill expects...


‘You messed up my times that day,’ Miles said softly.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. I could feel the ghost of his eager cock in my empty palm.

‘You never...?’ His question hung on the air.

‘I love Dan,’ I said. ‘He’s my husband. I want to keep it that way.’

‘And he loves you. I promise you that. I know him, Jill.’

‘Then how could he do this?’ I demanded, the confusion bubbling up in my breast. ‘How is it that I’m not enough – that everything we have isn’t good enough for him?’

Miles shifted in his seat to face me. ‘Well,’ he said, so softly that if you didn’t know him you might even mistake it for gentleness; ‘I can understand, I guess.’

‘That’s horrible!’

‘I mean, I love Fiona, but that doesn’t mean that when I’m with you, Jill, I don’t feel the need – the very strong need - to wrap you around my cock.’

A jolt went through me, like electricity. ‘This is so not a good time,’ I whispered.

‘No?’ He lifted his fingers to my face, stroking my temple and the line of my cheek, brushing my lips softly with a touch like the feather of a fallen angel. I trembled under his caress as his fingertips dipped to my throat. Oh, I could so easily see him as an angel of sin: he was all cold fire and magnetic superiority. But I could see something else too, overlaying the first vision: the skinny ginger kid he must have been once, alone in the playground, far too clever for his own good. His voice was low and hypnotic. ‘Then when would be a good time for me to do this?’ he asked, leaning from his seat to kiss me.

Our lips were warm together. It was the Christmas kiss all over again, though inside me now as then the effect was rather more like Bonfire Night. For a moment it was almost chaste – then his tongue was on mine and everything was all heat and melting and yielding; my mouth opening to his, my breast quivering under the sweep of his fingers as he sought beneath the claret coloured fabric of my blouse for my heartbeat. A little whimper escaped my lips as he released me to draw breath. It was a helpless animal noise, the sort that cannot help but provoke the predator. He smiled.

‘I love Dan,’ I breathed. It was my mantra.

‘I know.’ His fingers deftly slipped the top button of my fitted grey waistcoat, the main barrier between him and my nipple; I wasn’t wearing a bra beneath that red blouse. ‘You love him, and you want to fuck me.’

---

The whole 2009 set of Black Lace anthologies is available now, and they all feature my stories:

The Affair -  Pre-order at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK
Misbehaviour - Pre-order at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK
Liaisons - Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK
Seduction - Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK
Sexy Little Numbers - Buy at Amazon US : Buy at Amazon UK