Time flies when you are working on a writing project. Sometimes it’s hard to raise you head long enough to do stuff with family when the ideas are flowing as fast as you can type them. Last week I finished the first draft of Hardly a Stranger, my third male male romance. Such a good feeling to bring two careful men together and I’m really pleased with the result. Of course, the story still requires work to bring it up to publishable standards, so I’ll set it aside for a while and come back to see where the story needs work.
In the next week, I should be publishing Barely a Master, the second male male romance – this time set in London. I am so very very pleased with this story. Aiden, the Duke of Lewes, gave me so much trouble at the beginning and my hero, Terrance changed direction on me half-way through. That change actually turned out for the best though so I can’t be too put out with him. But what I can give you is a quick peek at page one.
Powder. Shot. Pull the trigger. Just three actions to end the misery. Aiden Banks, the Duke of Lewes, shifted under the weight of Lady Russell’s feminine bulk, too dejected to remove his hand from her large breast. It hadn’t been his choice to fondle her. She’d taken the initiative all on her own the moment she’d invaded his study and perched her ample hide on his lap. Confounding creature. It never ceased to amaze him that she was so blind to his indifference to her reputed charms.
Lady Russell fingered his cravat, a slow crafty smile curving her lips upward in evident satisfaction. “Darling, perhaps we should adjourn to a more fitting location?”
Unfortunately, the deepest parts of hell were all taken.
He dropped his hand so it hung down the side of the chair, so as not to touch her more than he had to. He didn’t know what she could possibly want with him. He’d never encouraged her to think him open to her inducements.
Powder. Shot. Pull the trigger.
The refrain grew louder with each passing day.
“I’m expecting company at any moment,” Aiden murmured.
“Your heir? How delightful. Robert is a handsome young man, every bit as promising as his father was as a younger man.” She moved to touch Aiden’s head, perhaps to smooth a lock of his hair from his eyes. He escaped her attempt. He didn’t like to be touched. “I think we should educate him in the ways of the world. I’ve never romped with a duke and his heir before. It could be quite . . . stimulating.”
Over Aiden’s dead body. He had firm limits to how far he’d let his debauchery take him. Lady Russell, on the other hand, did not entertain a scruple of limitation in her being. She liked wide variety in her steady diet of willing men. Young, old, experienced, novice—she wasn’t fussed so long as she got her pleasure first. Aiden wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t riddled with disease. The thought made him fidget.
Perhaps he had some obligation, aside from dying and bestowing the title to his late brother’s child. He should warn Robert to stay clear of Lady Russell. If she had set her mind on him as her next conquest, Aiden would interfere. The duchy must have healthy heirs.
A bitter laugh welled up inside him.
Yet he couldn’t let it out.
“Stimulation will have to wait for another day.”
As soon as tomorrow, I’m returning to my het romance series, The Wild Randalls. That project stalled for a while while I completed the first three m/m’s and I am very keen to get back to my hero Leo and my first duchess, Mercy. She’s a handfull, all right. So much trouble for Leo that when I left them before, his head was spinning. I’m also researching how the mad was cared for during the regency period for the second book in the series which I intend to start in November. Basically, the care for troubled souls wasn’t good during the 19th Century. But what I’d imagined before starting my research is actually very tame to what was actually done to those poor souls. Not great material to read at night.
The trouble with doing research for the regency is that there is just so much to discover. It never ceases to amaze me how much I enjoy history now. Perhaps my high school teacher could have done better with less sanitized material. LOL. Do you ever get wrapped up in your projects? Scrapbooking, photography, dragon collecting? I’d love to hear your obsessions.
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Once a Husband
