The Simple Things in Life...
Okay, well this may not appear simple. It is the sweetest little building that Skye, Beau and I came across this morning on our 7.00am walk. The little front door is probably less than 3 foot high.
I've never come across it before and yet I've walked the paths around Haughmond Hill for years. I just happened to step off the beaten track, which I frequently do, but this was a path I'd never been up before. There it was. Simple
What is also simple, yet slightly strange is the story I'm currently writing is a paranormal. A story of witchcraft and ancient times brought into the modern day. Quite often when I'm writing a new manuscript simple things will happen, little incidents to trigger whole scenes.
I'm going for a scene with this little gem and I'll let you know how it turns out.
In the meantime, here's something from Banshee Seduction. This was another scene inspired by something so simple as a lady called Mandy who works in Laura Ashley in Shrewsbury getting her i.d. tag caught with embarrassing consequences which had us all laughing. See what I did with it...
Excerpt
Grateful for a moment’s peace, Ginny spotted a paperclip that had slid under her keyboard and ducked her head to reach for it.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?” With her head tucked under the counter, the security tag ribboned around her neck slipped neatly between the counter and the keyboard rack and became trapped. Having experienced it before, she dipped down low to loosen it, this time without success. She gave an insistent tug.
“I need a book.”
“Nice voice.”
“Lovely voice.”
“Hmmm, sexy.”
“Deep and sexy.”
Ginny raised her head and fell into the beautiful aquamarine depths of Matt Dane’s eyes.
Breathless, she opened her lips and took several attempts to speak while he leaned on the counter to watch her. A quirky smile played across his mouth, and the raging madams in her head fell into dumb silence.
His eyes crinkled at the edges, and as she straightened, so did he. He deliberately kept his face on a level with hers until she reached the extent of the ribbon tethered around her neck and it jerked her to a halt. Feeling foolish, she swallowed and nodded like the brainless bird she had become because he’d stolen her voice. He smiled, and she couldn’t help dipping her gaze to stare at his beautiful mouth with his even white teeth and firm lips. When he smiled, the top one remained straight and dipped inward slightly so she wanted to grab him and nibble on it.
Rich and famous he might be, but you couldn’t buy sex appeal. He’d been born with it.
She fluttered her eyelashes as she forced her gaze away from his mouth and back to the soft jade of his stare.
Without breaking eye contact, she gave a subtle yank on the ribbon. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice it was trapped. The security tag remained wedged, and her efforts were all for nothing. What would he think if she simply face-planted the desk and remained there until he’d gone? Surely it couldn’t get any more awkward.
He reached out, and her mind emptied of all thought. His long fingers stretched toward her breasts, and her mouth went dry. Heavens, he was going to touch her breasts, and she wanted him to. The voices in her head didn’t so much screech as purr in pleasurable anticipation.
“Yes.”
“Oh yes.”
“Please, do it.”
“Do it. Yes, yes, do it.”
Close enough for his face to almost touch hers, his smile widened to create deep laughter lines on either side of his mouth. A mouth she’d already kissed and had a desperate desire to kiss again.
With a loud click, he sprung her free. Her neck jerked, and she shot upright, gasping as molten heat suffused her with what she imagined was a bright unattractive puce as she realized he’d had no intention of sexual contact.
She stared at him. Confusion washed over her normally active brain to drown out all intelligent thought.
“A book,” he repeated, and she nearly curled into a ball of overheated shame. Why would he make a sexual approach? She was a librarian, for goodness’ sake, in a library, and he was there to collect a book.
It was obvious he didn’t recognize her from the nightclub. She couldn’t look more different from the way she had in Montgomery’s Sin with her heavy, red-framed glasses covering half her face, her hair scraped back in a torturous bun, and her boxy gray suit doing nothing to accentuate the curves she’d had on display the night before.
She stretched to her full height, gave her jacket a firm yank into place, and plastered a strained smile on her face in a vain attempt to be all business while the man who insisted on haunting her dreams stood in front of her and tempted her to drool.
“Yes, sir. What book would you like?”
His mouth twitched, and the desire to grab him escalated. Those gorgeous firm lips were such an enticement. Luckily for him, the library provided insulation against the raging banshees in her soul. Small murmurs escaped them, but their frenzied screeching remained under control. It was the only place she could come for peace and quiet. Luckily too for the library, she was unable to self-combust within its boundaries. All those dusty books would be ash. Some higher power had decreed her flammable qualities and inner tormenting voices were doused temporarily in their presence. That’s why she worked there, for the protection of herself and others. Or else the officious twerp from earlier would have been barbecued ribs.
Matt’s small cough jerked her wayward attention back to him, and the voices sighed in unison.
“I don’t know what it’s called.”
“Okay.” She touched her fingertips to her hairline to pat the beads of sweat that had started to form and noticed the amused twitch of his eyebrows, the tiny quirk at the corner of his mouth. She would have considered him observant—except he didn’t know it was her. He was probably well aware of how he affected every woman he met and used it to his best advantage.
With a sigh, she tried again. “ISBN?”
“I don’t know.”
“Publisher?”
“Nuh-uh.” He leaned on the desk and brought his face closer to hers. Amusement crinkled his eyes. Her pulse rate went into overdrive, and her breath hitched. Unprofessional in the extreme.
“Author?” The word exploded in a labored gasp from her lips. She had no idea if she would survive the encounter. What cruel form of torture had been sent to plague her now?
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
He cupped his square chin in his hand, and she fancied she saw a golden swirl pass through the deep ocean green of his eyes. She resisted leaning in closer to check, but his move did nothing to slow the pace of her heart or reduce the heat lower down.
She couldn’t help the impatience tingeing her voice—impatience with herself and the effect he quite obviously had upon her. In all honesty, for the sake of her sanity, she needed to get rid of him.
“Subject matter?”
“Sex.”
Buy Links
Comments
Post a Comment
Please type your comments