Mercy met Rafa, a Spanish exchange student, in high school. Her teenage crush went nowhere thanks to the jealousy of her best friend, Jules. It’s time to make up for denying her what she wanted so badly, so Jules has set Mercy up with Rafa while he’s in Vancouver on business.
Mercy’s nervous about her blind date; Rafa’s just excited to see her again. Dinner is great, but neither of them can wait to get down to the sexy business they’d missed all those years ago. (cobblestone press.com)
Mercy’s nervous about her blind date; Rafa’s just excited to see her again. Dinner is great, but neither of them can wait to get down to the sexy business they’d missed all those years ago. (cobblestone press.com)
Warning: This series is erotica, but the excerpt is not.
Please help me welcome author Josee Renard to a Buckeye Girl Reads. She's been kind enough to give us an excerpt of her newest installment of her Part Time Lovers series, Superstition. My review of the series will be up shortly. Josee, thanks so much for the excerpt!
An excerpt from the upcoming Superstition, the fourth installment in the Part Time Lovers series available at www.cobblestone-press.com today.
Mercy loved September. She loved the warm, rich color of the light, the cooler nights, the new shoes and fall coats, the relative quiet on the streets as the kids went back to school, and the tourists—at least most of them—went home. Her favorite restaurants and bars slowed down to busy instead of frantic, and Part Time Lovers did the opposite. She wasn’t sure why, but September through December were their busiest—and most intriguing—months. She thought it might be because of the longer nights, forcing people to realize that they were lonely. But she always met the sexiest and most interesting people in Vancouver, partly because Jules usually went on vacation in September. Although, now that she thought about it, he’d shown no interest in doing so this year.
Mostly, she loved September because for many years it had been her lucky month.
She’d won $10,000 on the lottery on Labor Day one year, bought her condo, started Part Time Lovers. When she went to Hastings Racetrack in September, her horses won. She bought a new car every second September, and it was never a lemon. When she found a pair of shoes she loved, the store had it in her size and in the color she wanted. And they were always on sale.
Add to that the fact that she’d had the best weekend of her life on a quick getaway to Las Vegas, and September was the bomb. Mercy tried not to think about that weekend too often; it just made the rest of her life seem sad in comparison. But sometimes, like this week with Jules moping over his computer screen, she couldn’t help herself.
That year—the year she thought of in italics as the Las Vegas Year—Jules had taken three weeks and gone to Miami to visit a friend. He’d come back glowing with the aftermath of great sex and sunshine, while she’d spent the three weeks glued to Part Time Lovers, dealing with the deluge of posts and the Biblical-style deluge from the skies outside. The last three days of those weeks were the kicker. She’d called their Internet service provider no fewer than ten times to deal with glitches, had broken the heel of her favorite Bandolinis, ripped three pairs of expensive pantyhose to shreds, and cracked two nails crawling around underneath the desks trying to fix the Internet problems. It had been the week from hell.
Once everything was fixed, she called their friendly neighborhood travel agent and booked a weekend in Las Vegas, leaving the day after Jules arrived home. Mercy had contemplated leaving the same day, but Dorothy had pointed out the possibility of Jules being delayed and Part Time Lovers being rudderless for who knew how long, so she’d settled for a flight on Friday afternoon—flying first class for the first time ever. She deserved it after the past three weeks.
When Jules arrived on Friday morning, she handed him the lengthy notes she’d made about the computer problems, said, “See you on Tuesday,” and walked out the door with her suitcase, her passport, and the few remaining shreds of her sanity.
The trip she booked was extravagant, far more so than usual, including a suite at the Bellagio. Dorothy tried to convince her to book tickets to Cirque du Soleil, but Mercy didn’t want to make any plans. She wanted to let the weekend unfold as it would.She might go to the spa, have dinner at one of the great restaurants advertised on Bellagio’s Web site, do a little gambling. She loved roulette, the excitement of it, the immediate gratification, the connections made between the people standing around the table. She’d do that for sure. The flight was on time, the limo waited at the airport, check-in was expecting her. Mercy wasn’t sure what Dorothy had said to the staff at the Bellagio, but they treated her like a VIP, and she wasn’t about to complain.First stop? The spa for the complete package. Hair, nails, waxing, spray tan. Massage. Mud bath. Leaving almost eight hours later, Mercy felt like a million dollars, relaxed and looking forward to doing a big fat nothing for the rest of the weekend. When she’d booked the trip, she’d imagined meeting some gorgeous guy, someone she could play with for the weekend. But having finally relaxed, she realized that the past few years since launching Part Time Lovers had been exhausting.
Not just work, not just the brutal pace of the start-up, but hopping from partner to partner. Oh, not that she didn’t enjoy it. She did. She loved sex, was at least slightly addicted to it. That was the reason she—and Jules, for that matter—were always ready to try something new.
Maybe it was being on all the time. She had to decide what sexual fantasy she was playing, had to get dressed for it, had to maintain that fantasy during the encounter. All she did, day after day, night after night, encounter after encounter, was think about then get ready for, and then have sex. It was more than exhausting; it was wearing on her. Physically, emotionally, intellectually.
Leaving Vancouver, leaving Part Time Lovers, spending a day being pampered without thinking about how she was going to use that pampering to turn somebody on, was delightful.
Mercy spent the rest of the weekend doing not much of anything. She read—she’d almost forgotten the joy of books—four books. A little romance, a little mystery, a little fantasy.
She ordered room service and ate amazing meals on her shaded balcony. She watched movies, another thing she hadn’t done for years.
And she made a resolution. Yes, Part Time Lovers was important. Yes, sex was important. But they weren’t the only things in her life. From here on out, Mercy was going to make time for Mercy. One weekend a month, she’d take a break, a time-out for just her. She’d go to a movie, read a book, work out at the gym, and go for a swim. She’d kept that pledge. Every September she remembered what she’d learned from that weekend in Las Vegas and renewed her commitment to making time for Mercy. It kept her sane, even when Jules seemed to be going around the bend.But oh, how she loved September.
This year, though, wasn’t shaping up so well. Jules was still pining after Shea, the barista he’d been crushing on for months. He couldn’t even pick up coffee at Glass City anymore, because Shea was at home in Australia for another two weeks. She wasn’t making things much better, either. She’d thought he would return to his regular self after she’d set him up with Jeanne, and he did. For a week or so. Now he was moping again, and she had no idea what to do about it.
But she had to think of something. He was driving her crazy. And he was ruining her special month.She’d been keeping watch on the posts on Part Time Lovers, had even forwarded a couple of them to Jules for his personal attention with a wink wink nudge nudge note, but he hadn’t even responded.Mercy couldn’t run off to Las Vegas for a weekend and leave Jules here by himself. Not that she would. She hadn’t been back since that perfect weekend because what if it didn’t live up to her expectations?
But Las Vegas was a good idea—just not for her. She’d send Jules off for a week as an early birthday gift. She could enjoy the rest of her favorite month, and he could do whatever Jules would do in Las Vegas. If he was going to be depressed, he could be depressed somewhere else. He could hole up in the lovely suite she would book for him at the Bellagio—hoping he’d have as good an experience there as hers had been—watch pay TV and drink tiny bottles of scotch to his heart’s content. At least she wouldn’t have to watch him. She picked up the phone and called Dorothy. Fifteen minutes later, the flight, hotel, and a couple of shows were booked and paid for. Sending Jules away might qualify as a corporate expense—getting rid of him was a necessity—but she did go out and buy him a pre-loaded $5,000 Visa card with her own money. That was her birthday gift, though it was really more a gift to herself than to him.Getting rid of his gloomy-gus face for a week was going to make the rest of her September way better than the beginning of it had been
I have a copy of Superstition to give away to one lucky person! To be entered into the giveaway you must leave a comment . A person will be chosen at random on Friday Sept 23. @ 11pm. Please be sure to leave your email address in the comment so I have a way to contact the winner. If I don't hear from the winner in 2 days of contacting them, I will unfortunately have to pick a new one. Good luck! :)
You can find Josee at:
Her Blog
Website
Cobblestone Press
