Let the battle of the sexes begin...
An Editor's Choice Selection
Blurb:
Where there’s a will, there’s wicked fun…
Drowning in bad luck, Cari doesn’t know where to turn when the unexpected happens. A loyal customer at her Key West café has left her an inheritance. She hopes for cash to save her restaurant but receives an old brass bottle that looks like a sex toy…and has Jez inside.
At six-four, he’s built like a gladiator, has looks to die for, and oozes sexuality. He’s also a jinn.
Color her enthralled and excited. Besides being one hot dude, he grants wishes, right?
Not for her. Ironclad tradition demands he serve men, not women. Of course, if she wants to get down and dirty with him, he’ll gladly oblige.
Let the battle of the sexes begin. Before long, their differences fall away as they indulge in every lusty desire, while falling hard and fast. Ah, paradise. Until trouble arrives, threatening to pull them apart forever…
Excerpt:
She couldn’t wait a second longer and twisted the knob to open the container.
The top didn’t budge.
She tried repeatedly until she was breathless and sweating.
The fucking thing wouldn’t turn. The nicks and dents she’d noticed earlier proved to be pry marks around the top that resembled the crown on a man’s cock.
“Crap.” She wasn’t equipped to break this thing or saw it open.
After searching her kitchen for something to use, she settled on rubber gloves to add traction to her grip. With her thighs holding the bottle, she wrenched the top as hard as her strength allowed.
The knob not only loosened, but flew off—similar to a cork on a champagne bottle—and hit her wall, denting the plaster.
There goes my security deposit.
Hold on.
By itself, the bottle trembled between her thighs, the metal growing warmer. Not an unpleasant feeling, but fucking weird.
Appalled, she flung the container on her table.
It thudded dully against her purse and shook violently.
“Shit, shit, shit!” The damn thing was going to blow. Her spicy, rich cooking must have pushed Ethyl into an earlier grave than she wanted, and this was payback. Terrified, Cari dropped to her knees, desperate to crawl to the door and outside. Frozen in horror, she hunkered behind a chair for protection.
Thunder roared.
Gold-and-black smoke poured from the bottle.
I’m going to die.
Hard rain struck the windows, but they didn’t blow out from an explosion.
Rather than the smoke rising to the ceiling, it curled in a slow spiral then drifted away from the table to her side.
Shuddering, she crab-walked away from it.
The smoke followed and took form.
Feet appeared first, at least a size fifteen, the toes well-formed and long. Muscular calves and thighs materialized next, dark hairs hugging them, the complexion olive.
She stopped edging back and leaned forward instead.
Upper thighs and narrow hips emerged, a startling-white fabric tied around the groin area, the ends hiding the good stuff. Not a loincloth exactly, more like a scarf exposing a rock-hard ass.
The abs and chest were no different, each sculpted, the small nipples a dark brown shade, similar in color to refried beans. The pecs quivered on each new breath. However, there was no navel.
This can’t be happening.
She raised her face.
The smoke broke apart, floated to the ceiling, and disappeared.
Leaving a thirtysomething man standing before her.
He opened his lushly lashed eyes.
Her breath caught. His irises were closer to gold than hazel, his shoulder-length brown hair thick and wavy, stubble outrageously sexy, mouth sensuous, one dark eyebrow arched at her.
He planted his hands on his lean hips.
Holy fuck. A gladiator couldn’t have owned more muscles, though they weren’t overdone like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s, but totally male.
Her pussy creamed.
An odd reaction since this couldn’t be real.
When the knob flew off the bottle, it must have ricocheted off the wall and hit her head, causing her to hallucinate this, or rather, him.
Only one way to find out. She grabbed his calf. Its brawn and heat made her ears buzz.
Grinning lewdly, he flexed his muscles and pressed into her touch.
This was no dream. She snatched back her hand. “Who-who-who-who—” She shivered so badly, she couldn’t speak, but had to. “Who are you? What are you?”
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He lifted his chin. “You, a mere woman, dare to question or demand anything from me?”
“Huh?” Not liking his sexist attitude, she scrambled to her feet. At five-seven, she couldn’t match his height. By her guestimate, he topped out at six-four and was the most perfect man she’d ever seen, except for his patronizing gaze. Precisely what she didn’t need. “Again, who or what are you? This is my place. My kitchen. Not yours. Answer me.”
“I answer only to my master. Go on.” He gestured her away as Antonini had. “Fetch the man in charge.”
As if. Before she could slug him, he pivoted and regarded her kitchen warily, as a one-percenter would, seeing only how small and simple it was.
She couldn’t have cared less if he found her digs lacking.
He next focused on her buñuelos.
If he gave them a pissy look or said one unkind thing about her cooking, he wasn’t long for this world, even if she didn’t know how to off him.
Bent at the waist, he sniffed the treats and licked his lips.
Growling sounded.
His stomach?
Holding one buñuelo between his thumb and forefinger, he examined the fried dough carefully, licked the contours, then popped the treat into his mouth. As he chewed, his lids slid down and he moaned the way guys do during orgasms.
For instance, let's say that the two main characters have met, and are both thinking about each other. I can show their thoughts, individually. But if there's a lot of time in-between when they meet, and when they run into each other again, I might use the omniscient point of view to show what's happening in their lives separately, before I jump into the action of their next meeting. One editor told me that was once the convention in romance novels, but is no longer allowed today. Today's readers want more immediacy. They want to "become" the romantic lead. So they only want to hear the thoughts of that one person, and the beloved. No over-view is allowed. I feel that's a stylistic choice that I make, which I find valid. Opinions?
What do you think? Has romance become so formulaic that diversity of views or styles isn't allowed? Would you feel "torn out of the story" by omniscient observations? Would it make you put a book down, unfinished, if there was a conversation, or event that happened between supporting characters that didn't involve the main two?
