After the "Happily Ever After" + Giveaway

In many romances, "happily ever after" means marriage. Hero and heroine meet, sparks fly, they start to fall in love, whether they know it or resist it tooth and nail. At some point they have a Black Moment when it looks like all is lost. By the end they realize they love one another, declare their love and know they've found their destiny.

There might be a wedding in the book, there might not, but we know they're going to spend the rest of their lives together being blissfully happy. And that's pretty much the end of the story.

In many romances, once the hero and heroine decide to marry, what else is there to tell?

Of there are many exceptions. Marriages of convenience, drunken Las Vegas weddings, historicals about arranged marriages. I've always been intrigued by these books, because I find marriage fascinating. Every marriage is different, after all, and you can never tell what a couple's marriage is like from the outside. I love romances that include marriage because they get into the question: what happens after the "happily ever after"?

GO DEEP, my latest release from Ellora's Cave, is about a marriage with a problem. Beth and Gavin Thomason love each other, but when it comes to their deepest sexual needs, they're virtual strangers. I loved writing this book because I got to explore this particular couple's marriage and how they manage to find the intimacy they both long for. Here's the blurb and an excerpt.

GIVEAWAY!  Leave a comment for a chance to win a copy of GO DEEP or a copy of the first book in this series, GO WILD--your choice. I'll pick a winner first thing Saturday morning.

Go Deep

Juniper Bell

A standalone sequel to Go Wild.

Beth is the shy, dreamy type. No one guesses at the wild sexual thoughts she hides behind that quiet façade. She doesn’t even share her secret longings with her husband.

Gavin loves his wife, but he’s tired of living in a marriage in which neither he nor Beth reveal their true desires. When Gavin sees Beth’s response to an erotic bondage photo in her framing shop, he jumps at the opportunity to break through her barriers.

He accepts an invitation to a showcase match for the amateur hockey team he coaches during Wild Nights, the infamous winter festival during which “anything goes, nothing counts.” But he’s opened a sensual Pandora’s box—Beth has some surprises of her own. When she meets Eagle, a free-spirited Wild resident, she knows he’s the perfect man to help enact her erotic fantasies. And once they go deep, there’s no going back.

EXCERPT 

When Beth surfaced from her drugged slumber, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Her body felt different. Lazy and sensual, a few twinges here and there. And then it all came rushing back. The costumes. Gavin. The deep, wrenching orgasm that had just turned her life inside out.

She should run. Now. While she had a chance. Before Gavin knew she was awake. He wouldn’t chase her, she knew. If she wanted to leave, she could.

Which was why she couldn’t possibly run.

She lifted her head and looked around for Gavin. He sat in the armchair next to the woodstove, still in black, still masked. His head lolled back against the wall, his legs spread, pants refastened, his hands resting on his strong thighs. A deep flush swept across her body as she remembered what those magic hands had done to her. Gavin had made her feel things she hadn’t known were possible. Or maybe she’d suspected. The image of the bound woman in the photo came into her mind, along with the restless, excited feeling it had inspired in her.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

So he wasn’t asleep. “No. Surprised me.”

For a moment he stayed quiet. “I don’t ever want to hurt anyone. I could, easily. I’m too strong.”

“But you wouldn’t.” She knew it in her bones.

He shook his head, a worried frown pulling his black eyebrows together. “A girl I dated in college liked it rough. She showed me what she wanted, made me rip her clothes off, pin her hands over her head, fuck her hard as I could. I hated myself for liking it. She wanted me to hurt her but I wouldn’t. I freaked out and broke up with her.”

Beth propped her head on her elbow to listen. They’d never talked about their sexual pasts. Part of her didn’t want to hear about him with other women. But most of her was fascinated. “Then what happened?”

“Her friends started calling me. I went out with one and she told me she had handcuffs in her purse. Wanted me to cuff her to the steering wheel. Told me she’d heard what a great fuck I was. I hated that, hated thinking of them talking about me like that.”

Beth felt heat come and go in her face. She’d never heard that talk. Then again, they’d gone to different colleges. And she wasn’t used to talking about such things.

“I swore off kinky sex and focused on rescuing Thomason Heating from the bank. And then you came back to North Pole.”

“And?”

“When you smiled at me at that gas station—remember?—I wanted you so hard I could barely stand. A thousand times more than I ever wanted those girls in college. But I wanted it dirty, and you were so innocent. By some superhuman willpower, I held myself back. I loved you too much, I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Her heart went out to him, this powerful man whose muscle power was dwarfed by his heart. Gavin deserved something. Something special. Some kind of glorious thank-you. She eased off the bed.

He was only a few steps away, too close to bother getting to her feet. Instead, she crawled across the floor to him. He watched her through slitted, intense black eyes. Their heat made her shiver. She felt her hips sway from one side to the other as she made her way across the rug. His gaze fastened on her breasts, which bounced with each move she made. Oh God, the way he’d teased them with his thumbs…

Another shiver.

She crawled between his long legs. The thought of what lurked behind that zipper made her dizzy. She knew his penis and yet she didn’t, not anymore. Not the fierce way it had claimed her. Her mouth watered.

She lifted her face between his thighs and, with her mouth, undid the snap at his waistband. Then she took his zipper pull between her teeth. She risked a glance up at him and caught his black gaze burning into her. Another wave of dizziness struck. Slowly, she pulled at the zipper, inch by inch. As his trousers parted, a massively aroused, fire-breathing dragon of an erection sprang from its cave. It reared up into the open air, demanding and ferocious. She’d always avoided this part of making love, and Gavin had never pressed her.

But now she wasn’t afraid. Not dressed like this. Not tonight. Tenderly she touched its base with her tongue.

Gavin groaned, a rough, helpless sound that told her just how much she turned him on.

“No holding back,” she whispered, her lips moving against the satin skin of his cock.

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Have a great weekend! And don't forget to comment to enter the giveaway. 

Juniper