Hot Ride is out tomorrow!

Hot Ride is a little different for me. Those of you who read my books know that I write hot, sexy books,and have no fear, Hot Ride is still hot and sexy! But it's a little darker, a little gritter. 

Courage is feeling the fear...then pouring on the throttle...

I did a lot of research for this story and I will fully admit that Hot Ride is probably not realistic in its happy ending. There are sad, disturbing stories out there about real life agents who went so far undercover that their lives were never really the same again. These agents sacrifice their real lives and families, often at the cost of their marriage and relationships with their children. I admire that kind of dedication to their cause, to their desire to take down the "bad guys", but I had to have a happy ending for my characters. Nonetheless, Sera and Ryan face some sacrifices and tough choices during their undercover assignment.

There's a lot of stress and tension undercover. When one biker is going to kill another, how do they stop that from happening without blowing their cover? When Ryan gets hurt, how do they go for medical treatment without blowing their cover or sitting waiting for hours in the ER because they have no insurance? When they're offered meth and marijuana, how do they maintain their cover without doing drugs? When one of the bikers is physically punishing his wife, how do they step in and stop it and protect her without blowing their covers? When Ryan's mother dies and the bikers are more sympathetic than his coworkers, how does he maintain his professional distance, knowing he'll be testifying against them when they're arrested? When female bikers are hitting on Ryan to the point their boyfriends are getting jealous, how does Ryan protect himself and maintain the relationships he's built in the gang?

  

They face struggles like becoming personally involved with the criminals they are trying to take down.  Difficult decisions about who to save...and who they can't save. The problem of becoming personally involved with each other when they're work colleagues, but when they're living together like a couple, how can they not get involved?

Here's a short excerpt from Hot Ride:

Beck and the men began talking about an upcoming rally in El Mirage in Nevada. She pretended an interest but her eyes scanned the bar, head nodding in time to the whining guitar and guttural lyrics of Metallica’s Death Magnet. Most of the patrons of the bar wore their colors, making no secret of the fact that this was a Death Angels hangout. Men with long hair, beards and arms sleeved with tattoos mingled with cleaner-cut guys, some with neatly trimmed goatees and short hair. Most of them were big—was that a requirement?— although in some cases size had more to do with fat than muscle.

She cocked a hip, took a big swallow of the cold beer, bubbles biting at her nose and throat, and took in her surroundings, moving her gaze to the others seated at the bar. From where she stood at the end, no stools left to sit on, she could see the face of every man seated there. Every man except one, who’d swiveled on his stool to watch the pool game. His leather jacket obscured his shape other than wide, wide shoulders, giving an impression of massive strength. A piece of red cord held his dark hair tied at his nape.

Then he turned around and she saw his face. Hoo. Now that was a good-looking biker. A well-shaped mouth, a square chin and high cheekbones could have been pretty boy, but thick, straight brows drawn down into a near-scowl above deep-set eyes gave him a badass, don’t-fuck-with-me attitude.

He turned his head and his eyes met hers. She blinked in surprise at the physical reaction she felt to his gaze, a clenching low down inside her, a flare of heat. Interest sparked in his eyes. A corner of his mouth kicked up and one brow lifted.

Well, why not? If she was going to get in with these guys, might as well do it with the best-looking one. Those suits in L.A. had accused her of being too feminine. Didn’t they know the advantage that gave her? So she flashed him her smile and gave him a slow wink.

He smiled back, and along with the badass attitude, he became even more…appealing. She held his gaze long enough to let her own interest show before turning back to Beck, lifting her bottle to her mouth.

“Gotta talk to A.J.,” Zocco said. “Come on, Beck.” Zocco rose off his stool to tower over her. God, he must be six-foot-five. She was five-seven, but he was a monster.

“Yeah. A.J. Come on, Sara.” Beck gestured and with a shrug, she followed him down the bar, toward the man she’d eye-locked with a few minutes ago. Beck and Zocco stopped and addressed the guy next to him.

“A.J. Man, you got those parts I asked you about the other day?”

A.J. shook his head. “Talk to Tommy, here. You want Harley parts—he’s the man.”

Tommy. His name was Tommy.

Zocco, A.J. and Tommy began an in-depth conversation about drag bars and pipes and forks. She felt the weight of Tommy’s gaze, even though he was talking to the others. When he’d assured Zocco he’d get the parts the biker was looking for, he turned to her. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

He looked her up and down. So, painted on black jeans, black boots and a low-cut red T-shirt weren’t her usual attire, but she knew she looked good.

“I’m Tommy.”

“Sara.”

“Friend of Beck’s?”

She hitched a shoulder. “Sort of. He knows my cousin. I’m in town visiting her.”

“Oh yeah? Where you from?”

“L.A.”

“What’re you doing here?”

She deepened one corner of her mouth into a wry smile. “Just lost my job, so thought I’d come for a visit.”

They studied each other and warmth slipped over her, starting at her chest and working its way up to her face. Good god, was she blushing? She never blushed! His size, his blatant masculinity and radiating sexuality caused every nerve ending in her body to prickle. His shameless male appraisal should have pissed her off, made her feel objectified, but instead her nipples tingled and tightened beneath her thin T-shirt, and her pussy clenched.

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Yesterday and Today - Chapter Two

This is the second installment of my serialized free story, Out of Time. The first installment is here.


10 Downing Street
10 January 1806

“You knew, sir! You knew!”

William Pitt was red-faced, and probably not from anger alone. Mary figured he’d already consumed a bottle of port, and it was eleven o’clock in the morning. Pitt the Younger’s fondness for the wine was well known to his contemporaries as well as later historians; his death in 1806 (in another thirteen days, if the timeline held, and there was no reason to assume it would) was generally assumed by historians to have been hastened by over consumption. Nineteenth century wine and liquor bottles were smaller than those of the twenty-first, but even so—Regency gentlemen drank a hell of a lot.

And most of the gentlemen currently serving in His Majesty’s government had been drinking even more since Mary, Group Captain Hullin, and their 7.8 million fellow temporal exiles had shown up.

She hated “temporal exile,” but the geeks from GCQH had coined the phrase and it stuck.

They were down to less than 4 million.

“Mr. Pitt, please, if you’ll allow me to--”

Captain Hullin broke off and Mary flinched as Mr. Pitt continued to pound the table between them, a gorgeous, though scarred, gouged and generally dilapidated, example of the Chippendale style. She still wasn’t used to treating antiques as normal furniture.

“You knew we would lose our greatest champion, our most brilliant strategist, at this most crucial and dangerous moment, and yet you chose not to warn us!”

There were two other men in the room, members of the minister’s staff whose names she hadn’t bothered to remember and who now stared intently at Captain Hullin while their boss continued his tirade.

She was certain that if she opened the door, a large crowd of eavesdroppers would fall, Marx Brothers style, into the small, stuffy room.

“You refused to share vital information concerning the safety of this country, our country—and yours, sir! Your country as well, or so you say, yet you--”

Oh, what the hell.

“It’s the Prince Regent, sir. The Prince Regent is the problem. And the Butterfly Effect.”

The two men flanking Pitt started, like someone had pinched them, and now they were staring at her instead of the Captain next to her. Pitt had stopped midsentence to gape at her as well

There was silence in the antechamber on the other side of the door; not the silence of an empty space, but the silence of a group of people holding their breath.

Or maybe she was just imagining that part. She was operating on very little sleep, and sitting across from three people who were determined to pretend she didn’t exist was making her peevish.

Hullin turned to look at her in bemusement. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered.

“Sir, I assure you, we can hear you,” Pitt said.

Hullin took a deep breath, glanced at Mary once more, then turned back to face the aggrieved PM.

“Mr. Pitt, I have no idea what Dr. Lilley is talk—excuse me, that’s not precisely true, I do know what she’s talking about, but I have no bloody idea why she’s bringing it up.”

Now it was Pitt who started, clearly surprised that Hullin would use such language in the presence of a female.

Pitt wasn’t particularly comfortable around women, but that wasn’t why he and his two inferiors had ignored her thus far. Even though almost two years had passed since The Event, a lot of people—maybe most people, and certainly most men—still couldn’t conceive of women possessing advanced degrees and inhabiting the same professional spheres as men.

But as she was the only PhD temp ex on the British mainland whose area of scholarship was 19^th century European history in general, British military history specifically, she’d become the de facto liaison between the military personnel representing the temp exes and the men who represented the Crown.

So she took a deep breath, pulled her chair up closer to the table, tucked one leg under her to give herself some height, and leaned forward across the table. Feeling the outer perimeter of his personal space being invaded, Pitt stepped back and frowned, clearly disconcerted.

Which was just how she wanted him.

“Let’s start with the Butterfly Effect, shall we?”

Pitt looked like he was about to say something, so she just kept talking, keeping her tone confident but conversational, neither aggressive nor submissive.  This was how she found herself addressing all the contemporary men she dealt with, in order not to challenge or provoke them while not allowing them to challenge or provoke her.

Rather like training dogs and horses, actually.

“It’s a theoretical device, and it describes how a hurricane might or might not form, depending on whether or not a butterfly far away did or did not flap its wings. We use the term to describe the phenomenon of very small, seemingly inconsequential actions or events which end up having very profound or far-reaching effects.”

Pitt was still frowning but seemed calmer as he mused, “Ripples in a stream.  A pebble thrown into a lake will generate ripples that constantly widen.”

She nodded with a smile. “Precisely so.”

Good boy!

“But what has this to do with…ah. I think I may see--”

And he probably did, because William Pitt was a brilliant man.

“I’ll wager you do.” Wager you do? She was beginning to speak like them even when she didn’t mean to. “We—and by ‘we’ I mean all of us who came through in The Event—have generated a massive Butterfly Effect, quite without meaning to. We know this because the events that have transpired since we arrived in 1804 have not followed the historical timeline as we knew it in 2013.”

She paused while he considered this, resisting the urge to ask, “Do you understand?” He would understand once he thought on it, and she of all people had to be sensitive to the danger of condescending to contemporaries.

After a few beats, his face took on a quizzical cast. “Are you saying that your presence has changed history?”

“History as we know it—yes. For instance, in our history the King was still in his right mind in 1806; the Regency Act wasn’t passed until 1810.  On the other hand, Napoleon hasn’t yet gotten to Vienna, whereas in our time, he entered the city in November 1805. And Arth—that is, I mean-- I mean the point is, there are numerous other examples as well.” She paused to take a deep breath, flustered and ever conscious of Stephen Faraday’s warnings.  “Now. We have to assume that it is our presence that’s caused these changes to the timeline, yes? And if that’s the case, we must try to limit our disruptions as much as possible, you see, because…”

She paused again, trying to figure out how to say it. Finally she gave up. Spreading her hands helplessly she said, “Look. The point is, we want to try avoid screwing things up as much as we can. As we’ve told you, Britain was victorious over Napoleon—but that’s not inevitable and even in our time, it was a very close run thing.”

She glanced over to Captain Hullin, who’d raised an eyebrow at her choice of phrasing. Having nearly blurted out Arthur Wellesley’s name, she now couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Pitt was shaking his head. “I believe I understand what you’re saying, but surely in the case of momentous events such as Trafalgar--”

“No, sir. No. Please, pardon my interruption, but…no. It’s the momentous events that we feel are most particularly at risk of being altered! Look. If we had told you that Admiral Nelson would die in battle on 21 October 1805, then obviously—surely—people would have taken steps to avoid that, yes? Someone, somewhere, would have sought to make sure Nelson wasn’t aboard Victory that day, or that he didn’t order the maneuvers that he did, or…something like that. And it’s impossible, absolutely impossible, to predict the multitude of outcomes that could have resulted from any one of those alterations. Any of them could have resulted in Britain losing the battle, but she didn't. She won, and so Napoleon’s opportunity to invade is gone for good.”

He was pacing around the table now, stroking his chin. He stopped a couple of chairs away from her and said, “But the threat is not removed, he is still marching across Europe, and we must still confront him.”

Captain Hullin, clearly done with sitting on the sidelines, stood up to face the prime minster. “Yes sir, exactly. And as Dr. Lilley has explained, in order for that to happen—in order for Britain to finally prevail, once and for all, over France--our experts believe very strongly that we must refrain from telling you too much of what is coming. We’ve given you a general outline of history as we know it, from your time to ours, but to ensure that this history happens again, as it were, we must withhold a great deal of information.”

Hullin was a man of impeccable breeding, well used to formality, and so he didn’t have to try as hard as she did to speak in the manner of contemporaries. It was clear from their earlier meetings with the prime minister that Pitt respected Hullin, recognizing him as a gentleman.

As Tom Carr liked to say, “an aristo will always recognize another aristo, even from two hundred years away.”

Pitt frowned once more, stared at the ground, and then looked up with a sigh. “Very well. I accept your answer—for now. I do plan to discuss the matter with my colleagues, possibly with some of our own scientists.”

Captain Hullin nodded with a slight bow.

“Now,” the prime minister continued. “To the Prince Regent.”

“Excuse me?” she and Hullin asked at the same time.

“Oh!” she exclaimed a second later. “I did mention him, didn’t I?”

Pitt raised his eyebrows but didn’t respond.

“Hmm. Well, you see, we…”

Goddamn it. Why had she blurted that out? What the hell was wrong with her? There was no way to…

“The Prince Regent cannot be told what we’ve discussed with you today, or what we’ll discuss with you—and with your colleagues—in the future,” Hullin said briskly. “I do apologize, and I know that this will cause you some difficulty, but I’m afraid there really is no choice.”

“And for what reason am I to withhold such important information from the Regent?”

“For the reason that, although he is a man of above average intelligence, he is utterly lacking in judgment, discretion, discipline or common sense. e HeH He cannot be trusted.”

“Oh bloody hell!” exclaimed the prime minister.

But he didn’t argue.

Thursday 13: Best Movie Heroes

This week we're bringing you thirteen of our favorite big-screen heroes. Brains or brawn, we love them all! BUT we need your help completing the list--tell us who you would add as our #13 Best Movie Hero!

1. Peter Joshua (Carey Grant) in Charade. (Skylar Kade)
2. Jamie (Alan Rickman) from Truly, Madly, Deeply. Sure, he's dead. But, hey, nobody's perfect. (PG Forte)
3. Frank Bullitt. No one has ever been cooler. (Meg Benjamin)
4. John McClane (Bruce Willis) in Die Hard (Erin Nicholas)
5. Thor: God of Thunder, and a sexy beast? He gets my vote! (Skylar Kade)
6. Indiana Jones (Sydney Somers)
7. Rick from Casablanca. He's still single and available at the end of the movie. Wait for me, Rick! (Juniper Bell)
8. Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline) from French Kiss--maybe not a perfect hero in all ways but redeemable (Erin Nicholas)
9. Rick from Casablanca. He's just like any other man, only more so. :) (Kate Davies)
10. Henry Gondorff from The Sting. Yeah, Redford was the star, but Newman stole the movie (Meg Benjamin)
11. Luc Teyssier from French Kiss--seconded! (PG Forte)
12. Wall-E. No robot has ever been sweeter or more heroic without saying a word. (Skylar Kade) 
13. Who knows??? You tell us!

Massaging your Diet

I adore a good massage. Swedish, shiatsu, hot stone, deep tissue, Ayurvedic … I’m not picky, as long as the practitioner is qualified and experienced. I don’t consider massages to be a mere indulgence. I think they’re important for your health. A good massage can stimulate your lymphatic system, improve your circulation, boost your immune system. But my favorite massage is the one I perform while making dinner.

I massage my greens.

Huh?

There is a method to this madness, and once I explain, maybe you too will get intimate with your greens.

If you’re trying to improve your diet, you’ll find a million different recommendations out there. But most will agree that adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet is a good thing. Adding the fruits is easy. But most fruit is high in sugar, so you don’t want to focus only on that. Salad is an easy solution, but lettuce and tomato and cucumber only get you so far in the nutrition department. We need our leafy greens. Kale, collard greens, beet greens, turnip greens, swiss chard … They’re loaded with nutrients, but they’re not glamorous, they’re tough to chew and what the heck do you with them, anyway?

Steaming or sautéing the greens works, but then you lose the enzymes and vibrancy that comes with rawness. To keep them raw, some people make “green smoothies,” but if you’ve ever tasted one, you’ll know why that’s not my preferred method.

I learned about massaging greens from a professional massage artist in Hawaii. He was able to tame an unruly heap of kale into an enticing, tender bed of deepest green. Massaging greens breaks down the fibers enough so the leaves are easier to chew and digest, while retaining all the nutrients and enzymes. Here’s how you do it. 

You strip the leaves from the stalks. (Some people chop up the stalks. Not me.) You tear or cut the leaves into pieces. Wash them well; maybe even soak them in water. When they’re clean, pat them dry. Dribble cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil over them. The oil softens the leaves and helps break down the fibers. Then – you massage them! Squeeze them hard, squish them between your fingers, knead them, get up close and personal with those greens. You can add a little salt, which also helps break them down. You can keep at it as long as you wish. Often I’ll massage for a little while, then let them sit so they can marinate a bit, then massage them some more. My massage artist friend likes his greens almost mushy, but I prefer a little more structure.

When they’re as soft and tender as you like them, you can add lemon juice, a bit more salt and olive oil if it needs it, and voilà! A lovely, raw, deliciously edible plate of leafy greens. You can eat them by themselves, or add them to a salad. Some people use tamari or shoyu instead of salt, others like vinegar instead of lemon. You can experiment and see what works for you.

In our garden this year, our cauliflower and broccoli plants refused to produce heads. But they went crazy with the greens – big, tough leaves it never occurred to me to eat. But I looked them up, and it turns out the greens are just as nutritious, if not more so, than the heads. So – we massage them up, and they’re fabulous. 

Massaging greens always reminds me of being a kid playing with playdough or fingerpaints. You end up with your hands oily and messy. So if you try it, please, have fun! And enjoy!

Guest Blogger Kelli Scott - Reality Check

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say my biggest sex organ is my big fat brain. I’m willing to bet yours is too.

Feeling sexy begins in the brain. Not feeling sexy also begins in the brain. Love and attraction start with sights and sounds and scents that all affect—you guessed it—the brain. When we first meet our prospective mate our pheromones like his pheromones, our respective chemicals spike and our neurotransmitters start snap, crackle and popping. We’ve got mutual attraction and infatuation, and yes, maybe even love. As the song says—Let’s Fall in Love. And eventually fall into bed.

After all, if he’s our soul mate—if it really is love—he’ll give us a screaming orgasm (not the drink, he’s not a bartender) with the wave of his magic wand. What if that’s not the case though? The scene is set with candlelight and rose petals, soft music and a glowing fire. He’s doing everything right. Our potential soul mate is handsome, sexy and funny. He’s polite when he ought to be, and a brute when the need arises, kicking ass and taking names. He works hard, plays hard, loves hard. He’s not perfect. No. More like flawed to perfection. What’s the problem then? He must not be our soul mate if we’re stuck on that ledge of desire with no way down. If he’s Mr. Right then why can’t we close the deal? If this were a romance novel, our one true love would make us splinter into a thousand slivers of red hot ecstasy, right?

But this is real life. Real life is messy and complicated and leaves dirty laundry on the bathroom floor. Real life likes starch in his collar and Ketchup on his scrambled eggs. He sings the wrong words to the right songs. And sometimes he aims for excellence in the bedroom, but falls short through no fault of his own. No, romance novels are not like real life.

Or are they? Welcome to the premise of my July Quickie release from Ellora’s Cave: Passion Pill.

Blurb:

Millie has a big problem. She’s never experienced the big O before, even with a doting boyfriend who loves her like crazy. If she can’t be Tom’s partner in every way—emotionally, spiritually and physically—Millie resigns herself to setting him free to find the total package. But then a last chance comes in the form of a little pink pill.

Tom’s wary about Millie taking drugs to enhance her libido, but he wants her to experience every sensation mind-blowing sex can deliver. Soon the passion pills take them on a wild ride, but they both know that sooner or later the drug trial will end and the pills will stop coming. Perhaps Millie will, too.


I know erotic romance is supposed to be about the fantasy. The story is meant to take us out of our reality and sweep us away to an imaginary world of six-pack abs and buns of steel. A magical place where orgasms are powerful and plentiful (FYI, there will be orgasms and they will be powerful and plentiful). Is real life just too real for a romance novel? What do you think?

http://www.jasminejade.com/p-10218-passion-pill.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Pill-ebook/dp/B008PT25J2/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/passion-pill-kelli-scott/1112312427?ean=9781419939907


Kelli Scott, a former airline employee, spent her career globetrotting the world, leaving broken hearts and empty champagne flutes in every port. Turning over a new leaf, she started her own now defunct religion, also revolving around champagne. Currently a recluse living on a mountaintop in the Appalachians, she enjoys rock gardening, taxidermy and writing her semi-autobiographical memoirs.

www.kelliscottbooks.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/#!/kelliscottbooks

http://www.facebook.com/#!/kelli.scott.5

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4627805.Kelli_Scott

My daughter's review of Just Like That

Some of you know that my daughter and I have entered a new phase of our relationship—she is reading one of my books for the first time.

This has been equally fun and scary for me. 

Scary?  Yes!  Here are just a few reasons.  There are swear words in my books.  But I’m not worried about that.  She’s heard ‘em all, and used a few herself.  There’s a guy who gets his way almost constantly with his charm and good looks.  That doesn’t concern me though—she sees right through that and finds him amusing.  There’s a girl who has a hard time being vulnerable.  Now I’m all for my daughter being strong, independent and confident, but she’s already all of these things times a thousand.  There’s also a time for vulnerability and trust with the right person—I hope she gets that.  

If not, I’m going to be bummed as a mom and a writer.  Oh, and then there’s the fact that she will now know all about blow jobs.  And she’ll know that I know all about blow jobs.  Yeah.  A little awkward.  Mostly though, I’m a little worried because she’s a discerning, avid reader.  She knows what she likes and what she doesn’t like and why.  She’ll be very honest with me, not just about the story and character development, but also the actual writing itself.  Oy.

But there are good things too.  One big one is that she keeps telling me the parts she likes and finds funny and it always makes me smile.  She thinks I’m funny! :) She also thinks I depicted the teenage girls and guys pretty accurately.  I love that she’s finally dipping her toe into romantic fiction after years of wanting to only read fantasy and science fiction (with romantic elements).  I also think it’s good that she’s learning what things make a man heroic (at least from her mother’s perspective).

So, she’s almost through chapter six (of twelve) and we’re both surviving without blushing or stammering around each other and yes, she’s through some sexy scenes.  However, she hasn’t read The Butter Scene.  I asked her if she’d gotten there yet and she said “No.  And I’m kind of scared to get there.”  LOL!  The warning on the book says, “… a whole new way to look at butter” and her comment to that was “I don’t think I want to look at butter differently”.

For fun, though, I thought it would be interesting to interview her about her experience in reading the first half of the book.  By the way, she’s reading Just LikeThat.  Yes, it’s the second in the Bradford series, but she thought the heroine sounded the most interesting of all my heroines :)

Me:  Is it weird reading a book written by your mom?

Finicky:    I don’t think of it as a book written by my mom, it’s just a book.

Me: (I like that answer :))  What one word would you use to describe the hero, Sam?

Finicky: One word isn’t fair.  To me or to your characters.

Me:  Aw… that’s nice :).  Now what word would you use?

Finicky:  Caring.

Me:  How about Danika (the heroine)?

Finicky:  *big sigh* Careful.  But smart about how she’s careful.

Me:  That’s more than one word.

Finicky: So?

Me:  Yeah, okay.  What’s the most annoying thing about the book?  The story, the characters, or anything.

Finicky:  There’s nothing really annoying about it. 

Me:  So you’re not missing all the supernatural powers or sci-fi stuff?

Finicky:  Well, yeah, that would make it better.  But you don’t really miss something if you know it’s not going to be there.

Me:  Okay, so what do you like best about the book?

Finicky:  That Sam’s a womanizer but he’s not an asshole.  He’s empowering for her, for women in general.  Like when he’s all about her feeling sexy—not being or looking sexy for him.  I also like that he’s taking care of her.  And their relationship is really easy—they just slip into it and it works.

Me:  Who’s your favorite character?

Finicky:  I can’t pick between them.  I could say Sam, but that would be overlooking all the great things about Dani.  If I pick Dani, it’s overlooking all the things I like about Sam.  I like them both.

Me:  What’s your favorite scene so far?

Finicky:  I don’t do favorites.  I feel like it’s unfair to pick just one.

Me:  Were you uncomfortable reading that first sex scene in the bathtub?

Finicky:  No.

Me:  Not even a little?

Finicky:  Nope.

Me:  But you didn’t know all that stuff, right?  Right?

Finicky: *smiles*  Yes.  One of the Sarah Dessen books I read kind of had that in it.

Me:  It did? 

Finicky:  But not like this, that was a negative thing in that book.  In your book it was good.  And it makes sense that over the years and years humans have been around that someone would figure out to do that.

Me:  *not really sure what to say I burst out laughing*  Can I please include that in the interview?   Please.

Finicky:  Yeah, whatever.

Me:  So what did you think of the scene overall?

Finicky:  I liked it.  It was interesting seeing her point of view during that scene, because it made me realize that it’s not just about being hot and sexy but that it’s also about being cared about and feeling comfortable.  Even though we don’t see his point of view, we know that she feels like she can trust him.  It was a little eye-opening, I guess, seeing how it’s supposed to be.

Me:  ooh, I really like that.  As a mom and a writer I love that you got from that scene that it’s not just physical. 

Me:  So, anything else you want to add?

Finicky:  Are you done asking questions?

Me:  *smiles*  I can be.

Finicky:  Can I just go read now?

So, I’m feeling even better about the whole thing now, honestly.  The fact that my as-of-yet not-sexually-active daughter is seeing a healthy, caring physical relationship and a strong, confident woman able to be herself but also let the right guy close makes me happy!  And to know that she’s seeing the “right” things in Sam, the hero—the caring, the honesty, the fact that he’s about Dani feeling good even more than about himself… that’s all very, very good.

Wonder if I’ll be able to talk her into reading another book?  I think she’d really like Sabrina and Marc.  Or Brooke and Jack. Or Jaden and Adam.  Or…