Tuesday Update:  Finally in the queue!  Look for it tonight.

It’s late Friday night and I still have a bit to do on A For Effort – it’s looking like it’ll be up Sunday rather than Saturday.  Close!

Here’s an excerpt and blurb, as promised, to tide you over. 🙂

All’s fair in love and water sports!

Coach Josie Malloy is furious when new Head Swim Coach Adam Dupree starts messing with her plans to take her synchronized swimming team to greatness.  It’s bad enough that the college barely considers her discipline a sport, but now he’s encroaching on her funding and forcing her to share the pool!  To make matters worse, Josie can’t help the white hot attraction that steams up the room whenever they get close, but is she willing to risk her heart for a man who might mean the end of her career?

Adam Dupree knows that everyone is watching him – the pressure to turn the aquatics department into a world class program is immense, but he’d have no trouble handling it if weren’t for those pesky synchronized swimmers who insist on considering their activity a “sport,” and their maddeningly sexy coach.  Adam  is determined not to let them get in the way, a feat which seems impossible as the beautiful swim coach distracts him at every turn with her gorgeous body and fierce determination.  As their conflict escalates, Adam and Josie have to come to terms with their sizzling connection or risk losing their chance at love in the pursuit of aquatic gold.

EXCERPT:

“LOOK AT THAT ASS.”

“You can’t see his ass, it’s underwater.”

“I can imagine the tight ass that goes with those yummy shoulders.’’

“Does anybody care that that objectification of manhood is taking up our pool time?  Move over, I can’t see!”

Josie Malloy frowned at the ten teenage girls in matching swimsuits huddled behind the diving platform, their gazes trained on the lone swimmer in the Olympic-sized pool of the Malvern College sports complex.

“Ahem,” she said, and the girls jumped guiltily.

“Hi, Coach,” said Kate, brightly, though her eyes strayed back to the pool.

“Warming up means actually getting in the water, ladies.  You were supposed to start half an hour ago.”

Josie infused as much sternness as she could into her tone, and the girls shuffled uneasily.  She knew she was tough on them, but the synchronized swim team – eight regulars, two alternates – had real potential this year.  Josie had her hopes set on taking her team to the Olympic trials, and if that meant being a little stricter than usual, well…

“What about him?” asked Marisol, and Josie finally turned to look at the interloper in their pool.

He was at the far end, finishing a lap, and she couldn’t see much, but got the impression of dark hair and a toned physique.

Good form, too.

Josie shrugged.

“It’s our time.  He’ll just have to move.”

Everyone knew that the regular swim team had the morning slot, the synchronized swimmers got the afternoon, and Josie had hopes of putting together an official diving team for night practice.  Malvern was on the brink of becoming a major name in aquatic sports, and Josie wanted to be right there at the top.  It still rankled that she’d been passed over for the regular swim team coaching spot when Coach Schwinn had retired last June, but she was a damned good coach, and she was going to make sure her kids went all the way, whether it was synchronized swimming or dog paddling.

Win or die trying.

Her old diving coach’s morbid mantra came back to her, and she shook it off.  She was nothing like the egotistical old taskmaster who had taken her to the World Championship and then abandoned her after an injury cut short her athletic career.

So maybe Josie went a little overboard trying to prove herself.  So what?  She was giving it her best, even if that meant dealing with sexist council members, a lack of funding, and a depressing absence of a social life.  Josie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a date that was a date rather than a desperate attempt to charm money out of some school benefactor over bad wine and snacks at one of Malvern’s regular benefits.

“Oh, baby,” groaned one of the girls behind her, followed by a collective sigh from the other nine, and Josie snapped out of her musings to watch the swimmer climb out of the pool.

Oh, baby is right, thought Josie, feeling a surprising clench of feminine muscles that hadn’t clenched for anyone in a long, long time.

He was gorgeous, a male specimen in his absolute prime, with longish dark hair slicked back from a face that could have graced a magazine cover, and piercing eyes that were either blue or black from this distance.  Water streamed down broad shoulders, strong pecs, and a chiseled torso, all smooth, golden skin.  Josie noticed there was no hair on his legs, either.

He’s too old to be a pro, she thought, puzzled.

“He’s like a merman rising from the deep,” sighed Audra, a sophomore poetry major.

“Yeah, if the merman was hung like a horse,” snorted Mei Lin, twisting her long black hair up under her swim cap as the girls giggled.

Involuntarily, Josie’s eyes wandered to the tight black fabric that cupped the stranger’s generous assets.  Even at rest, he filled out the skimpy suit in a way that was…impressive.

God, I wonder what he looks like hard.

The image hit her like a ton of bricks – his mouth curved in a wicked grin, his body tight with sexual tension and slick with sweat as he worked thick inches of cock into her hungry pussy, his muscles firm and hot as she dug her fingers into his biceps…

Josie shivered in arousal, and quickly covered it with a cough, horrified with herself.

“That’s enough.  Tick-tock, girls.  I’m going to have a word with our unwelcome guest.”

Her attempt to get things back on track was derailed as the stranger turned and bent to grab a towel, prompting a chorus of groans from the team.

“I told you.  Look at that ass!”

Rolling her eyes, Josie glared at them and started along the pool, relieved to hear the familiar splashing behind her.  She was around nearly naked swimmers all the time, but unaccountably every step she took toward this one had her clutching her clipboard tighter.

What is wrong with me? Josie scolded herself.

She had always been tomboyish and athletic by nature.  Most of her friends were men, though by now, most of them were married or in significant relationships.  Josie never knew what to do with herself when confronted with a single, handsome member of the opposite sex.  By the pool, she was in control and completely sure of herself.  At a bar or on a date, she worried about tripping in heels and not being “girly” enough to compete.  She had managed to sabotage more perfectly nice potential relationships than she cared to admit.  Bland potential relationships, but still.  It was stupid and all in her head.

But insecurities generally are, she thought, steeling herself.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to ignore the play of smooth muscle under his skin as he toweled off and the fact that his six-foot-plus frame meant that she only came up to his very lickable damp chest.

He looked up, and Josie instantly forgot what she was going to say.

Blue, she thought, His eyes are a dark, beautiful, drowning blue.

HELL,  THOUGHT ADAM DUPREE, I’M too old to be fending off co-eds.

Ten years ago, he had to admit, the raven-haired beauty clutching the clipboard like her life depended on it would have been right up his alley.  The long braid reached the small of her back and the gray tracksuit couldn’t hide sweet, feminine curves.  Her eyes were a warm hazel, with a sprinkling of freckles over her pert nose, and a beautifully elven face.  And she had the most delicate, elegant hands he’d ever seen.

A sudden vision of tasting the pads of her fingers before wrapping them around his aching cock and showing her how to pleasure him had Adam bunching the towel in front of him, desperately hoping the move was smooth enough that she wouldn’t notice the sudden proof of his arousal.

You’re not a horny teenager anymore, he reminded himself, and this is essentially your office.

“Swim team tryouts start in September, the schedule will be up in a couple of weeks.  Anything else, you’ll have to find me during my regular office hours.”

The pretty little co-ed frowned.

“I’m not a student,” she growled.

Uh-oh.

Happy Friday!  Just a little excerpt from my upcoming short MAKING THE GRADE with my dear friend Jane Gaudet – hoping to have it in the queue by Monday, so stay tuned!  Have a great weekend, everyone!

Math teacher Sadie Dunne’s summer is not off to a good start. Not only has she spent the entire school year getting pushed around by her rambunctious students, by their parents, and by her colleagues, who find it all too easy to take advantage of her generous heart, but instead of taking a relaxing vacation on a tropical beach somewhere, she’s stuck teaching summer school. To make matters worse, the AC in her classroom is broken and too-hot-for-his-own-good maintenance man Cooper Bell seems more interested in flirting with her than in fixing it.  When her latest mistake of a relationship implodes, Sadie has had enough.  For once, Sadie wants to be the one calling the shots – in her classes, in her life, and especially in the arms of the hunky handyman.

Cooper has never been great at reading women, and the mixed signals from the lovely Sadie have been driving him crazy! She may want him, but she never speaks up, and he worries that she’s out of his league. When an accident traps them in a supply closet together, Cooper sees an opportunity to convince her to give him a chance, even if it means letting her call the shots and revealing his deepest, darkest fantasy of submitting to a beautiful woman. A steamy tryst in a closet is one thing, but can Sadie and Cooper get past their self-doubt to teach each other how to be happy together?

EXCERPT:

Sadie grumbled to herself as she trudged down the stairs.  It was even hotter down here, if that were possible.  The air conditioning had gone out on Monday, and for whatever reason was still out.  She paused at the bottom of the stairs, drawing a breath of hot, stale air, gathering her courage.  The downstairs corridors were always a little dim and dank and nightmarish in a monster-in-the-basement horror movie kind of way, but the flutter in her stomach had nothing to do with fear as she tapped on the door of the Maintenance Office.

“Mr. Bell?”

The whirr of machinery nearly drowned out her voice, and, reasoning that he might not be able to hear her, she opened the door.  And stopped short, her jaw dropping.

Cooper Bell.

The man should come with a warning label.  Six-five, broad-shouldered, and muscled like a Greek statue, the gorgeous, brown-haired thorn in Sadie’s side was in the process of pulling a greasy, damp tee shirt over his head.  The rational, schoolteacher part of Sadie was immediately and properly horrified, but everything female in her came to instant, sparkling awareness, and she had to stifle what would have been a truly embarrassing whimper of lust and gratitude at the sight of such a delicious specimen of manhood.  He was reaching for a clean tee shirt across his desk in a move that had muscles flexing smoothly under golden skin when he spotted her in the doorway.  Cooper froze, eyes widening, and then straightened, dark eyebrows rising over dark green eyes, the corner of his mouth kicking up in a half-smile that brought out the dimple in his cheek.

Stupid dimple, thought Sadie, ignoring the desire to stroke the little notch with her lips.

“Problem, Miss Dunne?” he asked.

Sadie was having trouble getting her mouth to work.  It was one thing to listen to her fellow teachers gossip about the studly new Head of Maintenance who looked more like a male model than a handyman.  It was quite another to be confronted with the man himself, half-naked in only a pair of jeans that hung from lean hips in a way that made the stomach flutter morph into a herd of stampeding buffalo.  He was nearly smooth, with a narrow trail of brown hair under his navel, trailing down under his waistband.  Sadie wondered if it felt as soft as it looked.  She wondered what it would feel like to nuzzle the hard ridges of his abdomen as she slowly pulled those jeans down, down, down…

Oh my God, Sadie!  Snap out of it!  You have a boyfriend!  Kind of. 

I can’t believe it’s been a year already!  365 days since I took a deep breath and put HOT FOR JOE up for sale on Amazon.  I think I sold 10 copies that first month.  However, I stuck with it, and I’m happy to report that in just a year, I’ve sold just over 17,000 copies of 11 short stories, 2 collections, and 2 romantic suspense novels.  It’s been quite a ride, and I’m hoping that in this second year I’ll be able to bring you new Bright’s Ferry books, a few more shorts, and a jump into the Hearts of Stone world, among other things.

To celebrate my anniversary, BUILD ME UP is free through Wednesday, so if you haven’t gotten to know Grant and Kelly, now’s your chance!

And of course, it’s Monday, so here’s a much-deserved excerpt from MAKING THE GRADE (TEACH ME TONIGHT #2).  Sadie and Cooper are stuck together in a hot, dusty supply closet, but luckily, there’s a window…:)

Math teacher Sadie Dunne’s summer is not off to a good start. Not only has she spent the entire school year getting pushed around by her rambunctious students, by their parents, and by her colleagues, who find it all too easy to take advantage of her generous heart, but she’s just been dumped, and instead of consoling herself on a tropical beach somewhere, she’s stuck teaching summer school. To make matters worse, the AC in her classroom is broken and too-hot-for-his-own-good maintenance man Cooper Bell seems more interested in flirting with her than in fixing it.

Cooper has never been great at reading women, and the mixed signals from the lovely Sadie have been driving him crazy! She may want him, but she never speaks up, and he worries that she’s out of his league. When an accident traps them in a supply closet together, Cooper sees an opportunity to convince her to give him a chance, even if it means letting her call the shots and revealing his deepest, darkest fantasy of submitting to a beautiful woman. A steamy tryst in a closet is one thing, but can Sadie and Cooper get past  their self-doubt to teach each other how to be happy together?

EXCERPT:

“Come on, I’ll give you a boost.”

“A boost?”

Cooper grinned at the horror that must have filled her expression, but Sadie couldn’t see anything funny about the situation.  Nothing.  Zero.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop you.”

“There must be another way.”

“Unless you’re going to magically sprout wings, this is the best idea I’ve got.”

Cooper started toward her, pausing when Sadie shook her head, frantic.

“Come on, don’t you want to get out of here?  We’ll have a better chance of someone hearing us with the window open.   Maybe I’ll get a tiny little glimpse of your panties.  So what?  It’s not like I’ve never seen panties before.”

Cooper’s eyes were alight with amusement and naughty anticipation, though she could see him fighting to keep the smile from his face.

“I can’t,” squeaked Sadie.

“Why not?”

His eyebrow rose as the heat of Sadie’s blush swamped her.

“Because I’m not wearing panties,” she said.

IT SHOULDN’T MATTER.  WHAT were panties anyway? A meaningless scrap of silk that cloaked the soft folds of her pussy – flesh Cooper was never going to get to see.  Sadie might have gone commando every day of the year and he never would have guessed.  But alone in this closet, suddenly the thought of Sadie’s sweet folds uncovered under her skirt seemed unbearably erotic.  Cooper’s skin felt too tight, his cock swelling in the confines of his jeans as he pictured her inching up her skirt for him, her creamy thighs graced with black garters as she revealed the doorway to paradise.

Was she bare? Or did she keep her mound covered in sexy curls, the same impossible white-blonde as her hair?

She was beet red.  And his mouth suddenly seemed incapable of forming a sentence.

“Oh,” he said.

“So, yes.  No boosting.”

Cooper couldn’t help it, his eyes dropped to her skirt.  She blushed even harder, if that was possible.

Don’t think about it.

“Was it too hot to wear them?”

The words came tumbling out and Cooper thought that now might be a good time for a merciful cosmic piano to drop out of the sky and crush him into tiny, stupid pieces.

“What?”

She looked adorably cute.  And flustered.

“Panties.”

God, shut up, Cooper!  What the hell is wrong with you?

“No, I left them somewhere.  I mean, does it matter?”

Somewhere.  That one little word had a green tendril snaking up Cooper’s spine to wrap around vital organs.  Somewhere like a lover’s bed?  Somewhere like some dickwad’s pants pocket, where he could feel the lace and silk against his fingers during the day and think about all the sweet curves they had nestled against?

“No, it doesn’ t matter,” he gritted out.

And then it was just awkward silence for a long moment.  Sadie was staring at the floor, no doubt hoping it would open up and swallow her.  Suddenly, her chin came up and she looked at him straight, eyes flashing.

“If you must know, I was going to seduce my now ex-boyfriend, but it turns out he was too busy seducing someone else, so I kind of threw my panties at him and made a grand exit.”

Well, then.