Image source: redwhiteandblueberries.com
By now most of you know this has nothing to do with food and everything to do with your WIPs or published books! If not, then check out the original post HERE for the purpose. No time like the present to join in – just leave a pingback in the comments below so we can check out your post!
Now for the fun parts…
Writer’s Menu
Onions: Not everyone cries when they cut onions: share an outside-influence type circumstance/object that caused a character to tear up – or – notably didn’t, when they should have.
The moment they stopped moving and the shadows spat them out into an unlit room, Zoe went back to struggling and cursing her abductor. Beyond his enticing scent and the warmth of his unyielding body was the fragrance of a floral sweetened breeze and the kind of heavy, humid heat that immediately brought the deep south to mind. Where they were and why it was dark, Zoe had no clue. She could see through large, mostly undressed windows that it was a moonless night, yet it had just been morning in New York a second ago.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way, little doe,” Hex said at last. “If you’d quiet down, I could explain–”
Fuming one last time, Zoe stopped fighting and screaming. She didn’t need him to explain what she already knew, but she wasn’t about to miss the chance to get free of his hold. After several moments, he slowly pulled his hand away from her mouth. She remained perfectly still, until he released her completely. The second he did, she whirled and doused him right in the eyes with the pepper spray.
He stood there with his lids closed and patiently waited for her to finish, when what he should have been doing, was screaming in searing, tearful agony while begging her for mercy!
Once the can was depleted, he lifted the hem of his t-shirt to wipe the chemical from his face. Zoe tried and failed to ignore the fact that he was finally solid. That the veil of shadows had retreated completely and despite the natural darkness, she was seeing him fully for the first time. Along with the delicious display of hard packed abs and mouthwatering chest he revealed by using his shirt like a towel.
Pepper spray dripped onto the bridge of his nose from his bangs, where the most inhumanly pale eyes of silver peeked out at her. Hex traced his finger over the droplet, then stuck it into his mouth and made a sour face.
“That’s disgusting,” he remarked. “What is its purpose?”
“AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!” Zoe blew her cool, throwing the spent canister across the room.
~ #WIP Hexed (Hell on Earth, #4)
Reader’s Menu
Onions: Name a favorite book you read where a character was brought to tears by an outside influence (ex: poked in the eye, thick smoke, laughing too hard, etc.) -or- where a character was notably incapable of being brought to tears for any reason.
The first book that comes to mind is Black Dog Nights by Ren Monterrey (a pen name of Karen M. Bryson). This was the second story I’d read in her The Club series, the first being Sapphire Beautiful. “The Club” is an exclusive, highly secure and anonymous company that allows rich men to hire girlfriends, and they each have their personal reasons why they would even need this kind of service. The women are vetted carefully and usually have a desperate, last-resort purpose for even applying for this money-making opportunity. (This might go the other way, as well, but in the books I’ve read, it’s always been a rich man and poor woman).
As unrealistic as that sounds, Ren Monterrey never fails to make her male protagonists uniquely different from any other main male character out there on the market (mine, included! LOL). In Black Dog Nights, Jae Rothko is no exception–but it takes some reading to discover that. By all appearances, he’s just another cookie-cutter wealthy and successful man blessed with gorgeous looks and unparalleled skills in the bedroom that lean heavily toward dominant.
Then we learn that Jae’s issue is medical and incurable. That he’s incapable of expressing emotions of any kind. It’s not that he doesn’t feel them, he just lacks the chemical in his brain that triggers everyone else in the world to display their feelings. Which, tends to have all of his lovers accusing him of being an emotionally stunted Alpha-Hole who just wants to regard them as possessions without any heart. Awww…poor Jae. By the way, that wasn’t too much of a spoiler, so don’t let it stop you from reading, there’s plenty more to the story than that.
I haven’t read all of Ren’s books and while I tend to find some things to nit-pick in each of those I have, they’re all truly good, HEA erotica stories that are definitely worth reading just to get a break from the same ol’, same ol’ when it comes to male leads!
♥ Next week’s ingredient is…Tomato!
Tomato for the Writer: Embarrassment and/or ridicule often play a part in our character’s journey. What was one of your main character’s inescapable, red-faced moments?
Tomato for the Reader: Share a book you’ve read where you were so embarrassed for the main character by something they themselves did or where they were ridiculed so badly, it left a lasting scar impression on you.
