Sunday Smooch with Ally Blake

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a smooch from Ally Blake but first ... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Laurie.

Can you please contact melaniemilburne@gmail.com to receive your prize!

 

And now for today's Sunday Smooch from Ally's The Dance Off.

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I'm so excited to bring you a smooch from The Dance Off, quite possibly my hottest book!

 

Brilliant architect Ryder Fitzgerald's little sister Sam is getting married. Without their father on the scene, Sam has asked Ryder to give her away.  The honour comes with a hitch - Same insists Ryder have dance lessons so as to be ready for the brother-sister dance.

Enter Nadia Kent - dance instructor, daughter of one of the world's most famous ballerinas and sexiest woman Ryder has ever met.

 

Ryder would rather eat his shoes than take lessons and Nadia would rather be dancing than teaching, so the tension is high. Add an attraction neither wants but both can't resist, and a summer storm brewing outside the studio, the dance lessons get hot and sweaty for more reason than one.
 

. . . . . . . .
 

Nadia eased herself into Ryder’s frame, adjusting only slightly, using her body to urge him where he needed to go. And this time, as one, their feet began to move. Slowly, gently, no push or pull, just the music pulsing through the floorboards and rocking them to and fro. Nadia nodded. Good boy.  The music swelled around them, all harp chords and piano keys, and the singer’s husky voice crooning about spinning round and round, moving so fast. Nadia moved Ryder forward, and then he moved her backward, the rhythm so natural she let him. He slid his hand an inch further around her back until her belly met his, and she let him do that too. He tucked their arms nearer their sides, which wasn’t classic dance hold, but even while it made Nadia’s breath swell she didn’t put a stop to it. The rhythm had other ideas as the dance swirled around and through them, binding them together and shutting out the world.

It was bound to happen, considering the way their bodies had fitted together in that kiss. That mind-blowing kiss—

Lightning lit up the room, followed by a crack of thunder, and then out went the lights. Then the fans. Music too. Not for the first time that week, but it was the first time they didn’t flicker straight back on.

The heavy silence, the oppressive stillness in the air, the shards of moonlight the only thing between them, it should have been the perfect chance for Nadia to cut her losses and call the lesson over. Except neither of them stopped swaying.

In fact, Nadia might even have leant her head against Ryder’s chest. Curled her fingers into the loops of his top. Melted a little when his chin landed gently atop her head. Melted a whole lot when his hands slid around her waist, across her tailbone, his thumbs dipping into the elastic of her skirt.

It was madness. Completely the opposite of what she’d set out to do with her hour. And not an altogether appropriate way to earn a fee.

But boy did she miss this. Not just the dancing, but the human connection. Skin on skin. Heat on heat. Feeling a part of something. Feeling discovered. Feeling wanted. And with every sway the sweetest sensation poured through her; a fragile serenity, not only filling nooks and crannies but opening them wide, till all that feeling pressed to the outer edges of her everything. And her heart became a bruising beat against her ribs.

Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she lifted onto her toes, wrapped her arms about Ryder’s neck. And then easy as you please her mouth met his. Hot, wet, open, lush.

His tongue met hers, and she turned to liquid, melting against him as if she wanted to vanish right on inside. And with a groan he lifted a hand to the back of her head, the other gripping her backside, leaving her in no doubt just how much he wanted this. And the warmth inside soon spun into a crazy heat.

She tugged his top over his head, all but growling at the sight of him. Rippling, hot, golden, even in shadow. No wonder she’d been so bent out of shape all week. How could she function on a normal level, when there was this to be had?

Her nails scraped through those tight curls of hair covering his chest and he sucked in a breath between his teeth, and grabbed her by the wrists.

She shot him a look through the darkness. Really?

And with a flicker of the muscle in his cheek, he eased his grip. Shuddering deliciously as she continued her exploration. All that heat. All that strength. She kissed her way across his chest, the salty taste of him turning her thoughts into a faint grey haze.

She felt him bunch beneath her touch before the groan tore from his mouth. And then his hands were on her shoulders, clever thumbs pulling her shirt away giving his mouth better access to her neck, his tongue tracing her collarbone, his teeth nipping the swell of her breasts. And when her collar slipped another inch and his mouth found her nipple, at the curl of his hot tongue she began to tremble.

Nadia dragged her fingers through his hair and held on tight as Ryder proved himself greedy, taking her mouth, taking everything he wanted, leaving her weak, loose, nothing but impulse, and sensation. With no thoughts to cling to except a dull buzz inside her head.

It buzzed again, and through the haze Nadia realised it was the trill of a phone chirruping through the heavy air.

When Ryder pulled away Nadia went with him, following his lips with hers. Not done yet. Not even close.

 - - - -

 

Want to know what happens next?

Grab The Dance Off here!

 

 

 

I was a dancer growing up - but only took my first ballet lessons for the first time last year. It was a beautiful experience, but boy was it hard.

 

Have you ever taken dance lessons as a grown up? Come back next Sunday to find out which commenter wins an ebook copy of a backlist book of mine!

 

Ally

xXx

 

Smooch Graphic by WebWeaver

Retro Smooch with Stefanie London

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a retro smooch Stefanie London from but first 


... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway is Katrina Whittaker.


Can you please contact to receive your prize by emailing Amy Andrews at amy(at)amyandrews(dot)com(dot)au


And now for today's Retro Sunday Smooch from Only The Brave Try Ballet. This book was Stefanie London's first ever novel, and it celebrated it's third anniversary this past July.

Step up, Grant Farley…not your typical ballet student! 

Football pro Grant Farley is nursing an injury and needs to get back into shape fast. Ballet wouldn't be his first or even his last choice, but he's desperate. Enter tantalizingly prim teacher Jasmine Bell one disapproving arch of her eyebrow and Grant knows he'll enjoy getting her tutu in a flutter!

But it's not only Grant's flexibility that Jasmine's pushing to the limit! He knows she feels the heat between them, so why won't she give in to it? Time to convince Jasmine that if she's brave enough to dance en pointe she can certainly handle a fling with him!

Scene set-up

Our hero, Grant, is an Australian Rules Footy player who is currently suffering with a recurring hamstring injury. Much to his horror, his physio has ordered him to take ballet lessons as part of his rehabilitation. Jasmine was a professional ballerina until a car accident ended her career in the Corps de Ballet for one of Australia's biggest ballet companies. Sparks fly when the charming professional athlete and the guarded ballerina go head-to-head in the dance studio.

Smooch  

‘Are you ready to do it on your own?’ Jasmine dropped down from the position so she was an inch or two below eye level with Grant. She tried to unscramble her senses, to focus on the lesson.

‘I can.’ His voice was low, predatory. ‘But don’t you think it’s much more fun when we do it together?’

The air between them was thick with electricity, its gravitation pull unravelling her sensibilities. She so desperately wanted to touch him. Her mouth was dry, anticipation making her pulse race.

He placed his hands over hers and Jasmine jumped at the way her blood pulsed harder and harder.

‘Why so jumpy? Are you uncomfortable being alone with me?’

‘No,’ she whispered.

The problem was she was far too comfortable as he stood close to her. All she wanted to do was melt against him. She envisaged herself pressing against his broad chest and sturdy thighs. Her entire body crackled with excitement as they stood, merely inches apart, in the empty ballet studio.

Why was she feeling like this? He was out of her league—in a league she never wanted to be a part of again. Ever, ever again.

He reached his hands up to her face, cupping the sides of her cheeks in his palms. It was the wrong thing to do; she shouldn’t be going down this path. But desire raced through her veins and filled her with irresistible warmth, overpowering logic. He was intoxicating.

Up close, she felt the pull of his hypnotic stare. The endless blue of his eyes made the rest of the world fall away. It made sense and reason evaporate. Her lips parted.

Grant drew Jasmine’s face to his in a swift and practised movement. Her eyes fluttered closed as his mouth came down. The soft fullness of his lips pressed hungrily against hers, his tongue hot and probing. Jasmine sighed into him. It had been so long since she’d been kissed, and a lifetime since she’d been kissed in a way that made her weak in the knees.

Grant moved one hand from her face, down the length of her arm, and snaked it around her waist, drawing her closer to him. Every inch of her burned as their bodies fused together, the thinness of their workout clothes mimicking the deliciousness of skin on skin. Her hands found their way into the wavy depths of his golden blond hair. It was thick and silken against her palms. Her fingers gripped tightly as he dipped her, demanding deeper access to her mouth.

His breath was hot on her face as his lips moved down her jawline to the slender column of her neck, each kiss searing her skin. He backed her up until she pressed against the wall of the studio, crushed between plaster and the hardness of him.

Stefanie is giving away a signed copy of 'Only the Brave Try Ballet.' To enter the giveaway, answer the following question:

Which sport do you think has the sexiest players?

Come back next Sunday, when the winner of today's giveaway will be announced and another smooch will be posted!

A Collection of Covers...with Stefanie London

Even though I'm a writer, I'm an extremely visual person. So, getting a cover for my book is really one of the most exciting moments of the process for me. Seeing how a cover artist has interpreted my story and brought it visual life is fascinating! 

My editor shared this awesome image (which you can see better here) which shows the process of how Harlequin covers used to be made. Very cool!

These days the Harlequin covers are photos, and could either be a custom picture or a manipulated stock images. 

With my first book, Only The Brave Try Ballet, the original photo was a stock image with a woman's bare feet wrapped behind a man's back. The team digitally included the pointe shoes and tutu to suit my story.

  

The are the English language versions (Australia with the red banner, US with the pink, and UK with the blue) which all use the same image.

Personally I LOVE the pink KISS covers - not just mine but all the ones they made when the line was still around. They just had such a fun, bright, flirty tone to them. It was a perfect match to the books.

  

Here are the non-English versions (Lithuanian with the orange, Hungarian with the red, and German with the dark red.)

Which ones do you prefer?

And I'm curious, for covers in general, what draws you in? 

• Do you like a couple on the cover or a single person? 
• Does it bother you if the people on the cover don't match what's inside the book?
• Anything that makes you just go "no way!"?

I'd love to hear which covers you love, if you have a favourite, then leave it in the comments below so I can check it out.

When One Door Closes Another Opens

Like many young girls I studied ballet from an early age. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my favourite type of dance at the time. I’m not the most graceful person (ok, I’m the person most likely to fall over and hurt myself) and I found tap and hip hop more fun and better suited to my less-than swan-like movements.

However ballet fascinated me despite my lack of talent.

I went through several years of exams and performed to a lot of the staple ballet music pieces such as Greensleeves and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. I wore tutus (those things are scratchy as anything), learned to apply my own stage makeup, and practiced – though never mastered – pirouettes.

There was one thing that I never did: wear pointe shoes.

Sadly my proneness to injury got the better of me in my teens. I had terribly weak ankles caused by injuries (one of which involved me falling in front of a huge audience and having to be carried off stage – not fun) and flat feet. My podiatrist warned me that training in pointe shoes could very well mean a broken ankle and further damage to my feet.

I cried and cried and cried when I gave up ballet. Though I knew I had no real dance career ahead of me, seeing all my peers move forward while I was forced to give up was very upsetting (type-A sixteen year old girls do NOT handle this stuff well!)

 However, my years of ballet study did come in handy when I started writing. In 2012 when I sat down to start my very first book (which later became Only The Brave Try Ballet.) I drew on all that fascination, experience and knowledge to write my professional ballerina heroine, Jasmine. I drew on the angst I experienced all those years ago when I was unable to continue dancing as well as my experience of some terrible injuries (one which put my out of actions for several months) to make Jasmine’s conflict and character more believable.

These days I keep my fascination and appreciation for ballet in my writing and in my spare time. Last year I saw La Sylphide (fun fact: although lesser known than other ballets, it was originally choreographed in 1836 and is one of the world’s oldest ballets) and I often spent time watching dance-related videos on YouTube.

 Both of my current books for Harlequin KISS feature former professional ballerinas as heroines because it’s something I love writing about.

 Question: are you a ballet or dance fan? If not, what was your favourite hobby growing up?

Sunday Smooch with Stefanie London.....

Welcome to another LoveCats DownUnder Sunday Smooch!

Today we have a smooch from Stefanie London ___ but first 


... the winner of last week's Sunday Smooch Giveaway will be announced next week.




And now for today's Sunday Smooch from Breaking The Bro Code by Stefanie London........




Off limits…and oh-so-tempting!   

Elise Johnson has more important things to concentrate on than men…saving her struggling ballet studio for starters! So when gorgeous Col Hillam—her brother’s best friend—saunters back into her life, she’s none too keen.

He might be proposing a purely professional arrangement, but the last time they got carried away by their crazy attraction it ended in disaster! Col knows Elise is off-limits, but it only makes her more tempting….

With chemistry this hot, surely that bro code is now null and void…?




[Scene set-up: Col has returned to Australia after the passing of his estranged father. He has to clear out his father's house and Elise has gone along to provide moral support despite the fact that she's still angry at him for leaving her five years ago.]

Smooch - 

“I thought I was over this. I thought I was over him.” The last word came out as a growl as he hurtled the photo against a wall.

The glass exploded in a shower of tinkling particles. Elise watched them fall to the floor as if in slow motion, the sound of her heart magnified in her ears.

“I’m sorry, Elise. You shouldn’t have had to see that.” He turned his pain, palpable in the air around him, inwards. His chest rose and fell too quickly as he clutched at self-control.

“It’s ok.” She was frozen, rooted to the spot.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here, I know you don’t want to talk about the past–”

She couldn’t comfort him with words, but she needed to ease his pain. So she did the only thing which she could do, the only thing that felt natural.

Her hands found Col’s neck and she dragged him down to her, her open mouth ready for his. Their tongues met with force, lips pressing hard. This wasn’t a comforting kiss. Hell, it wasn’t even a distracting kiss. It was a full-on, all-barriers-down, forget-everything-else kiss.

One strong arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her so she could wind her legs around his waist. He moved and her back hit the wall, knocking the wind out of her. Col’s teeth came down on her lip, his hips grinding into her open legs.

“My god, Elise,” he groaned against her hair as her lips found the lobe of his ear.

He had her pinned and she couldn’t have found anything sexier at that point. The hard length of him had all her senses firing at high speed, his hands cupping her arse to hold her in place.

She writhed against him, eliciting a guttural moan from the back of his throat. Up close his scent invaded her, making her dizzy with lust and memories. His short hair was silky against her palms; she gripped it and tugged his head down. His tongue flicked against hers, his faint minty-taste drawing her in to keep the kiss going on and on.

“I’ve missed you,” he breathed.

The air was sucked out of her, reality crashing down like a derelict building – ugly and grey and harsh. “No.”

“No?” He pulled his mouth away from hers, his dark brows crinkled above his nose.

She pushed against his chest until he released her, her sneakers hitting the ground with a thud. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

To go into the draw to win a copy of Breaking The Bro Code, leave a comment to this question.....

Elise and Col are reunited after five years away from one another. It isn't always smooth sailing but they do find their HEA. When have you been reunited with someone? It could be a partner, a friend, a family member or even a pet.


Come back next Sunday when the winner will be announced and a smooch from the fabulous Rachel Bailey will be posted!