Spooky Smut in the City!

Hello and welcome to my turn to host Spooky Smut in the City, I'm so glad you made it! At present I don't have any paranormal books published, though coming soon to the virtual shelves is Bite Mark. I can't wait to unleash my two sexy vampires Aimery and Ryle into the world. Phew, they're hot, cold, bad and oh, so good all at the same time!

So when it came to finding something scary to post today I had to have a look at my book list. I actually surprised myself in that several of my stories have 'spooky' or rather 'unearthly' scenes in them. The first one that sprang to mind was in the very first chapter of Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse.

Our heroine, Sharon, has just finished preparing a body for the mortuary (or Rose Cottage as it is commonly known within the hospital) and something strange happens. What you probably should know before you read this bit is that before I started writing erotic romance I worked for many years as a nurse and this scene really is straight from my memories, in other words, this did happen...

Mr Parslow was now fresh and dressed. Annie and I quickly tidied the room, did an inventory of his meagre belongings – splayed toothbrush, red comb strung with silver hairs, a half packet of toffees and several items of nightwear in various states of cleanliness – then we wrapped him in a paper-thin shroud and covered him with a clean sheet.

Annie left and I dropped the last of the damp towels into a linen skip.

A sudden bang on the window caught my attention. I turned and stared into the bleak darkness. The blind hadn’t been drawn over the slightly open pane and a feathery flash of silver-white knocked up against the glass. Once, twice, three times.

Curious, I stepped closer, trying to discern what was buffeting the rain- splattered window with firm insistence.

A gasp of surprise caught in my throat. It was a dove, out at night, in a gale.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ I bent and peered closer.

A black, beady eye’s attention settled on mine for the briefest of moments, then the dove took off, into the night, its wings ethereal and ghost-like, flapping against the wind.

I glanced at the mound on the bed and fought a prickle of unease tickling the back of my neck. Odd things happened in a hospital, but a dove, at night; that had been a first.

Quickly I shut the window. Mr Parslow’s soul had had ample time to depart. All that remained was his shell, so there was no need to have an escape route for his spirit to start its journey to Heaven; and I was pretty certain it would be Heaven, what with having a white dove coming to collect him on a storm-wild night.

Yes, that really did happen, nearly 20 years ago now but I still remember it vividly. Sharon wouldn't be the only nurse to open the window when preparing a body to let a patient's soul out, it's standard procedure.

Confessions of a Naughty Night Nurse is published by Mischief at HarperCollins. Buy links available here.

This next snippet comes from Breathe You In, another story that was borne from my nursing years. I worked in Coronary Care for a long time and that included some time working with transplant patients. I got to thinking about a girl (Katie) falling in love with the man (Ruben) who had her beloved dead husband's heart. It's a complex twist of emotions and there is room to play with supernatural elements in a plot like this. However I choose not to... almost, there are a few snippets that could give the reader a clue to there being more going on beneath the surface than first appears. Also the cover, the peacock feather, is an ancient symbol of immortality and it was once believed that peacock flesh didn't rot, I guess, in a way, like a transplanted organ, that continues to live after death. I also like how the feather is slightly heart-shaped.

This snippet is taken from midway through the book. Ruben doesn't know that he received Katie's husband's heart, as far as he is concerned he's well again and happy to be dating. Katie, although she carries the burden of not telling him the truth, is just relieved to be out of the dark depression she was in. The dream that Ruben has in this excerpt... a memory of Matt's perhaps? See what you think.

I bustled about in the kitchen making pasta with tuna and a side salad. Ruben poured us each a glass of water and set the table. He then sat on the sofa, remote control in his hand, and flicked through the channels.
My new flat felt alive, as if it were a real home. The sweet, grassy breeze ambled from the living room to the kitchen. The pan on the stove was bubbling away, creating steam that clung to the window. The tangy smell of the onions I’d fried filled my nose, and I could hear the TV, only the news, someone talking, but knowing Ruben was in the living room, that it wouldn’t be empty and soulless when I moved from one room to the other, created a feeling of hope in me—one that made me warm and content for the first time in a long time.
I also felt I knew Ruben better for having seen a glimpse into his old life. Understood how much he’d had to change because of his illness. Maybe he was right. Perhaps he would go back to his old job one day. Return to a wild, hedonistic, fast life of racing and globe trotting and leggy women with perfect bodies. I couldn’t show him my old life, or ever go back to it, but it had been nice to see his.
I flicked the pasta off the boil and stood in the kitchen doorway, one hand on the frame, pushing my hair from my face with the other.
Ruben looked up. Stared at me. He pulled in a deep breath and frowned.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, I…”
I didn’t move. “What?”
“It’s just…”
“Tell me?”
He smiled. “You’ll think I’m being stupid.”
“No I won’t.”
“I had a dream last night, it just came back to me, really vivid.”
“What was it about?” I straightened.
“You.”
“Me?” I couldn’t deny the little thrill that word gave me, to think I’d been in this handsome man’s dream.
“You were stood, just like that, in a doorway, holding the side, fiddling with your hair.”
“Whose doorway?”
He silenced the TV. Put the remote on the tall table by the sofa. “Mine. My bedroom.”
“I see.”
He trailed his gaze down my body. Licked his lips.
“And what was I wearing?” I asked. Part of me was desperate to know, the other part afraid to ask. This was a new way for me to be with anyone other than Matt.
“White,” he said. “You were in white.”
“A dress?”
He smiled, shook his head. “Oh, no, white stockings with lace around your thighs. White teeny, tiny knickers and a corset-style top, you know that…” He put his cupped hands on his chest and smiled. “That made you look really pretty here.”
“Sounds like a very detailed dream.”
“It was. It was hot.” He nodded, bit on his bottom lip. “You were hot.”
A tremble started in my stomach and moved lower. Ruben thought I was hot. Hot enough to dream in detail about me. That in itself was like being kissed passionately. It turned my attraction for him to top level; it made me feel like the woman I had been once.
I even remembered a white outfit like that. It was something I’d taken on honeymoon, to Thailand, to surprise Matt with one night. I could almost see his face again. His eyes instantly heavy with lust, his lips moist where he’d licked them the moment I’d appeared in the doorway.
Ruben was wearing the same look now, and he shifted on the sofa the same way Matt had shifted on the bed.
Taking a deep breath, I walked toward Ruben, wishing I had that outfit on, and straddled his lap. I dug my knees into the cushions and I rested my hands on his shoulders, let my bum settle on his thighs.
“Tell me more?” I said in what I hoped was a suitably sexy voice.
Ruben swallowed, frowned a little and looked into my eyes. “We were alone, there was only us there. It was warm, you smelled of fruit—papaya, melon, all things sweet.”
I smiled. “This is a very specific dream.”
He touched my cheek with the back of his index finger. “I know, and it’s all flooding back to me like it was a real memory.”

I adored writing Breathe You In, it's not as wild and kinky as some of my other work but the characters had been calling to me for years to tell their story. Reviews have been all 5* and if you want to pick a copy up it's available only on Amazon (and UK).

Now to the opposite end of the spectrum. While Breathe You In is sexy and poignant, Dangerous to Know is all about a seedy fantasy being realised. If you like romance with your erotica this isn't a book for you. Be warned...

The heroine has a dangerous fantasy of being a whore. But she's taken it one step further, rather than playing a game with someone she knows and trusts she's gone out of her way to find a stranger, a dark, brooding, unpredictable stranger who adds the final element of danger to her fantasy. Writing without romance is different from my usual style but I wanted to create a piece that was about a woman taking control of her darkest desires and turning them into reality, I'm not saying it was sensible, I was just writing a story...

“I’ll pay you to suck my cock.”

Inside I welled with triumph. The idea of sex as an arrangement, a transaction, was what thrilled me the most. No emotions, no strings. A customer, money and a murky act. That was what appealed to me. Forget candlelit seduction and emotional intimacy, I wanted sleaze, I wanted filth, I wanted to be used as a sexual object by a rough bloke who took what he wanted on a very basic level.

“Okay. Where?” I asked.

He glanced left and right, his gaze searching, then nodded straight ahead. “Down there.”

I looked in the direction he’d indicated. Through the trees and railings, I could just make out a gap in the buildings. “It’ll cost you twenty.”

He shrugged. “Whatever.”

Finally closing my legs, I stood. My knees felt weak and my stomach clenched. This was something I’d been dreaming of, plotting for so long. Never had I thought I’d find the courage to actually go through with my foolhardy plan. The man was a stranger. He could be a complete psychopath and murder me the minute we were out of view. Stuff like that happened to whores all the time. I’d seen it on the news, read about it in papers.

It was a risk I was willing to take.

Stepping ahead, I turned to make sure he was following. He was. Sauntering in that menacingly purposeful stride of his that I’d become totally fascinated by. I also realized now that I was on ground level how tall he was, a whole head above me, and wide too. If he did set his mind to subjecting me to a gruesome back-alley death there was nothing I would be able to do about it. He could squash me as if I were an ant, choke me without breaking a sweat.

Tugging at my cheap, tarty skirt, I headed for the location of my first whore experience. As we reached the entrance, he pressed a hand into the small of my back and urged me into the murky world of New York’s dark, dingy alleys. The scent of rotting food and urine caught in my nostrils, underfoot there was trash of every description, and here there was no sunlight. It was dark, cool, barely even a hint of the bright, civilized world beyond.

As we went deeper the alley narrowed, the walls closing in around me. The stinking air here was humid and clogged my throat.

“Keep going,” he grunted when I slowed. “I don’t want to be distracted by anyone. Walk farther down.”

Hurrying, I accidently kicked a bottle. It clanged against a pockmarked wall and ricocheted into an armored door with a peeling “Keep Out” sign.

Another ten steps and he tugged me behind a filthy green Dumpster and pushed my back against the wall. I stared at him boldly, un-intimidated—or so I hoped, for inside I was a bag of nerves sinking into a deep well of lust.

His gaze flashed as it connected with mine and he stared, stared long and hard with his big hands wrapped around my upper arms. His fingers sank into my flesh and his feet and knees knocked against mine.

My heart beat so fast I feared for its continued survival. I could barely catch my breath. Was he about to kill me or would he stick to our deal? Twenty for a blowjob? That was our agreement. That was the arrangement.

“You really want to be a whore?” he asked. His breath was hot and reeked of tobacco. “My whore?”

Both relief and excitement tumbled in my groin. He was going to play my game, thank God. I nodded up at him and he leaned against me, his chest just touching my excited nipples and his steely cock pressing into my hipbone. He was slightly out of breath—from our fast walk or sexual excitement?

Sliding his hands up and over the balls of my shoulders, he pressed and urged me down onto my knees. I sank obediently. I wasn’t proud of the huge glut of pleasure that surged through me at being forced into position to suck a stranger’s cock for money, but I couldn’t deny it. It was alive, real, a part of me. It was one of the most erotic things I’d ever done.

* * * * *

Dangerous to Know is available from Amazon, Amazon UK, ARe, Ellora's Cave and all other good ebook retailers.

Thank you for stopping by my Spooky Smut in the City post, I hope you have a wonderful day and a frightful Halloween!

Lily x

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