As
the first glimpses of summer sunshine begin to make themselves visible across
the English countryside, I find myself thinking back to the summers I used to
spend as an archaeologist, excavating under the desert skies of NorthAfrica.
As
well as the occasional archaeological report, I also wrote an erotic romance
based - with much fictional embellishment - on those experiences in Tunisia...
Many
thanks to lovely Lily, for letting me come and share a snippet from, Digging Deep, with you today.
Blurb-
Dr Beth Andrew’s
first foreign excavation as a site leader, which she co-run’s with the American
archaeologist Dr Harrison Harris, gets off to a shaky start due to the
jealous interference of Harrison’s ex, and an overzealous student... Love and
lust really can cloud even the cleverest person’s judgement!
Extract-
Hidden
away in the garden at the rear of the house they were staying in, taking
advantage of a few moments’ peace between the end of the morning’s digging and
lunch, Harrison rested his back against the shaded trunk of a large-leafed palm
tree. He’d told himself he was there so he could update his notes without being
disturbed, but he knew he was really just avoiding Beth.
He screwed his eyes up against the ideas
that seemed to circle on continuous loop through his head. She is a decade
younger than me, lives in another continent, and is a colleague. So don’t even
think about it! Determined not to contradict this train of thought with
reminders of how badly he wanted to find out how far Beth’s freckles travelled
across her body, what the spring of her russet ringlets would feel like in his
fingers, or speculate about how she seemed to make him laugh even when the most
ordinary words came out of her mouth in her cute English accent, Harrison had
decided to keep as much distance between himself and Beth as possible. It would
help if she wasn’t so damn good at her job.
He sighed hard. Work relationships were
never a good idea – especially when they were only destined to work together
for three months of the year! His year with Linda, Beth’s predecessor, had
proved that. Anyway, such indiscretions were unprofessional, and Harrison had
always prided himself on his professionalism.
As he urged
himself to stop contemplating why Beth, in her multiple layers of clothing,
felt more attractive to him than any of the semi-clad females who worked around
the site, Harrison suddenly sensed that he wasn’t alone. Lifting his head from
his notes, he saw Candida lounging against the wall on the opposite side of the
dust-soiled garden.
His heart sank. Of all his students, she was the last
person he felt like talking to. For a second, Harrison assumed she’d been
looking for him, but swallowed a muted murmur of relief when she faced the
other way, and tapped urgently against the touch screen of her phone.
Intent on
staying focused on the report he was writing, Harrison sat silently against the
side of the house, hoping that his student wouldn’t spot him. Bending his head
to his work, Harrison snapped it up again as Candida’s grating voice echoed
around the small, square garden.
‘Of course
I’m not ignoring your calls.’
Raising his
eyebrows, he immediately felt sorry for whoever was at the other end of the
phone. Candida might well have been a sight for sore eyes with her rounded
chest, flat stomach, and tanned legs that seemed to go on forever, but her
voice was enough to scour the varnish off wood, and her “I’m beautiful and
therefore you will love me” attitude was proof, if any was needed, that Candida
Harker was Daddy’s little princess through and through. Not for the first time,
Harrison cursed that the “daddy” in question was the owner of Harker
International, the company providing most of the sponsorship for the dig, and
so her presence on the team was secured each time Colorado University came to
the site.
Harrison’s
attempts to ignore the rest of her conversation were abruptly halted as Candida
pronounced down the phone, ‘Well, you were right. She should have an eye kept
on her. Who’d have thought it of someone so mousy and dull? I mean, she is so
white and spotty she could be mistaken for the ghost of a leopard!’
There was a
break from Candida’s high-decibel yakking, as whoever was on the other end of
the call spoke, before she responded, ‘Well, yes, it seems she does have some
sort of MILF quality. I tell you, no American
guy would humiliate himself like that with anyone who wasn’t at least of
goddess status. Which she most certainly is not! And not because he was in her
debt!’
Trying not to
care which of the English students Candida was ripping apart, and hoping like
hell that everyone else was out of earshot of her diatribe, Harrison frowned as
his student went on.
‘Supervisory
skills? How the hell should I know? I’m on Harrison’s team, thank God. And will
not be swapping under any circumstances.’
Harrison’s
head jerked back up, his ears straining for information. Beth? She was bad-mouthing Beth. Why? He didn’t dare even rustle his
papers, although he was sure Candida was so involved in her call that an entire
herd of elephants could go by and she wouldn’t notice.
‘Yes, I know,
but I don’t want …’
There was an
odd hint of panic in his student’s voice now, and Harrison began to wish that
the person on the other end of the phone was as loud as Candida, so he could
hear whatever it was they were saying.
‘OK – well, I
wasn’t going to tell you this …’
Like hell.
Harrison recognised when Candida was building up to spill some slanderous
scandal.
‘I don’t
think it is her ability as an archaeologist that is in question. It is her
relationship with her students. With one student in particular.’
A vision of
Beth’s flushed face as she sat on Ryan’s lap, after the snake had frightened
her, flashed through Harrison’s brain.
Candida was
nodding in satisfaction, her previously concerned countenance replaced with one
of smug relief. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right.’
Harrison
closed his eyes. Who the hell was on the end of that line? He gripped his
papers, physically having to stop himself from getting up and ripping the cell
phone from Candida’s hand so he could challenge the unseen recipient.
‘Well, OK,
but it isn’t pretty.’ Candida paused as if for dramatic effect, as Harrison
impatiently waited to hear what her coup
de grâce against his colleague was going to be. A feeling of foreboding
crept ever faster up his spine as he heard her say, ‘One of her students is
fucking her in return for her silence.’
Harrison felt
as though he’d swallowed an orange whole as a triumphant Candida went on. ‘Yes!
Every day! Just so she won’t tell anyone he broke the mosaic he was excavating.
Apparently, yesterday lunchtime Beth made Ryan beg! Can you credit it! She
actually made him beg! And all
that time the bitch was naked and getting a good time up on the open roof.
Fuck! I mean, what would she have made him do if he’d smashed the whole thing,
and not just crumbled the edge a bit?’
With
the use of Beth’s name, the last vestige of hope that Harrison had been
mistaken about what he’d heard evaporated. It isn’t true, he told himself. It
can’t be – can it? But what is Candida up to? His appetite for lunch
disappeared as, with morbid fascination, he continued to listen …
If
you’d like to find out what happens next, then Digging Deep is available as an e-novella and paperback from –
Many
thanks Lily
Kay
xx
Bio-
Kay Jaybee
Kay Jaybee was named Best
Erotica Writer of 2015 by the ETO
Kay was also nominated as the
Best Erotica Writer in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
Kay wrote the The Perfect Submissive Trilogy, (Xcite,
2011-14), Making Him Wait, (Sweetmeats Press, 2012), The Voyeur (Xcite,
2012), as well as the novellas, Not Her Type: Erotic Adventures With A
Delivery Man (2nd ed. 1001 NightsPress, 2013), Digging Deep
(Xcite, 2013), A Sticky Situation, (Xcite, 2012), and The Circus, (Sweetmeats
Press). She has also written the anthologies The Collector (KDP, 2016), The
Best of Kay Jaybee (Xcite, 2012), Tied to the Kitchen Sink, Equipment,
(All Romance, 2012), Yes Ma’am (Xcite e-books, 2011), Quick Kink One
and Quick Kink Two (Xcite e-books, 2010). Kay has had over 100 short
stories published by Cleis Press, Black Lace, Mammoth, Xcite, Penguin, Seal, and Sweetmeats Press.
You can follow Kay on Twitter @kay_jaybee,
