The Smell of Lust By K D Grace

Please welcome my great friend and fellow Brit Babe KD Grace to my blog today - keep reading, there's a prize too!

Good morning, Lily Harlem! It’s such a pleasure to be your guest celebrating the wonderful sense of smell and how it plays a central role in my latest novel, To Rome with Lust. It’s always so much fun to party with you!

It’s probably my own sensitive nose that inspired To Rome with Lust’s olfactory theme. Though my nose is nowhere nearly as sensitive as Liza Calendar’s, I find that smell is the sense that can most easily transport me into a memory or an experience or make me think about a person. I also wanted to write Liza and Paulo’s story because of my own very vivid memories of my husband’s wonderful scent, back in the early days when we were dating. One of my most powerful memories I have of him is the wonderful way he smelled when he took me into his arms. (Still does, of course, *blush, blush*)

I wrote a short story ages ago – one of my early publications – called Pheromones. I was intrigued by what might happen if we lived our lives through our sense of smell, like other mammals do. I loved the story, loved the way the main character’s world was dominated by her sense of smell, and I always wanted to revisit that idea of a world experienced through the sense of smell.

Hercules in the Republic Temple

To Rome with Lust was an ideal novel on which to get my olfactory jollies, since Rome is the home of Martelli Fragrance, owned by Rita Holly’s mother, Coraline Martelli, who plays an important roll in the 1^st of the Mount novels, The Initiation of Ms Holly. It seemed a great place to introduce Liza Calendar and her magnificent nose.

One of the challenges of the novel was to write Liza’s point of view through the nose, so to speak. I’m used to writing emotions by how they feel – the cold chill of fear, the sweat of nerves, the tremble of excitement. I’m used to writing people’s reactions by how they look – a scowl, a smile, a leer. I’m used to writing the sounds of sex and the feel of sex, but what if someone experienced all of those things, the whole range of human interaction, in fact, through her nose? How would I write that? What does curiosity smell like? What would happen if you could actually smell the people having sex in the hotel room next to yours, or if you could smell the frustration of the person sitting on the tube next to you? What would happen if every person’s scent was like an inner portrait of them? And if even deceit had a scent, how could anyone ever fool you? How could you cope with a world so laid bare?

This is Liza Calendar’s world, in a nutshell, and when Paulo asks her what it’s like, her answer stuns him:

She looked up into his eyes and drew in a deep breath, which was a mistake because it brought with it the heat of his scent. ‘Would you enjoy making love to me if I smelled like rotting vegetation or wet garbage? How about if all you could smell on me was deceit? How about if the smell of me made your nose itch or made you sneeze uncontrollably? Would you still want to make love with me? Would you even be able to?’

Before he could do more that gape at her in surprise, she jerked her head toward a couple who had just passed them, hand in hand. ‘Those two,’ she whispered, ‘they just had sex here somewhere close by in the forum. She’s still wet from him, even though he tried to clean them both. He probably has a handkerchief or something because his right-hand pocket, when he brushed past me, smells strong of them. He’s smug, she’s uncertain of how she feels about what they’ve done. They smell like too much garlic fried in burnt butter. That man over there?’ She nodded to a man with a camera glaring into the reflecting pond. ‘I don’t know what he’s angry about, but he smells like mustard and wet dog. How easy do you think it is for me to have a love life when I live with this every day?’ She brushed the tip of her nose with her fingers.

Ville d'Este Gardens - inspiration for The Mount Villa

It was a challenge for me, as a writer, to think through my nose. It was a lot of fun, but I had to constantly ask myself when I was writing from Liza’s point of view, what would this experience smell like? What would these emotions smell like? What would fear, lust, anger, deceit smell like, and how would they smell different on each person. How would each person smell different? In a lot of ways it was like trying to write a story in a different language. I guess that’s exactly what I was doing. Writers of erotica spend a lot of time with the sense of sight and the sense of touch. I would guess all writers do, actually, but to focus on the sense of smell so completely has been both a challenge and a treat and has allowed me a very different view of my characters and how they interact with the world around them.

Here’s wishing you multiple orgasmic olfactory experiences. Smell you later ;-)

Blurb To Rome with Lust:

The adventure that Rita Holly began in The Mount in London and Nick Chase took up in Vegas continues when a sizzling encounter on a flight to Rome has journalist, Liza Calendar, and perfumer, Paulo ‘The Nose’ Delacour, in sexy olfactory heaven. The heir apparent of Martelli Fragrance, Paulo wants Liza’s magnificently sensitive nose to help develop Martelli’s controversial new line. Paulo has a secret weapon; Martelli Fragrance is the front for the original Mount, an ancient sex cult of which he is a part, and Paulo plans to use the scent of sex to enhance Martelli’s Innuendo line. As Liza and Paulo sniff out the scent of seduction, they become their own best lab rats. But when someone steals the perfume formulas and lays the blame at Liza’s feet, she and Paulo must sniff out the culprit and prove Liza’s innocence before more is exposed than just secret formulas.

Ville d'Este Gardens

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Excerpt To Rome with Lust:

‘People are looking. We should stop.’ Liza barely got the words out before he leaned in just a tiny bit further and, in his enthusiasm, his lips brushed hers. Everything spiked in a sharp stab of scent that settled right between her legs, as they both gasped and sat back, eyes wide, fingers pressed to lips. A flight to Paris was called over the intercom immediately after one to Frankfurt and, in the jostling and shifting and gathering of belongings, no one was paying any attention to them. Though she wasn’t sure it would have made any difference even if they’d suddenly been center stage. Their gaze locked on each other, cheeks flushed, chests heaving, they sat locked in a moment so tight, so full that its breaking apart was inevitable. It was ridiculous. She was seconds away from coming, and his cock was about to burst his trousers and his lips, my god his lips, she could think of so many places on her body she wanted those lips.

‘I have to know,’ he gasped. ‘Surely you want to know too.’ Then he did the unthinkable. He curled his fingers into the back of her hair and pulled her to him. This time their lips met with a clash of teeth and a gasping swallow of oxygen that transitioned into parted lips and darting tongues and an absolute explosion of scent. If he had smelled amazing by himself, if his scent had sharpened hers to the cutting edge of orgasm, then the mixing and blending that happened when they touched, when those two scents came together was shattering. ‘I’ve never smelled anything like it,’ she breathed into his mouth.

‘Me neither,’ He bit her lower lip and tugged and their blended smell became darker, more spicy, tones of earth and sea, pepper and honey and my god the guy could kiss!

She came first with a guttural grunt that began deep in her center and washed over her like a riptide. She tried desperately to hide it, but he knew it. He felt it, she even thought he smelled it, and he tightened his fist in her hair, breathing her into his open mouth. Both his hands then slid to her shoulders in a grip that was almost painful as he pulled back, his gaze locked on hers, and his whole body convulsed, and again, and again, his deep mocha gaze holding her tight as pupils dilated and eyelids shuddered.

For a moment they sat stunned, staring at each other, struggling to catch their breath. He looked shell-shocked, and she must have looked at least as bad. ‘I’m sorry,’ they both said at the same time as they mirrored each other in a nervous laugh.

Then the intercom called the flight to Rome. ‘That’s my flight,’ she gasped, suddenly awash in a wave of embarrassment. She grabbed her bag and her laptop and fled, feeling certain everyone was watching, feeling certain everyone knew exactly what they had done. She left quickly, babbling on about duty free and gifts, sounding like a total idiot. It didn’t matter though, at the end of the day, she’d never see the man again. And she’d never smell him again. That saddened her.

About K D Grace/Grace Marshall

Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?

When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.

KD has erotica published with SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review, Ravenous Romance, Sweetmeats Press and others.

K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.

K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition are all available.

Find KD Here:

Websites: http://kdgrace.co.uk/         

                http://gracemarshallromance.co.uk/

                http://www.thebritbabes.co.uk      

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KD_Grace        

	http://twitter.com/GM_Romance Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/kdgraceauthor/
	Other novels in The Mount Series The Initiation of Ms Holly:Book One in The Mount Series Journalist, Rita Holly, never dreamed sex with the mysterious Edward in the dark of a malfunctioning train would lead to a blindfolded, champagne-drenched tango, a spanking by a butch waitress, and an offer of initiation into the exclusive mysteries of The Mount. Desperate to save her threatened job, she agrees, scheming secretly to write an inside exposé on the club that will make her career. But as she delves deeper into the intrigue of The Mount and the lives of its members, she soon discovers that her heart may have other plans. Fulfilling the Contract: Book Two in The Mount Series Limo driver, NICK CHASE’s bad night gets worse when he picks up TANYA POVIC at a bar only to discover the explosive sex they share lands her in breach of her very strange contract. Blaming himself that Tanya will lose the large completion bonus earmarked for her mother’s surgery, Nick negotiates with her boss, the tough and mysterious ELSA CRANE, to allow him to fulfill Tanya’s contract and secure her bonus. Elsa runs Mount Vegas, which offers voyeuristic pleasures for a price. Nick’s job, with Elsa and her quirky team, is to give clients something worth watching through the plate glass windows of Vegas’s luxury hotels and beyond. The learning curve is steep and kinky. As Nick and Elsa’s relationship sizzles and ignites more than hotel room rendezvouses are exposed. In this sequel to The Initiation of Ms Holly things get positively dangerous as Rita Holly and her team are called in from London to lend a helping hand. Bets are being placed. Will Nick fulfil the contract? Will he and Elsa take the gamble? And will they find a way to win at the high stakes, double or nothing, game of hearts?

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