"I cannot say enough about how beautiful each story is."
– Coffee Time Romance

"…ultra thermal tales starring strong fully developed characters."
– Genre Go Round Reviews

"…excellent writing and deft characterization…"
– Cocktail Reviews

"…blazing hot sensuality and a pace that’s just right. …one terrific book."
– TwoLips Reviews

"Rarely do I read a book that leaves me nearly speechless. …a wild, erotic ride."
–Romance Readers at Heart

"Handyman is one great story...a very erotic, romantic, funny and enjoyable tale."
– Fallen Angel Reviews

Available in bookstores everywhere from Kensington Aphrodisia, or buy it online at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.

Another take on cover copy…
Cover copy doesn’t always tell the whole story, so I was going to take my own stab at giving a glimpse of what the tales in Handyman are really about. But then, I got in a review from Cocktail Reviews and I decided their write-up was A-okay. So compliments of Cocktail Reviews, before each excerpt is another take on the story…

COMING IN FIRST

Lissa has a weakness for bad boys, but after being hurt one too many times, she decides to find Mr Nice Guy. Out one day she spots a gorgeous hunk who fits her ideal. She picks up his business card and discovers he’s a handyman with a company called Loose Screws. Fortunately she has a good excuse to call him…

Thad is a reformed bad boy and the co-owner of Loose Screws, a construction company that’s recently diverged into providing more discreet and intimate services for women. When Lissa offers him a job, he thinks she’s propositioning him. He soon realises that she really did want him to fix her leaking roof, but now he’s torn. Will Lissa still be interested in him when she learns about his past – and about his other job as a gigolo?

Excerpt...

“I want you naked.”

Thad pulled his hand from her shorts and freed her nipple of his mouth. He met her eyes with challenge glinting in his own. “Make me that way.”

Her belly turned over with excitement. If that challenge was a sign, she’d found herself a closet bad boy.

Not about to waste time with wonder, she buried her hands in the back of his shirt and pulled at the thin cotton until the tanned skin of his back was free. The T-shirt came over his head and her cunt flooded with fresh cream.

Swinging a hammer clearly did incredible things to the masculine physique, because his body was easily the hottest she’d ever laid eyes on. Sculpted. Bronzed. Rock hard.

He was fucking edible.

Lissa wanted to lick him head to toe . . . and she hadn’t even seen him from the waist down. Her fingers shaking with anticipation, she pushed at his chest. “Lay back on the bed. I need to see more.”

A chuckle rumbled out of him. His stubborn upper lip curved in a wolfish grin, lending his slightly sunken cheekbones the hungry, dangerous edge. He sat back on his haunches to tug at her shorts. “You aren’t the only one, sweetheart. I need to see the hot little pussy that soaked my fingers.”

“Not if I see your big hard dick first.”

His grin kicked higher, reflecting his like of her hard talk.

Heart pounding against her ribs, she scrambled to escape his weight and get him naked first. They tugged at each other’s clothes. Pulling at zippers and yanking at hems, rolling together on the bed, their mouths finding each other in the chaos and fusing, tongues licking, rubbing together, teeth clicking with their wild tumbling and impatience. Then their mouths falling apart as they rolled once more and the bed disappeared from beneath Lissa’s back.

She thudded onto the carpet with an, “oomph.” The breath hitched out of her in time with the sound of Thad hitting the floor. Somewhere below her, or off to her side. She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see a damned thing. In the midst of all that rolling and tumbling, the sheets had gotten wrapped around the top of her head.

She swiped them away from her face to discover they were wrapped around her middle, as well. The left side was still tucked beneath the mattress, creating a short wall.

“You okay?” Thad’s voice came from the other side of the wall.

“Yeah. You?” she tossed back, clawing at the sheets, wanting back to her quest of stripping his made-for-licking body. Or maybe she’d already gotten him naked. She’d lost focus there for a while.

Lissa tore at the sheets again, grunting when they refused to give away. “I can’t get out of these things!”

Callused fingers touched down on her inner thighs, stilling her pointless fight. Denim and silk teased against her legs, coasted over and free of her toes. His voice came out raspy, “Too bad for you. The view down here’s incredible.”

Her belly tightened. She felt suddenly vulnerable. Naked. So awesomely hot and wet with the knowledge he was eyeing her bare cunt.

She let her thighs fall farther apart. The telling catch in his breathing was ecstasy all its own. But, damn it, not the ecstasy she wanted to be experiencing. She couldn’t even reach down to spread her lips for him. “I can’t get to you.”

“Good thing you don’t need to. Like I said, this is all about you. Your pleasure.”

A whir started up on the other side of the sheet wall. A whir she recognized as one of several vibrators she kept stashed under her bed . . . and he’d found and was about to use on her.

NOT A SECOND TOO LATE

Genevieve is hiding in her closet during her own bachelorette party, desperate to avoid the rest of her family. Her best friend Tia had tried to make the party a surprise, but instead of wild drunken antics with hot guys, Genevieve’s spiteful younger sister Allison invited staid maiden aunts and young cousins. Dressed inappropriately for high tea with her wealthy, snobbish family, Genevieve feels the need to escape. She goes to a bar and picks up a hunk named Nash who offers to dance naked for her – for a price.

Nash, another of the co-owners of Loose Screws, recognises class when he sees it. Originally from a moneyed family, he’s made his own way in the world. Genevieve intrigues him but he doesn’t want her to be just another rich society girl kicking over the traces with a low-life guy. When she calls him offering $10,000 if he’ll be her boyfriend for two weeks, he doesn’t hesitate. But mixing business with pleasure is never a wise move – especially when Genevieve hasn’t told him about her fiancé…

Excerpt...

Returning to the living area, Nash popped the can’s tab and handed her the beer. “Drink up. I’ll drive you home wherever you live.”

“What about you?”

“I’m too busy getting naked.”

Genevieve watched in silence as he began to undress. His coat came first. Then he pulled his olive green sweatshirt over his head to reveal no undershirt separated her eyes from his body, and she nearly swallowed her tongue. He definitely had rock hard down. His torso was a study in the sculpted masculine physique and her fingers tingled with the want to run all over it.

No touching. It was her rule and it was a good one.

His fingers went to the button of his jeans, popping it open and then tackling the zipper with gusto. Warmth coiled in her belly and her throat went dryer than sandpaper. She brought the beer to her lips, taking a long drink. Then a longer one as he pushed his jeans and black briefs down strong thighs lined with crisp, dark hair.

He toed off brown leather boots, then bent to remove his socks and kicked the clothes aside. Straightening brought his cock in line with her eyes. And what a lovely cock it was. Long. Thick. The head tinged nearly purple with his stimulation.

Her pussy pulsed with liquid excitement. She started to reach a hand toward his shaft only to catch herself. She tucked her hand back at her side.

No touching. No touching. No touching.

“What kind of dancing did you have in mind?”

Hearing the humor in his voice, she looked at his face. A grin as carnal as it was arrogant turned up the corners of his lips. Through the years it had become second nature to hold her thoughts in. But this was her web-less night, so she returned his grin and let them out. “Anything that jiggles all those stunning male parts.”

He gave a low laugh and fell easily into a smooth left foot change that for just a moment opened his stance and displayed his balls to their best vantage.

Genevieve took another long drink, rapt in his moves. She’d expected a stripper routine. Or maybe some hip-hop type of street dancing. She didn’t expect this. “Who taught you how to waltz?”

He began a promenade that bobbed his dick and made her clit itch to be stroked. “Not what you expected?”

So far not much about him was what she’d expected. It was better—his personality and his body. “No, but you’re good. Have any faster moves?”

“How’s a jive suit you?”

If she was the one dancing, she would look ridiculous. Bouncing around on his feet, kicking up his heels, his big, hard, beautiful body looked wild and primitive and like she wanted to wrap her own around it and feel the press of his cock with each of his fast moves.

Pre-cum emerged at the tip of his shaft. She sustained her needy growl by taking a drink. It had been so long since she’d tasted a man’s cum . . . “Very nice. You said something about masturbating.”

He quit dancing to stand in front of her, arms hanging loosely at his sides. He looked totally at ease with his nudity, like he danced naked for unfamiliar women on a regular basis. And, of course, he did. He’d told her as much back in the pub.

“Naked dancing’s free. Masturbation will cost you.” One hand went to his groin. He cradled the lower half of his cock in his cupped fingers, while he rubbed the pad of his thumb over the plump head, spreading the silky fluid. “Unless you want to dance naked and masturbate with me.”

She watched in jealousy of his fingers, wishing they were her own. “I told you I don’t dance naked. I will masturbate, though.”

She would?

Genevieve lifted the beer can to her lips only to find it empty. Guzzling it, after drinking two others in the pub, had to be the reason she was saying bold and really stupid things. It had to be the reason she wanted to follow through on those things.

It wasn’t cheating so long as they didn’t touch, right? Besides, this guy was a paid professional. “Do I get a discount for fingering myself?”

“A masturbation discount?” He barked out a laugh, and the absurdity of the question had her laughing along. “Tell me your name and make good on the masturbation promise and I’ll waive the fee this time.”

Her laughter ended. Tension pushed through her. It was do or die with yet another regret time. “Jenn,” she improvised quickly, meeting his gaze with her lie. “With a J and two Ns.”

“And an E in the middle?”

The humor in his eyes eased her strain. He was playing with her, teasing her like an old friend might do. An old, naked friend with his hips swiveling in the stripper move she’d first expected and his dick pumping in his hand.

Tom would never give her a moment like this. None of the straight-laced guys she’d dated before him had. This was her chance to steal a little naughty fun, and she was going to do it with her hand in her panties.

THIRD TIMES A CHARM

Holly, a mental health therapist, wonders why she’s taken her cousin Tia’s advice to get some sexual healing from a gigolo. She thinks she’s out of her mind, until she sees the scars on Benny’s arms. She wants to help him – but will he let her get that close?

Benny has left Loose Screws and ditched his friends Thad and Nash following the slow, lingering death of his beloved foster mother. Now he makes his living as a gigolo, believing that sex and booze can blot out the emotional pain. He certainly didn’t suspect that Holly would care about him as a person rather than as a sex-toy…

Excerpt...

Holly’s smile was lusty and encouraging. Her eyes deep blue and heavily lidded. He’d had hundreds of women look at him the same way, like they were deep in heat and dying to have his dick buried inside them. Knowing she was looking at him that way when she knew the truth of his scars made him feel different than he’d ever felt with a sex partner, paying or otherwise.

For once, he didn’t feel at peace with his thoughts.

His body hummed with electric need. His cock pulsed with raw desperation.

He felt alive for the first time in too damned long.

Taunting her had been the game plan. Drawing out her pleasure until she was insensate with her want to explode. The game plan was changing, because the need to lose himself in her was pulling at him with a commanding hunger.

Benny grabbed a condom from the supply he kept in the nightstand drawer. He ripped the package open and rolled the rubber on. Lying back on the bed, he took her hips in his hands and lifted her up over him, guiding her opening to the tip of his cock. Slowly, he started her down his length.

Holly looked into his eyes, gripped his arms, and touched his scars with her fingertips . . . and didn’t even shudder a little bit in revulsion.

Only, then she did shudder.

A shuddering gasp of pleasure as he slipped deep inside her warm, wet sheath.

With her cloudy gaze trained on his, she rocked back, placing his dick inside her at an angle so intense ecstasy burned at the backs of his eyes. Bringing one hand up to pull at a hard, dusky nipple, she moved the other to his balls.

What she lacked vocally, she more than made up for her physically.

Stroking his balls and perineum, fondling her breasts in turn, she rode him fast and hard, like he was her prized bull and she was long overdue for more than an eight-second ride. That was how she made him feel, with each grind of her pussy against his shaft, like an animal who’d been left caged too long and now it was out and kicking.

Her butt cheeks pressed down on his balls, capturing tender, hyper-sensitized skin between them, and the furor of that animal slammed into him.

Spinning them around on the bed, he flattened her onto her back. Her breasts rubbed against his sweaty chest as he pushed his cock into her again and again. Tension knotted at his heels and splintered up the backs of his legs to his ass. He found her mouth with his and attacked it with openmouthed kisses. She kissed him back frantically, urgently, like she understood his wild need, which was damned ironic considering he didn’t fully understand it himself.

Benny didn’t get the extent of the whys, but he sure as hell got the when.

Right now, her pussy was milking at him, clenching tight and soaking him with her orgasm. Right now, he was giving back to her, gripping the ends of her hair in his hands as he pumped into her and found a violent release.

Holly’s mouth pulled from his in the midst of the mind-bending climax. She panted beneath him and he panted right back. Riding out the intensity of his release, he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

Damn, she smelled good. Felt soft.

So did a lot of the other women he fucked this month. But those others didn’t make him feel alive. Alive, and whatever else it was that had made him lose control. Whatever else it was that made him think beyond the physical for the first time in eight long months. And then made him wish she would decide to go with her original idea and only employ his services for a single hour and a single pleasure session.

A week of out-of-control sex with her, when verbal communication would be a must, was liable to be more than Benny could handle while remaining “just fine.”