Best Erotic Romance 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Kristina Wright.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by Cleis Press, Inc.,

2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

Cover photograph: Juhasz Peter/Getty Images

Text design: Frank Wiedemann

First Edition.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-022-3

CONTENTS

Foreword
  
•
  
L
AUREN
D
ANE

Introduction: A Perfect Combination

The Shortest Day
  
•
  
N
IKKI
M
AGENNIS

A Competitive Marriage
  
•
  
V
ICTORIA
B
LISSE

Professional, Knowledgeable and Very Thorough
  
•
  
A
NNABETH
L
EONG

Rules
  
•
  
E
MERALD

More Light
  
•
  
L
AILA
B
LAKE

Stay with Me
  
•
  
C
RYSTAL
J
ORDAN

A Singer Who Doesn't Sing
  
•
  
J
EANETTE
G
REY

Show Me
  
•
  
D. R. S
LATEN

A Perfect Place
  
•
  
C
ATHERINE
P
AULSSEN

Something New
  
•
  
G
ISELLE
R
ENARDE

Over a Barrel
  
•
  
T
AMSIN
F
LOWERS

Tuscarora
  
•
  
A
NJA
V
IKARMA

Big Bully
  
•
  
A. M. H
ARTNETT

Going It Alone
  
•
  
L
UCY
F
ELTHOUSE

Closing the Deal
  
•
  
K
ELLY
M
AHER

Whatever It Takes
  
•
  
K
RISTINA
W
RIGHT

About the Authors

About the Editor

FOREWORD

I write
those books
.

So often we see things that are created overwhelmingly by women mainly for the enjoyment of women—especially those things that tell women their sexuality is beautiful and absolutely okay—referred to in insulting and patronizing terms. As if by being mothers we are sexless robots only suited for ferrying children from place to place and folding laundry. As if being a wife or a partner means we're incapable of that slice of desire and heat when we catch their scent in the bathroom after they've left for work, or when we daydream at the office. As if we simply do not exist as sensual, sexual beings because as women we are not allowed to be or we risk being mocked and ridiculed.

We end up in a cultural catch-22 where if we are sexual we're nymphos, and if we are not sexual we're frigid. We cannot win in the world created by those who coin terms like
mommy porn
because those terms are laden with fear at the very idea that women are capable of being more than one thing, that we enjoy
having sex more than folding laundry.

Which is why I think erotic romance is wonderful and revolutionary in the best sorts of ways.

I write
those books
—meaning erotic romance—because I love to write about connection. Because I believe women are worthy of stories where their strength and sexuality are described in positive terms. Because being in love and being connected to a partner is wonderful. I believe the heart of any real story worth telling or reading is about the connection of the people on the page. Be it thrillers, science fiction, romance, whatever.

To me, there is nothing more wholly female positive than a story where a woman opens herself up to the delights and annoyances of entering into a sexual and emotional relationship with a partner. I love to write about (and read about) emotion and yes, I love to write about sex and women who are smart and in the driver's seat when it comes to their sexual agency.

Erotic romance throws open the bedroom doors absolutely, but that's not the only hallmark of the genre. Erotic romance delves deeply into the physical and emotional connection between the people on the page and how their relationship progresses. Sex is a huge part of that and when it's done right, sex is the map of their romance.

I often hear people say things like, “You could just take out the sex and the story would still be great,” and I think, “Oh, but who wants that?” I want to read a story where every bit of the potential is used. I want that bedroom door open and I want to see into the hearts and minds of the characters on the page. I want to be along with them on their journey to their Happily Ever After.

In this anthology you'll find sixteen stories of sex and love between all sorts of people. Because all sorts of people deserve sex and love. Playful, dark, fun, serious, rough and fast, slow
and intense. It can be gentle, a breath of a kiss against a shoulder blade. Sometimes it's about finding your way back after being a bit lost, or the brand-new spark as you first meet. It's all hot. It's all sexy and emotional and it's all about connection.

Enjoy
Best Erotic Romance 2014
in all her guises—I know I did. And remember what E. M. Forster said in
Howards End:
“Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.”

Lauren Dane

INTRODUCTION: A PERFECT COMBINATION

Love and lust, that's what I need—what I
crave
. Love and lust: they belong together. Like peanut butter and jelly, like strawberries and champagne, like cookies and milk. Love and lust just
go
together. And while one is certainly fine, wonderful even, the combination is…incendiary. It's the magic combination of elements, with the planets aligned just so, that poets and songwriters have long attempted to capture in rhyme and meter. But it is erotic romance authors who invite us into that world of desire and longing, capturing those relationships that are so powerful they defy all odds.

This is the third edition of the
Best Erotic Romance
series and I believe I have selected stories that perfectly capture the combination of love and lust. Whether it's new lovers, as in Annabeth Leong's “Professional, Knowledgeable and Very Thorough,” or familiar lovers such as the married couple in Victoria Blisse's “A Competitive Marriage,” the passion is palpable on the page. Nikki Magennis writes about lovers who are also parents
in “The Shortest Day,” two people scraping by with so little alone time it feels as if their desire for each other will never be quenched. But they find a way. They
always
will.

Those who love and lust for each other will find a way, whatever it takes. And that's the theme of
Best Erotic Romance 2014
—lovers in love finding a way to be together no matter what the odds. It's idealistic, but not unrealistic. If you've ever known that kind of heart-pounding love and toe-curling desire, you know you'd be willing to do almost anything to hang on to it. And why shouldn't you? That kind of magic doesn't come along very often and when it does, when it's so right that even people on the street comment on how happy you are together, it's worth fighting for. The cynics will scoff and say it doesn't exist, the kind of passionate love found in these stories, but the authors represented here are romantics, not cynics. They believe in love—erotic, intimate,
connected
love—and so do I.

As I sit here in my usual corner at Starbucks drinking my iced coffee and writing about love and sex and what it all means, two texts just came up on my phone. They're from my husband. The first one says:
We need bread for dinner. Could you get some on the way home?
The second one says:
Smile! I love you, sexy
. Twenty-three years of marriage and he still loves
and
desires me—and the best part of it is, it's mutual! I believe in what I write because I live it. I hope you have the love and passion you want in your life—if not now, then soon—and I hope once it arrives you will hang on to it and never let go.

Whatever it takes, right? That's what we need.

Kristina Wright

In love in Virginia

THE SHORTEST DAY

Nikki Magennis

The alarm went off like a robotic bird chirping.

“No,” Lucy said, slapping at John's arm, “please don't let it be morning.”

A dim gloom was turning the curtains semitransparent. In a few hours, the light would be failing again. She rolled over and curled into John to breathe in his warm, familiar smell. But he was already swinging his legs out and staggering to the door.

Five minutes later, when he came back in still wet from the shower and threw a towel at the pile on the floor, the shock of his nakedness made a light flare in her. Then the kitchen broke out with bleats that the cereal box was full of milk and someone screamed and she blinked and John was gone, tugging on jeans and grabbing for a shirt, his wet blond hair still dark with water, sticking to his skin like painted streaks. He could have been an apparition—a figment of her imagination.

She didn't even get one of the fleeting, distracted smiles he threw her way sometimes. Especially after one of the nights when they'd had sleep sex.