I posted about casual attire the other day, and how hot men can look in the right pair of jeans. Well dressed men are equally hot. Maybe even more so.

A man wearing an expensive, well tailored suit exudes sexiness. He is successful, confident,  and knows how to please a woman. Getting him undressed is always a treat! Something about a well-dressed man in sexy dishabille is such a turn on. That crisp, white shirt hanging open, revealing the soft tuft of hair on his chest, and the glory trail leading to untold delights.

It doesn’t matter who unbuckles his belt. It’s hot when he does it, you watch in anticipation. It’s hot when you do it, like unwrapping  a present.  Either way, watching his clothes being removed piece by piece is an incomparable visual pleasure that never fails to entice.

Everything is so busy this time of year, it’s hard to find time to write anything – even a blog post! I have managed to eek out some time to work on my latest novel. It’s still Claire and Aaron and they are hot, sweet lovers. But their marriage takes a turn for the worse when Aaron’s mother dies unexpectedly in a car accident.

I’m not even sure this book is a romance yet. It has a very dark theme. It is unfolding as a tale about how lonely people try to make themselves whole. There is love – quite a bit of it – in the story. It is sad though, because Claire and Aaron love each other so very much, but their relationship has become unhealthy.

There is sex too, but unexpected sex. Writing the sex is a bit of a challenge so far. In Awake in A Sweet Unrest, it was (relatively) easy to write the sex scenes – I thought Eric and Nathan were so hot, I wanted to get in bed with them. But the sex in this story doesn’t always involve love, or even irresistibly hot guys. But it is part of the story.

Still not sure where Claire and Aaron are taking me. But I am enjoying getting to know them. They are flawed people, to be sure, but I am enthralled so far.

I think I was about 15 when I first noticed there was something about the way certain guys looked in the right pair of jeans…

My girlfriends and I engaged in the the precursor to texting and text speak.  We wrote each other notes while we were in class, to be passed to each other between classes,  read and responded to during the next class, and we did this all day long.  There is one particular acronym we used that I have never forgotten,  and still use,  at least in the privacy of my own thoughts, and that is CLA.  What, you ask, does that stand for? I’ll give you a hint – a note I may have written at the time might have read something like , “I was standing behind <hot guy> at the drinking fountain,  and I was just staring at his CLA.”

Cute Little Ass.  Firm, rounded cheeks, nicely hugged by a pair of tight jeans. Hot!

The evolutionary tale is that, because women have been so long forced to walk behind men, they learned to appreciate the view.

I have never stopped enjoying the view from behind.  I have also learned that it’s not only the view from behind that makes well fitting jeans a treat for the eyes. Hot guys in jeans is just extremely sexy.

I have so many books! I always thought it would be cool to have a library. When I realized I had an extra room, guess what?

It is a cozy room, and it is where my desk is. I like being surrounded by books when I write.  I like seeing my own book on a bookshelf, too.

It’s funny – I thought when I had a central location for books,  all the books would live there.  Not true. I still have piles of books lying around – it’s my decorating style. Not to mention my my younger son is an avid reader like myself, and he has bookshelves in his own room – he could practically start a library of his own.

I put my fireplace in here too.  With winter about to descend, I am looking forward to spending warm, comfy hours curled up with a book.

Yes, I get it.  Everyone loves Eric.  I love Eric!  But, “sweet, lonely woman meets hot, sexy guy, they fall in love and live happily ever after” is not a story.  Well, okay, I guess it can be a story, but be honest, if Ingénue ended with marriage instead of Nathan, you would think it one of the most boring romances ever written.

Eric had to be so good, and so good for Sara, because that is a part of what made Nathan so bad, and so bad for her.  Sara’s relationship with Nathan required sacrifice.  How would she ever learn about Nathan if she didn’t lose what she had with Eric?  She could not say no to Nathan from the very first time they met.  Part of the story is Sara learning and understanding what the cost of the relationship is.

The relationship between Sara and Nathan is a type of relationship. Women often do make choices deemed poor by observers. But we don’t know what drives those choices.  In this story, it is the compelling physical reaction Sara has to Nathan. Remember, Sara is relatively inexperienced in the ways of love and lust.  Nathan is a very sensual and sexual man, and he knows exactly how to pursue Sara. She made it obvious to him immediately.

Personally, I think Nathan is hot as hell!  He is arrogant, manipulative, and selfish, but he never leaves Sara unsatisfied, never forces her to do anything she doesn’t want to, and does love her in his own strange La Taha’a way. But then, I probably know him better than you do. For instance, when he told Sara, “I’ve never done this before,”  he was not lying.  Most readers think that he was.

Nathan is a man that knows what he wants, and is accustomed to getting it.  There is something sexy about a confident, powerful man.  It is his love play women respond to – he is so very good at it.  The rest, the loss of self, the control and jealousy – those things are covered up and brushed aside until they can’t be anymore.

Yes, there is a sequel, and I’m pretty sure I know how it ends.

I have been hard at work on the sequel to Ingénue. Something strange has happened, though. Two new characters, Claire and Aaron, have dropped in to my imagination, and are demanding that their story be told. They’re quite insistent, and I have not been able to convince them to wait their turn.

So, I have veered onto another road – a quiet a cul-de-sac in a distinctly upper middle class neighborhood in Ann Arbor. Claire and Aaron Delecroix live in a beautiful house on the tree-lined street. It seems they have everything – love, success, family and friends.

Claire is a middle-aged woman, and she loves her much younger husband passionately and deeply. Aaron returns her love with steady devotion and tender regard – he wants only for her to be happy.  A perfect couple … right?

Yet It seems that things are not as idyllic in the Delecroix home  as they appear on the surface. What happens there, when the curtains are drawn? Why is Claire driven to seek fulfillment from other sources than her hot, young husband?

I am on a journey to find out, and am writing it all down as I discover what happens in the lives of these two  fascinating characters.

This is an extremely compelling tale. I feel driven to tell it. I will return to the sequel as soon as this one is finished.