Coming Around Again

I'm back from my little jaunt to Italy! If you hadn't seen on my Facebook page, I left a little excerpt of the book that has seen me through a box of Kleenex, weeping and wailing and wailing and weeping. I'm over it though. Not selling it am I... Maybe this bit will though!

Niels takes over my blog.. 

Stella felt an elbow digging into her ribs. And something else hard between her buttocks and there was definitely a hand, a large male hand, cupping her breast. Underneath the material of Niels’ T-shirt, on the bare skin of breast that remained untouched since the last time she’d had sex with her husband, cupped.
“Are you awake?” Niels grumbled from behind her. “Do you need to be sick again?”
“The hell are you doing?” she demanded, wrestling out of his grip and slapping his hand from her tit.
“I was sleeping,” he said on an enormous yawn. “Until you started moving about.”
“You were feeling me up. Rubbing your chub into my bum,” she accused.
Niels lifted the duvet and started laughing. “Oh, come on, Stella. You know how much I love your pumpkin.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“This is all automatic. I don’t think it’ll ever change. There’ll be a day when I’m old and couldn’t encourage an erection. But while you still have that delectable ass, I will forever feel my manhood.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she threw at him, turning onto her side and tucking the duvet more tightly around herself.
Niels caught the T-shirt in a bunched fist and dragged her against his bare chest. “You didn’t have any complaints when you were sleeping earlier. Actually, you told me to move my hand lower.”
“I’m clearly delirious. And you’re taking advantage of a sick woman.”
“My wife.”
“Ex-wife.” She shivered as his palm slipped warmly underneath the T-shirt again, his thumb skimming over her navel.
“There’s still a possessive pronoun. Mine…” he added on a whisper.
“Look, I’m ill. I don’t need you molesting me with our children in the next room.”
“Why do you pretend I don’t know you? Post-orgasmic Stella always sleeps better than irritable Stella.”
So very true, but she couldn’t let her barely ex-husband touch her anywhere outside of the sanctity of marriage. God, the things she’d let that man do to her sexually…
“You shouldn’t,” she muttered while his index finger traced the line of her lace Brazilian-cut knickers.
“Nothing I haven’t done before,” he assured her, parting her thighs with his hand and slipping his fingers beneath the edge of her panties.
“Sleep, my sweet,” he whispered. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

Night and Day

Looking for book 3 in the IK series? It's on Amazon for your reading pleasure. The link to the playlist is inside the book, so you can shake your booty African style while you read.

A Life Sublime on Amazon

That's a blurb!

Belinda Afriyie is only in the Neapolitan Riviera for the wedding of her best friend’s daughter, never mind the fact that she bullied her way into it, mostly out of guilt for not being the mother figure that she should have been. At the very least, she had to make sure that Gina Robinson did her Ghanaian duty in marrying Nick Da Canaveze, even if Belinda had to get on a plane, pay excess baggage and suffer the heat for it. There would be no time for sightseeing, lounging around infinity pools and definitely no time for flirting with anyone. Especially not The Big Man, who was as troublesome as his son. The twinkle in Massimo Da Canaveze’s eyes told her that he was more than just trouble. He was a huge, fat God-like sign of what was missing from her life. Of just how glorious life could be with someone like him in it... But a man like him would never give her a side glance. It was fine. The wedding celebrations would last all of four days and she’d be off home. No looking. No touching. No flirting. None of that was good for her or her ego.

Massimo Da Canaveze is not enjoying his status as widower. He’s lonely. Feeling that way had become a way of life and his son’s wedding at his 800 year old family villa would hopefully put that to a stop. He would be surrounded by people he loved.  What he didn’t expect was the shrill voiced, authoritative, all commanding, arresting personality that was Belinda Afriyie to blaze through Italy in figure hugging, traditional African dresses and floaty kaftans that left little to the imagination. There hadn’t been an ample bosomed challenge like her to cross his path since his late wife. With a little music, a little sunshine, more than a bit of whiskey, he and Belinda were going to become very good friends.

Four Italian named puppet masters sit on the sideline of this play, throwing pizza pies to hit two half-centenarians in the eye. The Da Canaveze family is about to add to their growing number and no one is more shocked about it, than the puppets…

That's an excerpt!

He sent her an assessing look. “Why are you afraid of having things in common with me?”

Belinda turned to him, fury in her eyes. “Pardon?”

“The idea of having similarities with my life worries you. I can tell. We are all simply human. If not always with the same set of sensibilities.”

Hmm. “You and I both know that is not always the case.”

Those crystal blue eyes twinkled. “That sounded nice.”
“What?”

“You and I. Please do continue, we may even eventually agree with one another.”

Ridiculously attractive man, she thought, a reluctant grin tugging at her mouth. “Eh heh. All right, I’m going to go and sort myself out.”

“Belinda,” he said with a mild warning, as she heaved herself from the pool and padded to the lounger, “I am the last sensible adult in this villa. You should stay friends with me, even if we disagree, or you will have no one else to talk to.”

He has a realistic and very valid point, she thought, snapping off her swimming cap. God knows she wished there was a palm tree within reach where she could remove a few swatches and swat the idiocy from the mouths of those children. “I’ll let you know,” she replied smartly, pulling the kaftan over her head and wrapping the towel around her hair. He was still watching her. Naughty man, she knew that look. That same sort of look had got her into trouble before she had married and a good many times after. “You behave yourself. I told your son and I’ll tell you too. I am not afraid to beat you if you give me nonsense.”

Massimo glanced down at his arms before looking up, a light in his eyes that should have sent her running for her passport and on the first plane back to London. “What makes you think I would not enjoy that?”

“Because you’ve never had a proper beating from me,” she retorted, collecting her things and making her way back to the villa. There would be something to occupy herself with and take the goosebumps from her flesh that had nothing to do with being cold and everything to do with the husky laugh of the man still in the pool.

Lose Yourself To Dance

This is my 200th blog post! Yay! And I'm so glad that it's about the music for this story. Makes it all the more special. So as with all the renewed Italian Knights copies, I've complied a soundtrack for A Life Sublime. It's random. More random than normal, but I really hope you enjoy every track. If nothing else, I'm sharing a little of Ghana with you all. Sah, sah, sah, sah!

A Life Sublime on Spotify

1.    Ella Fitzgerald – In A Sentimental Mood

2.    Fuse Ft Donae'O and Tiffany – Azonto

3.    David Bowie – Let’s Dance

4.    Diana Ross – The Boss

5.    Prince Nico Mbarga – Sweet Mother

6.    Shirley Brown – A long As You Love Me

7.    Urban Cone – Winter’s Calling

8.    Jerry Hansen & The Ramblers Dance Band – Ama Bonsu

9.    Cecilia Bartoli – Caro Mio Ben

10. Tarantella – Italian Mandolin Torna A Surriento

11. The Naked and the Famous – Punching in a Dream

12. Jodeci – FreekN You

13. Kanye West – Golddigger

14. Nat King Cole – I Love You For Sentimental Reasons

15. Cameo – Candy

16. The Flamingoes – I Only Have Eyes For You

17. Al Green – Let's Stay Together

18. Al Green – How Can You Mend A Broken Heart

19. Adele – Hometown Glory

20. Bill Evans – Night and Day

21. Dean Martin – That’s Amore

22. Ms Victoria Barnes – Never Too Late

23. Ella Fitzgerald – Blue Skies

24. Marvin Gaye – Sexual Healing

25. David Bowie – Modern Love

26. Dean Martin – Return To Me

27. Coldplay – Lost

28. Daughter – Medicine

29. Verdi's La Traviata – Di Sprezzo Degno

30. Verdi’s La Traviata – È strano!

31. Ella Fitzgerald – Someone To Watch Over Me

32. Billie Holiday – I’m A Fool To Want You

33. Jay-Z – Otis

34. The African Brothers International Band – Wompe Masem

35. The English Christian Hymnal – Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

36. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – Turnadot: Signore, ascolta

37. Jewel Ackah – Sea Never Dry 

38. Otis Reading – These Arms Of Mine

39. Al Green – What A Wonderful Thing Love Is

40. Etta James – Be Mine 

Let The Music Play

Goodness, one does double up on the tracks! There are songs that I naturally gravitate to when I write, or edit because they instantly take me where I need to go, emotionally, mentally... Someone's going to report me one day and I'll end up explaining myself to the police, won't I?

Soundtrack ahoy!

Kissing the Canvas on Spotify

1. Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait
2. Bastille - Pompeii Kat Krazy Remix
3. Charlotte OC - Colour My Heart
4. Laura Mvula - Green Garden
5. Nicki Minaj - Superbass
6. Lana Del Rey - Brite Lites
7. The Joy Formidable - Wolf's Law
8. Disclosure ft Eliza Doolittle - You & Me
9. Florence + The Machine - Only If For A Night
10. Chris Malinchak - So Good to Me
11. Jennifer Lopez ft Pitbull - Dance Again
12. Sia - Kill and Run
13. Kanye West - Bound 2
14. Kasabian - Shoot the Runner
15. Adele - Rolling in the Deep
16. Jessie Ware - Wildest Moments
17. Janelle Monae - Tightrope (No Big Verse)
18. Interpol - The Specialist 
19. Bloc Party - SRXT
20. Rudimental ft John Newman- Feel the Love