Lex walked into Which Wich and carefully ordered her sandwich, a cookie, and a pineapple milkshake. After paying, she moved to the far end of the sandwich shop and leaned against a wall, watching the staff make sandwiches. Absently, she sucked on the straw, thinking about her current WIP and what needed to happen next. She never realized that she must have somehow presented some sort of strange picture sucking on the straw, wrapping her tongue around it, eyes narrowed to slits as the creamy shake oozed from the straw onto her tongue all the while with a faraway expression in her big brown eyes.

A movement across the room caught her eye and Lex looked up from her shake to see a tall man with impossibly broad shoulders barely contained in a navy tank top. He was headed right for her. She blinked in astonishment. The man wore shorts and flip flops and walked with a cock-first kind of stride that she recognized from what she liked to call her “slutty past.”

Cocking up her right brow just slightly, she eyed the young man who had to be at least twenty years her junior. He had the kind of hotness women got drooly over. Raven hair, a lean, chiseled, stubbled jaw… and oh, those shoulders. The muscles rippled as he walked, yet he wasn’t muscle bound like a bodybuilder. He had lean hips and the thighs beneath his loose khaki shorts spoke of wiry muscle not bulk.

Sky blue eyes beneath impossibly black brows focused directly on her… and no one else. He walked toward her, ignoring the stares of men and women alike as he crossed the busy sandwich shop. Beauty like his commanded attention and it had Lex’s too, but for a different reason.

For all of three seconds she remembered what it was like to be twenty years younger and on the prowl. A plethora of sexual double entendres hovered on her tongue born from an instant spike of animal attraction. Then her lips twitched as amusement took over. Of all the people in the shop, he had to make a beeline for her. She wondered why until he spoke.

“Is that a pineapple milkshake?” he asked as he stopped a mere two feet from her, oozing sexuality.

His eyes blinked slowly, a move probably designed to make her melt. He was obviously used to people falling all over themselves with him. She could see the anticipation in his gorgeous eyes as he waited for her to get starry-eyed over him.

Her brow arced a little higher and her mouth curved up in a wry smile. ”Yeah. It is pineapple,” she replied coolly, her gaze stroking over the perfect lines of his shoulders and arms. He sure was pretty, she thought to herself and stuck the straw back in her mouth, her tongue twining around it before she sucked.

The young man’s eyes glittered knowingly. He watched her suck on the straw, his own tongue peeping out to lick at the corners of his mouth. “I was going to get that, but I didn’t know if it was any good,” he murmured and Lex wondered if he realized that someone might think his words weren’t about the milkshake.

“Oh, it’s good, but it’s not real pineappley,” she told him smoothly.

She sucked on the straw again and the young man started to move forward. He jerked then, bumped from behind by a friend. He turned away as they discussed their drinks and sandwiches. Lex leaned on the wall, her mouth quirked up in a smile of immense amusement. She didn’t look like much that day. Black suede flats. Black and white tweedy baggy pants with cuffs. An off white henley type shirt with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair was fuzzy from the humidity and shoved into a scrunchie. As usual, she wore no makeup but her expressive eyes rarely needed any.

The young man and his friends moved away. As the other two men pushed in front of the beautiful man, he looked back over his shoulder at Lex. She noticed that the back of his left arm had an Old English R tattooed on it. The back of the right arm had an L. His sky blue eyes flicked over her from her grey streaked, mussed hair to her wry expression, and the body that was no longer trim and muscular as it had been twenty years before.

And then he smiled, white teeth flashing. As he turned back to his friend, his left eyelid dipped in a wink. Lex let the tip of her tongue spiral around the straw and the young man laughed, his hand lifting in a sort of wave to her as he left the shop. Returning to her shake, Lex looked around the shop and found every eye, male and female alike, on her. This time, both her brows rose. Apparently, weeks away from her 49th birthday, overweight by more pounds than she would ever admit to, and definitely not dressed for success, Lex still had an indefinable something that sparked hot men.

The counter person called her name and she took her sandwich, walking out of the shop with that wry smile still on her face. More than one of her boyfriends had said her eyes could seduce a monk. A man young enough to be her son seemed about on a par with monks to her these days so she figured she was doing okay for an old lady who wrote sex scenes in her spare time and called them novels.

She unlocked her non-descript Dodge and tossed the sandwich in, eyeing the pineapple milkshake. “Yeah, I’ve always loved a good pineapple shake. You just never know what will happen when you’re sucking on something you love…” she murmured wickedly.

If you’re interested, the guy sorta looked like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC7sGAf6dUY

Lunch With Lex is a post from: Lex Valentine

I just got a contract on proposal to do a novella about Sunday’s Child for Noble Romance’s Child of the Week project. I have to tell you that I am hugely excited about this! The other authors in this anthology are all really excellent writers, well known, and well respected. I’m honored to be included with them. The book will be released in February so I have a mid-January deadline. Now, if I could just get past this first chapter. Grrrr.

Both Shifting Winds and it’s sequel Hot Water will be released in March by Pink Petal Books. I have to tell you, if you are a new author, you need to send your work to PPB. It is a joy to work with Mary. As long as I don’t bomb on the other books in this series, I’m confident she will be publishing them as well. The third book will be a M/M story called Fire Season. The fourth book will have a menage a quatre, features weres, and is called Common Ground. The fifth book has a little BDSM and is called Ride the Lightning. I will continue to carry over (as needed) the secondary characters that I created in the image of my blogger pals. Even better, the fifth book will be about Vahid Delrey, who is based a little on my blogging friend Vahid, who loves dragons.

To round out my releases for 2009, Silver Lining, the story I based on an ex-boyfriend, will be out in July with Midnight Showcase. I have other books in the works so the number of releases I have in 2009 could climb. I’m so excited about it all that I could just squee. However, I’m not a fan of the squee so I’ll just Snoopy dance a little.

Now, since it’s still 2008 and it is the Christmas season, I have things to give you! First there is a little tale of the Nativity, told vampire style with my favorite characters in the whole world, Alaric and Alexandria. It is a free read, available only on this website (or at The Bar if you’re lucky enough to have access to it). Just go to the Download page and click on the banner that says Vampire Nativity.

Next, if you’re a Pink Chair Diaries fan, you’ll want to head on over there and read my PCD Christmas story, A Very Cougar Christmas. What would you do if you were a single man, with a gorgeous neighbor, whom you just happen to hear sobbing her heart out on Christmas Eve? Click on the link to my story to find out!

And last, but never least, Pink Petal Books has my book Christmas Hookup available for download at their bookstore and at All Romance eBooks. It’s got a hot cover and it is a very hot story! If you like the Gift of the Magi, you must read Christmas Hookup! There’s a little more info about the story over on my personal blog at Sunlight Sucks.

I hope you enjoy the free Christmas stories, and I wish you all a very Happy Holiday Season!

Presents! is a post from: Lex Valentine

My next thing to tell you about is a new website we have called Tales of the Darkworld. You’ll find information about my world, creatures, and the books related to those creatures on this site. It’s like a companion for the books with tidbits about things related to the series. You’ll find the website at http://talesofthedarkworld.com.

Trailers! Yes, I’m doing them for FREE until the end of December. So if you always wanted a trailer for your book, but couldn’t make it yourself, here is your chance to have one! So far, we’ve made trailers for 8 authors and have about another 8 to go. This has been a lot of fun and we’re so happy the authors are happy with them. It’s such a great way to promote a book.

I’m giving away a Bar t-shirt with fangs as part of the Bloody Kiss-mas contest. For information on the contest check out this video!

Here’s the poster for the contest.

There’s a photo of the t-shirt at the contest’s website on MySpace: http://myspace.com/bloodykissmas

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Playing Catch Up is a post from: Lex Valentine