#HopswithHeart – Under the Lamp Light

Welcome to the Winter Warm-up Blog hop.

There is a chance to win prizes this weekend, so if you haven’t already entered the Rafflecopter Grand Prize  ($75 Amazon gift voucher) you can with this link.

I shall be offering a copy of one of my books to randomly picked commentator on this blog (please leave an email address if you want to be included.) Prizes are awarded on the 24th Dec.

Below is an excerpt from one of my books – Touched – a love story between an ambitious financial analyst and a tantric masseur.  Adam is creating a welcoming environment for Tania in a hotel room. She’s nervous. He’s massaged her before, but at the parlour, Muratantra, and he’s asked if she would join him in a hotel room for a more intimate erotic massage.

***

Adam promised to meet her at the hotel that evening—not in the foyer but in the room he had quickly booked. It was a mediocre hotel belonging to a national chain and quite plainly furnished on the inside. Striding past the reception desk, Tania made her way up to the fifth floor. The lift jerked as it ascended to her destination. Peering down the unlit corridor, she spied the doorway at the far end. The light flickered on as the motion detector sensed her presence and continued to blink as she walked down the carpeted hallway. The sensor treated her as if she was a ghostly apparition and not a physical presence.

Tapping on the door with her knuckles, she swallowed back waves of nausea. It had nothing to do with dread or fear and everything to do with lust and excitement. In the taxi ride over to the hotel, she’d warred with her nerves. Her confidence had waxed and waned with each stop-start action of the cab as it battled the evening traffic and jaywalking pedestrians. The driver had cursed avidly, unabated by the presence of a female passenger. His vexation hadn’t quelled Tania’s own until they pulled up outside the hotel frontage. Handing him a couple of notes, she had taken a deep breath and made a decision. It was her choice and if she didn’t like it, she would leave. Other than that, she was bloody well going to enjoy herself.

The door opened wide and, to her great relief, there stood a supremely relaxed Adam, clearly pleased to see her.

“Come in.” He waved her into the room.

Tania brushed against the wall to move past him. It wasn’t a spacious room and the first thing she spotted on the small round table by the curtained window was the lava lamp. The next sense to be stimulated was her nose—the rich aromatic smell of a pungent perfume. However, candles weren’t emitting the fragrance. Instead, Adam had plugged in an aroma dispenser in a wall socket by the bathroom doorway.

“No candles?” She turned to him, but he had moved into the bedroom.

He leaned back against the wall nonchalantly with a cross-legged pose that Tania found incredibly sexy.

“Would set off the smoke alarm then the sprinklers.”

“Oh,” she said with a grin.

He was dressed so differently from his usual masseur’s outfit. No white top, but a black sleeveless vest and below, gray jogging pants that hung loose off his hips. She could see the top of his pelvis jutting out above the drawstring waist, the string barely keeping his pants up.

Tania dropped her handbag on the dressing table. The only mirror in the room hung above the drawers and she avoided her reflection. The bed was covered in towels and there was a bolster cushion planted smack in the middle. His iPod, complete with a small speaker attached, rested on the bedside table—there would be musical accompaniment. He had spent some time preparing the room, setting the scene for their encounter, and Adam clearly wanted her to feel at home—except it wasn’t home nor was it Muratantra.

“I showered before I left. Before I got changed,” Tania said. Her long silver top hung down and cleaved to the tops of her thighs, while her jeans hugged her hips, showing off her contours. It had been her third choice of outfit. The others had been discarded for either being too revealing or insufficiently attractive. She had had a long internal debate about whether she wanted to look sexy or frumpy. Did she want to turn Adam on before he had laid a finger on her or make him work for his erection?

“You look lovely,” he said, mirroring her thoughts. “But I’d prefer you naked.”

She almost said ‘you too’ but hung back. Theoretically, their meeting was still an appointment, a therapeutic massage session that Tania was paying for with cash.

Barefoot, he sprang in to action, pushing off his nimble toes. “Before we start, I just wanted to remind you that this is about you, not me. If I don’t come, it’s not important. It doesn’t matter to me. If I do, I will come over you. I’ll be wearing a condom anyway. Don’t feel under pressure to please me. Understood?”

Tania heard the earnest expression his voice and believed him. She nodded, words failing her dry mouth.

“In that case, may I undress you?”

His request for permission touched Tania immensely. It almost brought tears to her usually stoic eyes.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Please undress me, Adam.”

***

Enjoy the rest of the hop!