Pre-Order
Blitz and Giveaway for THE TUTOR
By K D Grace
What Exactly is Intimacy
If two people who are attracted to each other can’t
actually touch, can they still find a way to be intimate? What exactly is
intimacy, and is it really dependent on being able to touch each other? I
wanted to explore the elements of intimacy in my novel, The Tutor. I’m blessed to live in a very intimate relationship
with lots of touching, but what would that intimacy look like if my husband and
I could no longer have physical contact? How much of what binds us to someone
and what makes us close depends on being able to physically touch? Lex
Valentine and Kelly Blake must find their way to each other without touch. Can
they do it?
Giveaway: To promote
pre-orders for The Tutor, I’m giving away a $30/£20 Amazon gift voucher. Enter
via the Rafflecopter at the bottom of this post for a chance to win!
Pre-order your copy of The
Tutor for a chance to make the author VERY happy. J
The
Tutor Blurb:
Struggling
writer, Kelly Blake has a secret life as a sex tutor. Celebrated sculptor and
recluse, Alexander ‘Lex’ Valentine, can’t stand to be touched. When he seeks
out Kelly’s advice incognito, the results are too hot to handle. When Kelly
terminates their sessions due to what she considers her unprofessional
behavior, Lex takes a huge risk, revealing his identity to her at a gala
exhibition, his first ever public appearance. When Kelly helps the severely
haphephobic Lex escape the grope of reporters and paparazzi, rumors fly that
the two are engaged, rumors encouraged by well-meaning friends and colleagues.
The
press feeding frenzy forces Kelly into hiding at Lex’s mansion where he
convinces her to be his private tutor just until the press loses interest, and
she can go back home. They discover quickly that touch is not essential for
sizzling, pulse-pounding intimacy. But intimacy must survive the secrets
uncovered as their sessions become more and more personal.
Pre-order Links:
~ * ~
First Contact:
For
a long moment they sat in silence again, both wrapped in matching terry robes,
both looking slightly worse for the wear. He was okay with that. He could have
sat there with her all night, but she broke the spell. “Lex, you’re exhausted.
Do you think you could try to get some more sleep?”
“Stay
with me.” The words were out before he could stop them. “If you stay with me, I
can sleep.”
She
stood and looked back at his bed and, for a dreadful moment, he though she was
going to say no. “All right then, but your bed’s a train wreck. Why don’t you
come to mine? It’s virtually undreamed in tonight. Besides I only allow good
dreams in my bed.” She nodded to the open French doors and gave him an
encouraging smile.
Back
in the Meadowlark Suite she went to work on their sleeping arrangements,
putting a barrier of pillows down the middle between them. It was a huge bed,
just like his, so there was still lots of room. “There are enough cushions and
pillows and throws for a herd of elephants to have a slumber party,” she said.
“I don’t move much when I sleep, but this will make sure that I don’t
accidentally touch you or you me.” She pulled back the covers and nodded to the
space. “Get comfy and I’ll tuck you in.” He did as she asked, wishing
desperately that they could lose the pillow barrier and he could take her in
his arms and hold her all night and wake up with her still pressed against him.
The thought made his chest ache with longing, but that she was here, that she
was next to him, sleeping close, that would do. That was so much better than
anything he’s ever been able to imagine for himself.
When
she was settled in on the other side of the pillow barrier, he couldn’t keep
from smiling. She was in his bed, well technically it was his bed, wasn’t it?
She wore his engagement ring, and she did! She still wore it. She hadn’t taken
it off. At least for the moment he could almost imagine the two of them as a
normal couple climbing into their bed together after a hard day, lying close to
each other before they both drifted off to sleep. What must that feel like?
Would he ever know? If he ever did, at this moment he couldn’t imagine anyone
he’d rather share his bed with than Kelly Blake. And just before he drifted off
to sleep, he remembered that she had found him, she had followed him and come
searching for him, both the other night in the sculpture garden and tonight.
She had rescued him from the dream world and she hadn’t been repulsed by his
neediness. She had stayed with him.
* * *
Kelly
woke with a pillow tossed carelessly over her face and a heavy warm weight on
her body. It was only when she moved slightly in an effort to dislodge whatever
it was that she realized the heavy weight was Lex Valentine. She froze, heart
summersaulting in her chest, right exactly where his head rested, dark hair
tickling her chin. All around them she could see nothing but mounds of pillows,
but there were none between them. There was nothing between them. His head lay
between her breasts with one hand cupping her. One well-muscled leg was thrown
over her body just above her hip, which his morning erection prodded
enthusiastically. What the hell should she do? If he woke up like this, he
would pass out or throw up or both, at the very least he would have a panic
attack, but she hadn’t moved. He had found his way to her in his sleep, and he
clung to her like he would a lover. Like he would a lover! That thought focused
her enough that she made an effort to relax. It was human contact. The cost,
from what she had seen yesterday -- at least between the two of them -- the
cost was worth paying. His unconscious had known exactly what he needed, what
he desired. So why not let his unconscious take care of the need he couldn’t
yet take care of consciously. Did she believe that he would be able to at some
point? She desperately wanted to believe that, and she wanted to be there when
it happened. She wanted to be the one he took consciously into his arms.
His
thumb brushed her nipple and she battled to hold still in the bed as it
stiffened and rose against his stroking. The satin hardness of his erection
surged where it pressed trapped between her hip and his body, and he began to
shift and slide against her. She swallowed back a moan, feeling the rush of
heat down low where her legs were spread. Had she slept that way, or was it an
unconscious response to the nearness of him and his obvious need of her. She
couldn’t help it, she wriggled slightly beneath him until she was a little more
open and the rhythmic clench and release, clench and release, of her pelvic
muscles mirrored his slid and shift, slide and shift. He squirmed and moaned
and she froze, for a moment fearing he was waking up and once again at a loss
as to what she should do to make it easier for him. But instead of waking up,
he shifted more fully onto her until he was almost, but on quite on top of her.
His cock pressed up against the inside of her thigh, and still he shifted and
slid and moaned softly and, God help her, she found herself wriggling and grinding
in an effort to get more fully beneath his body, in an effort the get him
inside her. Jesus, she wanted him inside her! She wanted him inside her like
she’d never wanted anything as his fingers curled around her breast kneading in
rhythm to his shifting, in rhythm to the undulation of her hips. Then he took
his hand away and she all but cried out in her frustration, catching herself
just before there was any sound other than a heavy intake of breath. But there
was very little time to dwell on the absence of his hand as he moved splayed
fingers down the flat of her belly and wriggled his way into the top of her
panties, there he rested his hand only for a moment on her pubic curls and she
arched against it, effectively willing him to seek out the place where she
needed to be touched. And thank fuck, he did! He found that place, and memories
of the slippery pear half flashed through her head as he carefully, but
urgently fingered her open and began to stroke and probe.
This
was insane. He was asleep. She absolutely had to wake him before it was too
late. If he woke up like this he’d be embarrassed as well as panicked. If he
woke up like this he would think she was taking advantage, which she was. And
then he found her clitoris, and she held her breath and dug her heels into the
mattress to keep from moving as he circled her -- first with his thumb and then
with two fingers slick with her own lust. Then he found her rhythm and he
thrust and scissored, circled and probed, exactly as she had told him she liked
it, as she had demonstrated on the pear.
There
was nothing she could do but let him touch her, let the feel of him wash over
her in waves, the incredible sensation of being caressed so intimately by Lex
Valentine. Her haze of arousal was sharply punctuated by his moans and grunts,
not the sounds of distress, but the sounds of a man about to ejaculate. Though
her own shifting and rocking had become almost entirely internal, she was there
with him, right on the edge as he stroked and touched and tweaked. Christ, how
could anything feel better than this? He stopped breathing. His whole body was
one tightly clenched muscle, the shifting and sliding had become outright
thrusting, and the moans and grunts had escalated to guttural growls. At some
point, she didn’t know when it had happened, she grabbed onto the headboard to
keep back the overpowering urge to touch him, to take him by the wrist and hold
his hand down where she needed it, to grab him by the cock and stroke him until
he came, or even better to guide his erection down between her legs where she
wanted him most of all. But before there was time to think about it, he
grunted, then grunted again, and she felt the warm wet of his release against
her thigh. That was enough to send her over the edge. Try though she might, she
couldn’t lie still, and Lex woke up.
“Kelly?
Fuck!” His words were followed by a hard thud and a barely swallowed string of
curses as he rolled off onto the floor.
“Christ,
Lex, are you all right? Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do. I
should have woke you up.”
“You
did wake me up,” he managed between gasps for breath. “Christ, woman, no one
has ever woken me up like that before.” He groaned and rolled onto his side.
“Are
you okay?”
“Never
better.” He said with a soft laugh that sounded somewhat painful. “I’ll be even
better still if I can get the room to stop spinning. For a long moment there
was no sound but the sound of his breathing. She wasn’t breathing at all,
though she desperately needed to. She was too busy trying to listen to him, to
make sure he was okay.
At
last he spoke. “Did I just … Did we just.”
She
couldn’t help the giddy little laugh. “Your fingers aren’t sticky from fondling
canned pears, big boy, and I’m gonna need clean sheets.”
Thank you for the chance.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the chance.
ReplyDeleteOh this book sounds interesting and I Love the Cover :)
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt is very hot and teasing, but yeah, sounds like a great read, and I like the cover too. It's bold, but elegant.
ReplyDelete