WITH EXTREME PLEASURE releases TODAY! (And it’s no longer free on the Kindle, so my days of ruling the Kindle Bestseller list are done; hey, does that mean I can officially call WITH EXTREME PLEASURE a national bestseller?!?!?!?) (Oh, and btw, both of those links will give you an excerpt.)
I love WITH EXTREME PLEASURE because I LOVE Kingdom Trahan. He came on the scene early in NO LIMITS and almost stole the book from Simon Baptiste. I had to slap him down a few times and let Simon have his story. Like some of the best characters often do, King appeared out of nowhere. I needed Simon to have ties to Bayou Allain, Louisiana, and there King was. Here’s the first time we meet him in NO LIMITS:
Kingdom Trahan sat bellied-up to the bar, two fingers hooked around the neck of his beer bottle, his eyes shifting from the mirror on the wall to Red, the owner and barkeep, who was busy pointing out how easy it was to spot a fake I.D. to the eighteen year old trying to pass himself off as twenty-one.
King remembered eighteen all too well. It wasn’t a year he looked back on fondly, and the several that followed hadn’t been any better, spent as they were in Angola where he’d been confined in Louisiana’s state pen.
At the end of his time served and along with his freedom, he’d come away with skills that went beyond sorting laundry and stamping out license plates. One was a heightened sixth sense. Another amounted to a pair of eyes in the back of his head.
And both were working overtime tonight. He didn’t know what it was in the air, but there was a buzz prickling at his nape that had nothing to do with his beer.
In NO LIMITS, King was involved with a younger woman, a Katrina evacuee named Chelle Sonnier. She had a lot of her own issues to deal with, so being involved with him was not exactly good for her, but really. How was she supposed to resist?
Never in her twenty-eight years had she let a man get to her the way this one had. He was a drug, and she was an addict, and knowing that her next fix was on the other side of her front door made it impossible to breathe.
He was standing on the porch when she made her way there from the car. His jeans hung low on his hips, and he’d kicked off his boots. White crew socks covered his feet.
It tickled her, the way he made himself at home, tickled her in other ways, the way his chambray shirt hung open, the way the sun spun his feathered chest hair to gold.
“Well?” was the only greeting he gave her.
She was slow to climb the steps after that, the bubble of expectation burst. She’d been so caught up in the past that she’d forgotten King wasn’t here for her.
He was here for news on Simon Baptiste.
Of course, King’s biggest hurdle was in repairing his relationship with Simon. He didn’t want to. They’d been at odds for twenty years, both blaming the other for something that had gone very wrong and changed their lives forever. But family is family, and neither one of them was ready to write off the other as unsalvageable.
At that moment, Simon couldn’t really care about hurting Micky’s feelings, but he was more than damn glad she had taken herself out of the way. He didn’t know his cousin anymore. He’d often thought he’d never known him at all. But he did know he wouldn’t be able to give his full attention to King with Micky around.
“She said you saved her life.”
Simon gave a single nod.
“She get into some kind of trouble after leaving Red’s?”
“She did.” He understood King’s curiosity. Micky wasn’t from around here. She didn’t fit in. But he didn’t have to like the other man’s attention.
“And you just happened along to save her.”
“She saved herself, but I was here when she needed me to be.”
“What was she doing here?”
“What business is that of yours?”
“Did you know her already? Before you saved her life?”
“Why are you here, King? Because if it’s to talk about Micky, you can go.”
“Micky, huh? Not Ms. Ferrer? Or Michelina?” Staking your claim, Cos? Is that it?”
Simon took a step toward the porch. “Go home, King. This isn’t getting either of us anywhere.”
“You say that like we’ve got somewhere to go.”
Simon kept walking.
“Why’d you change your mind about selling Le Hasard?”
“You’re the last person I expected would complain.”
“I’m not complaining. I’m just asking.”
“If anyone should be asking questions, it’s me. Not you.”
King flung out both arms. “Then ask. It’s not like I’ve never been willing to talk. You’re the one who insisted we go through the lawyers for everything. Twenty years paying that retainer? I can see how that would turn your puss sour when you could’ve just picked up the phone. Of course, that wouldn’t have done a lot of good considering how many times my service has been cut for non-payment.”
Simon turned. “You mean the ninety K I sent you for the well workover you never did wasn’t enough to pay your phone bill?”
“Is that why we stopped speaking? Because I misappropriated funds for the well?”
Simon laughed humorlessly. “Boo, we stopped speaking long before you stole my money.”
“Oh, right. That happened about the time you stole my land.”
“Look back a few more years.”
“This can’t be about me making the touchdown that saved our asses from your butter fingers and won us state.”
“I haven’t thought about high school since, oh, high school. I moved on.”
“I hear the Army’s good about helping with that.”
“You had the same choice I did.”
“You’re right. And I chose to stay close to home and keep an eye on the property your parents left to you.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. You know it as well as I do. But that didn’t stop you from burning what you could of Le Hasard to the ground.”
“You still think I set that fire?”
“I know it wasn’t me.”
“We weren’t the only two there that night, cher. You were the one getting your pipes cleaned. You should remember.”
King also had a vulnerable side that broke Chelle’s heart because she knew she’d never be able to fix him. This particular scene is a personal favorite of mine, though I’ve cut it short since to continue would require all sorts of parental warnings . . .
He was standing downhill from her back porch, the grass up to his ankles, the moss from the live oaks hanging to skim his head.
She sighed, reached for a paper towel to clean her hands enough to turn on the faucet and use soap. This was when it was the hardest to deal with him, when he was moody and broody, when he had a need to be with her but still kept her in the dark. He didn’t owe her anything. She had no right to expect him to confide in her, because theirs wasn’t an emotional relationship. Or it wasn’t as far as King was concerned, and her wanting it to be was why she’d made the decision to tell him good-bye.
Drying her hands on a red and white gingham towel, she pushed open the kitchen’s screen door and walked out onto the back porch, leaned against one of the column supports and wrapped her arms around her middle, holding herself tight. She wouldn’t be the first to speak. He’d come to her house. Now he had to come all the way to her. Her pride was ragged, her willpower weak, but she’d given in to him for the final time. If there was anything here to salvage, King would have to be the one to dredge.
“I know you’re there,” he finally said, slurred, lifting the bottle of beer she hadn’t seen him holding and draining it dry. “I can smell you. On the wind. Your shampoo smells like honey. Your soap smells like peaches and almonds.”
He turned, looked up at her. Even from across the yard she could see that his eyes were red from emotion more than from the alcohol he’d consumed. She wanted to know what had happened, to ask him what was wrong. But she kept her promise to herself and didn’t say a word, though her heart, breaking, was filled with poems and sonnets and odes. There was so much she wanted to say.
“I’ve always liked that about you, Chelle, did you know?” He begin walking toward her, not quite steady on his feet, his jeans and T-shirt dirty, though he couldn’t have worked a whole day. The sun was still in the sky.
“Did I know what?” she asked, breaking her vow of silence. She really was incredibly weak.
“You have never smelled like you came out of a bottle, or like you bought the same scent as dozens of other women.”
He was talking about fragrances. Did his dejection have something to do with Michelina Ferrer? Had he finally met her, been snubbed, and come here to settle for the easy second best? Uh-uh. She wasn’t going to be anything but his first. She pushed off the porch column and turned back to the house.
“Hey. Where you goin’, chère?”
“I’m in the middle of making dinner. I don’t have time to listen to you ramble – oomph.”
He’d snuck up to the edge of the porch, reached out and grabbed her wrist and spun her around. She slammed into him, his face at her waist. “What’re you cookin’? Something hot and spicy? The way I like it?”
But what about King in WITH EXTREME PLEASURE itself? The two links at the very top of this post will take you to excerpts from the book. But if you want something different, something that’s going to give King a lot of trouble, there’s this . . .
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May your stuffing be tasty
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The old dog, Snickers, was sleeping in No. 1 Daughter’s bedroom behind a closed door. The new dog, Takumi, was sleeping on @cuppacafe’s side of the bed, just as our original old dog, Smith, used to do. Takumi will often sleep through the night, but just as often will pace and make sure the house is safe. Since @cuppacafe often wakes up and moves to the sofa (many causes here, the least of which is the fan I run for white noise which makes him crazy), Takumi will go with him. We’re used to him being up and down and don’t pay much attention unless he insists on going outside for personal business.
