Excerpt from Sindulgence.

Thought I'd go ahead and post an excerpt here before I break for just a short while to feed my own hunky guy. Here is a little bit from Sindulgence...
The scene begins as Clarice and her friend Jan enter the bookstore at the mall...

“One of these days you’ll find a man,” Jan said as they turned into the bookstore. “Then you can stop reading those trashy books to get your kicks.”
Clarice laughed again. “They’re not trashy, Jan. They have a plot—a story. They just spell out what a man and a woman do when they’re in love, that’s all.” And spell it out in vivid detail, Clarice thought, smiling.
Clarice glanced toward the cashier. He was there, Devon her favorite fantasy, looking every bit as dark and dangerous as one of the characters in her favorite line of erotic romance, ‘Ripped Lace’. ‘Ripped Lace’ books leaned toward the steamier side of erotic romance, pushed the boundaries. Clarice always found herself wondering what it would be like to do some of the things they wrote about in the books, some of the more ‘exotic’ things.
Devon glanced up, meeting her eyes. A smile curved his lips when he recognized her.
Clarice felt a zing shoot through her as she made her way to the romance aisle. Yeah right, she told herself, turning down the aisle. He’s what, maybe twenty-five and hotter that Hades. What would he want with you? What would you do with him if you did snare his attention? She couldn’t picture herself with a young man like Devon. Oh boy, it would be nice, but she would be so nervous about how she looked…the way her body looked. She felt warmth wash over her. It would be an experience that was for sure.
“I’ll be over here in home improvement,” Jan said, turning away. “I don’t want to be with you when you take those books up to pay for them.”
“Prude,” Clarice said, winking. She walked on down the aisle toward the shelf where the erotic romance was.
Crouching down, Clarice wondered why in the world they had to keep the erotic books on the bottom shelf. Didn’t do her knees any good. She ran her fingertip over the spines of the books, browsing titles, her mind lingering on the dark, sexy dream at the cash register. A man? Maybe not. Devon was young. They had only spoken a few times and he was funny and articulate but whether or not he was a ‘man’ remained to be seen. Oh, but wouldn’t she love the chance to find out!

*

Devon Lake was prepared this time. He looked up from the book he was reading at the cash register just in time to catch her watching him.
She was interested. He could feel it. A lot of older women, and younger if he was honest, liked his look. Devon appreciated that but normally didn’t acknowledge them with even so much as a glance, but this one…Clarice Johnson…was different.
Clarice. He knew her name from reading it on her credit card when she paid for her purchases and recently they had enjoyed conversation on a first name basis.
He loved it. Reminded him of ‘Silence of the Lambs’. Devon had an irresistible urge to go back in the stacks and whisper her name over her shoulder.
Clarice.
Sexy. Haunting. A good name for a woman who looked like she did. Her name may remind him of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ but her look—classic. Grace Kelly classic.
Shoulder length, honey-blond hair fell in silky strands around her porcelain face and her eyes…she had the deepest green eyes he’d ever seen. He could tell by the small lines at the corners of her eyes that she smiled often. It also spoke of her age. Maybe forty, he thought, though it was hard to tell sometimes. He was so used to the young flirty ones hitting on him that when the mature women approached him, he had trouble guessing their age.
But Clarice…her age didn’t matter.
Devon wondered if she was really that interested in him or just drawn by his looks. Yeah, so he had the black hair and dark eyes women seemed to crave ever since Disney’s Captain Jack Sparrow hit the screen but did she like him…as a person? Hard to tell. They’d only talked a few times and not about anything important.
He wanted to get to know her. She had such intelligence shining in her eyes and two weeks ago, he’d found himself checking her left hand for a ring. There hadn’t been one. He hoped that meant she was fair game. That’s why today he was prepared. Devon knew what sort of books she bought. Steamy romance. He’d never read one, sticking more to the classics, one of the things he got ribbed about constantly by his friends. But Clarice seemed to enjoy romance and wasn’t at all shy about him knowing what it was she read. Hell, the books were full of sex. He’d glanced through a couple and was surprised by how detailed the scenes were. What did surprise him was she leaned toward the more exotic titles. Either she liked sex or she was going without and getting her kicks from the books. He didn’t know which. But today, he had a plan.
He was going to plant the first seed today toward getting to know Clarice Johnson.
He watched as she ran her fingers over the titles, wondering what it would be like to have those elegant fingers trailing over…
“Hey Dev,” Chuck said, bumping against him as he moved in behind the front counter, “watching the housewife again, I see.”

Well, there it is...I hope you like it.

Rhiannon