Realms of the Raven - Erotic Romance Author Maura Anderson

Texas Tea is out now! Buy your copy from Aspen Mountain Press today and let me know what you think.

I have a new excerpt posted on my Blog.

Issue #1 of my Newsletter is out as well. You can read and subscribe to it on the Newsletter Page.

There are two contests running to celebrate the release. You can find out more information on the Contest Page as well as on the Blog and Newsletter Page.

Texas Tea is now out! You can buy it at Aspen Mountain Press. To whet your appetite, here is my last excerpt but be sure to read the whole post, there are contests at the bottom of the post!

Let me know what you think of my first fiction offering!

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Excerpt:

And he thought she was both pretty and smart. A man who accepted her for what she was. At least for most of what she was. He still didn’t know her big secret.

He won’t care, you know. He can accept all of you.

The tingling sensation came and went almost instantly, the ghost apparently only interested in delivering its message as quickly as possible.

“Thanks.” She said in a random direction since she had no idea where the ghost had spoken from.

She glanced at her watch to find she still had a few minutes left before Matt was due to arrive.

She needed to make sure she was ready to really dive into her work today. After removing her wad of clothing from the handle of the camera bag, she opened the bag and started her equipment check. She quickly changed the batteries in all her cameras, including the digital SLR that would be her primary tool today. The batteries she removed went into the chargers she’d stationed on the small kitchen counter and the previously charged ones were moved to the bag as spares. Several spare memory cards were tucked inside the bag as well.

Thankfully, the keys to the B&B cottage had been sitting on top of the camera case, no doubt due to Matt as well. She needed them to lock the deadbolt as she left, so she laid them on top of the zipped up bag again. Matt’s thoughtfulness had saved her from the normal process of trying to figure out where she’d last put that set of keys, but she still had to find the keys to her rental car. She started with the outside pockets of the camera bag and was happy to discover them in the first pocket she searched. She moved them to one of the pockets of her cargo pants.

Money. She might need money. She certainly needed her driver’s license. Just as she retrieved her wallet from the pair of pants she’d been wearing yesterday, a knock sounded at the cottage’s front door.

Darting out of the bedroom and toward the front door, she couldn’t wait to see Matt again. Only when her hand was already on the doorknob did she have a brief moment of trepidation. How would he behave today? Would he treat her differently? The man had seen her naked. And the commented on her choice in underwear. Worse yet, he had seen the fact she was far from tidy.

She quelled her fears as best she could. It’s not like he’d run or said anything critical, after all. She opened the door to see Matt’s tall body, more sexy than ever in his pressed and formal Park Ranger uniform.

His lips curved in a slow, hot smile.

“Good morning, Lara.” He shocked her by opening his arms and pulling her immediately into them. Like an animal pouncing, he covered her open mouth with his own. His lips played over hers, gently teasing her skin with the texture of his own warm lips. Almost as quickly as the kiss started, it ended and Matt just held her close to him.

Lara sighed, surrendering to the sense of comfort and leaned her body into his. She was surprisingly content just resting in the circle of his arms. Wanting to be even closer, she wrapped her own arms around his slender waist and hugged him to her. The sense of peace and acceptance quickly changed to arousal when she felt what she did to the self-possessed man. His uniform pants didn’t conform to his body as well as his jeans did and she could feel his cock grow thicker and harder against her.

A foreign sense of power rippled through her. Plain, weird Lara had one of the most attractive men she’d ever met hard and wanting sex with her. With her.

She rocked her hips gently, pressing herself against Matt. The combination of the ridge of his cock against her mound and the tug of her skimpy thong against her clit sent her arousal spiraling into a veritable storm.

Matt made an animalistic sound and reached around to ease her away from his body. His face was tormented and his features appeared somehow sharper, more feral. Even the teeth biting his lower lip seemed sharper.

The sensation she’d noticed the first time she met him, the hint of the spirit world, became stronger and more intense. She reveled in it and the heady power in having the sexy man at her mercy.

She finally allowed Matt to disengage her arms from his waist and move her an arm’s length away from him. When her body lost contact with his, she felt a fundamental sense of loneliness, almost emptiness. She tried to remind herself that he wasn’t necessary to her existence, no matter what her body seemed to think at that particular moment.

“We need to get breakfast now, if we want any.” Matt smiled a tight smile down at her. She could swear his teeth were a little long, the tips of his canines just showing when he talked. Why hadn’t she noticed that yesterday? It was odd but very sexy in an untamed way.

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Contests!

I’m having my very first contests to celebrate my very first book — Two contests, no less! I probably should mention that one of my hobbies is jewelry making :) Now two readers will be the beneficiaries of my skills.

The first contest is for my blog readers and the prize is a lovely bracelet in ocean colors. There’s a larger picture on my website’s Contest Page. It’s made of enameled copper rings in ocean and peacock blue with ocean glass rings interspersed. The silver clasp is a magnetic clasp that makes it very easy to wear.

To win this bracelet, just leave a comment in response to this post by midnight on Sunday, August 20th. I’ll draw a winner on Monday and announce the winner on this blog as well, so remember to check back to see if you win!

The other contest is for my Newsletter subscribers. I have started a Newsletter that will come out once a month, on the 15th of each month. It includes excerpts, news, author trivia and starting next month will include a chapter each month of a free story I’m writing just for the Newsletter.

Entries for this contest will be accepted from today through September 15th but in order to enter, you must subscribe to the newsletter. I won’t use your email address for anything else, so don’t worry. You can subscribe to the Newsletter using the Feedblitz subscription box on the right-hand side of my website’s Newsletter Page. The winner will be announced in the September Newsletter.

This necklace is also made of enameled copper rings in ocean blue with a magnetic clasp but it has a sterling silver charm of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse on it. I almost kept this one for myself! Again, there’s a larger picture on my website’s Contest Page.

I’m so excited. Texas Tea releases tomorrow and I have another piece of good news that I’m waiting for a last piece to be tied down before I shared it.

You can find another excerpt and the buy link on my website.

In the meantime, here’s another excerpt of Texas Tea for you to enjoy…..

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He knelt in front of Lara and untied her hiking boots. The tight double-knots took some work to undo before he could loosen the laces and tug the boots off. Despite the mess in the room, his own time in the military had instilled some habits in him that he’d never broken and he almost laughed at himself when he realized he’d placed the two boots neatly side-by-side, perfectly lined up with the laces folded up and tucked inside.

When he tugged off her boot socks, he was treated to a surprise¾the woman who dressed in bulky unfeminine clothing had bright fuchsia pink toenail polish on. He carefully examined her narrow feet and dainty toes for any signs of foot problems or blisters, trying to ignore the fact that even her feet were sexy.

Her feet seemed in good shape, though he had to resist nipping one.

She wasn’t going to sleep very comfortably in all her clothes. He wanted her to get as much rest as possible so he should change her into her pajamas or whatever she wore as night clothes. She had to have brought them with her.

A short search later and he’d discovered no trace of nightclothes. Apparently Lara slept in the nude. The mental image of her covered only by a sheet was amazing, not that he could allow himself to contemplate that image for long.

She also seemed to have a liking for sexy, lacy and skimpy lingerie. The underwear and bras he’d found while looking for pajamas looked like they belonged to a completely different person from the one that owned the ugly cargo pants, thermal knit shirts and flannel barn coats. He couldn’t think of two styles that could be more different. She had some secrets just under her clothes.

But if she normally slept naked, she definitely wouldn’t sleep well in all her clothes. He had to undress her so she could sleep properly and be rested for tomorrow. The excuse sounded thin, even to him. Coyote yipped in mockery, as close to a laugh as he got.

Standing beside the bed, he pulled her thermal knit shirt up and over her head, then extracted her arms from the long sleeves. Just awake enough to realize she was being undressed, Lara tried to help but only succeeded in hitting him in the head with one flailing arm.

After his eyes uncrossed from the blow, he saw that she was indeed wearing a bright celery green lace bra with black trim. The bra lovingly clasped her lush breasts, enhancing her considerable cleavage. Her dusky nipples were visible through the elegant lace, almost more decoration than mere functional garment.

A few nudges and he succeeded in getting her to turn onto her side so he could undo the back clasp of the bra and tug it off. Thank the ancestors that he had a moment to try to calm himself before having to resist her luscious breasts in all their bare glory.

He resolutely reached over her hip and unfastened her loose cargo pants. A few tugs and the pants were pulled off her hips to reveal the second half of his self-induced torment–a thin, lacy green thong that matched the bra. The deep breath he took to steel himself to resist the temptation she embodied backfired when he inhaled the scent of musky, damp pussy.

He was in trouble now, major trouble.

Considerable willpower was needed to move her fully up onto the bed and tuck her under the covers of the bed. He couldn’t bring himself to actually remove her panties. He didn’t think he could do that and still resist taking her right then and there.

He neatly folded her clothes and left them beside the hiking boots, then cleared the various documents and computer off the bed. She’d locked the laptop to the heavy wooden bed frame, so the best he could do was to place it carefully on the floor, leaned up on the wall so it wouldn’t be accidentally stepped on.

Lara probably wouldn’t remember that he was going to pick her up tomorrow. If she did, it would be darned near a miracle. He should leave a note so she’d know for sure. Remembering seeing notepads and pens on the coffee table, he returned to the living room to write a note.

How to make sure she saw it… Ah. The perfect solution was the most obvious–he propped it up on top of the camera bag with Lara’s name on the front. He placed the cottage keys there as well.

He checked her again to make sure she was okay. The phone on the bedside table had a phone number taped to it for incoming calls and he took a moment to program the number into his cell phone before turning his attention back to Lara.

Tucking the covers a little higher on her shoulders, he bent over to give her a gentle kiss. She whimpered as his lips met hers and her dainty tongue traced over his lips until he found the strength to pull away.

He really, really needed that run now.