Giveaway: To celebrate the release of The Tutor, I’m giving away a $30/£20 Amazon gift voucher. Enter via the Rafflecopter for your chance to win!
I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to celebrate the release of The Tutor with you, Victoria. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you and Kev Blisse are my heroes! Your enthusiasm is contagious and inspiring. The two of you work harder and are more passionate about your work than any two people I know.
It only seems right to celebrate the launch of The Tutor at yours since the novel had its beginnings at Smut Manchester 2015. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. In a way, I feel like you and Mr. Blisse are the god parents for The Tutor and, in fact, the whole Smut Manchester community is The Tutor’s extended family. If ever there was a novel that owes its existence to a whole community, it’s The Tutor, and I couldn’t be prouder.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a novel so surrounded with wonderful memories as The Tutor is. The Smut events really are a community that inspires creativity. The really stunning thing about Smut Manchester last year is that technically it began at 11:00 Saturday morning and was over by 8:30 that evening. How such a short time could be so crammed full of creativity, community, random acts of kindness, inspiration and shenanigans totally stuns me.
I remember the instant The Tutor was inspired, when Kay Jaybee put me on the spot in her wonderful writing workshop, by handing me a writing prompt on a piece of paper that posed the question, what story would I tell involving a tin of pears in heavy syrup in the store room of the local grocery store.
That was the middle of October last year. I came away inspired by that tin of pears and by the whole shared community of creatives. All during November – National Novel Writing Month, I shaped and drafted that inspiration, including the tin of pears, into a novel. By January I had rewritten and polished the draft. Soon after I sold it to the fabulous folks at Totally Bound, who have just published it almost exactly a year to the day after it was inspired. And the final step – you guessed it, a fantastic launch party with the Smut Manchester community who made The Tutor possible. The creative process has come full circle.
The Smut events always remind me that while we may write in isolation, creativity often comes from getting ourselves out there, experiencing something outside our comfort zone with other people who are doing the same. In fact, Julia Cameron in her book, The Artists Way, suggests that creativity can be cultivated by having what she calls ‘Artist’s Dates’ on a weekly basis. These are little snippets of time in which we creative folks treat ourselves to a wander through a museum, to a play, to a movie, to a dance class, to a walk, to something, anything that will get us out of our usual headspace and cause us to see things differently. A writer’s date seems completely frivolous and a waste of precious writing time, BUT, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s neither a reward, nor a holiday, rather an essential part of keeping ‘creatively fit.’ With that in mind, what can I say but that Smut Manchester was one big gigantic artist’s date. And, while we all know, few things can put you farther outside your comfort zone than a date, sometimes a date can be life-changing, and that’s reflected in the story I tell in The Tutor. It’s that stepping outside his comfort zone that changes haphephobic sculptor, Alexander ‘Lex’ Valentine’s life forever.
Who knows what I’ll be bringing back to Smut Manchester 2017? Oh, and the pears? Well you see what you think?
When physical touch is impossible, intimacy may become a powerful work of art or a devastating nightmare—but, above all, it’s an act of trust.
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.
Buy links:
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2bV5Wak
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2bBEwX9
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-tutor-kd-grace/1124512836?ean=9781786510785
iBooks UK: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/the-tutor/id1147250136?mt=11
iBooks US: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-tutor/id1147250136?mt=11
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-tutor-15
Totally Bound Publishing: https://www.totallybound.com/book/the-tutor
“Was this your idea or Dillon’s? Kelly asked, hoping to relax him.
“It was mine, after Andy told Dillon and he told me. I thought it was something that I …” The muscles along Lex’s jaw looked as though they were made out of iron, and a fine blush crawled up his neck tinting his ears bright pink. “I’ve never touched a woman … in that way.” He forced a laugh. “Obviously. I’ve …” the blush deepened and he avoided her gaze. “I’ve put lube on some of the sculptures – you know — down there, but I … well it isn’t the same.”
“The pears won’t be either,” she said, her heart suddenly aching at the physical isolation this man endured on a daily basis, and it wasn’t just her heart that ached, she felt his lack deep in her core. It had been easier with Andy. She had been almost flippant with him. She was sorry for that now. She spread one of the towels on the Queen Anne chair across from him and settled herself onto it so they were facing each other. “The texture will be different and with the pear there’ll be less give.” She dipped her fingers in the bowl and rubbed the heavy juice between her index finger and her thumb. “If you touch a woman, she’ll be much warmer.” She gave him a conspiratorial smile. “You’ll be amazed at how warm and how soft she’ll be down there when she’s ready to be touched. With Andy, this,” she nodded down to the pears, “was improvisation, this was the best I could do under the circumstances, but a woman, well a woman feels like nothing you’ve ever touched before.”
He was no longer avoiding her gaze. His eyes were locked on her, and he was struggling to keep them on her face, she knew that; she understood the urge for him to drop his eyes to the place of which she spoke, the place with which she was so intimate, the place that couldn’t help but respond to the topic, to the situation, to the strange intimacy they had shared almost since the moment they’d met. “You can look, if you want,” she opened her legs so that he could see the place in between clothed in black denim, completely disguised and yet so very obvious. “And I’ll look at you too,” she nodded down to his own jeans straining to contain him already. “It’s what men and woman are naturally inclined to do when there’s a sexual attraction.”
With her heart hammering in her throat, she took one of the pear halves into the cupped palm of her left hand, then she brought it down between her spread thighs, feeling the juice of it run over her fingers and drip onto the towel as she spread her legs a little farther and held her pam to mimic the position of her vulva. “Touch it like a woman would touch it, and you’ll always get it right.” She drug her index and middle finger up from the bottom of the pear to the center and felt her own body respond in empathy. “The pear has no folds, no secret valleys, no swollen flesh to be teased open, so you’ll have to use your imagination with that.”
Lex gave a little moan soft and deep in his chest as he shifted to make himself more comfortable. “I know the anatomy,” he said. “I’ve watched porn and I’ve studied drawings. I know how it looks like it might feel. I know the response it elicits.” His tongue flicked nervously over his upper lip. “Of course that’s just acting, isn’t it?”
“Porn is about fantasy, about voyeurism, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real if it gets you off. But when it is real,” she spread her index and middle finger up the sides of the pear’s central opening, “if you’re good, if your sensitive, you’ll feel the spasms of your lover’s orgasm, even see them if you’re using your tongue; and you can feel them gripping at your cock when your inside her. If you’re paying attention.
“The clitoris,” she laughed softly, “Well with Andy I used a Ticktack, but he’s a chemistry major. He likes charts and graphs and periodic tables. You’re an artist, you live in your imagination, so you don’t need a Ticktack. Some women like the thumb stroking and circling while the other fingers work inside. Some women like to use their fingers.” She demonstrated on the pear, and Lex groaned. “It’s always best to ask and be sure.”
“What do you like?” His words were a labored rasp against the back of his throat, and Kelly found herself stunned by the question, and way more aroused than she wanted to be. He shouldn’t have asked. She should have answered. But she did.
“I like it this way.” She shifted her hips and opened a little further so he could see her thrust and scissor, circle and probe technique, and her body responded with the tight grip and release of muscle memory.
“Jesus,” he whispered moving forward on the sofa and leaning closer for a better look. “And when someone uses their tongue?”
She caught her breath in a giddy laugh. “Afraid I can’t tell you what I do since, sadly I’m not that flexible.”
“But you can tell me what you like.” His voice had gone rough.
“I like the flat of the tongue to part me and then probe me, circle my clit and then kiss and suck.” She closed her eyes, finding it difficult to meet his gaze when she spoke about something so intimate, so secret. Come to think of it, she’d never had a man actually ask her how she liked it. The few who had given a rat’s ass about her pleasure had been happy enough to let her order them about, but never quite got the hang of it.
It was the loud schussing sound that caused her to open her eyes. Lex had moved the coffee table out of the way paying no attention to the slosh of pear juice all over the towel V had spread. His eyes were locked on Kelly as he fished out his own pear half and fell to his knees in front of her. When she realized what the man was about to do she dropped the pear she’d been holding with a little gasp of surprise and scooted as far back in the chair as she could. He knelt low, holding the pear in the cup of his hand, as she had, placing it against the edge of the chair between her legs! She gave a little yelp and scrambled back in the chair still further, spreading her thighs over the rise of the chair arms to keep from touching him. He moved forward, the back of his hand so close to her crotch that she could feel the heat of it, and he lowered himself still further until his hair nearly brushed the insides of her thighs. Then, still looking up at her from his position on the floor, he began at the bottom of the open pear half and ran his tongue flat and undulating all the way up, flicking in just slightly in a little circle at the top end before he closed his lips around the apex and she could hear the slurp and suck of the sweet syrup.
“Oh! Lex! Ah!” And then she went non-verbal, holding her breath, tightening muscles deep inside her body, the only muscles she dared to move if she were to keep from touching him. She raised both arms and fisted her hands in a suicide grip around the back of the chair to keep from curling them in his hair. Her thighs trembled from her efforts to keep her legs on the chair arms and not throw them over his shoulders for leverage. She didn’t move. She didn’t breath as he licked and nuzzled and suckled until pear juice ran down his chin and onto his tee-shirt, until his face was damp and sticky, until his forehead was sheened with perspiration, and still he held her gaze as though they were locked together in each other’s orbit neither able to move without the other’s consent.
“Oh God, I’m gonna come.” She barely managed a warning when his own convulsion brought him dangerously near her body. He had stopped breathing, she was sure of it. She practically climbed the back of the chair to keep from touching him as he lost control. Then with a tremendous gasp of oxygen, he straightened, let the pear fall from his hand onto the Aubusson carpet and looked up at her.
“I’m going to pass out.” And he did.
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading, watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
KD has erotica published with Totally Bound, SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, To Rome with Lust, and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.
K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition, Interviewing Wade are all available.
Find K D Here:
Websites: http://kdgrace.co.uk/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KD_Grace
| Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/kdgraceauthor/ | |
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GIVEAWAY!
Make sure to follow the whole tour—the more posts you visit throughout, the more chances you’ll get to enter the giveaway. The tour dates are here: http://www.writermarketing.co.uk/prpromotion/blog-tours/currently-on-tour/k-d-grace-10/
Thank you SO much for having me over to celebrate The Tutor, Victoria! I feel as though I’m chatting with my new baby’s godmother. Thanks for building a space where creativity and and community can flourish. Smut rocks!
K xxx
Aww, I’m so proud! Thank you for being a part of Smut :)