Title: Red Skye At Night
Author: Ashe Barker
Genre: Contemporary/Erotic Romance
Publisher: Totally Bound Publishing
Blurb
Two strangers, one outrageous proposal, and the journey of a lifetime.
How far would you go? To Skye and back?
A random accident as a teenager wrecked Hope Shepherd’s aspirations to be an international athlete. Now working as a taxi driver, Hope is unsettled by a sexy Canadian she picks up at the airport. With his good looks and easy charm, he’s just the sort of man she can do without. But can she afford to turn down his offer?
He offers her a small fortune to drive him to Scotland, where he hopes to discover his ancestral roots. And not just anywhere in Scotland. Harry McLeod wants to go to the Highlands, to the Isle of Skye.
He is persistent, and Hope needs the cash. But what are the real terms of this outrageous deal?
Harry McLeod desires Hope, and the attraction is shared. If he can get her in his bed—or better still, tied to it—will she allow him to peel away her protective layers to release her inner submissive? Harry is stern, uncompromising, outrageously sexy and utterly irresistible. How will Hope respond to his dark brand of sensuality? Does he offer more than a generous fare and a few erotic encounters?
When they reach Skye, a feud spanning four generations challenges all that Hope thought she was coming to know about submission. Will it be enough to convince her that this could be a relationship to stand the test of time?
Excerpt
A few minutes later, safely attired in my usual jeans and vest top, I rejoin Harry who is lounging at the counter. He has several classy-looking bags arranged around his feet and the shop staff are still fawning over him. His smile for me as I approach is dazzling as usual.
“Ready, sweetheart?”
“Yes. Do you want to be heading off now?” I’m conscious we have several hundred miles to cover today, all being well.
“Soon. I still have a few items I’d like to pick up.” He turns to Morag. “Is there a DIY store nearby?”
“Right, so you’re not actually intending to tile a bathroom, I suppose? Not considering building a rockery? A spot of decorating, perhaps?” I level my observations at Harry as we march along the main shopping street, having deposited our recent purchases in the boot of my car.
“Attitude, Hope. I believe I’ve mentioned this already.” He tightens his grip on my hand when I might have pulled away. “But no, you’re right. My requirements are more…personal.”
Personal? Butterflies take flight in my stomach. Does he mean…? He must mean…
“What requirements? What do you need to buy?”
“You’ll see.” He turns suddenly, tugging me behind him through the doors of a DIY chain store. He grins, his wink deliciously wicked as he snags a small trolley from a row by the door. I spend the next quarter of an hour trailing him around the store, watching as he drops duct tape, cable ties, two metres of telephone extension cable, crocodile clips, assorted paintbrushes, a length of brightly coloured rope and a silicon grouting spatula into the basket. My stomach churns, even as my pussy moistens. I know without a doubt the general intent behind these purchases, though for the most part the specifics have yet to be revealed. The crocodile clips are obvious enough, I suppose, as are the cable ties.
“Why do we need paintbrushes?” I ask him the question as we make our way back to the car park.
“Because you’re ticklish, sweetheart. I intend to take full advantage of that fact.” He spares me a brief glance as we stop to wait for the green man to appear before crossing the main street.
“I hate being tickled.”
“I know.” His grin is positively demonic now. “You’ll have to try not to piss me off then. Come on.” The signal changes and we’re hurrying forward again. “We need a pharmacy. Could you look out for one please?”
I know better than to ask why. Instead, I point out the Perth branch of Boots. “Will that do?”
“Oh yes.” Harry heads through the automatic doors and I trail in his wake.
I’m not surprised to see him head straight for the family planning shelves and select two large packs of condoms. Forty-eight fucks’ worth. Wow!
“I’m on the pill, you don’t need those. I mean, not if you don’t want to…”
“Yeah? It’s not all about avoiding babies, though, is it?”
“Of course not, I know that. But I don’t, I mean, I never have… It would only be you. There’s no chance you might, that I would…” I’m stammering like a ridiculous little virgin—incredible really, given the nature of our relationship.
“Clean bill of health, is that what you’re making such heavy work of trying to say?” As ever, Harry gets right to the heart of the matter without unnecessary fuss. He seems not to share my embarrassment.
I nod, my blush reaching the roots of my hair—the perils of fair skin.
“Just one pack then.” He leans in to whisper into my ear, “You’ll thank me for my consideration when I fuck your ass.”
I’m still flushed as I shadow him around the shop, watching as he drops baby lotion, anti-inflammatory cream and two large tubes of lubricant into a basket. He makes his way to the hair styling section and selects a paddle-style hairbrush and a pack of hairgrips. We both have short hair—I doubt we’ll be needing any of these for their traditional purpose. I say nothing, just follow him to the checkout.
Guest Post - Ashe Barker
The importance of research, and a little improvisation here and there
I’m not a great one for doing the research. My tendency to rush in and ignore the details has brought me unstuck a time or two in the past. It’s not that I’m lazy – well, not entirely that in any case – it’s more that once I’ve decided to do something I want to get on with it. Fast. I want to do it now. I’m impetuous, impulsive, and easily bored by too much detail
Not for me the hours spent preparing, planning, making notes. Well, not usually.
Red Skye at Night got in the way of my tried and tested pattern of just diving in and seeing how things would turn out. There were details that had to be right, dates in particular, and if I didn’t keep track of everything I’d be in a right tangle by the end. Editors would never forgive me, blood might be spilt. So I broke the habit of a lifetime and a made a plan. Well, a time line really.
At one time in the distant past I used to use project planning software for such weighty matters. I hated it, all those charts and milestones and calendars. I didn’t take up writing smutty stories just to get back into all that nonsense again. So I improvised. I strung a length of washing line across my kitchen, grateful that we have one of those old places with exposed oak beams which are good for fastening stuff to. Then I went to find my clothes pegs.
The story opens in 1960, and ends at the present day. I pegged markers along the washing line (well, socks, actually) to separate the decades, then I made cards outlining the main events in the story and pegged those between the socks, and in the right order too. I kept my timeline in sight all the time I was writing, and it turned out to be very useful. I looked at it a lot.
I was confident my method would work. It worked for Danny Boyle, so how could I go wrong? For those not familiar, Danny Boyle created the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in London 2012. He used the washing line method apparently to put all the different elements and sections of his great plan in the right order, and look how that turned out. I highly recommend the washing line approach to authorly planning.
I also spent a lot of time poring over my AA Road Atlas of Great Britain, even investing in a new one for the job. It became my constant companion. Although I have actually been to most of the places described in the book I needed to keep checking routes, distances, journey times. Not all readers mind about absolute accuracy, thank goodness, but when describing real locations I do like to get stuff right. For example, it would have suited my story very well indeed to have Harry and Hope go shopping for sex toys in Perth. There had to be a Victoria’s Secret, surely. I googled it only to discover that the shop closed down a few years ago. Still, who would know, I wondered? Surely, poetic licence and all that…
But the people of Perth would know, especially the dispossessed ex-customers of Victoria’s Secret who now have to do all their shopping on line. So Harry had to improvise. He went to a DIY store instead, and perhaps that was more fun in the end.
Meet the Author
Until 2010 I was a director of a regeneration company in Leeds, in the UK, before becoming convinced there must be more to life. So I left, and at last I’ve been able to realise my dream of writing erotic romance. I’ve been writing seriously for about two years but I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, erotic and other genres. I love reading historical and contemporary romances in all pairings – the hotter the better. But now I have a good excuse for my guilty pleasure – research.
In my own writing I draw on settings and anecdotes from my own experience to lend colour, detail and realism to my plots and characters. My stories are often set in the north of England where I live but I draw inspiration from all over. An incident here, a chance remark there, a bizarre event or quirky character, any of these can spark a story idea. But ultimately my tales of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of my own lurid and smutty imagination.
On the rare occasions I’m not writing my time is divided between my role as resident taxi driver for my teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, rabbits, tortoises. And most recently a very grumpy cockatiel. I’m a rural parish councillor, and I’m passionate about evolving rural traditions and values to suit twenty first century lifestyles.
My other titles include the ‘Black Combe’ trilogies, The Dark Side, Sure Mastery, The Hardest Word and A Richness of Swallows, all set in the atmospheric moorland of West Yorkshire or Cumbria and with a strong BDSM theme. The Three Rs, part of Totally Bound’s What’s Her Secret? imprint is a stand-alone novel set in Berwick in the Scottish border. I’ve also written a couple of short stories, Re-Awakening, and a raunchy pirate tale, Right of Salvage, as well as a novella, Carrot and Coriander.
I have a pile of story ideas still to work through, and keep thinking of new ones at the most unlikely moments, so you can expect to see a lot more from me.
I love to hear from readers. You can find me on my blog, and I’m on Facebook, and twitter too. And more recently on Tsu
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