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!
Thank you so much, Lucy, for having me over on Erotica For All to celebrate the release of my latest novel, The Tutor, with you and your lovely readers. It’s always a pleasure to be here.
Today I’d like to talk about connecting on a human level. When my husband and I were in Dubrovnik last Christmas on holiday, we were stunned at the number of people walking down the streets of the city, aptly named the Jewel of the Adriatic, totally oblivious to its sparkle – and it was glorious weather. Their reason for not seeing the beautiful city around them? Their attention was glued to their iPhones. Don’t get me wrong here. I love my iPhone, and I love instantly being able to share the experience of being in fabulous places with all my social media friends. But sometimes the sharing can wait; sometimes just experiencing the moment is far more important.
Celebrated sculptor, Alexander ‘Lex’ Valentine is severely haphephobic, a condition from which he has suffered ever since the car crash that killed his mother and nearly took his life as a young boy. He remembers little of the accident other than the snippets from the nightmares that visit him regularly, but since the crash, he has been unable to touch another human being and unable to tolerate being touched. Both cause severe physical reactions. His way of dealing with his inability to experience human touch is his art.
While Lex’s isolation is a very physical, very real thing, I can’t help but notice with the increasing number of people I see on the trains, on the streets, in the queue at the grocery store, just how we all isolate ourselves with our devices, our tablets, our headphones. I completely understand wanting to be in our own little, less abrasive, more interesting world, after all, we writers spend a great deal of our time in our own little make-believe worlds – not completely unlike Lex.
While Lex’s reasons are that he cannot tolerate human touch, I can’t help but wonder if our reasons are almost the opposite – we’re overwhelmed by input – to much information, too much noise, too much stimulation all bombarding us at the same time. We want to escape. I often find a touch, a voice, a loud noise extremely jarring when I’m caught up in my writing world. And let’s face it, I certainly feel a whole lot more in control, a whole lot safer in my own created space. I would venture to guess that our love affair with social media and that sense of safe intimacy it gives us is Lex’s equivalent of a safe distance. I love email. I hate talking on the phone. I love the fact that I can do so many things from my computer and my iPhone and eliminate the human contact. But that’s just me being an introvert, isn’t it?
Lex’s situation is frightening and tragic because it controls every aspect of his life and it leaves him isolated until Kelly Blake waltzes into his life. He needs a safe distance to keep from having a panic attack. I honestly wonder sometimes if we’re the same. As the world of social media and the internet becomes more and more pervasive, the easier it is to escape the things that make us panic, the intimacy that frightens us, the closeness we long for but fear we won’t get, and of course the biggest fear of all, the fear of being rejected, the fear of failing if we meet life’s experiences head-on. Why would we run the risk if we have a place where acceptance and escapism are guaranteed?
Intimacy in the age of social media and the internet, with chat rooms and dating sites and virtual reality to play with is a brave new world. In fact it redefines intimacy in terms that our grandparents would have found completely foreign.
Here’s a little snippet of Lex’s view of intimacy in a world where he can touch no one or allow no one to touch him.
The Tutor Tagline:
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.
*****
The Tutor Blurb:
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
Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=QqnlDAAAQBAJ&rdid=book-QqnlDAAAQBAJ&rdot=1&source=gbs_vpt_read&pcampaignid=books_booksearch_viewport
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/the-tutor-15
Totally Bound Publishing: https://www.totallybound.com/book/the-tutor
*****
The Tutor Excerpt – What Does it Feel Like?
“Look I don’t expect you to deal with what a fucked up mess I am. I realized that what I really want to know is what it feels like, what you feel like, what any woman feels like when she’s with a man, or even when she touches herself, and I have no one I would feel comfortable asking without wondering the whole time if they thought that by my asking I had given them permission to try and fix me. Does that make any sense?”
She had little time to do more than nod before he continued. “Oh I’ve watched enough porn that I get that it feels really good. I’ve read enough erotica to get some picture of how it’s supposed to be, but my take on it’s always one-sided,” he raised his hand and wiggled his fingers as though to demonstrate. “I can’t know anything but my own touch, certainly I can’t feel anything else, so I want you to tell me. I want you to answer my questions. I want you to tell me what I would feel if I touched you, what you would feel if I touched you. As for what I would feel if you touched me, well,” he shrugged and offered her a smile that seemed slightly forced, “for that I’ll just have to use my imagination.”
She took a deep breath, as though she were about to dive under water. “Okay, well, I’ll start with my lips because lovers often start there. I would have made sure they were moist for you before you kissed them, but not so wet as to be off-putting, and you would have done the same. And your first kisses would be tentative, if you’re really good, almost like a feather lighting against my mouth softly and repeatedly until I’m breathless for the want of more; and then I would part my lips to give you more surface area so that we could feel each other better.” She chuckled softly as she realized they’d both raised their fingers to their mouths. “And then we would both press harder and rub harder. The more surface area we touched the more we’d want and, I think lips swell, not just from the pressure, but in an effort to create that surface area, and when they can swell no more, when I feel like I want to completely take my lover into my mouth, then I would open to him and there would be a whole new surface area, wet and slick and warm, there would be a whole new motion when our tongues discover each other. I think a kiss reflects what happens in penetrative sex. It’s sort of an intimation, if you will,” her gaze locked on him, and for the first time she noticed just how blue his eyes were, “a promise of things to come.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “I’ve thought of that in my art. I’ve thought of the interchange we make with mouths and cocks and vaginas.” He struggles with the last word
“It’s okay to call it a pussy or a cunt or whatever works for you.” She said.
He laughed softly. “How the hell would I know?”
“Well,” she stretched out on the countertop and rolled onto her side, resting her head on her hand. “you just have to try them out and see how they fit your mouth.”
This time they both laughed. “If they fit my mouth, I wouldn’t have to worry about what words I used, would I?”
“Good point,” she said.
“Not quite, but getting there fast, thank you.” Again, they both laughed, a strangely relaxed laugh under the bizarre circumstances.
“The thing is,” she said, rolling onto her back and staring up at the long rack of copper bottom pans above her head, “words are often as important in sex, and as erotic, as touch. I write in my other life, and I find that while some of my characters get turned on by waxing poetic between the sheets, others get hot by talking dirty.”
“How does your cunt feel when some fucker talks dirty to you,” he said, though not without a hearty blush.
“That would depend on the fucker and the circumstances and how badly I wanted to ride his cock.”
“And if it was a fucker whose cock you really wanted to ride, a fucker who was hard and heavy for you? What words would he use, and what response would he elicit?
“It wouldn’t hurt for him to observe out loud what he sees about my body’s state of arousal, and how he admires it.”
“You mean like how lovely your breasts are when your nipples are so taut that even your areola are visible through that shirt, which I imagine feels like a caress every time you inhale. You mean like the way your lips are parted and moist. You’ve not completely shut your mouth for the past five minutes, the way you rock your hips, almost but not quite secretly, and grind you bottom against the countertop. Is that what you mean?”
“Jesus! We shouldn’t be doing this.” She sat bolt upright on the surface and then froze as though someone had hit the pause button. “Alex?”
The man perched on the edge of the counter, just far enough away that she couldn’t easily touch him. He had kicked his shoes off and his own nipples peaked to bullet points through his white polo shirt. That would have been enough to hold her attention indefinitely had it not been for the heel of his hand stroking the very obvious, very anxious erection through his jeans.
It was all right. It was fine, she told herself. She’d had more than a few occasions where her job involved watching and coaching someone while they masturbated. This was just her job. That’s all.
“It’s more obvious with me what I feel,” he said, raking her body with a hooded gaze. “And your nipples, well you could just be cold. Please tell me what you feel when you see me like this, when we talk like this.”
She moved to the edge of the counter giving him space, then motioned him onto it and she opened her leg. “If I weren’t wearing trousers, if you could see my panties, you’d know that I’m wet.” She nodded to his erection. “You’d know that the thought of what you’re doing, the sight of how your body is responding to mine, is making me wetter.” She cupped her breasts in turn, through the white blouse. “Every part of me feels heavy, Alex. My breasts feel like my bra can no longer contain them. My nipples ache. And my lips,” she touched her mouth, and then, holding his gaze, moved her hand down to rest on the crotch of her trousers. “My lips are swollen, so swollen and slippery and ready to be penetrated.” She nodded first to his mouth and then to his erection. “Do I want the fucker to give it to me hard and deep in my cunt? What do you think?”
“Oh God,” he managed. Then he stopped talking altogether. His breath came in tight little grunts and gasps as he moved against his hand, holding her in his gaze as surely as if he held her in his embrace; and it was in that instant, the instant she slid her hand down the front of her trousers and into her panties an action he mirrored, that she knew neither of them would make it out of here intact. She wanted to run, but she didn’t. She wanted to take off her clothes and feel his gaze all over her body, but she didn’t. She wanted to demand that he strip for her, that he come just for her eyes, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She could only cup and grope her breasts until they hurt. She could only stroke herself while she watched him do the same.
The space around them crackled with their energy, and their desperate efforts to breathe were the only sounds beyond the stroke of skin against fabric. In a hungry attempt at relief, they both rocked and bucked, mirror images of each other with one hand down the front of their trousers while the other groped and cupped and tweaked and pinched whatever part of their anatomy it came in contact with. Then breathing stopped, time stopped. Everything around them disappeared until they saw nothing but each other, locked in each other’s gaze, more physical than any embrace Kelly had ever felt, and it was enough. Heaven help them, it was enough. He came first by a split second, roaring like a wounded lion, arching back until she feared he’d either break his neck or fall off the counter. But the sight of him so vulnerable in his passion, the fact that even in his release, he kept his eyes on her was all she could handle, and she convulsed against her own hand, convulsed as though she would break apart, never taking her eyes off him, never breaking that connection.
*****
About K D Grace/Grace Marshall
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/
*****
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/
Thanks so much for having me over, Lucy! It’s always a pleasure to be on EFA!
KD xx