Author Override: Lissa Matthews!

Do you know Vinter? How about Cam? Decker?

Have you heard about Buck? What about Dallon? Jaz?

If not, why?

But if so, what was your first impression? What tempted you about any of them? Was it the cover of their books? The blurbs which give an overview of what the electronic pages may contain about them? What about the warning labels?

Their appeal to me at first glance is as follows:

Vinter: his tattoos and piercings and promises heaven

Cam: Hello! Race car driver! ‘Nuff said!

Decker: he wears a leather belt and knows how to treat a girl acting like a brat

Buck: he knows his way around tools and toys

Dallon: works in a bar and says no when he means Hell Yeah!

Jaz: bald, tattoos, full of surprises

All these guys were in one way, shape or form, awesome and amazing and I couldn’t get enough of them when I was writing them.

Vinter seems to be, hands down, the favorite among readers. His book has a fandamntastic (yes it’s a word) cover. The blurb isn’t too bad for a couple of years ago and it only being my 5^th one. He’s loved for his bad boy appearance as well as how sweet and caring and over the top sexy he treats his heroine, Elise.

I’d hate to think I shot my wad when I wrote about Vinter. He is special.

I like heros that are decisive when it comes to who they want and Vinter, Cam, Buck, Jaz and all the others know who they want and what they want. They might give just a little leeway to see if the heroine comes around to their way of thinking, but if she doesn’t, they’re in it for the long haul and they’re going to wear her down.

Decker did just that in Cracklin’ Rosie. Rosie was full to the brim with piss and vinegar, but it didn’t deter Decker. He just dug his heels in and waited her out, nudged her a bit. She’s a strong woman in her own right, but there’s nothing wrong with strong needing to lean on someone once in a while, letting someone in.

That kind of vulnerability in a woman is attractive to me. And yes, I said to me. Those that do it all at the risk of pushing everyone away, I don’t write women like that. I don’t like women like that. I want some need in her that goes beyond sexual need. I want her to need him and sadly, I think I’m in the minority in that. Elise needed Vinter. She might not have seen it or realized it, but he did. Rosie didn’t see it, but Decker did.

In my new book, Twisted Up, which will be out at the end of this year with Samhain Publishing, has a woman, Ella, who is strong, has taken her life into her own hands, but falls in love with a man that has just so much patience for dawdling around the subject. Justin is determined in his way and she’s determined in hers.

One can still submit even though they’re strong. They can still let go and let someone in. In some ways, that makes them stronger. It’s about knowing when to dig in. In writing, it’s what makes characters real for me, letting their emotions out, sometimes through sex, yes, but sometimes through fights or long talks. They have to have a breaking point so they can come together.

The true coming together for Vinter and Elise was the phone call. God, I love the phone call.

I want to thank the women under the covers here for letting me slide into bed with them for a bit. It’s been a pleasure…

~lissa

Under the Covers also has an exclusive sneak peak at Lissa Matthews’s upcoming release, Twisted Up! Read the excerpt here: 

Ella rolled over and spied the rather large cup of coffee. As she looked at it from her position on the bed and then inched up closer on her belly, she realized it wasn’t a cup at all, but a soup bowl with a handle. She wondered for a moment if it would be considered ‘Texas size’?

“What a sweet, wonderful man,” she intoned aloud to the empty room.

Sitting up, she propped a pillow against the solid wood headboard and reached for the coffee. From her current angle, the bowl wasn’t much smaller than the tray it sat on. There were four shot glasses of creamer and a spoon as well. She couldn’t have been more touched and the sudden emotion that clogged her throat and made her chest ache …

She blinked her eyes rapidly, swearing she had something in them before actually picking up the cup and one of the shot glasses. Emptying one, she swirled the cream through the coffee and tasted, screwing up her face at the still too strong flavor and emptied the second, third, and fourth shot glasses of cream.

Yes, a bowl, giant cup, huge mug required four full ounces of cream instead of just two. She took a sip and let the caffeine and sugar do their magic on her still tired and not quite awake system. As she became more aware of things, the silence in the house being the biggest thing. Where was he?

Being that his bedroom was a loft, no sound came from downstairs. It didn’t surprise her that nothing had awoken her while she slept being as tired and worn out as she was. She also had to take into account that her limbs had been like jell-o after sex and orgasms. She felt the aches now though.

However, the silence was beginning to make her nervous. She didn’t know why exactly. She was used to being alone and it had never bothered her before, but for some reason, maybe because she was in a house that wasn’t her own, she didn’t have that same peace that solitude usually brought in its wake.

She slid her leg over to the side of the bed he’d slept on and it was cold as ice. He must have been up for a few hours and looking around, she didn’t see a clock anywhere, but she did see her purse sitting in a ladder back chair in the corner. Her suit case sat against the loft railing. She’d bet her laptop bag was somewhere around, too and if she looked on the floor beside the bed … Yep, her bunny slippers sat there, waiting for her feet to slide on in.

That thing was back in her eyes again making her blink rapidly to get it out.

She lay in his bed, drinking the coffee he’d made for her, feeling the aches in her body and the light ache in her neck where he’d held her down. It felt like a bruise and she’d be curious to see if there was one, but she doubted it. He didn’t squeeze hard enough but the slight tenderness when she touched where his thumb had been … She smiled.

God, she loved the way he pinned her down, held her. It was possession of her.

They’d toyed with some light control play over the months of meeting. He’d tied her up, but so loosely she could get out with little more than a twist of her wrist. He’d spanked her a bit, enough for it to sting, not enough for it to mark. But the kiss before she’d left the room the last time to head home had been tender and rough by turns, possessive and freeing, too. He’d pushed her up against the hotel room door and gripped her throat in his hand, pressing his body so hard into her that it had lifted her up on her toes.

She’d felt his hold on her all the way home that day and every day since. She had no idea what she was doing here with him now, what pipedream she might be living or buying into. Sure, they’d gotten along well and they had a sexual chemistry that defied anything in her previous experience, before and including her ex.

Those feelings, those desires, those pleasures were things her life had been missing since she’d married and she hadn’t realized it, hadn’t realized exactly what she was missing, what her mind and her gut had been trying to tell her before she walked down the aisle …

Justin had shown her, had opened her eyes. First through words, then through actions. She’d hadn’t ever imagined she could have a life with him, and she still didn’t know if it was possible. There were questions and obstacles and their ages and …. How much did all that baggage matter? He knew her shit, all of it. She knew his too, or at least most of it. And she knew if she brought up the age difference to him, he’d tan her hide until she couldn’t sit.

They’d never discussed the … she had to count it out on her fingers, the ones not holding the coffee … ten or eleven year gap between their birthdays, but it hadn’t bothered her before and she couldn’t think of a reason for it to bother her now, other than maybe because she was in his bed, all the way in Dallas because he’d gone to get her and bring her back.

And that he’d gone to Birmingham for her …. He’d been right though. She wouldn’t answer him with more than general statements. She wouldn’t talk to him about personal stuff anymore. She kept putting him off about how she was really feeling, what she was really thinking and their friendship, their relationship was worth more than that. He’d always allowed her and encouraged her to talk about anything and she’d shut him out. The only choices he’d had was to either let her be or show up on her doorstep.

But she’d never thought he’d actually take the latter option. It wasn’t like she’d said ‘put up or shut up’. No, she hadn’t said anything at all and in his mind, she was worth trying to salvage something.

No guy had ever come after her, ever chased her, ever thrown her over his shoulder like a caveman. No guy had ever brought her coffee in bed.

“Damn,” she whispered.

She flipped back the sheet and slid her feet into her slippers before setting the coffee down on the tray. She felt a little nervous walking across the loft naked, but that was the only way to get to the bathroom and then her suitcase. Besides, if anyone walked into the house that wasn’t Justin, well, they’d sure get an eyeful.

Once some necessities were taken care of, she got dressed in one of only two sets of casual clothes she packed. One set consisted of a pair of brown slacks, a pair of bronze sandals, and a creamy white camisole with a short sleeved matching, light weight sweater with pearl buttons. The other set was a pair of yoga pants and top for her daily sessions of yoga and pilates. Beyond that, she didn’t pack for anything other than work or sleep.

She had no idea what to do, what to put on to go looking for him, but standing there naked looking down into her suitcase wasn’t helping. Making up her mind to don the brown pants and white sweater outfit, she quickly went back to the bathroom for a shower before getting dressed. She wrapped her towel dried hair up in a pony tail and brushed her teeth, debating on whether a little make-up was called for or not.

“Gonna have to get you some boots for around here. Can’t have you walking in sandals and heels all the time.”

She yelped and her hand flew to the flesh over her heart. She hadn’t heard him coming, hadn’t heard … Her gaze immediately began to take him in. Damn, he looked good all dirty and sweaty in faded jeans that looked about worn through in all the right places and a dark blue t-shirt with faded writing on the front. A tan cowboy hat was plastered to his head and his brown boots were scuffed with dirt and scrapes and well worn. He was every inch a cowboy. “What about bunny slippers?”

“Nah, we’ll save those. You like to wear those when we fuck.”

His outright crudeness should have probably shocked her, but it didn’t. “Yeah okay. Plus, don’t want to get them dirty.”

“No more than they already are after last night. Probably made the poor bunnies blush.”

“Eh.” She shrugged. “They’re bunnies. They’re used to such things.”

He grabbed her by the waist and hauled her up against his sweaty, dirty body. “They better not have seen any action before us last night.”

The look in his eyes wasn’t a happy, teasing look. Jealousy? It never occurred to her that Justin would ever be jealous of her or that he would think she would have been with someone else all these months. She’d been asked out but she’d always said no. She wasn’t ready to date anyone new and there was a lot of truth to that that had nothing to do with her divorce.

Should she date others? Should she play the field a bit? Maybe it wasn’t just Justin that could make her feel the things he did.

As she stood against him, with his arms holding her tight and imprisoned against his body …. No, no one else would be able to do for her what he did and she didn’t want to date a bunch of guys in search of something she already had.

“No. No one else has seen me naked with bunny slippers. No one else has had sex with me while I wore my bunny slippers, either. Only you.”

“Good. I might not be too sure about the kinkiness of bunny slippers and sex, but I sure don’t want anyone else seeing how sexy and cute you are wearing them when you’re naked and wet and got your legs spread wide for me.”

He bent his head and nuzzled her neck, tipping the hat off his head in the process. She caught it before it dropped farther down and placed it on her own head. He smelled like the outdoors; grass, dirt, horses. The ends of his hair dripped sweat and his neck was streaked with dirt, but she didn’t care. She slid her hands under his tee shirt, flicked his nipples with her fingers and was rewarded with a bite of her earlobe before sliding her hands around to his back and down to the waistband of his jeans.

He was lean, his body honed from hard work and manual labor, not built in a gym. She’d always liked that about him, that he didn’t work behind a desk. It wasn’t that she had anything against men in offices, she just liked the blue collar men, the ones that had physical jobs best. She felt safe with men like that. She felt they could take care of her physically, take care of her if something went wrong and she was in need.

She also realized that for most that probably sounded silly, but men like Justin with jobs and hobbies like he had turned her on. Besides, she wasn’t ashamed to admit she liked the man to protect, to be the physical strength.

“What are you thinking?”

“Huh?” she uttered against his throat.

“Your breathing has gotten all hot and heavy.”

“Uh huh.” She nodded and licked a trail up from his Adam’s apple to his chin.

“You’re playing with fire, baby.” But he slid his hand up into her ponytail just the same.

“You started it.” Ella stood on tip toes and continued licking her way up his chin until she could reach his mouth. He met her in a swirl of tongues. His jeans were loose enough she could slide her hands down inside the back of them to grab and squeeze his ass. H—“You’re not wearing any underwear,” she whispered against his mouth, continuing to kiss and nibble on his lips.

“Nope,” he whispered back, allowing her all the freedom she wanted to explore him.

“Naughty boy.”

“Very.”

“Well,” she said as she slid her hands around to the front of his jeans, smiling when he sucked in his already flat stomach. She felt the fluttering of his muscles against her fingers and gave a soft purr of delight. She loved the effect she had on him because it mirrored the effect he had on her, “since you’re sans underwear, you should be sans jeans, too.”