Welcome Erin Nicholas!

Cari here: Yes, I know this is a blog, and guests don’t require introductions. But in this case, since I love Erin’s writing and stayed up until 5 AM – yes, you read that right – on a work night to finish her last novel, Anything You Want, I felt behooved to suggest strongly that you go out right now and pick up her books! Now here’s Erin…

That Girl

You know that girl—the one everything seems to go right for no matter what?  The one who’s spoiled, who everyone bends over backwards for, the one who always gets her way?

Do you like her?

I generally don’t.  I mean, why should her hair always be perfect?  Why can she eat chocolate and stay a size two?  Why does everyone think her clutziness is adorable while mine’s laughable?

Yeah, I don’t like her much.

I prefer the girls I hang out with to be more… relatable (at least to me! J)  I want them to have some insecurities, some imperfections, make some mistakes.  I like them, but I do want them to have some bad hair days.  I want them to eat too much pizza.  I want them to sing badly and maybe even at inopportune times.  They’re real women, women we all know, women we’ve all been.

I tend to require the same things of my heroines.  The ones I write and the ones I read.  Sure, sure… we also want to live vicariously.  I let them say things I want to say, but can’t actually say. I let them have better shoes than I do.  And they’re definitely funnier and sassier than I am.

But I don’t make them perfect.

Until Sara Bradford came along. 

The Princess—I mean, heroine—of Just My Type is one of those girls.  She doesn’t really have any regrets, she hasn’t made any glaring mistakes, and yeah, her hair, shoes and singing voice are all pretty damned good. Things go her way, everyone looks out for her, she has no worries.

Ugh, right?

I could have not given her a book, I suppose.  Yeah, she’s the younger sister of the main characters in the first two books in the Bradford series, but she didn’t have to have a book, I guess.  I could have left her single, pining after the man who sees her only as his best friend’s sister.

But then I thought… hey, if she wants him and he’s determined not to have her then we can finally see her not getting her way.  That might be fun.  In fact, I can make things downright hard on her.

So I did.

I’ve never been that girl.  When I eat chocolate it most definitely goes to my hips.  When it’s humid out, my hair shows it.  I don’t have an older brother and sisters and all of their friends looking out for me and making sure everything goes right. 

Jason “Mac” Gordon, the love of her life, helped me out.  He agreed that she was a little too used to getting her way, so arranged for her to get exactly what she thought she wanted. Out of her element, away from her circle of friends and family, Sara suddenly found it a little more difficult to be the princess.  In fact, there was a whole group of women she wanted to win over who are a bit like me—thinking a zit or at least a hangnail might take her down a peg or two.

Suddenly, perfect or not, Sara doesn’t have it so easy.  And let’s face it, that’s when you really find out what someone’s made of.

So what really constitutes a flawed heroine?  Does she have to have killed someone?  Spent some time in jail?  Hate her parents?  Been fired?  Or can she be so used to getting her way that she can’t even imagine someone saying no to her?  Can that be her flaw?

Oh, yeah. 

Sara had some things to learn for sure, some growing up to do, and she definitely makes some mistakes.

Which was fun to see.   

Because it turns out that in the end isn’t about how flawed someone is but how much they’re willing to change.

Sara and Mac’s story is out in all e-formats and print now from Samhain! 

Just My Type

Secretly wanting her—no problem. Her not-so-secretly wanting him—big trouble.

The Bradfords, Book 3

There’s only one problem with the woman Jason “Mac” Gordon wants: his best friend’s little sister is off limits. Way off limits, and too young and innocent for the likes of him. From past experience, he’s learned to hide his not-so-nice preferences from the nice girls he seems to attract. That definitely includes the woman he’s always thought of as a sister. At least until recently.

Sara Bradford always gets what she wants—which is partly Mac’s fault. After all, he helped spoil her. So she has no intention of taking his no for an answer on anything—least of all his refusal to sleep with her. He thinks she’s too innocent? Fine. She’ll simply get un-innocent and show Mac that she wants him—the good, the bad and the nipple clamps.

When Mac’s plan to drive her away works too well, he’s forced to follow her to a tropical paradise, determined to make sure she doesn’t find her wild side with anyone but him. Once she gets a real taste of what he likes, he’s sure everything will go back to normal.

That’s until he discovers a slight kink, er, flaw in his logic…

Product Warnings:

Contains hot sex at the beach, kinky online shopping—and yes, cotton-candy-flavored body powder does exist.

Excerpt:

Mac settled down into his chair and pushed the chair next to him out for her.  “Want me to stay over and answer the phone until Tuesday?”

            She swiveled on her chair seat to look at him, gauging the motivation behind the offer.  She knew he didn’t mean it like that.  He’d slept on her couch before.

            “Yes,” she said simply.

            “I will,” he told her lifting his glass.  “But you have to buy Twinkies.”

            Mac’s favorite food.  Normally, she would roll her eyes and joke about his propensity for junk food.  But she was in a mood tonight.  She leaned over and put her hand on his hard, flat stomach. 

“How do you keep these so tight with all those Twinkies?”  She rubbed her hand back and forth over the warm, white linen of his shirt. 

Mac seemed to freeze.  And stop breathing.  His eyes were locked on hers and she felt a current zing between them.  She’d never touched him like that.  They’d held hands, even hugged before and she’d touched his arms, back, shoulder, even face once, but never his chest, or stomach, or lower.

“Sara?” His voice was definitely hoarse.

“Mac.”

“Move your hand.”

She slid it downward and Mac shot back, tipping his chair onto its back legs and throwing him off balance enough that he stumbled to his feet, knocking the chair over.

“Hell, Sara!” he swore.  Straightening to his full height and glaring down at her he demanded.  “What the hell was that?”

She blinked at him, trying for innocence.  “You said…”

            “I didn’t mean that!” he snapped. 

            “Well, why not?  I certainly wouldn’t mind doing it.”

            He gaped at her and she almost laughed.  She’d never seen Mac flabbergasted like this. 

            “You wouldn’t mind doing what exactly?”

            Maybe he thought—or hoped—she was talking about something else.  She had to make this clear.

            “Putting my hand on your…”

            “Okay,” he interrupted, throwing up his hands.  “Enough.  You’re obviously drunk.”

            Instead of looking up and arguing his statement, Sara’s eyes found the object of conversation almost right in front of her.  And he looked interested in what she was proposing.

            Mac had an erection.  Right there.  Front and center.  Unmistakable.

            “You sure you’re not interested?” She looked directly at the tent in his pants.

            He quickly righted the chair, sat and dropped his napkin in his lap.  “Knock it off.”

            “What?  You’re telling me you’ve never thought of it?  Ever?”

            “Of having your hand down my pants at your brother’s wedding?  No, I can honestly say I haven’t.”  He wouldn’t look at her.

            “So when have you thought about having my hand down your pants?”

            He opened his mouth, shut it again, shifted in his chair, frowned.  “Stop it.”

            She scooted her chair closer.  “Mac, honestly.  Have you ever thought of us together?”

            “Sure.  We’re together all the time at Sam’s, at the Center and the hospital.”  He still wasn’t making eye contact.

            Sara touched his knee and he nearly jumped out of his chair again.  She smiled.  She was no dummy.  She had a Master’s degree in psychology and was a licensed Social Worker in Nebraska.  She studied people. She’d watched the two people she knew best—her sister Jessica and her brother Sam— fall in love with their spouses.  She’d seen the effect that intense attraction had on people and how they acted until they admitted the attraction and did something about it.

            “I’m talking about naked, you and me.”

            “Of course not,” he answered quickly.  Too quickly.  He was scowling again.  “You’re a kid, like a sister to me.”

            He was lying.  He had to be lying.  Before she could think it out any further and potentially chicken out, Sara slid from her chair to Mac’s lap, cupped the back of his head in both hands and kissed him with all she had.