Thursday, October 10, 2013

Excerpts for Beauty Secrets Blog Tour 10/14-10/23


BEAUTY SECRETS Excerpts: Please note the excerpts are all LONG.  Feel free to shorten to fit your needs.

Excerpt 1:
Amanda took a brief tour of the store. It had been so long since she’d done her own shopping — she even had her groceries delivered, not that she cooked very often — that the very act of trolling the aisles was a novelty. She walked up and down past racks of shampoo and conditioner (not her brand), bins of empty plastic spray bottles (what on earth were those for, anyway?) and the baby-formula section, finally ending up at a display of condoms next to the pharmacy counter.
Condoms?
Amanda stared at the rows of brightly colored packaging in wonder. She’d never considered the idea that people actually went into stores and bought condoms. All the men she had dated over the past several years produced them as if out of thin air when they were already naked in her bed. Her college sorority house had kept a jar of them in the communal bathroom, though she’d never taken any. Condoms were something that just seemed to appear when required, not something that you went out and purchased like batteries and pantyhose.
Her eyes scanned the racks, noticing that some of the selections on offer featured silhouettes of slender, naked couples in sensual embraces, while others had “special vibrating rings for extra fun.” There were even flavored lubricants and serums that promised to add “heat” and “wow factor.”
Wow factor?
Amanda closed her eyes and felt herself blush. What kind of place was this? She felt like she’d stumbled into some kind of X-rated store on the side of the interstate, not a respectable-if-low-end Duane Reed. How on earth was stuff like this sold out in the open? Shouldn’t it be locked behind a counter or something?
Still, she couldn’t help but be intrigued, even a little titillated. Amanda’s sex life was nil at the moment, not that she cared all that much. But one should always be prepared, right? You just never knew what might happen. She selected a magenta box of Trojans with Vibrating Ring For Extra Fun and a tube of Wow Factor. Then she walked straight to the pharmacy counter to pay for them, too embarrassed to be seen carrying the racy items around the store. Once they were safely tucked in a plain white paper bag (stapled shut, for extra privacy), she headed to the front of the store to conduct a little market research.

Beauty Secrets Excerpt 2:

Amanda felt her cheeks burn. So this was George Watson, the man who now controlled her destiny at Revina. She’d just spent the past three minutes thinking about what he’d look like naked. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
She had to find some way out of this. “I’m sorry, George Watson, but there must be some mistake.  I am not middle management.  I am a member of Revina’s senior executive team.”
“Well, that might have been true this morning, ma’am, but it’s not now.  Now you work for me.”
Ma’am. She didn’t like the sound of that. It made her feel old. She didn’t want to feel old — not now, when she’d started feeling sexy for the first time in months, even though she didn’t quite understand why. Surely not because of this George Watson character.  No, of course not. The very idea was ridiculous. She probably just needed to visit her gynecologist to request a hormone supplement or something.
She scanned his long, hard body up and down, trying hard to squelch the rising heat between her legs. Something about this man got under her skin. But what? And why? “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but you don’t exactly look like the type who should be running a cosmetics company,” she remarked, hoping the veiled insult might help her get control of herself.  “You have no—well, style.”
He grinned and leaned back against the dirty wall.  There was such a casual ease about him. He clearly give a damn what anybody else thought---nobody walked around Manhattan dressed like that if they did.  It was the kind of confidence Amanda Brown had never had, and never would.  She’d spent her entire life worried about what other people thought.  It was the whole reason she’d joined the beauty industry in the first place.
She wasn’t sure what led her to do what came next. Maybe it was George Watson’s casual confidence, maybe it was the fact she was still soaking wet and cold from the rain, maybe it was a combination of the two. Or maybe she just hadn’t gotten laid in so long that her body had finally had enough and took matters into its own hands.
She set the white paper bag and her purse on the overloaded desk, took a deep breath, and kissed George Watson full on the lips.
Amanda wasn’t sure what she expected him to do. He stiffened with shock at first, letting out a startled squeal. But then he relaxed, put his arms around her, and kissed her back.
They kissed closed-mouthed at first, but soon Amanda took the lead and pushed her tongue against his lips. He responded in kind, and their tongues did a long, slow dance together, exploring. She relished his slightly salty taste, along with the balmy scent of his aftershave. He pressed his body against hers, revealing a growing thickness at his groin. She ground against it, wanting to feel it inside her.
Amanda pulled herself away from him then, but only for a moment. She reached for the paper bag from the drugstore, opened it, and handed George the contents. She didn’t say a word; she didn’t have to. He knew exactly what to do with them.
Her new office was tiny and filled to the brim with furniture and supplies. There was no place to lie down, or even to sit. No, they’d have to do this thing against the wall.

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