Sexy Halloween Story

by Becca Simone

If you're looking for a short, sexy Halloween read, try Midnight Treat. This story was an All Romance ebooks bestseller. Here's a blurb:

It's mistaken identity gone erotically awry during a Halloween costume party.

Josh Panetti breaks into an apartment Halloween night, thinking he’s fulfilling the sexual fantasy of a woman he just met at a costume party. Instead, he’s broken into Cassie Snow’s place. Cassie immediately realizes his mistake—she’d seen him at the party with her sexy upstairs neighbor. She should tell him he has the wrong apartment and the wrong girl. But she’s always the wrong girl. Would it be so terrible to be the right girl for just one night?

Excerpt:

Something woke her. Cassie’s eyelids popped open behind her mask. Someone was on the fire escape. Her belly clenched as she turned her head slowly in that direction. The dark figure of a man stood framed in the window. Her stomach churned and her entire body tensed. She opened her mouth to scream, but then she recognized him. Zorro. From the party. Obviously, he was on his way upstairs. Last Halloween, she’d caught a man in a gorilla suit scaling the metal ladder. The other Marie must have a thing for the fire escape.

Zorro hooked his hands under the frame and tugged upward. She gasped. He was coming inside! He swung his leg quietly over the windowsill, his foot touching carpet.

“You told me you were on the fifth floor,” he said as he swung his other leg inside and unfolded to his full height. His voice was deep and raspy. His white teeth flashed in the dim light as he grinned. Oh. My. God. Zorro was in her apartment.

“I, ah—” He must have seen her through the window and thought she was the other Marie. Again. Her insides fluttered with possibilities.

Tell him! He stalked toward the bed like a wild animal hunting its prey. He eased the sword from its sheath and leaned over her, holding it above her face. She, Cassie Snow, was smack dab in the middle of another couple’s naughty fantasy. Her eyes widened and need pulsed between her legs. Tell him he’s in the wrong apartment!

“You said you like to be scared,” he growled, right before he clamped a hand over her mouth and pressed the back of her head into the pillow.

He held the long silver blade in front of her eyes. “Make a sound and you’re dead. Understand?” She nodded and immediately stilled. She knew she should tell him he had the wrong girl. But she was always the wrong girl. Was it so horrible that she wanted to be the right girl for a change? Was it so wrong that she wished, just for one night, to be someone else? Someone who acted out naughty role-playing?

Becca Simone is an erotic romance writer. You know what that means, right? She has lots of hot sex with all sorts of hot men, at all times of the day and night, in all sorts of exotic places, and in all sorts of wild ways. And then she writes about it in her stories.

Did you happen to notice her initials? B.S. Yeah. You figured it out. You can learn more about Becca and her writing on her website. Midnight Treat is available here.

Becoming a less neurotic writer AKA Creative Recovery

by Becca Simone

A while back, I set out on a journey to become a less neurotic writer in 12 weeks, using The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron as my guide. Well, I’m realizing it’ll probably take way longer than that. I have a lifetime of bad habits and neuroses to overcome. Cameron calls this journey “creative recovery.” Hmm. That has a much more positive ring to it, doesn’t it?

My personal journey involves daily journaling, meditating, yoga and nature walks. I haven’t been doing any of those things as much as I would like, but I am making progress.

I normally have the meanest, bitchiest internal editor to ever walk the face of the earth. Her name is Helga. Ugly name for an ugly being. She is downright cruel. You should hear what she says to me. It’s not even printable.

During the month of November I’ve been involved in NaNo, and I think the frantic, don’t-look-back pace of writing has helped me to avoid, or at least temporarily shut up, Helga a bit. Thank God.

Some things I’ve read in The Artist’s Way have really hit home. In Week 3 Cameron talks about how anger is at the root of much of our creative neuroses. She says that “in the recovery of a blocked artist, anger is a sign of health.” Awesome. I must be a flippin’ health guru, because I’ve been mad a lot. Recently, a couple of writer friends/acquaintances who just started writing achieved greater success (ie: big sales to major publishers) than I have in all my years of struggling. I went through the mature reactions of “It’s not fair!” and “They haven’t paid their dues!” and listened when Helga told me that I’ll never achieve similar success because I suck as a writer.

Yeah, it was a really pleasant time in the Simone household.

Cameron asks us to pinpoint what it is we’re really mad at. She says anger is our friend—it will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves. This was an “a ha!” moment for me. I’m not really angry at these friends or even the situation. I’m angry at myself—for the opportunities I didn’t explore, the countless hours I’ve wasted not writing, the wrong turns I’ve taken. It’s all about me. Now that I realize it’s me I’m pissed at, now maybe I can redirect that feeling into my work.

Cameron also talks about synchronicity, which is another word for answered prayers. Be careful what you wish for, knock and the door will open, ask and you will receive, however you want to say it. Cameron says once we begin our creative recovery, synchronicity will pop up everywhere. It’s really true. It’s happened to me. I experienced this just recently. I was just telling one of my CPs that I really want to do a blog under my pen name but didn’t have the time to go solo. I wished I knew of a group of erotica writers to blog with. The very next day I get an email from a fellow erotica author asking if I might be interested in joining a new group blog. Can you hear the Twilight Zone theme song here? Weird, eh? Another recent instance was as I worked on a promo plan for my next release. I wrote in my notebook to brainstorm creative places to hold a booksigning. That very day, a friend told me she’s planning a huge naughty toy party in February, right in time for Valentine’s Day, and would I be interested in selling some of my books there?

Try it for yourself. Put your wish or desire “out there” and see what happens. And keep me posted.