Southern Spirits: Product of a One-Track Mind

Have you ever sat on a train, felt its powerful, relentless rhythm drive through you? Ever fantasise about having sex onboard - or even do it? Ever wonder if anyone else did too, willed on perhaps by the spirit of the train....

My second Black Lace novel, Southern Spirits, has now been released in the US as well as the UK, and is set aboard the Silver Belle, a luxury train ala the Orient Express, but travelling through the most isolated places of America's Deep South as a mobile club, where its exclusive members get to indulge in their deepest, wildest fantasies, and anything goes...

The Silver Belle and its owner, career criminal Jack Wheeler, comes under the scrutiny of Federal tax agent Catalina "Cat" Montoya. She's young, ambitious, and eager to become an undercover agent. But on her first assignment, she is reluctantly partnered with Nathan Ames, an older, more experienced (in so many ways!) agent - and a man with whom she once had a secret office fling:

‘And what about you, Hound? Am I way out of your league, too? Maybe you shouldn’t even bother trying…’
Now Nathan stepped forward, his hands on her hips. ‘Honey, the one thing you can know about me is that if I go to Hell, it won’t be for not trying…’ And they were kissing again, this time with his hand sliding up between them, gently but insistently cupping one of her breasts through the material of her dress, his moans into her mouth confirming his delight.
He helped set her ass on the edge of the desk, her head dipping back as she stared upwards. His lips moved down along her smooth olive skin, reaching up and skilfully slipping one shoulder strap down, working on the soft flesh above her lacy bra, licking and sucking on it, biting it so softly and growling. Cat’s body shook as he then slipped her breast from her bra, licking around the sensitive nipple, and she rode the sheer sensation of pleasure she was feeling through her body. Still kissing her, Nathan moved his hands to her hips and slid down along the soft fabric of her dress, dipping beneath the hem to touch her stockinged thighs.
Cat moaned aloud, gasping, but still asked him, ‘And what part of me do you think is my best feature?’
Almost before she realised it, he was easing her back, onto her elbows, raising and parting her legs while still supporting them, and drawing up the hem of her dress. His voice was a whiskey purr. ‘When I’ve sampled them all, I’ll tell you.’
Cat leaned back further as he disappeared under her dress, and she felt his hands, his head, moving up between her thighs. Her breath quickened as she felt his breath through her silk thong onto her pussy, and her pulse skipped a beat when she felt his fingers draw aside the strip of fabric barely covering her sex...

Having to pose with Nathan as a couple on board the Silver Belle,
Cat finds herself fighting to stay professional, to not let her continuing, growing hunger for him overwhelm her judgement. They have the flirtatious I Hate You, I Love You by-play of all the great screen couples from Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn through Moonlighting's David and Maddie, and on to those other mismatched Special Agents, Mulder and Scully.

And you know, sometimes words aren't enough when you're lying next to a man you shouldn't want, but do... so you find any excuse, just like a drunken Cat, tempting Nathan away from his call back to base...

He was rising to his knees when Cat pulled him into a kiss, swooping on him and pulling him so that he practically fell on top of her. They struggled, until he pinned her arms above her head. ‘Damn it, Cat, stop this right now or-’
'Or what, you fucking puta-’
He kissed her, ostensibly just to shut her up, though still savouring the feel of his lips on hers, and the heat of her mouth as his tongue explored it. She moaned into his mouth, and ground her thigh against the lust-stiffened cock still restrained within his clothes. He tasted her desire, as strong as the alcohol on her breath.
It was that reminder that made him pull from her mouth. ‘Ca-Cat, no-’
She looked up at him from the bed, from under heavy lids. ‘Damn it Nathan, say yes. I am as horny as you. I think maybe we just need to fuck and get it out of our system. Otherwise we won’t be able to do our jobs.’
‘Uh, you guys know I’m still on the line, don’t you?’
Grimacing, Nathan reached out, lifted the phone long enough to say, ‘Call you in the morning,’ before hanging up and tossing it to the nearby couch. ‘Awww, Lord...’

And it's a fight which isn't helped by her need to get close to the charismatic Jack Wheeler, who has designs of his own on her:

Cat felt her head spinning despite his touch. ‘Well? Aren’t you gonna go ahead and kiss me?’
‘One doesn’t just jump into these things,’ Jack replied softly, ‘It’s the journey, not the destination.’ The thumb of one hand swivelled out, brushing against her full lips. She parted them slightly, feeling the moistness and breath escape. Her pussy called to her, and she gripped his forearms for support.

He pushed his thumb in slightly, barely penetrating Cat’s mouth, as she let the tip of her tongue brush against the tip of the digit. It was insane, an insane desire that she had to keep under control. Seconds later, her thoughts were lost as he pulled her in, found her mouth with his lips, and kissed her, hard and hot and with an unleashed hunger. Cat responded, moaning into his mouth…

As Cat finds herself giving into pleasures she never thought she could experience, she learns during a seance that the train really is haunted, haunted by spirits who in life had also surrendered to their own dangerous passions:

The cool air failed to overcome the overpowering heat Val felt emanating from her naked, trembling flesh. Mickey’s feather-light touch returned, trailing fingertips up along the contours of her ass, along the undercurves and up towards the dimples steepling her cheeks, even as his other hand pressed down against her lower back, keeping her dress raised and out of the way. Val trembled at his touch, his alternating waves of rough and gentle behaviour keeping her dizzy and wanting, made a sound like a whimper as she heard him undoing his trousers. Oh God, he was going to take her here and now, with his crew only a short distance away…
Then Val heard his trousers drop, felt him, his shaft, the velvety hot tip of it, touch the apex of the sweet valley between her buttocks, sliding down. And it descended, pausing to tease at the tightened opening to her rear. And as it continued further, Mickey leaned in closely as if to whisper in Val’s ear. ‘And what about… this?’
Mickey’s cock reached the puffed, wet, waiting entrance to Val’s pussy.
And entered.
Val moaned sharply, shamelessly, twisting like a worm on a hook as Mickey slowly filled her up, his hands gripping her hips. He kept still as she squirmed, and then flexed it inside her, making her start and curse into her arms.
He began to move, slowly driving into her, again and again, Val’s hot, wet flesh moulding itself around the hard member as it repeatedly, rhythmically filled her up, and releasing clusters of lovely sensations.
‘Yes, you came for this,’ Mickey purred, still gripping Val by the hips, steadying her against the table, his broad hairy thighs brushing against her stockinged legs. ‘But I think you came for more.’ Almost imperceptibly, his left hand released its hold on her hip, and moved up along Val’s cambered spine, gripping the loose material of her dress and holding onto it, his cock still thrusting relentlessly into her. Val was lost, unable to deny, acknowledge, or make any coherent response. And when she felt Mickey’s hand move around from her hip to her groin, touching her bush, stroking her even as his middle finger sought out the top of her slit, found her clit, stroked it while still driving into her from behind - she cried out, uncaring of who heard her.
Her thoughts jumbled as she came, bent forward wantonly over the table-
-As Cat, bent forward wantonly over the table, released her grip and fell backwards into her chair, the chair tipping back until the back of her head hit the floor.
Dimly she heard someone racing for the carriage lights, and then finding them. Heartbeats later, Nathan was kneeling at her side, opening her eyes to peer into them. Concern etched in his expression. ‘Catalina, what the hell-’
On her other side, one of the other attendants at the seance asked, ‘Is she okay?’
Cat tried to close her eyes again, found Nathan was still holding her lids open, and slapped his hand away. ‘Besame el culo, pajiero.’
Nathan let go and knelt back. ‘She’s okay.’

So, are you ready for the journey? Stop fighting it and let the spirits take you somewhere new!!

Southern Spirits is available now in both the UK and the US, in all good bookshops as well as on Amazon (where you can leave reviews by the way hint hint!). Please let me know what you think! Edie Bingham xxx

Scary is sexy

In some ways, when we experience fear it is very akin to sexual arousal. We experience a sudden surge of emotions, adrenalin pumps through our bodies and our heartbeat elevates as our eyes widen and our pupils dilate. Both are extreme emotions prompted by some signal or other, but whether the physical response had anything to do with it I am not one hundred percent certain - but for me scary is sexy!

One of the first books I read that frightened me and yet titillated me at the same time was Dracula by Bram Stoker. To me, the novel definitely had erotic undertones that equated vampirism with sex. The hero Jonathan Harker travels to Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania and while he is there falls under the spell of three wanton female vampires, to be rescued just in time by Count Dracula himself. Harker eventually returns to England and his fiancée Mina but Dracula follows him and begins to prey on Mina’s friend, Lucy. Night after night Dracula visits Lucy in her bed and drinks her blood. There is something very mesmerising about this mythical (I hope!) undead creature roaming the night desperate to drink blood from the neck of a warm red-blooded mortal.

I don’t find all scary movies sexy - gore-fests like Friday 13^th and the Jason movies don’t press my buttons but a very good friend of mine tells me that she finds Hannibal Lecter sexy in a bizarre kind of way.

The sexy but scary images I like best hail from TV. When I was small I found Doctor Who scary, but of course I was too young to equate that with sexy. Nevertheless there is definitely a hint of sexy now that David Tennant has made the role his own. Now add into the mix the omnisexual Captain Jack and I get some seriously sexy thoughts when I see them together.

To me, Buffy really started the trend of sexy and scary. We were given an innocent, pretty teenager who somehow morphed into this awesome vampire slayer, who also killed demons and other creatures that invade our nightmares. Buffy, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, probably prompted any number of ‘wet dreams’ for a lot of adolescent boys. The programme really came into its own when Angel appeared on the scene. At first we saw a good-looking rather secretive guy, rather inappropriately called Angel, who seemed to want to help Buffy, and then we learned that he was a vampire who had had his soul restored to him by gypsies as punishment for the murder of one of their own. Angel was doomed to wander the earth trying to make retributions for the crimes he committed when he was Angelus, one of the most evil vampires to roam the earth.

The sexual attraction between Angel and Buffy changed the show and then one day they slept together. In this one moment of true happiness Angel was doomed to lose his soul again and he turned into his evil alter ego Angelus – how sexy is that? For me the evil Angelus baiting and taunting Buffy was a little scary and yet also incredibly sexy. Then Spike came on the scene and the pheromone count rose.

The show proved popular in the ratings and Angel (David Boreanaz) was given his own show, a grittier version set in LA. This Angel was darker and most definitely more of a turn on for his female fans. Thank you, Josh Weedon, for all the pleasure you gave me over the years.

Other vampire series have come and gone but one of my particular favourites was Moonlight. It wasn’t that frightening because in this show vampires weren’t all soulless creature: many of them were successful people living among humankind, scared that their secret might be discovered. Some had acolytes and allowed them to drink blood from their veins, as if the experience was almost orgasmic in its intensity. Mick St John was a vampire with a heart, not as angst-ridden as Angel but sexy all the same. His purpose in life was to recover his mortality and become human again. Mick fell in love with Beth Turner and eventually the show turned into a love story with a dark edge to it.

However, the show I now love best of all is Supernatural. It follows brothers Sam and Dean Winchester played by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles respectively. They travel across the US in a black 1967 Chevy Impala investigating and combating paranormal events and other unexplained occurrences, many of them based on American urban legends and folklore, as well as classic supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves and ghosts. One of favourite episodes is about shapshifters, but they don’t just change their shape: when they morph from one person to another they shed their skin like a snake, but in a far more gory fashion. One becomes a copy of Dean and, when it is discovered, it slowly peels off its skin, one of the scariest images I’ve seen on TV, as the sexy Dean turns into this foul creature.

Angel, Buffy and Moonlight may have left our screens, apart from the ubiquitous repeats, but Supernatural is still in full flow. Try and catch if you want to watch something both scary and sexy at the same time.

Deanna