(AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT) Leigh Ellwood

Today I will be hosting an author spotlight for a blog tour, enjoy! 

The Sweetest Dare
Out For You
Leigh Ellwood
Genre: FF Contemporary
Publisher: ARe Books
Date of Publication:  6/1/15
ISBN: 978-1-936387-98-4
ASIN:
Word Count: 27,000
Cover Artist: Erin Dameron Hill

Book Description:
Sugar's sweet, but sex tastes better…Kit Cheever is more than eager to welcome her new co-worker, Sidney Campbell, to Tish’s Riches, the best chocolate shop in Virginia. While the long days on the job hardly exhaust them for long nights of play, Sidney hopes for more in their relationship than candy-coated orgasms. Is dinner out too much to ask? Kit would oblige, but she likes her privacy. The people of Dareville don’t need to know she and Sidney are anything more than co-workers. Why be “out” when it’s so much hotter and safer indoors? Kit won’t even hold her hand in public, which upsets Sidney. She’s not asking Kit to march in a parade, just to acknowledge her feelings to the people she loves. What will it take to get Kit out of the closet and into Sidney’s heart?


Available at ARe


Excerpt:
 “Nice getup,” Kit said, and twirled her finger downward to guide Sidney to move away. “I have to see the shoes.”
   
Sidney laughed and offered the full model strut. She whirled around and sashayed along the bar a few steps, wiggling her slim hips, then returned with an exaggerated en pointe of one high-top sneaker, which was actually designed to look like a red Uno playing card.

“How come they don’t match?” Couldn’t be too difficult to find checkerboard-patterned shoes.

“The shoes that go with this outfit are worn out. I haven’t had time to make another pair.”

“Really? You don’t buy these?” Kit asked. Baking, sewing…this girl was a one-woman craft bazaar.

Sidney smiled. “What can I say? I’m good with a glue gun and a pastry bag, so long as I don’t get them mixed up.”

“Cool. Uh, what brings you here?” Did Sidney know this was a lesbian bar? The décor didn’t outright advertise it—no rainbow bunting or pink triangle beer coasters. Yeah, framed posters of semi-nude women hung on the walls, but Kit saw those at other places.

“I heard this was the best place to meet women in town. Rather, close to town. We’re kind of in between Dareville and the beach, huh?”

“Yeah. We were thinking of calling it West Vagina.”

Sidney snorted up a sip of her drink. “You have to warn me when you make a joke like that.” She waved over the bartender for some napkins.

She attracted many an appreciative stare from other patrons, too, leaving Kit to think of the right words to get Sidney to a more secluded place to chat.

Luckily, though, Sidney shared her idea. “This music is so damn loud, how do you stand it?” she called out. “Wanna sit out on the patio?”

Kit nodded, and a minute later they found two Adirondack chairs on the concrete, screened-in patio that abutted the alleyway behind the club. Kit had heard, when the building had housed an Italian restaurant, this area served as a smoking lounge for the wait staff. Nobody lit up here now due to new laws, but the folks at the Den tried their best to make the patio look pretty. Fake palms trees wrapped with white twinkle lights adorned each corner, and standing space heaters kept the area comfortable. Though no door separated them from the club interior, Kit noticed that the distance did mute the music’s volume to a low, steady boom.

“What were you drinking? Refill’s on me,” Sidney offered, and flagged down a server making the round to others lounging on the patio.

“You don’t have to do that, I’m good.”

Sidney smirked away Kit’s reluctance. “Please. I’m a working woman now. I can afford it,” she said with a wink. Kit couldn’t argue with that.

“I usually get the Key Lime Pie martini. It’s their signature drink.”

“Ooh, that sounds good. Two, please,” Sidney told the waitress, and Kit watched the silent exchange between them that followed. Well, she counted the seconds the waitress lingered, shuffling backward with her eye on Sidney, before finally retreating to the bar to place their orders. Petite blonde with Eighties fetish proved tonight’s favorite flavor, and Sidney no doubt tempted many an appetite. Kit placed a hand on her growling stomach.

Sidney crossed her legs and turned in her seat, squeezing her arms close to her body as though to preserve warmth. “How does a key lime drink become the specialty of the house here? Rather unusual choice.”

“Not really. The person who owns the Den is from South Florida. She used to run a lesbian bar down there. I guess they’re a dime a dozen, so she came up here to find a captive audience. Before that she taught English at some college, so that’s where the Woolf came from.” Kit crooked her head toward a poster of Virginia Woolf’s profile on the brick wall. Several artistic renditions of the famed author decorated the establishment, in places where one didn’t find the semi-nudes.

“I would love to have had a place like this in Wyoming to go to.”

“Yeah?” Images of gorgeous women in tight blue jeans, bouncing in saddles as the horses they straddled galloped in some wide prairie, filled Kit’s mind. One rarely ran into country girls in town, and suddenly Kit pictured Sidney in a Stetson the color of her geektastic shoes.

Sidney in a cowgirl hat, stripped down to a Rubik-colored thong, straddled over her hips and bucking with one hand in the air… yee-haw.

About the Author:
Leigh Ellwood writes erotica and romance, particularly M/M and F/F pairings. She is a two-time finalist for the Gold Crown Literary Society Award and an EPIC Award finalist and winner.

When Leigh isn't writing, she reads. She enjoys all genres, especially historical fiction.

For more information on other books by Leigh, please visit her official website: www.LeighEllwood.com

Blog http://leighwantsfood.blogspot.com

http://twitter.com/LeighEllwood

http://www.pinterest.com/LeighEllwood