Wel­come! If you’re just hap­pen­ing across this post, click HERE to get start­ed on a hop across the webosphere. I hope you’re hav­ing a great East­er week­end. We like to use a loose inter­pre­ta­tion of East­er Can­dy around here. Eye can­dy has a lot few­er calo­ries than the oth­er kind, so help your­self to all the treats you’d like!

Here’s how it worked. Blog­gers went to http://justromance.me/register/scenemaker/, where a ran­dom selec­tion of char­ac­ters, adjec­tives, and a set­ting were gen­er­at­ed. Also, we were giv­en the first line: Bloody foot­prints. What a way to start the week­end. and a line of dia­logue: “Maybe you should take off your shirt.”. After that, the sky’s the limit.

I liked our mas­cot so much, I made a screen­shot of my scene gen­er­a­tor, so you can see what I had to work with, as well as drool a bit on that sexy tat.

There you have it. My gen­er­at­ed scene. So here we go:

“Bloody foot­prints. What a way to start the week­end.” The Sous Chef scowled at the floor behind the crowd invad­ing his domain. His big flop­py feet and Cock­ney accent gave the man a car­i­ca­ture feel.  He con­tin­ued mum­bling about dirty feet as he con­tin­ued through the kitchen.

Well, her date gets props for cre­ativ­i­ty. Cas­sidy dried her hands, and threw the paper tow­el in the humon­gous trash can.  She’d nev­er even been inside a restau­rant kitchen before, but now here she was on a blind date, learn­ing cook­ing tips from one of the city’s most famous chefs.

“Do you like to cook?” Scott’s voice washed over her like a cup of warm syrup. Rich and sinful.

Cas­sidy looked up at her date. As a ski instruc­tor, his gor­geous face was tanned, oth­er than a clear shape around his eyes where his ski gog­gles kept the skin a lighter shade.  She could pic­ture him on the slopes, steal­ing the hearts of all of his female stu­dents. His grin was irre­sistible. Along with the rest of him. It was a relief that Lara had set them up with­out telling Scott that she was wealthy. Now she could just be a reg­u­lar ordi­nary woman on a reg­u­lar ordi­nary date.  All he knew was that she worked in a bank.

He didn’t know that she owned sev­en of them.

She blinked a few times to remem­ber the ques­tion. “Oh. Yes, I do. It’s the clean­ing up after myself that I don’t like. How about you?”

He stepped aside polite­ly to fol­low her to the prep table, where they stood shoul­der to shoul­der with the rest of the cook­ing class.  She gave him points for manners.

“I make a mean lasagna.” The look in his eye promised many sin­ful things, Ital­ian food wasn’t even in the back of her mind.

Before she could men­tal­ly undress him, Cas­sidy focused on the emp­ty cut­ting board in front of her.

“I don’t see what the big deal is. Inter­ac­tive Restau­rant? That just means that they’re get­ting paid for me doing my own cook­ing.”  Pete, the elder­ly guy on the oth­er side of the table, growled. Pete was a retired postal work­er who claimed to have been dragged here by his wife of six­ty years.

“Will you light­en up? Any­thing is bet­ter than sit­ting in front of the boob-tube.” His wife swat­ted his arm play­ful­ly. “Now don’t ruin this for the rest of us.”

Scott’s laugh was as sexy as his voice.

Cas­sidy gave her­self vir­tu­al slap in the face. This man was way too adorable to have a nor­mal per­son­al­i­ty. No use falling for him on the first date, before the psy­chot­ic side came out. There must be some­thing wrong with him.

She man­aged to pay atten­tion to Chef Ger­ald, and even laughed along with Scott as he spent much longer than nec­es­sary chop­ping his vegetables.  His frus­tra­tion with the tedious tasks made the rest of the table laugh. Even Pete labeled him can­tan­ker­ous. The high­light of the evening was when he leaned against the oven. His sleeve caught fire, he jerked back in reac­tion, and poured a bowl of cold mari­nara sauce over his arm to douse the flames. His shouts shouldn’t have been com­i­cal, but sev­er­al of the ama­teur cooks snick­ered behind their hands.

Cas­sidy man­aged to keep a straight face as she came to his res­cue. She unbut­toned his shirt, thank­ful that he wore a clean undershirt.  She added more points to his tal­ly. “Maybe you should take off your shirt.”

Nice chest. Mus­cu­lar pecs clear­ly defined beneath the tee-shirt. And he smelled real­ly good.

She must have enjoyed the task a bit too much, because she was sud­den­ly aware of a cho­rus of jeers from the oth­ers. She hand­ed him his soiled shirt with an awk­ward grin.

Still, once things set­tled down, and they returned to work, she swore she didn’t bump his hip on pur­pose, and would nev­er admit to reach­ing into his space just to get anoth­er whiff of his cologne. The cook­ing class was a per­fect place for a first date. No awk­ward silences, and the oth­er par­tic­i­pants gave her a cush­ion from the blind-date pressure.

“Maybe you should think about quit­ting your cushy job at the bank.” Scott nudged her elbow with his. “Your bruschet­ta looks a whole lot bet­ter than mine.”

She smiled, feel­ing an insane amount of plea­sure from the sim­ple com­pli­ment. “Well, the true test will be in taste.”

The heat in his eyes burned right through her clothes, and she had to stop her­self from fan­ning her face with a spatula.

“Tell ya what.” He stepped clos­er, until she could feel the heat com­ing off his body. “If it pass­es muster, I’ll make the Lasagna, and you can make the bruschetta.”

I always feel bad leav­ing the cou­ple just as things are heat­ing up.  Oh well, on to the next blog post! Hope you’re hav­ing a good time. I’ll be chat­ting at Gem’s Chat Room on Sun­day evening 7pm EST. Hope to meet you there! We’ll draw the win­ners dur­ing chat, and one of you will win a copy of my con­tem­po­rary west­ern romance Retreat.

Hap­py Easter!

Wel­come! I hope you’re enjoy­ing your hop around some of the best author sites on the web! I’m giv­ing away a copy of Fine Print to one lucky win­ner, along with a book to be loaded on the Kin­dle 3 that’s up for grabs! Good luck! If you’re just hap­pen­ing along this post, and would like to get in on the fun, click HERE to get start­ed. Here is the list of words we’re using for the sto­ry. I think I got em all! Love, smile, kiss, tongue, cud­dle, nip­ple, ear­lobe, fin­ger­nail, green, fire­place, book, whiskey, ride, Dublin, sham­rock, knick­ers, silk scarf, leather boot, Pot of Gold, Blar­ney Stone, and “Why is it green?”

Kel­ly only drank enough of the green beer to keep it from slosh­ing over her cup to stain her hand, but could­n’t stom­ach more than a few sips. Beer should­n’t be green.

She picked her way back through the crowd. Drop­kick Mur­phys blared through the speak­ers, and one group in the cor­ner even sang along to the rau­cous cho­rus. She doubt­ed any of the St. Patrick­’s Day rev­el­ers had ever been to Ire­land, or had any sort of Irish blood cours­ing through their veins–gallons of Jame­son Irish whiskey did­n’t count–but today every­one was Irish. While most Amer­i­cans used March 17^th as an excuse to get drunk, Kel­ly would have been just as hap­py to stay home with Sean, and cud­dle in front of the fire­place.

He’d promised her a din­ner at her favorite restau­rant if she’d join him for pool at the Sham­rock Lounge for a few hours.  The bar was a favorite of theirs year round, espe­cial­ly since she’d been hired to paint a big pot of gold mur­al on the far wall. Although now it was cov­ered with sig­na­tures on each gold piece, tes­ta­ments to the feat of chug­ging “The Big Dublin”, a beer mug as big as a fish bowl.

The sound of Sean’s laugh­ter drew her eyes to the pool table, where he leaned against the edge, laugh­ing with his friends. His bud­dy Patrick seemed to think today was his own per­son­al cel­e­bra­tion, even though he was half Russ­ian and half Swedish. Still, Kel­ly could­n’t imag­ine spend­ing a St. Patrick­’s Day with­out the big lug.

She saun­tered across the room, feel­ing sexy in Sean’s favorite mini skirt. She brushed aside the girl who had roped her man with her green silk scarf–teas­ing him with one green fin­ger­nail scrap­ing down his chin–and did­n’t even make eye con­tact with the drunk guy who asked her to kiss his blar­ney stones. She was even able to ditch the green beer on an emp­ty table.

“Remem­ber that one year when we slept St. Pats off at my mom’s house?” Patrick drained his glass. “And I did­n’t aim well, and she was bitch­ing about the mess on the toilet?

“But Patrick, why is it green?” Patrick and Sean mim­ic­ked in uni­son. The sto­ry was as old and stale as the beer stains on the pool table, but Kel­ly could­n’t help but smile along with them, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly feel­ing sor­ry for Patrick­’s mother.

“We could fill a book with the stuff we did to your poor mom.” Final­ly Sean caught her eye, and gave her that sexy smile that melt­ed her. The dim­ple in his cheek was one of the first things that attract­ed her to him two years ago, and he still had the pow­er to make her ear­lobes pink with that grin. The knowl­edge that he had the abil­i­ty to kiss her sense­less with those lips, and his tal­ent­ed tongue was enough to get her knick­ers in a knot, and make her nip­ples perk.

“Hel­lo, love.” He set his pool cue aside and pulled her into his arms. “You’re look­ing mighty fine tonight.”

Kel­ly snug­gled into his embrace, step­ping between his leather boots. “So are you. I was just stand­ing over there won­der­ing if you were ready to go home and search for my pot of gold.”

He chuck­led, and kissed her through his smile. “I thought you want­ed to shut this place down with Patrick, but when you put it that way–”

“Dude!” Patrick slugged Sean hard enough to jos­tle Kel­ly. “You can’t leave ear­ly, you’re my ride.”

“You live two blocks away. It would­n’t kill you to walk.” Sean elbowed back. “You real­ly think I’d choose you over this tasty morsel?”

“I don’t blame you for being whipped. I might just be a lit­tle jealous.”

Right on cue, a cute lit­tle brunette approached them, steal­ing Patrick­’s atten­tion away. Kel­ly took advan­tage and dragged Sean through the door.

“You real­ly think I’m tasty?”

Sean spun her around, and pinned her against the wall, the cold brick seep­ing through her jeans and sweater, empha­siz­ing his heat pressed against her front.

“Hmm, I can’t remem­ber. Let me taste…” He kissed her, send­ing his tongue on a rav­ish­ing tour through her mouth, and nib­bling and lick­ing her lips. “Deli­cious.”

Kel­ly sighed. “Take me home, Sean.”

Thanks for stop­ping by! Good luck in the draw­ing! We’ll be chat­ting on Sat­ur­day ³⁄₁₉ at 7pm at Gem Sivad’s Place. I hope you can join us…we have a lot of fun.

See you there!