COMING TO TERMS IS HERE!!!

I am so excited! That anthology I keep mentioning I'm so proud to be a part of? Well, it's HERE at last!
Seven authors, seven stories.
Summer means more than fun and sun, rest and relaxation. For the couples in Coming to Terms, vacation presents a chance to connect, and work through important issues in their domestic discipline relationships. From endeavoring to define DD to missing a DD partner to balancing erotic spanking and disciplinary spanking, these stand-alone stories penned by seven authors of spanking fiction cover a broad spectrum of issues commonly encountered in loving DD relationships. Will the obstacles prove too difficult to overcome? Or will each couple emerge from vacation with their relationships revitalized and stronger than ever?

I want to give a little shout out to my outstanding co-authors. It isn't often you get to work with consummate professionals whom you are also privileged to call friends. Ladies, I can't think of six people I'd rather work with.

Muaaaah!

Tomorrow by  Ana Vitsky
This Moment by  Alta Hensley
With or Without Him by Cara Bristol
Confession Time by Sue Lyndon
Spank and Run by Renee Rose
Reconnecting by Celeste Jones
Days with You by Jade Cary

DAYS WITH YOU

All of your favorites from  The Point of it All (including Val, in flashbacks) return in this heartrending short story about love and loss, and about keeping dreams, and hope, alive.

Diana Kenyon-Rios arrives in Chile for the Christmas holidays--her first after losing her husband, Val. As she prepares to celebrate the holidays in Val's home country, she reminisces on her short but wonderful relationship and marriage to Val, and how she tried to come to terms with his...way. Not exactly a DD lifestyle in the truest sense, but let's face it--Val liked to spank an ass. Why? And why did Diana allow it? Did she benefit? Did he? Did it define their life, or did it take up a small, but not insignificant part of their relationship?

And as Diana attempts to reconcile his death with the life she must lead now, something keeps her from fully accepting that he is gone.  She feels him in her bones so deeply, it is as if he is still alive Through intimate talks with friends and reminiscences, she finds a way to hold on to the greatest love she will ever know.

But will her dreams be enough?

And now, an excerpt from DAYS WITH YOU:

Dying is easy;
It’s living that scares me to death.
~Annie Lennox

Diana stared out the window of the plane as it started its descent into Santiago. The snow capped Andes cast a late afternoon shadow over the city, its streets laid out in a perfect grid pattern. She held a glass of ice in her hand, absently chewing on the jagged chunks to stave off the pressure building behind her cheekbones as the plane decreased in altitude. The man sitting next to her cast worried glances as she bent over, the glass of ice pressed firmly against her forehead, her breath coming in hitches and then smoothing out into long waves, as if she possessed the power to stop the eruption in her head by simply breathing in, and out, and in, and out....

“More ice?” the flight attendant asked.

Diana raised the glass. “Please.”

“You okay?” the man beside her asked. He had engaged her in too much chitchat on the connector out of Dallas, but mostly he was quiet. He was a bland man, one who would get lost in a crowd, and stay lost. He was soft spoken and conservatively dressed. He wore a gold watch and no rings. Diana tried to avoid men who wore no rings. Not that rings kept them from talking to her, or worse. No. Rings did not seem to matter.

“My wife used to get those types of headaches when she flew. Whew,” he blew out, shaking his head. “They could be rough.”

Tall buildings built wide apart clustered in one section of the city. Santiago was brown-gray, like most cities, and a colorless haze hung over the buildings like a shroud. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the gold cufflinks holding the man’s shirt cuff closed. S. The letter S in black surrounded by gold. Cufflinks. His cologne, mixed with the masculine smell accumulated after a day on an airplane was cloying. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion, sat open and face down across his lap. A wife and no ring. Yes, she had seen that too—too often.

“Turns out it was brain cancer,” he said. “Yeah. Rough.” He sniffed once and then lifted his book. It shook in his hands.

It’s not a tumor.

Diana accepted the newly filled glass of ice with thanks, then pulled two small cubes into her mouth and sucked hard. She turned to the man as the plane touched down.

“Did she make it?” she asked. The loss of a loved one was not a badge worn by those left behind. There was no neon sign, no special sigh, no memo to others. Yet, those who had loved and then lost carried something in their eyes, like a Vacancy sign. Endure this, the sign blinked on and off. See if you can.

It’s not a tumor.

“No,” he said. “No, she didn’t.”

Diana stared out the window at the brown-gray landscape. The loss you know is better than the loss you don’t know. Someone said this to her after those hard, foggy new days of widowhood. She did not know how to take it, how to pull it all inside herself and make it work magic for her. No. She new little during those dark days, but one thing she did know for certain: bearing the loss was so much more excruciating than the wonder of it. Diana turned to the man and set her hand upon his.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said.

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