Author Spotlight on Ashe Barker

Hello again Jorja, and thanks for inviting me over to your blog today. It’s fabulous to be here.

I don’t know about everyone else, but for me 2014 seems to be flying past. It's the 28th already, and once January’s out of the way, well, it’s almost Easter really. Cue the daffodils, spring lambs and chocolate eggs.

So far this year I’ve been really busy. I have print releases for both The Dark Side and Sure Mastery coming up soon, my two series set in Yorkshire, UK, where I live. The final book in the set will go on general release on 7 February. 

In the future Totally Bound, my publisher is intending to release books in print at the same time as the e-versions come out, so some readers may prefer that. I know my mum will.

As the trilogies have developed, I’ve started to receive some fabulous messages from readers who are following the saga of Nathan and Eva, Tom and Ashley. From some it’s been feedback, saying they’re enjoying the stories or commenting on particular story lines. That’s always good to know. Sometimes a reader may have a question, maybe hasn’t understood something in my colloquial UK verbage. Or they may want to know when the next book comes out, or what to read first.

I always reply. And quick. I can’t speak for other authors, naturally not, but I expect most of us feel the same way about reader feedback – we love it, and we particularly love hearing from people who’ve enjoyed our stories. Even if you have a quibble, I’d like to know about it. I’ve had some fantastic conversations with readers, telling me snippets from their own lives and how my books affect them. I love to know that stuff, it makes it all so much more real for me.

It’s good business too. Readers keep authors in business, their thoughts count.

Reviews are great. Good reviews are better than great. But direct comments from readers top the lot for me so keep ’em coming.

Contact Links: Readers can reach me on my blog, www.ashebarker.com. I’m also on Facebook, and on twitter, as well as Goodreads and Pinterest. And you can find me on the Totally Bound website too.

Apart from the third book in the Sure Mastery series, Surefire which is on general release from 7 February I also have a short story coming out on the same day. It’s part of Totally Bound’s Paramour anthology which features older women and the younger men who make them hot under the collar. My story, Re-Awakening, will be cuddled up with wonderful stories from three more Totally Bound authors - Ayla Ruse, Elizabeth Coldwell and MK Schiller - so it’s well worth a look.

Buy links: You can get your hands on Surefire or Re-Awakening from Totally Bound

Author Biog: Until 2010 I was a director of a regeneration company in Leeds, in the UK, before becoming convinced there must be more to life. I left to work as an independent consultant, and still do some of that though most of my time is now spent writing. At last I’ve been able to realise my dream of writing erotic romance myself. I’ve been an avid reader of fiction for many years, erotic and other genres, and I still love reading historical and contemporary romances – the hotter the better. But now I have a good excuse – research.

In my own writing I usually draw on settings and anecdotes from my own experience to lend colour, detail and realism to my plots and characters, but my stories of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of my own lurid imagination.

When not writing – which is not very often - my time is divided between my role as resident taxi driver for my teenage daughter, and caring for a menagerie of dogs, rabbits, tortoises.  And most recently a very grumpy cockatiel.  I’m a rural parish councillor, and I’m passionate about evolving rural traditions and values to suit twenty first century lifestyles.

I’ve just completed my third trilogy in the Black Combe ‘family’ and I’m well on with writing the fourth, as well as a novella, a short story, and a stand-alone novel for Totally Bound’s ‘What’s Her secret?’ imprint. All are due for release over the next few months.

Excerpt:

Sure Mastery has been described by several readers as emotional. More than one told me they actually cried while they were reading it and I have to confess I shed a tear or two while I was writing the story. Ashley’s story is one of loss and loneliness, and of domestic abuse and its consequences. She wants to be Tom’s submissive, but can’t sort out in her head how and why that would be different from the abuse she suffered in a previous relationship.

In this scene, Tom is about to punish Ashley, but wants to make sure she knows the difference between what he’s doing, and how she feels about it, and everything that went before.

He nods briefly. “Yes, Ashley. You should. You don’t have to agree, but you should at least listen. I did listen to you and found another way to deal with the problem. But you’re new to farm life, and you’ve a lot to learn. It’ll come. That’s not why we’re here though.”

Isn’t it? I look up at him, surprised.

“We’re here because you walked out on me.” He pauses, lets that sink in before he elaborates further. “We argued, disagreed about something, and you pissed off. Went back to ‘your home’ as you called it. This is your home, Ashley, and I don’t want you to forget that again. And that’s why I’m teaching you this lesson. Commitment means you don’t just bail out of our relationship at the first sign of trouble. You stay, we work on it. We talk. I wouldn’t have walked out on you, I won’t, whatever happens. I expect the same commitment from you. Do I have it?”

I stare at him, horrified. And deeply ashamed. It’s true. I did do exactly that. I wanted my own way, so I just stopped listening to Tom, ignored his point of view. Instead I leaped onto my quad and left him there on the moor. I deserve the beating he’s about to administer. If I could, I’d do it myself.

I step forward and lean across the hay bale, settling my upper body on the blanket.

“I’m ready.”

“Yes, you are. Or very nearly. One last thing though, Ashley.” He leans on the bale alongside me, his hip propped against the hay.

I turn, peer at him over my shoulder. Maybe he intends to tie me up first.

Apparently not. It seems he has more to say. “This is the second time I’ve punished you when you’ve done something that pissed me off. The first time, that first day when I came to your cottage, you hated it. Hated me probably.”

I shake my head, start to deny it.

He silences me with one raised finger. “Quiet please, and listen. Okay, so you may not have hated me, but you hated being spanked, even if I did give you an orgasm afterwards. And you were certainly terrified then, and in the days after. You’re behaving very differently now. Why is that?”

I gaze up at him, and I find I’m wondering the same thing. Why is this different? Before I can scrape together any sort of response, he reaches out and lightly caresses my bottom. The bottom he’s soon intending to thrash with his belt. I remain still, my toes curling and my pussy moistening as he continues to massage my buttocks, increasing the pressure until I’m squirming with arousal.

“I know Kenny used to hit you, when he was angry. Maybe even when he wasn’t. Did you lie still and allow him to stroke your bum first like this, or maybe finger fuck you, like this?” His voice is soft, a sexy, sensual murmur as he leans over me, his wonderful, talented fingers working smoothly to bring me to a glittering orgasm.

I gasp, and my head falls forward to rest on the blanket as he slides his fingers between my legs and sinks three of them deep into my pussy. I spread my thighs without him needing to ask, and he moves now to stand immediately behind me. He’s laid the belt on top of the bale, and is using his free hand to reach between my legs to rub my clit.

It doesn’t take long. It never does when Tom decides I’m to come, and come fast. He thrusts his fingers deep, angling to hit my sensitive G-spot, and lightly squeezes my clit. He grips the throbbing nub between his index and middle finger and flicks the tip with the pad of his thumb. It’s too much, and in moments I’m moaning as my climax builds and erupts, all my nerve endings seemingly connected to that little button under his thumb. I grasp the blanket, curling my fingers in it as I rotate my hips, silently begging him to fuck me. He doesn’t do that though, not yet. Instead he continues to slide his fingers in and out of my pussy as I clench and spasm around him, squeezing hard to generate more friction, more sensation.

 “Greedy little slut. That’s enough for now I think. More later. When you’ve learnt your lesson and I’m sure it’s sunk in.” He withdraws his fingers, and I lie there, gasping. His tone has hardened, and I know this interlude is over. On to the main event, the main reason we’re here and I’m draped half naked across a bale of hay.

He leans over me, his hands on either side of my shoulders, his face close to my ear. “Is this different from Kenny?”

Christ, yes!

“How, Ashley? How is it different?”

I didn’t realise I spoke out loud, but I suppose I must have. And now he’s insisting on an answer.

“How, Ashley? Think, and tell me.”

“Because it’s you. You won’t hurt me.”

“I think you know I will.”

“No, not really. And you’ll stop if I ask you to. If I say my safe word.”

“So, you know it’s going to hurt. But you’ll still allow me to punish you. Is this abuse then, Ashley, or something else?”

I’m trying hard to concentrate, but in my post-orgasmic haze, it’s difficult to think straight. One thing I am sure of though, there’s nothing in the least bit abusive about Tom Shore. He loves me, I love him and this is how we resolve our differences. No sulking, no harsh words or cruelty. We have rules, and he enforces those rules. Then it’s over, and we’re even more closely connected than we were before.

“Ashley? Do you feel I’m abusing you? Bullying you? I want you to say so if you do.”

I shake my head vehemently, partly in denial and partly to clear my thinking. My voice is a whisper, but that has nothing to do with fear now. This is a deeply emotional moment, a pivotal point in our relationship. I know better than to move before he tells me I can, but I’m yearning just to turn to face him and sink my fingers into his hair as he sinks his cock into me. Nothing less will do now, but first we have unfinished business.

“No, I don’t feel that. I love you, and I know you love me. I deserve to be punished. Please do it.”

He straightens. “Happy to oblige, my sweet. I think twenty strokes would be about right. Would you agree?”

I nod contentedly and flex my fingers in the blanket. “Yes, twenty sounds perfect.”