Sunday, April 12, 2015

The Amazing Ashe Barker comes to answer Emily's questions!

I'm thrilled to welcome my friend and colleague Ashe today!

Why do you write?

I suppose the short answer to that is, because I can. And I enjoy telling stories. For as long as I can remember I’ve woven erotic fantasies in my own head, often when I was stuck in traffic jams on my daily commute. I no longer do that, so the stories had to emerge somewhere I suppose. I actually wrote my first novel about two years ago, and I was over the Moon when a publisher offered me a contract for it. I had the bug, and I’ve never stopped since.

What's your desert-island fantasy? (If you were marooned on a desert-island with only a single fantasy to get off to for the rest of your life, what would you choose?)

My head is full of so many, it’s difficult to choose just one. I’m trying to be disciplined here though (!) so I think I’d narrow it down to something hot and sweaty and involving Jon Bon Jovi.

Do you think of BDSM and/or spankophilia as a practice or as an orientation, or as something else, and what does your answer mean to you?

I think of BDSM as a state of mind, a personality trait which is as much a part of the individual as, say optimism or generosity. It’s a way of viewing the world, and relationships, a way of making sense. I know very many people suppress their leaning towards dominance or submission because they find it an uncomfortable fit with twenty first century living, we’re supposed to be assertive, independent, self-sufficient. All of us, all the time. But for those who can and do find their way to expressing their kink, it’s a release like nothing I can imagine - and believe me, I can imagine a lot.

Who's a favorite character from your own work, and why?

I’ll always  have a soft spot for Nathan Darke, the alpha male hero from my first trilogy, The Dark Side. He’s my classical handsome hero, dark, driven, moody, a demanding, hard Dom but with an incredible capacity for caring. He’s full of surprises, and has a very tender side. I like to read, and write,  about complex, layered characters so my first attempt to craft one sort of rolled everything I had in my head into one sizzling Dom. He’s not my best Dom, not by a long way, but I love him anyway.

Who's a favorite character from someone else's work (erotic or non-erotic) and why?

I read Gone With The Wind when I was a teenager, and formed a love/hate relationship with Scarlett O’Hara. At the beginning of the story she is vain, self-obsessed, and trivial, fascinating but not especially likeable. As her life develops and takes various twists and turns, as she overcomes challenge after challenge, and as the world she knows is ripped apart by civil war she emerges as one of the finest heroines in literature. She is strong, loyal, determined, a natural leader, and above all a survivor. I wish Margaret Mitchell had written more as I would have loved to know what Scarlett did after Rhett announced he didn’t give a damn.

Can I give a shout out about my current release with Stormy Night? Spirit features another heroine who is a survivor, and the title of the book sort of alludes to that. Here’s the stuff from the back cover…

When Matthew Logan offers a homeless young woman a bed for a few nights, he expects the girl to eat, sleep, recover from the flu, and then move on. Instead, in no time at all eighteen-year-old Beth Harte has captured his affections completely. Though Matt wants only to protect her and has no intention of sleeping with her, Beth has other ideas, and she proves to be very persuasive.

But after Beth is attacked by a friend of Matt’s and subsequently learns for the first time that Matt is an experienced dominant, she is unable to separate the man she is growing to care about from her hateful memories of previous exploitation. Confused and frightened, she runs away.

Almost six years pass before Matt sees Beth again, and in that time his vulnerable little waif has reinvented herself as an artist. Now she has a stunning proposition for him and his environmental engineering company: to collaborate on a project fusing art and science to promote one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world. But when Matt demands to know what went wrong before, she tells him the truth, both about her childhood and about his friend’s actions.

Matt is determined to make Beth’s abusers pay for their crimes, but he’s also not about to let her run away from him again. Can Beth bring herself to trust Matt despite her fears and give him the chance to love her and show her the pleasures of being his submissive, or will the wounds of her past keep her from trusting anyone ever again?

Publisher’s Note: Spirit is an erotic romance novel that includes spankings, sexual scenes, anal play, BDSM content, and more. If such material offends you, please don’t buy this book.

Spirit Buy Links

Here’s a nice, hot excerpt, to whet your appetite…

I turn, peep up at him. "What are you going to do?"
Now that it's come to it my nervousness must be plain, written all over my face. Matt drops a quick kiss onto my lips.
"Trust me."
I do, and it's enough. I move over to the rail and lean over it as instructed. I gaze down into the hallway below, listening to Matt's movements behind me. Despite my trepidation my pussy moistens still more at the sound of the blanket chest opening, the scrape of objects on the lid as he selects whatever he intends to use, then the soft slam of the lid closing again. Footsteps behind me, then the gentle, scattered thud as several objects hit the carpet. A tube of lube rolls into my line of vision. I know what that suggests. I tremble, but not with fear. Not exactly.
"I'm going to tie your arms to the top rail, each of your hands to the opposite elbow. Is that alright?"
I turn my head to see that Matt has a length of rope in his hands. It's black, and sort of shiny.
"Not too tight."
"No definitely not. You won't be able to move, but you'll come to no harm."
"I know. It's just, I'm having a little wobble here. Don't mind me."
He smiles. "Wobbling's fine, but I'd prefer you to tell me when you’re struggling. I can always slow down, or try something else. So, we're okay to continue? Yes?"
"Yes."
He doesn't move, so I nod for greater emphasis. Still nothing, unless a raised eyebrow counts. Then I remember. "Yes Sir."
"Good girl." He leans around me to secure my arms as he described, wrapping the rope around my wrists and elbows several times then pulling the knot into place. I try an experimental wriggle to find I'm held firm, bent at the waist, my bottom available for - whatever.
I watch over my shoulder as Matt pulls his T shirt over his head. The sight of his bare chest is a rare treat, taut muscles rippling across the sculpted contours and sprinkled with fine hair which disappears into the waistband of his jeans. I hold my breath as I wait for him to drop those too, but he merely strolls around to the other side of me, taking the time to draw his palm across the globes of my upturned bum.
"Nice arse, Beth. I always thought so."
I wriggle my hips, loving his touch but still not quite sure of my allure to him. "I was too thin."
"Maybe then. Not now. Now your bottom's lovely and curvy, firm but soft enough to have some real fun. And we are going to have fun here, Beth. That's what this is all about."
He stands behind me and slides his fingers into the crevice between my buttocks, reaching down until he parts the folds of my pussy from behind. He hasn't asked me to spread my legs but I do anyway, revelling in the sensual caress. The flat of his fingers and palm are stroking my pussy, his fingertips rubbing my clit. I writhe, the curl and clench of orgasm starting already. He knows his stuff, knows just where to touch, just how to arouse me.
I whimper and lift my bottom in wordless pleading. Can it really be this easy? Does he really have to do no more than tie me up and stroke my cunt to bring me to a climax in seconds?
It would seem so. I close my eyes and allow my body to simply respond.
Without warning he withdraws his hands and I'm alone. Abandoned. I turn my head to see him crouching a couple of feet away, picking up an object from the floor. It's a bullet vibrator.
"What are you going to do with that?" On a stupid questions scale of one to ten, that must score about twenty seven. Matt certainly thinks so as he grins at me, his leer quite wicked.
"In the future, when you're a little more confident - in yourself and in me - I'll probably blindfold you and let you try to guess what I'm using. For now though, since you've seen it and you've asked, this is going inside your sweet cunt. It's small, you'll have to squeeze to hold on to it. I'll be stroking your clit, and we both know how much you love that, but if you drop our little toy I'll stop. So, how's that for incentive?"
"I think it should be very persuasive, Sir."
"I thought it might. And if you treat our toy with the respect it deserves, I'll let you come. Then I'll put it in your arse, and we do it all again."


A little bit more about me…

I’ve been writing seriously for about two years but I’ve been an avid reader for as long as I can remember, erotic and other genres.  I love reading historical and contemporary romances in all pairings – the hotter the better. But now I have a good excuse for my guilty pleasure – research.
My stories are often set in the north of England where I live but I draw inspiration from all over. An incident here, a chance remark there, a bizarre event or quirky character, any of these can spark a story idea. But ultimately my tales of love, challenge, resilience and compassion are the conjurings of my own lurid and smutty imagination.
On the rare occasions I’m not writing 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 too.
My other titles are many and varied, and include the ‘Black Combe’ trilogies, The Dark Side, Sure Mastery, The Hardest Word and A Richness of Swallows, all set in the atmospheric moorland of West Yorkshire or Cumbria and with a strong BDSM theme.  My stand alone novels are The Three Rs, Chameleon, Red Skye at Night, and Faith but this list grows all the time. The Widow Is Mine is a full length medieval erotic romance which I wrote for The Conquered Brides collection. I’ve also written several short stories, including Re-Awakening, a raunchy pirate tale, Right of Salvage, and a MM story, Bodywork, which was included in the Amazon best-selling collection Brit Boys on Boys. You can find all my stories on my author page on Amazon.
I have a pile of story ideas still to work through, and keep thinking of new ones at the most unlikely moments, so you can expect to see a lot more from me.
I love to hear from readers. You can find me on my blog, and I’m on Facebook, and twitter too. And more recently on Tsu

No comments:

Post a Comment