Seems like FOREVER since I released my last title, not to mention, wrote anything on my blog, but thank you all for your patience and kind words, such as, “Hurry up with the next book!”

So without further ado, I present Snowflake, the next installment in my Artist Ecstasy Series.

Available on Amazon & Smashwords

Synopsis: Dalton’s party is the place to be and for 18 year-old college student Averie it’s the place she’ll finally connect with Troy, the campus heartthrob. Of course she’ll have to convince her best friend Jett she’s not going just to get laid. A concept he’s all too familiar with particularly when it comes to this party, but Averie doesn’t need Jett’s paternal guidance. She can handle herself and all of the emotion that comes with seducing a guy that is, until she’s in the middle of it.

Excerpt:

Troy leaned against a wall, sucking on a Tootsie Pop, waiting for their class to start. Averie watched from a table across from their room, close enough to see his tongue roll around the hard candy as he slid it in and out of his mouth. Her vagina throbbed inside her tight denim jeans. Leaning forward she pushed her pelvis down until her clitoris met the hard stone bench. The pressure made the sensation even more intense as the pounding continued as she stared at him. Tall, sandy blonde hair, blue eyes. A regular All-American guy with the chiseled body of an older man. Older as in not a teenager anymore, like she still was, at least for one more year.

Hiding behind her dark sunglasses Averie wondered if there could be any chance that he’d even notice her, what with all the Barbie dolls bouncing around him. It made her sick to see how transparent they were giggling and pretending like they actually gave a shit when really they just wanted his eye candy on their arm and to accomplish that they’d do whatever it took. She knew the type, went to high school with half of them where they’d done exactly the same thing with every jock and some of the faculty.

“Hey girl!” Nina and Tracy plopped themselves on either side of her.

“I see you’re busy with the pre-show.” Nina made it sound like Averie did this every week. It made her sound love sick, which was completely untrue. How could she love someone whom she’d never even spoken to, she asked herself.

“Pre-show? Do you know something I don’t?” She glanced at Nina who was also staring at Troy.

“It’s obvious, you’re gonna make a play for him tonight. Am I right?” Averie turned back to Troy, a smile spreading across her face. She hadn’t exactly advertised, but that was indeed the plan.

“Yeah, we know.” Tracy poked her in the side laughing. Loud enough so that Troy glanced in their direction his blue eyes piercing Averie’s tinted lenses. She caught her breath.

“Oh.” Nina put her hand on Averie’s leg just in case she were oblivious to the attention from across the aisle. The three of them were like stone statues waiting, watching, hoping for any signal from him. Hell, a “Shut up” would have been accepted with the fervor of a child getting a new toy.

He watched them for a second before offering a half smile at Averie. Then the Barbie’s bobbed in front of him laughing and talking as if to say, “Look at me! Look at me!” and the moment was gone.

“Did you see that?” Tracy leaned forward looking at Nina.

“Girl, we all saw that. Averie’s got a chance.” Nina sounded like a coach and Averie the player.

“Whatever.” Averie wondered when a half-smile meant the relationship door was open.

“Seriously. You saw the look, the smile.” Nina started her play-by-play.

“Yeah, but Tracy’s laugh is funny.” The last thing Averie wanted to do was get her hopes up.

“Tracy’s laugh is irritating, but clearly his face was not irritated.” Nina was direct. One reason Averie liked her, but then hated her sometimes too.

“Hey, it’s not that irritating.” Tracy defended, her face in a frown.

“You know what I mean.” Nina brushed her friend off.

“Troy looked over here at Averie, not at me.” Tracy had a point. Not that Averie was putting any hope on a smile, a half smile at that.

“Anyway, you guys aren’t making any sense. It was a smile. Let’s leave it at that.” Averie stood up and grabbed her books. The instructor had opened the room and students were rushing to enter. She guessed partly because Troy was in the class and, if nothing else, staring at him made time pass quicker even for some of the guys.

“We are making sense and you know it. The sooner you figure out how to make a bigger play and stop actin’ the wall flower the sooner you can stop lookin’ like a hypnotized zombie.” Nina pulled out her lip gloss and lathered it on. It meant she was ready for action, as in guy action. Not that she needed lip gloss to draw attention to her extra full puffy lips. Lips that wouldn’t stop talking.

“I gotta go. See you at lunch.” Nina stood to leave as Tracy followed.

“Hey Averie!” Jett’s familiar voice came from behind her. She stopped and turned, a bright smile on her face. The two had been friends for almost a year. She thought it felt longer maybe because she’d shared more with him than her girlfriends and she’d known them for years.

“Or not,” Nina added. Her relationship with Jett was a bit strained after he rejected her advances. It wasn’t that he didn’t find Nina attractive. She was by far the hottest black girl on campus, but for some reason he declined her one night stand offer, which was probably best considering Averie would have to hear about it, from both of them.

“Call you later?” Averie gave Nina a side long glance then hugged her. It was great that her friends didn’t mind her spending so much time with Jett. It was like he was her best friend and Nina had Tracy. Then they’d meet up later for ‘girly crap’ as Jett called it.

“I was beginning to wonder about you.” Averie stood in front of Jett. They always met up before classes even though they didn’t have any together.

“Careful, I might think you missed me.” His orange eyes shown bright against the sunlight as he smiled into her face.

“Always.” Averie teased. She wouldn’t say missed exactly, but it was a bummer when he wasn’t around. He made her feel special in a different sort of way. Not that her girlfriends didn’t, but it was nice not to be talking about the latest issue of Vogue or which actress locked lips with another.

Jett always wanted to hear about what she was writing, read her poems, know what she thought about life. They talked about things that mattered to her, made her think, things that showed she mattered to him.

“Are you still coming over today?” She’d forgotten about his modeling request. An exercise in patience and control. The last time she’d fallen asleep mid-pose, so he painted one half of her asleep, the other awake. Kinda corny, but it did look interesting.

“Yeah, for a few hours.” If I can last that long, Averie thought.

“Cool. Are we on for lunch?” Jett put a piece of gum in his mouth, then offered her a stick. She declined. It always made her thirsty and she didn’t want to leave class for a drink.

“Sure. See you at Relish?” Averie looked toward the room. She hoped she wasn’t edged out of a seat in the back where she could drool over Troy unnoticed.

“Relish? That’s like, healthy crap. What about Burro Boss?” She wasn’t opposed to fast food, but any place with the name of an animal in it just made her nauseous.

“Fine.” She gave in partly because she didn’t want to waste time arguing about where to eat when Troy awaited her.

“Well that was easy.” Jett smiled as he chewed his gum. Something about him just then made her stomach flutter. He had a way of looking so sexy doing pretty much nothing. Kinda like Troy, but without all the masculine pea cocking.

“The things I do for you.” She smiled coyly, then realized his gaze was rather intense on her as if wondering what the hell she was doing acting flirtatious.

“Uh…huh.” He said it slowly, narrowing his eyes at her. Damn, she thought he looked like an Asian James Dean when he did that, so much so that she wanted to kiss him.

“Okay, see you then!” She spit the words out and threw her free arm around his neck for a quick hug. Mostly so he didn’t see how embarrassed she was over her lustful thoughts about him. All this talk about Troy must have me projecting my feelings on Jett, she told herself.

He hugged her back. She thought it felt nice the way he wrapped both arms around her even with a book in his hand. She imagined Troy’s might feel the same if she ever got a chance with him.

“Okay.” He stood and watched her enter the classroom before going on to his own. It’s what he always did, but today it made her feel weird like he was her big brother or something. Most girls would find it endearing that a guy was protective of them, maybe it was that he still had feelings for her or just liked watching her ass walk away from him.

She brushed the thoughts from her mind as she looked for a seat.

“Miss Edwards, your seat is here now.” The instructor motioned to a table with three other people, one of them Troy. She felt her face get hot as she sat down across from him.

“This is conversational Spanish, therefore, I’ve arranged you all in pods so as to take full advantage of this learning experience.” She kept her eyes on the instructor as she spoke, Troy didn’t. She guessed he was looking at anyone else, but when she glanced across the table his eyes were on her.

He smiled. She smiled back, embarrassed he’d caught her, but then decided it was only logical that she would eventually look. She swallowed hard knowing she couldn’t give him any reason to think she was like one of the Barbie’s.

“To get you comfortable, please turn to page ten of your book and role play the conversation with the person sitting across from you.” Everyone did as the instructor asked grumbling about how stupid it was or why they weren’t given a certain partner.

“Ready?” Averie looked at Troy who was still turning pages in his book as if it didn’t contain a page ten.

“Uh, yeah.” He looked at the page in confusion.

“It’s in Spanish.” The smart-ass comment slipped out before Averie realized it.

“You don’t say.” Troy chuckled and flashed her a smile. His teeth were perfect and white just like a Ken doll.

“You’re first unless you wanna be Ramona.” Averie was doing her best to treat him as any other guy, but felt herself becoming more sarcastic, a trait she used to determine if a guy was worthy of her attention, up to the task of her.

“Pedro is a guy’s name, huh?” He looked genuinely shocked. Averie hoped he wasn’t as dumb as a Ken doll too.

“Hole-a Ramona!” Averie couldn’t contain her laughter. It was obvious Troy hadn’t taken any language courses or bothered to listen to one of the many Spanish speaking citizens in their city.

“What’s so funny?” He laughed too. Averie couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

“Your pronunciation.” She continued giggling, probably more nerves than the fact that it was funny.

“Hole-a?” Troy repeated sounding even worse than the first time. Averie laughed again. She hoped she wasn’t as red as a tomato.

“So how is it pronounced?” His eyes were so blue under his black eyelashes. Averie felt herself falling into them, under their spell. She shook her head, not that she didn’t want to help, she did. She just couldn’t stop laughing.

“C’mon this is conversational Spanish. We help each other here.” Troy coaxed. She wondered how on earth his complexion could be so perfectly tan, when it was the middle of winter.

“It’s pronounced, Oh-la.” She said it quickly between breaths as she tried to stop laughing.

“I didn’t get that. Can you say it again?” Averie felt herself accidentally kick him under the table.

“Oops! Sorry.” She looked at Troy for any sign he was irritated. He smiled and wrapped his legs around hers. The move made her laughter subside to a shy smile.

“It’s pronounced, Oh-la.” She repeated the words slower giving special emphasis to the last while forming a perfect circle with her mouth.

He watched her, a grin on his face as if she’d done something halfway interesting, seductive.

“Oh-la to you too Averie.” Troy leaned forward as he said it holding her stare. Averie felt her stomach flip flop hearing him say her name. A name she hadn’t remembered telling him.

He sat back in his chair and rubbed his calf against hers under the table. Was he coming on to her, she wondered. If not, it was still enough to make her dreams sweet for the next month.

“You goin’ to Dalton’s party tonight?” She stared at him trying to think of a smart-ass reply. Something that would tell him, “You haven’t got me yet. I’m not that easy.” But at the same time she wanted him to know she was interested. God was she interested.

“Isn’t everyone?” Averie left the door open for him to say something that would make her glad she was going. Sure, Troy was her reason to show up, but she wanted to hear a sweet nothing from him lips even if it might be a lie.

“I don’t care about everyone.” Averie wondered if she heard him right, did he say care? She turned her head sizing him up out of the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, so I’ve been watchin’ you. Sue me.” He raised his eyebrows, blue eyes sparkling as if waiting for her reaction. Probably hoping for a shocked look or Barbie giggle, she thought.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up in court.” Troy chuckled. Averie was on her game. Then he reached his finger forward and touched hers which were nervously running up and down the book’s fat stack of pages in a fanning motion.

“I wanna get to know you better.” His voice was low, serious, sexy as hell. She realized they were having a personal conversation in the middle of Spanish class. A class that had suddenly gone quiet.

“That’s nice to know Señor Troy, but let’s keep our focus on learning Spanish during class.” The instructor’s voice bellowed from behind Averie. A few students laughed while the Barbie’s looked dejected. Averie couldn’t help but feel as though she’d won. What? She wasn’t quite sure. Troy didn’t profess his love to her or ask her to marry him, but maybe after tonight they’d be a couple.