To celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States, we've asked some of our favorite authors to share Thanksgiving tales from their books and their favorite Thanksgiving recipes!
Now onto one of my FAVORITE authors, Stacey Wallace. Diving In (and all of the standalones in the Open Door series) are emotional, ugly cries that always leave me wanting more. ANNNND, some smexy too.
Gabe’s house is kinda cool. All the ramps remind me of the fun house at a carnival. I don’t tell him that because I’m not a moron. I’m sure he doesn’t think they’re all that cool. Not as cool as walking.
He’s fake surprised to see me. I can tell it’s fake because he’s overly surprised. He and his parents were somehow in cahoots. Gabe checks with me, weighing my reaction, and I smile at him. His dad comes over and pats me on the back. They are a handsy family. I enjoy that.
“Nice to see you again, Brynn,” Mr. Riley says. “Can I interest you in a piece of pie? We’ve got pumpkin and pecan. I’m about to have my second round of the day.”
“Yes, please.”
Mrs. Riley smacks her husband on the ass as he walks by. “I didn’t get the whipped cream. Safeway was closed.”
“Oh, the horror,” Mr. Riley replies.
At my house it would’ve been a major disaster that there was no whipped cream. My mother would’ve written a letter to Safeway detailing the myriad ways she was not going to support their business any longer. But it also would’ve been a non-issue because my mother would never have forgotten the whipped cream and had to go to Safeway on Thanksgiving. She consistently forgot how to act like a human being, but she never forgot something if it was on the never-ending to-do list in her head.
I notice for the first time that Gabe is sitting on the couch and not in his chair. I guess I’m used to seeing him seated and just assumed. I hesitantly walk over and sit next to him on the couch. He braces himself with his hands to keep from falling toward me when my weight caves the seat cushions inward.
“Oops,” I say, embarrassed, and scoot away from him quickly.
He smiles. “No big deal. I should’ve warned you that I faceplant when people sit next to me on the couch. Another awesome thing about being me. I’ve had my face in my dad’s lap more times than I care to remember.”
“You know, FFCH, there are some things I don’t need to know.”
“Well, from one over-sharer to another, them’s the breaks. Don’t ever say I don’t give you some truly horrifying images to chew on.”
I shake my head violently. “I will only think of your dad as a door fixer and a pie bringer and you can’t make me do otherwise.”
“Jesus. You two are weird,” Mrs. Riley says. She rolls her eyes, but then winks at me.
Mr. Riley comes into the family room with two enormous slices of pie on these dainty china plates. He hands one to me. “Here, lemme get you a TV tray.”
He drags a metal tray with legs over to me and I set my pie down on it, resisting squealing like a little girl. At my house, you may have beverages in the den while watching TV on holidays, but under no circumstances were we ever allowed to have food anywhere but the kitchen or dining room table. This. Is. Awesome.
Gabe taps me on the shoulder. “Hey looney tunes, you all right there? You’ve got a super goofy look on your face.”
I shrug. “Pie in the family room is the best thing ever.”
Mr. Riley snorts. “You have to raise your expectations, dear.”
We hang out eating and not eating, watching football and not watching football, talking and not talking. It’s all very easy. Gabe reaches out and rubs my shoulder from time to time and I bring my hand up and run my fingertips over the top of his hand. We’re flirty without being gross. A couple of hours pass this way. Leftovers are brought out and everyone eats again. His mom’s cooking is delicious and the food is better than my mom’s, even though it is nearly identical.
Mrs. Riley stands and saunters over to her husband, reaching a hand out to him. “I need to take a walk or I’m going to burst.”
Mr. Riley happily gets up from his chair and takes his wife’s hand. “We’ll be back in an hour. Mom’s got her phone if you need us.”
“Cool. Have a good walk,” Gabe says, grinning up at his folks. The instant the front door is closed, he turns to me. “I have been dying for them to take a hint. Stand up, will ya?”
Gabe braces himself and I stand up. Then he whips the blanket covering his legs off and takes hold of his left leg, just under the knee, hoisting it up onto the couch. He does the same with the other until he’s lounging back on the armrest.
“Get on top of me.” He licks his lips and looks me up and down, giving me the full-body tingles.
I’m ready and not ready for anything. I take a step toward him and then straddle him, one knee dug into the crack between the cushions and the back of the couch, the other still standing. “Uh, like this?”
“Yeah, except it would be better if you didn’t have any pants on. Or a shirt. Or underwear. I think the word I’m looking for is naked. It would all be better all of my days if you were naked, m’kay?”
I tug my shirt off over my head and then grab the hem of his long sleeve t-shirt and push it up his chest. “Will you settle for topless?”
“Topless is never a bad option with you.”
“Will you do me the honors?” I look down at the front clasp on my bra.
With a hint of mischief in his eyes, Gabe unhooks my bra and pulls the fabric cups to the sides, my breasts spilling free. They are unsupported for about a millisecond before Gabe’s hands are on them, kneading them liberally and scraping his thumbnails over my nipples. I lean over him, my hair grazing his bare chest.
“That feels good,” I whisper and then lower my mouth to his.
His tongue prods at mine and then draws back, licking my lower lip. “I want to make you feel great.”
He raises his head to my chest and looks at me as he takes my right nipple into his mouth, sucking hard. I moan a little letting him know he’s on a good and very right track.
Gabe circles my nipple with his tongue and then blows on it. The cool air makes it taut and I lower my hips to his, putting all the weight of my lower body on him.
“Mmm, I like that,” he says. “I can feel the pressure of you against me.”
“Where,” I ask, nudging my right breast to his mouth, getting it its due.
Gabe clears his throat. “I can feel the pressure of YOU against ME.”
“Ah ha.” I blush, even though the guy has half my boob in his mouth. I lean further over and brace myself by putting my hands on his shoulders, essentially holding him down. His eyes widen and he wiggles his eyebrows at me. I file that away under HE LIKES IT and start moving my pelvis against his, hoping this is also something he likes … and can sort of feel. The idea of getting him off turns me on so much. To be the person that can do that for him makes me feel powerful, like nothing else does.
“That’s hot, the way you move like that,” he says, coming up for air. “Am I responding?”
I slow down and widen my stance, searching to feel his hardness between my legs. “Not yet.”
“It’s still really hot, believe me, I have such a mind boner right now.”
I kiss him, because how can you not kiss the guy who has a mind boner for you?
“I need your shirt all the way off,” I say. “I want you to feel me where I can feel you.”
I sit up and he pulls his shirt off over his head, dropping it to the floor next to mine. I lay on top of him, pressing my breasts to his chest, reveling in the tightness with which he holds me to him.
“I feel you all the way like this,” he whispers in my ear. “Can you deal if this is all of me that … works?”
I think about a moment ago when I was getting off on the power of getting him hard and I know I want that, but I also really, really like this. This is a connection. This is about both of us and not my stupid ego and what it needs. Can I deal, though? If this is it? If this is all I’ll ever be able to give him, because I know he can make me come. Without a doubt he can satisfy me, but that’s not really what I’m hesitant about.
“Can you deal if this is all of you that works?” I ask tenderly.
“I want to.” He brushes my hair back from my face and touches my chin, lifting my face to look at him. “You’re the unknown, Brynn. You’re like standing on the high dive in a dream – you have to have had this dream, I think all swimmers have – where you’re up there and you’re looking down and you can’t see the bottom of the pool and instead of being afraid, you want it. You want to be in that water more than anything, to immerse yourself in it because it makes you feel alive.”
“And so you dive in?” I ask. I’ve never had that dream, yet I know exactly where he’s coming from. He’s that for me, too.
Gabe kisses my forehead. “Damn right you do.” He chuckles. “Although, it’s better as a metaphor for falling in love than it is in practicality.” He points to himself. “Exhibit A.”
“Why you always gotta ruin a moment, man?”
“Why you always gotta talk like a hustler from a ’70s TV show?”
“Bitch, I gots no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” I sit up, resting back on my heels. “Is this how your make out sessions have always gone? In my experience, there is less endearing love talk and mention of hustlers. Usually, you know, mouth on my tits, hands down my pants, that sorta thing.”
“I strive to not be Andy,” Gabe says, resting his hands on my hips. I feel him flexing his fingers against my skin. “And I want to be your friend, too, as shocking as that may sound. I think the high dive emotions only come for someone you actually like in addition to wanting to bang.”
And that’s when he gets hard.
I take his hands, placing one on my left breast and one on his erection. “Which do you think did that? Boobs or friendship?”
“Huh,” he says, then laughs. “You. Both are part of you, and this is what you do to me.”
I fall on top of him and look into his eyes. “That’s the rightest answer any man has ever given any woman.”
“The water feels perfect, doesn’t it?” he asks.
“You got that right, my man.”
And now that you're stuffed with an awesome read, time for the side dish. One that Stacey gets requested to make all of the time
Stacey's stuffed mushrooms
20 large crimini or button mushrooms
1 crisp red apple of your choice (I like gala)
1 crisp red apple of your choice (I like gala)
16 oz tube Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage (regular - not maple or sage)
1 4 oz container of blue cheese crumbles
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
-Preheat oven to 350°.
-Rinse mushrooms off in a colander, and remove the stems.
-Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a large baking dish. Place mushrooms top down in dish.(Try to cram them all in there. They get smaller as they bake.)
-Drizzle more olive oil over the mushrooms. Salt and pepper them.
-Put them in the oven for 10 minutes.
-Finely chop half of the mushroom stems.
-Add them to the entire tube of sausage in a skillet and cook the mixture on med-high until the sausage is cooked through.
-Set the mixture aside in a mixing bowl.
-Slice the apple up however you do and cut about half of it into small dice. You want 3/4 of a cup. Eat the rest of the apple. Yum.
-Add the apple to the sausage mushroom mixture.
-Take mushroom caps out of oven. They should have given off quite a bit of liquid. It should be pooling inside. Bake 5 minutes more of this isn't the case. If they are good to go, tip the mushrooms and pour the liquid into the dish.
-Add the container of blue cheese crumbles to the mixture and stir.
-Fill the mushroom caps with a heaping tablespoon of the mixture.
-You will have some left over. Either save it for later or put in the pan between the mushrooms.
*if I am feeling super lazy, sometimes I don't fill the mushrooms and I just dump the filling on top of them.
-Cover with foil and bake another 10 minutes.
-Rinse mushrooms off in a colander, and remove the stems.
-Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of a large baking dish. Place mushrooms top down in dish.(Try to cram them all in there. They get smaller as they bake.)
-Drizzle more olive oil over the mushrooms. Salt and pepper them.
-Put them in the oven for 10 minutes.
-Finely chop half of the mushroom stems.
-Add them to the entire tube of sausage in a skillet and cook the mixture on med-high until the sausage is cooked through.
-Set the mixture aside in a mixing bowl.
-Slice the apple up however you do and cut about half of it into small dice. You want 3/4 of a cup. Eat the rest of the apple. Yum.
-Add the apple to the sausage mushroom mixture.
-Take mushroom caps out of oven. They should have given off quite a bit of liquid. It should be pooling inside. Bake 5 minutes more of this isn't the case. If they are good to go, tip the mushrooms and pour the liquid into the dish.
-Add the container of blue cheese crumbles to the mixture and stir.
-Fill the mushroom caps with a heaping tablespoon of the mixture.
-You will have some left over. Either save it for later or put in the pan between the mushrooms.
*if I am feeling super lazy, sometimes I don't fill the mushrooms and I just dump the filling on top of them.
-Cover with foil and bake another 10 minutes.
Eat 'em up, yum!
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Get Diving In today on Kindle for 2.99 or FREE with Kindle Unlimited! http://amzn.to/1MXu4Bj
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About The Author
Stacey Wallace is a full-time author and mama, and a part-time lunch lady. She writes engaging romances that make her readers snort-laugh, ugly cry, and fall in love with her characters.
Stacey lives in Beaverton, OR, a suburb of Portland, which suits her just fine as she can always find parking.
Stalk her online at http://staceywallacebenefiel.com/
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