It's Apple Trail Week on Pearl's World of Romance and today I have the pleasure of welcoming the lovely Keri Ford herself to share with you all a favorite excerpt from one of the Apple Trail books. Make sure you comment on the post as each comment is thrown is in hat for some great prizes, offered by Keri:

- one autographed print copy of Uninhibited in Apple Trail, Vol.1 --open to international residents
- eCopies of Through The Wall, On The Fence, In The Hay. --open to international residents (Winner's Choice)
- 2 Apple Trail Jars --US residents only

Please help me give Keri a warm welcome and get this Apple Trail Week rolling!


Thanks for having me this week!! I am so excited to be here and talking about Apple Trail, and even better, watching others talk about it. The chance for interaction is awesome, so if anyone has any questions on anything, drop it in the comments! I’ll be checking in!

The excerpt below is from THROUGH THE WALL and I really like it cause it’s when Stephanie (heroine) really overcomes her nerves and asks for what she wants. This moment is what this entire series is all about. Taking that step out of your comfort zone, thumbing your nose at what someone might think and just going for it. While for some, that’s a not a big deal, for others, you just don’t do that kind of thing! Why your Great Aunt May might hear about it and she’ll tell her bridge club crew and then the whole town will be knowing all your business and before you know it, your momma can’t show her face in church.

This is from the first chapter, but it’s a changing moment for Stephanie mentally. A moment of, I’m in it now, like hell am I backing out!

Excerpt:

Parker squeezed her against his side, hugging her close and then loosened his grip. “Well, here I am, at your service all night long.”
That was a loaded statement if she’d ever heard one. If she had ovaries worth some salt she’d yell, okay! But she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed again and fumbled around for a polite way to ask for dirty-ish sex. She was pretty sure there wasn’t one. Well, bock-bock and cluck the walk home or take a risk. She was going to do it. “Parker, I need some help.”
He didn’t wait a beat. “I’m all yours, doll, ask away.”
She nodded and walked, drawing him away from the barbeque and the crowd, steering him toward home. Home was an apartment across the street, so it wasn’t much of a walk. Which meant she better get it out before they crossed the double yellows in the middle of the road. She would never voice her question out loud once they were inside the building where all the neighbors might hear. Plus the middle of the road offered the added bonus of being able to run anywhere if he laughed. Like head-first into a car.
He hugged her against his side, gently jostling her. “Never known you to be so quiet.”
Parker was right. And she needed this. She pulled in a deep breath, stopped right there in the middle of the dead Sunday afternoon road and stared right into his eyes. “I want rough…er, sex.”
He looked at her for a long moment and finally he chuckled. “Funny.”
There was her way out of this conversation. She could laugh with him and that’d be it. But she didn’t want out. “I’m not being funny.”
“Uh-huh. And how much did you have to drink?” He tugged on her hair. “Not like you to drink this much.”
“I’ve only had a few.”And she was feeling darn sober at the moment. “I’m serious.”
His mouth dropped and his arm fell away from her shoulder. His eyes drifted closed as he shook his head. “We’ve never...”
She was in deep now, she wouldn’t back away. The margaritas were a help. Ding! Point two for having four. She swallowed and sucked in a deep breath. “I know. I want to. To find out.”
His mouth snapped shut. His jaw tightened, giving her the first sign of just how big of a mistake this might be, but she refused to give up, so she forced onward. He had to at least think about it. “I want something more than plain vanilla. Nothing extreme like cherry blizzard blast, but maybe a little chocolate with syrup.” She rubbed her neck. “And a little squirt of whipped cream.”
Or a big squirt.
He wasn’t looking at her. In fact, he had turned away until his tight jeans curving along his nice ass faced her. The sun blazed down even hotter on the pavement somehow or maybe it was embarrassment burning her through and through. That scent of melting tar? That wasn’t from the hot sun on the pavement but her body catching fire from her blush.
Noise and laughter from the barbeque carried over and echoed off their apartment building and back to them. Which meant, their words could also go back to the barbeque. They weren’t quite as alone as she’d like, especially with a couple of kids coming down the sidewalk toward them. Sweat trickled down her temple and she shifted her feet, kicking a stray rock from the road. There was no breeze or shade. She was sitting under a heat lamp while her future paced about in front of her trying to figure out if she was indeed serious or drunk off her ass.
Parker stopped and stared up at the bright blue sky. “Why me?”
Liquid courage pushed her on. “We’ve been neighbors for months now. Our beds are on the same wall.” He was turning. She could picture his slack-jawed mouth and yep, there it was, right along with big eyes. Not quite horrified, but then, he didn’t exactly looked thrilled. She squared her shoulders and forged ahead. “Well, I think, from what I’ve heard, that is, you could help me.” Before he could say anything, the hum of an engine revved. She glanced back and saw a truck headed their way. Parker put his hand to her back and steered her off the road, toward their building. So much for being in the street to put her out of her misery should this little chat get any worse. And one thing was for certain, this conversation was surely going to get worse.
Parker was shaking his head again. “No. This isn’t a good idea.”
She shrugged, trying to maintain this casual I’m-so-cool-I-can-ask-for-sex look. “It would just be a couple of… encounters.”
“Encounters,” he echoed with a shake of his head. “No. We’re going to our apartments and we’re going to forget this.”
She shook her head. “I’ve never had anything exciting. It’s always been just a rub over my hip, a stroke down my thigh and that’s it. And that was okay, but I want more. I want to be used and—” “I don’t want to hear this.” He jabbed his key in the main door and pulled it open for her.
She stopped in front of him and held him there in the doorway. The blast of the air conditioning slapped her with a whole new sense of drive. She could do this. She could push through. Maybe if she put her chest against his, and slid her leg up his thigh, but she hadn’t drank quite enough for those kinds of moves. “What I’m saying is, it was always the same. Eighty percent of the time, I’ve been on the bottom.”
“Not listening.” He put his hand to her back and turned her in the building.
But he was listening. He wouldn’t be wiping at his brow and tugging at his shirt otherwise.
“I’m not asking for a lot, just something up against a door. Or in the shower. I don’t want to be chained up and beaten with a whip. I just want a little something more. I need this, Parker.”

*Behind the scenes*

-THROUGH THE WALL was just a stroke of luck. I had never wanted to write short. It just wasn’t my thing. Tell an entire story in so FEW words? Terrifying. But I was in a hard place with my writing at the time. I didn’t know what to do, what direction to take. So I decided to write something short and just have fun with it. And, that’s where THROUGH THE WALL came from.

- THROUGH THE WALL was never intended to be part of a series. I purposely wrote it to be self contained. My publisher told me to pitch more when I was ready, so I looked at this story, looked at what I could do with it and BAM—Apple Trail, Arkansas was born with a few edits.

-My editor flagged the line about bock-bock asking if I meant something else and I replied with no, “I mean bock-bock, like chicken speak.” I couldn’t hardly type it for laughing, because it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever said before and just knew she was going to write me off as crazy.

About the Author:
Keri Ford was raised in South Arkansas on a farm surrounded by family, horses, cows, donkeys, ostriches, emus, chickens, ducks, Canadian Geese, and enough dogs one would think they were a pound…and then she bought a Cosmopolitan when she was twenty-two. She doesn’t recall the fantastic sex tip that drew her to the magazine, but she vividly remembers reading an excerpt of Christina’s Skye’s Code Name: Princess. One elevator scene and quick thought of, I didn’t know people wrote stuff like this… and her life would never be the same.

You can find and connect with Keri here:
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