Spotlight & Giveaway: Working Man by L.B. Alexander

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author L.B. Alexander to HJ!

Hi L.B. Alexander and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Working Man!

 
Hello hello! I’m so excited to be back! <3
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Working Man is a modern-day, gender-swapped, Pretty Woman romance, about an ambitious young tech executive…and her handsome male escort!
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Exactly thirty-one minutes separated me from what I was certain would turn out to be the worst decision of my life.
I’d spent ninety hyperactive seconds painting my face, but couldn’t steady my nervous hands enough to properly style the overgrown willow that framed it. That left getting dressed on the itinerary, but I was paralyzed with indecision as three outfits silently taunted me from the foot of the hotel bed.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

Oh my gosh, where do I start…this book was *so* much fun to write. Seriously. I was just coming off of my first series, a super dark romance, and I needed something fun and steamy to get my creativity flowing again. I rewatched Pretty Woman for the millionth time (romance movies always get me in the romance-writing mood!), and I got to thinking: as iconic as Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are in this film…how cool would it be to see these roles reversed? So I sat down to write just as an experiment, and 100k+ words later…we have Working Man!

• The title is taken from the song “Working Man” (just like Pretty Woman)
• The heroine’s name Violet is inspired by the 19th century opera that originally inspired Pretty Woman, La traviata…the courtesan in that opera is named Violetta.
• I have a number of friends who work for some of the most popular dating apps (and even more friends who use them!), so I relied heavily on their insight for crafting the fictional world of Bacchus, where our ambitious heroine is an executive director.
• I interviewed a real male escort for my initial research for this book, because I wanted to be 100% sure I was portraying the profession with as much accuracy and sensitivity as possible. He was a great sport and super informative!

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?

So our heroine is Violet Luna, the 29-year-old executive director of a popular dating app. When I first started writing this story, I knew I wanted Violet to be confident, smart, and highly ambitious (with a killer wardrobe to boot!). We see alpha men in romance all the time, but I think there’s definitely some room for more alpha women! What surprised me as I continued writing, however, is that Violet started to reveal a deeply emotional, sensitive side to her character…and it was something I simply couldn’t resist exploring further.

Gabriel de Graaf, our hero, is a 33-year-old, devastatingly handsome elite male escort originally from the Netherlands. He is my first experience writing a “beta” hero, and I was surprised to find that there’s actually a great deal of strength in this character type–in some ways, more than an alpha! Gabriel is devoted, non-judgmental, and tirelessly eager to please, and he exercises great restraint, patience, and personal sacrifice to ensure the woman he loves is always treated like a princess. Now that I’ve written a beta hero, I’m definitely eager to write some more!

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

Oooh! I would definitely pick the scene when Violet first hires Gabriel, and asks him about his profession as a male escort–specifically, whether or not he has sex with clients ;). I love this moment because it’s playful and flirtatious, reveals incredible chemistry between the characters, and demonstrates that Gabriel’s attraction to Violet is for far more than her net worth.

Here’s a sneak peek below:

“I do not sell sex, Violet.”
“Of course not! I’m so so sorry…I wasn’t trying to imply—”
“But I have had the pleasure of…knowing a select few of my…special clients. Intimately,” he finished.
So he didn’t sell sex.
He apparently offered it as a form of customer appreciation for elite patrons.
“And what establishes one as a…special client?” I asked quietly. He stole another three of my fries before answering.
“The same criteria I imagine you’d use before deciding whether or not you’ll invite a man to your bed. Mutual desire. Trust. A diligent commitment to health and safety. And of course, very strong attraction.”
My burger was finished after only two more bites, which left nothing to keep my mouth busy since Gabriel had commandeered my fries.
I knew I shouldn’t have asked my next question even before I’d fully formed the thought in my head. But it was as if my sex drive was functioning independently from my mind, and I could only watch helplessly as I crashed and burned.
“So how about we…know each other…tonight?” I asked before I could stop myself. I was too afraid to look at him, so I kept my eyes fixed on my bottle of sparkling water.
“No, Violet.”
I wasn’t surprised. I’d walked right into the jaws of this humiliating conversation, burger-and-fry-stuffed belly exposed.
I appreciated that he was honest, however.
“Okay.”
“You asked me to be a gentleman. Professional. A casual friend,” Gabriel added. For the first time tonight, I wished he’d stop talking.
“And if I hadn’t asked you to behave that way, would that have changed your answer?” I asked.
Shut. The hell. Up.
My drunk, wounded, unbearably horny pride just would not keep quiet.
“No, it wouldn’t have. But it may have changed my delivery .”
I rolled my eyes. “Meaning what? You would have wrapped your ‘no’ in a pretty, Dutch-accented package of disingenuous flattery?” My voice was rising, and even I could detect how irrationally offended I sounded.
He was just doing what he’d been paid to do.
I really needed to calm down, for it was more than a little disconcerting just how quickly my fiery lust could turn into fiery rage, how quickly my primitive, undersexed brain could assert entitlement to his body…
After several moments of tense silence, Gabriel shook his head with a distant, rebellious smirk. “Violet, if I had the liberty to remove the pretense of acting as your casual friend, and suspend the propriety that you requested…I would have told you I’ve been wanting to fuck you since you answered the door tonight, and it was indeed my hardening cock you felt against that sweet ass of yours while you were grinding your body against me.”

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

That happily ever afters are for everyone <3

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I’m currently back in my dark romance world, and I’m working on Wild Swan, the next full-length novel in the Swan Series!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: I’m so excited to offer a signed print copy of Working Man to one lucky U.S. winner, along with a box of Godiva chocolates to enhance your reading pleasure <3

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: If you were to design the *perfect* dinner date, what three qualities would they need to have?

 
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Excerpt from Working Man:

“Interesting. You’re more tense now than you were when we started,” he purred. He’d spoken directly in my ear, his hands at rest just above my knees.
“I’m…just…I’m trying to be…professional. Like you,” I replied shakily. He released a low tone of recognition, a deep hum that sounded almost like a groan as his hands broadly swept all the way down to my ankles, before carving a new, persistent path up the sides of my legs.
All the way to my hips.
“And these red panties you’re wearing…is that you trying to be professional?”
My face instantly flushed, but I was too turned on to care. “Well…you’re the one looking at them,” I quipped back.
His answering laugh was like a reward, that seductive, quiet reverberation that struck me right where I wanted him to touch me the most.
His hands paused around my pelvis, lightly skirting along the thin band of my underwear. “You’ll have to forgive me, Violet. I’m indeed finding it very hard…to maintain such decorum.”
Gabriel walked around the edge of the table, seemingly nonchalant. But for a split-second, an unmistakable bulge was right in front of my face, instantly triggering the heated stream between my legs to become a raging waterfall.
“Perhaps we can amend our agreement, then. Perhaps…I don’t want you to be a gentleman…” I heard myself say.
His fingers curled in the lace, tightening the fabric against my body. The gusset pressed urgently against my swollen clit, and I couldn’t help my automatic pleasured cry.
“I’m not going to fuck you tonight, Violet.” His voice had dropped, almost harshly, as if he were experiencing some great strain.
His hands remained on my hips, however, still attached to the thin piece of cloth protecting me from full nudity.
“So…what will you do?” I asked softly. I knew I was playing with fire, but I didn’t care about getting burned.
I wanted him to scorch me.
“Turn around.”
I was already moving before I could think about tightening my abdominals to try to minimize the softness in my stomach. For the first time in my life, my physical desire was stronger than my physical insecurity. Greedy and aching, I was helpless to resist the urge to do exactly as my arousal guided me.
I crossed my arms over my breasts as I sat up to face him, wondering what he would tell me to do next.
His eyes were dark and focused, that same intense look he’d given me on the dance floor.
Now, it seemed even stronger.
It was pure, unadulterated lust.
The fact that he, the sexiest man I’d ever seen, was currently excited, and for me, was the headiest high I could ever fathom. I no longer felt like a queen.
I felt like a goddess.
“Put your arms down.”
I obeyed immediately, arms falling unceremoniously to my sides, and Gabriel sharply inhaled.
His eyes swept up and down my body, not lewdly, and not critically, but as if in wonderment. He stared at my legs, even my stomach, pausing on my breasts with clear hunger.
He stepped forward, re-twisting his fingers in my underwear .
And with a seductive curl of his lips, he slowly peeled them off.
“Now spread your legs for me,” he said, a subtle command in his voice.
I folded my lips to halt my automatic whimper of embarrassment as I apprehensively parted my thighs.
He licked his lips. “Wider, Violet.”
I strained to inch my legs farther apart, my knees at rest on opposite corners of the dining room table.
And no sooner had I finished moving did Gabriel sink to his knees on the floor below me.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 

Book Info:

Violet Luna is a new brand of “It Girl.”

Young.
Beautiful.
Executive Director of a viral sensation dating app.

To the outside world, her life is an unattainable fantasy of glitz and glamor.

Well… the “fantasy” part is true.

Reeling from a nasty break-up with an up-and-coming movie star, Violet is painfully aware that it will tarnish her company’s reputation if she shows up to their annual retreat alone. What’s a girl to do but hire the most devastatingly sexy elite male escort she can find?

Gabriel de Graaf was meant to be nothing more than a dirty little secret as Violet dared to walk on the wild side. But when he awakens a passion within her, Violet soon realizes that one night with this handsome Dutchman won’t be close to enough…

Author L.B. Alexander delivers a gender-swapped Pretty Woman romance that will leave readers swooning over each sizzling page!

Book Links: Amazon |
 
 

Meet the Author:

L.B. Alexander is an author of intense, provocative, passionate romance, and has spent her entire life enraptured by the sheer transformative power of the written word. In addition to writing, she is a professional marketeer, a baker, an animal-lover, a tree-hugger, a perpetual wanderluster, and a massive art history nerd. An optimist at heart, aficionada of luxury, and true believer in happily ever afters, she strives to tell memorable, passionate stories that can intrigue, challenge, arouse, and most importantly, inspire. She is based in perpetually sunny Southern California.
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