Falling In Love With Your Hero

Today I was running through my manuscript, agonizing over which word I really meant to use. This or that? Checking my punctuation, was it passable? My grammar, was it correct? And then . . . somewhere in the middle of final edits, I fell head over heels in love with the hero.

I don't know about you but I always hate to pick favorites while I'm writing, especially a menage. When I'm finished with the book, I don't want anyone to think I played favorites. In this book, all through the creative process, I really thought I liked Dane best. He's the hero's adopted brother. What I found out today is I actually love them equally. There's no way I'd want to make a decision to stay with one or the other. It's impossible to choose. 

The hero started out almost irredeemable, a real alpha ass. Hey, he slaps the woman he's sleeping with in the first chapter. So what if she likes it, so what if she's an attorney,  so what if she didn't use her safe word. What kind of hero slaps a woman?

But then I discovered the truths. And then he kept doing little things that threw me. An arched brow, a pained look, a worried look, a protective gesture, a light touch, a brush of his lips, a crooked grin, a broad smile, tolerance, patience.

I'm not sure I could tell you the exact page when I realized I was in love. Maybe it was when he tried to scowl because the heroine kept tugging at her too short skirt. 

Or when he discovered the heroine was a virgin succubus, trying to seduce him. He still tries to make her first real time a good  time.

No, I think, it was how he warned her she'd never forget her first lover, just because he was the first, but then set about making sure she didn't ever forget him because he was the best.

Then again maybe it was how he forgave his brother for breaking their one cardinal rule. He slept with the one woman the hero wanted, the heroine. And through it all she loved both brothers.

Well, that I understood so well. I created them and who wouldn't want both, if it didn't destroy their relationship?

Rourke was physically disarming and really great looking so sleeping with him wouldn't be a problem even if he was a little dark. But he was a dragon-shifter and going to need a female of equal power. Enter my heroine, a virgin Fae succubus. Thank goodness she knew what was going on because it gives her an upper hand in the story.

What he really needed was me. I'd straighten him out. I'd make him want me until he burned for me.  He was nothing like I expected. I couldn't help it. I softened. I let him in, and we were trapped together in this lust thing.

So I did what I had to do. I sent them off to the publisher. These two men are just two more in a long list of heroes I'm in love with. So many men so little time.

The book is The Moon, The Madness, and The Magic - Enchanted Mountain 2