And the completely fictional award goes to...

The hero who's Most Likely to Make You Melt With His Sweet Nothings...

The nominees:

Sebastian St. Amant (Should've Known Better), who speaks French
Marco D'Alessandro (Momentum), who speaks Italian
Paolo D'Alessandro (Velocity), who also speaks Italian

Here are some examples of the sweet nothings:

Sebastian -

He started to pick her up, and she protested. “I can walk. You’ll hurt yourself.”
Sebastian scoffed. “Ma belle, I bench two hundred fifty pounds for twenty reps three times a week. A tiny thing like you is not going to hurt me. Je suis un homme grand et fort.”
Sarah laughed as he described himself as a big, strong man.


Marco-

“Aren’t you going to kiss me goodnight?”
Marco ran a fingertip down her cheek and then over her lower lip. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“Not for anything in the world, amante.”

Paolo-

“Tu sei la mia bella donna,” he whispered, still playing with her hair with one hand as the other was trapped under the pillow.

Savannah smiled. “Why does it turn me on so much when you speak Italian?”

Paolo chuckled. “Maybe I should do it more often.”

“Maybe you should.” She ran her fingertips down his neck and over his torso. “What does it mean?”

Tilting her head up, he looked into her eyes and said, “You are my beautiful woman.”

“Wow.”

“Voglio che tu così tanto.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I want you so much.”

“So many words to express a simple concept.”

Who should be the winner? (And yes, I did try to make them around the same length, but it was difficult.)

Tell me in the comments and you can win a copy of the 2013 Hot Damn calendar. Scott Nova, who's featured in it, signed it while he was at RT.

For more information about me or my books, check out my website at http://www.booksbycassandracarr.com.

If I wasn't a writer...

The crazy members of the Cabal of Hotness need keepers. This is something we know. But we do try to keep each other in line. One of the more organizationally-skilled members of the Cabal is the lovely Danica Avet. Danica, in her infinite wisdom, has provided the rest of us with themes for our blogging.

I love themes. They make blogging way easier. If I don't have to come up with a topic, I'm already ahead of the game. So why am I talking about all this? First, because I can. It's my blog post and I'll do what I want. *evil cackle* Second, because the theme of this blog is:

If I wasn't a writer...

Huh. If I wasn't a writer. I assume the biggest question here is "What would I be?" and I suppose "An unemployed housewife sitting around the house and eating bonbons" is an unacceptable answer. You people are slave drivers.

Okay, so what would I be? As boring as it sounds, I'd probably go back to what I was doing in my Evil Day Job - marketing/PR/media relations/event planning. Yes, I was a Jack (or more accurately) Jill-of-all-Trades, Master of None. I worked in my Evil Day Job during the Great Corporate Restructuring, when employees were being laid off, departments were being consolidated, and entire companies were being swallowed up. So even though I started out in a specific area - market research - I soon had to learn a lot of other skills.

I didn't hate the work. I hated some of the companies and most of my idiot bosses, but I liked the work itself. And I was good at it. I especially loved doing media relations and PR for the cancer hospital in my area. You see, I'm a cancer survivor, and that hospital is where I had my treatment. I literally owe them my life. After treatment, I worked at the hospital at two separate times doing two completely different things, but of the two positions, I loved doing the PR and media relations.

It was awesome work to tell people what a great place the hospital was. I'm sure some of you are thinking - it's a cancer hospital where people die every day. What's so great about that? It's true, of course, that people die every day there. But a lot of people live. And they live because of the great medical and research staffs the hospital employs. So why wouldn't I focus on that and be grateful for that?

So if I wasn't a writer, I'd hopefully still be working for that hospital, tooting its horn 'round the globe.

Now that we've gotten that serious stuff out of the way, have you seen my latest covers? Might want to get a drool cloth...

Yummy, no? For more information about these books or any of my others, check out my website at http://www.booksbycassandracarr.com.

-- Cassandra