Thanks to everyone who commented on our blog last month. The winner of the two free books is Jenna Blue! Congrats, Jenna, on your win, and thank you for being a loyal reader! 

Welcome to the special June edition of the Violet Femmes blog. To mix things up this month, we’ve decided to depart from offering our usual words of wisdom ;), and instead, offer you a short story, co-written by us all. It’s a story round robin, with the jumping off point a picture prompt. Jaye starts us off. Thanks for visiting. Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win this month’s prize…a tin of specialty tea and a mug, from Hugh Jackman’s Laughing Man coffee and tea company (www.livelaughingman.com).

Fiats were not designed for girls with hips.

As Amelia put one wedge-sandaled foot out onto the drive, a small pouf of dust rose up, then swirled off to join the full-on storm of grit that had materialized behind the miniscule car as she had driven up the road leading to the imposing structure now before her. She twisted in the driver’s seat, attempted to put the other foot out. No luck. Reaching down in front of the seat, she grasped the lever and wrestled it to the side. The driver’s seat shot back, causing her thigh to slam into the car’s door frame. “Sugar beets!” she swore. Amelia rubbed at the spot, knowing that when she got ready for bed later, there would be a nasty bruise on her leg.

Able now to swing her other leg around, she found her footing on the uneven ground, and used the armrest on the car door to push herself up out of the car. She gazed up at the octagonal turret, its crenellations reaching toward the sky like fingers trying to harness the clouds. She suppressed a shiver, and drew her hooded capelet tight around her shoulders. If it weren’t for the sunny Italian countryside surrounding the austere facade of the castle, Amelia would be convinced she had just stepped into an animated feature film, complete with dancing candlesticks, singing tea kettles, and a big hairy beast.

She retrieved her oversized Fendi knock-off purse from the back seat, and picked her way across the dusty drive and along the cobbled walkway to the front door of the castle. If you could call a cross-section of a sequoia a door, because that is what the oversized portal reminded her of. Amelia lifted the heavy bronze ring at the door’s center and let it drop. “Knocker” was too tame a word…the force of the metal hitting the door sounded more like a battering ram.

Immediately, the door cracked open, and a pair of watery black eyes under bushy grey eyebrows peered out at her. “May I help you?” a weak masculine voice asked in Italian.

“I’m here to see Signore Buzzino,” Amelia replied. Italian was second-nature to her, thanks to her Nonna…and a year spent in the passionate arms of the man of the house.

The eyes looked her up and down, and the man’s upper lip curled up in a sneer. “Signore Buzzino is not at home. Good-bye.”

The butler, or whatever he was, tried to shut the door. Unfortunately for him, Amelia thought, he didn’t know whom he was up against. You didn’t mess with a girl from Jersey. She flat-palmed the door, and, catching the man off guard, she pushed the door open farther.

“I’ll just wait, then,” she said, and stepped inside onto the worn marble floors.

“You cannnot…” the man sputtered.

“Si, signore…I can. And I will. Please tell Rafaele I am waiting.”

Resigned to do her bidding, the butler led Amelia through the cavernous foyer of the castle, into a small library off to the side. He indicated a large, velvet-upholstered chair. “You may wait here. It may be awhile.” He left her to find his master.

Amelia removed her cape and hung it on the back of the chair, then made her way to the shelves along one wall. She perused the titles, running her fingers along the spines of the leather-bound books, trying to glean some insight into their owner…a man she had thought she knew quite well, only last fall. It was five months since she had seen him. Had he changed as much as she had?

She caught her reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. My, she looked a wreck! Reaching into her purse, she looked for the comb she always carried. With it in hand, she returned her gaze to the mirror, and froze. Electricity shot through her, from her toes to the top of her head, as her green eyes met Rafaele’s deep mahogany ones. His hand grasped hers, and she dropped the comb she held.

He turned her around to face him. “Don’t, cara mia. I like your hair wild. It reminds me of how you look, right after our lovemaking.”

Amelia gasped, and in a breath, she was in his arms, his lips crashing down on hers.