Always a Booklover: Blog Tour: Waking Up in the Wrong Bed by Natalie Anderson

Hey guys! Welcome to today's blog tour! Today, Natalie will be joining us for a guest post and there's a scene from the book so do stick around to read it!

Waking Up in the Wrong Bed by Natalie Anderson

When film location scout Ellie Summers sneaks into a colleague's hotel room with seduction in mind, she's thrilled by her own daring!  

But the smug morning-after glow morphs into red-faced mortification when she wakes in the arms of a total stranger! Ruben Theroux might be fine with the situation, but a flustered Ellie most definitely is not.  

Ellie's only defence against this very attractive guy is to insist they're friends only--strictly no benefits! But Ruben isn't a successful businessman for nothing--they'll be good together, and he's happy to play dirty to get what he wants....

Buy it from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

Natalie Anderson

USA TODAY bestseller Natalie Anderson writes fun, frisky, feels-good contemporary romance for Harlequin Mills & Boon and Entangled. With over twenty books published, she’s also been a Romantic Times Award nominee & a finalist for the R*BY (Romantic Book of the Year). She lives in Christchurch, New Zealand with her husband, four children and what feels like a million ducks. Find out more at her website and be sure to sign up for her newsletter there as she often has subscriber only eTreats!

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Time for a short excerpt!

[In this scene, it’s the morning after and Ellie has just realised the guy behind her in bed isn’t who she thought it was…]

Ellie struggled to hide her breathlessness. Shock still had her lungs in a tight grip, but so did desire—she was seconds from orgasm and, frankly, that doubled her shock.

She stared at the complete stranger only a couple of feet from her. The stranger that she now knew so intimately. And just looking at him sent her heart rate through the ceiling.

“You’re okay?” The soft query delivered between dangerously curved lips. That gorgeous smile was as natural to him as the stripes were to the tiger. Oh yeah, he’d been blessed with beautiful lips, upturned at the ends so he looked like he was always in good humour. Which, given all his other assets, he probably was.

She clutched the sheet closer. Only her action dragged the sheet completely off him and yeah, this was definitely not Nathan. And his natural assets were… sizable.

“I’m so sorry this happened,” she said again, determined to ignore the savage desire rippling through her like some internal beast that refused to be tamed. What kind of depraved animal had she turned into?

“I’m not.”

She hardly heard him as she apologized another ten times, interspersing the phrase with a few more choice words beneath her breath. Clutching the sheet to her with one hand she put her now freezing hand to her face.

He sat up, resting his weight on one hand behind him and spoke more forcefully. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to.”

That silenced her for all of a second. “You didn’t have much choice.” She looked across the bed at him. “I seduced you.”

And now, let's welcome Natalie to the blog!

Movies & Mayhem: creating a fun career for my heroine

In recent times New Zealand has gotten something of a name for providing the scenery for some fantastic movies (thank you Sir Peter Jackson). Yes, I really do live in Middle Earth and yes, our country really is that beautiful. But it’s not just the landscape we can provide, but also amazing digital and technical skills. So our capital city, Wellington, is sometimes referred to as ‘Wellywood’ – the film production capital of the South Pacific.

I was thinking about this when it came to plotting my next romance. I thought about all the side industries that benefit from the movie industry and thought it would be fun to explore that with my characters. I love trying to come up with interesting occupations for my heroines and I usually give them a job I’d love to do in another life. And I’d love to be involved in the movie business in some sense—not in front of the camera, nor really behind it, but on the fringes—as a fan. So that was the kind of job I gave Ellie Summers, heroine of WAKING UP IN THE WRONG BED. She’s a tour guide—showing film buffs around former sets and the countryside where epic battle scenes were enacted. It’s a lot of fun—she loves meeting her tourists and sharing in the fandom—but it’s also very hard work and of course not everything goes to plan all of the time! And never when she’s being pursued by a gorgeous rogue like Ruben Theroux!

Here’s a scene where Ellie is on a tour with some fans of the (fictional) fantasy duo:

Ellie grinned as she took photos, photos and oh yes, more photos for the tourists as they posed outrageously in front of the mother of all rocks that had been used in the penultimate scene of the mock Greek-myth movie franchise.

Yeah, she too was the kind of girl who’d want to dance in the Sound of Music summerhouse if she ever got to Salzburg. She’d go to Tiffany’s and eat breakfast with her nose pressed to the window pane… so she totally got where her attendees were coming from. And she wanted them to have that experience of their lifetimes, for it to be worth the massive journeys they’d taken. They were die-hard fans, and die-hard fans did not like to be disappointed.

“Okay, random dialogue time – spot prize to the person who answers this,” she broke into a speech, one of the less famous quotes that eventually led into one of the film’s greatest scenes.

One guy stepped up immediately, answering her bit part player’s throw away comment with the hero’s ‘impassioned plea’. She continued the scene – taking another character’s part, wanting to see how far he’d go and whether he could achieve UFS – Ultimate Fan Status. She set the bar super high so not many did, but she had a good feeling about this guy.

As she’d suspected, her tour ‘hero’ kept the exchange up for the entire scene – and when it ended, the rest of the group clapped and whistled. Laughing Ellie took his hand and guided him to take a bow. Yeah, it really was the best job ever.

She checked her watch to ensure they weren’t getting behind on time. The movie reenactment had gone on longer than she’d expected when he’d made it to UFS. “Okay everyone, you’ve got another fifteen here, I’ll be at the bus finding Kenny’s prize.”

Back outside the rain had eased – slightly. She bent her head, getting ready for the dash across the carpark.

“You can’t tell me you don’t want to be an actress.” A drawl, right in her ear. “Diva.”

She jumped, dropping her clipboard as she clutched her chest – stopping her heart from literally leaping out of it.

“Ruben,” she puffed as she turned. “You’re here because…?”

He handed her the clipboard he’d already retrieved. “I was visiting the cave. Lucky coincidence, huh?”

Ellie wasn’t convinced – not when his eyes twinkled like that.

“You’re amazing,” he continued, ignoring her astounded snuffle. “You have them eating out of your hand. They’re loving it. Even in the sodding rain they’re loving it.”

He’d been watching them in there? Oh that wasn’t embarrassing at all.

“It’s not me,” she rushed to snuff that burn in his eyes – and douse the roaring inferno that had combusted in her belly at the mere sight of him. “It’s because they’re such fans of the film. Doesn’t matter what I do, they’re still going to be blown away by being here.”

He shook his head. “No, you do everything for them and more. No small hassle too much trouble. Your patience with the camera posing is phenomenal.”

He’d been watching a while then? She giggled – and immediately cringed at her girlishness. “I’m gritting my teeth over some of it. There are always one or two more difficult clients.”

“And one or two desperate to get into your pants.”

“Oh that’s not true.” But she blushed.

“That guy Kenny was all over you.”

“He was acting the part.” And she hadn’t let him end that scene with the kiss that had happened in the movie.

“No, you’re his leading lady now,” Ruben teased, stepping nearer. “He’s over his comic book heroine crush and fixed on someone real for the first time in his life.”

“He’s just being friendly.”

“He’s just being unsubtle.”

“And you’re not?” She raised her brows at the way he’d moved in on her while speaking.

“Naturally I’m being as unsubtle as possible to let him and the rest of them know that you’re not available.”

She glanced over his shoulder, panicking that some of her charges might come out of the cave and see her standing unprofessionally close to a random stranger. “But I’m not available for you either.” A breathless rush of determined denial.

“I’m conveniently forgetting that for this moment.”

Hadn’t she known he’d be difficult to handle? Totally the kind to tumble a girl to her back, and have her breathless and delighted before she’d so much as blinked. “This isn’t a good time,” she began.

“It’s a perfect time. You have fifteen minutes before you have to round them back up on the bus.” He took her hand and led her across the carpark, to the shelter of the trees on the far side. Out of anyone’s view. “Fifteen minutes…”

“Ruben…” Oh this was not a good idea, but her heart was skipping and her limbs already sliding towards that warm, supple state. She inhaled deeply and valiantly strove for sanity. She was at work.