The Poison Bottle by LM Somerton

Book 3 in the Treasure Trove Antiques series

General Release Date: 26th July 2022

Word Count: 58,408
Book Length: NOVEL
Pages: 231

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
BONDAGE AND BDSM
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
MYSTERY
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

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Book Description

There’s no antidote to the malignant craving for power and wealth.

Landry Carran should know better than to get involved in yet another murder mystery, but it was hardly his fault that someone dumped a dead body on the doorstep of Treasure Trove Antiques. He can’t resist recruiting his friends to help him play detective.

Meanwhile, Landry’s partner and Dom, Gage Roskam, is doing real detective work that proves hazardous to his health and brings with it the assistance of an annoying Englishman who Gage believes should be behind bars.

The case twists and turns across Seattle’s antique trade, and the bodies multiply. As clues are solved, it becomes apparent that those closest to Gage are in grave danger. He’ll need to control his errant sub, deal with the most irritating Brit ever born and solve the case if he wants to prevent more death.

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, abduction and murder.

Excerpt

Landry Carran gave his ass a rub and grinned at the resulting ache. His boyfriend and Dom, Detective Gage Roskam, had delivered a stupendous spanking less than an hour earlier, and Landry was still glowing—physically and mentally. He gave a happy jig then bounced down the stairs from the apartment he shared with Gage to Treasure Trove Antiques, which occupied the ground floor of the building and was his place of gainful-ish employment. The two cups of strong coffee and bowl of sugar-laden cereal that he’d had for breakfast ensured his current energetic state would last for at least an hour, which was when his best friend and assistant, Petey Templeton, would join him. Landry didn’t usually have to open the store alone, but Petey had finally given in to a nagging toothache and had an early dental appointment.

“Such a wuss,” Landry muttered. “Can’t believe I had to bribe him to go.” Worth it though. An assistant who doesn’t want to eat baked goods is no use to me at all. That globe he had his eye on was a small price to pay. Petey had a thing for maps and had fallen in love with a battered globe that dated back to the nineteen seventies. It was about as accurate as a Fox News report, but Petey liked finding the mistakes. Landry had gotten so fed up of Petey whining about his tooth, he’d promised Petey the globe if he put aside his phobia of dentists and got it taken care of. Landry had also persuaded Carson, Petey’s boyfriend, to act as escort and make sure he made his appointment. Carson had been happy to help because, as he’d put it, “a boyfriend who cries when you kiss him does not boost a man’s confidence.”

Bopping and humming as he went, Landry unlocked the door between the building’s stairwell and the store. As he entered the cavernous space, piled high with antiques and collectables, he took a deep breath. The familiar scent of beeswax polish, old wood and leather always settled him and put him in the right frame of mind for a day at work. He moved around the store, turning on an eclectic mix of lighting—mainly old lamps that were for sale because his boss, Mr. Lao, insisted that they were more attractive to potential buyers when lit. Of course that meant that whenever they sold one, a corner of the store would be in the dark until Mr. Lao obtained a new one to replace it, but Landry didn’t mind because part of Treasure Trove Antiques’ charm was its nooks and crannies. He knew the stock inside and out but loved seeing the wonder on customers’ faces when they spotted something unique or unusual hidden behind an aging armoire or balancing on top of a bookcase stuffed with rare tomes. He glanced around, checking that all was as he’d left it the previous evening. Everything was as it should be. Not that there was any reason for him to think otherwise, but there had been an incident with a mouse once when somehow, the tiny rodent had set up home in a basket of vintage tablecloths and had nibbled a hole through two of them before he was spotted. It had taken a humane trap and enough peanut butter to feed a raccoon, let alone a mouse, to catch the beast, so Landry was constantly on the lookout for any sign of critters in the store.

He grabbed the long pole he needed to lift the security shutter into place then went back into the hall. He left the building then crossed the yard to the alley gate. After his usual fight with the padlock, he rounded the corner of the building to the street. His friend Prisha, whose dad owned the Eastern Emporium opposite Treasure Trove, was outside brushing down the sidewalk with hot soapy water. Landry gave her a wave before jogging across the road.

“Hey, Prisha, what’s going down?”

“What came up, more like.” She grimaced. “Somebody deposited the contents of their stomach on the sidewalk last night. So gross.”

Landry wrinkled his nose. “Better you than me, especially first thing in the morning.”

“Hey, if you want to do a girl a favor, I’d be happy to hand over the broom.”

“No can do.” Landry grinned. “Petey’s at the dentist so I have to open on my own this morning. Gotta go before hordes of voracious customers start beating on the security shutter.”

“Yeah, I can see where they’re lining up around the block.” Prisha went back to brushing. “I’ll come over on my break later. You can buy me a coffee.”

“Deal. Have a good morning.” Landry skipped back across the street, managing not to trip over his pole. He had less trouble opening the security shutter than closing it because he didn’t have to get the hook on the end of his pole through the tiny D-ring that allowed him to draw it down. It was way above his head and like trying to thread a needle while standing on the deck of a pitching boat. Opening up just meant using the pole to push the shutter back into place once he’d released the padlock that locked it to a concealed ring in the sidewalk. A padlock that was no longer in place.

Landry frowned. He distinctly remembered snapping it shut the night before because he’d scraped a knuckle doing it. “Fuckety-fuck. What the heck is going on?”

There was no sign of vandalism or any other damage to the shutter. Landry shrugged, slipped the pole into place then pushed. The shutter rolled up of its own accord, only needing a shove for the last couple of feet. Landry unhooked the pole then gaped. In the recessed store doorway was a person, huddled in a ball, facing away from him.

“What on earth…? Hey, padlock thief, you can’t stay there.” He groped in his pocket for a few dollars. “Go get yourself some breakfast.”

Whoever it was didn’t move. With a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, Landry propped his pole against the store window then leaned over his visitor. He touched his shoulder, gave it a little shake and the man rolled toward him.

“Holy fuck!” He was dead. Completely and absolutely deceased. Blood stained the front of the beige trench coat he wore. There was a blue tinge to his skin and his eyes were open, staring.

Landry danced back a few steps as he stared at the corpse. “No, no, no… This is not good for business. I mean, poor guy, but why my shop doorway?” His cell was inside so he turned and waved frantically at Prisha who dropped her broom before running across the street. “Call 911! I found a body.”

Prisha, who was always good in a crisis, did a quick turn and rocketed into the Eastern Emporium. She was soon back with her dad at her side.

“The cops are on their way,” she said, putting an arm around Landry’s now shaking shoulders. “You should call Gage. Here, use this.” She handed over her cell, but Landry’s hands were trembling too much to punch in the number. Prisha grabbed it back. “Tell me the number. I’ll call him for you.”

Landry reeled it off without thinking. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dead body and his bloodstained clothing.

“Gage, it’s Prisha. I’m here with Landry and… Yes, he’s fine but the dead guy he just found behind the security shutter isn’t looking so good.”

“What?” Landry heard Gage’s yell even from where he was standing. He took the cell back.

“Can you come home, Sir?” Landry used the honorific without thinking, defaulting to his role as Gage’s submissive rather than his boyfriend in his stressed state. “There’s a b-b-b…body. A real-life body, I mean it’s a dead body but it’s real. An actual genuine, honest to God, not breathing, corpse. And it’s in the shop porch blocking the door and there’s blood. Gage, why is there a dead person in my shop doorway?” Tears welled in Landry’s eyes and he sniffled.

“I’m not really in a position to answer that question yet, love. Stay put. Sancha and I are on our way. Who’s there with you?”

“Petey’s at the dentist and Mr. Lao isn’t here but Prisha and her dad have come over.”

“Stay with them. I mean it, Landry. You are not to go anywhere on your own.”

“Not going anywhere,” Landry mumbled as Gage ended the call. “How can I go anywhere when there are dead people?”

“It’s one dead person, Landry, not a massacre.”

“Where there’s one, there might be others. That’s logical.” Landry glanced around in case more corpses littered the place.

Prisha gave him a comforting hug. She and her dad had been joined by the guy who had been cleaning windows at the café next door to Treasure Trove and the crew of a passing garbage truck. The manager of the café arrived with a tray of coffees and a plate piled with Danish pastries.

“Someone came into the café and said there’s a body out here. I know it doesn’t seem appropriate,” she said, “but a hot drink and something sweet will take your mind off what’s going on, Landry. It’ll help with the shock.”

“Thanks, Mary.” Landry discovered that shoving a cherry Danish in his mouth made all the difference. A new infusion of sugar and caffeine into his system helped him see things in a more clinical light and stop thinking about how on earth a dead man had gotten behind the security shutter. “The padlock,” he said, spraying crumbs. “When I came to lift the shutter earlier, the padlock was gone. I wonder where it is.”

The small crowd started searching up and down the sidewalk and it wasn’t long before there was a shout from one of the garbage crew. “Found it!” Landry, coffee in hand, walked over to look at where the guy was pointing. The padlock lay in the gutter, partly covered by a discarded banana skin.

“I guess we should leave it where it is,” Landry said, “in case of fingerprints.”

“That’s right. I’m Elton.” The garbage guy held out his hand, which Landry shook, hoping that his fingers wouldn’t be crushed in the process. Elton was built like a linebacker.

“Nice to meet you, Elton. Shame it couldn’t have been under better circumstances.”

“You’d be surprised how many bodies we come across in our line of work,” Elton said, sounding philosophical. “We get training on what not to do when it comes to possible evidence. We were about to empty the dumpsters along the street when we saw what was going on, so we’ll leave them until the cops get here. They may want to keep the contents to search through for clues.”

“Well, I never thought of that.” Landry was fascinated.

“I don’t suppose antique selling is a job that gets you involved in much crime,” Elton said.

Landry thought about the last few months, the adventures he and Gage had had, first with his lucky cat and then the gilded mirror. “No, not really. Old stuff is tame.”

“I wonder if there are any pastries left.” Elton ambled toward the café where Mary was eyeing him like a piece of prime beef. Landry shook his head. “People sure do meet under the strangest of circumstances,” he muttered, watching Elton get coy and stutter in front of Mary.

Sirens announced the arrival of the cops and not long afterward, Gage’s Jeep screeched to a halt next to a patrol car. He and Sancha jumped out and while Sancha went over to the uniforms, Gage headed straight for Landry.

“Again? Really?” He drew Landry into a tight hug.

“So not my fault,” Landry mumbled into the hard planes of Gage’s chest. “It’s not like I have a sign up saying ‘leave your dead bodies here’, is it?”

“You attract trouble like a magnet.”

Landry nuzzled against Gage’s body. He could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt and smell the gel he’d used in the shower that morning. “Do not.”

“Do so.”

“Someone cut off the padlock. It’s in the gutter over there. They must have lifted the grill, dumped the body in the porch then pulled it down again.”

“I want you to go sit in the café,” Gage said, “while Sancha and I get the investigation started.”

“Will you be assigned the case?” Landry asked.

“If the captain doesn’t think I have a conflict of interest, it’s quite likely.” Gage steered Landry toward the café. He gestured for Prisha to come over and asked her to stay with Landry.

Landry didn’t want to leave the safety of Gage’s arms but knew he had to let him do his job. Once he’d settled at a table in the café with Prisha next to him, he took a deep breath and eased some of his tension with a roll of his shoulders. He slurped his coffee. “Here we go again.”

“Are you ready for another adventure?” Prisha asked.

“It’s not like I had a choice the first time, or the second. Hopefully this will amount to nothing.” Landry didn’t need Prisha’s skeptical expression or his own gut feeling to tell him that amounting to nothing was the least likely outcome of the morning’s events. He wondered if impending doom merited another pastry.

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About the Author

L.M. Somerton

Lucinda lives in a small village in the English countryside, surrounded by rolling hills, cows and sheep. She started writing to fill time between jobs and is now firmly and unashamedly addicted.

She loves the English weather, especially the rain, and adores a thunderstorm. She loves good food, warm company and a crackling fire. She’s fascinated by the psychology of relationships, especially between men, and her stories contain some subtle (and some not so subtle) leanings towards BDSM.

You can follow Lucinda on Facebook, Twitter and her Website.

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Silenced by Jayce Carter

Book 1 in the Larkwood Academy series

General Release Date: 26th July 2022

Word Count:  85,697
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 314

GENRES:

CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
MÉNAGE AND MULTIPLE PARTNERS
PARANORMAL
REVERSE HAREM

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Book Description

From spoiled rich girl to imprisoned siren—sometimes life sucks.

My life was perfect—a cute, loving boyfriend, a rich and well-connected family and an immaculately planned-out future.

As it turns out, perfection is a lie. After a random attack, I wake up to discover I’ve turned into a siren, had my vocal cords cut and am now imprisoned at Larkwood Academy, the most dangerous and heavily secured place for humans who have turned into paranormal creatures called shades. Everything here is out to get me—the warden, the guards and even the other shades.

As I try to survive, I get closer to the men around me—Kit, a wendigo who is often called the warden’s lapdog, Deacon, a guard who isn’t a shade but also isn’t human, Knox, an incubus who struggles with accepting his own hunger, Brax, a berserker with a bad attitude and sharp tongue and Wade, a void who is far more dangerous than his innocent face and humor would suggest. The longer I stay here and get to know them, the more I realize I can’t trust anyone.

Everyone wants me to follow the rules, but I can’t be that girl anymore.

They might have stolen my voice, but they can’t keep me silenced.

Reader advisory: This book includes mentions of incarceration, and scenes of violence and assault, as well as references to inadequate parenting.

Excerpt

Eyes forward—just ignore the werewolf.

I repeated that to myself as I quickened my steps. It wasn’t hard to identify the shade who crouched over a trashcan, rifling through whatever he could find inside. Even if he hadn’t been wearing the law-required bright yellow band on his wrist to identify himself, there was just something about shades that made it easy to spot them.

They had this danger in them, this bone-deep hesitation they provoked in normal humans when a shade crossed our paths. They had a feral quality to their movements and an emptiness in their eyes, as if everything that had been real about them had drained out when they’d become infected by source.

It meant that this shade, despite appearing young for the change—he couldn’t have been older than eleven—could have torn me apart if he lost control.

Though, the fact he was out on the street, even identified, meant he had to have been a weaker specimen and on the proper medication to treat his affliction. Otherwise, he would have been properly secured at an academy.

“Don’t stare, Hera,” my friend Moa said.

“How can he be out on the streets?” I asked, keeping my voice low as we passed by the shade. “I thought we had groups to keep them out of sight.”

Moa gave me a sharp look, one that reminded me just how different our lives were.

Moa wasn’t privy to reality, to the danger shades posed. She got to live in ignorance, to pretend the world was a safe place while I watched as people were slaughtered by uncontrolled shades. Then again, her family ran a little consignment shop whereas my mother was a senator and headed the committee for shade control, and my father ran one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country.

I was Hera Weston, the only child of Zachary and Regina Weston, which meant I didn’t have the luxury of not knowing.

Still, I played along, pretended I had no idea what her censure was for because there was no reason to have this fight again. A nonchalant sip of my water bottle helped to sell that. “What?”

“He’s just trying to get some food. Do you have any idea how many shades are kicked out of their homes when they change? How many can’t get hired after that?”

“They don’t change. They’re infected and they die,” I countered, but kept walking so she couldn’t give me another long winded, politically correct explanation about how they didn’t really ‘die.’

Moa was one of those who thought that shades were just altered, that they were still the people they’d been when human. It wasn’t true, of course, and if she paid any attention to the news or in school, she’d have known that.

Source—a substance that leaked through invisible tears between our realm and the darkness—could infect some humans. When it happened, that infection caused mutations so dramatic that only a fool would consider the resulting shade to be the same person as the human they’d been. The infections seemed random, since the tears could be neither tracked nor stopped.

It was just part of life.

“Besides,” I added, trying to offer the next words like an olive branch as we passed the shops that lined the outdoor mall, “that’s why we have academies set up, to take care of them safely and determine how best to treat them.”

“Those academies are prisons,” Moa snapped, tugging my arm to stop us, drawing the same line in the sand we’d danced around for years. She faced off against me as if we were engaged in some battle instead of standing in front of a high couture boutique shop. “Kids are stolen from their parents and thrown into the institutes. They’re often experimented on, drugged and who knows what else.”

“You need to stop reading the tabloids. Have you ever even been to one?”

“No,” she admitted softly. “Have you?”

“Yes. Two years ago, I went with my mother to see Jasmine Academy. I can promise you, none of what you’re talking about was going on there. The shades were happy, healthy and unable to hurt themselves or others. Isn’t that the goal?”

Moa shook her head. “You are naïve, Hera. Do you think places like that want people to know what’s really going on? Do you think they’re going to just show all the bad things they do when the VIPs come around? It’s all a publicity stunt so people tell the government to keep sending them all the money they want. It’s just about creating enough fear so we don’t pay any attention to the atrocities they do there.”

I sighed and let the conversation drop. I could argue with her all day—and I had before—but Moa had no idea about the real world. I wasn’t angry with her about that—I envied her some of the time.

It would have been nice to fall asleep each night with no idea of what lurked in the shadows. I still remembered my first time seeing a fully changed werewolf, the horror as it had pulled at the silver chains wrapped around it, as it had roared. My mother had brought me with her, had worried when I’d become enamored with shades as so many teenagers did.

The power, the rebellion, the danger of something so powerful was intoxicating and most people went through a phase where they thought they could change them. Why we women felt the need to do that, to find fixer-uppers who we had to work on, I didn’t understand anymore.

Not after witnessing the bone-deep terror at coming face-to-face with a shade that could rake its claws through my throat in a heartbeat. I’d realized that day that the world was far more dangerous than most people knew.

Moa still had that fascination because her parents were bleeding hearts who hadn’t taught her better. She’d learn, eventually. Everyone did, because the world didn’t let people keep their illusions for long.

So, instead of furthering that line of thought, I pointed at a kiosk up ahead. “Let’s look at the necklaces up there.”

Moa let out a long breath, as if reining in her own temper, as if I were the difficult one to deal with, then nodded. “Sure. Maybe we can get matching ones.”

The selection wasn’t great, but it offered the perfect distraction. We were only weeks away from the new academic year starting, and we hadn’t gotten into the same schools.

Moa had gotten into a local state school, something that would work well enough for her to get the business degree she wanted so she could help and eventually take over her family’s shop.

I, on the other hand, had the acceptance letter on my desk from one of the premiere colleges in the country. I’d had good grades, but the fact that the building had a ‘Weston Wing,’ and my last name was Weston had gotten me in. In fact, I hadn’t even filled out an application. One call from my father and the doors had sprung open.

Moa had held the letter in her hands, staring as if it were the holy grail. Me? I’d tossed it to my desk because fuck that. Going across the country to some university sounded dreadful to me. It felt like another nail in the coffin of my future, the one my parents had laid out for me before I’d ever been born.

The right education, the right career, the right husband. It was all a path to the perfect little Weston life they wanted me to have. And I’d trudged along that path because what other choice did I have? Even now, at nineteen years old, I was stuck. An adult by age but a child by freedom.

An arm wrapped around my waist, spinning me before lips pressed to mine. Aaron swallowed down my startled gasp, then only laughed when I smacked his chest.

“Don’t sneak up on me,” I snapped.

He offered a crooked smile. “Don’t stand there looking like you want a kiss then. You never know who might just take you up on it.”

I shook my head, grinning at his playfulness.

The right spouse. That had my smile disappearing.

Aaron was that. The son of a business associate of my father’s—our parents had basically planned the wedding when we were still toddling around the playground in diapers. I’d grown up knowing what was expected of me, had fallen into line before I’d gotten old enough to question it.

Besides, Aaron wasn’t that bad. He was charming, handsome, rich. The sex was tolerable, and he never treated me badly. I didn’t have butterflies, or head-over-heels nonsense, but I was pretty sure those things were only in cheesy books and movies.

In the real world, ‘not bad’ was the best a person could hope for.

“What are you looking at?” he asked as he tugged me against him.

“Necklaces,” I explained. “Moa and I were going to get matching ones.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?” Moa asked with a smile. She’d always liked Aaron, probably more than I ever had, but she’d been respectful of our relationship no matter what.

“Well, I mean, we’ve been running around together all this time. I should be part of the whole necklace thing, too.”

I rolled my eyes. Aaron could be awfully clingy at time, but he wasn’t wrong. He’d been friends with Moa and me, like some weird love triangle, for most of our lives.

“I’m not wearing two necklaces.”

Moa reached out and picked up a small white paper that had hung on a hook. A silver charm dangled on it, and she held it out to me. “Why don’t we do chains? Then we can pick the charm we want each of us to have, and we’ll all have those matching charms wherever we go.”

“That is cringingly sentimental, and I love it.” Aaron snatched a charm from the wall of product. “Look, a bear—this one is perfect for me because I’m big and tough and super manly.”

Moa smirked and grabbed a rat. “Or this one because you’re constantly shoving cheese into your mouth and are rather annoying.”

Aaron put a hand against his chest as if she’d struck him with her words. “Fine, you don’t get a charm from me. Good job.”

I laughed at their antics as I scanned the available options. What was for me? What would represent me enough that I’d want my two best friends to wear it?

Aaron settled on a racoon, which seemed fitting. He was hard to ignore, stayed up way too late and was rather entertaining. Moa chose a paintbrush, because of her love of art.

My gaze landed on one, and I knew it was perfect to represent me. A silver music note, something elegant and simple and so intertwined with who I was that it felt obvious.

I’d sung my entire life. In fact, my mother said I hadn’t learned to speak sentences so much as verses. The headphones hanging around my neck were a testament to my love of music, to the fact I couldn’t fathom a few hours without putting on the large earcups and disappearing into the sounds, into how they took away everything happening in my life I couldn’t control.

Music made me feel as if I still had a hold of something, and singing was my way of putting my voice into a world that always felt too loud, to make a mark when the world didn’t want to hear me.

“That’s perfect.” Aaron took all the charms and chains to the salesperson to pay for them, Moa now complaining.

Aaron or I always paid for things, since our parents were far better off than Moa’s. What was a hundred bucks between friends?

After Aaron handed them over, we hooked the charms on the chains, then put them on. It was a surreal feeling, like an acknowledgment of how much our lives were about to change, with all of us going to different schools, on different paths of life that would take us different directions.

Aaron and I would come back together—we didn’t have much choice there—but I wondered what would happen to Moa. Was this the end of our little group?

The three charms sat next to one another, cool against my warm skin, and I had a moment of wishing things wouldn’t change.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling nothing could stop that from happening.

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About the Author

Jayce Carter

Jayce Carter lives in Southern California with her husband and two spawns. She originally wanted to take over the world but realized that would require wearing pants. This led her to choosing writing, a completely pants-free occupation. She has a fear of heights yet rock climbs for fun and enjoys making up excuses for not going out and socializing. You can learn more about her at her website.

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Spotlight on Love by Kristian Parker

Book 3 in the Speak Its Name series

General Release Date: 26th July 2022

Word Count: 19,602
Book Length: NOVELLA
Pages: 89

GENRES:

 EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
HISTORICAL
MULTICULTURAL

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Book Description

If love conquers all, George Lomax has its biggest challenge yet…

It’s 1923 and George Lomax is on the run. Not from the law but from his boss, the predatory stage company manager Waldo Waddington. George came to London from the States in a Harlem-style musical, but Waldo demands more than just a good performance on the stage from the males in his cast.

Fleeing, George arrives at Safe Haven Boarding House in Brighton and immerses himself in the loving, accepting world of Tanner, Charlie, Frank and Michael. A stroll in the local park brings him to Stanley Butterworth, a war veteran who’s experienced his own horrors, and it’s love at first sight for the two very different men.

But Waldo is hot on George’s heels, using George’s employment contract and visa to drag him back into his clutches. Can George find a way to not only be free but be free to love Stanley…if Stanley can overcome his own demons to love him back?

Reader advisory: This book contains homophobia and racism.

Excerpt

“Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Black Beauties of Broadway!”

The roar of the crowd hit like a tidal wave.

Ray King, the head of our company, stood in the centre of the line. He nodded and, in unison, we bowed. More feverish applause and a few shouts of “Bravo” came before the curtain fell, cocooning us from noise.

“I’ll miss that,” I said to the crew member who operated the pulley.

He clapped me on the shoulder. “You darkies can’t half dance. The next season is nearly sold out.”

We were the oddities of the West End. All-black reviews were commonplace on Broadway, but we were the first to hit London. People had travelled from all over the country to get a look at us. They loved us, which made a change from the heckling we got back home in the States.

We split down the middle and ran offstage, ready to meet in the dressing room. A few stagehands patted me on the back as I dashed through.

I might have been fast, but the room had already descended into a hubbub of noise and activity by the time I made my way through showgirls pulling feathers from their hair and tap dancers ripping off their shoes and massaging their feet.

My chair sat right in the middle of this commotion, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I sat next to Dorothy Brady, who had scooted in behind me and flopped in her seat. A cloud of the powder she covered her body in to make it less shiny erupted around her.

I sat next to her, throwing my boater hat onto the makeup stand.

“We did it, Georgie. A whole season behind us,” she said, leaning forward and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“We certainly did. They say we’re sold out for the next run. We’d better enjoy the rest. Now let me get this grease off my face. I need a drink.”

Dorothy wriggled out of her gold-sequinned dress. She had no qualms about standing there in just her bloomers and I had given up trying to stop her.

“Oh, don’t look like that, you prude,” she said with a mock scowl. “I know I ain’t got anything in here for you, sugar.”

I lit two cigarettes and handed her one. She took a long drag, exhaling and sending the smoke swirl up to the already-nicotine-stained ceiling.

“This might not be the Palladium, but I sure am going to miss it,” she decided.

“It’s only a month,” I said, checking my neck for that awful tidemark the relentless makeup left.

I nudged her and pointed to the dazzling array of lotions and potions she had on her station.

“Get a shift on. I’d like to get out of here before the cock crows.”

She groaned, throwing her cigarette into an ashtray before dutifully scrubbing at her face with one of her pieces of kit.

Three claps reverberated around the room and the din suddenly stopped. We all spun around to see our lord and master, Waldo Waddington, standing in the doorway. One of the middle-rank theatre impresarios of New York, he’d seen profit in dragging us to these shores. Luckily, he had a smile on his face. Everyone returned to clearing the last vestiges of the stage from them as he weaved his way through the wooden chairs.

“Well done, Alvin. The highest kick yet,” Waldo said in his trademark Brooklyn drawl. “Betsy, if you drop that hat one more time, I’ll fine you.”

He reached our station and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Georgie, what can I say? Not a dry eye in the house.”

“And we know what that means,” Dorothy said and covered her face with her towel, scrubbing hard at the panstick.

“I’m glad to see you’re taking care of your looks, Dorothy,” said Waldo, circling like a portly shark. “They go and you go, my dear.”

He carried on walking through. Dorothy stuck her tongue out before towelling off her face.

Once he’d reached the stage door, he clapped again.

“Thank you for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, the theatre is going dark for a month. They can fix all those little problems you’ve been busting my ass about for the last six months. Peggy has your cheques at the stage door and your Uncle Waldo has put a little something extra in, seeing as he’s so kind and all.”

A ripple of excitement ran through the room.

“You have a few days to yourselves, then I want you here for Wednesday rehearsals.”

A mutter of disappointment replaced the excitement. He’d said the theatre was closing for a month.

“I thought we were getting some time off,” I whispered to Dorothy.

“Sounds like that miserable bastard has changed his mind.”

“We don’t need rehearsals. We do it every night,” piped up Ray King, mirroring our thoughts. Ray was a dancer from Minnesota who could Charleston as though there was no tomorrow.

Waldo whirled around and scowled at him. “And what trouble would you get into if I just gave you a month off? Wednesday without fail.”

Dorothy made a face at me. “Oh, Georgie. Looks like your adventure won’t happen now. Please come to the park with me instead. I don’t want to be stuck with these parakeets on my own.”

I opened my mouth to respond but shut it again immediately as Dorothy spritzed herself with the perfume she’d been obsessed with ever since we’d sneaked out of our digs and gone to the stores on Bond Street. We didn’t care that we hardly had any money—just to be able to go into the shops was enough. Sure, we got stared at. White people aren’t all that different, no matter what side of the pond.

Once the haze had cleared, I made a big deal of choking.

“You said you loved the smell of this Channel Five.”

I threw back my head and roared. “How many times? It’s Chanel Number Five.” I used my French accent for the last bit.

She sprayed in my direction.

“Georgie,” Waldo shouted across the room. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

All eyes were on me.

“Looks like you’re up.” Dorothy grimaced.

There went my gin and tonic in the theatre bar. I resumed getting the makeup off.

“So?” Dorothy continued. “The park would give you an excuse to get away early.”

I had toyed with the idea of telling her my plans or not.

“Keep a secret?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“I’m going on my adventure whatever he says.”

She looked around in case any of the company were listening. People would use anything to dodge a night with Waldo.

“Are you crazy? Where are you going?”

“Remember that guy who I talked to the other week? The one who lived on the coast?”

She screwed her face up as she tried to remember. We were expected to entertain select patrons in the bar after a show and they did all tend to merge into one.

“The old guy in the wheelchair?”

“That’s the one. He told me about a place called Safe Haven in Brighton. Sounds like it’s right up my street.”

Dorothy put her hand on my thigh. “I don’t like it, Georgie. Waldo will be after you when he finds out.”

With most of the makeup off, I stared at the door that exited where Waldo’s car would be waiting.

“I guess I’ll have to be extra nice to him tonight then. It’ll only be for a week or so. He keeps us under lock and key.

Dorothy looked worried. “Don’t come crying to me when he puts you on the first boat home.”

I shrugged, getting my things together. “I thought we’d have more freedom coming to London. One trip to a store in three months? We could be anywhere. I want to see something.”

“Lucky you got another rave review tonight. Maybe he’ll go easy on his star.”

I winked at her and walked out of the dressing room. No one jeered or laughed. They would be relieved it wasn’t their turn.

As I walked out onto the rainy London street, the car waited in the alleyway. Henry leapt out and opened the door, smirking at me as I climbed in.

“Georgie,” Waldo said, his hand instantly falling onto my thigh. “Glad you’re free tonight.”

He loved to play the game that we had any choice in the matter. I think he actually believed we would choose to spend our time in his room.

Henry got into the front and the car zoomed off through the busy streets. I stared out of the window at the couples going for a late dinner or the gangs of friends out for a drink. To them, freedom came easily. It was taking me all my nerves to grab a tiny slice of it.

Waldo’s rooms were in the Empire Hotel near to our digs, but a world apart. A lounge full of red velvet furniture led through to a bedroom complete with four-poster bed.

The routine had become second nature. We all compared notes after one or the other had been “invited” up here.

I poured Waldo a bourbon on ice. I still got a kick that I could do that so openly. In the US, a black man wouldn’t be allowed in this room unless he were cleaning it. As for pouring drinks, I could end up in the slammer if someone saw in the window.

I handed him his drink and took a sip from my gin. He came over and pulled my jacket off my shoulders and massaged my arm.

“It’s been a while, Georgie.”

I tried to look petulant. “You’ve had Ray up here all week.”

Waldo kissed the top of my head. “Don’t get jealous.”

He walked over to the ruby-red velvet sofa and flopped his great body down. The furniture creaked in protest. I knew the feeling.

Patting the seat next to him, he kicked his shoes off. Dutifully I sat down next to him.

“There’ll be crowing in the Hen House tonight,” Waldo said, leaning back and closing his eyes.

Our digs were a small block of rooms a few streets away from the theatre. When we’d arrived, we’d been so excited that we were in the middle of London, but our faces had dropped when we’d seen Mr Bridge and Mr Mitchell, doormen at the “Hen House” as it was dubbed. We weren’t allowed out. Not without Waldo’s permission.

“I don’t want my investments damaged,” he’d proclaimed.

We were working most nights and slept into the morning, but the afternoons dragged. Dorothy and I smoked cigarettes in her room and listened to the people rushing by outside.

“Couldn’t you let us have just a week or two? We’ll be careful.”

Waldo opened his eyes. “The fuck I can. If you get run over by a trolley bus, where do I find a headliner negro with a New Orleans accent? No, Georgie. You’re way too precious.”

We were just a money-making venture to him.

“Now, why don’t you go run us a bath? I’ll be right in.”

I feigned a smile and downed my gin in one. The rest of the night’s performance stretched out in front of me…I’d need all my acting skills for this.

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About the Author

Kristian Parker

I have written for as long as I could write. In fact, before, when I would dictate to my auntie. I love to read, and I love to create worlds and characters.

I live in the English countryside. When I’m not writing, I like to get out there and think through the next scenario I’m going to throw my characters into.

Inspiration can be found anywhere, on a train, in a restaurant or in an office. I am always in search of the next character to find love in one of my stories. In a world of apps and online dating, it is important to remember love can be found when you least expect it.

Follow Kristian on Facebook.

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Disclosure Lines by Emma Penny

Book 1 in the Orders to Haunt series

General Release Date: 19th July 2022

Word Count: 41,627
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 164

Genres:

CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
MÉNAGE AND MULTIPLE PARTNERS
PARANORMAL
REVERSE HAREM

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Book Description

Shattered by one woman, will it be another who can fix their friendship?

Stephanie is newly inducted into The Order, and, as a ghost with a mission to prove herself worthy of the title, she takes the orders to haunt seriously. Tackling four human men in her first assignment is terrifying, but she’s determined to sway them by any means necessary.

Wyatt, Tyler, Colin and Dustin have been best friends from birth, but when a catastrophic event tears them apart, none of them knows how to fix it—or if they even want to. With their lives out of sorts, will they trust that a woman can bring them back together?

Only a master communicator can wield the lines of disclosure.

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of anal sex and double penetration.

Excerpt

My back aches, and I need toothpicks to keep my eyes open. Three days of sitting huddled over the desk in my bedroom is enough to break me, but I need to make sure these orders go perfectly. Mom comes in and out several times, bringing me meals and trying to encourage me to take a break. I mostly ignore her, but after three days straight, I need sleep to function.

The bedroom door creaks open, and my bright-eyed sister, Audrey, pops her head in. I give her a wan smile, reaching my hands above my head to try to stretch out some of the kinks in my spine. Shutting the door, Audrey comes in, flopping onto the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

“How are your orders going?”

“I’m working on background still.”

Audrey shifts to stare at me. “Still?”

I shrug. “I want to get this right.”

“All right, Ms. Perfection. Are you trying to be the new Madeline?”

I balk, my chest constricting. Never in my wildest dreams would I think I could be compared to her. I don’t have that kind of confidence. Ignoring Audrey’s snarky remark, I leave my desk chair, rolling over her and lying on my back to stare up at the ceiling alongside her.

“That was mean. Sorry,” Audrey mutters.

“You know how much this means to them,” I whisper.

“Yup, I do.” Audrey’s tone rises and falls. Finally, I turn on my side and eye her. “What’s going on?”

Tears well in Audrey’s eyes, and she tries her best to hide them. “I didn’t pass training.”

“What?” I sit straight up, my heart thundering. “What do you mean you didn’t pass?”

“I didn’t pass. Madeline brought me in yesterday and fired me. I will never work for The Order.”

“Oh, Audrey.” My heart is heavy just thinking about it. Reaching out, I brush my fingers against her arm. “I’m so sorry. Did she say why?”

“Not really, and I don’t quite understand what happened. It was all going good, you know? I passed the tests, and I was making progress. I’d even gotten to the field training, but before I could finish the module, she brought me into her office and told me I was done.”

“Want me to ask her about it?”

“No.” A tear slips down Audrey’s cheek. “No, I just want to be done with it. I spent years studying for this, you know? I need to find something else to do.”

“What will you do?”

“Not a fucking clue.” Audrey throws a hand over her eyes so I can’t see her vulnerability anymore.

Resting onto the pillow on my small bed, I stay as close to her as I can. I want her to know that I’m here for her, but I know that my presence and my job with The Order will hurt her, so I don’t want to bring it up if I don’t have to. Audrey breaks that silence for me.

“Do you have a plan yet? I can’t believe she didn’t give you a detailed plan of action. It’s so unlike her.”

“I think I can understand it,” I reply.

Audrey looks at me with a suspicious glance. “Why?”

“Because there are four individuals I’m haunting for one order. Two of them live together, one I swear lives at work and the last one…? Well, I think he’s where I need to start.”

“Why would you start with him instead of the others?”

“I think his situation is more dire. Remember when Nick got all depressed a few years ago?”

Audrey nods.

“Think like that, only without the support system in place. I’ve watched him on and off for the last few days. He has zero routine and he’s drowning in bills with no job prospects.”

“I get that,” Audrey interjects.

“No, you don’t. You can always come home, to us, live here still. Tyler doesn’t have anyone to fall back on.”

“No one?”

“Well, he might.” At Audrey’s confused glance, I continue, “The other day, out of the blue, he got in his car and drove downtown to one of the other subjects’ places of work. He stood outside the front door for at least five minutes before turning around and getting back in his car and going home. They went to college together, and I think he might have thought about it.”

“Asking for help, you mean?”

“Asking for a job.” I press my lips together. “It’s likely a good solution to the problem, if I can only get him to take that final step and walk inside.”

“How do you know this other guy will even see him?”

I sigh. “Wyatt…I think he’s going to be my problem child.”

Audrey chuckles. “Why do you say that?”

“The others are so easy to read, but he’s so closed off. He doesn’t have a personal relationship with anyone, it seems.”

“But he knows Tyler?”

“Yeah, like I said, they went to college together. I think…maybe…Wyatt has a soft spot for Tyler.”

“What would make you say that?”

I sigh, rolling onto my back again, images and information flashing through my mind, everything I’ve learned in the last few days flooding into my brain just waiting for me to dissect it. I’m not sure I can answer Audrey. It’s a gut feeling more than anything, but they had been friends at some point. When that was, I still don’t know, but surely if they were friends at some point, then Wyatt would still have a soft spot for Tyler, wouldn’t he?

“Stephanie?”

“Yeah, um…They were friends years ago. I can’t fathom him ignoring Tyler if Tyler were to say he needed help.”

“Unless he’s a total asshole.”

“Well, he is that.” I put a hand on my forehead, my eyelids drooping heavily. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen someone not have a weak spot.”

“You just want to get them talking.”

I snort lightly, my eyes closed. “Maybe.”

Audrey pokes me hard in the ribs. “Are you falling asleep on me?”

“Yes.”

“Should we tell Mom we want to share a room again?”

“No.” I yawn. I have worked so hard the last few days, and I feel as though I haven’t made nearly as much progress as I thought I should. I’ll need to start my haunting proper soon, take it to the next step.

“What about the other two?”

“What other two?”

Audrey turns on her side, facing me and poking me in the ribs again.

“Hey!”

“The other two people you need to haunt?”

“Oh.” I yawn again. “They’re best friends. They live together, actually, and…well…I ghosted in on them the other day to do some observation, and let’s just say they need to come with warning bells.”

“What do you mean?” Audrey props her head up on her elbow.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this? I mean…doesn’t it sting a little?”

Audrey’s eyes well up again, but she rolls them. “Let me do this for you.”

“We should talk about you, not my orders.”

“Well, I don’t have much to talk about. You’ve got something going for you right now. Me? I’m just a bum still living at her parents’.”

I chuckle. “Hardly a bum. Maybe a bit lost right now, but I have a feeling you’ll find your way again.”

“Yeah. I can always go back to waitressing.”

I snort. “Your dream job.”

“Exactly.” Audrey falls backward, landing next to me. She may be playing it off as lighthearted, but I can see the pain in every word she says. She’d wanted this almost as much as I did, and when she’d been accepted into training shortly after me, she’d been just as giddy as I was.

“You tell Mom and Dad yet?”

“No.” Her tone turns somber. “I’m not sure what to say.”

“They’ll want to go down there themselves.”

“I won’t let them.”

“You can’t hide it from them.”

Audrey shrugs. “I can try for now.”

I frown, knowing that won’t last very long. Audrey, while I love her dearly, has never been someone who can hide her feelings well. “What exactly did Madeline say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not part of The Order anymore, and I guess the entire weight of carrying on tradition is on your shoulders. You always were better with people than I am.”

I snort. “Only because I’ve had you to teach me.”

Audrey’s lips do quirk up at that, and it’s nice to see. “Tell me about these other two. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of orders with four.”

“Actually, you’ll find this amusing. When I went to do my observations the other day, I ghosted into the house—well, the bedroom—because that’s where Colin was.”

“Holy fuck, I think I know where this is going.”

“Right!” My eyes widen. “Hand wrapped around his dick, hips pumping, the whole nine yards. I must have got there right toward the end.”

“What did you do?”

I whimper, embarrassment heating my cheeks. “I went through the wall, which was straight into the bathroom, where I ran right into the other one.”

“Was he…?”

I shake my head. “No, not jerking off, thankfully, but he was completely naked after just showering.”

“All that water dripping down his hot skin.”

I send Audrey a sharp look. “Do you need to get laid or something?”

Audrey shrugs. “It’s been a while. Leave me alone. I think it’s hilarious.”

“You would. You’d probably jump him.”

Audrey’s wicked grin is answer enough.

I roll my eyes. “You’re insane.”

“Nah, I’m just not as tightly wound as you.”

“I do not need to know this.”

Audrey hits me lightly on the arm. “It’s nothing you don’t already know.”

Chuckling, I fight off another yawn. “Audrey, I need to sleep.”

“So go to sleep.”

I snort. “You’re in my bed.”

“Can I just crash here? I’m tired of crying alone.”

“Fine. But I swear if you hog the covers, I’m kicking you out.” We shift around the bed, pulling the blanket up and over our shoulders. “And you have to turn the light off.”

Audrey groans, but she does it without any further complaint. As soon as she’s back in bed with me, I grab her hand and give her a gentle squeeze.

“I’m sorry about what happened with Madeline.”

Audrey sniffles, and I can tell she’s nearly started crying again, but she doesn’t say anything as she burrows under the blankets. I let silence fall over us and let her sit with the moment. I love my sister, but I also know how good she is at avoiding her own emotions when she wants to. Maybe Tyler is a bit like her in that regard. Wyatt definitely is, which brings in a point I hadn’t thought about.

I need to find a way to get Wyatt to open up, and it may not be me. It may be the others who can get him to talk faster than I can. However, given how distanced he is from them, it’s going to take a feat just to get them into the same room, except perhaps Tyler. Maybe he is the key to all of this.

“Steph?”

“What?” I focus on my baby sister.

“Next time I see Madeline, I’m going to yell at her.”

Laughing lightly, I pat Audrey’s hand. “You do that. I’m sure she’ll take it like a champ.”

“She deserves it.”

“She does. How anyone could sack my baby sis I don’t know, but she deserves it.” It doesn’t matter if I agree with what happened or not. I will support Audrey in everything.

We fall into silence, and, before I know it, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open again. Settling into the pillow, I allow them to close with a decision clicking into place. I’ll start with Tyler, help him rebuild the relationship he had with Wyatt and go from there. Everything needs to be centered on getting Wyatt to open up.

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About the Author

Emma Penny

Emma Penny is a millennial living in the US. She often moves and loves experiencing new adventures and letting her mind wander to new possibilities. She currently lives north of Denver, CO and has fallen in love with writing steamier romance. Emma started writing when she was a teenager and has never looked back from the creative side of her life. She particularly loves to explore worlds beyond the believable, worlds that stretch her imagination but still root her in the very real personalities of her characters and their relationships.

Follow Emma on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and find her at her website.

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Blood Promotion by MJ Klipfel

Book 1 in the Crossed Souls series

General Release Date: 19th July 2022

Word Count: 85,942
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 353

Genres:

CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
PARANORMAL
VAMPIRES
WERESHIFTERS

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Book Description

Dying and falling in love weren’t in the job description.

Self-confidence, a steady paycheck and a swivel chair—that’s all that reporter Tessa Sanders wants. So when the megalomaniac mayor inadvertently gives her the ultimate career-making story, it’s reason to celebrate…until the lead lands her in a nightmare world of monsters, dead bodies and a new, unwanted title—werewolf. Seems humankind is on a deadline, and if she and her captor, a drop-dead-gorgeous vampire who can’t decide if he wants to kiss her or kill her, can’t break the story before their time’s up, humanity gets its pink slip.

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence and sexual harassment, as well as the death of a character and scenes of ménage à trois.

Excerpt

Crusty armpit stains. That was the reason why I’d missed date nights with my sofa and coffee. After three months of running my editor’s shirts to the dry cleaners with his nasal whine echoing in my skull, “Make sure they use extra starch,” I’d had enough. Tonight, my life would change.

A blast of late autumn wind rattled through the pine forest bordering Glenwood Park. My impromptu hiding spot, a bush, provided dismal shelter against the elements. Exhaling a puff of breath at the cloud-covered sky, I fished out my phone. No need for night vision—the dilapidated streetlamp gave off a sufficient amount of light. Giddiness bubbled through my freezing bones. To ease the stiffness creeping into my limbs, I wiggled my toes, triggering a horrid case of charley horses burning through my calves. Shivering rewarded me with a branch poking the back of my head. Afraid of being ratted out by the bush, I didn’t dare tug my ponytail free.

To distract myself, I panned left and took a practice shot of the biohazard sign warning that Silver Lake was off limits, then I brought the empty bench overlooking the contaminated lake into focus. Perfect. My location gave me a balcony view for the shitshow about to commence. All I needed was for everyone to show up before I froze to death.

Right on time, two men hustled down to the lake. One I recognized as the mayor’s bodyguard. Crouching, he checked underneath the bench with a flashlight.

“Check up top,” he said.

Grumbling, the other man trudged up the hill. Each of his stumbles brought him closer and sent my heart slamming against my ribcage. When his gaze traveled to the bush, his brows pinched.

Adrenaline shot through my body, urging my tense limbs into a giddy-up and go. Not tonight. Gritting my teeth, I remained still.

With the approach of heavy footfalls against the jogging path, the man’s attention snapped from the bush to his partner, who was signaling for him to return.

After the men dashed away, I let out my breath. I’d have been lying if I didn’t admit to finding the danger invigorating. Writing obituaries lacked the whole pulse-pounding, undercover reporter, breaking news vibes.

A different group of shady meatheads walked over to the bench. After a few mumbles and a half-assed survey, the group parted, revealing the CEO of Safe Waters—the city’s water treatment facility. Tim McKay loved flashing his green credentials. However, his hired goons had taken it to a new level.

I cringed in remembrance of our interview. How his halitosis had tickled my earlobe as he leaned over me, sneaking a peek down my shirt. Ugh. I shook the memory from my head, focusing on the creep.

Setting his briefcase on the bench, McKay pursed his lips. A phone chirped and he shifted his weight to dig it out of his coat. The screen’s glow illuminated his plump face, reddened from the chill. Rolling his shoulders, he straightened up.

The two men from earlier escorted the mayor, muttering under his breath, over to McKay. As the bodyguards shifted to let him through, Mayor Brown transformed into a politician with a fake smile and puffed-out chest. With a confident swagger, he approached McKay.

“Sorry,” Mayor Brown said. “I got tied up.”

Flashing the mayor a tight-lipped smile, McKay gestured to the bench. The two men could’ve been twins, right down to the matching comb-overs and trench coats. I poised my numb finger, waiting. McKay handed over his briefcase while Mayor Brown pulled a manila envelope from his coat.

With the press of my finger, I landed the story no reporter had dared to investigate for fear of incurring the mayor’s wrath. After all, his brother owned the city’s newspaper. So much as an inkblot against the mayor’s squeaky-clean image and a reporter could kiss their career goodbye.

“How much longer?” The mayor unclasped the briefcase.

My interest piqued, I snapped another photo.

“Not much,” McKay answered, scanning the contents of the envelope.

Nodding, Mayor Brown closed the case. “Good.”

The men stood. After a firm handshake, they sauntered off in opposite directions with their bodyguards in tow.

Rubbing my hands together to move heat and blood back into the prickling digits, I forced myself to stay put. As minutes passed, the chattering of my teeth drowned out the soft lapping of waves and the rustling of leaves.

So far, the bodyguards had stayed out of sight and hearing. When I dragged in a satisfying breath, a rich aroma flooded my nose. Cologne was my first thought. A deeper inhale nixed that idea. The mystery scent wasn’t one of those drugstore deodorant sprays that men doused themselves with daily. No, it was something raw from nature and it smelled damn good.

Patting my windbreaker pocket, I hit on the cold metal of my pepper spray. An overreaction by far, yet a comforting one. Glenwood, New York, barely made city status with its population statistics. Most of our law-abiding citizens were snug in their beds watching sitcom reruns by nine, not waiting in the park shadows to grab me.

As I took another sniff, the musky lake odor jumped to my nostrils. The familiar stench marked the final all-clear to get moving. Groaning through my stiffness, I stood. No amount of frostbite would’ve kept me down. I got the bastards. Mayor Brown and McKay were covering up something at Safe Waters. Every fiber of my being believed it was the water contamination.

While blood flowed back through my legs, I sent the photos to my email. When the satisfying ping of a received message echoed through the deserted park, I stuffed my phone inside the windbreaker’s pocket and attempted a half-assed stretch before taking off.

Frigid air scraped my cheeks and stung my lungs as I crested the park’s tallest hill in record time. Overhead, the half-moon sent a silver glow across the frosted landscape. With the lengthening of my stride, I fought the impulse to stop and appreciate the scenery. The overpass tunnel came into view. Home stretch. Excitement propelled me into a full-out sprint. Nothing could have pulled the smile off my face except a patch of black ice.

In a series of violent somersaults, I plunged down the hill. My attempts to stop rewarded me with loose gravel embedded into my palms. To salvage the remaining layers of my flesh, I shifted onto my side. My hip smacked against the blacktop, grinding me to a halt inside the overpass tunnel.

As pain hammered my body, I shoved my bruised ego to the side and struggled to move. While my sharp inhales and ragged exhales bounced off the walls, an airy rhythmic sound filtered into the pitch-black tunnel.

Panting.

As I struggled to my hands and knees, an intense burn shot through my palms. With my groans and movements, the panting ceased.

Sweat trickled down my temples while I waited for the prankster to reveal himself. Since the high school stadium was a block away, I had seconds before a juvenile delinquent jumped out at me. “Go ahead. Pick on the klutz. Hope you recorded it,” I muttered.

The panting continued. Louder. Faster.

“Quit it,” I said.

A rapid clicking joined the panting.

I strained my eyes against the darkness. A huge mass charged me. Unable to move fast enough, I hunched over, bracing for impact. Avoiding a head-on collision, the ball of yellow fur adjusted its course, darting around me. Behind its tucked tail, a chain leash bounced and skipped along the blacktop.

“Bad dog,” I whispered through my clenched jaw. When I slumped backward to sit, my palm landed on a sneaker. A wiggling of my toes confirmed both my sneakers were snug on my feet. “Hello?” I asked.

Silence answered me. I tugged experimentally at the shoe attached to a foot. No movement or protest. Stretching my fingers to grasp around a pant leg, I gave it a sharp tug, and with minimal resistance, I pulled a severed leg over my lap.

Shoving the limb off my thighs, I scrambled backward. Pain erupted from my right ankle, which gave out. Once more, I crashed onto my hip. Instead of a gravel landing, something solid and squishy broke my fall. I righted myself as a warm liquid soaked through my running tights. A brush of my fingertips across a sticky mess of jagged bone and denim sent a scream crawling up my throat.

Terror froze me to the spot as my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Lumpy shapes littered the tunnel. My attention locked onto the shredded remains of a varsity jacket.

It took three tries to shove my blood-soaked hand inside my windbreaker. Relief raced through me as I touched my pepper spray. Clenching the metal cylinder to my chest, I dug back in for my phone.

Gone.

“That was quite a fall,” a masculine voice said.

I dragged my attention away from the body parts and up to a looming shadow which blocked the tunnel exit. The moon kindly made an appearance, outlining the stranger’s tall frame.

Unable to move or think, I sat there blankly gaping at the man—who was wearing a freaking three-piece suit—until a breeze rushed past my face, carrying the rich scent that I’d wanted to snuggle with minutes ago.

“I hit my head.” I nodded to myself. “This is a dream.”

“I assure you”—his voice curled around me—“you are not dreaming.”

“Really? What kind of guy wears a damn suit to go strolling in the park?”

He cocked his head. Confusion drew his brows tight. “I am not a guy.”

“I’m dreaming,” I whispered. Still, the blood soaking into my clothes and the pain throbbing through my bones yelled otherwise. Using the wall as support, I eased upward. When I added pressure to my right ankle, I gasped.

He took a step toward me.

I scrambled to aim my pepper spray at the stranger.

“Skittish?” His dark laughter sent goosebumps screaming across my body.

“Don’t move,” I warned.

He ceased his laughter, but a smile parted his lips. “You want me to move.”

Blood rushed to my ears, and my head spun at his words. Some minuscule part of me was happy to agree with the stranger. I aimed the pepper spray at his face. “I’ve called the cops.”

“I call your bluff. Remember, I saw you fall.” The smile slipped from his face. “Put that contraption away.”

Once more, his words assaulted me. The pepper spray took on the density of a twenty-pound dumbbell and I struggled to keep it leveled at the stranger’s face.

“Impressive”—his eyebrow arched—“yet foolish.”

“I’ll scream,” I gritted.

“No one will hear you.” He gestured at the severed leg. “No one heard him.”

I weighed my dismal escape options. The overkill suit showcased his physique—he clearly outmatched me in strength, and he stood at least half a foot taller. A fight for freedom? Nope. A turn-and-run was also out, thanks to my injuries. Which left me with smarts as my one-trick-pony for survival. Rubbing the pepper spray trigger with my thumb, I cleared my throat. “Are you going to attack me or—”

He cleared the ten feet in a blur. No time to process or move—he shoved my back against the wall, pinning me by my shoulders. Freeing my hand between our bodies, I fought to get the spray to his face. He easily snatched it from me and tossed it over his shoulder.

My gaze locked with his black, mirror-like eyes which held my terrified reflection captive. I became weightless. If it weren’t for the man shoved against the entire length of my body, I’d have thought that I had jumped headfirst off a cliff. My heart hammered against my ribs as I forced myself to look beyond my reflection and into the dark abyss of his eyes, sucking me under, pulling me into—

The touch of his chilled finger trailing down my cheek snapped me from the trance. I tried to squirm away.

“How are you fighting me?” He grabbed my hair, pulling my head to the side.

Gasping for breath, I locked onto the lifeless gaze of the teenager whose body was nearby. His expression was frozen in surprised terror. The killer hadn’t played with him.

I must be lucky.

My attacker’s deep inhale over my throat cut through my thoughts.

“What are you?” His lips brushed against my neck.

“Stop—”

His needle-sharp teeth jabbed into my throat. Agony raked through every cell within my body as the frigid air surrounding me turned into an inferno. My ears popped with pressure. Energy swelled within me, prickling along my insides. In an explosion of light, it escaped my body and slammed into my attacker.

Unlatching from my neck, he shoved my back against the wall. “Who are you?” Blood speckled my face from his question. “Answer,” he ordered, digging his fingernails into my shoulders.

Taking advantage of his momentary lack of control, I bottled up my terror, then rammed my knee into his groin. He let go.

My palms and knees smacked against the blacktop. As I scrambled to the tunnel’s opening, he snagged my ankle and dragged me backward. When his other hand clamped onto my thigh, I twisted over, kicking with my free leg.

My foot slammed into his nose, sending his head upward with a crack. His grip tightened on my thigh, and I sent another kick to his throat. He released my leg to grab his windpipe.

I flopped to my stomach, crawling over the dead teen’s leg, then out of the tunnel.

The ice-slick hill greeted me. Shit. I’d ended on the wrong side of the tunnel, heading back to the lake and away from the city. If my attacker recovered, he could watch me slip and slide. Abandoning the path, I dove into the knee-high weeds bordering the forest. Clawing the frozen earth between my fingers, I waited for the pounding of feet through the underbrush.

Silence.

Inch by painful inch, I crawled, panting into the dirt with the hopes that my breath wouldn’t act like a smoke signal to the psycho. Still, it coiled upward against my best attempts while dead weeds groaned with each of my movements, tangling in my hair and snagging on my clothing. When I paused for a quick survey of my progress, I regretted it.

Blood trickled down my throbbing neck, slipping underneath my jacket then pooling between my breasts. When I glanced at the wetness darkening my windbreaker, the metallic scent of my blood filled my nose.

“Stop,” my attacker said from behind me. “I will not hurt you.”

“The hell you won’t,” I snapped.

My attacker jabbed his index finger at the forest. “They most certainly will.”

At the edge of the tree line, moonlight reflected off clusters of glowing orbs. Eyes. At least four large animals dodged and wove through the weeds.

Either from a crazed biting man or a pack of rabid beasts, Death was coming for me. Dropping my cheek to the dirt, flattening myself as much as possible, I hoped the beasts would see the psycho above me as the easier target.

The man yanked on the back of my windbreaker, flipped me over and tossed himself on top of me. When his lips grazed my ear, I screamed.

He covered my mouth.

Running on instinct, I sank my teeth into the heel of his palm.

“You fool,” he growled.

Snagging his free hand through my hair, he held me firm to the ground. I glared at his chest while flailing my arms. He easily dodged my blows, giving my hair a tug for my efforts. My teeth shredded into his flesh, but he still shoved his palm against my mouth.

“Drink.” His revolting order brought on a panic-induced awareness to the shot glass worth of blood rolling around in my mouth. Smothering me with his hand, he forced me to swallow.

As his blood slid down my throat, an electric current surged through me. In the same instant, the psycho tensed, hissing through his teeth.

Shifting his pale face an inch from mine, he entrapped me with his soulless eyes. “Do not move. Be silent.” He tore his hand from my mouth.

I tried to lift my arm, my leg… Nothing worked. My throat fought to produce a scream, but only air escaped. Breathing became labored. With each breath, an invisible chain tightened around my chest.

After a nod at my pathetic escape attempts, he moved off me.

Ear-splitting animalistic noises surrounded me, drowning out the thundering of my heart. Frozen in place, helpless, I stared at the cloud-covered sky. The ground vibrated against my spine from the impact of something large landing next to me. Trying to distract myself from the thing creeping its way over to me, I recited the different types of clouds.

Cumulus.

Hot breath fanned my fingertips.

Nimbus.

Grass exploded upward and the screaming beast was hurled across the sky. My fingers numbed from the absence of its breath.

Cirrus.

Tears blurred my unblinking eyes, while above me, a small shape pirouetted on the wind. It landed on my cheek, soft and wet.

Fur.

“I killed one.” The psycho paced back and forth, no longer attempting to be quiet. “The rest scattered.”

Another wet clump landed on my lip. More tears fell. Minutes ago, he was all about tearing out my jugular. Now, the asshole was making me wait so he could take a call.

“We have a problem. They made a kill,” he grumbled while leaning over me. Tilting his head, he paused. “Understood.” My attacker held no phone. He was freaking talking to himself. “I will return before dawn.”

As blood trickled down my neck, a sick satisfaction came to mind—if he waited any longer, I’d bleed to death on my own.

“You’re a mess,” he said to me, not his imaginary friend. Crouching beside me, he plucked the fur off my cheeks and lips.

You’re a psycho.

“What am I to do with you?”

Let me go. Call 911. Order me a pizza.

“You have placed me in quite a predicament.” Carefully, he brushed away a freezing tear from the corner of my eye. “You may blink.”

I did, and half wished I hadn’t. Through the shredded remains of his suit, a deep gash ran the entire length of his sternum. Bile burned the back of my throat. Forcing my gaze away from the white of bone glistening in the moonlight, I focused on his face. His nose bent at an unnatural angle. Point for me. Apparently, he had a high threshold for pain, because he smiled.

To drive up the psycho factor, he parted his lips, revealing bloodstained fangs which he pricked his index fingertip against. Blood welled up and rolled down his finger.

“You will do all that I command.” He brought his bloody digit to my temple and traced an arch across my forehead. His blood seeped into my pores and raced through my veins. “You may speak. What is your name?”

Unable to refuse his question, I whispered, “Tessa Sanders.”

His finger slid to my neck and massaged over his bite while he spoke. “Tessa Sanders, you are under my protection.”

“I’ll pass on that.” I glared at him.

“How naïve you are.” He lowered his face to mine. “You fell while running tonight.”

“No shit.”

In a swift movement, he brushed his lips across mine. No lust. Just a slap in the mouth, because he was in control. As his thumbs touched my temples, a flash of light blanked my racing thoughts. Once it dimmed, a picture show flipped through my mind. As if I were a bystander, I watched myself fall on the ice. It became imperative for me to remember the event playing in my head. Struggling to remember anything different about the fall, all I recalled was the out-of-body experience.

Fear poured through my veins, freezing my blood. He controlled my body and my mind.

Finally, his lips left mine. Dipping his face against the crook of my neck, he inhaled. “Your fear is intoxicating,” he said.

When he pulled away, our eyes locked. My terror mixed with his hesitance, catching us both off guard. I clenched my jaw. His eyes narrowed. In an instant, smoldering hate rolled between us.

“Forget me”—his words flowed like a stream through my mind—“and go home. Once you are there, you will sleep. When you awake, you are to leave town.” The stream turned into a current that swallowed me whole. Darkness enveloped me as his last words echoed through my mind. “Never run at night again.”

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About the Author

MJ Klipfel

When not writing stories, where the villain and heroine fall madly in love, I can be found daydreaming, singing all the 80’s songs, drinking copious amounts of coffee, reading books in headstand, protecting wildlife, and advocating for students with disabilities.

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Falling for Vince by Megan Slayer

Book 4 in the Love Me Do series

General Release Date: 19th July 2022

Word Count: 40,427
Book Length: SHORT NOVEL
Pages: 161

GENRES:

CONTEMPORARY
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI

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Book Description

Are second chances possible when the first chance never really happened?

Vince Rhodes has loved Cody Burrows for years, but he’s never been bold enough to ask him out. This wallflower is ready to make a move, so he enlists the help of James, the resident stylist at Dye Hard Style and unofficial matchmaker, to hook him up with his crush. Vince is betting it all on Cody giving him a chance, but will he?

Cody Burrows has admired Vince since they were both in high school. While he was the solid athlete unable to come out, Vince showed his rainbow proudly. Now they’re both older and wiser…and matched up by James. Will Cody allow himself to be free with Vince and find his heart’s delight or will he keep the barriers around his heart forever?

Maybe falling for Vince is just what Cody needs…

Excerpt

“One more rep. You’ve got it in you.” Cody Burrows spotted for his client Bri. He didn’t want her to overstress herself, but liked how she’d pushed to the next weight level on the machine. “You’ve got this.”

She did another squat on the machine, then placed the weight back in the rack. “Damn, you’re making me work hard today.”

“If you want to make the stage this year, you need to keep up the hard reps.” He handed her a towel. “You’re building great muscle, so you should be pleased with your results. You’ve got your spray tan scheduled, right?”

“I do.” She patted down her face and shoved the stray wisps of her hair out of her eyes. “Should be Monday so it’s set for the competition on Wednesday.”

“Good.” He loved working at Workout! and helping his clients get into shape. Some people around Norville considered him a gym rat and he didn’t care. He liked the way he looked, liked helping people realize their fitness dreams and keeping the town fit.

“I’m excited for the competition. I never thought I’d do a body builder anything.” She grinned and her green eyes glittered. “Paul is so proud of me.”

“He should be. You should be proud of yourself, though. You’ve put in the hours and it shows.” Cody took the towel from her and sighed as her boyfriend crossed the room.

Bri kissed Paul on the lips and seemed to forget Cody was standing there.

Cody tossed the towel in the bin, then left the lovers to their conversation. He tamped down his jealousy along the way. Some men would’ve wanted to be with Bri—she was pretty, smart and took care of herself. But he wasn’t interested in women.

He wasn’t interested in her boyfriend, either. Paul was nice, but too much of a jock. Cody liked the quiet types. The sensitive men who liked to read and could converse with him about music. Most people saw Cody as the muscle-bound guy at the gym or the former high school athlete who’d brought Norville High School awards in cross-country and track. According to some, he had it all, but not what he wanted the most.

A relationship.

Truth be told, he was jealous of Bri and Paul, but of what they had and how they shared their passion for each other. He hated being alone and missed having someone in his life. Someone to share conversations and his bed. Someone to hold when the nights were chilly or thunderstorms rolled through. He might be forty-one, but he still feared the rolls of thunder and streaks of lightning.

“They’re so full of each other.” Ty, one of the other trainers, joined Cody at the counter. “I’d say get a room, but they’d probably do it.”

“Probably.” He logged the time with Bri on the app, then checked the calendar. He didn’t have another client today, but he’d have to come back to the gym to work the counter at six. One of these days he’d have a full day off.

“Are you working with anyone else today?” Ty asked. “You’re always booked.”

“Not this afternoon. I’m heading to Dye Hard Style to get a haircut, then back here to run the desk.” He shrugged. “Dawson says he can’t get more trainers, but he might if he’d put out a call for help wanted.”

“That’d make sense.” Ty leaned on the counter and folded his arms. “I don’t know why you’re getting a cut already. It’s barely grown out.”

“I like to keep my hair short.” His style was part of his armor. If he looked like the jock, then no one would expect much from him. He could hide behind his façade and stay safe. He’d been hurt too many times by men who thought he wasn’t bright and hated when they found out the opposite.

“You should grow it out a little. Just on top.” Ty frowned, then crossed his ankles. “You might get a date that way.”

“Who says I need a date?” Besides me?

“Me, for one. I hate seeing you so sad. You act like you’re in a good mood, but I see the way you glare at the couples. You’re lonely.”

He hated when Ty was right. “So?”

“You want someone.”

He groaned. “But I never get out of here long enough to meet someone. The guys who come in here think I’m stupid. That I’ve got muscles for brains, not actual brains.” He squeezed his phone. “I tried to date a guy I met while working out and he got upset when I knew about Mozart but not the latest basketball scores.”

“You’re not into basketball. You like football and baseball,” Ty said. “That’s his fault for not knowing what you like.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing. He didn’t take the time to get to know me. All he saw was I had muscles and could get him a cut rate to work out here.” He shook his head. He knew going in that Chad would be a dead-end, but he’d still tried…and failed.

“Chad was a dick.”

He wouldn’t argue that one. “Good thing he’s history.”

“I still think there’s someone out there for you,” Ty said. “Why not ask James at Dye Hard? He’s already cutting your hair and he’s got quite the track record for pairing guys. You could get lucky.”

“I could.” He’d considered asking James, but hesitated. What if James laughed or said no? What if he wasn’t interested in helping? Vince couldn’t handle the rejection.

“You should ask him.” Ty closed the date book on the computer. “Go. You’ll be late and James gets snippy when his clients are late.”

“I know.” He tucked his phone in his pocket, then his keys from the drawer. Since he’d be coming back, he saw no reason to take his gym bag. “I’ll be back by five.”

“Take your time. I’m on the clock until six.” Ty waved. “Go.”

“Thanks.” He hurried out of the gym, then down the two blocks to Dye Hard Style. Ty was right—he didn’t need the haircut, but he wanted to talk to someone who wasn’t connected to his work. He also rather liked the way he looked after a fresh cut. Besides, he enjoyed his conversations with James.

He hustled through the glass doors of Dye Hard Style and marveled at the new movie posters in the lit frames. He appreciated how James had left the theater looking mostly the way it had during its heyday—except now housing a hair salon. The popcorn counter featured rows of hair products and the main lobby had been turned into the guts of the salon. The bright lights added a certain feel to the room that other salons lacked.

A young man with dyed gray hair stood at the turnstile. “You’re on time.”

He should know this man’s name, but James ran through receptionists so fast it was hard to keep up. “I am.” This one knew who he was, so he should know this guy’s name. “Jack?”

“Kyson,” he snapped. “I’m working on breaking a record.”

“Oh?” Cody made his way through the turnstile. “What’s that?”

“Working here for more than a week. James is a taskmaster.” Kyson crinkled his nose. “At least he keeps my color in check. He’s waiting on you. Don’t trip on the dog.”

“I’ll be careful.” He stopped to pet James’ dog on the head. “Hi, Doob.”

James rounded the corner to greet him. “Hi.” He picked up a cape and shook it out. “He likes you. Come on over.”

The black dog swished his tail and allowed Cody to pet him a few more moments, then joined James by the chair. Doob had become a fixture at the salon and a mascot of sorts.

“He likes you, too.” Cody rested on the chair and folded his hands on his lap. “I like how you’ve trimmed him.”

“Oh that.” James draped the covering over him. “Honestly, it was to get the knots out of his fur, but it has made him extra handsome. He’s a well-behaved dog. I don’t know why no one wants to come for him.”

“Maybe they moved and couldn’t take him.” He blinked as James sprayed water on his hair. “Or he ran away and they gave up looking for him.”

“See, I don’t know how anyone would do that. He’s a good dog.” James combed Cody’s hair. “And another thing, why would you leave your dog behind? I get that maybe you can’t take him with you, but find him a home or take him to the shelter. Don’t just leave him.”

“Not everyone thinks the way you and I do.” Cody averted his gaze. He didn’t mind looking at his reflection, but not right now.

“So…we’re doing another buzz or are you willing to let me do something a little different?” James asked. “I’ve got some ideas and I know you’ll like them if you’re willing to change just a little.”

He wanted to protest and demand his usual cut, but what the hell? Why not try something new? “Go for it.”

“You’re serious?” James beamed. “Cody?”

“Why not? I’m tired of looking the same and if you’ve got an idea what to do, then do it. I mean, Jesus. I’m over forty, I’m single and I want people to take me seriously,” Cody said. “While you’re at it, will you help me?” His hands shook. Thank God the cape covered them. He hated being nervous, but this was a huge ask.

“What do you want me to do?” James narrowed his eyes, then rubbed his chin before turning Cody away from the mirror.

“Will you help me find a date?” There. He’d asked. He’d put himself out there.

“You need a date?” James massaged Cody’s scalp. “I don’t believe it.”

“Guys see my muscles and run the other way. They think I’m stupid.” He fought the urge to shake his head and held still for fear he’d mess up whatever James was doing with his hair. “If they remember me from school, they remember when I flubbed the name of the school during my signing day. They remember when I punched Dirk Goggins because he’d given his girlfriend a black eye and I refused to let him hurt her. If they’ve been to Workout! they think I’m foolish for spending so much time in the gym or expect me to spar with someone because I’m a hulk of a man. I can’t win.”

“They’re wrong,” James said. “You’re more than a few mistakes.”

“Why don’t men see that?” He hated sounding so whiny, but all he could think about was Chad giving him a pitiful look before he walked out. “If you’d only use your head instead of your muscles, you’d get somewhere. You’d be dangerous. But you’re not. You’re just walking testosterone.” Chad hadn’t known him at all.

“People see what they want and you know that, but you’ve got to change their perception,” James said.

“Right.”

“Well, you’ve done the first thing, which is asking me for help. Since you’ve asked and I want to accommodate you, what kind of man are you looking for?”

“For a date?”

“I’m already giving you the haircut, so yes, the date,” James said. He ran the comb over Cody’s head.

He had to think about this for a moment. “I’d like someone who is sweet, sensitive, likes to read and listen to music, is caring, handsome and not obsessed with his own ego.”

“So you want the impossible.”

“Probably.”

James stepped around the chair to face Cody. He cocked his hip and folded his arms. “Are you available on Saturday? Like eight-ish?”

“Sure.” He wouldn’t even have to clear his schedule. “I’m not working then.”

“Good. Go to Club Jester at eight and look for a man in a Hawaiian shirt. You’ll wear a dark blue button-down—you’ve got one, right?” James asked.

“I have one, yes,” he replied. “But you’re kidding about the Hawaiian shirt, right?”

“Not a bit. Are you still interested?”

He didn’t have much choice. He wanted to meet someone. “Sure. With you?”

“Nah. I’m chained to this shop. I can’t leave, even if I want to,” James said. “But I do have a man in mind. He’s perfect for you—if you’ll trust me.”

“I do.”

James removed the cape, then turned him to face the mirror. “What do you think? I trimmed the sides quite close, but left the top a bit longer. It gives some length to your face and the dark of your hair sets off your eyes. It gives you more of an updated look, too. What do you think?”

He’d become so used to seeing himself in the buzz cut that he wasn’t ready for the slight change. He swept his gaze over his reflection and resisted the urge to demand his usual cut. James was right. The slight length made his eyes stand out and brought out the angularity of his face. “I like it.”

“Do you?” James rested his hands on Cody’s shoulders. “You don’t look convinced.”

“I’m getting used to it.” He tipped his head to admire himself from a few more angles. “It’s good. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. This one’s on the house since you’ve been here every week for the last three months,” James said. “You won’t have to come back right away. Give yourself a week off.”

“You’d lose revenue.” He left the chair. “I don’t want to cheat you.”

“Honey, if you go on the date and it works out, then that’s plenty of payment. I want you to be happy.” James grinned and flicked his hand. “You’d better tell me how it goes, though. I want to know all the lurid details, doll. I don’t just pair up anyone, and I know this will be good for you if you’re willing to try.”

“I am.” He placed a ten-dollar bill on James’ counter, then shook hands with him. “Thank you.” He wouldn’t have asked for the haircut on his own, but the more he looked at himself, the more he liked the style.

“Welcome.”

“Bye, Doob.” He patted the dog on the head once more, then walked out of the salon. He had a date. Excitement slid through his veins, then switched to fear. A date. Holy fucking shit. What if the guy wasn’t his type? What if he was, but wasn’t interested? What if he made a fool of himself in front of the man? His stomach lurched and his nerves got the better of him for a moment. No, he’d asked for this help and would see the date through.

But the idea of wearing a button-down shirt irked him. He’d grown so accustomed to wearing his sports gear that he’d forgotten how to dress like a regular guy. Did he even know how to any longer? He wore shorts and sleeveless tees even in the winter. Would his sleeved shirts even fit? At least he had two days to sort out his wardrobe. Maybe Ty would have something he could borrow if nothing in his closet fit.

Or he could back out.

No. He didn’t want to let James down by not showing up.

He shook his head and walked back to Workout!

The date might not be what he wanted, but he had the feeling it would be just what he needed.

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About the Author

Megan Slayer

Megan Slayer, aka Wendi Zwaduk, is a multi-published, award-winning author of more than one-hundred short stories and novels. She’s been writing since 2008 and published since 2009. Her stories range from the contemporary and paranormal to LGBTQ and BDSM themes. No matter what the length, her works are always hot, but with a lot of heart. She enjoys giving her characters a second chance at love, no matter what the form. She’s been the runner up in the Kink Category at Love Romances Café as well as nominated at the LRC for best author, best contemporary, best ménage and best anthology. Her books have made it to the bestseller lists on Amazon.com.

When she’s not writing, Megan spends time with her husband and son as well as three dogs and three cats. She enjoys art, music and racing, but football is her sport of choice.

Find out more about Megan on her website, and sign up for the newsletter here. You can also check out her Blog, Amazon Author Page, Bookbub and Instagram.

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Grayality by Carey PW

General Release Date: 12th July 2022

Word Count:  78,383
Book Length:SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 308

Genres:

BISEXUAL
COMEDY AND HUMOUR
CONTEMPORARY
GAY
GLBTQI
ROMANCE
TRANSGENDER

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Book Description

Love knows no gender.

Pate Boone, a twenty-six-year-old transgender man, embarks on a new adventure when his childhood best friend, and yes, ex-lover, Oakley Ogden, convinces him to escape their hometown in hopes for something new.

They land in Cloverleaf, a tiny rural town in Montana, so that Oakley can care for his granny who is battling breast cancer. She pressures the two young men to enroll in a nearby college. Pate immediately becomes enthralled with Maybelle, a young, vivacious freshman to whom he fears revealing his transgender identity. Still, he finds it impossible to resist Maybelle, even after he meets her ex, Bullet, a large, violent man determined to keep Pate away from “his girl.”

But there are others who accept Pate immediately, like Stormy. An outdoorsy, rugged freshman, Stormy warns Pate away from Maybelle and Bullet, but Pate’s too infatuated to heed these warnings.

Oakley tries to support his friend’s new love but finds himself entangled in his own emotional calamity when he unintentionally falls for Jody, a gay and ostentatiously confident drag queen. This new relationship awakens deep internal conflicts in Oakley as he struggles to accept his bisexuality, lashing out at Pate and causing friction between him and Jody.

Oakley must decide if he can overcome his insecurities so he doesn’t lose the love of his life. And Pate must discover if the love between him and Maybelle is strong enough for her to accept him as a transgender man, or if she will break his heart.

Reader advisory: This book contains references to homophobia, transphobia, physical assault and a past suicide attempt. There is use of marijuana and smoking, as well as mentions of gender dysphoria and past sexual assault.

Excerpt

How did I get here?

The question engulfed me as my eyes cringed and my guts tensed up as Oakley and I flew down the highway going seventy-five miles per hour. All I saw were miles of flat earth, lazy summer cows and the occasional rolling hill extending off into some unknown horizon. It looked distant and hopeless.

I was twenty-six years old and going nowhere. The only thing that I’d ever known for certain was that I wanted to be a man. I spent most of my high school days and early twenties working endless shifts at whatever hourly wage job would have me. I also worked small tutoring jobs, helping high school drop-outs study for their GEDs, or helping kids in the neighborhood get through high school trigonometry. Luckily, I got a steady gig as a bartender in East Atlanta that offered full-time benefits and insurance, something I had thought was an elusive dream. It took years of sacrifice and slaving away to scrape together enough funds to pay for my hormones and, eventually, my top surgery. Of course, kids typically stay on their parents’ insurance until their mid-twenties (thanks Obama!), but I was not welcome at home anymore and didn’t want to bug my parents for their insurance card. So I had to do it on my own.

I performed well in high school and later in college, maintaining a four-point-oh average and getting enough scholarships to help me fund my bachelor’s degree in English education. However, when I realized that I was transgender, college just wasn’t a priority anymore. I dropped out after two years to work full-time and earn more money for treatment.

Now, my current transitioning journey had been halted. I’d been taking hormones for more than two years and had top surgery ten months ago. I had no more funds to pursue the full transition, the coveted bottom surgery. I was now more visibly a man, but I was a man with no job, no more money and no support, except for Oakley.

Oakley and I met in the first grade. He was the typical “rebel” southerner who wore death metal shirts and played lead guitar in a death metal band. Oakley was my first everything. First friend, first real boyfriend (good ol’ ninth grade) and first sexual experience.

Oakley had a slow start into adulthood. He came close to marrying a girl he met after high school. Her family owned a dry-cleaning business, and they let Oakley manage one of their stores. A few years later, the girl got pregnant, and it seemed that Oakley’s future was set. For someone so rebellious, here he was getting married, having babies, buying a home and working in the family business. What a sell-out, I thought. A few months before the wedding, the girl told him that she had been seeing the drummer in his metal band and that the baby was the spawn of their passionate, clandestine romance that occurred often in the backseat of his truck while Oakley was tuning his guitar. Oakley never fully recovered.

Here we are, years later, Oakley childless, and me breastless.

A few months ago, Oakley’s grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was having a double mastectomy done in Seattle and would be returning to her ranch in a small town in Eastern Montana. She needed someone to take care of her and provide transportation for medical appointments. She offered Oakley free room and board, homecooked Granny meals and a beautiful, skyscraper-free skyline. Her only caveat was that she wanted Oakley to enroll in the local university and hold a part-time job. Since he had spent his childhood and adolescent years taking many trips to Montana for snowboarding and skiing, Oakley claimed that he was ready for a change and that the South just wasn’t where his soul belonged. Too afraid to embark on this new Pacific Northwest adventure on his own, he talked his grandmother into letting me move with him.

Neither of us grew up in urban, crowded, skyscraper jungles, but we were products of endless major highways with exits every five to ten miles that glowed under golden arches and gas station beams. As Oakley’s 2004 Pontiac Sunfire flew up Highway 2, my eyes frantically searched for lights, gas stations, food and civilization, only to see nothing more than flat earth and cattle ranches every time our car passed over a hill. I think I will need to develop a strong bladder.

“Are you sure that there is a town on this road?” I asked, more to myself than Oakley. “And why the fuck is it so cold? It’s freakin’ July!” I shoved my hands into my armpits in futile hopes of warmth. All my clothes were packed tight into old suitcases and garbage bags in the trunk, and I was sporting a tight-fitting black tank to show off my petite but toned biceps. But when our little Sunfire pulled into the dark, shady gas station along the Montana and North Dakota border, my face was met with a slap of icy cold wind and droplets of rain, sending a piercing shiver up my spine. I checked the weather on my phone. It read forty-five degrees.

“I’ve never actually driven here. We’ve always flown in from Billings in the eight-seater plane. Trust me, it will look better when we reach Cloverleaf,” Oakley calmly assured me.

Rising up from the conservative Southern trenches that had filled my belly with a large, hardened rock, I had learned to keep my mouth shut and my head down. As my eyes scoured the landscape of dilapidated derelict buildings and closed businesses when our car arrived in town, my heart wasn’t optimistic that Cloverleaf was going to be the place for me to thrive. As I looked closely at a man climbing out of his gargantuan four-by-four truck, I could just make out the ruggedness of his dirty hands with bloody cracks, his stiff, muddy boots that were probably black underneath all the dirt, and his deep forehead wrinkles from the hours in the blazing sun and frigid wind. Even if men here accepted me as a man, I didn’t know how I would interact with this form of masculinity. Instead, I gently caressed my soft, delicate, feminine hands.

I wasn’t a man’s man, yet in some ways, I was. I’d always been athletic. I played sports in elementary and middle school before quitting to work during high school. I was never talented, always preferring to support the good players rather than put myself out there, especially with the form-fitting uniforms that showcased my bouncy breasts when I ran. However, sports offered me a good excuse to exercise and stay fit in an attempt to avoid developing female curves.

Even after I started working, I still jogged three miles daily and lifted weights to make everything as lean and tight as possible. It took about a year and a half for the testosterone to thin me out like a man. As I ran my hands along my thigh bones that were hugged by my runner’s muscles, then along my abdomen where I could now feel the subtle crevices that nearly formed a complete six-pack, I finally adored my body. Years of working out and restricting my diet still left a hovering, protruding belly of fat that stuck out, and round hips that insisted on telling the whole world that I was a woman and never allowed me to have the body that my exercise efforts and heart cried out for. I scratched between my legs, waking up from my physical admiration as my genitals reminded me that I was still only half a man.

“You’ll be fine. There’s still a lot of pretty girls around here. And we’ll be hot stuff because we’re new and exotic,” Oakley sang as he rubbed his septum bullring piercing, causing his shirt sleeve to rise, revealing his array of skull tattoos.

Oakley and I were similar guys. We both had small, skinny physiques that prevented us from appearing like tough, dominant masculines, so we chose to paint our bodies with as many skulls, horror tattoos and gag-inducing piercings as possible to prove our masculinity in another kind of “tough” way. After all, I didn’t think that truck-driving ranching man who I saw at the last town was “man enough” to stick a needle in his septum or through his penis, as Oakley bravely did a few weeks ago. Yet, I felt that our masculinity was always dismissed because it didn’t follow stereotypical displays that involved driving trucks, getting dirty or flexing muscles. On the other hand, maybe it was all in my head.

“How do you suggest that I date around here?” I asked, throwing my hand up at the ocean of perpetual brown fields. “It would only take two seconds before everyone here knows I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak.”

“Yeah, well, say that to all the other men without vaginas.” I crossed my arms.

“I think there are a lot of women who wouldn’t care. Women are more open with their sexuality,” he argued.

“But then you add the no job, no money, no car—”

“We’ll get jobs,” he interrupted me. “There’s always hourly work around here. That’s easy. You can save up for a car. And we’re going to college, so our financial situation is acceptable.”

“Are you really into the college thing?” I challenged.

“Are you?” Oakley turned his eyes sideways to search for any dishonesty.

I heaved in a gulp of air as I looked away from him and focused my gaze on a worn-down Misfits sticker on his dashboard.

“What?” he urged.

“It’s just a waste of time,” I grumbled.

“You’re a good teacher. You’re going to be a good teacher—”

“No one is going to hire or accept a trans teacher in schools. Even if I get certified and hired, if I am ‘discovered’”—I made quotation marks with my fingers—“it’s over. And even if it’s not, I don’t want to put up the fight, you know?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not trying to be some transgender freedom fighter.” I sighed. “I just don’t want anyone around here to know about it, okay? Like don’t tell anybody.”

“Granny knows,” he reminded me.

“Besides Granny.”

“Okay.”

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About the Author

Carey PW

Writing has always been my passion, as well as the way that I process my own life experiences. I am an openly transgender (AFAB), panromantic asexual living in rural Montana. There are few LGBTQIA+ resources here, and I always feel there is more room needed for LGBTQIA+ literary works. I have always written fiction as a hobby and earned a B.A. in English Literature and a M.Ed. in English Education from the University of Georgia; however, I ended up earning a Ph.D. in 2013, which moved most of my writing to the academic genre in which I have published several co-authored articles in peer-reviewed academic journals.

After coming out as transgender in 2018 and as asexual in 2020, I decided to refocus my writing on LGBTQIA+ themes in which I write about my own experiences through fictional characters and stories. Writing about my experiences has been extremely therapeutic for me. I am particularly enthralled with the complexities behind LGBTQIA+ identities and highly advocate that sexuality and gender identity exists on a spectrum. This topic is highly personal because my husband married me when I presented as a woman and was adamant that he could not be with a man. He underwent his own process of reevaluating his sexuality and now identifies as bisexual with a preference for women and feminine men. I think he is a wonderful example of the true fluidity behind sexuality.

Likewise, I choose to write about what it means to be LGBTQIA+ in a rural community like my current residence in Montana. Rural communities offer their own unique challenges due to little to no existing resources in some areas and a true feeling of isolation and invisibility. I want to share my experience coming out in a rural community and choosing to live openly as a transgender person and openly in a same-sex marriage.

Additionally, I work full-time as a human services instructor and a mental health counselor at a community college. Through this work, I also educate and advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. My work as an educator and a counselor fuels my desire to use my fiction to increase awareness and acceptance for LGBTQIA+ people. Lastly, I would characterize my writing as person-centered, a term created by Carl Rogers as a counseling therapy and later as a life philosophy. My works center around the beauty and extraordinary complexity in being vulnerably authentic.

Check out Carey’s website and Instagram.

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