Herc & Pyotr Go to White Palace

Herc & Pyotr
Storming Love: Meteor Strikes 5

Publisher: MLRPress
Release Date: 25 March 2016

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Blurb

Herc is a psychotherapist dealing with his own issues—not wanting to get out of bed after his partner leaves him for another man—when a meteorite crashes into his car and leads to meeting the sexy, new neighbor, astrophysicist Pyotr, who’s studying the recent spate of global meteor strikes.

Herc thought he had the perfect life: a great partner and a meaningful career as a psychotherapist—until his partner left him a week ago and Herc became too depressed to see his clients. When a random meteorite punched a tidy hole in his car’s engine, it seemed like the world had it in for him, but bumping into Pyotr, the handsome older man who’s moved in a couple of doors down and happens to study things like falling stars, things might be looking up for Herc—and more may be falling than the skies in this light-hearted, apocalyptic romance.

A Word From Atom

 As readers have been reading my latest book, Herc & Pyotr, I’ve noticed some comments about the ages of my main characters, and their age difference.

See, Herc is a forty-four year-old, Asian-American psychotherapist. Pyotr is a Russian-American astrophysicist in his mid-fifties. I didn’t think these qualities, except for maybe their professions, were important enough to mention while I promoted Herc & Pyotr, but maybe I need to rethink that.

As I’ve said before in other interviews and essays, I’m new to the genre of M/M and gay romance. I assumed that having older characters, and an age difference between them, wouldn’t be anything noteworthy, as it’s fairly common in the world of gay men. It’s even a stereotype in Asian/Western pairings, with theories about it stemming from Asian cultural respect for elders and the European cult of youth coming together quite fortuitously. (Asians do tend to appear younger for longer, but I’ve also noticed this Dorian Gray effect where after a certain age, we age rapidly and go from smokin’ to Yoda).

I happen to be someone who falls into that stereotype, and have always preferred older men. We could delve into some psychobabble about daddy issues, but let’s not suck the joy out of this and instead, pump some of it in where it belongs: older men have different sensibilities and get into different kinds of troubles in novels than younger men do, and their potential for emotional maturity, wisdom, and patience can be the anchor in a younger person’s storm when they’re paired together in a story.

However, Herc & Pyotr isn’t about a huge age difference. Pyotr, being over fifty, may qualify as a “daddy” in gay culture, but if we’re counting years, Herc would be a daddy, too, being over forty. The point isn’t that there’s a power differential in my story, though—it’s not a daddy/boy or a daddy/son dynamic. It’s really just about two men who have lived a while and learned a bit—and have now met and will try to love each other despite the odds, for as long as they can (Herc & Pyotr is part of MLR Press’s Storming Love series of disaster romances, so there’s always a possibly world-ending catastrophe in the mix).

I suppose it’s unusual because many stories out there are about twenty- or thirty-somethings getting their foot in the door of life—coming out of the closet, leaving college, beginning adulthood, true love for the first time…It’s fun and I love what I’ve read, and those are great ages for shenanigans (did you know, the prefrontal cortex of the brain, responsible for decision-making, emotional regulation, etc isn’t fully developed until age twenty-five? I kid you not).

And what I wanted to offer readers was a taste of my world. I want to add my voice into the fray with stories about forty-somethings looking for love and finding it. I want to show that our stories—the stories of anyone searching for love—are worth telling, worth reading, and worth sharing. If we don’t tell a story about it, does it exist? And if we do tell a story about it, will it exist more?

Let’s hope so. I write stories with themes that I want to explore, but until today, I hadn’t fully realized that what I want to explore also means that it’s new or unfamiliar territory to others. I’m not preaching to the choir with an oft-used trope—I’m inviting people to commune with me, as Maude put it in Harold and Maude, with nature—with love in its many forms.

Excerpt

Chapter One

 I took care of my car.

 Regular maintenance, oil changes, carwashes--the works. I figured I'd sell it one day, and I didn't want it to have a scratch or a sticker to drop its value, let alone anything wrong mechanically. Everything worked on it--the power windows, radio, CD player...until today.

 "Great," I said, staring at the fist-sized hole in the hood. I clicked my key fob and turned off the alarm. A few of the neighbors came out and turned off their car alarms, too, that had been set off by the very loud boom that shook all of our windows early this spring morning.

 "Jeez, Herc, what happened?" Nestori, my friend and neighbor down the way, stood there with his blond bed head, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He wore a rumpled white tee, sweatpants, and socks--we were dressed alike except I had slippers. Maybe I appeared as lost as he did. Or worse, since I hadn't changed my clothes since the beginning of the week.

 "I don't know." I gawked at the smoking hole. "Lightning?" I pieced together the evidence I had, and only came up with a timeline that started with a crash, followed by my car alarm, then a couple of minutes later the aforementioned boom, and finally the other cars being triggered. "A frozen turd from an airplane?"

 "Are you serious? Holy shit."

 "Ha ha."

 "What?" His golden eyebrows crinkled together, and then he grinned. "Oh."

"To be fair, it did fall from the sky." Everybody huddled closer to peer into the puncture. "I don't know. I don't even know who I should call about this."

 "What about Jason?"

 Nestori's innocent question should've felt like a sucker punch, but the numbness from seeing my killed car protected me. "He left last week. We're not together anymore."

 "Bro. Why didn't you say anything?"

 Because you would've wanted to get me drunk and laid.

 "I would've totally come over with a bottle of Jack and helped you get some D, man."

 "So that's why I haven't seen him jogging for a while." Pihla, the widow who lived across the street, had the perkiest personality--and breasts--in our neighborhood. "I thought he left on a business trip." She wore a pink satin robe over a pink nightie with matching pink slippers. A small, thin, gold cross on a gold chain stuck out sideways from her cleavage and wobbled back and forth, unable to rest flat. Her son, Sami, clung to her leg, his head just above her knee, avoiding eye contact like some toddlers do. This suburban Madonna in pink held a mug of expensive coffee I could smell and envy from where I stood, and rested her French manicured hand on her shy boy's head. By the way she had batted her eyes at Jason during block parties, or how she happened to pick up the morning paper from her driveway when he'd jog past, I always thought she had a crush on my partner.

 Ex. I meant ex-partner.

 "Yeah, he didn't leave on a business trip. He just left me." I wondered if I died inside my home from choking on a chicken bone while eating, single and alone, how long it would take for my neighbors to notice my dead, bachelor body. I thought I smelled something funny, one would say a week later. Jeez, what happened? another would ask. Who the hell cares? my ghost would spell out on a Ouija board, life sucks.

 "Meteorite," said a faintly accented voice from the crowd. Slavic, I would guess.

 "Whoa! You think a meteor hit Herc's car?" Nestori asked. "How do you know?"

 "Meteorite," the voice gently corrected. "It's a meteorite when it lands. I saw everything as I was jogging this morning."

 "Meteorite," I mumbled. My geek brain fetched a personal wiki page from when I wrote a report in sixth grade about asteroids crashing into Earth and destroying all life, because I've always been a cheery person. The word "disaster" comes from the Italian disastro, meaning "ill-starred event."

 Why couldn't it have been a pretty shooting star that vaporized all sparkly in the atmosphere, so I could make a wish? Instead, it'd dropped a deuce on my perfectly maintained car.

 The hole in the hood gaped back at me, and I thought about the day Jason left. He had requested I park on the street instead of in the garage, so he'd be able to get his things out of the house without too much trouble.

 I should make a wish anyway.

 Something realistic, not like true love and a happy-ever-after ending with a handsome, emotionally intelligent man, because that obviously doesn't happen. How about a nice pair of shoes? Good shoes are more reliable than men.

 "I'm sorry this happened," the voice said, this time to my left. "There have been worldwide reports of meteor strikes over the past few weeks."

 I turned and came eye to eye with the concerned face of a middle-aged man only slightly taller than me. He wore a red baseball cap and his black hair, lined with a few strands of gray, escaped his hat around his ears and a little over his forehead. His color-coordinated stubble, speckled with silver, defined a square jaw and framed full lips. Perspiration darkened his loose, gray shirt, forming something like a Rorschach inkblot in the center of his defined chest. Despite the smell of engine oil and gasoline coming from my mortally wounded car, the scent of his clean sweat cut through and woke me from my daze.

 "Hi, I'm Pyotr. I moved here last week." He offered me a firm handshake and a smile, and returned to surveying the damage to my car, his hands on his hips. "You should probably call your insurance and not your ex. I work from home a few days a week, so if you need a ride, let me know? I live down the street." He started running lightly in place. His feet were bare, which I hadn't noticed.

"Thanks for the offer...Pee-yo-ter. I may take you up on it."

 "Please do." Pyotr smiled again, nodded a succinct farewell, and trotted off.

 "Yeah, if you need a ride..." Nestori and a few neighbors offered, but I didn't pay attention.

 I was busy making an unrealistic wish. And it wasn't for shoes.

About Atom

Atom was born to Chinese immigrant parents who thought it'd be a hoot to raise him as an immigrant, too--so he grew up estranged in a familiar land, which gives him an interesting perspective. He's named after a Japanese manga (comic book) character, in case you were wondering.

Find Atom Here

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Today I Am... Back In Writing Mode

Yes, today I finally have the urge to write... I have been so out of it for the last six months or so... not that I'm going to get into that and give you all my woe is me story.

Today I started off by tweaking the blurb for The Connelly Chronicles 2: Beautiful Goodbyes. I did and sent back the BIF yesterday to the wonderful Faith BB over at PRIDE.

Today I'm also starting back on Lancaster's Way 3: Pre-loved, I have a little bit of a rewrite and then I will be full steam ahead. before I know it I'll have subbed it to the amazing Christie N at MLRPRESS.

Intended Mates 1: Lay Your Body Down, which will be appearing in the anthology Seasons Of Murder has gone for proofing. I can't wait for these ones to be released. this really is the story I wrote will suffering badly with Insomnia and couldn't remember what the hell it was about... lesson learned--Don't write while severely sleep deprived. So soon I should receive galley proofing before it is formatted for release. I have already been making notes for book 2: Dancing To The Sounds Of Madness

Today I'm also reviewing Moon Runners 2: I Won't Let You Go and seeing where the story is headed... I will probably need to go through book 1: Heart-mate Mine! and write down a list of all the character names so I don't screw them up... I hate it when I get through writing the next in a series and then realise I got a character's name wrong... or the colour of their eyes and hair. If it drives me nuts, then I know it must be equally as frustrating for my readers.

My Guest ~ Tori Carson

First I would like to start off by apologizing... apparently I was supposed to promo this back on Jan 12th... but due to my own personal 'family dramas from hell' it totally slipped my mind... so hopefully Tori can forgive me.

Against the Odds

Publisher: Totally Bound
Release Date: 23 January 2016

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Blurb

Once their paths cross, their fates are sealed.

Sid is a master at solving cold cases. His mind thrives on the challenge. He has a knack for finding elusive clues and piecing the puzzle together, until he starts on the trail of a privileged teenage debutante who in a fit of rage burned down her design studio and brutally murdered her closest competitor.

As the years go by, the case becomes an obsession. Using age progression techniques, he knows the girl has grown into a beautiful woman. He wonders how many others have fallen into her web of deadly deceit.

Sasha is a brilliant interior decorator. Her designs are coveted by the rich and influential. She has a mysterious air. No one knows about her murky past and she’s determined to keep it that way. She survives by relying on no one and avoiding all personal connections. After a break-in at her office brings unwanted police attention, she feels the noose tightening. She must choose between escape and making a stand. To break free, she’ll have to do the unthinkable. She’ll have to learn to trust.

Reader advisory: This book contains references to human trafficking, as well as scenes of rape and physical abuse.

Excerpt

Fear pervaded every cell of her body. Alexa’s throat closed, refusing the smoke laden air. Flames raced through the studio, devouring her dreams. Bolt after bolt of custom woven fabric, designed for her new clothing line, gone in the blink of an eye. Her head throbbed from the beating she’d endured at the hands of her protector and guardian. She pushed away the pain and betrayal. Nothing mattered now but survival. Sliding in and out of consciousness, she lay still, biding her time until she could escape.

One last kick to her ribs, and a muttered obscenity, signaled his departure. Her attacker had ripped her files from the cabinet and scattered them along the floor. Her once priceless, ‘one of a kind’, designs were now ruined. He’d taken a sledgehammer to her computer’s hard drive, wrapped it in a bolt of embellished silk and set it ablaze.

She had to get out and that meant curling into a ball and crying her eyes out would have to wait. As she crawled over months of work, once coveted and protected, now discarded to fuel her funeral pyre, her hand slipped on the loose papers, sending her chin scraping across the blood-soaked floor. She dashed away the tears and continued. As she neared the doorway, she had to move Ezzy’s lifeless body from the exit. Alexa took Ezzy by the arm and pulled her farther into the room. Knowing that Ezzy was beyond help didn’t ease the guilt beating at Alexa. Her stomach protested over and over. Bile burned her smoke-scorched throat, her muscles twisted into knots as she fought to keep moving.

Alexa jerked awake, landing hard on the floor beside the single bed in her low-rent apartment. Thousands of miles and ten years later, the bad dreams continued to assault her. The roar of the fire still assaulted her ears. Her lungs still protested the acidic fumes and her stomach still rebelled remembering Ezzy’s mutilated body. Long ago, she’d accepted nightmares were a part of her life. She didn’t have the time or energy to feel sorry for herself. Betrayal and death were always there waiting for a careless moment. She’d vowed to never be careless again.

* * * *

 Sid stared at the young girl’s picture taped to his computer screen. It was a tactic he’d used many times while working on cold cases for the FBI. Yet this time was different. He didn’t need the photo front and center to keep Alexa on his mind. She lived there. Awake or asleep, it didn’t matter, her image was burned into his brain.

 He had stacks of other cases littering his workspace and thousands of others just a keystroke away. Why this one?

 “Hello,” Teague waved his hand in front of Sid’s face, “where’d you go?”

 “Sorry.”

 Teague walked over and pulled her photo from the screen. “Missing?”

 Sid took the picture and put it back where it had been. His finger lingered over her face. Such a contagious smile and intelligent eyes didn’t fit the horrific crimes she was wanted for.

 “It’s a cold case a buddy of mine in New York asked me to review. Don’t worry about it.” His friend had long since consigned it to the hopeless case bin, but Sid continued to track down every lead. For whatever reason, he just couldn’t shake it. He hated to think about the man hours he’d put into finding the girl. All he really had to go by was a fingerprint.

 “Pretty little thing. How long ago did she disappear?” Teague was like a Gila monster, once he sank his teeth into something, he never let go.

 “Ten years.” She could easily be dead by now. A sixteen-year-old kid wanted by police and living on the streets didn’t have a hell of a lot of opportunities.

 “Damn. That’s a long time. Who do you think grabbed her and why is the NBIA pursing this case?”

 The National Border Interdiction Agency, his current employer, specialized in crimes originating outside the United States. “This one is off the clock. She’s not a victim. She’s an arsonist and a murderer, or so the theory goes.” How could a child like that brutally beat and ultimately murder her brother’s fiancée, set fire to her family’s garment warehouse then stage the scene in an attempt to fake her own death?

 “Any leads?” Teague continued to pursue the matter.

 Recently he’d been notified of a new hit on the partial print. Unlike the hundreds before it, this one was practically in his own backyard. It seemed doubtful that a young girl would leave the glitz and glamour of New York City to travel across the country and settle in Arizona, but there were some oddities that had his curiosity aroused.

 “Maybe.”

 Teague motioned for him to keep talking.

 “Why the hell are you so interested?” Sid wasn’t comfortable talking about this case.

 “You’ve been telling me how I need to learn investigative techniques that go beyond a keyboard. Obviously this is something you feel strongly about. You aren’t even getting paid for this, yet you’re still spending your off time on it. Therefore, it must be a doozy. So walk me through how to solve a ten-year-old case.”

 Fuck. Why had he believed befriending Teague was a good idea? Although he tried, he couldn’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t confide in Teague.

 “Recently a local interior design firm was broken into. A secretary, a temp on a six-month assignment, phoned it in. A couple of things caused the investigating officer to be suspicious.” He raised his index finger. “First, the temp was supposed to be filling in for a woman on maternity leave. After some digging, he found out there were five secretaries before this one and each had been hired as a six-month temp. And none of them left because they were pregnant.” He raised two fingers. “In fact, everyone associated with the firm is hired temporarily or as a contracted project-based employee.”

 “Could just be cheap. If you keep rotating the staff none of them are going to ask for a raise or expect benefits,” Teague suggested.

 Sid shrugged. “The owner, a young woman known publically as Sasha, is a big deal. Her designs are the latest craze. Everyone who’s anyone has at least a room decorated by Sasha. She isn’t hurting for money.”

 Teague looked at him closely. Sid obviously needed to work on his poker face.

“You and I both know that some of the richest people are the ones that pinch a penny until it screams.”

 Sid nodded. “According to the police report, once Sasha arrived, she told the investigator there’d been a misunderstanding. She said her boyfriend, who she refused to identify, had ransacked the office after an argument. She told him she was sure nothing had been taken and was adamant he drop the investigation. The detective didn’t buy it for a minute and ran the prints anyway.”

 “Does this Sasha physically match her?” Teague tipped his chin toward the picture.

 “The owner of Sasha’s Design is a twenty-six-year-old brunette, about five foot six, who reportedly netted several million last year.”

 “And?”

 “So why does she live in a studio apartment in a shitty part of town? According to the DMV, her company owns one delivery van and she personally owns a late-model pickup. Though they are both unencumbered, neither speak of that kind of money. You’d think a young girl earning seven figures would have a few creature comforts.”

 Teague nodded. “I’m assuming you’ve had an age progression artist give you a hand.”

 Sid hit a few keys on his computer and brought up the sketch. About a year ago, he’d asked for a workup. Sid believed in crossing his t’s and dotting his i’s. His nature dictated he cover every base, though he was sure he wouldn’t need it. This case was never far from his mind. Lately, he’d even been dreaming about her. Not the vibrant teen from the picture, but a very serious young woman. A damsel in distress. The type he always fell for. 

Against the Rules

Released: 8 May 2015

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Blurb

Targeted by a drug cartel, Teague is out for vengeance until Chantel lands in his lap. Is this fiery, redheaded submissive his lifeline or his downfall?

One nosy keystroke and Teague’s life was changed forever. He lost his identity, his family and is constantly running for his life. There is little doubt that the cartel will eventually find and kill him. Until then he plans to put as many of them away as possible. It has become his single-minded goal.

Chantel was raised with the knowledge that bogey men exist. She carries a gun and she knows how to use it. She is confident that she can take care of herself. Her only real fear is of dying alone, without ever knowing the meaning of true love.

Teague has a weakness for redheads and the cartel knows it. They’ve used it against him in the past. When Chantel literally falls into his lap, he knows it is too good to be true. Convinced that it will be his downfall, he pursues her anyway. After a weekend of life-affirming sex, he vows to never see her again.

Once Chantel has found the man of her dreams, she’s not going to let a threat against her get in the way. Now caught in the sights of a serial killer her father has spent his life hunting down, Chantel learns that there are worse things in life than death.

For a chance to save Chantel, Teague must choose between his life’s work and the young woman who has made his life worth living.

Reader Advisory: This book contains scenes of kidnapping, torture, sexual torture, violence and references to human trafficking of children.

Excerpt

 “So, I created this spreadsheet to help me keep my schedule straight. I color-coded the games to align with the level I’ve achieved. That way I can spend the same amount of time on each game, yet track my advances…”

 Chantel knew that her eyes had glazed over an hour ago. Rodney hadn’t seemed to notice. He still prattled on about video games and spreadsheets. Neither appealed to Chantel and she sure wouldn’t combine the two. Abstractedly, she wondered if he had a spreadsheet tracking the number of times he had picked his nose tonight. She’d lost count.

 She looked longingly at the exit. It was so close. She could be out of the door in seconds. Then what? Go home to her empty house, curl up with an erotic romance novel and wait for the alarm to go off so she could go to work again. Oh yeah, that sounded like fun.

 The slurp of beer brought her attention back to Rodney. Oh, God, there he goes with the nose thing again.

 “Excuse me,” Chantel murmured reaching for her purse and bolting for the bathroom. There was only one for both men and women.

 Chantel leaned against the sink and dabbed at the tears trying to escape. “You knew Rodney was a loser and you went out with him anyway. You deserve crappy-ass pizza, wobbly, squeaky chairs and watered-down diet soda.” She turned toward the ceiling, hoping gravity would help keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Seeing the rain-stained ceiling tiles only added another candle onto her pity party cake.

 In college, she and her friends had once cast a spell imploring the gods to bring forth a bodacious man to live out her fantasies, a strong man who could satisfy her needs sexually and have an intelligent conversation afterward. She’d wanted a man who could set her panties on fire with just a look or a whispered command. Hell, now she’d settle for a man who was more interested in her buttons than the TV remote.

 Chantel fell back on her mantra after each rotten date. Life doesn’t need to include men to be meaningful and fulfilled.

 She almost groaned at that thought. Being filled… When was the last time she’d had sex? No, don’t go there! It’s not like it was that great anyway. Messy, sweaty and quick.

 Another glance at the polished steel that passed for a mirror told her she was presentable. With her head held high, like a prisoner determined to face her sentence with dignity, she pulled open the door.

* * * *

 Teague knew that he was being stupid. He knew he should have left temptation alone, but here he stood listening to the quiet sniffles and the one-sided conversation she was having with herself on the other side of the door. The beady-eyed twerp she’d been sitting with had Teague’s radar going off and his protective streak on full alert.

 As the door swung open, he used his body to block her exit. She responded by jumping backward away from him and farther into the restroom. He let the door close behind them. She clutched her purse and the vein in her neck beat fast, but she had a confidence about her he really hadn’t expected.

 “I’m sorry I startled you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You looked so unhappy.”

 Her response was a very feminine laugh.

 God, her tinkling giggle teased his cock in such a wicked way. It also pissed him off. “What’s so funny?” This woman had no self-preservation skills. A man cornered her in the restroom and she started giggling. What the fuck?

 “Well, it’s a laugh or cry kind of night. I’m trying to keep to the lighter side.” She flashed him a sexy smile.

 He was watching her closely. She seemed to like what she saw. “Fight with your boyfriend?” He was clipped and terse. This hadn’t gone as he’d expected.

 Her jaw tensed and an eyebrow shot toward the ceiling. “Blind date,” she corrected with a haughty air that sent his balls ratcheting a notch tighter.

 “Dump his ass and I’ll see you home.”

 She ran her tongue across her upper lip and her eyes dilated. She sighed as if she’d considered his offer, but her conscience had won.

 “I’ve got my own ride, but thank you for the offer. It was sweet of you.” She met his gaze as if he was no threat to her at all.

 Her confidence and poise under pressure intrigued him. He’d have liked to spend the evening with her. She would have been a delight in bed, too, but she’d said no. He needed to be a gentleman and respect it.

 Mustering all the self-control he’d gained over the years, he made his feet move away from the door.

* * * *

 “Daddy, Daddy, special delivery,” Bobby hollered as he ran in the door.

 Agent Robert Foster of the NBIA, National Border Interdiction Agency, grabbed his son and spun him through the air. He marveled for the hundredth time at how the poor kid looked just like him, from his orange carrot top hair to the slight split between his two front teeth. “What do you mean, little man? What have you got there?”

 Bobby handed his dad a plain brown envelope with no markings of any kind.

 Suddenly sick to his stomach, Robert ran his hand over the top. It was smooth. No hint of wires or powder. Slitting the side, he found a simple index card with, Mr. G. requests target coordinates printed on it.

 Robert set Bobby down gently and turned away, fighting the urge to puke. He wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed down the panic. “Son, where did this come from?”

 “A friend of yours. Dad, his chopper was so cool. He gave me a ride home from school. He said we might go for a longer ride next time.”

 It took a minute for Bobby’s words to sink in. Blood drained from Robert’s face and his stomach knotted. “You aren’t hurt, are you?” He ran his hands from Bobby’s head to his toes as his mind raced, hoping without any real hope that he was wrong. “What did he look like? Did he tell you his name?”

 The panic roaring between his ears made it hard to listen. There was little doubt about who it was. Mr. G.’s hit man, Sammy. A cruel, sadistic bastard who would smile for the camera as he skinned Bobby alive and videotaped it for Robert to watch over and over. He couldn’t have been more terrified if the devil himself had taken Bobby for a ride.

 “No.” He thought about it for a second. “I don’t know. He said he was a friend of yours. His bike was way cool, Dad. It had skulls on the tank and blood-red forks. I can’t wait to go for another ride.”

* * * *

 At work the next day, Chantel was walking around in a gray fog. After paying for her portion of the meal last night, she’d left Rodney to nurse his beer while she’d gone home alone.

 It hadn’t taken long for her to realize she had made yet another mistake. She should have given Yummy Man her phone number. He had a confidence about him she’d rarely seen before. She’d been worried when she’d turned him down. He was a large man, muscular, with scarred hands. If she hadn’t been armed, she would have freaked out.

 Since he’d just smiled and let her leave, she figured her concerns had been for nothing. And she’d let a scrumptious man walk away. Oh well, everything about him had screamed ‘single forever’. She doubted he’d want two point five kids and a dog named Spot to come home to each evening. Then again, she didn’t need a ring on her finger and a certificate from the state to enjoy some mind-blowing sex. If he was even half as hot in bed as he had been in her dreams last night, she’d missed a hell of an opportunity.

 Still kicking herself over not even getting his name, she almost didn’t notice the well-built man kneeling down, not a foot away, until she ran headlong into him. As her body’s forward motion turned into a downward slide, she thought she saw her Yummy Man from the night before. Damn, another dream. But dreams didn’t rearrange your bra when you ran into them or smell fresh and sexy or scatter your paperwork all over the floor.

 “Are you all right?”

 His low, masculine timbre started her blood boiling. She was so lost in listening to the cadence all she heard was, “Rumble, rumble, purr.” Finally, it sank in.

 “I’m good, really good,” she crooned. Holy crap, he was better looking than she remembered. His blond hair was a bit on the longish side. Obviously, he was a man who followed his own style and looked darn fine doing it. 

About Tori

Tori lives in the beautiful Sonoran Desert with her loving husband of almost thirty years. She wakes up each morning to the howls of coyotes and the barking of her family dogs wanting to join the fray.

When Tori isn't writing, she's either spending time with her two, wonderful adult children, or creating stained glass art.

She likes her love stories scorching hot. She tries to infuse a fire and passion between her characters that rivals the blazing summer sun that Arizona is known for. Tori encourages you to bask in the heat between the covers of a Dominant/submissive, happily-ever-after, bondage romance.

Find Tori Here

Blog/Web ~ Facebook

**Note To Self**

Don't start cleaning up you blog because the next thing you know it's 8 hours later and you are still at it... one minute it's 4:30 pm and the next, it's midnight.

Also I'm still working on:

Moon Runners 2: I Won't Let You Go

&

Lancaster's Way 3: Pre-Loved

My Guest ~ R.A. Padmos

Unspoken

Release Date: 29th March
Publisher: Pride Publishing

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Give Away

Anyone giving a reaction to this post has a chance of winning one of my books—a choice of an ebook under all my names.Winners choice. I do need an e-mail address for obvious reasons.  

I also write as: 

S.Dora for my M/M erotica 

& 

Ella Laurance for my M/F erotica. 

Blurb

Sometimes a man has to choose between two very different kinds of love. But what if there is no real choice?

When Stefan meets Adri, it is love at first sight. It does, however, take some time before he recognizes his own feelings. He’s a married man—a family man—with a strong sense of responsibility. In Dutch society of 1935, sex between men over the age of twenty-one might be legal, but acceptance is still a long way off.

As a working-class man without a steady job, he doesn’t have the means to ignore society’s rules and create his own little paradise in which both he and his lover can be together, without his family having to suffer poverty and shame. Despite all this, the lovers find a way to carve out moments of intimacy and happiness.

Then the Germans march into Holland and nothing will ever be the same again. The occupation, which will last five long years, offers both danger and chances, but choices have to be made—choices of the head and choices of the heart.

Readers might be interested to know that Stefan, Adri and others also play a role in The Bookshop, the story of bookseller Jakoba. 

Hidden in plain sight

My novel Unspoken is about a man, Stefan, who discovers his romantic and sexual attraction to another man out of the blue. He honestly had no idea it was even possible. He’s married to a total darling of a woman and they have three children, with a fourth one on its way.

And no, it’s not a friendship slowly growing into something more, a development not unusual in so-called gay for you stories. I don’t even consider Stefan as bisexual, though I can understand the confusion. But Unspoken isn’t about that.

Stefan’s body reacts with almost brutal honesty when he meets Adri for the very first time. It is as if it recognises the truth of its owner much sooner while the mind takes a lot longer to recognise what is going on.

If this would be a temporarily story, it wouldn’t work to have a gay man this naïve. But what if the story takes place in 1935, in a Dutch town? What if homosexuality is legal, but that’s practically the only positive thing that those that are “that way” can hope for? What if Stefan looks and behaves just like any working class man in a time when homosexual men are considered not quite masculine by much of the medical establishment? What if he’s able to perform his marital duties? (I know this doesn’t sound like a man having fun in bed, and that’s exactly what I mean to say)

Perhaps knowing all that, it’s no longer so hard to imagine why a man who falls so hard and so deep for another man, has been able to not even notice his own feelings until they hit him so hard he has no other choice then to deal with them. 

Excerpt

A small taste?

Even after a year, Stefan could hardly believe he was able to make another human being this happy simply by existing. The calm contentment of a marriage between two gentle souls who mean nothing but good things to each other, but without unrealistic dreams, the gratitude for healthy children, it had honestly meant something to him.

But then this had happened. Someone had come into his life, someone with lights in his eyes, who touched whatever he was curious about or greedy for, with a body that demanded to be touched back, and suddenly being content to get old and die knowing a good life had been lived was no longer enough.

About R.A.

In no particular order: woman, writer, in a relationship with my wife since 1981 (though we had to wait until 2001 until we could actually get married), mother of two grown sons, owner of cats (I can pretend, can’t I?), reader and a lot more.

I write in different genres under different names. I’m also S.Dora for my M/M erotica and Ella Laurance for my M/F erotica.

Find R.A. Here

Blog ~ Facebook

Goodreads ~ Twitter

Stressful Times ~ Take Two

Have you ever had a period in your life, where you wish you could rewind and start over?

This is what I have been going through for the past couple of months, and the reason why I have been off and on/in and out of the social media scene.

Have you ever had someone disappoint you so severely, that it effects the way you look at the world. I'm not depressed, I think I'm more saddened that the last couple of years my life has been so emotionally draining for not only me but my family as well.

I'm not going to get into the details as that will only bring everybody down, and none of us need that... Let's just say, that as of recently, my situation has changed, and things are looking up.

I'm hoping that from here on out I'll be more in contact with my readers... keep both my blogs  updated more. I want to be able to put the past behind me and move on into a future where everything is clear.  

Most importantly I want to be able to write again.