“What are you doing?” Tucker kept his voice low and leaned against the bathroom threshold, a smirk on his handsome face.
“What’re you doing?” Micah got to his feet.
“Looking for shaving cream. Why aren’t you making noise?”
“Ugh!” Micah stomped his feet in place a few times.
Tucker rolled his eyes. “You sound like a dying cow.”
“I don’t think anyone is out there listening,” Micah whispered back, walking closer to Tucker. “The shaving cream is in the cabinet to the left of the sink.”
“Thanks.” Grinning, Tucker dragged a hand over his face and through his short, dark blond hair, and turned back toward the bathroom. “Try to sound like you’re having sex. Duncan’s in the room across the hall.”
“Oh.” Oh! Micah rolled his eyes at himself. Dork. Shaking his head, he went back to the iron-framed bed. He sat on the edge and bounced a little. The bed protested nicely. This could be fun. He pulled off his shoes and tossed them away. Bouncing again, he let out a long, ragged moan. Just like old times, he wondered why he let Tucker talk him into these kinds of things. Oh yeah, ’cause you’re in love with him and would do anything for him. Micah was really gonna have to stop that. He groaned, but it added to the sex noise.
“Oh Lord. Don’t overdo it. You just got out of the hospital, remember?” Tucker disappeared back into the bathroom.
Of course he remembered. Tucker wouldn’t let him freaking forget. “Oh, oh yeah. Mmm…” Crawling onto the bed, Micah hopped on his knees a little. The bed squeaked. “Oh yeah, baby.” Take that, Duncan. ¡You pendejo!
The water turned on in the bathroom and Micah grunted, trying to cover the sound. He climbed to his feet and wobbled on the soft mattress. Bending his knees, he made the bed squeak again. Would the bed hold him if he actually jumped? He’d always wanted to jump on a bed. His mom would have killed him when he was a child. Jostling the bed, he glanced around the room. The floor was wood. If he jumped, would the bed be too loud? “Oh yes, yes, yes.” He moaned for effect. He really, really wanted to jump. “Micah,” his mother’s voice admonished in his head. He could almost see her shaking her finger at him.
Fuck it. Micah’s feet left the mattress and the headboard thunked against the wall. “Oh yeah, baby, take it.” His glasses slid down his nose and he had to push them back up. This was fun. He’d wanted some fun back in his relationship with Tucker, but what an odd way to get it. Micah stifled a chuckle.
The water shut off.
“Oh yeah, take that cock.”
Tucker appeared in the doorway with half his face covered in shaving cream and his mouth hanging open. “What. Are. You. Doing?”
Holding his glasses with one hand, Micah jumped and lifted his legs, coming down on his butt. Clunk, clunk, screech. The bed walked back and forth on the wood. “Oh yeah, baby!” He hopped back up, grinning from ear to ear. “You said to act like I was having sex,” he whispered. Dipping his knees a few times, he made the springs bounce. Chuckling, he hopped in a circle. “You like that, baby?”
“Micah,” Tucker snapped out.
“What? You said—”
“I top. Stop with the ‘take it’ stuff. And quit jumping on the bed before you hurt yourself.”
What? “Dios mio.” Micah froze mid-bounce. When he came down, his teeth slammed together. Ow. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re irritated because I’m pretending to top?”
“I always top.” Tucker crossed his arms and leaned against the door, staring at him incredulously.
Despite Micah’s resolve to get over his infatuation, the little giddy feeling started up again. The stark reminder of their one time together came crashing back. It had been good before Tucker had run out on him while he slept. There was just something about having a nice hard cock up—
Micah frowned. His irritation with Tucker was coming back. “Just what’re you insinuating?” He hopped on the bed a couple times in a row. He was not some wuss because he liked to get fucked, damn it. And he was getting really tired of the whole “you’re just out of the hospital” crap.
“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m stating a fact. I top. Always.” Tucker’s brow furrowed. It became apparent why opposing football players in college had feared him and why businessmen probably still did, but that glare didn’t work on Micah. “No one, especially my family, would ever believe otherwise.”
“Well, I get to top in imaginary sex.” Micah pushed the wire frames back up his nose and resisted the childish urge to stick his tongue out.
“No, you don’t.” Pushing away from the door, Tucker strode forward, scowling now. He looked mean.
This was the most ridiculous conversation ever. Micah should just drop it, it was beyond silly, but he didn’t. “Oh yes I do.” He jumped a few more times. “Oh yeah, baby. Take. It. You like my big fat cock up yo—”
Tucker tackled him.
Beauty is only skin deep…until love reveals what lies beneath.
The Pharaoh’s Concubine
© 2011 Z.A. Maxfield
As mob boss Yvgeny Mosko’s open secret, Dylan Anderson is happy enough with a passionate, if loveless, arrangement that affords him a life of luxury. But at thirty-six, he wonders how committed Mosko will be to an aging lover.
He finds out when a rival gang kidnaps him in a turf war everyone’s sure to lose. Mosko unleashes deadly force, leaving no one alive except for a young man whose dark eyes tug at Dylan’s heart—and the conscience he thought he’d excised long ago.
Though he tried to stop the kidnapping, William “Memo” Escobar knows Mosko will use what’s left of him to send a powerful message to his rivals. When Mosko’s pampered pretty boy risks everything to help him escape, he can’t believe his luck.
William figures he’s better suited to life off the grid, but as the days go by he begins to realize Dylan’s beauty is more than skin deep. And as Dylan coaxes more and more beguiling smiles from William, he yearns for things—like family ties—he’d thought were best forgotten.
Yet behind their newfound happiness lurks the certain knowledge that no matter how careful they are, Mosko will come for what’s his.
Warning: This book contains a mob boss, a kept man, and a reluctant kidnapper who will never have to hear the words, “Size doesn’t matter.”
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Pharaoh’s Concubine:
Dylan’s breath caught when he saw William’s nude body, the skin of his bare back golden and glistening, inviting in the low light even if his abominable tattoos reminded Dylan of things he’d rather forget. Yves had a mural of colorful tattoos, quasi religious in nature, each facet symbolizing some part of his life in prison, his status among his men, his years in the mob, reworked and added onto with each new turn in the road his life had taken.
William’s tats, with the exception of the enticing round one next to his cock, had been etched there as a beginning, the once upon a time of his story. Dylan didn’t doubt he was meant to have become part of the inked résumé—as a victim, had their attempt to ransom him been successful. Yet he could no more stop staring than he could have stopped breathing.
If only he could remember how to breathe at all.
Everything had changed with that earlier embrace. Dylan saw William with new eyes, and he hadn’t imagined William’s appraisal of him at dinner or the subtle sensual challenge he saw there.
After a silent moment, William spoke. “I could use boots.”
Dylan lifted his focus from William’s chest to find him watching, his gaze cautious but maybe a little smug.
William waited. “Maybe a hat and some shades like yours? That would be cool.”
Dylan’s soggy jeans were half undone. They draped precariously low on his hips. William’s gaze dropped to the line of pubic hair that showed above wet blue fabric. Dylan’s cheeks flushed. Any slight shift and William would see the effect his presence was having on Dylan’s
body. Again.
Dylan grabbed up his towel and muttered, “Excuse me,” before heading to the bathroom.
Well, shit. What was that all about? Dylan wanted him. Why did he keep running away?
William was too fucking sore, cold and tired to worry about it. Walking had sucked the energy right out of him. He felt a little sick, like the mountain air really didn’t have enough oxygen in it for him to do more than lie on his bed and rest.
Going to dinner had tired him, even though it was fun and tasted as fine as anything he imagined he’d get in a fancy restaurant. He’d felt Dylan’s eyes on him the entire time.
I want you.
Green light.
Maybe—finally—Dylan would stop treating him like he was some kid he had to watch out for until social services stepped in.
William grabbed a blanket and sat on one of the rockers in front of the fireplace. Curiosity kept him still, waiting. When Dylan returned from the bathroom, he wore the usual cool, distant expression on his face, even though he wasn’t quite meeting William’s eyes. He busied himself with building a fire while William watched and soon had a bright blaze glowing behind the fire screen.
“This ought to warm things up.” Dylan pulled a blanket off his bed and sat in the rocker next to William.
“Thanks.”
“I’m glad Ernesto put firewood in here. The wood out back is probably pretty damp. We have enough for tonight, anyway.”
“I checked, there are more blankets in the cupboard next to the kitchenette.”
“We won’t freeze; there’s a space heater.”
“I guess I’m just not used to it.”
“It can get pretty cold in Vegas at night. One time it even snowed. Nothing like here though.”
“I saw that on the news. Snow in Vegas.”
“That was pretty amazing. Yves and I were having breakfast and he just…”
William’s curiosity got the better of him. “What did he do?”
Dylan smiled. “It’s nothing. He and I were together and he left so he could go home and play in the snow with his grandkids. It was beautiful. So serene. I felt a little like playing in it myself.”
“I can see that.” William closed his eyes. It wasn’t hard to picture Dylan looking through the window of his opulent house, a man who had everything except someone to play with him in the snow. William was so tired the heat from the fire pulled every last bit of strength from his body. No matter how much he wanted Dylan, he could hardly keep his eyes open. “I bet you do all that snow stuff.”
“I ski and snowboard. Des is a maniac. She’s completely fearless. She used to play ice hockey.”
“I’m glad you can see her again. Sometimes I think…” He drifted into sleep, his rocker slowing to a bare back and forth, inches only.
Dylan’s voice startled him. “William?”
“Hm?” He started rocking again.
“You were in the middle of a sentence.”
When William opened his eyes, Dylan faced him, half illuminated by the fire, made up of reflected light and mysterious shadows, as enigmatic as the moon. “I was just saying I’m glad you have your sister back. Maybe when I’m thinking about you I can think of that and I won’t feel so bad for what we did to you.”
“You don’t need to feel—” Dylan’s voice stopped. “I can’t say what you need to feel.”
“I have to go and start over somewhere, and I’d like to know that you don’t…that you won’t be feeling responsible for me or some stupid shit like that.”
Dylan’s hand came down on William’s so timidly he didn’t move for fear that Dylan would snatch it away. “I wish I could give it all back to you. I’ve been trying to think of a way you could keep your college credits and maybe even renew your scholarship, but I can’t think how to do that without risking your—”
“Shh. Don’t worry.” William turned his hand and carefully laced his tender fingers with Dylan’s.
“But I do worry. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Look at you, going all concerned for me—like in that syndrome.”
Dylan snorted. “Stockholm syndrome? Doesn’t it sort of feel like you’re my hostage now?”
William gave up a sad smile. Maybe he could be honest for once. Maybe it wouldn’t get him in too much trouble to say what was on his mind.
In his heart.
He lifted his gaze and found Dylan watching him. “Papi, I’ve been your hostage since day one. Since the first time I saw you.”
The grip on William’s hand went slack.
“You don’t seem to know it, but you’re one very fine motherfucker, Dylan. My personal walking wet dream.”
Dylan whispered, “How come you call me papi?”
William tilted his head. “I don’t know. It’s just a thing. Like when Esme calls you m’hijo.”
Dylan didn’t break eye contact. He held William’s gaze for a long enough time that it made William want to look away, but he forced himself to meet those strange light eyes. What he found there was something pure and—probably—more honest than he was ready for. He didn’t find acceptance, necessarily, but what he saw didn’t cause him to lose hope, either.
“You should sack out, huh?” Dylan said quietly.
Disappointment flooded him. “Yeah.” William got up and carried his blanket back to bed.
“Lots to do tomorrow.” Dylan padded to his own bed. “Ernesto has a list a mile long and I’m not sure we can do half of the chores with the grounds so wet.”
“There’s new shit that will come up with the storm.”
“Yeah. Maybe more roofs to check out.”
“Night, Dylan.” William turned his back and pulled his covers over his head.
“Night, William.”
Giving screwball mystery a whole deadly new meaning.
All She Wrote
© 2010 Josh Lanyon
Holmes & Moriarity, Book 2
A murderous fall down icy stairs is nearly the death of Anna Hitchcock, the much-beloved “American Agatha Christie” and Christopher Holmes’s former mentor. Anna’s plea for him to host her annual winter writing retreat touches all Kit’s sore spots—traveling, teaching writing classes, and separation from his new lover, J.X. Moriarity.
For J.X., Kit’s cancellation of yet another romantic weekend is the death knell of a relationship that has been limping along for months. But that’s just as well, right? Kit isn’t ready for anything serious and besides, Kit owes Anna far too much to refuse.
Faster than you can say “Miss Marple wears boxer shorts”, Kit is snooping around Anna’s elegant, snowbound mansion in the Berkshires for clues as to who’s trying to kill her. A tough task with six amateur sleuths underfoot. Six budding writers with a tangled web of dark undercurrents running among them.
Slowly, Kit gets the uneasy feeling that the secret may lie between the pages of someone’s fictional past. Unfortunately, a clever killer is one step ahead. And it may be too late for J.X. to ride to the rescue.
Warning: Contains one irascible, forty-year-old mystery writer who desperately needs to get laid, one exasperated thirty-something ex-cop only too happy to oblige, an isolated country manor that needs the thermostat cranked up, various assorted aspiring and perspiring authors, and a merciless killer who may have read one too many mystery novels.
Enjoy the following excerpt for All She Wrote:
I want to fuck you, Kit.
I raised my head, cleared my throat. “Come again?”
J.X. smiled at me, a lazy smile. His eyes were dark and tender. “And again and again and again.” His voice was soft. It seemed to raise every hair on my body, like the drifting ripple of static electricity.
“Oh.” I lowered my head to my arm, looked into the serious regard centimeters from my own. Well, good luck avoiding him at that distance. I redirected my gaze to his mouth. It was soft and moist and his lips were faintly pink as they shaped his words.
“You never let me before
. Is it a problem?”
“Uh…no.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
I wasn’t sure. That is…the idea turned me on, no denying it. The idea of J.X. taking me, all that warmth and strength burying itself in me and making me his own—bizarre thought and yet…definitely a turn-on. Which was kind of weird because I’d never liked being fucked. Never enjoyed it. Found it uncomfortable, a little painful, and too much like subjugation. And David had felt the same way. So we’d taken turns with it, because that was the fair thing to do, but there had always been that niggling knowledge that both of us were never truly enjoying sex at the same time. That it was always a concession on someone’s part.
J.X. and I hadn’t really fucked since we’d got together. I wasn’t sure what his feelings were now days. When we’d first hooked up all those years ago, he’d let me fuck him and he’d accepted without demur my refusal to reciprocate.
I mean, I’d tried to put it in more diplomatic terms than that, but the bottom line was…for me there was a bottom line. And I hadn’t planned to cross it. Not for him and not for anyone else. Not ever again. I suppose it was all tied up with my feelings for what had happened with David.
Maybe it was still tied up with that.
Although, the truth was, I never had liked it. But recently I’d found the idea not merely acceptable, more and more I’d found myself truly excited by it. Which, frankly, made me sort of uneasy.
“Talk to me,” J.X. said. My eyes were probably starting to spin—black and white swirls while my brain overheated.
I said, “I know it’s only fair that we…trade off.”
His brows drew together. “So you don’t like the idea?”
With Abandon: With or Without, Book 4 Page 28