“Landscapes is up for preorder!
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Those were the first words out of Alonso Darlington’s mouth. Even over the phone and calling from the safe distance of the Lake District (or at least I hoped he was) talking to the only vampire I’d had a close encounter with gave me a rise of goose bumps, and the sudden acceleration of my pulse was from more than knowing who and what he was. It was from knowing why he was, once again, unhappy with me.
My M/M novella, Landscapes, just went up for preorder, with a launch date set for 24th May. I have to admit I’m very excited about it, but I truly figured Alonso had forgotten about my sharing of his story and forgotten about me in general. Apparently vampires have long memories. He wasn’t happy when the novella was first published as a part of the fabulous M/M Boxed Set, Brit Boys: On Boys. I don’t know what made me think he’d be happy about me publishing it as a stand-alone.
“How’s Reese?” I asked, hoping to distract him. My voice came out a breathless squeak. “What about Talia? Tell her hi for me.” Talia was his friend and the resident succubus at High View, his remote, crumbling fortress in the Lakeland Fells, and even though she was at least as scary as he was, I sort of felt like she was my ally … kind of.
“Don’t try to change the subject Ms. Grace. You know I don’t like you splashing my private life all over your books for the whole world to read. I thought we’d come to an … understanding.”
The understanding was sort of that maybe he wouldn’t drain me dry or rip my throat out, maybe, if I went home and didn’t push the issue any further. But seriously, I was never really sure if I dreamed his invitation (more like demand) to visit him at his Lakeland home, or if the whole being all but held prisoner there for a weekend was just a fantasy. I mean Talia is a succubus, after all. Clearly I wasn’t dreaming this time though. Landscapes is up for pre-order and the vampire on the phone was not happy about it.
“It’s already done, Alonso, I can’t take it back.”
“And this woman… what is it you call her, Evil Publicist, Lucy Felthouse person, she helped you, did she not?”
I felt a chill. “Leave Lucy out of this. She’s only done what I’ve asked her to do.”
“Oh I like her,” he said. “She’s sexy and smart. Talia would like her too, I’m sure. I can imagine she’d be … very tasty.”
My pulse jumped into overtime. “Alonso, please, it’s only pre-orders, and yours is a great story, one that should be shared. Besides no one will ever find your place if you don’t want them too; you know that. Please, leave Lucy out of this. She was …”
The soft velvet of his laugh in my ear brought me up short. “Oh don’t you worry, Ms. Grace, Talia has threatened me with nightmares and Reese, he’s threatened to … well let’s just say, I don’t relish the absence of his … personal attentions, so your EP is safe. Thanks to you, my whole household is in rebellion against me, should I cause you problems, never mind the problems your Landscapes may cause me. However,” his voice turned cold enough to make me shiver, “if me or mine suffer even the slightest invasion of our privacy because of your little … expose, well let’s just say, I’m quite fond of a pint of A positive on occasion. You’ve been warned, my darling scribe.”
The device went dead, my knees went weak and I all but fell into the recliner by the door, phone white-knuckled in my hand. I’d just about managed to stop the shakes when my device pinged an incoming text, and my heart was off and racing again as I read it.
Good luck with the preorders of Landscapes my darling. Don’t worry about Alonso. He won’t harm you. If you like, I’m happy to help with your PR and marketing, though. Shall I give nightmares to anyone who doesn’t preorder Landscapes, or would it be better to give sexy dreams to those who do? Just kidding!
Talia xxx
*****
Preorder Landscapes Now (and get seriously sexy dreams FREE)
(Coming 24th May 2016)
iBooks UK
iBooks US
Landscapes Blurb:
Alonso Darlington has a disturbing method of keeping landscaper, Reese Chambers, both safe from and oblivious to his dangerous lust for the man. But Reese isn’t easy to keep secrets from, and Alonso wants way more than to admire the man from afar. Can he risk a real relationship without risking Reese’s life?
Note: Landscapes has been previously released as part of the Brit Boys: On Boys boxed set.
Landscapes Excerpt:
The moonlight was bright and Reese’s night vision was good, but the path was rocky and steep. He stumbled and went down on his arse, catching himself on one elbow and cursing as the sensation of pins and needles shot up his arm. He forced his way to his feet slipping and sliding the last hundred meters on the dew-drenched stones. He was just about to call out, just about to shout Alonso’s name when the man moaned softly and Reese stopped in his tracks. Not only was Alonso no longer curled on his side, but the man was naked. He lay flat on his back, his knees bent, bare feet resting on the bench, one arm flung over his face, the other curved down low across his belly, his fisted hand moving up and down the length of his cock.
Reese froze, unable to move, unable to breathe. Alonso Darlington was beautiful, like no one he’d ever seen. His body was sculpted, not like polished marble, but with the ruggedness of the rocks of the fells, like he labored to be free from himself, like one of Michelangelo’s prisoners. The muscles of his belly tensed and relaxed and convulsed and relaxed again in response to his stroking. The movement of muscle beneath skin on his biceps and his forearms, on the rise and fall of his chest, on the tensing of the chorded muscles in his neck and throat as he swallowed was like a hypnotic dance. The muscles in his thighs twitched and bulged as he rocked and arched upward until Reese could see the clenched half-domes of his buttocks. He could smell the nutmeg and yeast scent of his heat, charged through with the crackle of ozone. He stood frozen on the spot, his own cock responding to the sensory overload, even as his brain demanded he give the man his privacy, demanded with a sense of half-frightened urgency that he leave as quietly as he could, but it was too late.
Alonso’s arm fell away from his face and Reese could feel the nearly physical press of his gaze.
I’m sorry,’ he managed around a tongue that felt too big for his mouth. ‘I saw you, and I thought that … I’ll go now,’ but even as he said it, Reese stepped forward, feeling reeled into the man like a fish on a line. Alonso eased himself up on one elbow, not taking his hand off his cock, not taking his eyes off Reese. ‘I should leave,’ Reese croaked, but instead he stepped nearer.
In a move that was not quite human in its grace, Alonso sat up and nodded to the bench next to him.
Cautiously Reese sat down struggling to keep his eyes off the man’s cock. He could still feel Alonso’s gaze on him as though he were the one who was naked. ‘I thought … When I saw you out here, lying on the bench at this hour … I was worried.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Reese, but there’s nothing wrong with me. My … afflictions, don’t trouble me much. I’m not ill. In truth, I’m the epitome of health. I’m just … different.’
‘I’m sorry. Of course you would be out after dark. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’ll go now.’ But before he could stand, Alonso’s hand shot behind his head with lightning speed, fingers curling in Reese’s sleep-mussed hair, and in that instant of reaction, the second Reese gasped for his breath, the man’s mouth was on his, warm and hard and terrifying in its command, a command Reese could do little but respond to. Even as fear battled lust low in his belly, he parted his lips, opened his mouth, welcomed the search and conquest of Alonso’s tongue, his own the white flag that instinctively yielded all else beyond the breach, all territories beyond the invasion.
I’m safe and sound at my sister’s house, clean, well fed, semi-well rested with my head abuzz from the remains of jet-lag, which I hope will further inspire, and nearly recovered from my harrowing experience in Seattle International Airport. Why yes! I am rather resilient 🙂 I figure any experience that I can pull a decent story out of was worth it, and Mr. Sands turned out to be a lot of fun, even if my time in SeaTac was not.
ambrosia to me,” he said, teasing me open and stroking me with two slender fingers until I felt as though I would crawl out of my skin if he didn’t take me. “Believe me, my darling, I need you as badly as you need me,” he said. Other than the soft whisper of the plane in flight, and our own desperate breathing, the cabin was filled with the sounds of sleep. The zip of his fly into the quiet night sounds made me jump and catch my breath, and then he kneed my legs open, grasped my buttocks and pulled me onto him with a harsh grunt. There was pain, more paint than I anticipated, knowing how ready I was to accommodate him, and I cried out, like I’d done the first time I’d had sex. That’s almost how it felt, like the first time, tight, virginal, a yielding grudgingly to his fullness, wanting it, wanting all of what he offered, and yet somehow fearing it at the same time.
around me was looking at me, admiring me somehow. No doubt that was just residual from what had happened to me, but I found I liked that just find. As I stowed my luggage, then settled into the driver’s seat, I caught a glimpse of a tall dark man standing near a black Audi, who seemed to be watching me, and my skin prickled and the muscles below my belly clenched. I was sure it was Mr. Sands. I didn’t have to see him up close and personal to know. I just knew. I smiled to myself. “Hope you enjoyed your dinner,” I said under my breath. “I’m always happy to invite you over.” And I swear to God, the words were barely out of my mouth before I had an orgasm that shook the whole car.
Demon Interrupted Excerpt:
positioned himself so that with each thrust he raked her clit, and she could almost swear that in the stark relief of moonlight and shadow his eyes were onyx black and yet bright, so bright. Even in the glow of a nearly full moon, he road her in the light of an after image that made no sense, and she was reminded that not even Ferris understood his own magic. The closer they both came to orgasm the larger and heavier the after image grew. And the larger the after image, the harder they strained for release. When orgasm broke over them, so did the shadow, consuming them for the briefest of moments and then receding behind their own efforts to recover themselves taking with it Fiori’s urge to speak of it, to question it.
As promised, today is the first day of Jet-lagged–and-lusting travel stories and observations from my two weeks in Oregon with my sister. I’m very happy to say that once again, travel never fails to inspire, and my first offering is a new one. The Strange Encounter with Mr. Sands is a two-part story inspired in part from entering the twilight zone at Seattle International Airport and wondering if I’d ever get out again. When, by fluke, eleven international flights landed at SeaTac at almost the same time, the whole airport was brought to a total overloaded meltdown leaving me and a gazillion other passengers packed cheek to jowl in the lobbies and walkways, literally all the way back to our planes we’d just disembarked for ages. When we finally entered the seething mass of sweaty, under-slept, cranky humanity that was the immigrations hall, we wandered the endless zigzag of roped mazes at a snail’s pace through to passport control, only to find ourselves, eons later, spewed out into avalanches of luggage from all eleven flights and told to claim our bags. Needle! Haystack!
but what I felt was just as much of a shock to my system. What I felt – and I know this is going to sound insane – but what I felt was an orgasm. It was just a brush – his arm against mine, as the desk agent motioned him past me and his hand settling onto the small of my back to steady me when I nearly lost my balance at the impact of what had been way more physical than if he’d flattened me. He offered me a smile, and a soft-spoken apology that I barely heard over the hammering of my heart and my efforts to get myself under control. I remember thinking I’d never seen eyes so blue on a man with such coal black hair. Strangely enough, he approached the desk with no bags to check, and yet whatever he had to say to the agent must have been important. He had her full attention – in fact she was totally entranced by him, though for his part, he seem distracted. He kept glancing back at me and smiling, as though he knew me, and I kept thinking how arrogant I was to think he was actually looking at me. Whatever it was he wanted, the agent nodded enthusiastically leaning into his personal space so close he could have kissed her if he’d chosen to, and I confess I held my breath thinking that he might, and not sure if I wanted him to or if I wanted to believe that I really was the center of his attention.
the kiss, he let them embrace him, let them touch him, let them stroke his hair, and then he took the kiss. That’s what it felt like to me, at least, that in their sleep, he took the kiss from them, a stolen kiss — almost, and yet no one denied him. Still, I sensed just the tiniest frisson of fear in each of them, but then there would be, wouldn’t there? A kiss from a stranger in a darkened plane could possibly be as frightening as it was intriguing. When the kiss was finished, when he released them, it was immediately clear that they had fallen back into a deep sleep. This he did to everyone around him while I watched and squirmed on my first class bed. It was only when everyone else was sleeping soundly that he turned his attention to me.
Welcome to Part 10 of The Psychology of Dreams, in which Leah and Al take a detour in dreamland.
all.”