I’m doing a shameless selfie today. No, you’re eyes have not deceived you. There is no picture of me in soggy walking clothes or me with a gorgeous Scottish landscape behind me. I’m shamelessly promoting 
one of my own stories — well one of my own characters, actually — Alonso Darlington. I’m promoting Alonso or several reasons. First, he’s a fascinating character and I love to write about him. Second his novella, Landscapes, is a part of the Brit Boys: On Boys Book Bundle, which is now being promoted in conjunction with the new Brit Boys release, Brit Boys with Toys. And finally, Alonso Darlington has a staring role in my online serial, In The Flesh. The bloke gets around. Thought you might enjoy a little sneak peek of his story, from Landscapes.
Brit Boys: On Boys Bundle blurb:
From east to west and north to south, these British boys are having a blast in and out of the bedroom with the men of their dreams. They’re topping and bottoming from London to Cardiff, living out fantasies in the wildest fells and hooking up while serving HRH Queen Elizabeth II.
With passion and lust the name of the game, nothing is off limits. Throw in honed muscles, high-strength testosterone and an accent to die for and there is nothing they can’t do and no one they can’t get in this world or another.
Don’t miss Brit Boys: On Boys—a smokin’ hot box set, containing 147,000 words/440 pages of unforgettable M/M erotic romance from eight popular British authors.
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?
Chapter 1 Back on British Soil
It wasn’t that Reese Chambers made my cock hard – though he did. It wasn’t that he was beautiful in a rugged, leather and stone sort of way – though he was. It was that Reese Chambers moved me in ways I had not been moved in a very long time, in ways that I, who never lacked just the right words to express myself, found my vocabulary inadequate to the task. Talia would call it an obsession, and maybe it was; from my first sight of him mantling his sketchpad like a bird of prey over a fresh kill, alone in the midst of the crowded pub, I could think of nothing else. It was my first night back on British soil. It is said that you can never go back home, and it had been a very long time for me. But the need to come home was in my blood like fever these past years, as were so many needs that never left me, but only sharpened with the passing of time.
Next to me, Talia droned on about suitable residences in Cumbria, about the leasing of a car and the 
making of necessary renovations. The Twa Dogs was busy for a Monday night with tourist season past, but being invisible was sometimes easier in a crowd. As Talia talked business in softly accented English, the men at the bar gave her admiring glances. Along with the permeating waft of warm bodies and fermented barley, I smelled the subtle spice of curiosity and the yeasty bread scent of simmering lust from men who knew the woman they admired was out of their league. Besides being excellent at her job, Talia was good for keeping attention off me. But there was little less than a lightning bolt that would have taken my attention off Reese Chambers.
He sat at a table near the exit, sketching in an open pad, his pint gone wanting as he lost himself in his work. I admire people of focus; people whose work is also their calling. They seem to exist on a different plane from the rest of us, and no one or nothing outside can touch them. I very much wanted to touch Reese, to draw his attention away, to hear his voice, to perhaps solicit a smile from him, to know that for a moment his attention was on me. But I’m a cautious man, and time is always on my side. The anticipation of knowing Reese Chambers in itself was to be savoured, not unlike just that right amount of intoxication, when warmth and relaxation take one to the boarders of euphoria, but no further.
‘There are three places that might be suitable.’ I returned my attention to Talia. ‘One in the Borrowdale Valley and two near Ullswater. But perhaps you should consider going back to High View, after all it is your –’
‘Find out who he is.’ I nodded in Reese’s direction. Before Talia could protest, I continued. ‘I have a roof over my head, and I’ve fed. There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.’
Talia’s cheekbones flushed with the rush of blood, and heaven knew how beautiful she was in such a state, porcelain pale skin, midnight blue eyes and hair, which was so close to black that no one but I would have noticed all of the other colours in her silken tresses. She knew what it was I asked of her, and she knew the delicate line she tread on the rare occasion when I did ask. A tremor passed up her long, straight spine, and a bloom of tiny goose bumps textured her bare arms. It would not be painless, what I asked, and I knew she feared it as much as she longed for it. I could hear the thud thud of her pulse in the thin, silken skin of her throat as she swallowed the sudden dryness of fear. ‘What do you want to know?’
I leaned forward to rake the tip of my thumb against the pulse point in her temple. ‘Everything, Talia. I want to know all of it. And when you know, come directly to me. I don’t care what time it is when you return.’
Only her eyelids fluttered her acknowledgment, for an anxious moment shuttering the brilliance of her eyes before she drank back her Merlot and excused herself to the ladies to freshen up.
I took little notice of her leave, but like a child left alone with the candy jar he couldn’t reach, I sat 
taking the object of my lust into my hungry senses, watching the muscles of his arms move beneath fine bronze skin as he sketched, watching the rapid rise and fall of his chest, as though what he sketched excited him, as though he were breathless from his engagement with it. His hair, unkempt and in need of a cut, was the colour of newly-forged bronze and the rapid shudder of his pulse against his throat made my lips tingle with the need to be pressed there where the life force flowed so close to the surface, there with his excitement, there with his passion. I licked my lips tasting the copper salt of my own sweat, and opened my mouth just slightly, just enough to take in the scent of him — the heat of his body, the cinnamon bite of his intense focus, and my cock shuddered heavily against my trousers. For a brief moment the sound of my own blood rushing through my body drown out the dart game behind me, the low drone of a football match on the big screen TV, the clink of glasses, the shuffle of feet. I heard only the rising of my blood and the scratching of his pencil against the rough-textured paper. For a moment, I sensed his own lust, harnessed tightly and focused through a needle’s eye on his creation and, God, I wanted that focus on me.
Before Talia returned, I stood to leave, and as I brushed passed him I smelled damp earth and verdant growth, I smelled a spark freshly kindled, and at the back of my throat I could taste his essence, as though passion itself had been distilled from the lusting creative force of the human soul. I inhaled once, then again, then I left the pub, having no idea just how powerful my lust for Reese Chambers really was, nor the sequence of events it would set off.
It was nearing dawn when Talia returned to our accommodations smelling of sex, as I knew she would if 
she were to obtain for me what I wanted. By then my blood burned in my veins, and my body felt too close to me, as though the flesh that I dwelt in suddenly conspired to crush me with its demands. And though I knew that Reese Chambers could not have refused her even if she had come to him as a toothless, foul-smelling hag, I hated her that he had poured himself into her body while I had been left with only my fantasies kindling my lust to an inferno.
Though my need was such that my flesh was fevered and my cock an insistent throb, until she returned, I held myself contained within skin that felt too thin. When she saw the state that I was in, she pulled the heavy drapes with an efficient tug, then with a nod of her head, motioned me to follow her down into the basement room that had been prepared for me. When she turned to me at the foot of the bed, before she could opened her kiss-bruised lips to speak, I took her mouth, starving for the first taste of him, the taste of his saliva, the taste of his blood, mixed with hers. She’d bitten him; he’d bitten her back. He was rough, and he liked to be treated rough, but he kept that to himself. He was embarrassed by it. His lips were slightly chapped from so much time in the sun and wind, and they’d slid against hers, suckling and stroking and pressing until her mouth opened to his. With ravenous laps of my tongue, I tasted him in her mouth, and she held back the moan of response, so I could hear the echoes of his groans, heavy with need he’d not satisfied in awhile, and I felt kinship in my own unsatisfied needs. Images of him flashed through my head. Christ, his eyes were green, dark green like the evergreen forests of the north, and he kept them open when he kissed her, taking her in with his eyes.
I shoved aside the silk of her low bodice exposing her breasts, breasts that his hands had cupped. My nipples peeked to sharp aching points at the feel of his calloused thumbs raking, pressing and releasing. I breathed in his scent on her breasts, burying my face in her cleavage, licking the taste of salty, slightly picante maleness, sniffing and tasting until I could stand it no more. In one violent jerk, I tore the dress all the way down and shoved it off her shoulders, away from the flesh he had licked and kissed and mounted. I cried out at the feel of him, weight on one elbow, knee spreading her thighs, fingers opening her heaviness, anxious to penetrate, anxious to relieve his need. And then, with Talia free of clothing, Reese Chambers’ essence filled the room. Talia’s panties were still wet with his semen mixed with her humid desire, and I tore them from her and forced her onto her stomach, onto her hands and knees, so that it was not her face I saw, but his that I imagined. With hands on her hips, I raised her bottom in the air and spread her still swollen, still slippery folds with fingers made awkward by my arousal, letting the scent of his hot bread and honey release intoxicate me. Then I buried my face in her snatch and, as I ate his lust from her, I knew him.
He was Cumbrian born and bred, and his accent was the soft lilting sound of the fells. He was a landscaper and a gardener by trade. His hands held the magic of the earth and his mind conceived ideas for beautiful outdoor spaces; those he liked best were patterned after Renaissance and medieval gardens. He was homesick and heartsick. He’d gone to Surrey to work with his father because the money was good. But his father had died recently and he had returned home to Cumbria. He didn’t care if he had to work in a pub or muck stables. He wanted to be home. He missed the people and he missed the fells. He missed the simpler, more honest rhythms of life. He was shy, even a bit reclusive. He read voraciously and widely, he liked astronomy and he was afraid of snakes, though it embarrassed him to admit it. He hadn’t had sex in a long time, and found it better to have a wank session than a meaningless encounter. The facts of him, the details of his life raced at me in a flood I consumed ravenously with each lap of my tongue.
As I ate Talia I felt the shape of his face, the curve of his chin, the rise and fall of his chest as he had done the same. I felt the soft tuft of bronze curls nestled between the hard rise of his pecs and the courser, deeper curls that caressed his testicles and his cock when it was at rest, but it hadn’t been at rest. How many times had he taken her? He was thick enough to fill her and the friction of him inside was delicious and maddening. The shape of him – I wanted to caress the shape of him, with my hands, with my mouth, and the taking of his essence from Talia was an act of ripping away something that should have been mine. As I bruised her arse with kneading fingers and, as I licked the last of his release from her, she managed a breathless moan. ‘Take the rest. God, Alonso, take the rest, and release me.’
I could hold back no longer. I rose on my knees behind him, and now it was truly him I saw as clearly as if Talia had brought him to me physically. With one hand wrestling at my fly, the other fondled his tender opening, careful as he lay there beneath me, legs parted, bottom exposed. In my mind’s eye, I would be gentle. He had not been with a man before. That I would be his first excited far more than just my cock. In my mind’s eye, I would make it good for him. I would make love to him as not even Talia could do. But in reality I was once removed, ripping vicariously the love I wanted from a succubus, and I was unable to do so graciously or without malice. When my cock was free, I took her ruthlessly, the sound of her closely entwined pain and pleasure far away. And once I had penetrated her depths, I took the rest of what I wanted, a connection, a connection that I could hold on to. I ripped it from her as surely as if I had ripped her skin from her flesh, fisting her hair and yanking her head back, bruising her hips, biting her shoulders.
And when I had savaged her for having him, and yet blessed her that she had done such for me, when I 
had ripped a release from her, then I felt him rising up, erect and needing to come, I felt him penetrating, deep and hard, varying his pace, torturing himself, torturing me as he had tortured her, as my own balls ached under their weight. The muscles of his buttocks clenched and released with each thrust and the look on his face as he came was pain and pleasure and vulnerability, and then distance. I took Talia cruelly, as she knew I would, punishing her for the betrayal that I had forced upon her even as every thrust, every bite, every bruising of her delicate skin, skin that smelled of his sweat, of his breath, of his semen, brought the reality of Reese Chambers, his pain, his dreams, his passion into me, deep into me. As she fucked him, I fucked her, by the very act, taking back from her what she had taken from him, every detail of who he was, alive with each thrust, with each bite, with each bruise that I dealt her.
And when I had used her up, taking from her every memory, every nuance of Reece Chambers, when she collapsed beneath me with a sob, I felt the brush of my own guilt, my own shame, as I always did when I used her so. I spoke gently to her, thanking her, calming her as I bathed her and gently cleaned the aftermath of me from her body. Then I lifted her in my arms and took her to her room. She was weakened from the experience, as she always was, and when she nuzzled in against my chest, I opened the small incision above my left nipple, and when the blood beaded up, I pulled her close so that she could feed and heal. I stroked her hair and watched, imagining that it were him feeding from me, and feeling myself hardening again at the thought.
When she was sated and sleeping peacefully, I watched her for a moment. She would need all of her strength in the days to come, for she would be my conduit. She would be my connection to Reese Chambers. I knew that above ground it was now full daylight, and I could now sleep with the essence of him against my flesh, in my flesh. And tomorrow, we would begin plans to move back to High View, where I would most definitely have need of a landscaper.
“Lets take the route through the woods,” I said. “It’ll be safer, less muddy,” I said. Gawd, am I glad I’m married to a man who isn’t into ‘I told you so,’ cuz Wow! I think I actually came home with mud in my ears yesterday after our annual New Years Day walk. Although having said that, the downpour that we walked in the last third of the walk might have washed the mud out of my ears as while. It did wash most of the ten pounds of extra weight off my boots en route. Nice, easy cleanup that way.
Prediction Two: Sometimes things will get messy
Prediction Four: 2016 will result in new war stories
episode of In The Flesh is quite fitting as Susan awakens to a new life to find that the road might be a lot rougher than she’d expected.
irrelevant at this point. Susan made her choice, and Alonso will do what he must.”
the bed and on Alonso’s lap, clawing open his shirt, sending buttons flying so quickly that I barely had a sense of my own movement. Had I, it most certainly would have frightened me.
all I could think about, all I could imagine was taking him into myself, taking all of him into myself, taking in his luscious dark ruby blood in large, thirsty gulps as though I would never get enough, and then mounting him and taking the essence of his life force in the same way, until we were both spent and exhausted from our efforts. In truth, as we writhed on the floor I felt as though the act of feeding would not be complete until we had coupled, but I needed strength before that could happen and Michael’s strength, Michael’s life’s blood was exhilarating in a very different way from Alonso’s .
nearly died because of me – most surely would have if Alonso and Magda hadn’t intervened. I wept bitterly between great gulps of Magda’s blood, and she held me in strong arms, stroking my hair and speaking to me in some ancient language I didn’t understand, but being very careful not to withdraw her wrist. When I could manage a sane word, when I was sated enough I was once again on the edge of sleep, I sealed the wound and pulled Magda’s face close to mine, careful not to jostle her glasses. “Keep Michael away from me. Please. I don’t want to hurt him and … I don’t want him to see me like this.”
what resolutions are most important to me, I began to formulate a blog post for my end of the year navel gaze with that in mind. It was then that I discovered I’d already written that post for the ERWA blog a couple of years ago, and it still applies. What I’m sharing below are my every-year, every-day resolutions, starting off with the most important one — I WILL BE KIND TO MYSELF! If in doubt, always refer back to number one!
my head, I make the characters I create in my head do amazing and sometimes terrifying things, but that means my characters get their exercise while I sit on our arse in front of a computer. This is not a resolution to spend two hours at the gym every day. It’s a walk in the sunshine when that’s all I have time for, a half hour at the gym a couple times a week. Walking instead of driving, gardening. I will breathe deep, stretch, move, sweat. I’m sure I’m not the first writer to discover that the more physical I am, the more creative I am, and the more productive I am, which helps majorly with number 1!
reading, the more I actually manage to write. It isn’t just that I write more, but it’s that time spent in the imaginations of fellow writers stimulates my own imagination, makes me think, makes me imagine. I’ve heard writers say that they’re so afraid they’ll copy someone’s ideas if they read. I find myself much more inclined to think of every book I read as a chance to learn, a chance to become a better writer from example – even in those cases when it’s a bad example. It’s also just a pleasure that feels guilty but isn’t. There are too few of those in life.
making a mental note. Everything is seed for a story and everything can be seen from multiple angles. The very act of taking a mental note, or even more, of scribbling something down that gets my attention, is a view from a different angle, a possible story waiting to happen.
Blurb:
