Save Me: Cover reveal and excerpt

 Out 1 June

Dark themes. Observe content warnings.

Blurb:

The man I see in the mirror now wears nice suits and has an expensive haircut. I like to think he doesn’t look like a whore, but then I never study his eyes too closely. I can’t bear to.

Morgan Martin is a high class rent boy with a dark past. No kissing on the mouth is his cardinal rule and he sticks to it.

Logan Madden is his new client, a man with touch and trust issues, bringing his own past traumas to a bed that’s soon awash with guilt and memories as well as explosive passion.

And he’s a cop.

Against his better judgment, Morgan takes him on. Things soon become complicated. Rules are made to be broken and soon the two of them are falling deep into something neither of them can control.

I want to ask him to be something he was never supposed to be.

Morgan isn’t free to be with anyone. He’s in thrall to the gangster who runs Moonlight Cove, the man who hurts him and beats him, and demands his utter loyalty. Keeping this from Logan becomes harder and harder until all their lives are shattered by fallout no one could have predicted.

Possible Spoilers:

Themes: hurt/comfort, angst, crime

Genre: Dark, gritty contemporary crime romance

Warnings: Violence and strong language. Sexual scenes. Abuse. Harrowing scenes and death. Drug abuse. Alcoholism. Prostitution. Historical child abuse. Cheating. Voyeurism.

Buy here

 

Excerpt:

May 2011

It’s Tuesday night. I’m sitting in the bar of the Seaview hotel in Moonlight Cove. It’s an upmarket place, expensive, but I know the manager, Michael, and he lets me rent a room by the hour. For favors obviously. I think he’s half in love with me and I try not to encourage him, but what can a man do?

Tonight, I’m meeting a man named Logan. He found me via my website as most people do these days, now I’ve reinvented myself as high-class after years of hanging around on street corners as the lowest kind of rent boy. My website is tasteful—no naked shots or anything as crass as cock size or prices.

I’m not choosy about being with men or women. The women are harder to please than the men. I always seem to get the ones who can’t come during penetrative sex. Maybe that’s why they come to me, seeing as my oral skills are legendary. I’ve never sent a woman home without an orgasm and I’ve had ladies crying in gratitude on their way out the door because they’ve never come in their lives before. That’s quite a satisfying part of the job I can tell you.

As for men, well, I like men. I like to get fucked by men, but men are selfish creatures not looking to please the guy they just paid to get them off. And why should they? It’s all about them after all. I’m there to provide the service.

Logan sounded nervous and hesitant on the phone yesterday. At my most professional, I took charge of the situation, telling him I would meet him in the bar at this hotel. I told him we would have a drink, and then go up to the room if that was okay with him. He agreed and then I ran through a list of prices and asked him what he wanted.

He was silent for a long time and then finally he said, in the lowest voice, “I don’t know.”

I formed a mental image of him. Either a married guy in his thirties, or a very young virgin with no sexual experience at all, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was gay. He didn’t sound that young though. Either way, it sounded like a nice easy night for me. Nothing to place too much pressure on me.

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “Is it likely to be anything not on that list?”

“No.”

“All right. Then we’ll discuss it in further detail when we meet. What’s your name by the way?”

“Logan.”

“Okay, Logan, I’ll see you on Tuesday. Looking forward to it.”

I’m sitting at the bar with a vodka, eyeing the door, when a man walks into the room and my glance turns to a stare. Holy fuck. He’s maybe in his late thirties and tall, perhaps six feet two, and all muscle, his biceps straining the smart black shirt he wears. His black hair is pushed back from his pale face with styling products and gleams under the lights. He’s handsome as all holy hell and I can’t take my eyes off him. Neither can some of the other patrons in the bar.

 He pauses and looks around for a moment, and it feels like my heart jumps into my mouth. I really can’t be so lucky, can I?

Then his gaze focuses on me and he starts to walk toward me and, oh my God, my cock actually twitches. No, surely not? Oh my God, yes! Fucking yes!

I swallow, wipe my damp palms on my pants and smile as he reaches me. “Logan?” I try not to stare, try not to let him see how hot I find him.

He nods. His smile is tight, his teeth kept prisoner behind his lips. He holds out a hand. It’s larger than mine and I feel the power of his body in his handshake. I feel arousal too. My cock starts to harden. Fuck.

He slides onto the stool next to me and stares straight ahead, rather than looking at me.

“What can I get you?” I ask.

“Jack and Coke.”

“Same again for me.” I gesture to the barkeep with my empty glass. He nods. He’s used to seeing me sitting here with different people every day. He never comments. He starts to pour me another vodka.

My client’s body is held so stiffly in his seat he must be hurting. The tension radiating from him in palpable.

“Have you come far tonight?” I don’t particularly like the small talk. I don’t want to find out about my client’s life because they will then become real to me and I’d rather they weren’t. I have to keep something of myself apart from this job.

“Laguna,” he says without looking at me.

“Not too far then.”

The barkeep places our drinks in front of us. Both of us take a gulp at the same time.

“What do you do for a living?” I don’t give a fuck what he does. I want him upstairs in that room and I want to earn my money and go home. However, with him looking the way he does, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be too much of a chore. Maybe this talking is a nice form of foreplay.

He glances at me then and his eyes are an odd color, like honey, with tinges of green and amber, fringed with dense lashes. They change color when he turns his head to the light. God, he’s absolutely beautiful. Why the hell does a man like him need to come to a man like me? This kind of client comes once in a lifetime, no pun intended.

“I can’t really tell you that,” he says.

Alarm bells go off in my mind. “If you’re in any kind of law enforcement, you need to turn around and walk back out of here.” My tone is sharp. “I haven’t entered into any kind of contract with you and I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Logan gives a sigh. He folds his hands together on the bar, his knuckles white. “Okay, I’m a cop.” I slide from the stool. He reaches out, grips my wrist. “Don’t. I’m not here to arrest you. When we go up to the room, you can check I’m not wearing a wire and I’m not carrying my badge or my gun.”

I heave a breath, still poised to flee. “This is fucked up.” I grab my drink and down half of it. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He swallows and turns to look forward again, watching me in the mirror behind the bar.

Realizing he’s not going to answer, I try again. “How can I trust you?” But even as I say the words, I’m thinking of Logan in uniform. To say I have a fetish is an understatement. I’ve been arrested for soliciting a couple of times, and honestly, they were the hottest moments of my life, to be handcuffed and manhandled by a cop. My eyes have probably gone glassy at the memory. I’ve never fucked a cop and I’ve always wanted to.

“How can I trust you?” he replies and our eyes meet. “It works both ways.”

“What’s your full name?”

“Logan Madden.”

“And that’s your real name? Logan Madden?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re on the force in Laguna Beach?”

“Yes. There. I’m not much of a threat to you now, am I? You could ruin me. Sit down.”

I slide back onto my stool and look at him skeptically. I wonder why he would want to give me so much information. But I feel reassured by his honesty. Sometimes my trouble is I trust people too well. Which is usually when I end up getting really hurt in my line of work. This nervous and apparently shy man could probably snap me in half like a twig. I’m an idiot for even still thinking of seeing this through. Am I really going to go up that room with him?

I finish my drink and the alcohol swarms through my veins. Too strong and too much. I like to drink, I can’t lie, but I usually restrict it before work. It isn’t professional to attempt to please someone when drunk. However, on the times I only have to lie there and provide a hole, the alcohol is quite welcome. He’s finishing his drink a little slower than me. The silence between us is awkward. Am I going to do it? Yes, I fucking am. I want him and I’m going to get paid for the privilege.

“Shall we?”

He nods and down the rest of his drink in one. We slide together from our stools and he follows me out of the bar.

We walk across the spacious lobby to the elevator. I thought he might have wanted to go up to the room separately, but he says nothing, just steps inside the car with me and focuses his gaze on the illuminated buttons as they change on our way up to the eighth floor.

He follows me to the door and I swipe it open with my key card and enter, holding the door open for him. Once that door swings shut behind him, nerves hit me full force. I’ve learned to conquer them by telling myself I’m in control. They’ve come to me and they’re paying, therefore I’m in charge. Even when I’m face down being hurt, I’m in charge.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

He glances around the room. It’s a nice spacious place with a king size bed, a desk and a couple of chairs. The bathroom has a shower big enough for two.

I look out the window for a moment, across the boulevard to the fiery sun sinking into the ocean, then turn and face him. “What do you want?”

He stands looking at me. He’s a couple of inches bigger than me and bulkier. I feel small in comparison and a little threatened. He could hurt me all right. He still doesn’t seem to know what he wants. Why hasn’t he made up his mind? Other people have done this though, and I’ve had to tease out their wants and needs because they’ve been unable to vocalize it. Maybe this guy’s desires are so depraved he can’t put them into words.

“A blow job?”

He bites his lip and looks away. “Yeah.”

“All right. What else?”

“Just a blow job.” He’s studying his shoes rather than looking at me.

“That’s it?” I think it’s strange to come all this way to a hooker as expensive as me and just get a blow job, but then again, I know a lot of men would take a blow job over penetrative sex any day. Sometimes it’s a no-brainer. Not just that, but he’s not on a huge wage as a cop and a blow job will save him money.

“Yeah.”

I shrug, because that’s fine by me, but I’m baffled why a man as hot as him would come to me and pay such a price for a blow job when he could have gone out to any club and got one for free. Maybe he’s kinky. Maybe paying for it, feeling in control, turns him on. But he’s not. I am.

“Okay.” I don’t ask for money up front, I’m not as crass as that. He knows how much it is and I expect him to pay at the end. “Do you want me to take my clothes off?”

“Yes.” He moves toward the bed, still avoiding eye contact.

I slide my jacket off and start to unknot my tie. “You’ll have to empty your pockets and lift your shirt up. I want to see you’re not wired or packing something.” The only thing Logan’s packing is the considerable bulge in his tight pants. This is really just an excuse to perv at him, because I get the feeling he’s not going to be undressing.

He doesn’t complain about this. He tosses wallet, cell and car keys from his pants pockets onto the desk before turning them inside out. Then he lifts his shirt up his midriff, exposing such an expanse of hard, sculpted flesh that my mouth almost falls open. He turns around so I can see his back, too, and my eyes slide down and focus on his ripe ass. It’s all I can do not to groan. When he turns back around and catches my gaze lifting up again, I’m embarrassed.

I start to unfasten my shirt. “I need to point out some rules I have for everyone, and which I don’t break, not under any circumstances. I don’t ride bareback and I don’t kiss on the mouth.”

He nods. Perhaps he wonders what this has to do with him, but in my experience guys who come for just a blow job usually end up balls-deep in me.

“Do you want to take your clothes off?” I pull my shirt off and toss it on a nearby chair.

“No.” His gaze slides over my torso. I work out four days a week and I keep myself meticulously waxed. No one has any complaints with me. I’ve embellished on what nature was kind enough to give me in the first place, and I know I’ll never be accused of being beaten with the ugly stick.

“Are you sure? Don’t you want me to touch you anywhere else?”

He shakes his head. He lies down full length on the bed with his legs dangling off the end and unfastens his pants. I watch. He wears tight white briefs and his cock is barely contained. I stare as he hooks the waistband down so he can free it. It’s strange that he doesn’t want to be naked when his body’s in such impressive condition. I’m riveted by the sight of his half-hard dick in his hand as he fondles it a little. Logan’s a big boy.

I can’t remember when I last found a client so hot. To think I’m actually going to get paid to suck his cock when, if I had met him in a bar, I would have done it for free without doubt. I’m disappointed he doesn’t want more. The idea of being fucked by him is very appealing. Perhaps I should try my hand at persuading him.