I'm hosting the Queer Romance Freebie Fan Club this week on Facebook. If you want to join, you can find it here. Today I'm talking about a novel that's currently in edits, "Five Dares". It will be published by Riptide in Fall 2017. I'll be giving away the chance to read the ARC as soon as it's available.
What's it about?
Usually when I start a new book, I have an idea of what I want to accomplish--whether it's intended to be a comedy or something that tackles serious issues or something particularly sexy. "Five Dares" was intended to be a mainstream, contemporary, very sexy NA (New Adult). With, hopefully, good humor and UST. :-)
Andy and Jake have been bffs forever. Andy is an adrenaline jockey--he loves to do crazy stunts and dares to freak people out, and Jake is happy to be his sideman. Their stunts are not as haphazard or dangerous as they appear to be. In fact, Andy is usually pretty smart about it. But the night of their college graduation from NYU, he's feeling anxious over he and Jake's imminent move to separate sides of the continent. Jake is supposed to start work as a programmer for a company in Silicon Valley, and Andy is headed to Harvard law school in Boston. That night, Andy is feeling crazier than usual an proposes an impromptu dare holding lit firecrackers.
It doesn't go so well.
Andy and Jake are forced to spend the summer alone together at a cottage in Nantucket to recooperate from their injuries. With four burned palms between them, a whole lot of things become difficult--including getting off. As their frustration mounts, Andy begins a new series of dares that will cross the friendship line. In fact, in Andy's typical reckless style, he blows it to smithereens.
It's fun though. Too much fun?
At the end of the summer, when their burns heal, the two friends will have to decide if they go their separate ways or risk the greatest dare of their lives. (Since this is a romance, you can probably guess that love wins.)
Giveaway
To win a chance to read an ARC of this novel before anyone else, comment on the facebook post on the Queer Romance Freebie Fan Club. The winner will be chosen Friday 5/13/2017. I'm not sure exactly when the ARC will be going out. Probably July or August. But you'll be on the list to get one when it's ready.
Excerpt (not final text)
Andy
I woke up Monday morning hard as an iron post, the kind they put up in Boston to make sure cars didn’t enter pedestrian zones. I’d been dreaming about sex, though I couldn’t remember the details. God damn, but I had to get off. I was becoming seriously irritable, especially being around Jake all the time. He could have ended this so easily, not only the physical torment itself, but the questions that were starting to drive me crazy. And yet he hadn’t even acknowledged I’d suggested we get each other off since he’d first walked away on Friday morning.
Fine! I’d figure out another way to do it then.
I went into the bathroom. It was too difficult to turn the lock on the door and, anyway, if Jake walked in on me, that was his problem. I couldn’t even piss with my aching hard-on, and I was so done with this. The sink in the bathroom was free-standing and had a curved porcelain edge. It was at the right height that figured I might be able to rub off against it. Of course, cold porcelain wasn’t exactly conducive to comfort. I bent over and grasped a towel off the rack with my teeth. I tried to drape it over the basin. What I wanted was a clean double fold so there would be two thickness of terrycloth between me and the porcelain. But the towel dropped twice, forcing me to get onto my knees to pick it back up in my teeth and use my elbows to get back on my feet. Then I could only get a single layer of the towel in place, despite spending ages trying to fold it with my elbows.
Finally I gave up and just tried to rub off against it, but the surface was still too hard. And it was bunched up all wrong, making uncomfortable folds. I got more and more pissed, still hard as a rock and in desperate need. I finally found a spot on the towel that wasn’t too uncomfortable, and was just starting to rut in earnest when I heard the door and voices in the main room. Walter’s voice. I’d apparently slept right through Emily’s visit, and now Walter had arrived for our morning shower and bandage change.
I swore a loud, hearty motherfucker and let the towel drop to the floor. I scooted my gym shorts back up against the bathroom wall, having to work it over my woodie. Whatever. I didn’t care. My T-shirt was long enough to mostly cover it. I used the back of one bandaged hand and my knee to turn the bathroom door knob and stomped out.
Walter and Jake were in the living room, talking. Walter gave me a nod, though he didn’t smile or say hello. He’d probably heard me cursing. I glared at the two of them and went into the kitchen.
Emily had left me a large coffee travel mug on the counter with a straw in it. I took a sip. It was cold. I thunked my head against the fridge, breathing hard.
I was so done. Normally, I could laugh about it or take it as a challenge, but not this morning. I was frustrated and horny and resentful.
“Andy?” Jake came up behind me, his voice quiet. I heard the sink in the bathroom turn on. Walter was in there setting up for our showers. As if I’d let him near me with this fucking hard-on.
I growled, not lifting my head from the fridge. “What do you want, Jake?”
“What’s the matter?”
I heard the worry in Jake’s voice. He honestly didn’t know? “My coffee is cold, my dick is hard, and I want to punch something. Any more questions?”
There was as smirk in Jake’s voice. “So your coffee is frigid and your dick is rigid? I hate when that happens.”
I smiled despite myself, though with my head on the fridge, I didn’t think he could see it. But at the same time, part of me wanted to tell him to fuck off. The way he’d told me to. But I didn’t. Jake wasn’t doing anything wrong. He had every right to say no to my little plan. In fact, he was probably smart to say no. I was the fucked up one. Why did I want this so much?
I sighed and slumped even more against the fridge, feeling defeated.
Behind me, I actually heard a gulp as Jake swallowed. “Hey, listen . . . I’ll do it.” His voice was low and gravelly, as if he didn’t want Walter to hear.
I stood there, not saying anything. But my heart started pounding harder. Did he mean it?
“You said ‘no,’” I finally managed. “If you don’t want to do it, you shouldn’t.”
“I just said I would.”
“Maybe now I don’t want to,” I argued, some gremlin inside me still hurt that he’d said no in the first place.
“Don’t be such an emo!” Jake huffed. “Like you said, it’s an expedient way to get off. It’s not a big deal.”
Oh thank God. My woodie had finally been starting to go down, but now it perked back up again at the idea of getting some action. A warm mouth yet. Jake’s mouth. Oh God. “Okay,” I said breathlessly. “When?”
Jake snorted. “Eager much? We’ll have to wait until Walter leaves, obviously.”
That soon? Oh God. “Okay. After Walter leaves.”
Eli