Tuesday’s Teasing Snippet – Guarded Desires
My Samhain editor has asked me on numerous times to write a m/m. I’ve always been hesitant, not sure I could capture the raw emotion of the genre. But then, a few months ago, a very good friend of mine experienced something they never thought they would: they found themselves attracted to a member of the same sex. My friend had been happily married for over twenty years, so to say the response was a shock is an understatement. It changed everything.
Everything.
Guarded Desires is my friend’s story. Just with more ravenous paparazzi and screaming fans. 
It’s available July 14th and today I’m sharing a little teasing snippet.
I hope you enjoy it.
***
Desire like this wasn’t in the script…
Heart of Fame, Book 3
Small-screen sex symbol Chris Huntley is on the fast track to becoming the next big action-blockbuster movie star. When his latest movie takes him to Australia for a red-carpet premiere, he thinks he’s ready for anything.
But nothing could have prepared him for his raw, carnal response to his Aussie bodyguard. Sexual attraction to a man is a first for Chris. Now he realizes why his relationships with women have never felt quite…complete.
Liev Reynolds is comfortable with his bisexuality, but his attraction to Chris is an inconvenience he must ignore. For starters, there’s his professional ethics. Then there’s the long trail of female broken hearts in Chris’s wake.
Hard as they both try to keep their minds on their jobs, desire and a little matchmaking tip them over the edge. But Hollywood endings aren’t real life. And when the truth leaks out, their careers aren’t the only collateral damage.
Product Warnings
A hunky Hollywood sex symbol. A smoldering, stubborn Australian. A desire so powerful it cannot be denied. A kiss. And a photograph. This isn’t your normal boy-meets-boy story.
***
“You okay, mate?”
With a strangled yelp, Chris snapped open his eyes.
Reynolds stood before him. A curious frown furrowed his forehead.
Oh Christ, help me.
The man radiated confident strength, even with his dark blond hair a tousled mess of damp strands. A black polo shirt covered his torso, emphasizing his muscular frame with a subtle perfection Chris had never noticed on another man before. Black denim jeans hugged his long legs, and if it wasn’t for the fact Chris couldn’t stop his gaze lingering at the rather impressive bulge at Reynolds’s crotch, he would have made some wise-ass comment about the fact the bodyguard wasn’t wearing shoes.
But his gaze did linger on Reynolds’s groin. Long enough for the man to clear his throat.
Chris’s gut knotted. Heat flooded his face. Holy fuck. Holy fuck, he’d just been staring at another man’s package.
“Mr. Huntley?”
He jolted to his feet, unable to meet Reynolds’s eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t…geez, I…” Clearing his own throat, he scraped his hands through his hair and forced his stare to Liev’s. “I didn’t mean to, y’know…look…there. It was just at eye level.”
Reynolds’s laugh surprised him. “No worries, mate. I’m used to it.”
Chris raised his eyebrows. “You’re used to guys looking at your junk?”
“Well, when you put it like that, no. But I’ve been in the state firefighting charity calendar four years running. When you spend a month on someone’s wall dressed in nothing but a half-unzipped pair of loose work trousers you get used to being checked out. Especially when you make appearances at events to sell those calendars.”
The ball of tension in Chris’s gut didn’t loosen at Liev’s answer. It only made it worse. He’d known the man was a firefighter when he wasn’t working as a bodyguard, but now all Chris could do was picture him half-undressed, glistening with sweat, his hands wrapped around a freaking massive hose jutting out from the region of his groin. Subtlety, it seemed, was not one of Chris’s newly confused brain’s strong points.
Nor was remaining impassive to the thought of Liev. At least, Chris’s cock wasn’t remaining impassive. The stiffening heat in his trousers was enough to make him want to groan.
Damn it, he needed to get laid. By a woman. Fast.
“Want to hit a bar?” The question burst from him before he could stop it.
Liev narrowed his eyes.
Chris puffed out a ragged breath. “I’ve just become an uncle. I need to loosen up.”
A muscle in Liev’s jaw twitched. “Loosen up?”
“Ah, shit,” Chris held out a hand, “no drugs. Honest. My sister would kill me. Hell, Rhodes would kill me. No, I just need to blow off some tension. Do you know a place? Somewhere noisy?”
“I do.” Liev crossed his arms. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I took you there. Too accessible to the public. Too easy for you to be swarmed. And then Rhodes would kill me.”
“And I don’t want to lose my new bodyguard before I break him in, right?”
The quip was meant to be just that. A quip. It was what Chris did best—make jokes when things were tense. And things were tense. At least, for Chris they were. But Reynolds didn’t laugh.
He stood motionless, his blue stare holding Chris’s, his jaw clenched. “No. You don’t.”
A lump filled Chris’s throat. His breath choked him. He couldn’t move.
Every fibre in his body strained for the man in front of him. Every nerve-ending sparked with a carnal need he couldn’t understand. His palms itched. His mind told him exactly how smooth and perfect Liev’s muscled arms would feel to touch, how hard his chest would be, how sculpted his abs.
How thick and heavy Liev’s cock would feel in his hand.
Chris stared at him. Into his eyes. Eyes that only a short while ago where unknown to him.
Eyes that revealed nothing.
And yet, the tension hung on the air between them. Chris wasn’t completely naïve. He’d seduced his fair share of women. He knew exactly what sexual tension was. He mastered it on screen. He’d mastered it in the bedroom.
What this was, right now, was sexual tension. Real sexual tension. This was explosive. This was tearing him apart.
This was…this was…fuck, this couldn’t be.
It couldn’t—
Liev’s nostrils flared. He swayed forward, barely. An almost imperceptible movement.
***
Guarded Desires (Heart of Fame Book Three)
(Amazon)
