Muscling Through
Page 10
Forget making it to the church on time. If they make it through the thirteenth without someone ending up face-first in the wedding cake, it’ll be a miracle…
Warning: Contains more food-related hotness, men in leather thongs and much more Luc and Daniel.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Last Supper:
“I don’t give a shit if you carry a bouquet of shallots up the aisle. Come over here and suck my cock.” Luc Tessier lounged naked on the bed, stroking his erection with his best seductive expression on his haughty face. He was rewarded by his lover Daniel Sheridan turning around from where he sat writing at the dressing table, eyes narrowed in irritation.
Luc loved winding Daniel up. He liked watching the change in his violet eyes. How they darkened to the colour of stormy seas or twilight skies. Daniel was hot, hot, hot when he was mad.
“I’m not carrying a fucking bouquet,” Daniel snapped, “or perhaps you’d like me in a dress too?”
“Oui,” Luc replied lazily. “With stockings and no panties.” They’d already done that variation one wild night. Daniel in stilettos and mini-skirt—what great legs he had—Luc pretending he was a paying customer before bending Daniel over the arm of the couch and pushing his skirt up to reveal the hidden delights beneath.
“Arsehole,” Daniel muttered and went back to his work. He had a thick, black book in which he constantly wrote annotated wedding plans. He had changed the order for the flowers five times and had suggested to Luc just now that he was going to change them again. Luc didn’t give a flying fuck. He cared only about the catering, which he was doing himself, and the large number of prominent chefs he’d invited to rub their noses in his culinary skill. There’d be a lot of guests experiencing orgasms that day, not just Luc and Daniel on their wedding night. They had already sold the wedding to Hello magazine for a cool million. Daniel could have the rarest South American orchids or baskets of dandelions for all Luc cared.
The wedding was taking place in the extensive grounds of Luc’s Paris restaurant in one week, the thirteenth of July. Work was already taking place on the vast marquee, the tables, the stage for the numerous bands Daniel had picked, the fairy lights strung through the trees and the fairground rides to entertain the obligatory little brats.
Of course, “wedding” wasn’t the correct term in France, seeing as it wasn’t legal. The correct term was civil union. Luc abhorred this. He wanted to be married to Daniel. He had suggested skipping across the border to Belgium to be properly married, but then his home country wouldn’t have recognised it regardless, so it hardly mattered. What mattered was they called it a wedding and the press called it a wedding. It was a wedding, as far as Luc was concerned.
Luc and Daniel were at Luc’s penthouse arguing, as they had been doing for the last few weeks. The plans were boring Luc. All he knew right now was that the madder he made Daniel, the harder Luc got for him.
“Come and sit on my face.”
“I’m not going to sit on your face, Luc. We’re getting married in a week and we have no flowers and one of the string quartet has such severe vertigo that he’s crawling along the floor. Can you play cello lying down?”
“Je m’en fou,” Luc retorted and stroked himself, watching Daniel’s reaction carefully in the mirror.
Daniel got to his feet, clearly intent on stalking away as only he could do. If ever there were a demand for a guide book on stalking etiquette, Daniel could write it. He could bang doors, he could flounce, he could sulk and he could throw looks to freeze a person at a hundred yards. And Luc had the perfect antidote to them all.
He climbed off the bed and gripped his lover firmly by the arm. A grip that suggested he wasn’t playing. “Hey, I came home early because I’ve been thinking about you all day. I wanted to show my appreciation for you. Perhaps you could put the book down for just an hour and come to bed with me?”
It almost worked. Words like this were more effective with Daniel than “sit on my face”. Daniel looked torn and then said reluctantly, “I can’t. I’ve got to meet a man about serviettes.”
“What? Going to have each guest’s name monogrammed on the edge?”
Daniel looked thoughtful. “There’s an idea.”
“Christ.”
Daniel glared before he slipped free of his grip, leaving Luc to deal with his own erection.
The serviette man was gay and clearly used his fresh-faced boyish appeal to sell his wares. Obviously he knew Daniel was gay, seeing as the only people who didn’t were the bonga-bonga tribe who lived in darkest Borneo, thanks to an embarrassing incident in the press that Luc had virtually predicted the very same week it happened.
Daniel slouched in his chair, the drone of hammers and power tools coming from the marquee threatening to give him a blinding headache, and daydreamed. He had once been a successful food critic and had once hated Luc’s guts. That was until a dinner invitation had led to him being facedown over Luc’s workbench and addicted to the man’s cock for the rest of his life. Not that sex was all they shared together, even if Luc’s appetite was larger than life. Luc might have been arrogant, conceited, stubborn, sarcastic and all-around impossible, but that didn’t stop Daniel from loving him. Even the battle between Luc and Daniel’s mother six months ago hadn’t managed to tear them apart, nor Daniel’s subsequent outing in the press after a rather unfortunate public sexual encounter. Daniel’s mother hadn’t spoken to him since, apart from a curt text message to inform him he was out of her will. Which was a particularly nice touch from the Ice Queen.
Daniel had stopped working after the outing. He had fled to Paris with Luc to lick his wounds and had been looked after by his lover with a tenderness that astounded him. Luc had hidden depths which most people weren’t party to. But even Daniel saw these qualities only sporadically. Usually it was enough, but sometimes the tension between them erupted in a fight that would culminate in separate beds, separate houses or separate countries. Right now, the wedding preparations, which had been going on for two months, after Daniel had finally accepted Luc’s proposal some four months after the event, were pushing them to breaking point. But it wasn’t like they hadn’t been there before.
What Daniel knew was that Luc loved him, despite his deep disinterest in the wedding preparations. At least, those preparations that didn’t involve food, because Luc had firmly taken control of that and seemed to be effortlessly and methodically working his way through it with no outward signs of stress at all. It was only Daniel who was having the nervous breakdown.
“So, what do you think?” The salesman, blond and tanned, almost fluttered his eyelashes.
“About what?” Daniel sat up a bit straighter and tried not to notice the worked-out body in the expensive Italian suit. God, how much did serviette salesmen make, anyway?
“About the monograms on the corner of each?”
“No, I don’t think so. They’re only going to end up in the bin, aren’t they?”
“The bin?” The man was French and heavily accented.
“Being thrown away,” Daniel rephrased it.
“D’accord. So, the ivory linen, then? Or perhaps the soft pink?”
“I’m not going to have pink serviettes at my wedding,” Daniel warned, a touch irritably. Was the salesman mocking him? Had he seen the incriminating photos on the Internet? Daniel sat on Luc’s lap riding him in a restaurant while a hundred guests stared at them through the window.
“Bien. What date again?”
“The thirteenth.”
The salesman winced. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“The thirteenth. Not Friday the thirteenth?”
A cold sweat drenched Daniel’s back suddenly. “Shit.”
“You’ve gone very pale.”
Daniel scrambled up so fast he almost overturned his chair. “I have to go.”
“But let me give you my card. I’ll write my personal number on it.” The man smiled flirtatiously.
Danie
l didn’t notice. He was off across the lawn toward the restaurant.
Muscling Through
JL Merrow
The bigger they come, the harder they fall... in love.
Cambridge art professor Larry Morton takes one, alcohol-glazed look at the huge, tattooed man looming in a dark alley, and assumes he’s done for. Moments later he finds himself disarmed—literally and figuratively. And, the next morning, he can’t rest until he offers an apology to the man who turned out to be more gentle than giant.
Larry's intrigued to find there's more to Al Fletcher than meets the eye; he possesses a natural artistic talent that shines through untutored technique. Unfortunately, no one else seems to see the sensitive soul beneath Al’s imposing, scarred, undeniably sexy exterior. Least of all Larry's class-conscious family, who would like nothing better than to split up this mismatched pair.
Is it physical? Oh, yes, it’s deliciously physical, and so much more—which makes Larry’s next task so daunting. Not just convincing his colleagues, friends and family that their relationship is more than skin deep. It’s convincing Al.
Warning: Contains comic misunderstandings, misuse of art materials, and unexpected poignancy.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
Macon GA 31201
Muscling Through
Copyright © 2011 by JL Merrow
ISBN: 978-1-60928-501-2
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2011
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
Look for these titles by JL Merrow
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Copyright Notice
Índice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
About the Author
Look for these titles by JL Merrow
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Copyright Notice