November Rain

by daisy harris

  Henri’s big-city attitude and tight jeans push every last one of Logan’s buttons, and when he and Henri have to share a tent, Logan is thrilled. He should have realized Pacific Northwest weather would get wet—forcing them to strip naked.

  Though the steam between them is thicker than coastal fog, Henri’s not sure he can let himself fall for another man. Not even the guy who finally treats him right.

  Warning: Contains bad ex-boyfriends, even worse weather, and more than your average amount of sex in a tent. May not be suitable for those with germ phobias, outdoor aversions or fear of damp shoes.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for After the Rain:

  “Here.” Henri came over with a couple marshmallows pinched between graham crackers. He handed one to Logan, smirking. Moonlight teased at Henri’s cheekbones, darkening Henri’s eyes.

  It was all Logan could do not to kiss him, but instead Logan shoved the s’more in his mouth.

  “You going to eat that whole thing?” Henri said it with a hitch to his eyebrow that was pure suggestion.

  Logan laughed around his bite, spraying a fine mist of graham cracker crumbs. Oh God, Henri must have thought he was the world’s biggest dope. But Henri’s smile was kind as he reached up and wiped a bit of chocolate off the edge of Logan’s lips.

  Damn, Logan wanted to take that finger and suck it into his mouth. No. No way. Henri had said maybe. He’d held Logan’s hand. Finger sucking was definitely off the menu.

  With a coy grin, Henri bit his s’more in half. His shapely lips were all coated in melted marshmallow and chocolate, and Logan wanted to lick it off so badly he could wait a month if he had to.

  Somewhere nearby, guys began drumming. Logan couldn’t see them, but from the general shift in the air, he could tell that the crowd had gotten excited.

  “Oh God.” Henri leaned into him, resting his forehead on Logan’s shoulder. “I really hate drum circles.”

  Logan froze, suspended in a place between not believing his luck and being terrified to fuck things up. Henri’s hair smelled so good, and his body was lithe and small but also strong and sinewy. Logan wanted to clutch Henri, grab him, haul him closer. With Soleil, it had never been like this. He’d never felt so turned on it was almost scary.

  “The drummin’ part or the circle part?” Logan forced his voice not to crack. Slowly, he lifted his hand to hover over Henri’s back. He waited long seconds, wondering if Henri would pull away. When Henri let out a sigh and relaxed against Logan’s chest, he brought his palm to rest between Henri’s shoulders.

  “Both.”

  Giving in, Logan dropped his head to rub his cheek against Henri’s hair. Oh hell, he could do this—only this—all night. Standing there under the stars just holding Henri…Logan didn’t know why he’d worried about blowjobs and fucking and the rest of it.

  “Attention!” On the other side of the campfire, Buck stood on a picnic table. He held his hands up, palms out, in the universal sign for quiet down.

  The drumming slowed to a low-pitched beat, and the guys lowered their voices.

  “It’s time for a polar bear dip!” Buck ripped his shirt over his head and beat his fists against his chest.

  Okay, this Logan had not been expecting. He looked to Henri for direction, but Henri’s mouth hung open in horror.

  “Oh, hell no.” Henri wound his arms around his torso as if someone might run over and try to tear his clothes off.

  All around them, men stripped. Buck waved, pointing at the ridge and the river beyond. Logan hoped all the guys stuck to the section where the water pooled in a lagoon and didn’t venture into the river itself. In the dark, it could be dangerous.

  “Come on, gentlemen!” After a few shouts from the lesbians in attendance, Buck added, “And ladies.”

  “You sure you don’t want to go?” Logan imagined he knew the answer, but he still had to ask. Maybe it was like river rafting and Henri needed to be cajoled into joining the fun.

  “Not if the river were peppermint mocha.” Henri cuddled into Logan’s side, but whether it was for warmth or because he was as reluctant to let go as Logan was, Logan couldn’t tell. “I’m pretty beat.” When Henri tilted his head, their eyes met. “And I bet Michael has all kinds of activities to torture us with tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” Logan’s belly lurched at the idea of lying together in a tent in the dark, but at the same time, his heart kicked up to pounding. “I’m tired too.”

  One by one, they got their sleep clothes out of their bags, and together they headed to the bathrooms. Logan caught Henri’s eye in the bathroom mirror as they stood brushing their teeth. Maybe it was because there was a toothbrush in Henri’s mouth and his lips were dripping with toothpaste, but it looked like he was smiling for real, not even a smirk this time. His dark eyes crinkled around the edges and sparkled in the yellow halogen lights.

  Every muscle on Logan’s body tensed and quivered, like he could run five miles at a sprint. Much as Logan wanted to keep things PG in the tent, he hoped they rubbed off together at the end. Didn’t matter if it was an unspoken thing like the night before or a more together experience with them whispering encouragement to each other, because otherwise there would be no way in hell Logan would be able to sleep.

  He tried not to look when Henri hurried out of his clothes and into his flannel pajamas, but he couldn’t miss Henri’s long back and the thick hair on his thighs. Logan turned around to change before Henri could catch him watching.

  “You want to try to stream something tonight?” Henri came over, both his body language and his gaze more guarded than they’d been before. Maybe Logan had read this whole thing wrong. “If everyone else heads back to the campfire after they swim, we might get the chance.” He dragged on a sweater, rubbing his arms. “Or maybe they’ll all have hypothermia and fall asleep.”

  “Sure.” Logan hid his disappointment. “Sounds fun.”

  A few minutes later they climbed into the tent. Maybe it was Logan’s imagination, but now that they were in the dark again, Henri seemed to brush against him an awful lot as he adjusted his sleeping bag in the tent.

  The drums and men’s chatter in the distance sounded tribal, primitive. They spurred Logan on. He should be doing something, he knew this. His palms itched to grab, and his blood pumped like lightning through his veins. If only he could figure out what in the fuck he was supposed to do.

  “You really want me to keep this here?” Henri dug in the suitcase that separated their sleep pads. Shadows hid his expression.

  “No.” Logan cleared his throat, his voice hoarse with an equal mixture of fear and lust.

  Henri must have felt it too, that energy buzzing between them. Logan couldn’t be imagining the way Henri’s pale billows of breath were slow and rhythmic, or the way Henri kept leaning toward him before pulling away.

  “Okay. Then I’ll put it down by my feet.” He picked up the bag and twisted, getting on his hands and knees directly in front of Logan. It was all too easy for Logan to imagine lying across his back to kiss his neck.

  As if he heard Logan’s thoughts, Henri stilled. There was a long, limitless minute while Logan wondered if Henri was waiting for him to do something, maybe crawl over him and do exactly what he was thinking about. Or maybe Henri was gearing up to tell Logan he needed to find somewhere else to sleep.

  Henri backed up a few inches, so his heels almost touched Logan’s knees. Logan didn’t move. Mind gone blank, he held his ground while Henri slowly lifted up to kneeling. Henri’s back was to Logan’s front, only a foot away.

  “Logan?” Henri’s voice was more tentative than anything Logan had heard him say so far.

  “Yeah?” He would have done anything Henri said right then—slept on the ground, sucked him off, made love to him. Logan would have spread and let Henri fuck him, if that’s what Henri wanted.

  “If you want�
�” Henri’s words were little more than a breath but still loud in the silence of their tent.

  “Yeah?” Logan rasped, unable to think about anything but the tension in Henri’s shoulders and the way Henri smelled.

  “Just don’t kiss me, okay? Not on the lips.”

  To remake their future, they’ll have to use pieces of their broken past.

  Bad Influence

  © 2014 K.A. Mitchell

  Bad in Baltimore, Book 4

  The young man the world knew as Jordan Barnett is dead, killed as much by the rejection of his first love at his moment of greatest need, as by his ultra-conservative parents’ effort to deprogram the gay away.

  In his place is Silver, a streetwise survivor who’s spent the last three years learning to become untouchable…unless you’re willing to pay for the privilege. He shies away from anything that might hold him down long enough for betrayal to find him again.

  Zebediah Harris spent time overseas, trying to outrun the guilt of turning his back on the young man he loved. Now, almost the moment he sets foot back in Baltimore, he discovers Silver on a street corner in a bad part of town. His effort to make amends lands them both in jail.

  Trapped together in a cell, Silver sits on his mountain of secrets and plans a seductive form of revenge, but finds that using a heart as a stepping stone is no way to move past the one man he can’t forgive, let alone forget.

  Warning: Contains a surly hero. May cause angst. A prolonged delay in sexual situations may cause frustration. Author recommends a steady dose of familiar friends and characters to alleviate those symptoms. No actual teenagers were used during the construction of the backstory.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Bad Influence:

  Silver crossed the reception room and pushed open the door that took him out onto a wraparound balcony overlooking the harbor. He wasn’t alone there—other people had snuck out to enjoy a cigarette in the heavy air. As he moved along the railing and rounded a corner, he half-expected to trip over Jamie and Gavin interlocking some body parts, but eventually he found a spot to be alone. Mostly because the view was blocked by some other building. It was almost a perfect hideaway, except for the glass wall behind him. Thunder rumbled, first only a vibration, then loud enough to get people’s attention.

  Good. The rain should drive everyone else inside, though Silver hoped people stuck around long enough to drink and buy more of Eli’s pictures.

  The storm blew up fast. From partly cloudy to early sunset in minutes. The wind lifted his hair, sweeping cocktail napkins off the balcony to spin away into the street four stories down. It was a great place to watch people from, see them hurry into buildings or cars, though the trash was more interesting. The wind kept picking up plastic bags and sending them up like kites.

  He didn’t have to worry about where he’d sleep or if the roof on Tyson Street had a new leak. And for a few minutes, he didn’t have to worry about whether he was living up or down to people’s expectations. When lightning backlit a cloud to the south, he glanced down at the metal railing and decided not to worry about that either.

  He leaned forward against it as the first hard drops of rain fell, letting them sting against his sore right cheek.

  “Hey.” Zeb’s voice.

  With almost anyone else, Silver would have turned and put his back against the railing, feeling safer facing a person head-on. But if Zeb was going to hurt him some more, Silver would just as soon not let Zeb see his face.

  “Hey,” Silver offered in answer.

  Zeb put his hands on the railing to Silver’s right. Lightning flashed, and Zeb’s fingers tapped off the seconds till the thunder. He raised his hands for a second then settled them again. Maybe his righteousness exempted him from lightning strikes.

  The hands flexed and gripped the railing. That scar hadn’t been there before, the ragged one extending from the webbing next to his pinky, over the next knuckle and then over the back of his hand. And his left index finger was missing a little piece. On his right hand, two of the fingers had swollen knuckles, and the tips leaned, like they’d been broken and taped together.

  Silver remembered the skin smooth and straight, the tips and nails teasing the inside of his thighs, palm sliding across his belly, a grip on his hips to hold him flat as he tried to buck up into a hot, wet mouth. The way those hands had trembled, half pushing him away on the first thrust inside Zeb’s body.

  Maybe it wasn’t his eyes but Zeb’s hands that showed what he was feeling. Right now they were hesitant, stalling, opening and closing on the top rail, tapping lightly.

  “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” Zeb said at last. “It’s been a long day. A lot of emotions raked over.” He gave a rueful laugh. “I’m not perfect.”

  Silver leaned sideways to face him. “Surprised you can admit it.”

  “You know that better than anyone.” Zeb’s hand made it halfway to Silver’s face and fell away, but his eyes stayed focused on Silver’s. “I thank God I got this chance to see you again. To apologize. And I thank you for hearing me out. I guess anything else is a little too much to expect.”

  Zeb glanced away.

  The rain sliced sideways, and Silver wiped it away from his cheek and ear and eye. “What does that mean?”

  “If you want, I’m gone. I’ll find a job somewhere else. Let you get on with your life in peace. You won’t ever have to see me again.”

  “Did I say I wanted that?”

  “Not in words. Specifically.”

  “You expected a nice-to-see-you-again blow job?”

  “Of course not.” Zeb’s eyes were dark, but there was very little light coming from behind the glass at this end of the balcony. Only the flicker of a fake candle on a table barely as wide as one of the mini quiches the waiters had handed out. Maybe the dim light was what made the lines around his mouth so stern. “Though was there some other message I was supposed to be receiving based on the way you acted when being tutored?”

  The heat in Silver’s cheeks should have turned the rain to steam. He shifted back to face the street. “Must be losing my touch.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Silver didn’t need to look to see Zeb’s wry smile.

  “Jordan.”

  No smile in Zeb’s voice now. It was the voice that had sent him away. Silver watched the tiny river in the gutter and waited him out.

  “Do you want me out of your life?” Zeb said flatly.

  Silver spun to face him. “No. I don’t want that.”

  “What do you want?”

  He had to decide now? What if it was the same thing he’d wanted at sixteen? Zeb. Zeb and a house and a dog. To be able to touch Zeb in public and not have to worry. To know when he had a nightmare, he could roll over into Zeb’s warm body. What if Silver spilled his guts with everything he wanted and Zeb laughed? Or worse, shook his head patiently and explained that he might have loved Jordan then, but he could never love who Jordan was now?

  He couldn’t say any of it out loud.

  “I don’t know.”

  Zeb nodded, then leaned in for a kiss, but Silver could tell it was headed for his cheek. He tipped his head so their mouths connected instead.

  At first Zeb froze, and then kissed him, steady pressure, gentle movement. The electricity tingling under Silver’s skin should have been enough to call a lightning bolt right to them.

  Zeb’s hand cupped Silver’s cheek carefully, and their heads tilted in unison. Like the memory of how they did this couldn’t be erased in years and distance and scars. Silver pulled Zeb’s lip between his own, tasted rain, and then Zeb. Felt the hint of his tongue as the kiss got hotter, wetter. Zeb’s thumb moved, pressing and then jolting away from his bruise.

  His lip. It could start bleeding again. Silver stayed in that kiss for another second, a few more moments to imprint tha
t memory, and then backed away.

  Zeb let out a long breath. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “When you figure it out, you know where I am.”

  Then he was gone.

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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.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  November Rain

  Copyright © 2014 by Daisy Harris

  ISBN: 978-1-61922-258-8

  Edited by Sasha Knight

  Cover by Kanaxa

  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: September 2014

  www.samhainpublishing.com