About the Author
Heidi has always loved a good love story, provided it has a happy ending. She enjoys writing across many genres but loves above all to write happy, romantic endings for LGBT characters because there just aren’t enough of those stories out there. When she isn’t writing, Heidi enjoys knitting, reading, movies, TV shows on DVD, and all kinds of music. She has a husband, a daughter, and too many cats. Heidi also volunteers frequently for her state’s LGBT rights group, One Iowa, and is proud to be from the first Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage.
Find Heidi on the web at:
Website: www.heidicullinan.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/heidicullinan
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He followed all the rules…until one man showed him a dozen ways to break them.
An Improper Holiday
© 2009 K.A. Mitchell
As second son to an earl, Ian Stanton has always done the proper thing. Obeyed his elders, studied diligently, and dutifully accepted the commission his father purchased for him in the Fifty-Second Infantry Division. The one glaring, shameful, marvelous exception: Nicholas Chatham, heir to the Marquess of Carleigh.
Before Ian took his position in His Majesty’s army, he and Nicky consummated two years of physical and emotional discovery. Their inexperience created painful consequences that led Ian to the conviction that their unnatural desires were never meant to be indulged.
Five years later, wounded in body and plagued by memories of what happened between them, Ian is sent to carry out his older brother’s plans for a political alliance with Nicky’s father. Their sister Charlotte is the bargaining piece.
Nicky never believed that what he and Ian felt for each other was wrong and he has a plan to make things right. Getting Ian to Carleigh is but the first step. Now Nicky has only twelve nights to convince Ian that happiness is not the price of honor and duty, but its reward.
Warning: Just thinking about reading this book in 1814 could get you hanged, so the men in this book who enjoy m/m interaction of an intimately penetrative nature are in a hell of a lot of trouble.
Enjoy the following excerpt for An Improper Holiday:
When at last the door opened, Ian spun ’round to be relieved of his coat, sufficiently irritated by Simmons’ delayed arrival to forgo his usual greeting.
Perhaps the fellow had been overindulging in whatever libations were being offered to celebrate the day in the servants’ hall because the valet was clumsy rather than deft, struggling just to ease the coat from Ian’s shoulders.
“And I shall be retiring, Simmons.”
Instead of the expected “Very good, sir,” the man left his arms pinned behind his back and brushed his fingers beneath Ian’s cravat. The unanticipated contact awakened Ian’s skin, his flesh alight with delightful ripples of sensation.
“What the devil?”
He would have turned to face the man, but Simmons stepped closer, hands moving to remove the starched tie while pressing his hips intimately against Ian’s arse.
The shock and terror in his gut, even the pain of his confined shoulders, could not dampen the rush of arousal evoked by the touch, by the strength of another man’s embrace.
“Simmons. I must ask that you remember yourself.” Ian twisted free, retreating to place a wall at his vulnerable back, but his all-too-vulnerable front was exposed to—Nicky.
The identity of his assailant did little to mitigate Ian’s dismay.
“Are you mad?” Ian struggled with his coat, anger lending him sufficient strength to tear one of the sleeves from the body.
Nicky locked the door and removed his own coat. “It is Boxing Day, after all. Simmons has the evening off, as do almost all of the servants. Surely you would not deprive the man of his well-earned holiday.”
“It is not Boxing Day for another hour,” Ian asserted as the solemn toll of the chapel bell made him a liar. He flung his torn coat to the floor.
Nicky’s cravat parted company with his shirt, revealing a neck still defined with the strong tendons Ian had once traced with his tongue. Quelling thoughts of other flesh his mouth longed to revisit grew more impossible with each piece of clothing Nicky dropped onto the Aubusson rug.
“What are you doing?”
“I am preparing for bed. That bed.” Nicky indicated the four-poster in the center of the room.
“Is the castle so crowded the son of the house has been turned out of his rooms?”
“If it pleases you to think so.” Nicky straightened, torso bared to Ian’s gaze.
Firelight gilded Nicky’s skin, gleaming on the fine hairs of his breast, drawing Ian’s eye to the waist of Nicky’s breeches where the hair thickened and darkened. The garnet on his signet ring flashed as Nicky’s hands moved to those buttons.
Ian shut his eyes. “No.”
“No?” The amusement in Nicky’s voice had Ian looking again, forgetting what imminent danger had prompted his action. But Nicky only bent to remove his shoes and stockings, gifting Ian with the sight of the firm curve of his backside under the tight kerseymere breeches.
Nicky brought his hands to rest above his hips, fingers disappearing under the waistband. “Is it truly no or is that what the good soldier, the dutiful second son, feels compelled to say?”
Ian’s throat burned as it tightened, but he could not look away.
“Whom do you seek to save with your denial, me or you?” Nicky persisted. He stepped closer, but made no move to touch Ian. “Why are we to be denied pleasure when you must know how precious and brief life is?”
“The risk of—”
“You threw yourself against a wall of French rifles in service to your father’s idea of honor. Can you not permit yourself something your own honor knows is right? How can it be wrong when we both desire it?” Nicky shoved his breeches down and stepped free, the proof of his desire standing proud and hard.
As swiftly as snow falling off a steep roof, Ian’s body dropped into a pit of raw need. He made a last effort to find any handhold which might keep him from the abyss.
“I do want…” you “…this, but only what we did before. We cannot, I will not…” He tried making a gesture to communicate the specific deed.
“Bugger me?” Nicky grinned. “Fuck me?”
Despite Ian’s shock, the coarseness of Nicky’s words brought a faster beat of blood to Ian’s prick. That unabated grin suggested Nicky knew damned well what effect he had wrought. His next step brought Nicky close enough to try the truth with his hand. Fingers traced the outline of Ian’s prick beneath a layer of wool and linen, a light pressure that offered nothing beyond exquisite torment. A quick hard rub against the crown, dragging the linen across the damp skin until heat pulsed from the tip, the touch as unerringly accurate as Ian’s own.
Pleasure stole his breath as surely as a fist to the stomach. Sucking the air through his teeth, he reached a hand to Nicky’s shoulder, hips tipping into the caress.
Nicky leaned forward until his breath moved against Ian’s ear. “While I find your concern utterly charming, what makes you believe you could take my arse if I didn’t allow it?”
Ignoring the wail of protest from his prick and balls, Ian transferred his grasp to Nicky’s wrist to still the motion of his palm. “I am well aware that many now consider me less a man, but with all your protestations, I would have thought—”
Nicky laughed. “Christ, Ian, try not to be more of an ass than the good Lord intended you to be. You couldn’t best me even when you had four inches and two-stone advantage.”
“I’ve never had two stones on you, you country-fed beast.” The retort came unbidden to his lips, their long habit of verbal sparring impossible to amend.
“By God, how I’ve missed you.” Nicky chuckled and yanked Ian’s cravat free.
Ian felt his own lips curve in answer. There had always been so much laughter between them. For years, that absence cut as keenly as the loss of Nicky’s
touch.
Shoving away bolster and counterpane, Nicky flung himself onto the bed. “Now. Kindly divest yourself of those clothes and get up here before I am forced to seek other amusements.”
Nicky arranged himself in a gloriously naked display, familiar laugh and cornflower-blue eyes at odds with the strangeness of a body more heavily muscled, more thickly pelted, but no less enthralling than the one that had filled Ian’s dreams as he slept in tents on the edges of battlefields. Longing clawed deeper hollows than all those years of denial, until again Ian was deprived of sufficient breath.
Such was the assault wrought on his senses by Nicky’s sprawl across the mattress that Ian had stripped away waistcoat and shirt and unfastened his breeches before Nicky’s last words attached themselves to a meaning. The haze of lust clouding Ian’s mind took on a red veil of anger.
“Other amusements?”
Nicky sighed and leaned forward, taking Ian by the arm. “I swear to provide you with a detailed history of the past five years in writing and affix the bloody Carleigh seal to my testimony. But if I don’t have you right now, one of us will end up dead.”
Nicky pulled him with a force too gentle to be compelling, but it was easier by far to let Nicky drag Ian onto the bed than to make the decision himself.
Nicky rolled, trapping Ian beneath, the press of hard warm skin such a shock Ian had to close his eyes against the sensation. When he opened them, there was Nicky, the achingly familiar blue eyes and full lips all Ian could hope of heaven“Which of us?”
“Does it matter?” Nicky rocked against him.
Ian thought again of Aristophanes and Phaedrus and their tales of separated lovers. Of Achilles’ terrible grief for Patroclus. “No.”
Nicky kissed the word from his mouth in a gentle press of lips, but Ian brought his hand up to tangle at last in those curls and pinned Nicky tight, an upward thrust of hips to feel the harder, wetter kiss of Nicky’s cock on Ian’s belly.
Nicky wrenched free and reared up, hands working to finish his duty as substitute valet, shoving away Ian’s breeches and small clothes until at last their pricks slapped together. Ian thought he had exorcised it from his memory, but there was no forgetting that sensation, the silky heat of Nicky’s cock against his.
Adding his spit to slick the way, Nicky held them together, rubbing the thick ridges against each other, washing the whole shaft with heat and pressure. Sweet enough to die from but not enough. God, not enough.
Trusting a psychic flash might solve a mystery…and lead to love.
The Psychic and the Sleuth
© 2011 Bonnie Dee and Summer Devon
Inspector Robert Court should have felt a sense of justice when a rag-and-bones man went to the gallows for murdering his cousin. Yet something has never felt right about the investigation. Robert’s relentless quest for the truth has annoyed his superintendent, landing him lowly assignments such as foiling a false medium who’s fleecing the wives of the elite.
Oliver Marsh plays the confidence game of spiritualism, though his flashes of insight often offer his clients some comfort. Despite the presence of an attractive, if sneering, non-believer at a séance, he carries on—and experiences a horrifying psychic episode in which he experiences a murder as the victim.
There’s only one way for Court to learn if the young, dangerously attractive Marsh is his cousin’s killer or a real psychic: spend as much time with him as possible. Despite his resolve to focus on his job, Marsh somehow manages to weave a seductive spell around the inspector’s straight-laced heart.
Gradually, undeniable attraction overcomes caution. The two men are on the case, and on each other, as they race to stop a murderer before he kills again.
Warning: Graphic language and hot male/male sex with light BDSM themes. Despite “Descriptions of Murderous Acts” perpetrated by an unhinged killer, resist the temptation to cover your eyes—you’ll miss the good parts!
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Psychic and the Sleuth:
Court walked with his shoulders hunched, head bent low and hands jammed into his coat pockets as he strode toward Oliver Marsh’s flat. The afternoon mist had turned to a steady drizzle, and he’d left his umbrella at home. He should’ve taken a cab, but he’d decided to walk, since he was already so close to Northhampton Square. Ironic that the scene of Lily’s murder wasn’t many streets away.
He’d visited the site today as he had so many times before, staring at the spot and examining every cobblestone, every brick in the surrounding buildings, every lamppost, doorway and window frame as if the location would give him the clue he needed to find her killer. But now, nearly a year later, the rusty stain that marked the pool of blood beneath her body had long ago washed away. There was no indication a murder had even taken place in that quiet back street.
Superintendent Hardy would’ve told him he was spinning his wheels in a quagmire of mud, searching for something that wasn’t there. Inspector Childs would’ve reminded him the killer had been found, tried and hanged, and he should allow Lily to rest in peace. Recently Court had nearly begun to believe them. It had been some weeks since he’d even looked into his investigative file.
But Lily wasn’t resting in peace, was she? If Marsh wasn’t a scam artist, then Lily was rattling around inside the medium’s head and trying to send Court a message.
Marsh. He took a moment to dwell on the man who’d turned his life upside down in more ways than one. In addition to reigniting Court’s fire to find a killer, Marsh had ignited other things inside him—attraction, heady lust, the desire to touch…
Court prided himself on keeping his appetites firmly under control, satisfying them only very occasionally and with utmost discretion. He did not like the way Marsh sent longing racketing through him. The mere thought of Marsh’s bowed upper lip, his soft brown waves of hair, the soothing tenor of his voice and those damned unearthly blue eyes was enough to make his cock rise.
Court willed it to calm. Damned if he’d let this young man have such control over him. He must be clearheaded tonight as he observed Marsh channel Lily—if Marsh even could channel Lily. He must be wary and clever, not ensnared in a web of lust.
Rain dripped off the brim of his bowler. A few drops landed on his nose, and he brushed them away as he entered the door of Marsh’s building. His heart beat faster as he climbed the narrow staircase leading to the man’s apartment. The air was dank and musty-smelling, and it was nearly as cold and damp inside as out.
Court knocked on the door and listened to the thud of footsteps crossing the floor. He caught his breath just before the door opened. Marsh’s fine-featured face was as he remembered it—pretty. If he was a girl, Court would’ve described him as winsome, for there was something inherently charming in Marsh’s manner. His eyes and smile drew one to him.
Marsh dipped his head. “Mr. Peeler.” He held out his hands to take Court’s dripping hat and coat.
Court glanced around the room, comparing it to the previous evening, wanting to see if Marsh had removed anything he thought might be incriminating. It looked the same, though perhaps slightly neater. His gaze swept over Marsh, taking in the sharp cut of his gray coat, the muted colors of his paisley waistcoat. He still dressed the dandy but more subdued than in yesterday’s eye-burning checked coat.
Marsh hung his coat, then handed him a bit of toweling to dry off with. “The afternoon is damp,” he remarked.
“The rain’s diminishing.” Court moved past him to the chair his host indicated, the same he’d occupied last night. A small table with a lit candle on it sat between the chair and the sofa.
“I’ll pour you a cup of tea to warm you up.” Marsh removed his jacket before going into the small kitchen. When he returned a few moments later with the tea tray, his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow. The muscles in his forearms flexed slightly as he set the tray down, and Court couldn’t stop watching his deft hands as he poured them each a cup and presented one to Court.
Fragr
ant steam rose from the cup, bathing his icy face. He sipped the scalding brew, then placed the cup on the edge of the table. “How do we begin? No tricks of the trade or setting an atmosphere. If you can really commune with the dead, show me.”
Marsh nodded and put his own cup aside. “First we must be honest with each other. If you wish to hear from your dead relative, you must at least give me your true name.”
“Why is that necessary? I told you, the more facts I feed you about either myself or Lily, the more likely you’ll invent some fiction to appease me.”
If Marsh was irritated, he didn’t betray it by more than a slight tightening of his lips. “Shall I continue to call you Robert Peeler, then?”
Court hesitated. There was still the fraud investigation to consider, but his undercover persona was already destroyed with Marsh. He should stick with the pseudonym, yet he suddenly found himself blurting, “Court. You may call me Court.”
“Mr. Court.” Marsh looked at him with a small, grave smile. He inclined his head as if accepting the name. “And I’m still Oliver Marsh. I don’t have a hidden identity or a hidden agenda. The service I provide to my clients is real—I comfort them about the afterlife. I reassure them. There is no harm in what I do.”
Court bit his tongue. There was plenty he could say about taking money from grieving people for pretending to pass on messages from their departed loved ones, but tonight he was here as a believer himself. Or mostly a believer. It seemed apparent something otherworldly had happened at that séance. “I’m ready to see if you are the genuine article. We should find out if you can make it happen again.”
“I’m not sure.” Marsh blushed.
“Go on,” Court said. “You don’t know how to establish a true connection to the dead, do you?”
Marsh ignored him. “It would be good if you had some personal possession of the girl’s I could hold. I should’ve asked you to bring something.”
“I brought a photograph.” Court went to where his greatcoat was hung and took the tintype from the pocket. He returned to his seat and handed it to the medium. “My cousins, Lily and her older sister, Rose. She’s the one on the left.”
A Private Gentleman Page 28
