Stained Glass excerpt by Jaime Samms

Description


In Jaime Samms" Stained Glass, the violent implosion of Lawrence McKenna’s last relationship left him floundering at the bottom of a bottle. Recently unemployed and struggling with his newly discovered submissive tendencies, Laurie needs his best friend, Jeff, more than ever. One sleepless night of detox and a desperate kiss convince him that the attraction they’ve battled all their lives has become too hard to ignore, but Jeff has other responsibilities that take him far away from Laurie and his self-destructive behavior.

When Jeff leaves, all Laurie wants is to be left alone to wallow. Instead, he finds himself riding herd on his friends who have quit their jobs to achieve their dream of starting their own manga publisher. Those same friends return the favor by riding him: about the booze, talking about what happened, seeing a doctor—and about Jeff, whose abandonment left Laurie bitter and resentful. Laurie knows they can’t have a relationship without forgiveness, but when Jeff returns, can he be what Laurie needs?

Stained Glass

Dreamspinner Press (Aug 27, 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-61372-724-9 (ebook)
978-1-61372-723-2 (paperback)

Excerpt:

I went out and found an old, old haunt where Nash and I had gone a hundred times. Most of the regulars I remembered had moved on, and the new crop of boys could easily have been a decade younger than me.

The dancing was fierce and the heat and sweat and motion intense enough that after a few shots, it didn’t matter that I was there by myself.

It was easier than I would have thought to find dance partners. Harder to narrow it down to one, but I managed. There was something vaguely familiar about him. He had darker yes than Jeff, and longer hair. He was nearly as short as me, younger by a good few years, but one hell of a lot stronger, and his hips didn’t move in proper relation to the rest of him. Most important, he could keep up with me on the dance floor, and not many could.

I knew I’d chosen well when he flagged down a waiter and ordered us tequila shots without ever taking his possessive hand off my waist. When the shots came, we downed them, and he licked the salt off my hand and refused to let me touch the lemon with anything but my mouth.

By that time, it didn’t matter. Screw the lemon. I plucked it from his lips with my teeth and spat it out in favor of the taste of it on the tongue he thrust into my mouth.

“The only real way to do tequila shots!” he shouted over the music when we parted.

I flagged the waiter down for another. The chase for the lemon was a tease this time. He sucked it dry and waggled his tongue at me. When I reached for it, he pounced, slamming my back to the wall at the edge of the floor and lifting my hands to pin them over my head. His tongue reached deep, his hips ground hard, and I dissolved.

“God, you’re fucking killin’ me, man!” His voice was a fierce growl in my ear, and it sent shivers of need skittering over my skin. I bucked against him, letting him feel my own erection, lifting my gaze when he pulled back to look at me.

His eyes darkened and his smile sharpened. His grip on my wrists tightened, crushing the bones against the wall above me. The pain turned the goose bumps to flames licking along my nerve endings. My cheeks flared hot. I grinned back at him. Just the encouragement he needed to subdue me with his weight. The force he used was burning a fire through me, and if he didn’t follow up soon, there was a good chance I was going to melt down right there in the middle of the bar.

His lip curled in a hard, eager grin, and he took my mouth again, demanding every ounce of my attention with what his tongue was doing. He let go of my hands eventually, but only so he could wrap both arms around my waist and haul me out to the middle of the floor.

Other dancers parted to let us through. Distantly, I heard the hoots and catcalls directed at us, but they only made me want it more. Knowing he had put me on display like that boiled my blood. It should have cooled the fire but only seemed to fan the flames. I couldn’t get close enough to him, couldn’t feel enough of his hard young body pressed to mine.

I got lost in that kiss. I didn’t even notice the music change or that he was waltzing me off the floor until my back jammed into a post on the far edge of the hardwood. His fingers stole into my hair, his other hand lacing through mine as he plundered my mouth, and I let him.

God, it felt so good to have that strength surrounding me. Not to have to think. Not to have to do anything but give him what he wanted.

“You were Nash’s,” he whispered into my ear.

I froze and tipped my head back, the flash of memory placing his face squarely in my own living room. “You’re him.”

He grinned and nodded and leaned his head close to mine so he could speak into my ear. “And I’ve seen your list.”

“Oh, God.” The words were past my lips and breathed all over him before I could stop them.

“Say no now,” he told me, staring into my eyes. He hadn’t released his grip or any of the pressure holding my back to the hard metal post, but there was that look in his eye—the confidence I wouldn’t turn him down and the honesty that told me he’d let me go if I did.

I tipped my head back until it rested on the post, and closed my eyes, showing him my throat.

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