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Summary: Nick O'Mallley is an agent for the Nevada Gaming Commission. He's also a Goth with a hearse he's restoring, and an ex lover he's only just getting over. Brandon Carr is a cop with the Riverside PD. Lucky for him, he's in Vice where his tattoos and biker boy looks serve him well.
The two meet at a Goth convention in San Diego and the sparks fly immediately. So much so that a weekend fling turns into more and Brandon spends his four day weekend visiting Nick.
Things aren't all sparks and roses though: the two do live a nine hour drive apart, and Brandon's not out. Add to that a murder right in front of them, a company trying to cheat the system and the Mexican Mafia, and Brandon and Nick's relationship will need to overcome a whole slew of obstacles in order to work.
Despite everything, can Brandon and Nick make a go of it? Taken a chance on these two and find out. |
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Excerpt:
Leather and velvet and PVC and brocade graced the patrons as they swirled through the cavernous building. People ebbed and flowed from sidewalk to bar to dance floor. Security guards swiped I.D.s through high tech gadgets that flashed a person’s age for all to see. Every color known to chemistry was dyed into at least one person’s hair. Monitors repeated image after image of the grinning skull with its black tri-corn and tattered flag back-drop suspended above the dance floor. Promoters were already out stumping for votes on next year’s city: Tampa, New Orleans or Vancouver.
Night two of Convergence 11 and Nicholas was dressed the only way he knew how: over the top. Slim-line trousers were almost painted on his legs. His long, black hair broke across the shoulders of his deep-purple, velvet frock coat. It was a little unusual; priest’s cassocks seemed to be the rage this year. Otherwise utili-kilts and black paramilitary-BDU’s pervaded the venue for guys. And pirate hats were everywhere, what with this year’s Convergence theme being pirates. Underneath the coat, a white silk shirt was constrained by a black brocade cincher. For some reason only the boiz who didn’t need anything cinched in around the middle ever wore cinchers. Maybe it was because anything extra got pushed out the top. A few extra pounds and you’d look like the girls with their overflowing tits. The requisite knee-high Doc Martins completed his outfit.
He was depressed, and not the I’m-too-cool-to-be-happy affected depressed, but really depressed. Two months before Convergence his long time relationship had imploded. Besides emotional fall out, it had left him stuck with a non-refundable, non-transferable, sixty-five dollar ticket and no chance of getting a roommate to split the costs of the room. If dressing for clubs wasn’t such an ingrained habit, he probably would have stuck with black jeans and t-shirts all weekend. Nick almost hadn’t come, but shit, he wasn’t going to let the breakup ruin this. Still, he’d bailed on the first night’s event, and most of the afternoon’s as well, and caught hell for that. Most of these people he only physically saw once a year. They were an extended, on-line family of sorts: offering career advice, mojo for hoped for jobs, general banter, and good-natured sniping.
That said, here he was alone and listening to a really bad band. His crowd had gone off earlier in search of food. Eating just didn’t sound like something he wanted to do. It would kill the buzz he currently had working. Drunk and depressed; if he had to be out that’s how he was going to be. He leaned against the rail separating the concert seating area from the dance pit and played with the brim of his top hat.
The music, if you could call it that, reverberated through the cavernous space. Shit, it was bad. Whiny and off key, all the crap that ordinary sheeple claimed Goth sounded like to them. What he wouldn’t have given for a little Lycia or Die Form. The bleachers behind him echoed a tinny counterpoint to the off tempo back beat. A few people were making a half-hearted attempt to dance near the stage. The Los Angeles contingent swayed and caressed themselves like they were masturbating in their own bedrooms. Dancing for the local crowd consisted of feigned epileptic fits. Every level in between was represented in the thrashing throng. Most people, however, either stood between the dancers and the bleachers or sat off to the left in a darkened area crammed with mismatched couches.
Some chick in leather bondage pants and a black leather waist cincher was crawling around on the floor. Nick smirked. He looked better in his than she did in hers. A voice came from off to the right, near the bar, “Hey, did you lose a contact or something?” Its tone was low, but commanding, self assured. The kind that was quiet because its owner never needed to yell. A warm baritone, it swam under the throb of the music and grabbed Nick’s attention. “Can I help you find it?”
Pushing down his half-specs, and peering at the speaker over the top of the purple lenses, Nick’s eyebrows shot up. Wow. Biker-Goth… big time. Short black hair in a spiked, pseudo-military, high and tight, and a boyish face all set on a tall, muscular frame. The guy was kneeling down, legs sheathed in riding chaps. Black jeans, black, tight t-shirt, biker boots and tats banding his upper arms completed a nice package. There was a damn fine ass in those jeans and chaps. Half a dozen piercings ran down the edge of one ear, but no spools. Nick wasn’t fond of the spools look. It didn’t feel right when you nibbled on someone if they had a plug the diameter of a penny stuck in the lobe. “Maybe this will help?” Nick dug out his keys and flipped on the tiny mag-lite fob. “What are we looking for?”
“A ring, silver, it has a two thousand year old piece of Roman window glass in it.” She set her cheek to the floor and looked across the mat black surface. There were about twelve other rings on her fingers; how would she ever miss one? “I caught it on the edge of my cincher and it popped off. Shit!”
Biker boy looked up and rolled his eyes at Nick. They flashed blue in the light of the mag. “Are you sure it was around here?” He had a single ring in his left brow.
“No, I felt it slip off as I was walking from there,” she pointed off towards the dancers, “to the bar here.” The tiny pool of light crawled back across the floor from where she had come. Nothing. Others joined in the search, looking about their feet. “Man, if I ever find it it’s going to be squished with all these fucking platform boots.” It was funny seeing a bunch of overdressed, gothier-than-thou people scrounging on the floor. Not unusual, just funny; most of the time people at clubs were just nice. A few uppity baby-bats had given the whole scene a bad name.
Some D.J. was spinning now; the music was a hell of a lot better. After a futile search, Nick switched off the pen light and shook his head, it was a hopeless cause “It ain’t here or someone’s lifted it.” Blue Eyes looked up Nick and smiled. That smile wiped any hope of rational thought from Nick’s mind. The best he could manage was to mumble towards the woman, “You might let the security guards know. Things that get lost generally tend to wind up there.”
“Yeah.” The man who’d first caught his attention nodded, stood and helped the girl to her unsteady feet. “I agree.” As she wandered off, he turned to Nick. “That calls for a drink.”
Without thinking Nick shot back, “You buying?”
“Sure, but I got a better idea.” He smiled and wiped the dust off his hands onto his ass. “It’s almost last call. The bus back leaves in a few. Some guys I kinda know and I bought a bunch of booze this afternoon. You can come back to my room and have a drink there.”
“Cheaper than three bucks a pop.” A party in someone’s room didn’t sound too bad. It was better than drinking alone, and Nick didn’t feel like going to bed just yet. He snorted to himself… drunk logic. “Sure, why not? My friends bailed for food when MonsterKiller turned out to be a dud. What you got?”
“Rum, vodka, and I’m sure something else, depending on what you’re in the mood for.”
Smiling, Nick responded, “It’s almost two a.m. I could be in the mood for anything.” |
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Author biography: Hola, I'm James Buchanan, a multipublished author of, primarily, homoerotic romance & fiction. Life wise, I grew up in a small Texas town, hours away from any other small Texas town and about as far west as you could go and still be considered in Texas. A stint at the University, where I ostensibly majored in English, garnered me a degree useful for being someone’s secretary. The absolute lack of employment opportunities sent me to Southern California. After a stint in County Mental Health (administration not client) I ran screaming into the field of Law. So far I have been practicing for nine years and someday I might even get it right.
Currently I volunteer as the Obelisk Awards Coordinator, List Dom and MySpace WebMaster for the Erotic Authors Association. I also edit the newsletter for the ManLoveRomance Author Co-op. My novella Twice the Cowboy won both the Preditors & Editors Best Romance Novella of 2006 but also the Golden Rose 2007 award for Best Novella.
I write original, erotic GLBT fiction, or what I tell people is gay porn with plot. My writing style is across the board, but I mainly write original homosexual fiction (some call it slash from the Male/Male designation) of the romantic flavor. I have written pansexual and/or bisexual stories although the queer relationships tend to be the predominate one. The type of fiction I write is often called “Boy Love,” although there are no underage relationships in my stories (boiz yes, boys no). I like men; really nice, sexy, handsome, strong guys with a bit of the world behind them. I like to put them together and have them be all angsty and romantic and get it on quite frequently.
All of my work to date is erotic. My longer works have heavy elements of romance in them. Some of my stuff is Original Yaoi with the traditional Seme and Uke roles with all involved being Bishonen. What can I say, I love Manga and it's fun to write. Otherwise my erotic fiction runs the gamut of mystery, thriller, horror, fantasy, historical fiction and science fiction. Much of it, no matter what genre I’m writing in is often labeled “dark fic” or “Gothic” as it has an edgy, not quite happy feel. It follows my own reading tastes. I’m more likely to be found with “A Slave’s Condition” than a pretty shounen-ai manga like “Gokuaru Café.” Clive Barker’s homocentric horror is on my shelves and I don’t need happy endings. |
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