Important
things first, are these sheets silk or cotton? Can I be honest? I didn’t even buy
these sheets, my assistant did. Knowing Spencer they’re probably high-thread
Egyptian something or other. I just need my sheets to be comfortable, I don’t
care much otherwise.
What
are you wearing? Since
we don’t know each other all that well, let’s just say: A lot more than what I
usually wear to bed!
What
are we snacking on in bed while we read tonight? Well I definitely have a sweet
tooth...
If
I open this nightstand drawer, what will I find? Probably a knitting project and some
guitar picks and scraps of paper with bits of songs written on them. Sexy,
right?
Do
you roll up in the blankets like a burrito, or kick the covers off during the
night? I’ve been told
I sleep like a barnacle: close and clinging!
Can
I put my cold feet on your calves to warm them up? How about I knit you some socks
instead? I’m good with my hands.
Release
Date: December 17, 2015
Los
Angeles-based stylist Nico Takahashi loves his job—or at least, he used to.
Feeling fed up and exhausted from the cutthroat, gossip-fueled business of
Hollywood, Nico daydreams about packing it all in and leaving for good. So when
Grady Dawson—sexy country music star and rumored playboy—asks Nico to style
him, Nico is reluctant. But after styling a career-changing photo-shoot, Nico
follows Grady to Nashville where he finds it in
creasingly difficult to resist Grady’s charms. Can Nico make peace with show business and all its trappings, or will Grady’s public persona get in the way of their private attraction to each other?
creasingly difficult to resist Grady’s charms. Can Nico make peace with show business and all its trappings, or will Grady’s public persona get in the way of their private attraction to each other?
Categories: Bisexual,
Contemporary, Fiction, Gay Fiction, M/M Romance, Romance
Excerpt:
Grady presses his
lips flat, looks up at the ceiling again to gather himself, sniffs and nods,
then tugs Nico’s foot closer by his ankle. “Do you think... If we’d met at a
bar. Or through a friend of a friend. Or the gym.” Grady’s thumb strokes the
tender skin of Nico’s calf beneath the hem of his pants. “If we had just been
two regular guys? We really could have been something.”
There’s
a question in his voice, a hesitancy that maybe Nico would have rejected him
eventually anyway. Nico scoots across the cramped bunk, crowds against Grady,
shoulder to shoulder. “Well, we never would have met at the gym because I would
have taken one look at you and gone home to mourn the body I’ll never have by
consuming gallons of ice cream.”
Grady
bumps his shoulder. “Shut up, you’re gorgeous.” He tips his head against the
wall and grins. “If I’d first seen you at a bar I probably would have
humiliated myself by trying to win you over with bad karaoke and shameless
flirting.”
Nico’s
eyebrows raise. “You mean to tell me you’ve been holding back on me? You have a
level of flirting that’s even more shameless?”
“Oh
yeah. You ain’t seen nothin’, sweetheart.”
“That
is truly terrifying.”
Grady
laughs, bright and uninhibited. Nico is so relieved to hear it, a moment of
light in the darkness. Grady’s hand rests on Nico’s knee, Nico watches his own
hand brush his fingers there, but he doesn’t linger.
“We
aren’t, though. Just two random guys.”
Grady’s
fingers flex, curving over his kneecap. “No.”
Nico
exhales harshly. “I have never wanted to be a groupie so badly.”
Grady
shoves at his leg. “Come on, you didn’t really think that I would do that to
you—”
“In
my weaker, more insecure moments?” Nico scrunches his face, embarrassed. “Yeah,
I did.”
“You
think that little of me, huh?” He says it with a teasing grin, but Nico’s heart
sinks.
“No,
Grady. I think you’re…” A million adjectives flash through his head: beautiful,
amazing, stunning, compassionate, kind, generous. A supernova. He settles on,
“Really special.”
Grady
gives a skeptical lift of his eyebrows. “Uh oh. I’m really special, huh?”
“I’m
so, so into you and it’s…” He cringes at the words but it’s true, “It’s not
you, it’s me.”
“Oh
lord.” Grady laments with a laugh. “Not that, please.”
“I’m
the guy on the sidelines. I’m the one who makes everyone else shine. I don’t
belong there, in the spotlight. I like that at the end of the day I can go home
and just walk away from the cameras and the red carpets and the scrutiny. And
you—you’re a star. And you can have anyone.”
Grady
turns, the cramped space of the bunk making his limbs bump and nudge and curl
around Nico’s body. During Grady’s shows, in the moment just before he starts
singing the opening line of “Broken Records,” there’s this pause, this moment
suspended in the air when the audience is silent and waiting and doesn’t even dare
to inhale because in that moment, Grady’s soul is laid bare. He looks at Nico
just like that and Nico can’t breathe around it.
“I don’t want
anyone,” he says, voice low and serious. “I want you. How do you not get that?”
Buy the book:
Meet
the author:
Lilah Suzanne has been
writing actively since the sixth grade, when a literary magazine published her
essay about an uncle who lost his life to AIDS. A freelance writer, she has
also authored a children’s book and has a devoted following in the fan fiction
community. She is also the author of Interlude Press books Spice and Pivot and Slip.
Broken Records is Book One in Lilah’s Spotlight
Series.
Where to find the author:
Facebook: Facebook.com/lilahsuzanne
Twitter: @lilahsuzanne
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26223139-broken-records
Publisher: Interlude Press
17-Dec:
Scattered Thoughts & Rogue Words, Hearts on Fire, Cheekypee Reads and Reviews, Dawn’s Reading Nook, Velvet Panic, Michael Mandrake, Mikky's World of Books
18-Dec:
My Fiction Nook, Elisa - My Reviews and Ramblings, All I Want and More Books, Nautical Star Books, Havan Fellows
24-Dec:
Love Bytes, Lee Brazil, Happily Ever Chapter
25-Dec:
Divine Magazine, Inked Rainbow Reads
Rafflecopter
Prize: $25 Interlude Press Web Store Gift card plus five
multi-format eBooks to runners-up
Thanks for having me (and Grady!)
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