Rite of Summer, teaser preview

To celebrate getting my edits in! Here’s the first page or two of the book, to whet your appetites for June. Text isn’t exactly safe for work, unless you’re my editor. <3

(Flag it as ‘to read’ on Goodreads, and be alerted the moment it releases!)


There were few things in the world asperfect as Evander’s prick.

It was neither misshapen nor too small, nor
curved oddly to the side. When it rose with his arousal, jutting hard and
red-tipped from the cloud of golden curls at the base, it was as magnificent a
creation as the tower of Pisa all the way over in far-distant Italy.

If Stephen were to write odes and sonnets—on
pricks in general or Evander’s in particular—they would not focus on the look
of it, but the feel. On the heavy weight that filled Stephen up and broke him
open, in arse or mouth alike; the heat of his skin, so soft when so much else
about him was rough; on the salt-slick slide as he thrust in over Stephen’s
tongue and held there, gasping.

Evander’s prick was the epitome of all
things that were erotic and beautiful in the world.

Loving the man would be easier if Evander
didn’t think so as well.

The thought veered too close to blasphemy; time
to focus on the task at hand.

The noise of the busy London street carried
on outside the shuttered windows of their lodgings. Inside, all was quiet but
for their panting breaths and the wet slide of spit and skin.

The uneven floorboards pressed ridges into
his knees, his lips stretched around the prick in his mouth. The taste of
Evander’s arousal mixed with the remnants of the wine they’d shared, passing
the same bottle back and forth until there was nothing left but dregs.

There was little hope of a breeze on the
best of days, and this sultry summer afternoon was not one of those. Evander
had persisted in wandering around in only his linen shirt and drawers, the
light garments clinging to his lithe frame and his blond hair sticking, damp,
to the back of his neck. Accompanied by the utterly obscene way he had lifted
the bottle to his lips, it had made their current position inevitable.

Stephen’s fingers clenched on Evander’s
thighs, dug in to the solid dips and curves of his muscles, stroked across the
smattering of fair hair. His own prick ached, hard and damp, his trousers too
tight and harsh where they rubbed. He dropped a hand to palm at himself. The
pressure was the barest edge of relief, muted by the wool and linen of his
clothing. He groaned aloud, the sound muffled around the thick cock in his
mouth. Evander thrust in reaction to the vibrations, his fingers clenching in
the bedclothes. Gasps spilled from his lips as he arched, threw his head back
and came.

“Come up here,” Evander ordered, the
command softened by the drowsy satiation in his voice.

Stephen swallowed around Evander’s prick
one last time before he pulled away. It fell from his lips with a wet and
obscene pop, to lie, gleaming, against Evander’s muscled thigh. Stephen let
Evander draw him up onto the bed and he crawled to his usual place, nipping
lightly at Evander’s flank as he moved. Salt tingled on his lips, both of their
bodies damp with the sweat of exertion in the midsummer heat.

Evander seized Stephen’s face in his hands
and kissed him, tongue delving into Stephen’s mouth. He licked in and Stephen
opened for him, passed back the taste of Evander’s own release from tongue to
tongue. His prick throbbed in further urgency at the heat of it, the taste and
feel of him. Evander consumed him, fire and molten steel.