Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells
now in PRINT
from Ravenous Romance
M/M contemporary erotic romance
ISBN: 978-1-60777-064-7 US$ 4.99/$12.99 print
Buy now: e-book
When Kieran goes to Texas to cover the latest wedding of a real-life "runaway bride," he falls hard for the gorgeous—and straight—groom. Jaxon Lang is the handsome, confident high school principal in a tiny Texas town, where he relocated from Dallas to pursue his relationship with a woman he thinks he wants to settle down with, despite the fact she's left three men at the altar before him.
Kieran's charm and unique attitudes about sex and attraction soon challenge Jaxon's concept of what--and who--he wants. Will anything change when Kieran discovers the bride's been keeping a shocking secret?
*~*~*
Excerpt 1
Kieran had
finished eating and was pushing the plates away when the bell on the door
jingled and the most beautiful man he’d ever seen walked into the restaurant. Make that most beautiful person, Kieran amended. He’d
never seen anyone—man or woman—more attractive. The man was just taller than
six feet, with short, sun-streaked brown hair. His eyes—bright greenish-hazel,
slightly heavy-lidded, but in a sexy, just-fucked way—mesmerized Kieran; and a plush,
full-lipped mouth gave Kieran an immediate hard-on. The man wore a Wedgwood-blue
button-down shirt fitted closely enough to make it clear that he spent time at
the gym and took good care of his body. And he walked directly toward Kieran.
In almost the
same moment, Kieran noticed out of the corner of his eye that a woman had come
in with the man and followed him over to Kieran’s table.
“Are you Ky, Kee…”
the woman started to say, then gave up. Kieran’s eyes were glued to the beautiful
man.
“Keer-un,” the man said. “It’s Gaelic,
right?” Kieran smiled, noticing caramel-colored freckles scattered over the
fair-skinned nose and cheeks of the man.
“Yes, it is,” Kieran
replied, worried he had a stupid grin on his face. “You’re probably the only
person in town who can pronounce it besides me,” Of course, he thought, someone
with an “X” in his name like Jaxon would be sensitive to another person with an
even slightly unusual name.
“Well, I’m Danetta
Harris,” the woman said, shoving her way in front of Jaxon and blocking Kieran’s
view. “And this is Jaxon Lang, my fiancé.” She put out her hand to shake Kieran’s.
He felt obligated to take it.
“Jaxon,” the man
said, offering his own hand, and Kieran took it, prolonging the contact,
enjoying the firm grip.
“Nice to meet you
both,” Kieran said, still not really looking at the woman. Without asking, she
sat herself down in one of the chairs opposite Kieran. Jaxon sat down at the
side of the table to Kieran’s left, his knee slightly grazing Kieran’s as he
settled himself into the chair. Kieran felt a jolt of electricity at the
contact and fought to keep his attention on the conversation.
“Alexa Harrington
told me you’d be coming to town early because you wanted to do an article on
our wedding,” Danetta began. “I’m not really familiar with Gloss. It
sounds like it’s a fashion mag like Vogue or Marie Claire?” she
asked, clearly excited at the idea of her wedding being featured in one of
those magazines. “You have a photographer coming, too?”
“I take my own
photographs,” Kieran said. Not that I ever
use any in my columns. “And ‘gloss’ actually has another definition:
commentary or interpretation. It’s meant to be an intellectual play on words:
one connotation indicates shallowness while the other is almost opposite in
meaning.”
Jaxon smiled at Kieran’s
explanation. Danetta looked blank.
”Very clever,” Jaxon
agreed, nodding. “We thought it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves to
you now, and—”
“We wanted see if
you wanted, you know, to do interviews or something, so we could schedule
things for you, to help you out,” Danetta concluded. Neither of them seemed to
be able to use any other pronoun besides we.
Jaxon. Kieran
thought, might be the most beautiful name
I’ve ever heard; even with the fucking “X.” He forced himself to snap out
of this daydream in order to participate in the conversation without drooling over
Jaxon Lang.
“That’s very
accommodating,” Kieran replied. “How did you know I was here?”
“Natalee called
and told us,” Danetta answered. “She knew we wanted to meet you as soon as
possible. Everyone in town is on the lookout for you.”
“You probably
feel like you’re being stalked,” Jaxon said with a laugh. “Well, you are. I’m
very sorry about that, but you’re the biggest thing to happen to this town in a
long time.” Jaxon paused, “In more ways than one. I mean, we heard you’re quite
tall,” he tried to explain, a look of embarrassment crossing his face. “And
everyone in town loves Danetta, so they’re all very excited for our big
day.” Jaxon turned and gave Danetta a dopey, lovey-dovey smile that made Kieran
want to puke up the fantastic breakfast he’d just eaten.
It was a pretty frightening thought that this beautiful man was going to be a husband in just a few days.
EXCERPT 2
A knock sounded
on Kieran’s motel room door, surprising him out of his thoughts. He had no idea
who would be coming by, so he was more than shocked when he opened it to find Jaxon
standing there. Wordlessly, Jaxon came in, closing the door behind him. Kieran
blinked, thinking he’d found himself back in the dream from the previous
morning. Surreptitiously, Kieran pinched himself. He blinked a few more times. Jaxon
was still there.
“I needed to see
you,” Jaxon began, “talk to you.” He paused for a long moment. He walked over
and sat on the couch, as if looking for an excuse to avoid continuing. “I
spent a lot of time today thinking. A lot. You made me realize, or remember, so
many things I forgot since I came here.”
Kieran sat down
on the couch with him. “I’m not sure what you’re saying, Jaxon.”
“Gonna offer me a
drink?” Jaxon asked nervously, noticing the bottle of tequila on the table
where Kieran had been working.
Kieran found a
clean glass and poured a drink for Jaxon, who downed it in one gulp. “If you
need a drink to say what you want to say, what does that tell me?” He sat back
down on the couch with Jaxon and put the bottle down on a low table in front of
the couch.
“It should tell
you that I’m going to say something important, or I wouldn’t be so anxious.”
“Fair enough,” Kieran
said, regretting having said anything in the first place. Of course it was
going to be difficult for Jaxon to say whatever he’d come here to say. It
certainly wasn’t about the wedding colors or seating charts for the reception.
It was going to be about Kieran.
“Can I ask you
something about last night?” Jaxon asked. “About the guy you, uh, fooled around
with?”
“I’m tired of
answering your questions about my sex life. If you’re that curious, there’s a
better way to find out.” It was part challenge, part invitation.
“I know I keep
asking a lot of questions, but I’m just curious. About things. About you,” Jaxon admitted, looking down at
his hands.
“You are? Why?”
“Part of it is
that I think we have a lot in common. We’ve both moved away from home: far
away, not necessarily in physical distance, but in lifestyle. You went to a
much bigger city, while I came to a little town. That’s almost the same thing. It’s
a big transition, figuring out where you fit into a place where things are
unfamiliar, and life happens at a totally different pace. Slowing down is just
as hard to get used to as speeding up.”
“I hadn’t thought
of it that way,” Kieran admitted. And
here I’m supposed to be the writer, the one with the special perspective.
“I can tell that
in
“You mean
marrying Danetta?” Kieran asked.
“Yes,” Jaxon
replied with regret heavy in his voice. “Three other guys went down that path
before me. For them, the path disappeared before they got to the end. But they
were still on the very same path.”
“I thought you
love her,” Kieran offered. He was bored with the path metaphor, but let Jaxon
continue. Hell, he had Jaxon here in his hotel room. The guy could sing Tom
“I do love her. I
want to marry her, but I also have this feeling that there are a lot of things
I missed out on because I got on the path too soon. I think it’s the right
path, but I think I need to see what else there is before I get to the end. I
want to step off the path,” Jaxon said. “With you.”
“Are you sure you
want to do that?” Kieran asked.
“It’s just one
step, and I can get back on again.”
“Can you? Do you
think you can just pretend nothing happened here?”
“Why not? You
said yourself that it’s possible, even preferable in some cases, to separate
sex from love.”
“Jaxon, it’s fine
that you’ve decided that. But what about me? Since I met you, those two
things are blending together. You can’t just come here like this without any
thought to how it might affect me. I’m not sure I would want you to get back on
that path again.”
“But you didn’t
think twice about what you did last night, did you?” Jaxon asked.
“No, but with him
it was just sex. With you, well, there’s a lot more,” Kieran said softly. He
wanted Jaxon, that was certain; but he didn’t want to be with him under these
circumstances. Letting Jaxon go back to Danetta would be torture after they’d
been together.
“Let’s see,” Jaxon
said, and moved closer to Kieran on the couch.
Kieran felt his
body respond. The spark of excitement battled against his common sense, which
shouted at him that he would regret whatever he was about to do.
Jaxon leaned in
toward Kieran, eyes locked on his, and brushed his full, soft lips gently
against Kieran’s mouth. Then he leaned back slightly, meeting Kieran’s gaze
again before pressing his mouth firmly to Kieran’s and letting his lips
explore. The feel of Jaxon’s lips was electric. Kieran let himself be kissed,
let Jaxon give or take whatever he wanted. Jaxon brought his right hand up to
caress Kieran’s cheek, fingers lingering almost lovingly on the tiny mole near
his chin before moving to rub through the bristly hair of Kieran’s sideburns. Kieran
recalled the dream he’d had the day before. It’s
actually happening, Kieran thought with joy, almost exactly as it had in the dream. He didn’t let himself think
about whether it was right or wrong, just how good it was.
Kieran parted his
mouth, inviting Jaxon in, and was rewarded by Jaxon’s tongue playing slowly
along Kieran’s lips, licking at them with more and more heat, before finally
darting inside. There was nothing gentle about it now, and Jaxon’s mouth
plundered Kieran’s, devouring it with such intensity and passion that it took Kieran
by surprise. He felt off balance, as if the world were spinning, moving at warp
speed, with light and sound and amazing sensations that only began where Jaxon’s
mouth touched his and sang through Kieran’s entire body. It was the very definition
of mind-blowing.
