A warm welcome to Amelia C. Gormley joining us today on the blog tour for new release “Risk Aware”.

Amelia brought a wonderful surprise with her a deleted scene!!

Welcome Amelia 🙂

Hi, and welcome to the RISK AWARE blog tour!

RISK AWARE is probably the longest single writing project I’ve ever undertaken. I started working on the concept in the spring of 2013, not long after I finished writing SAUGATUCK SUMMER. Geoff and Robin first appeared as minor characters—already in an established relationship—in SAUGATUCK SUMMER and I wanted to pursue their backstory.

Disabled people aren’t generally featured in BDSM fiction, and the sorts of BDSM usually portrayed is largely focused on activities that could be injurious—if not actually fatal—to something with Geoff’s condition. The story concept gave me an opportunity to examine several things we don’t often see in erotic romance. But it also meant I had to step far outside my own personal sphere of knowledge and experience on multiple levels. Which meant research was required.

Lots and lots of research.

The upshot is that the book took me over two years to write. If you’ve followed my posts on other blog tours in the past, you’ll know that’s highly unusual for me. I wrote SAUGATUCK SUMMER—a longer book—in about fifteen days. A lot of this is because I kept setting the manuscript aside to work on other projects and then taking a while to get back into things. But most of it is that getting it right required so much effort. So it’s particularly gratifying to finally get to share it with everyone who has been waiting for Geoff and Robin’s story, and also with people who may just be coming into the Saugatuck universe.

So thank you for being here!

 

DELETED SCENE

As I’ve mentioned, RA took longer to write than any other book I’ve worked on. I went through at least four complete drafts, each one involving some very major revisions and rewrites. Some scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, as it were, because they no longer fit the tone, the plot, or I discovered I’d gotten my information wrong.

The following scene is one of the ones that didn’t end up making it. One of the most significant changes to take place was when and how Geoff decides to discuss his hemophilia with Robin and the way they go about incorporating that knowledge into their relationship. Ultimately, this scene just didn’t work on a number of levels, but I still enjoyed writing it.

Content warning: needles, blood

 

I lay there for some time, wrapped in him, trying to process everything but it was still too jumbled. The pendulum-like swings from the pain-derived endorphin high to the cold splash of terror and then back seemed to have scrambled everything in my brain for the moment. Eventually it evened out, became less harrowing, and I decided I just felt fucking amazing.

“You sure you’re okay physically?” Robin asked after a while. Something in his tone caught me like a snare.

“Why do you keep asking like you think I shouldn’t be?”

He sighed, the corners of his mouth drawing down, and I felt myself emerging from that blissful afterglow a lot sooner than normal. Generally I liked to linger, lolling about in sated peace, and he liked to let me.

“Your cum was pink.”

“Ah.” My jaw snapped closed as I nodded. “I suspected something threw you there at the end. You just stopped too abruptly.”

“Is this an emergency?”

I reached under the covers and felt my junk, assessing. I was flaccid and my nuts were their usual malleable selves now that they weren’t drawn up tight with arousal. “Nothing hurts, and feels inflamed, so I don’t think so. It could be it’s just not hurting because pain is still blunted, so I’ll keep an eye out, but if there were a bleed, there would probably be swelling. Honestly I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before now, with as much orgasm delay or denial we usually do, keeping all that blood there for so long. I’ll infuse in a little while, when I feel like I can move again, just to be safe. Just…I’ll rest here for a bit first.”

I tugged him closer and he resisted, pulling back. “Let me do that for you while you relax.”

I turned my head, blinking at him. “Infuse me?”

“Yeah. You said you generally try to have someone around to help you if you can’t use both arms, and around here I’m the only one you know. So I should know how to help.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead and gave me a gentle smile. “I should have had you teach me long before now.”

“Okay. My factor’s in the fridge, the rest of my stuff is in my bag.”

I got comfortable while Robin gathered up all my supplies, propping myself up against the headboard, elevating my arm on a pillow. I’d been so long in everything that I hadn’t even realized that at some point in the proceedings, he’d removed the plug. I walked him through getting the factor up to room temperature and mixing it with the sterile water in the right proportions, filling the syringe. Then he wrapped the tourniquet around my arm and I talked him through finding a vein.

“As you can see, my veins are pretty obvious.” They were, tracing up and down my arms in clear lines. “But don’t take that for granted. If I got into shock or get dehydrated, they could go into hiding, or they could rupture when you try to do the stick and you’d need to find another one. And big, obvious veins like these aren’t always a blessing. They’re easy to find, yeah, but they tend to roll. So you need to learn how to anchor it before you do the stick, which is why you’re going to do my hand this time. But first…”

I took his finger, pressing it against my antecubital vein. “Palpate it. Get familiar with how it feels. If you can’t see it, learn to feel for it. Feel how bouncy it is? Now feel this.” I guided his finger to a tendon also running through the crook of my elbow. “It’s easy to mistake that for a vein, but you can see it’s not bouncy like the vein. So you’ve got to be careful to know the difference.”

“Okay.” His face set in concentration, much as it had been when he’d had to knife against my dick. I swallowed hard at the memory, feeling a little light-headed. He closed his eyes and felt the vein for a while, then nodded and looked at me.

“Okay, what next?”

“Hand veins.” I offered him the back of my left hand. “Much easier to see, much harder to stick, much more likely to rupture, but if you can’t get to the ones in my arms, or if the ones in my arms blow, you go for these next. Take two fingers of the hand that isn’t holding the needle and spread them an inch, inch and a half apart, then pin the vein down and do the stick in between. Hopefully that will keep it from rolling.”

“Like this?” He spread his index and middle finger apart and anchored the vein.

“Harder. Seriously, those puppies roll. You think you’ve got a grip on them, and then they’re gone. Pin it down hard.”

Robin nodded again and I saw that his upper lip was beaded with sweat. But his hands were steady. “Got it. Then what?”

“Use the alcohol wipe. Good. Now, take the butterfly needle in a pincer grip, with the ‘wings’ pinned up between your fingers. Now, you want it to go in at as close to a zero degree angle as you can, so keep it horizontal, bevel up. Now, you want to poke it in at as shallow of an angle as possible, firm and easy. Don’t go too slow, or I might flinch. Get it in there, but don’t go so hard you pass through the vein and out the other side. If you miss, try to move the needle and catch the vein without pulling it out.”

“Won’t that hurt?” He peered up at me, frowning.

I shrugged. “A little more than the usual, but I’m used to it. Now go.”

His jaw flexed as he stabbed the needle in at a little too steep an angle. I looked at the poke, assessing it with a critical eye.

“Now pull the plunger on the syringe back, just a little. If you’re in the vein, you should see a flash of blood come up the tube between the needle and the syringe.”

“Nothing,” he muttered, still sweating.

“Okay, I’m pretty sure you went through the vein. You need to pull back, just a tiny bit. A millimeter, maybe. Don’t go too—”

The needle came out of my hand, followed by a small arc of blood leaping toward Robin’s gloved hand. He yelped and just barely managed to avoid dropping the syringe.

“Shit!” he gasped, darting a horrified glance at me. “Are you all right?”

I was going to Hell for laughing at his shock, I knew I was. He was just so damned earnestly concerned that I finally wiped the smile from my face.

“I’m fine. I forgot to tell you to remove the tourniquet after you got the needle in. It’s not the first time; imagine that happening when you’re just a kid trying to learn to stick yourself.”

“Right. Yeah.” Robin barely managed to remember not to rub the sweat from his face with his gloved hand. He looked downright peaked.

“You don’t like needles, do you?” I asked softly.

He swallowed. “They’re not my favorite thing, no.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

If he’d looked earnest before, now he appeared downright vulnerable, meeting my eyes with naked honesty.

“I need to be able to take care of you if you can’t do it yourself. It’s part of the job description.”

Something in me warmed, a sweet ache blossoming in the center of my chest, spreading outward. It brought to mind that idiotic hormone-and-endorphin fueled declaration I’d almost made earlier.

“Thank you.” I cleared my throat, getting back to business because otherwise things were going to get really awkward. “Okay. If the needle touched anything when you jumped, put it in the sharps container and get a new one. Don’t worry about capping it again; never try to cap a used needle, because if you miss, you stick yourself. If it didn’t touch anything, try again. The vein didn’t blow so we’ll go for the same place.”

“But you’re getting a bruise.” He pointed toward the purple hematoma spreading slowly under my skin.

“It’s no big deal but we’ll put cold on it when we’re done if it makes you feel better. Now try again.”

He got it on the third stick, by which time he was sweating profusely and looked ready to pass out. I volunteered to handle the clean-up afterward while he elevated his feet, which earned me a scowl.

About Risk Aware

Tattoo artist Geoff Gilchrest is convinced his life is some sort of cosmic joke. Why else would a hemophiliac also be a masochist? He’s given himself more than one elbow bleed since puberty just doing what guys do when alone and bored, so forget about whips and chains. How many partners would contemplate playing with someone even a mild flogging could kill?

Gallery owner Robin Brady knows he can deliver what Geoff needs: to be taken to the edge of danger but never beyond. But Robin came to Saugatuck to get away from the leather scene and heal from a betrayal by his former sub, so he’s not sure he should get involved with Geoff. His ambivalence isn’t helped by the fact that Geoff’s unwillingness to communicate about his well-being hits Robin in some very raw places.

Geoff’s hemophilia isn’t the obstacle he thinks it is. Instead, a lack of trust—on both their parts—is what could end them before they have a chance to begin.

Buy Risk Aware here:

Riptide Publishing

Amazon

About Amelia C. Gormley

Amelia C. Gormley published her first short story in the school newspaper in the 4th grade, and since then has suffered the persistent delusion that enabling other people to hear the voices in her head might be a worthwhile endeavor. She’s even convinced her hapless spouse that it could be a lucrative one as well, especially when coupled with her real-life interest in angst, kink, social justice issues, and pretty men.

When her husband and son aren’t interacting with the back of her head as she stares at the computer, they rely on her to feed them, maintain their domicile, and keep some semblance of order in their lives (all very, very bad ideas—they really should know better by now.) She can also be found playing video games and ranting on Tumblr, seeing as how she’s one of those horrid social justice warriors out to destroy free speech, gaming, geek culture, and everything else that’s fun everywhere.

 

Wesbite: ameliacgormley.com

Tumbr: ameliacgormley.tumblr.com

Twitter: @ACGormley

Goodreads: goodreads.com/ameliacgormley

To celebrate the release of Risk Aware, Amelia is giving away an ebook edition of every title in the Strain series. Leave a comment to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on May 14, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!