Thank you, Love Bytes Reviews, for hosting me today 🙂
I’m so pleased Dreamspinner Press agreed to reprint Perfect10. The book came out of my watching the Olympics one year and enjoying the men’s gymnastics very much. I thought it would be fun to write a story about a gymnast and his coach. And I was right, it was!
I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. See the exclusive excerpt below for a small taste.
Sean Michael
smut fixes everything
Blurb:
Despite a life-threatening injury sustained in a vaulting accident, top gymnast Christopher Allen is determined to get back to his former perfect condition and compete again. Brian Rainings is a coach in need of someone to believe in, and he takes Chris on, admiring the spirit and determination that drives Chris to succeed. And admiring the sturdy, muscled body Chris maintains.
Admiration soon leads to something much hotter as they train together. From their scorching first kiss, Brian and Chris’s chemistry is obvious, but they have a long road ahead to get Chris back into shape. Months of hard work lead to success, with Chris gaining strength every day and finally finding the elusive sponsor he needs for financial support. Secrets, hidden dangers, and family troubles plague them, though, and they have to face the fact that Chris might never compete again and score that perfect ten.
First Edition published by Torquere Press, 2006
Cover artist: Cover photograph by Michael Murphy ; Cover Art by Bree Archer
Buy link:
Jesus fucking Christ.
Chris sat on the weight bench a minute, head in his hands.
Okay.
Fuck.
It was bad enough that he’d tumbled from the top of his fucking game. Bad enough that he’d lost the coaches he thought he’d have forever. Bad enough that he was a has-been at twenty-one.
But he’d outed himself in front of the one guy who wanted to take a chance and pretty much admitted that Harry and Jeff’s new golden boy was going around saying Chris had been… inappropriate.
Fuck.
Okay.
Okay.
Look. Get your shit. Stand up. Get downstairs. Show off at the gym and get to California.
Then, at least if he fucked up royally, he wouldn’t be here.
Chris grabbed the box of his medical papers and stood. He’d taken the recommendations from the orthopedic surgeon out when he’d picked up the records so that no one would see them. No one but his brother. He knew there was a chance he could die if he fell wrong again.
He knew.
He didn’t fucking care.
Better dead than a quitter.
He locked the door behind him and headed downstairs.
Brian had gotten out and was leaning against the car. The man was good-looking. Not quite as tall as Chris but with the same gymnast’s build, blond hair a touch too long and curling over his ears and collar.
And blue eyes that lit up as Brian saw him. “Hey, there you are.”
“Yeah.” Chris found a smile of his own, handed over the box. “Sorry I took so long. It, uh, took a minute for me to find the box.” He dropped his gaze, not one for lying, really.
“No problem. I’ll go through this later. I want to see you on the equipment first. Make my own assessment before I see what the doctors are saying.”
Brian put the box in the back seat and then leaned against the car again. “Look, obviously whatever it is, you don’t want to talk about it, but if I’m going to be your coach, I should probably hear it from you—what is it that you think I’ve heard about you?”
“There’s… there’s a rumor going around that I have been inappropriate with some of the guys in training camp. It isn’t true.” He’d shared one quick kiss that had been arranged.
Brian winced. “Christ. Who started the rumor?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s out there. It’s not true.” That was that. Besides, if he came out with it, it made him look like a whiny little sour-grapes asshole.
They climbed into the car, and Chris started her up again.
“You must have scared someone pretty fucking bad if they started floating rumors like that. Nobody makes up shit about the guy in third place.” Brian frowned. “That didn’t have anything to do with why your coach decided to move on after the accident, did it?”
Chris headed down the street, motoring toward the university. “If I’d been winning gold medals, no one would have cared.”
“Is there more?” He could feel Brian’s eyes on him.
“More what?”
“Gossip. Rumors. Things you think I should know. I mean, that sucks, but I had imagined all sorts of shit while you were inside.”
“There’s nothing important, man. Just the normal political shit.” He didn’t sleep around, he didn’t dope, he didn’t play the game anymore.
Best-selling author Sean Michael is a maple leaf–loving Canadian who spends hours hiding out in used book stores. With far more ideas than time, Sean keeps several documents open at all times. From romance to fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi, Sean is limited only by the need for sleep—and the periodic Beaver Tail.
Sean fantasizes about one day retiring on a secluded island populated entirely by horseshoe crabs after inventing a brain-to-computer dictation system. Until then, Sean will continue to write the old-fashioned way.
Sean Michael on the web:
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