A warm welcome to author K.A. Mitchell joining us today to talk about the re-release for Bad Attitude
Welcome K.A. 🙂
Gavin gave Jamie the smile that had always managed to smooth things over, a touch of charm, mischief, and acquiescence.
Jamie’s calluses offered exquisite friction as he stroked Gavin’s dick, those full lips coming closer, blue eyes hooded with want, need.
Then Jamie stepped back and grabbed a roll of paper towels from a nearby rack to wipe his hands on. “Guess what? I’m not your party favor, Gavin, and this whole mess has already cost me enough. I’m not wasting the grand I spent on this suit.”
He walked off down the hall, wadded up the paper towel, and sent it slamming back into the elevator wall near Gavin’s head.
Jamie and Gavin are two characters I love to talk about. They both spend a lot of time maintaining their walls against the world. Jamie’s defense is more obvious, a bad-tempered bristle at anyone who tries to get too close. Gavin’s shield is less obvious, but no less strong. He is a master of appearing to not care, so much so that he can even convince himself that nothing, including himself, matters.
Having their walls crash into each other was a fun story to write, and I’m really proud of how I showed them negotiating what a happy ending means for them. Their walls are too important to them to simply drop their defenses with each other, and all though there’s no doubt of their affection and commitment, the negotiations continue to play out in future books where they aren’t the main characters. That’s one of the things I love about romance. Although as readers we know how things will end (happily!), what a happy ending means is different for different characters
My favorite characters are always the ones I’m writing now, but I won’t deny that Jamie and Gavin and their careful negotiation of egos has a special place in my heart.
The following excerpt takes place after Jamie has rescued Gavin and his friend from their fall off the bridge. Gavin’s father has thrown a party to celebrate Jamie’s heroism (and to put a positive spin on the accident for the press). Neither Jamie or Gavin particularly want to be at the party, but they’re bound by duty.
Jamie muttered, “How much longer does this crap go on?”
The scowl Gavin remembered was back in place. “Not too much longer.”
“Thank fu—God.” The genuine disgust in Jamie’s face made him more appealing than his perfectly fitted Hugo Boss.
There were a chef and a waiter at each of the stations, three people working each of the two bars, and three waiters at the dessert buffet.
“C’mon. Follow me.”
When you were mostly invisible, people didn’t notice if you disappeared. Gavin had slipped down back halls with waiters, bartenders, and an occasional guest at more than one black-tie affair. The top floor of the Regency, where they were holding this, had a conveniently located storage closet on the far side of the commercial elevator.
But when Gavin opened the door, Jamie’s hand shot out to slam it shut again.
“Must’ve fucked a lot of the waitstaff to find your way back here. What’s the plan now?”
Gavin had thought that was painfully obvious, painful in the way he’d made his dick a promise as soon as Jamie had come with him. “I thought you said you’d give me a ride.”
“In my truck, yeah.” Jamie leaned back against the painted cinder blocks covering the elevator shaft. He’d picked up another skewer somewhere along the way, splintering it into a toothpick. He tucked the fragment back into the corner of his mouth. “Why? What did you have in mind?”
Gavin leaned in and pulled the bamboo stick free. But before he answered with the hard kiss he’d intended, the challenge in Jamie’s eyes stopped Gavin midlunge. The bored arch of brows over half-rolled eyes suggested Jamie was expecting that response. That he already knew how the whole thing would play out.
Gavin was nothing special. Even wanting to lose himself in feeling something as honest as pure sex for a few minutes was only another layer of faking it through tonight—every fucking night of his life.
He leaned in and tasted Jamie’s mouth with slow, soft pressure, the way Gavin had wanted to when that wide, full mouth came into focus the night on the boat. After a quick inhalation, Jamie kissed him back.
A slick, warm slide, then the pressure of Jamie’s tongue sent a shock down Gavin’s spine. Rooting him there, making this something real. Jamie licked inside, and Gavin cradled Jamie’s head, thumbs across his cheeks before locking around his neck to drag him deeper into the kiss that filled Gavin’s head, squeezing out everything but this new smell and taste, the electric tingles where their skin touched, the sticky-sweet pulse in his cock and balls.
Jamie’s tongue thrust solid and sure and knowing along Gavin’s, nothing like the frantic or hesitant ventures from a random waiter or discreet guest. It was the same cocky assurance Gavin had seen in Jamie as he held his own in the room full of power brokers, popping expensive hors d’oeuvres into his throat like he owned the place.
Jamie’s hand latched around Gavin’s wrists and pulled him off. “So, we going to hold hands next, or should we move this along before someone turns into a pumpkin?”
Gavin forced a matching mocking smile to his face. “Just making sure your engine was ignited.”
“I’ve got a full tank.”
Gavin peered around the cinder blocks to check for traffic before palming Jamie’s crotch. He’d expected thick and solid, but…. He ran his hand up the length before whispering in Jamie’s ear, “Kind of nice to find you’re not fully proportional.”
Jamie grabbed Gavin’s hips and slammed them together. “You’re about to have some other expectations exceeded.”
Gavin turned and reached for the storage closet door again.
Jamie leaned a hand on it, crowding against Gavin’s ass. “Isn’t risking an audience part of the fun, part of what gets you off?” Jamie’s free hand slid around Gavin’s cummerbund and down onto his fly. “Does it make the whole boring pile of crap easier to put up with?”
Jamie unzipped Gavin’s fly, pulled his aching dick free. A shudder ran through him as Jamie’s fingers wrapped tight and gave the barest touch of friction under the head. “Your cock’s out for anyone to see.”
Those hands weren’t small at all as they stroked, milking precome to the tip until it tingled and burned at the slit. A rough thumb spread it, dipped for more. With a quick jerk on Gavin’s arm, Jamie spun Gavin to pin his back flat against the door.
Jamie brought his thumb up between them. “Yeah, that gets you pumping, all right.” He smeared Gavin’s lips, shoving the thick, callused digit into Gavin’s mouth.
The look in Jamie’s eyes made Gavin hollow his cheeks and suck instead. He swirled his tongue over Jamie’s skin as he thrust his thumb back over Gavin’s lips and in again.
“This risky enough that you don’t need the high too? Knowing that any of your daddy’s rich friends could come by, see you getting your dick sucked. Does it make you feel important? Or is it a bad-boy thing?”
Jamie released him, brought the thumb to his own mouth, and licked.
“I can see it makes you feel pretty damned good.” Gavin nodded at the tent in Jamie’s trousers.
“I always do.” Jamie stepped in and kissed him, held Gavin’s head for a long possessive lick inside his mouth, as if he wanted to chase that bit of come, draw it back.
Gavin had a lot more of it waiting. God, he’d had enough of waiting. He slammed his hips forward, because any friction on the spike of need between his legs was worth it, even what he could get from the brushed virgin wool covering Jamie’s cock.
Jamie held on to Gavin’s face and swiveled out of reach of his mouth and hips. “I could have you here, fancy pants around your ankles and my cock up your ass, the mayor and my boss right on the other side of that wall.” Jamie tipped his head back. “But I don’t need that to feel like somebody.”
Gavin stopped straining to get closer. The throb of denied want in his balls suggested this wasn’t going to end in smiles and departing nods of appreciation for a little relief from a dull evening. “I never said you did.”
Jamie had this wrong. It wasn’t about risk or acting out some bad-boy role.
Gavin simply wanted to get off.
Gavin licked his lips and glanced down at the solid cock still hidden by fine tailoring. “But your suggestion isn’t without merit.” He gave Jamie the smile that had always managed to smooth things over, a touch of charm, mischief, and acquiescence.
Jamie leaned in, and all those aches turned sweet again. Jamie’s calluses offered exquisite friction as he stroked Gavin’s dick, those full lips coming closer, blue eyes hooded with want, need.
Then Jamie stepped back and grabbed a roll of paper towels from a nearby rack to wipe his hands on. “Guess what? I’m not your party favor, Gavin, and this whole mess has already cost me enough. I’m not wasting the grand I spent on this suit.”
Blurb:
Bad in Baltimore: Book Three
Saving lives never used to be this complicated.
Gavin Montgomery does what’s expected of him by his wealthy and powerful family—look good in a tuxedo and don’t make waves. When a friend takes a leap off a bridge, Gavin tries to save him, only to fall in with him. At least at the bottom of the river he won’t feel like such a disappointment to his family. But he’s pulled from the water by a man with an iron grip, a sexy mouth, and a chip on his shoulder the size of the national deficit.
Jamie Donnigan likes his life the way it is—though he could have done without losing his father and giving up smoking. But at least he’s managed to avoid his own ball and chain as he’s watched all his friends pair off. When Montgomery fame turns a simple rescue into a media circus, Jamie decides if he’s being punished for his good deed, he might as well treat himself to a hot and sweaty good time. It’s not like the elegant and charming Gavin is going to lure Jamie away from his bachelor lifestyle. Nobody’s that charming. Not even a Montgomery….
K.A. Mitchell discovered the magic of writing at an early age when she learned that a carefully crayoned note of apology sent to the kitchen in a toy truck would earn her a reprieve from banishment to her room. Her career as a spin-control artist was cut short when her family moved to a two-story house and her trucks would not roll safely down the stairs. Around the same time, she decided that Ken and G.I. Joe made a much cuter couple than Ken and Barbie and was perplexed when invitations to play Barbie dropped off. She never stopped making stuff up, though, and was thrilled to find out that people would pay her to do it. Although the men in her stories usually carry more emotional baggage than even LAX can lose in a year, she guarantees they always find their sexy way to a happy ending.
K.A. loves to hear from her readers. You can email her at ka@kamitchell.com. She is often found talking about her imaginary friends on Twitter @ka_mitchell.
Website: www.kamitchell.com
Blog: authorkamitchell.wordpress.com
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