A warm welcome to author K.A. Mitchell joining us today to talk about new release “Bad Influence”.
Welcome K.A.
Thank you for having me on the blog to talk about Bad Influence.
I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t start a support group for writers addicted to second-chance romances. The thing with making a good one, is that the orginal break up has to be something painful, otherwise why wouldn’t they still be together? But then you have to heal that big wound, wounds that they first make worse in each other.
Silver and Zeb had such an angsty and damaged back story, I really didn’t know how things were ever going to work out. I had to trust Silver to show me how right for him Zeb was. This is a scene, that made me believe they could have something special if they could truly move on from the past.
Zeb wasn’t touching Silver, but he felt Zeb everywhere. The grip of his fingers over the back of the chair, the sound of his breath over the cricket chirps, and most of all the solid warmth of him, welcome even in the sticky air. A blend of steady reassurance and tingling awareness. It was something he’d like the chance to get used to.
“Sorry we didn’t make the movie.” Zeb’s words felt weighted like the air.
Silver was too. And then he was surprised at how sharp the regret was. A longing that hollowed his gut and was about so much more than a lame movie. Straight people could take dating for granted. No wonder queers either fucked and moved on or moved in. When were they supposed to learn how to date when being out together in the wrong place at the wrong time could get them beaten up? Eli’s heterophobia made a lot of sense.
“Yeah. Maybe I’m not cut out for dating.” Or moving in. Not that Zeb had asked.
Was sneaking around—more than only the lie about his age—what had made it so easy for it to fall apart?
Silver stretched his legs out. “Thanks for helping out with Marco. Getting in his brother’s face like that.” He paused, staring at a spider scuttling along the table edge. “I know you did it for me.” What the hell. Might as well put the whole thing out there. It didn’t look like they were going to be having sex anytime soon. “And I know it’s because you’re still riding the guilt train.” It was the truth. He wanted to know if Zeb knew it too.
Zeb stepped around the chair and stood between Silver’s legs before leaning back against the table. The spider made it by an inch.
A boat-shoe-covered toe nudged at Silver’s ankle until he looked up to Zeb’s face. “I did do it for you. For a second I was ready to throw a punch at him for shoving you. And yes, I’m always going to wish I could go back and fix that night, but that isn’t why I wanted to protect Marco. I wanted to show you that I’ve changed.”
“How do you mean?”
“I had a lot of shame back then. About being gay.”
“And that wasn’t shame last week when you let my parents call you a pedophile?” The first rumble of thunder was only a vibration down in the bones of Silver’s ears, a low, deep warning. He expected Zeb to look away, but he didn’t.
“Even then. I thought letting them confront me was something I owed them. It was a mistake. But I’m changing. I’m learning from men like Eli and Jamie and Quinn and Gavin. And you.”
Silver slumped back in his chair. The sky had gone deep twilight with clouds. “Yeah, well, stick to Gavin as a role model.”
“He seems to think just as highly of you.”
“Jealous again?”
“No. It would be impossible not to like him.”
If Silver didn’t know how dark and deep Gavin’s cynicism ran, the guy would be perfect for Zeb. Polished. Smart. Undamaged.
“You should be with someone like him. A nice guy.”
“I want to be.”
Zeb’s easy agreement slammed into Silver’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.
Good thing he was already sitting down.
Zeb leaned forward, his hands bracketing Silver’s neck where it rested against the chair. “You are a nice guy.”
Silver wanted to brush the praise away, force the reality that nice guys in Zeb’s world didn’t do bareback porn just to stay off the street.
Zeb loomed closer, hands on Silver’s shoulders. “No, screw that. I’ve had nice guys. I’ve dated and taken my time before ending up in bed with them.” Silver’s skin prickled with gooseflesh.
Zeb’s hands moved onto Silver’s shoulders, intensifying the charge racing through his body. “None of them made me crazy. None of them made me feel like I couldn’t breathe right until we kissed. None of them made my whole body hum with the need to touch. You do.” Zeb’s grip shifted to Silver’s forearms and pulled him to his feet. “You turned my life upside down, and I couldn’t put it back together in any way that made sense without you.”
Silver wanted to believe him, believe in what kept driving them together, that this halo of electricity around them could somehow make everything all right again. But in the meantime…. He swallowed back the spark of tears in his throat. In the meantime, they were kissing.
He tangled his fingers in Zeb’s hair, keeping him leashed to an exchange of breath and taste. Zeb parted his lips, drew Silver’s tongue inside. The groan that met him, the hands that dragged his hips forward, whether their connection was special or not, Silver knew what Zeb was asking, even before he tore his mouth free to whisper, “I want you inside me.”
Can a future be built from pieces of a broken past?
Jordan Barnett is dead, killed as much by the rejection of his first love at his moment of greatest need as by his ultraconservative parents’ effort to deprogram the gay away.
In his place is Silver, a streetwise survivor who’s spent the last three years becoming untouchable… except to those willing to pay for the privilege. He’s determined not to let betrayal find him again, and that means never forging bonds that can be broken.
No matter how hard he tried, Zebadiah Harris couldn’t outrun his guilt over abandoning his young lover—not even by leaving the country. Now, almost the moment he sets foot back in Baltimore, he discovers Silver on a street corner in a bad part of town. His effort to make amends lands them both in jail, where Silver plans a seductive form of vengeance. But using a heart as a stepping-stone is no way to move past the one man he can’t forgive, let alone forget….
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.
Email: ka@kamitchell.com
Twitter: @ka_mitchell
Website: www.kamitchell.com
Blog: authorkamitchell.wordpress.com
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