Title: Off Balance
Series: Painted Bay #1
Author: Jay Hogan
Genre: MM Romance
Tropes: Age gap / hurt comfort / opposites attract /ballet dancer/ medical / humour / widower/ small town/ fish and game officer
Release date: September 29, 2020
Synopsis:
When JUDAH MADDEN flees his tiny suffocating home town in New Zealand for the dream of international ballet stardom, he never intends coming back. Not to Painted Bay. Not to his family’s struggling mussel farm. Not to his jerk of a brother. Not with his entire life plan in shreds. And certainly not into the tempting arms of MORGAN WIPENE, the older, ruggedly handsome fisheries officer who seems determined to screw with Judah’s intention to wallow in peace.
But dreams are fickle things. Shatter them and it’s hard to pick up the pieces. Hard to believe. Hard to start again.
And the hardest thing of all? Finding the courage to trust in love and build a new dream where you least expected to find it.
I took a minute to scope out Morgan’s kitchen, not surprised to find it well stocked with an overflowing spice rack, a seriously equipped knife block, a pot rack suspended from the ceiling, and a butcher block chopping board that likely cost a week’s wages. And through the window in the back yard—a vegetable garden the size of Manhattan. The man could obviously cook more than an omelette.
The sound of running water had me wandering into the lounge, determined to get a feel for the guy who was making such a serious and unexpected dent in my heart. But the reality brought me to a complete stop.
Instead of the functional, masculine retreat of a rugby playing, fisheries law enforcement officer, complete with obligatory large screen TV, brown furniture, and well-stocked bar that I’d expected, I found warm pastels, overstuffed sofas, colourful throws, and not a TV in sight. Instead, a massive bookcase filled one entire wall and a guitar sat on a stand in the corner.
I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was. Morgan Wipene was adept at the unexpected.
My hand trailed over the books as I passed—murder mysteries, paranormal, adventure, thrillers, anything and everything, not to mention an impressive array of gardening books. I smiled to myself. Another surprise.
I let my nose lead me down the hall, passing a selection of photos featuring Morgan and what looked like his parents, and maybe his brother and sister. I went back to switch on the light so I could better study them. They seemed a happy family, his dad looking the larger-than-life character Morgan had painted him as. I kept moving down the hall till I got to what looked like Morgan’s bedroom and came to an abrupt halt in front of a half dozen photos of Morgan with a very beautiful young woman. This had to be the famous Sally.
My heart squeezed and something very like fear curdled in my belly. In every photo, Morgan stared at his wife like she hung the moon, thoroughly and unapologetically in love. I ran a finger over her image in one of the two of them standing on some tropical beach. Her head was thrown back laughing at something he’d said, and Morgan looked like he wanted to drink her up. I was damn sure no one had ever looked at me that way, and for the first time, I felt very . . . young, and very much not together. What the hell did Morgan see in me when he’d had someone like her?
An arm slid around my waist from behind and Morgan nuzzled my neck.
“She was beautiful,” I said. “You must miss her. I can’t imagine what that feels like.”
He looked over my shoulder at the photo and blew out a long sigh. “She was. And I do.” He turned me in his arms, backed me against the wall, and looked hard into my eyes.
I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of what he’d find, but then again, as I’d just realised, he was naked—gloriously and deliciously naked, and I wasn’t going anywhere. Clearly Morgan wasn’t shy of his body, so I let him look all he wanted while I arched against him, the solid, thick heat of his erection lying flush against my hip. He pressed back and took my mouth in a hard kiss, then went back to studying me. In the end, I couldn’t hold his gaze.
“Look at me, Judah.”
And so I did.
“Sally was beautiful, yes. But she’s also gone, five years now. I miss her and a part of me always will. But right now I’m with you, and I want to be with you. I’m not standing here thinking of Sally. I’m not wracked with guilt or second-guessing myself. That might come, but I don’t think so. Right now I’m thinking of you—about how beautiful you are, about what I want to do to you, and Lord help me, about what I want you to do to me. There’s not going to be anyone in that bed except you and me. Understand?”
I nodded, trying to believe he meant it.
Then he laughed. “Although to be honest, I think Sally would give up her damn angel wings for a grandstand seat. She was always more . . . uninhibited that way than me.”
My mouth fell open. “Wait. Did you guys . . . I mean, did she . . . ?”
He chuckled. “Never. I don’t share, Judah, just so we’re clear about that. And when I was with Sally, I never wanted anyone else. Though we watched a lot of gay porn together.”
I wasn’t sure why my cheeks lit on fire, but they did. “Oh, um, yeah. I guess I get that. Women, huh? You never know what’s going on in their heads.”
“Mmm.” Morgan dipped his head to trail his lips from under my chin to the hollow in the base of my neck. “Now, can we stop talking about my wife please?” His breath ran hot over my skin as his tongue licked beneath the neckline of my T-shirt and his fingers found my nipple.
I am a New Zealand author writing in m/m romance, and romantic suspense. I have traveled extensively and lived in the US, Canada, France, Australia and South Korea. In a past life I have been an Intensive Care Nurse, Counselor, and a Nursing Lecturer.
I’m a cat aficionado especially of Maine Coons, and an avid dog lover (but don’t tell the cat). I love to cook, pretty damn good, love to sing, pretty damn average, and as for loving full-time writing, absolutely… depending of course on the day, the word count, the deadline, how obliging my characters are, the ambient temperature in the Western Sahara, whether Jupiter is rising, the size of the ozone hole over New Zealand and how much coffee I’ve had.
Welcome to my world.
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