Book Title: Studious
Author and Publisher: Leslie McAdam
Cover Artist: Garrett Leigh
Release Date: October 7, 2022
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Tropes: Rake/Virgin, love tutor, opposites attract, nerd/popular guy, office romance
Themes: Being comfortable in your own skin
Length: 70 000 words/258 pages
It is a standalone story in the IOU series.
It does not end on a cliffhanger
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Blurb
After a disastrous high school game of spin the bottle, I gave up trying to get a boyfriend and spent my time studying instead. Now I’m twenty-four, and I’m not only a virgin, I haven’t even been kissed.
When I meet Danny, a handsome legal hotshot, he catches my eye. Right before I trip on flat ground. Ugh.
He’s got a massive … reputation. He’s the most popular guy in the club, a total playboy with a new conquest every night. There’s no way he’d be interested in me.
But one night after I imbibe too much, he winds up taking care of me. And when I ask for his help with my travesty of a social life, he agrees to teach me how to be less awkward with men … if I let him document my progress so he can win a bet with his best friend.
Even though he’s just my love tutor and I’m just his apprentice, this starts to feel like more.
Too bad it can’t be anything but a high-level seminar in how to seduce someone else.
Studious is a sweet and sexy contemporary opposites-attract m/m romance about a suave attorney who’s scared to love and the shy, nerdy bookkeeper he’s teaching how to be a player. Cue makeover montage and a smoldering first kiss. These heroes most definitely are not falling in love. (Okay, heartwarming HEA guaranteed.)
The next day at work, Danny comes into my office right at twenty-four hours after he sent the text.
“Have you done your homework?” The way he says “homework” is so deep and dirty it makes me think he means something else.
“I wrote down what I want,” I say. “So, yes.”
“Read it to me.”
It takes me a moment to open the document on my phone. I clear my throat and glance up. He looks amused. “Ready?”
He nods.
“I want someone who is male and who won’t make fun of me,” I dutifully read.
Danny snorts. “Those things are given. This list needs to be more aspirational.”
“Well, give me a minute.”
“Sorry. I got impatient. Hit me.”
“I want him to like me when we wake up in the morning and when we go to bed and all the time in between. I want him to want to tell me things and trust that I will support him. I want him to listen and not tell me that what I’m feeling is wrong. I want him to accept me for who I am. And I want to love him back with all my soul.”
I glance up. Danny’s eyes are warm and welcoming. I could swim in them.
“I want him to be patient with my inexperience.”
Danny nods. “Okay, good start. We can work with this. And how inexperienced are you? Have you ever held hands?”
“Just with my best friend.”
“Have you danced with a guy?”
I shake my head. “No. No one ever asked me, and I didn’t ask them.”
“Were you too shy?”
“Yes. And I was focused on my studies. The socially awkward don’t do well at parties and things like that. I’ve been to a few weddings and b’nei mitzvahs, but I stayed away from dancing.”
“Do you think you’d like to dance?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I like music.”
“Dancing’s fun and sexy. You can feel the rhythm in your body, and you get to be close to people.” He gives me an evaluating look. “I think we’re going to take you dancing.”
I open my mouth to say no, then remember I’m not doing that right now. “Okay.”
“You don’t need to be a pushover, Alden. If you really don’t want to do something, that’s fine. Speak up for yourself. But I’m going to ask you to try new things, because it’s good for you.”
I gulp. “Okay.”
He taps my desk with his finger a few times. “I have to go to court now, but today’s homework is to talk to a stranger. Not just any stranger. Not, like, a waiter or cashier. It needs to be someone you don’t have to talk to for a transaction. Someone you could potentially take home with you—or go home with. Maybe they’re sitting on a park bench. Or by themselves in a restaurant.”
I want to ask how I figure out who to pick, but that might be the point of the exercise. Maybe I’m overthinking this. “Okay,” I whisper.
He grins at me. “I’ll check in on you.” And he leaves in a cloud of handsome man.
Leslie McAdam is a California girl who loves romance and well-defined abs. She lives in a drafty old farmhouse on a small orange tree farm in Southern California with her husband and two children. Leslie’s first published book, The Sun and the Moon, won a 2015 Watty, which is the world’s largest online writing competition. She’s gone on to receive additional literary awards and has been featured in multiple publications, including Cosmopolitan.com. Her books have been Top 100 Bestsellers on both Amazon and Apple Books. Leslie is employed by day but spends her nights writing about the men of your fantasies.
Author Links
Blog/Website | Facebook | TikTok | Pinterest
Twitter | Instagram | Newsletter
