Title: Powder & Pavlova
Series: Southern Lights, Book 1
Author: Jay Hogan
Genre: MM Romance
Amazon Universal: http://mybook.to/powderandpavlova
Synopsis:
ETHAN SHARPE is living every young Kiwi’s dream—seeing the world for a couple of years while deciding what to do with his life. Then he gets a call.
Two days later he’s back in New Zealand. Six months later his mother is dead, his fifteen-year-old brother is going off the rails and the café he’s inherited is failing. His life is a hot mess and the last thing he needs is another complication—like the man who just walked into his café,
a much older…
sinfully hot…
EPIC complication.
TANNER CARPENTER’s time in Queenstown has an expiration date. He has a new branch of his business to get up and running, exorcise a few personal demons while he’s at it, and then head back to Auckland to get on with his life. He isn’t looking for a relationship especially with someone fifteen years his junior, but Ethan is gorgeous, troubled and in need of a friend. Tanner could be that for Ethan, right? He could brighten Ethan’s day for a while, help him out, maybe even offer some… stress relief, no strings attached.
It was a good plan, until it wasn’t.
Excerpt I:
Safe from those heather grey eyes, Ethan collapsed against the door and tried to calm his thundering heart. What. The. Ever-loving. Fuck. He checked his forehead for the tell-tale loser sign he was sure he’d find carved there. Nope, just a shit-ton of nervous perspiration.
“Mister hot and heavy is in again, I take it?” Lucy smiled from the other side of the stainless prep bench, her hands white with flour.
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.” Ethan wiped his hands on his jeans and rearranged the order forms stacked on the desk.
She snorted in disgust. “You can’t lie for shit Ethan, I don’t know why you bother.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Ethan scoffed. “The guy’s gotta be close to forty.” Just how I like them… apparently.
She looked up from measuring the dry goods. “Well, he’s damn hot.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” He collated the pencils according to colour.
“Liar.”
He threw the last of the pencils in the caddy and fell back against the door. “That obvious, huh?”
Lucy’s grin split her face. “Like a whore in a convent.”
He snorted. “There’s an image I didn’t need.”
Lucy reached for the huge sieve and worked her way through a second mound of flour. “So, what are you doing in here?”
“Hiding?”
“Well, get back out there, mister. He’ll be gone in a minute. You wouldn’t want to miss a final perv.”
Ethan pushed off the wall. “I wasn’t perving. I merely took his order.”
Lucy’s gaze dipped south of Ethan’s belt. “Yeah, right. Tell it to your friend.”
Ethan blushed furiously and crossed his legs.
“And I’ll bet coffee’s not the only order you’d like to take from him,” she added with a wink.
A host of delightfully filthy images raced through Ethan’s head and he groaned.
“And there it is.” Lucy smiled knowingly.
“Oh. My. God. What is it with you lot?” Ethan grumbled, mortified at how badly he’d been caught out. He tugged his shirt a mite lower and flipped her off. “You’re lucky I love you, bitch.”
“You’re lucky I let you, arsehole.”
He pushed open the door and ambled back into the café. Nothing to see here folks. The effort at nonchalance was ruined the second he laid eyes on mister tall, dark and fucking combustible, when he caught his foot in the stool he’d vacated earlier and tripped. Arms wind milling, he stumbled almost to his knees at the man’s feet. Really Ethan? Really? Yeah, not one of his better Kodak moments.
He glanced up in time to see the guy bite back a laugh, but refused to linger on that whole teeth on lip action. If there was a prize for most humiliating crush on an ‘almost’ silver fox, he’d win it hands down.
Excerpt II:
The man nodded in approval. “Someone give that man a balloon. Though I gotta say, the mere thought of a meeting sends rats running up my arse. Bad enough having to talk with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes in here for a coffee and expects I’m interested in anything they have to say. Whatever happened to keeping your opinions to yourself?”
Which was rich coming from a guy who had an opinion on almost everything, few of them good, and none of them kept to himself as far as Tanner had seen.
He snorted. “I’ll take that as a hint.”
Adrian handed a coffee each to the two men ahead in the queue. “I’ll let you know if you’re heading that direction.”
Tanner laughed. “I believe it.”
“The usual?”
“Thanks.” He glanced behind Adrian to the closed kitchen door. “Ethan in?”
Adrian’s smirk was hard to miss.
“He’s out back, kneading his balls.”
Tanner nearly swallowed his tongue, a fact not missed by Adrian who sent him another smirk. Bastard.
“His brioche balls.” The barista crafted a heart into the foam of a fresh latte. “Whatever did you think I meant? Hey, Ethan⎯”
“No, it’s… ugh.” He fired Adrian a glare.
The man shrugged. “Oops.” He passed a latte to the man in front and caught Tanner’s eye. “I’ll hold your order for a bit.” Then he winked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“See, you are getting the hang of things around here.”
Tanner could do nothing but laugh.
“You hollered, oh cranky one…” Ethan pushed through the swing door, took one look at Tanner and stopped dead in his tracks. A cute as shit blush spread over a pair of dimpled cheeks.
Ah, fuck. Dimples as well.
About Jay:
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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