Title: Safe
Series: A Fate, Texas Novella
Author: Jess Bryant
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: August 26, 2019
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 17600
Genre: Contemporary, LGBT, friends to lovers, coming out, baseball, gay, bisexual
Synopsis
Trevor Thorne has always played it safe.
He’s a ballplayer. The game has had his
heart and soul since he was just a kid. He learned early on that living in the
testosterone-fueled world of baseball meant living a lie. He couldn’t afford to
be openly gay, not when he had his whole career ahead of him. But his days
behind the plate are numbered and he’s tired, so damn tired of hiding who he
is, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to deny himself what, and who, he
wants.
Rodrigo Cruz is the opposite of safe.
He’s young, ballsy, and bold. Out and
proud, Cruz has never shied away from going after what he wants. He wants a
career as a big-league ballplayer, and he wants it on his own terms. No hiding
his sexuality or his past but also no throwing himself at his beautiful,
blue-eyed bunkmate. Not even if he suspects Trevor isn’t quite as straight as
he claims.
Crossing that line, testing that theory,
it could put his entire career at risk. If he swings for the fences and strikes
out, he’ll always be that guy in the locker room who can’t keep it in his
pants. But what if he’s right and they’re more than just teammates?
What if they’re soulmates?
Excerpt
Safe
Jess Bryant © 2019
All Rights Reserved
Rodrigo Cruz was wavering. He was
fucking wavering. If he was honest with himself, he’d been wavering for a
while. It wasn’t the first time he’d considered abandoning his self-imposed
rules about not pursuing teammates. But tonight, in the dimly lit bar after a
long day in the sun and a couple of drinks, he was wavering way too close to
crossing the line he’d drawn in the sand before he’d ever even met Trevor
Thorne.
How could he not?
The man was gorgeous. Hot as hell. A
Greek god encased in all-American good looks. Full lips. Dimpled chin. Spiky
golden-blond hair and those eyes. Fuck, those eyes. They were blue, only blue
wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t descriptive enough. They were jewels, diamonds
in the rough of his handsome face.
Trevor had a nickname in the league. The
Ice King. He was cold. Unemotional. Detached on the field and off. And those
eyes of his were glaciers, impossible to delve past the surface without feeling
the chill.
Only, Cruz had seen past the icy veneer.
Trevor had let him past it. After months of shared hotel rooms, tiny bus seats,
and 24/7 forced proximity, Trevor had slowly begun to let him in. He’d started
to lower the walls he kept so high around him, and Cruz was proud to call him a
friend instead of just a teammate.
The Ice King had thawed for him. Cruz
had seen those blue eyes twinkle with laughter. He’d seen them warm with
amusement and pleasure. And more and more, he thought about what it would be
like to see them full of heat, full of passion and fire.
Cruz stared across the crowded bar,
caught himself drowning in those blue pools like they were the goddamn Bermuda
Triangle and there wasn’t a life preserver in sight.
Cruz lowered his gaze when Trevor looked
away, returning to his phone call. He squinted at the tumbler of liquid sitting
in front of him on the table, trying to remember how many he’d had. Too many.
He was drunk. So. Damn. Drunk. He knew
he was drunk which meant he was way past the point of no return. He shouldn’t
have had that last drink. Or, rather, considering he was in the presence of the
one man who made him want to throw his rulebook out the window, he really
shouldn’t have been drinking at all.
Alcohol impaired judgment. It made him
stupid. Made him do stupid things. Things that would undoubtedly get him in
trouble. Things that would most likely lead to his pretty face being punched,
repeatedly. Because when he was drunk he forgot he wasn’t supposed to stare at
his teammate’s lips like he wanted them wrapped around his cock.
But Trevor had insisted on grabbing a
drink when they got back to the hotel, and despite the little voice in the back
of Cruz’s head that had said he should just go to bed, he was shit at denying
Trevor anything. So he’d gone. He’d bought the first round and then Trevor had
bought the second, and by the time the tequila hit him, Cruz had forgotten why
drinking with the man who haunted his dreams and was his every walking fantasy
was a bad idea.
It wasn’t as if he was just risking his
rules when it came to Trevor. If it meant getting the gorgeous god of a man in
his bed, Cruz would happily abandon his stance on steering clear of sexual
relationships with teammates. He wanted Trevor, and he’d let himself have him
if his friend had given him so much as a hint he was into the idea. But he
hadn’t, and that meant continuing to fantasize about him, continuing to tread
this line and risk their friendship.
Hitting on a friend, on a teammate, on a
supposedly straight man who wasn’t interested in him that way wasn’t just
against his rules; it was downright self-destructive.
He’d been down this road before.
Thinking there was more in every glance, every touch, than there really was. It
hadn’t turned out well. Not for him. He’d been young then, naïve, just learning
what it meant to be bisexual. He was older and wiser now, and he knew better.
He knew it was a dead end.
When he was sober, he knew that. He knew
not to stare at Trevor like he wanted to lick him up one side and down the
other. He knew the smiles Trevor gave him, the ones that curled around his
heart and made him feel all warm and tingly, meant nothing but friendship to
Trevor. When he was sober, he knew he needed to stop fantasizing about his best
friend.
Even if he wasn’t completely convinced
Trevor was as straight as he always claimed. The looks he shot Cruz across the
bar were veiled and sexy. The way Trevor bumped their shoulders together and
found little ways to touch him was intimate and flirtatious. Cruz honestly
believed Trevor was gay or bi or at the very least questioning and curious. But
until Trevor made a move, some sort of move, he couldn’t cross that line. He
wouldn’t force Trevor to admit to things he’d clearly been hiding for a very
long time. He couldn’t and wouldn’t touch Trevor the way he ached to touch him.
But in his alcohol-fueled brain, he
couldn’t help but wonder what his best friend would do if he slid up behind
him, pressed their bodies together, and whispered in his ear exactly what he
wanted to do to him. The idea alone made his cock hard, which at his level of
drunkenness was a tribute to how damn much he wanted Trevor. Hell, he never got
hard anymore. Not for anyone but the man he couldn’t have.
Trevor slid back into the booth opposite
him with a heavy sigh. Without a word, he picked up his drink and knocked it
back. Cruz watched his throat work, watched his Adam’s apple bob as he
swallowed, and had to swallow a groan of his own.
“Everything okay?” he managed when
Trevor dropped the empty glass to the table.
“Fucking fantastic.” Trevor winced and
then wiped a hand over his face, “Sorry. I’m in a shit mood, and talking to my
happy, madly-in-love brother didn’t exactly help. Didn’t mean to take it out on
you.”
Cruz shrugged, accustomed to the same
excuse he’d been hearing for weeks now, the one he didn’t quite buy but always
let slide. “What’d Trent want this time?”
“You mean other than to tell me my life
choices are shit?”
Cruz raised an eyebrow, but Trevor waved
him off before he could ask what he meant. Instead, he let it go, just like he
always did, and he let Trevor wave the waitress over to bring them another
round of drinks.
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Meet the Author
Jess Bryant is an avid indoorswoman. A
city girl trapped in a country girl’s life, her heart resides in Dallas but her
soul and roots are in small town Oklahoma. She enjoys manicures, the color
pink, and her completely impractical for country life stilettos. She believes
that hair color is a legitimate form of therapy, as is reading and writing
romance. She started writing as a little girl but her life changed forever when
she stole a book from her aunt’s Harlequin collection and she’s been creating
love stories with happily ever afters ever since.
Jess holds a degree in Public Relations
from the University of Oklahoma and is a lifetime supporter of her school and
athletic teams. And why not? They have a ton of National Championships! She may
be a girlie girl but she knows her sports stats and isn’t afraid to tell you
that your school isn’t as cool as hers… or that your sports romance got it all
wrong.
For more information on Jess and
upcoming releases, contact her at JessBryantBooks@gmail.com or follow her on
her many social media accounts for news and shenanigans.
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