Release Blitz + Giveaway: Trusting Tennyson (Out in Austin #3) by KD Ellis

 

Trusting Tennyson by KD Ellis

Book 3 in the Out in Austin series

General Release Date: 9th August 2022

Word Count:  92,524
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 363

Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
BONDAGE AND BDSM
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
CRIME AND MYSTERY
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
MEN IN UNIFORM
MÉNAGE AND MULTIPLE PARTNERS

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Book Description

Tennyson thought this would be just another undercover assignment. Catching feelings for two traumatized men wasn’t part of the plan.

When FBI Agent Liam Tennyson was embedded in the La Familia cartel, he didn’t expect to meet not one but two young men whose terrified eyes haunt his dreams—and stir up feelings he thought long buried.

Asher Downs left his homophobic family behind the day he earned his high school diploma. With little more than a bus ticket to his name, he moves to Austin to meet his online boyfriend, Devon. Unfortunately for Asher, life doesn’t always go according to plan.

Misha might have been born as Dimitri, but now he answers to whatever name Master gives him. Snaring another innocent young man into this life is the last thing Misha desires. But Master gets what Master wants—and Master wants a matching set of toys to play with.

When a mole in the justice department compromises Tennyson’s identity—and jeopardizes his plan to rescue Misha and Asher—Tennyson is left with no choice but to go on the lam. Can the two traumatized boys learn to trust him to keep them safe?

Reader advisory: This book references child trafficking, abuse and Daddy play. It is best read as book three in a series.

Excerpt

The boy on the screen was pretty. Blond, with copper-lined blue eyes—cornflower, not steel—and pouty lips made shiny from gloss, he looked like a doll. Men would pay thousands to fuck him and even more to fuck him up. It wasn’t hard to see why Master was enamored.

Misha hated him. Misha hated everything the boy stood for on the other end of a computer screen, thousands of miles away. He probably lived in some nice suburb with a white picket fence, with parents who paid for braces without complaint, drove him to swim classes and sat down for family dinners consisting of more than just oatmeal and water.

Misha hated his amateur videos that taught boys how to apply makeup, his comparisons of drugstore makeup brands and his mock fashion shows as he strutted around in skirts and heels and lacy blouses.

If the boy weren’t so pretty, if his videos hadn’t gotten so popular, he could have stayed under the radar and Misha would still be Master’s favorite.

The best whore.

The prettiest.

The most obedient.

The good boy.

Instead of sitting there, Master’s breath damp on the back of his neck while Misha crept his fingers over the keyboard to lure in his replacement. The pretty boy must get thousands of messages a day. Maybe Misha’s wouldn’t register, buried beneath the rest. Maybe he’d get it but not reply, and Misha would be safe.

Master’s attention, and his hands on Misha’s body, might terrify him, but not as much as the idea of losing it.

* * * *

Asher Downs rattled his bedroom doorknob for the third time, just in case it had somehow come unlocked. Then, and only then, with his heart pounding in his chest, did he drag out the old Nike shoebox from under his bed, the one that used to hold his soccer cleats. Now, it hid his makeup case.

It was plastic and cheap, much like the makeup inside, odds and ends he’d bought discounted at the drugstore on the corner with change he’d picked up from the sidewalk and pilfered from the ashtray in the Buick, one lonely quarter at a time.

With reverence, he carried the case over to his desk-turned-vanity. The mirror was a cheap thing, bought on sale because it was cracked, the glass spiderwebbed from the top of the frame down one side. When his parents were home, he kept it tucked in the back of the closet, under a ratty baseball jersey he’d outgrown as a preteen.

His phone was already secured in his makeshift tripod—leaning against a book, the bottom half-inch tucked behind a two-pound dumbbell so it wouldn’t slide forward. As soon as he laid out his makeup, he could start the video.

His lipstick was barely a nub of pink in the cracked tube, his eyeshadow more dust than pigment. Even his foundation wasn’t quite right—a bit too dry and a little too light for his sun-kissed, boy-next-door skin, tanned from playing football each summer with the church youth group.

These broken beauties were his prized possessions, worth more to him than the collectible baseball cards in their little plastic sleeves on his bookshelf or the signed poster of Kobe that his dad had been so excited to hang up when Asher had started high school.

Before Asher had gotten caught kissing the captain of the basketball team under the bleachers.

Before the mandatory after-school meetings with Pastor Luke twice a week to ‘examine his soul’.

Now, his little brother Ryder wasn’t even allowed in the same room with him, his dad could barely look at him without scowling and his mother locked the cabinet doors in the bathroom as if she needed to hide her feminine products from his perverted eyes. She should have locked her makeup away instead, back when he’d been a boy and had first discovered the magic it held.

The way a bit of shadow could make his eyes piercing, soften his jaw or sharpen his cheekbones… How a little color could make him look happy, even when inside he felt like dying.

He’d come a long way since the first time he’d decided to film himself doing this, a silent protest against his parents that he’d devised under the influence of Dad’s bitter liquor, pilfered from the expensive stash he kept on top of the fridge. He hadn’t expected the video to go viral.

Now, he filmed sober, but nerves still birthed butterflies in his stomach. The fear of getting caught, which had him rattling his doorknob again, mingled with the excitement of watching his view counter tick steadily upward. He had almost a hundred thousand subscribers now, enough to put a little money into the secret bank account he’d opened as soon as he’d turned eighteen.

He could use it for better makeup or a ring light, but he was saving it to escape, maybe move out West, somewhere he wouldn’t have to hide anymore. He’d dipped into it once already for a better laptop after his old one had crapped out. He was going to need to upgrade his phone soon, too—an expense he couldn’t avoid but was delaying as long as he was able. His subscribers were already starting to comment on the graininess of the videos, and those wouldn’t take long to become complaints.

Mom promised he could stay with them until he graduated, but that was it, leaving him with just over a month to get a plan in place. College was out of the question. Unlike his younger brother Ryder, he wasn’t a computer genius who already had a dozen scholarships to choose from, and unlike they would for Ryder, Mom and Dad would never cover his expenses.

If he wanted out, he was going to have to do it on his own, a thought that finally motivated him to draw in a breath, plaster on a smile and push the red circle to start filming.

“Everything sucks and we’re all dying, but I’m going to look pretty doing it. Who’s ready to play with the pretty paint and give themselves a plus ten to their charisma check?” Asher jumped in with his quirky and somewhat nerdy greeting, smothering his real-world concerns beneath the joy that he got from doing makeup.

It wouldn’t last long—only until the video ended—but for now, for these handful of minutes, he was going to enjoy it.

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First For Romance

About the Author

KD Ellis

KD Ellis is a professional cat wrangler by day, and an author by night. She moved from a small town to an even smaller village to live with her husband and wife and their two children. She loves reading—anything with men loving men. She writes queer romance in between working her two jobs and cuddling her pets—all six of them, which confuses the turtle.

Giveaway

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Release Blitz + Giveaway: Shiloh's Secret (Out in Austin #2) by KD Ellis

Author KD Ellis and Pride Publishing share new release information on romantic suspense, Shiloh's Secret (Out in Austin #2)! Read more about the bodyguard romance and enter in the First Romance gift card giveaway!

Shiloh's Secret by KD Ellis

Book 2 in the Out in Austin series

General Release Date: 16th November 2021

Word Count:  92,026
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 367
Genres:

ACTION AND ADVENTURE
CONTEMPORARY
CRIME
EROTIC ROMANCE
GAY
GLBTQI
MEN IN UNIFORM
THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE

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Book Description

Shiloh Beckett has a trust fund, a stalker and a secret. He doesn’t trust easily, but his new bodyguard might just break the cycle.

Shiloh Beckett might be the sole heir to Beckett Industries, one of the leading tech companies in the world, but the last thing he wants is to become another suit-and-tie. He’s learned the hard way that money can’t buy happiness, just a better brand of misery.

Gage Tucker lives by the motto Protect and Serve. Raised by a cop who failed his family, Gage chose to serve his country the only way he knew how—with boots on the ground and a gun in his hand. After a mission gone wrong, Gage came home with a broken body but the same drive to protect. Months of rehab later, he joined Eagle Security as a Personal Protection Officer and he’s been a bodyguard ever since. Protecting a trust-fund brat from the paparazzi isn’t what he signed up for.

Soon he learns that there’s more than just the media after Shiloh, and the secrets the boy is hiding will change everything. If he can’t convince Shiloh to trust him, how can he keep him safe?

Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, rape, reference to past child abuse, self-harm and suicidal ideation, and PTSD,. There are references to drug use, sex work, elements of BDSM—Daddy kink and power play—and parental neglect.

Excerpt

Shiloh hiked the hem of his baby-doll dress higher as he leaned his knee against the back of the chaise. He knew the drape of silk pooling in the hollow of his thighs barely left more than a teasing shadow to keep him modest.

Not that anyone in the frat house cared. He’d seen each of the Sigma boys naked at one point or another, while either on his knees or his back. In fact, the only man here he hadn’t seen naked yet was his bodyguard, a man who bought his muscles in a bottle of methyl-testosterone.

Brad sat in the armchair across from him. He was scanning the crowd of drunk college students stumbling from room to room, supposedly keeping an eye out for cameras. In reality, though, Shiloh caught the subtle glances toward the chaise, the way his gaze lingered on Shiloh’s exposed skin and the even-less-subtle looks into the corner, where a couple was doing lines on the glass side table.

Shiloh propped himself up on an elbow so he could see them. “Hey, Jorgie.” Shiloh feigned a slur. He’d been nursing the same glass of cheap whiskey since he’d arrived over an hour ago, though he’d skipped to the kitchen for a half-dozen refills for the sake of appearance. “Kiss you for a line.”

Jorgie, nearly as fabulous as Shiloh in a glittery pink tank and tight jeans, wiped his nose before grabbing the baggie. He stumbled over, his cheeks flushed, blue eyes nearly black as he leaned down. His lips were hot when they pressed against Shiloh’s.

Jorgie lost interest quickly, dropping the baggie on Shiloh’s lap as a girl Shiloh vaguely recognized stumbled past. Jorgie trailed after her, calling “Evie, those shoes!”

Shiloh popped the seal on the bag and turned it gently, letting the coke fall against the side. He shook out a crooked line on his thigh. By now, his bodyguard had given up all pretense of watching the room. Brad’s gaze locked on the powder.

Slowly, Shiloh ran a teasing finger over his skin to straighten the line. He admired the way it looked, even paler than his sun-starved flesh.

“I don’t mind sharing,” Shiloh said suddenly into the silence between them, and Brad dragged his gaze up to Shiloh’s. He wet his lips. He wanted it. That was obvious—wanted it even more than he wanted Shiloh. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

And that was all it took.

Shiloh was almost disappointed at how easy it was. Brad pushed his way to standing, stalking closer. Shiloh held himself still. Brad only loomed for a second before dropping heavily to his knees. There was the briefest hesitation then his bodyguard hunched over his thigh. He pressed one large finger against his left nostril, then the sound of sniffing made Shiloh wrinkle his nose in disgust.

He expected the man to sit back but Brad lingered, skimming his thumb over Shiloh’s thigh. It would be sexual in another circumstance—foreplay, a tease—but Shiloh knew he was just grabbing the last of the powder. Brad lifted his thumb to his mouth, rubbing it over his gums.

Brad’s brown eyes grew darker as the drug tightened its grip on him. Shiloh was on the clock now. He would be lucky if the drug stuck in the man’s system for a half-hour, with everything else in his veins.

Shiloh pushed Brad back then slid off the chaise and into the larger man’s lap in a single move. The thin lace of his panties was barely a barrier between them. He could feel the coarseness of his bodyguard’s jeans and, beneath them, the rigid hardness of his cock. Shiloh felt nothing as he rutted against it.

“I see how you watch me,” Shiloh mused, teasing one of the black buttons on the other man’s shirt between his fingers. “Are you finally going to do something about it?”

Brad groaned, clamping his hands down on Shiloh’s hips hard enough to bruise as he yanked Shiloh closer. He was grateful that years of ballet had left him with a flexibility most gymnasts would envy, because otherwise his hips would be screaming against the stretch.

Brad tangled his fingers painfully in Shiloh’s pink hair and yanked his head back. Shiloh turned his wince to a grin, then had to struggle to hold back a laugh as Brad growled—actually growled, like a wild animal instead of a man.

“C’mon, big guy,” Shiloh teased, grabbing Brad’s hand and yanking it free from his scalp, ignoring the painful way several strands of hair separated with it. “I’ll go find us a room. You go clean up, yeah?”

Brad blinked then shoved Shiloh off his lap in his haste to find a bathroom.

Shiloh smirked at his back. He hadn’t expected it to be difficult—seducing his bodyguards never was—but he’d thought it would be harder than that. Victor had lasted two months, and before him, Harry had made it almost four. Brad had only worked with him for one.

The cocaine helped, he supposed.

Shiloh slipped out of the party before Brad could come searching, not bothering to say his goodbyes to anyone else. Nobody there would notice he’d left until it was too late to stop him.

Shiloh dropped into the driver’s seat of his Bugatti and double-checked the backseat for his bag. Then he pulled off the manicured lawn and onto the street, leaving the townhouse behind him. He’d lived in Austin his whole life, except for brief vacations with his father as a child, so it wasn’t hard to find his way to one of the most exclusive clubs in the city.

He didn’t bother finding a parking spot. He grabbed his handbag and left his car on the street, throwing his keys to a man in a red velvet jacket standing on the sidewalk who, he realized as he strolled up the carpet toward the bouncer, had better have been a valet and not a man with poor fashion sense. At least Dad has good insurance.

The bouncer was moving the velvet rope for him before he reached it. “Mr. Beckett,” he rumbled, “always a pleasure.”

Shiloh fluttered his fingers in acknowledgment, paused for a handful of photos for the paparazzi loitering nearby, then sauntered into the club.

He headed straight to the dance floor. There was a VIP lounge on the second floor, but he didn’t come here to drink and schmooze. The strobing lights painted rainbows on his skin as he danced, his arms thrown carelessly into the air, rolling his hips, regardless of rhythm. He was a good dancer—more than good, great—but this wasn’t ballet, and he wasn’t performing. This was his attempt to briefly forget the real world and all the shit that came with it.

Three songs were all he allowed himself—three songs to be careless, three songs to lose himself in the bass and dance for nobody but him. Men groped his hips, ran teasing hands down his chest, even cupped his groin with grabby hands, but he didn’t care. He danced with a single-minded lack of focus.

And when his three songs were up, he dropped back into his body like an automobile crash, peeled himself away from the grabby hands and crossed the dance floor with the ease of practice. He’d been coming here for years before he was legal, and he knew the tricks like the back of his hand—the dip and sway to avoid getting tangled with dancers.

He took the stairs down to the lower bathrooms. The hallway was dimly lit, bodies little more than silhouettes shifting from shadow to shadow. More than one couple was pressed against the wall, their pants lowered to their knees as they copulated.

In these halls, he could be anyone, just another faceless stranger in a crowd. He ducked into one of the bathrooms—no one here cared about gender—and closed himself in a stall.

He stripped out of his couture dress, swapping it for a pair of knock-off jeans so tight that he might as well have not been wearing them and a white lace camisole with a stain near the hem. He replaced his Miu booties with pink All-Stars. Finally, he pulled out a pink wig and held it between his knees to keep it off the floor while he filled the bag with his discarded clothes. He spent a few seconds pulling his real hair up under a skull cap before he tugged on the wig. He couldn’t do much about his handbag. Hopefully people would assume it was a fake.

He stepped out of the stall and spent a few moments at the mirror readjusting the wig and touching up his makeup. He swapped his diamond eyebrow stud for sterling silver then stepped back, eyeing his reflection critically. He looked like himself, but…not. He looked like a knock-off of himself, which was exactly what he wanted.

He plastered on a grin and left the bathroom. The dance floor was even more crowded now. He merged into the sea of bodies, noticing several other wigs just like his. He grinned, enjoying the feel of anonymity as he started dancing again. Unlike earlier, though, this was a performance, every move just slightly off but geared to attract attention. He danced until sweat soaked his skin and thirst burned his throat.

He slid free of his current partner’s grip, ignoring the man’s groan as he headed for the bar. He pressed in tight between two men who were already waiting there, each brush of his body made to look accidental.

“Oops,” he yelled over the music as he bumped the man to his left with his hand. With the gold watch on his wrist, he looked like he could easily afford to buy Shiloh a drink—then an hour of his time as well.

“I’m Shiloh,” he introduced himself as the suited man looked down on him.

“Sure you are, and I’m Hugh Jackman.” The man laughed. It wasn’t cruel, but Shiloh feigned a pout. “What are you drinking, ‘Shiloh’?”

“Do they got an appletini?” Shiloh asked, playing up the wide-eyed, innocent look and poor grammar that a man like this would go for.

“Sure, sweetheart.” The man gestured to the bartender. Seconds later, a martini glass filled with the green cocktail appeared in front of Shiloh, complete with an umbrella.

“What’s your name?” Shiloh asked, stepping closer to be heard over the music, using it as an excuse to brush his hand over the other man’s hips. It was partly a tease, but also a subtle check. No gun or badge, at least not that he felt. He supposed a badge could be in the man’s wallet, but, short of pocketing that, he had no way to check.

Even a whore had to draw the lines somewhere—and he wasn’t a thief.

“Beckham.” The man leaned against the bar but didn’t try to escape Shiloh’s fingers. Shiloh removed them long enough to take a sip of his appletini. It was an indulgence he couldn’t allow himself often if he wanted to keep his figure. Then, he reached out and fiddled with a button on Beckham’s jacket.

“Just get off work?” he asked, peering up through his lashes.

“What gave it away?” Beckham drained the last of what looked like Scotch before abandoning the empty glass on the bar to give Shiloh his full attention.

“The suit. Are you a lawyer? You are, aren’t you?” Shiloh could tell a bespoke suit in one glance, and if Beckham’s didn’t cost at least a grand, he’d wear a pair of sweatpants out in public. Beckham lifted an eyebrow and Shiloh grinned. “I knew it. I knew you were a lawyer. Are you the kind that puts bad guys away? Or the kind that frees poor innocent people from behind bars?”

Beckham laughed. “Neither. I’m the kind who spends seventy hours a week cutting loopholes out of contracts—though I’ve been known to pick up a case or two to free up jail cells for the right price.”

Shiloh scrunched up his nose. “Gross. Well, you must be stressed after spending that many hours reading.” Shiloh shuddered like the thought made him physically ill. “How about we go back to your place and do something more fun? Tell you what… For a sexy man like you, I won’t even charge you full price.”

If the lawyer was surprised Shiloh was a professional, he didn’t show it. He just slid a handful of bills across to the bartender before putting his hand on Shiloh’s lower back, guiding him out of the club. A few paparazzi lifted their cameras as he exited, likely spotting the pink hair, before lowering them with a frown and a shake of their heads. He smothered his smile with a duck of his head, adding an extra sway to his hips for the hell of it.

Buy Links

Choose Your Store
First For Romance

About the Author

KD Ellis

 KD Ellis is a professional cat wrangler by day, and an author by night. She moved from a small town to an even smaller village to live with her husband and wife and their two children. She loves reading—anything with men loving men. She writes queer romance in between working her two jobs and cuddling her pets—all six of them, which confuses the turtle.

Giveaway

Enter for the chance to win a $50.00 First for Romance Gift Card! 

 a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Notice: This competition ends on 30th November 2021 at 12am EST. Competition hosted by Totally Entwined Group. 

Release Blitz + Giveaway: Teddy's Truth (Out in Austin #1) by KD Ellis

Author KD Ellis and Pride Publishing host today's release blitz for Teddy's Truth (Out in Austin #1)! Read more about the first installment from the new series and enter in the giveaway to win a fabulous Goody Bag and a $5.00 First For Romance Gift Code!

 

Teddy's Truth by KD Ellis

Book 1 in the Out in Austin series

General Release Date: 12th January 2021

Word Count: 92,509
Book Length: SUPER NOVEL
Pages: 357
Genres: ACTION AND ADVENTURE, CONTEMPORARY, CRIME, EROTIC ROMANCE, GAY, GLBTQI, MEN IN UNIFORM, THRILLERS AND SUSPENSE, TRANSGENDER

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Book Description

 

Teddy De Luca thought being born into the wrong body was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Then he met Julian…

All Teddy De Luca wants is for his outside to match his inside—so badly that he takes a loan from a Mexican cartel. It’s not like he can borrow the money from his alcoholic mother. She got him into this mess in the first place when she poured his savings into bottles of Jack. He figures he’ll get his operation, pick up a second job, then pay the debt off quickly and put it all behind him. When the cartel raises the stakes, his plan falls apart and he’s left with a mounting debt and no way out.

Ian Romero is a second generation Hispanic-American whose only goal is to live the American dream—finish college, find the perfect partner and settle down. His inappropriate crush on his brother’s best friend isn’t going to stop him. But when his troubled brother becomes another victim of the local cartel, his plans change. He can’t save his brother, but he can get his revenge.

After years apart, Teddy’s and Ian’s paths cross again, neither expecting the passion between them to re-ignite even hotter than before. Can Ian forgive Teddy’s role in his brother’s death to become the Daddy the younger man needs—or is their relationship destined to fail again?Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, rape, and a live burial. There are BDSM elements including Daddy kink and mild power play. There are scenes of loan-sharking, blackmail, torture, public sex, parental neglect and domestic violence.

Excerpt

Teddy tugged at the hem of his overlarge sweatshirt then discreetly scratched beneath the band of his sticky sports bra. As far as he was concerned, breasts were disgusting lumps of fat that hoarded sweat, bounced like painful beanbags on his chest when he was busy catching a football and strained the front of any button-down he tried to wear. He couldn’t understand why boys were so obsessed with them. He personally couldn’t wait to get the damn things cut off.

Hormone therapy had deepened his voice and given him a shadow of patchy fuzz on his jaw. Clippers had sheared him of his blond hair and his mother’s Italian heritage had blessed him with broad shoulders and narrow hips.

It was unfortunate that it had also cursed him with breasts that not even puberty blockers had been able to thwart.

He wished he could blame her awful time-management skills on their heritage as well, but he knew better. The fault lay with either Jack or John—the bottle or the boyfriend, whichever she was currently in bed with.

He’d been sitting on the hard, concrete steps of the high school for almost an hour. It wasn’t like he could call her. His cell was out of minutes, and hers was probably dead on the nightstand.

Just as the final school bus trundled back onto the parking lot and Teddy was about to give up on waiting, someone stepped up beside him, casting him in shadow.

“Stay there,” Teddy ordered, craning his head back until he could grin at his best friend. “Perfect. Be my sun block.”

Shiloh, still in his leotard, laughed and nudged Teddy’s hip with his shoe. “If you don’t think I shine brighter than the sun, then clearly I’m not wearing enough glitter.”

“Shine as bright as you want, but just keep standing there. Fuck, it’s hot!” Teddy gripped his collar and tugged at it repeatedly, trying to stir a breeze. All it ended up doing was wafting the stench of boob sweat up into his face.

“Well, duh, it’s ninety degrees—and you’re in a sweater.” Shiloh rolled his eyes and dropped onto the curb beside him. “And it’s not even pink.”

Teddy opened his mouth, his usual response dancing on his tongue—that boys don’t wear pink—but he swallowed it. Shiloh was currently in a hot pink leotard and pink Chucks.

Instead, Teddy shrugged and glared down at his baggy jeans and boring blue sweater. “You know why.” It was hard enough getting people to call him Teddy instead of Thea. Or, worse, Theodora.

“I’m going to make you a shirt. It’s going to be pink and fabulous. It’s going to say, ‘Call Me Teddy’. And it’s going to be in glitter.” Shiloh threw an imaginary handful into the air, then fell back to lie on the sidewalk, his arms flung out.

“With your handwriting, they’d probably think you wrote ‘Daddy’.” Teddy dropped back to use Shiloh’s arm as a pillow.

Shiloh shifted but didn’t pull away. He just rolled onto his side, his blond hair flopping into his eyes. He left his arm beneath Teddy’s head, bringing their faces close enough that their noses nearly touched. “It’s not that bad. Besides, you’re clearly not a Daddy.”

Teddy rolled his eyes. Ever since he’d borrowed Shiloh’s laptop to finish up his college application essays—and forgotten to clear his search history after falling down the rabbit hole of kinky porn—Shiloh’s teasing had been less than subtle. Teddy refused to be embarrassed, though, especially since the only reason he’d stumbled onto that website in the first place was because Shiloh had left three separate bookmarks for it.

It reinforced everything Teddy knew about their relationship. They were destined to be the bestest of friends—but nothing more. They were both too attracted to the same type of man—tall, dark and dangerous.

Still, knowing his friend was into the same kinks that he was didn’t mean they needed to talk about it. He ignored the leading comment and switched back to the far safer topic of handwriting. “Remember when Mr. Carmine thought you wrote an essay on Storage Wars?”

“Hey, Mr. Carmine also thought you wrote an essay about Quasimodo.”

“I did write him an essay about Quasimodo. Well, really about how the novel by Victor Hugo helped raise the money needed to restore the cathedral, and—” Teddy felt the beginnings of a spiel on gothic architecture creeping up.

Shiloh interrupted, “Yeah, buttresses…a rose window. I remember. I still think the gargoyles are creepy.”

“You said buttresses,” Teddy snickered, shoving Shiloh’s shoulder.

“Teddy, can I touch your buttress?”

“Your hand can stay far away from my buttress, fuck you very much.”

“It’s like a butt fortress. I just want to invade your buttress! Why are you so mean to me?” Shiloh rolled onto his back and kicked his feet against the sidewalk like an angry toddler, except for the smile on his face.

“No, it’s impregnable!” Teddy stuck out his tongue.

“Well, duh, you’re a boy. Of course you’re impregnable.”

“Something tells me you don’t know what that word means.”

Immediately, Shiloh rattled off the definition. “Impregnable. Unable to be captured or broken into. Also, unable to be defeated or destroyed. But you have to admit that it sounds an awful lot like it means you can’t make babies.”

“And thank God for that,” Teddy shivered at the thought of being responsible for a little, squalling, helpless baby. “I might miss wearing pink, but I won’t miss that.”

Teddy froze at the accidental admission. His therapist had told him that it was normal, that gender was a spectrum and that just because he still liked feminine things didn’t make his desire to transition less valid. Still, it was the first time he’d admitted it to anyone except his therapist.

Shiloh sat up slightly to face him better. “You can still wear pink. You can wear whatever the fuck you want.” Shiloh’s voice hardened. “And if anyone bothers you about it, I’ll cover their lockers in gay porn. Just say the word.”

“The poor football players won’t know what to do with themselves. Think of all the spontaneous erections.” The few he’d dated had been far more interested in his ass than a straight guy probably should be—not that he’d obliged, since he refused to be anyone’s dirty little secret.

Shiloh sighed. “It would be a beautiful gift to all of us.”

A black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, barely parking before the driver was leaning on the horn.

“Impatient bastard,” Shiloh grumbled. “I don’t know why he’s in a hurry. He gets paid by the hour.”

“Well, that stick is so far up his ass it has to be uncomfortable sitting down.” Teddy sat up and straightened his sweatshirt. The Becketts’ driver was a homophobic dick. He didn’t understand how the man hadn’t been fired yet.

Shiloh pushed himself to his feet. “I bet he has hemorrhoids. That’s probably where he rushes off to every night.”

“Ew. You picture him rubbing cream on his ass?” Teddy teased.

Shiloh gagged, shoving Teddy to the side. “Gross. You’re such a dick. I don’t know why I hang out with you.”

“Because you love me.”

The Mercedes blared its horn again, a demanding series of honks that only ended when Shiloh threw a hand up in acknowledgment. “I gotta go. Do you have a ride?”

Teddy shrugged. “Yeah. She must just be running late or something. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” He knew she wouldn’t be, but he’d rather walk than listen to the driver sling slurs. He didn’t understand how Shiloh dealt with it.

Shiloh hesitated on the bottom step, looking like he wanted to say something, but all he did was give a small nod and say, “Okay. See you Monday?”

“Yeah, see you.”

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About the Author

KD Ellis

KD Ellis is a professional cat wrangler by day, and an author by night. She moved from a small town to an even smaller village to live with her husband and wife and their two children. She loves reading—anything with men loving men. She writes queer romance in between working her two jobs and cuddling her pets—all six of them, which confuses the turtle.

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KD Ellis's Teddy's Truth

KD ELLIS IS GIVING AWAY THIS FABULOUS PRIZE TO ONE LUCKY WINNER. ENTER HERE FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN THIS FABULOUS GOODY BAG AND A $5.00 FIRST FOR ROMANCE GIFT CODE! Notice: This competition ends on 20th January 2021 at 5pm GMT. Competition hosted by Totally Entwined Group.