From Trey #3 by Bryl R. Tyne

Excerpted from Trey #3 by Bryl R. Tyne


M/M/M Contemporary Action/Thriller

Trey wants his job.

Drew wants Trey.

Travon wants them both, but must avoid the law.

When boyfriend Drew and twice a month fuck buddy Travon decide to go in together on a local Las Cruces pawnshop heist, neither expects to find Trey working behind the counter. Funny, both Drew and Travon figured the accountant-degree-holding Trey to be a safe bet. Both are fiercely protective. None expected to meet.

With the loot bagged, the ironic love triangle exposed, and the cops on the way, what's there to do but drag Trey along for the ride?

Trey discovers sometimes choosing between the lesser of two evils is all but impossible.

Excerpt: 

It seemed no matter how diligently I performed my duties, how loyal or dependable I proved myself to be, I had no control over who my last three bosses hired or fired. Though I had a degree in accounting, when I landed this minimum-wage customer assistant's job, I took it because I needed work, needed to keep my mind busy, active. Besides, they paid shift differential—a whole fifteen cents. Even if this shop was on the lower eastside of town, I didn't mind my job. At least I had one—again.

Could've been worse, Drew reminded me, on the afternoons I slogged out his front door, dragging my dark cloud with me. I shook my head as I crouched to lockup the remaining Rolex cases. At least I had Drew . . . and yeah, I had the man right where I wanted him almost every day for the past six months, to be exact.

Bells jangled, announcing someone's entrance. I let my ring of keys snap back to my belt. Broom in hand, I met the late customer at the jewelry counter. "We're getting ready to—" Before me, on the other side of the counter, stood the one person I never expected to see on this side of town. "Drew?"

Why he wore sunglasses in the dead of night, I'd never understood, but he did it often. He lifted them off his nose and pushed them to his head as he stared. His mouth opening and closing like a starving goldfish, he tried to ask the one question I never wanted to hear—especially, not here, inside Jackie's Rings and Things. "What are you doing—?"

"I work here." Duh. I shook my head, not caring if I sounded like a PMSing bitch. "Don't rub it in, either."

I leaned the broom against the counter and strode to the end. Lifting the hinged door, I stepped under it and let it slam behind me. Well, I'd had Drew . . . as in, "It's been swell," and, "See ya later." Exactly the reason I'd avoided telling him about my new job. A man like Drew would never understand.

He wasn't one of those rich boys born with a silver spoon in his mouth. No. From what I knew of his lifestyle—his condo, his 2010 Dodge Charger, his ever-present bankroll—I was certain his mother had birthed him inside a bank vault. As soon as the—my boyfriend works in a pawnshop—sunk in, I'd be out of his life. There was no doubt in my mind.

Instead of the argument I'd expected though, Drew smiled—a half-hearted, odd kind of twist to his lips. He glanced behind him at the door, wiped the sweat from his forehead as he met my gaze again.

"Just say it," I said, a little creeped out by his unpredictable reaction.

He wrung his hands together, once again eyeing the exit over his shoulder. "I-I'm looking for a ring."

A ring? At eleven o'clock at night. "Okay. Just let me lockup first."

"No! I'll miss my ride . . . I know what I want." Drew stepped to the display case of sterling rings and pointed. "Right here, in tray number three."

Something told me I was a fool for getting my hopes up, but still, I complied, ever hopeful Drew had finally decided to commit. I returned behind the counter, unlocked the sliders, and pulled out the third tray of silver rings. "Which one did you have in mind?"

My daydream lasted all of two seconds, for as soon as I set tray number three atop the glass case, the door burst open.

Tall, dark, and ski-masked kicked it shut after he entered, and, aiming his pistol at me, shouted, "Hands in the air!"

I complied immediately, not a heroic bone in my body. He could have the entire fucking store for all I cared.

"Don't move," Drew whispered.

I glanced to Drew, who had yet to heed the asshole's order, then looked back to the rapidly advancing armed robber. Put your hands up. I mouthed the words, hoping Drew would see me.

Much to my surprise, he stepped between the robber and me, whipped around, reached over the display case, and caught me around the middle. In a flash, he dragged me across the counter and onto the floor, shocking me further by manhandling me onto my stomach and binding my wrists behind my back with what felt like strips of plastic. "What the fuck are you—?"

"Just keep quiet," he said, "and you won't get hurt."

Holy Christ. One side of my face pressed to the floor, I closed my eyes and started to pray. Who in the hell had I been fucking these past six months—been considering moving in with? This sure as fuck wasn't the man I knew . . . thought I knew. My heart pounded in my ears. Hard-soled shoes came to a stop beside me, and I clenched my eyes tighter.

"Shut him up or I'll—oh, shit."

Oh shit, was right. I recognized that voice. Jackie's Rings and Things would-be bandit was none other than Travon Sanders, my mother's twenty-nine-year-old neighbor—my friend and twice-a-month fuck buddy. Well, soon to be ex-friend, along with Drew. I'd made up my mind, with a knee between my shoulders.

"You know him?" Drew asked tall, dark, and dangerous.

I could feel Travon's stare burn into my upturned cheek. "No, man—You?" He backed away, not waiting for Drew to answer. "Just looks like a guy I used to know."

That's right, motherfucker . . . used to know, you sonofabitch.

Drew released the pressure on my back and then stood, yanking me to my knees. "Get up." He pulled me to my feet as Travon helped himself to my keys and the store's valuables.

"Prick."

Drew backhanded me across the face; a second later, he winked. "I said, keep your mouth shut."

Fuck you. I spat at his face, missing by a long shot. He stared at me as if I'd lost my fucking mind.

At that point, I'd already decided I had indeed lost it. Who in his right mind would attempt to build a life with a career criminal while fucking an armed robber on the side? The only one I knew crazy enough to do either stared back at me from the glass of the gun display case as Drew shuffled me behind the counter and shoved me into the first open office.

"Stay here 'til I figure out what to do with you." He shut the door behind him.

"Bastards." Before I stuck my dick in anyone ever again, I was hiring a P.I. to run a full background check. This was ridiculous. What were the fucking odds?

Bryl R. Tyne is a wrangler by nature and a writer by choice, published with Noble Romance Publishing, Ravenous Romance, Dreamspinner Press, STARbooks Press, Untreed Reads Publishing, Changeling Press, and Coming Soon to Amber Allure with TOUGH GUY. You can find out more about Bryl at: bryltyne.com

From MINDSPACE by Mel Keegan

From MINDSPACE by Mel Keegan

A shadow moved from the corner between the pink marble columns and immense potted ficus. The valet was the perfect androgyne, very human, tall, young, slender, with raven hair and black eyes, and a gender so indeterminate, Jack was fascinated. Even the voice gave away no secret.

“This way, gentlemen. Would you care for supper?”

“We ate already,” Kieron said sadly, “and right now I wish we’d given the noodle bar a miss! But we’ll take breakfast. Can you give me a wake-up call? 06:00 will do just fine.”

The valet dropped a smooth half bow, with perfect manners and enviable grace. “If you need anything at all in the night … room service.”

And then he, or she, melted back into the soft shadows and perfumed air, and the door closed on a suite the like of which Jack had never seen outside the gamespace. He gave a low whistle as he turned around on the spot to admire it.

A king sized bed with a circular mattress. A feature wall displaying the city as if through smoked glass, while the glass displayed all forty channels of CityNet, iconized, only waiting for one to be selected. Kieron touched a fingertip to an icon and the city was gone, replaced by a greater-than lifesize, threedee theatrical performance — was it Macbeth? Jack did not know the ancients well enough to tell one production from another. They were enjoying a surge of popularity lately, since someone had just translated them into modern language and staged them in contemporary settings. He turned his back on the play and investigated the bar instead.

“Off,” Kieron said to the AI as Jack poured two flutes of an old, jewel-rich Velcastran red. The drama vanished; the city reappeared, but Kieron was ignoring it now.

Footsteps padded on the silver-green carpet, and big arms went about Jack from behind. Kieron’s nose sifted through his hair, and lips touched his ear. “Wine?” Jack offered. “Nothing but the best here.”

“No.” Kieron’s tonguetip flicked the ear, outlined it. “I’m flying in the morning. Can’t imbibe. It’s not like gaming.”

“Meaning?” Jack set the glasses down on the bar’s deep cherrywood counter and turned into Kieron’s embrace.

“They tell me,” Kieron said wisely, “gaming is better if you’re stoned or drunk.”

“They tell you wrong.” Jack’s arms hooked around the bigger man’s neck. “You go mindspacing when you’re not in command of your faculties, and it turns into a nightmare. The game plays you, not the other way around. Even if you’re playing the AI it’s bad, but if there’s other gamers online, if you’re up against real talent, there’ll be blood. Literally. You can get yourself raped and murdered, and if that happens, Ron, the game kicks you back six or eight levels, and the next time you play … it’s nastier, darker, harder, to get back to where you were when you were dumb enough to go in drunk or stoned. And before you ask why, it gets that way because you create the gamespace yourself.”

Kieron made a face. “Why in the name of anybody’s god would you want to get involved in this crap? No,” he added with a sigh, “don’t answer that. I don’t want a sermon. Or an argument.”

“No? Then what do you want?” Jack cast a glance over one shoulder, at the bed. “Back at guild school, I had to seduce you.”

“Back at guild school, all I wanted to do was fly, and get through the bloody exams, get qualified and get out,” Kieron snorted.

“And you did,” Jack said with all due pragmatism, “all of the above.” He was about to pull out of Kieron’s embrace when the navigator caught him, hugged him hard, and covered his mouth with a kiss.

It was a long time since Kieron had kissed him at all, much less with passion. Jack clung to it, taking everything he could get from it, before Kieron lifted his head away to breathe.

“What’s this all about?” Jack demanded windedly. “Damnit, you’re not feeling guilty, are you? You are!”

“Guilty?” Kieron flicked his belt buckle, dropped it and pulled the green uniform tunic over his head.

He was built like a Pakrani, even though he did not have the fair complexion or the pale hair. Kieron was as dark as the true Pak were blond; his skin was as swarthy as Max Gorodin’s, telltale of the intricate interweave of the colonial genestrands, which gave so many people in the Deep Sky their unmistakable looks. Earthers liked to say most people out here looked Afro-Eurasian, but the categorization was too broad to say much. Jack, Kieron and Max were absolutely unalike and all Deep Sky natives, bred and born.

Kieron had lost a few kilos lately, Jack noticed. He was leaner, harder, as if he had been running, lifting weights. “Now, how stupid is this?” he was saying in a growl. “What in any world do I have to be guilty about?”

“Me,” Jack said mildly, simply making the simple observation. “After guild school you made it all work. I didn’t. You bounced right out of school into work. Me? I was months in dock, so bored out of my gourd, I started gaming to kill time, waiting for a ride that seemed like it was never going to come. And it turned out I was damned good in the game. I could have turned pro, gotten stinking rich … I probably would have, if the whole thing didn’t turn illegal just about the time I was good enough, ranked high enough, to play professionally.” He shrugged. “Then, where was my luck? I just had to get busted, didn’t I? I had to have my guild ticket nixed.”

“Jack, don’t,” Kieron began.

“And then I drifted around, going from one nothing job to another, getting way too friendly with Freespacers, even the good ones, like Ruby Wu, till …” Jack’s shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug. “Here we are. I’m flat broke and lucky to have the price of a bowl of noodles, and you’re in the choice spot, jockeying something like the Pleiades.” He nodded soberly. “I’d say that’s enough to give you the guilts … because you always did like to look out for me, like Grodin said. Or try to. And you probably figure you blew it, let me land right in a steaming pile.”

An enormous sigh said many things Kieron Charig was not about to put into words. If Jack had expected him to deny any of it, say it was completely ridiculous and Max Gorodin was dead wrong, he was surprised. Kieron said nothing at all.

Instead, he tumbled Jack onto the bed and stretched out beside him. Big, warm hands were everywhere at once, as if he must remap, rechart space he had more than half forgotten. Jack was stripped bare, petted, stroked, kissed. He let Kieron do it all, let himself be moved and turned as Kieron wanted, until his senses blurred into one great pool of surprised pleasure.

His eyes had closed when Kieron’s weight settled on him, blanketing him with heat and the musk-sharp envelope of old cologne and clean young male. Jack’s arms went around him; his hands knotted into the spill of Kieron’s dark hair, holding him to a kiss.

“Jack.” Kieron’s breath was short. Hard flesh stabbed into Jack’s hip and belly. “Jack — can I? You know what I want?”

Nothing ever changed. Real life was not much like the game, where lovers like Danno went down willingly under Jack, gave themselves, in every way Jack’s mind could fathom, and every way the rampaging imaginations of a thousand other master gamers could design. Reality was predictable. Jack only smiled and, as Kieron lifted off him, he turned over and pillowed his cheek on the comforter, silk-soft and smooth.

MINDSPACE by Mel Keegan

95,000 words $9.95 in ebook out now from DreamCraft

Acting Out, by B.K. Wright

Intro:
When Curt meets a man who wants him in his bed as well as in his life, Curt finds himself being led to mysterious places and involved with mysterious and often dangerous men. When Curt learns that this man is definitely not a man he can trust, but is a man who wants him out of the way, Curt is determined to find out why. The answers to this mystery may lie in a young man who knocks on the door of his trailer late one night, a young man who has been watching Curt as he makes his debut as lead actor in a major motion picture. When Curt tries to get close to this young man to find out why he has been watching him, he very quickly discovers that his own life may be in danger. He also begins to wonder if acting is more of a nightmare than a dream.



Excerpt:
Curt fell asleep early that night, but awoke to the sound of tapping on his door. He was up and almost in the shower before he realized it was only 2:00 a.m. and that this was a day he was not needed on the set. So who is tapping on my door, he wondered? Curt opened the door to find a young man of seventeen, maybe eighteen, his eyes wide with fear. “Can I help you?” asked Curt. “Um, I just wanted you to know that I like watching you. I come here every day,” the scared voice said. On any given day Curt would see ten to twenty people watching them rehearse. Some of the actors didn’t like the onlookers, but Curt found that it made him work harder knowing that his performance was being critiqued by the ultimate critics. “Thanks, kid,” Curt replied, but sensed the kid might be troubled. He seemed scared of something or someone. I’ve been researching my character too much, Curt thought. “So, what brings you here in the middle of the night?” “I, um, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and started off. “Hey there, wait,” Curt said, and stepped outside to stop the boy. “Come on in for awhile. You shouldn’t be out in the dark.”

The boy followed Curt inside and stood just inside the door. “Have a seat. Want a soda?” The boy said nothing, but Curt grabbed them both a soda and handed one to the boy. Curt sat beside him, still wondering what on earth he was doing out in the dark alone. “I’m Curt. What’s your name?” Looking down, the young man replied, “My name is Lucas, but I like to be called Luke.” “Well, Luke, welcome to Hollywood,” Curt said with a chuckle as he motioned around the inside of his trailer. They sat in silence for awhile. Luke was tired, and in fact he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “We have the next two days free, so I didn’t want you coming out here for no reason, Luke.” “Thanks. I’d better go.” “No, Luke, it’s okay. Why don’t you stay, okay? What were you starting to tell me at the door?” Luke looked down and spoke so softly that Curt barely heard. “It’s just that you are me. I mean, you are being me and I’m waiting to see what happens to you.”

***

Curt walked into the bar which was very busy, and ordered the drink he had needed for days, and then another. When he was halfway through his second drink, the bartender asked if he had been to the new steam room yet. “No, I haven’t,” Curt answered, a little confused. “Check it out, on the house,” he offered. “It really loosens you up,” he added. Curt was more than curious now. He finished his drink and headed to the steam room.

Curt walked into a room with a very inviting whirlpool with its shooting jets of water making the water bubble. The room was very well decorated and very clean, with a sign that read, “No clothing allowed.” Curt had no problem with that. The water was warm as Curt lowered himself until he was seated in front of one of the jets. The water felt good on his stiff muscles. The roar of the jets and the bubbling water blocked out any intrusive sounds, and were lulling Curt into a very relaxing state. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the side of the pool. In his dreamlike state, Curt did not hear the door open, nor did he hear the man walk in and join him naked in the pool.

***

Curt wondered how often Michael went to the baths, but didn’t really want to know. He liked Michael and wanted to think that Michael liked him too. “Well, we should probably head back. It will be dark soon.” Curt walked beside Michael back to the Village. Michael added, “It’s safe here, but you still need to be careful at night.” Curt just smiled. Even a beautiful place such as this couldn’t afford someone absolute immunity, he thought. “Would you like to see where I live, Curt? It’s the upper story over the eatery.” “I would, Michael, thanks.” I want to know all about you, Michael, he wanted to say, but did not. They left the beautiful park and walked back to Michael’s.

***

It was just after 9:00 p.m. when Curt arrived at the center and was rushed into the director’s office. “We met earlier, Curt. I’m Daniel, the director here at the center.” Curt shook his hand, and Daniel informed him that Luke had been kidnapped. “How could he be? The kids are watched here.” “Curt, it was by someone you know.” Curt could not imagine anyone he knew doing anything such as this. “Who?” “There is a man named Michael who has been working in the Davie Village. The owners of the eatery turned him in.” “He told me he owned the place,” Curt was almost shouting now. “He has lied to many business owners in the Village, Curt, and has misled many. He is a hard worker, and disguises his true motives very well. The owners of the eatery feel horrible about this.” Daniel sat beside Curt and tried to calm him down. “But he lives upstairs from the eatery, right?” “No, Curt, that was also a lie. He has offered a place to stay to more than one of our youths here. He gains their trust, and then tries to return them to their former groups demanding money from them. Sadly, when he tries to return the youths their groups no longer want them, and they once again are rejected. Michael has no need for them, and so will often drop them off somewhere on his way back here. We try to convince the youths to return to the center but as you can understand, many are too confused to feel they can trust anyone.” Curt was fuming. “What happens to them?” “We don’t know, Curt. We are desperately trying to improve our services, but can only do so much. There are so many.”

***

It was quiet tonight and in the stillness, the ringing of Curt’s cell phone sounded like a car alarm. They could see Luke begin to turn his head. Daniel ordered Curt to get down. They were slumped down in the front seat with their faces just inches from each other. Daniel was worried they would lose sight of Luke and Michael. “Does Luke know your ring tone?” “Yes, he does,” confessed Curt. “Stay down, Curt.”

Daniel sat up just enough to focus his lens again on Luke and Michael. He looked around. They were sitting on the ground. Daniel returned to Curt. “They are sitting on the ground. It seems that Luke may have hurt his ankle.” Curt felt even sicker. Then he turned to Daniel. “Luke’s a smart kid, Daniel. Maybe he faked an injury when he heard my phone.” “Thank you, Curt. This is just the break we needed.” Before sitting up, Daniel kissed Curt on the lips as they were slouched together.