Goddess-Blessed #3
There’s not enough Yuletide spirit in the world to fix this holiday disaster…
Eben Sypeman’s world is falling apart. It’s two days before Yule and his business partner is dead, leaving behind empty accounts and looming bankruptcy. And if that isn’t bad enough, his patron goddess is irritated with him. It seems she’s tired of his tendency to mince words and avoid conflict. She’s insisting—quite forcefully—that he start being totally honest with everyone, including himself. Divinely enforced honesty couldn’t have come at a less opportune time, especially when his clerk’s tall, dark and distractingly handsome son enters the picture.
The last thing on Tim Pratchett’s mind is romance. All the former soldier wants is to fill in for his sick father at work and recover from his war wounds in peace. But there’s something about the grumpy Eben that confounds and entices him in equal measure. Their timing couldn’t be worse. They’re complete opposites. And yet…none of that matters when he’s with Eben.
But if Eben and Tim have any hope of finding their very own happily ever after, they’ll have to survive a dickens of a truth curse and the machinations of a trickster goddess—all while searching for enough yuletide treasure to save them all.
A joyous, relaxing Yule indeed. Bah, humbug.
This is an M/M romance with explicit scenes, a voyeuristic pagan goddess, and an odious nephew. Despite any other possible similarities to A Christmas Carol, there are neither ghosts nor geese, but readers can expect a happy ending and at least one use of the word “dickens.”
Sypeman drew himself up, straightening his spine and lifting his chin. “I don’t think you can be of any assistance to me, Mr. Pratchett. You should —” He stopped abruptly, swallowed hard, and went on with, “I won’t dock your father’s pay. He’ll receive his usual week’s salary on Saturday. Just — just go.”
Timothy frowned down at him, and his fingers flexed around the knob of his cane. Oh, that wouldn’t do at all. It would be plain cruel to leave this sad slip of a man here alone to fret himself to death. “Not until you go too.”
That acted on Sypeman like a red cloak in front of a bull. He popped to his feet, glaring, standing perfectly straight like he was trying to draw himself up to the fullest height he could. The top of his glossy hair came just to Tim’s nose. And that might’ve been all right, except that Tim got a full breath of Sypeman’s scent, some kind of lavender soap, perhaps, and beneath that the faint impression of his skin and body. Tim’s cock gave another little twitch. Bloody hell.
“If you want your father to receive his full pay at the end of this week, you will leave,” Sypeman said slowly and clearly — so much so it’d have been insulting, if Sypeman’s pupils hadn’t been betrayingly huge, like a panicked deer face-to-face with a wolf. “Now. And perhaps I won’t see fit to tell him about your interference.”
And that was too much. He leaned forward, too fast and too far, and Sypeman stumbled back, catching himself with his trembling hands against the edge of the desk. Timothy followed, bending close enough that he could see nothing but Sypeman’s parted lips and wide eyes, and could feel his too-quick breaths against his own face. An inch or two more, and he could have sampled those lips, have seen if they tasted as soft and sweet as they looked.
I’m an editor by day and a romance writer by night, at least on a good day. I’m more of a procrastinator by day and despairing eater of chocolate by night when inspiration doesn’t flow and my day-job clients are driving me to insanity. Go ahead and guess which of these is more common.
My steady childhood diet of pulp science fiction, classic tales of adventure, and romance novels surreptitiously borrowed from my grandmother eventually led me to writing; I picked up my first M/M romance a few years ago and I’ve been enjoying the genre as a reader and an author ever since.
Yuletide Treasure #3
Series
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