Sunday, October 8, 2023
👻🎃Sunday's Safe Word Shelf🎃👻: Branded by Flames by Sean Michael
The Dragon Soul #1
Introducing a brand-new male/male dragon shifter series from bestselling LGBTQ author Sean Michael!
Meet the Beteferoce brothers. Five dragon shifters, each with a strong elemental power. And each with a fierce desire to find his soul mate…
For years, dragon-shifter-slash-firefighter Jake has been searching for his mate, but he's beginning to tire of the search. Maybe soul mates are only for the lucky few.
Then he meets Shae.
A former navy welder, Shae is handsome, talented, into power play and rough sex, and covered in dragon tattoos. All of this suits the shape-shifting dragon just fine—until he finds out that Shae literally has Jake's family crest already tattooed on him. A coincidence? Or something more…
Jake must convince Shae to trust him as a man and as a Dom before the heat between them burns out of control. Becoming a dragon's mate is not without danger, and Shae will need Jake's guidance and love if he's going to make it through alive.
This book is approximately 76,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise!
Chapter One
“For fuck’s sake, man. If you set my yard on fire, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
Shae pulled his welder’s mask up. “Go away. I’m working.” He didn’t really expect that to get Bryan moving, though, so he turned off the torch. “And if you raked the fucking leaves more than once a year it wouldn’t be a goddamned problem.” He steadied himself on the ladder and shot his neighbor a look. Couldn’t Bryan see he was attaching wings here? It was a delicate fucking process. “Besides, I haven’t set a real fire in, uh...ages.”
Bryan stared up at him, hands on his hips. It would have been a more effective look if Bryan hadn’t needed a haircut so badly. “Uh. Two months ago. Rosebush. And you can shove your opinions about the state of my lawn up your ass.”
Shae briefly contemplated lighting the torch again and setting the overlong hair on fire. It would take only a spark or two. This was the problem with having a best friend as his neighbor. He couldn’t get away with anything. “That wasn’t a real fire—more a singeing. Those don’t count.” Besides, you couldn’t weld without at least a little fire. Not to mention he was working on a dragon. They demanded fire. It was a thing.
“I’m serious, asshole. I will single-handedly beat you to death if you’re not careful. Someone could get hurt.”
Like it wouldn’t hurt, getting beaten to death. “Yeah, yeah. I’m busy. On deadline. Shoo.” On deadline and this dragon was being pushy, demanding his attention, insisting he get it done now. He’d barely slept in the last three days. The need to bring the dragon to life was riding him like an addiction.
“Deadline? I thought you were an artist. You artsy-fartsy types don’t do deadlines.” Now Bryan was stalling. Douche bag.
“Artists have deadlines, unlike shitty mechanic deadbeats.” He pulled down his welder’s mask and laid down another line of weld, making sure to cover Bryan with a shower of sparks. He was busy. Working. Making magic out of metal, for fuck’s sake.
Bryan jumped back. “Hey! Asshole! Don’t make me call the fire department.”
Like he had time for a visit from the fire department. Good thing he didn’t believe Bryan was really here for more than just conversation and possibly hoping Shae would have time for a beer while they watched the game on Shae’s brand-new sixty-inch curved TV. “You’re jealous because you don’t have a big torch like mine.” He was building a twelve-foot-tall dragon out of scrap for a ren faire outside Toronto. It rocked the fucking world, if he did say so himself, with its fierce face, its ginormous wings and about five zillion scales.
“My torch is plenty big, thank you very much.” Bryan flipped him off. “I’ll be back after the game with a couple beers.”
“Sounds good. I got a couple steaks, huh?” He could handle a nice red meat injection. And hopefully he’d be done by nightfall. Even if he wasn’t, he’d worked well into the night last night and wasn’t sure he could safely keep going much past suppertime today.
“Perfect. We can roast them on that giant barbecue you’re building.” Bryan cackled and headed back inside his house.
Shae patted the dragon on its mostly welded head. He needed to finish welding on the ruffles. He’d sand them to different textures later. The important thing was getting everything set in place. “Don’t listen to the asshole. He wouldn’t know art if you walked up and bit him in the ass.”
Shae started chuckling softly, as he imagined his dragon biting Bry’s round ass. They’d fucked a couple times, but man, the chemistry was non-fucking-existent and they worked much better as friends. That didn’t mean he couldn’t admire the view as Bryan sashayed his way back to his place.
He shook himself out of his woolgathering. The last thing he needed was to wind up at the ER for self-inflicted burns. They gave out Darwin awards for shit like that. It was easy enough to sink back into the work, to let the dragon-building take him over.
He added scales after he finished with the ruffles. They were going to shine like crazy when he’d polished them. He turned the music up in his headphones, the driving industrial beat the perfect accompaniment to his need to get the dragon finished. It was funny, though. He didn’t remember sirens in this song. Or flashing lights.
He looked up, lifting his mask, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Jesus Christ there was a fucking fire truck in front of his place and two fully dressed firefighters coming his way.
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Hey, guys.” He waved and turned off the torch, biting back the swear words that wanted out. He had a fucking permit and he was goddamned busy. The last thing he needed was yet another interruption.
The taller of the two nodded to him. “Afternoon, sir.”
“Howdy. Let me guess, new neighbors?” Because Shae knew damn well that Bryan wouldn’t call, no matter what he’d said.
“We had a call...” The guy checked out the dragon behind Shae, really looking it over.
Shae watched, scoping the guy out just as closely. There were amazing muscles beneath the heavy gear, and Shae hadn’t seen a face that square and good-looking in quite a while. The guy ran a hand along the dragon’s flank, stroking it like it was real. Shae had to preen at that. He had to.
The firefighter finally turned his attention back to Shae. “We’ll have to see your permit.”
Shae sighed. As soon as he’d seen the fire engine, he’d known this was coming. He hoped they didn’t take any more of his time than they had to, hunky dudes or not. “Just a sec.” He shimmied down the ladder and turned the gas off. “Come on, guys. Into the studio, otherwise known as the garage.”
“You got this, Jake?” the second firefighter asked.
“Yep. You go ahead and talk to the folks who called it in.”
“On it.”
Jake the firefighter turned back to him. The man had green eyes. Like the leaves in spring, just out of the bud. “Lead on.”
“You got it.” Shae pondered storming to the neighbor’s house and educating them about the value of talking to your neighbor before jumping to conclusions, but really, that would make it longer before he could get back to work, and even with the distraction of the hot body in front of him, his fingers itched to be working. “You must be new, too.”
“Transferred in from Guelph. I take it this is a regular thing?” Jake looked around, clearly curious, interested.
“Used to be. Hasn’t been in a long time, though. Five years, give or take?” He’d finally trained everyone in the neighborhood not to panic over a little welding. Or else they’d gotten tired of fruitlessly calling him in.
“Yeah? Why’d you give it up?” Jake lounged against a counter, filling the space. Staring at him, the look almost a physical touch.
“Give what up?” It had been the neighbors who got used to the smoke, the flame, the smell of burning, who’d come to learn he had a permit and wasn’t doing anything illegal.
“Making art. You said it used to be a regular...” Jake laughed, the sound sliding along Shae’s spine. “I got the wrong end of the stick, didn’t I? You meant we haven’t had to come out here in that time.”
“Ah. Yes. That’s exactly what I meant.” He bent over to dig through his file cabinet, searching for the permit.
Jake made a weird noise, something between a cough and a groan.
“You okay, man?” He found it and pulled the folder out, offering it over.
Okay, firemen were hot, no matter where they were.
“Yeah. Just a tickle in my throat.” Jake stepped in closer than was necessary to take the permit from him, seeming to tower over him. And looking at him instead of the permit. At him. This hot, young firefighter. Fuck him raw. And also yum.
Jake finally examined Shae’s permit. “Looks good, man.” Jake took another half step closer and reached past him to put the permit on his workbench. Looking right at him, Jake smiled. “Sorry we bothered you.”
Shae had to swallow twice before he could reply. “No worries. Really. I needed to take a break anyway.” He took a good look, because damn. Stacked to the ceiling, broad shouldered and fine—jack-off material for miles. Of course he would totally tap that. Unless he was reading the signs wrong, all he had to do was say something. And if he was wrong? At least the guy was almost done and his embarrassment would last only a short while.
“I’ve got to get back to the truck.” Jake straightened, looking around. “I’d love to come back and check out more of your art after shift, though. The piece out on the lawn is incredible.”
That’s right. This hot young stud was so into his artwork that Jake wanted to come back and see more. He walked a little taller, knowing that Jake was looking for a reason to sniff around.
“Sure, man. I’m here all night.” Wait, that sounded pervy as hell, didn’t it?
Jake smiled, and the look went straight to Shae’s balls, like they needed another reason to tighten up and ache. “I’ll be back.”
“That’s what they all say.” Oh yeah. Fantasies for days. With him and Jake in the starring roles. Who would have thought it?
“You think I won’t be?” Jake grinned, but the look in his eyes was intense. “I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“Sure you do. All guys do.” Shae knew damn well people said shit that wasn’t true all the time. To you and about you.
Jake straightened and flexed for him, and even in the full gear, that was a fucking sexy thing. “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong guys.”
“Have I now?” He chuckled softly and caught himself licking his lips, indulging in a little daydream of sucking a well-hung cock, one of those hands in his hair. It had been too long since anyone had been able to handle him that he’d given up thinking anybody would again. In the end, he could always trust himself to get the job done.
“If I’m the first guy you know who tells the truth? Then yeah, you have.” Jake looked him up and down. “We can talk more about that later this evening when I come back.”
So Jake really was going to come over? He’d believe it when it happened. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t encourage Jake, tilt the scales in his favor. “Works for me, man. I’ll be the one with the beer in the backyard.” And if everything Jake said made him want to roll over onto his back and pant like a dog, well, that could be his little secret.
“I like mine cold. The beer that is—I take my men hot.” Jake gave him another look, before he turned and sauntered out.
Shae leaned over, watching that hot ass go the entire length of the house and then the walkway. “Mmm-mmm. Tasty goodness.”
Not that this guy was going to tap him. Not on the first night and maybe not ever. He needed a certain kind of man with a lot of patience and a shitload of control to get him off. Someone who wasn’t a younger Dom. He’d done younger Dom—been there, done that and decided not to pay for the T-shirt. Still, he could pretend he was getting laid by Mr. Hot-As-Fuck-Firefighter, right?
The flashing lights turned off, and the truck slowly trundled down the street, taking the burning-hot firefighter with it.
Focus for work entirely broken, Shae went to get his equipment stored and cleaned up. He didn’t know if Mr. Hottie would be back, but if Jake showed, Shae wanted to be ready.
Sunday Safe Word
Best-selling author Sean Michael is a maple leaf–loving Canadian who spends hours hiding out in used book stores. With far more ideas than time, Sean keeps several documents open at all times. From romance to fantasy, paranormal and sci-fi, Sean is limited only by the need for sleep—and the periodic Beaver Tail.
Sean fantasizes about one day retiring on a secluded island populated entirely by horseshoe crabs after inventing a brain-to-computer dictation system. Until then, Sean will continue to write the old-fashioned way.
Sean’s available for interviews, by the way. He can always be talked into, well, talking about himself. Just drop him an email.
Branded by Flames #1
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
B&N / CARINA / GOODREADS TBR
Series
KOBO / iTUNES / GOOGLE PLAY
B&N / CARINA / GOODREADS TBR
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