The Happy Onion

Love is the journey of a lifetime.

As head chef of The Falls, Asheville’s finest four-star restaurant, Chris Tucker lives by one rule: presentation is everything. That means it’s imperative that he always looks as well-put-together as his complicated recipes.

When it comes to relationships, though, nothing throws a wrinkle in his well-tailored suits quicker than Matt Gallagher.

Matt is the master of his own domain, the Dragon’s Den—the most popular tattoo shop in Asheville. On the outside, his flavor-of-the-month hair color and Prince Albert piercing scream wild child, but on the inside he’s all business. He’s just as serious about his fun, though, and nothing’s more fun than throwing the buttoned-down Chris off his well-ordered game.

Not exactly the pair anyone would expect to become a couple, but sparks fly from their first hello. Yet Chris wonders, as their relationship navigates the rocky path of petty jealousies, sexual experimentation and Matt’s penchant for taking crazy chances, if their love is written in permanent ink, or destined to fall like a failed soufflé.

This book has been previously published.

Warning: Contains something for every palate: a heaping helping of explicit m/m sex, a dash of BDSM, a side of ménage, and a smidgen of voyeurism. Liberally spiced with wicked language. Y’all come!

Watch that first step. It could turn your life upside down.

Fragments, Book 1

Until a fall ended his Olympic diving career, John Andrews lived for the seconds he spent in the air. Now he’s adrift on a college campus, grounded by paralyzing vertigo and double vision. Worse, he sees shimmering colors over everyone’s heads.

The last is hardest to ignore, and impossible when it comes to Mason. While sex with the hot, moody computer major gives John a rush as heady as diving, Mason’s the only person John’s ever seen surrounded by two distinct colors.

Mason feels like a stranger in his own life. His lover is dead, and he drowns his guilt in bourbon and sex—until John’s innocence reawakens the man he used to be. After Mason gives the young virgin a proper introduction to sex, he plans to send him on his way. But John sees too much to make things that easy.

For John, their connection is more than just sizzling sex, it’s something worth fighting for. The more he learns about the colors, though, the more he realizes the free-spirited Mason isn’t free at all. John doesn’t take second place to anyone—even the dead.

A vacation fling. No complications. No connections. And no regrets.

Trauma surgeon Jae Sun Kim has just lost the job he wanted more than anything else in his life. Looking for a way to hit the reset button, he takes a scuba vacation. He didn’t plan on seasickness, or a dive master who is sex-on-the-beach personified.

Shane McCormack’s tendency to drift away from complicated situations has landed him a job as a dive master in Belize, which isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. But with the big three-oh looming, asking his parents to bail him out again isn’t an option. The job isn’t without its perks, though, and as soon as he figures a way to keep that hot but arrogant ass of a doctor from tossing his cookies over the side of the boat, he plans to flirt the control freak out of his brittle shell.

The close quarters on the ship generate more heat than either expects, but a vacation fling is all that’s in the plans. An unexpected adventure leaves them changed in ways that make it impossible to go back to their old lives. The risks they’ll both have to take could leave them with nothing but more scars, or the best souvenir of all.

Love’s the last thing you expect to find in the trash.

A Serving Love story.

Elliot Graham doesn’t make mistakes. So when he ends up serving community service at a recycling plant for inadvertently buying stolen property, he’s certain it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. That is, until he finds tickets to a sold-out concert in the trash, tickets that immediately disappear into the pocket of the hottest—and most exasperating—guy he’s ever met.

Cade McKuen has never been one to follow society’s expectations. That’s why he’s serving time sorting trash for destroying his cheating ex-lover’s car rather than apologize. Finding those tickets is an unexpected bonus to an otherwise smelly sentence. But when cute, sputtering Elliot claims a share, Cade decides community service might be the best thing that’s happened to him all year.

Cade is determined to keep Elliot off balance and tap into the passion he senses is hidden under that buttoned-down exterior. Elliot is fascinated by Cade’s outrageous way of thumbing his nose at the world.

Opposites attract, but can passion be the ticket to something lasting?

When your lover becomes a stranger, trust is the weakest link of all.

Bartender Tony Gemetti has it all: a rich, hot boyfriend, a McMansion in the ’burbs and unlimited sex in an expectation-free zone. He thought that was all he ever wanted out of any relationship—until Jack begins making excuses for frequent disappearances. Realizing he has more than his libido and enough drawers for his T-shirt collection riding on this relationship, Tony figures it’s time to find out what’s going on.

Jack Noble has spent his life hiding his real self behind a carefully created image. With Tony, he finally knows real freedom, real happiness. Now a past of buried secrets and lies is closing in, and no matter how hard he tries to stop it, the truth is tearing through. Once Tony learns what kind of man Jack really is, he won’t stay. Jack’s sure of it.

Suddenly the past shows up in a completely unexpected way, testing the boundaries of their old, coasting-along-on-fun relationship. Tony indeed finds that Jack isn’t the man he went looking for, but it’s too late. There’s too much at stake to just walk away. First, though, he has to make sure there are no lies left for Jack to hide behind.

Warning: Readers should be free of any heart condition that may be affected by a hero with an overactive imagination, painful back stories, and hot sex in a variety of athletic positions. Neither the author nor the publisher is responsible for any sudden or frequent urges to have children with Tony Gemetti.

You never forget your first time.

Cameron Lewis loves his job as an instructor/trainer for a water safety firm that inspects water parks. He gets to travel from March through September, always moving on to something different. When a strange emptiness starts plaguing him, he chalks it up to turning thirty.

He manages to shake off the feeling—until he walks into a classroom and discovers that the eye candy in the front row is actually a very grown up version of his best-friend’s kid brother.

Noah Winthrop never forgot his first time. Scary, painful and then absolutely amazing—and with Cameron, the guy he’d always wanted. He’s had a crush on his brother’s best friend since puberty and now nothing will keep him from finally getting Cameron Lewis to notice him.

Even though Cameron once rejected him, Noah is determined to get it right this time.

An old mystery brought them together. Solving it could tear them apart.

In the best of times, Daniel Gardner hates visiting his family. With his boyfriend pressuring him for a mortgage-serious commitment, Christmas in Easton, PA sounds, for once, like a welcome escape. His old house holds more than memories of a miserable adolescence, though. It has Trey Eriksson.

At seventeen, Trey was taken in by the wealthy Gardner family after his father was jailed for his mother’s murder. Until he left for the Army, he fought a double-edged battle—for proof of his father’s innocence and against his attraction to Daniel.

Fifteen years later, things haven’t changed. Trey is still looking for the real killer. And Daniel has never forgotten how Trey used to sneak into his room at night.

Now new clues to the murder are resurfacing—and so is Trey and Daniel’s sexual chemistry. Except this time, Trey has come to terms with his orientation.

But their connection may not be enough to overcome the mistakes of the past. Not while a murderer still walks free…

It’s a long way back to happily ever after.

Sean and Kyle have enjoyed six perfect years of what their friends called a “disgustingly happy” relationship. But what happens one sunny Tuesday morning in October might be more than even the most loving couple can survive.

When the bell rings that morning in chemistry teacher Sean Farnham’s first-period class, a terrifying sound fills the halls—gunshots. Without considering the consequences, Sean runs to tackle the shooter, sustaining a bullet wound to his leg. Despite his actions, he is unable to save the lives of the principal and two students.

Architect Kyle DeRusso hears about the shooting on the radio, and in the flash of an instant finds his life irrevocably altered. Everything—especially his heart—hangs suspended in a nightmare until he finds out Sean is alive. It doesn’t matter that Sean will be left with a permanent limp. Kyle’s just relieved the worst is over.

Or is it? Putting that day behind them isn’t as simple as it sounds. As Sean struggles to make something positive out of the tragedy, Kyle fights to save their relationship from the dangers of publicity—and Sean’s unwillingness to face how the crisis has changed him.

The ties binding the heart to the past can be the hardest to cut.

More than a year after the car crash that killed his partner and nearly killed him, Paul Gordon thinks it may be time for a new place, new people, a fresh start. He arrives in Willow Bend, South Carolina, with a single bag in one hand and the deed to a house he’s never seen in the other, hoping this will be the perfect place to get on with his life, alone and anonymous.

Between working two jobs and caring for his ailing mother, Cory Saunders is just trying to survive. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence, somehow managing to pay a caregiver, feed himself and keep the rickety house from falling down around them. Barely.

When Paul catches sight of Cory in the diner where Cory works, it’s lust at first sight. And for a while, their intense physical attraction is enough. But as it starts to blossom into something deeper, reality rears its head. Cory has no time for a relationship, and Paul’s not sure he’s ready to give his heart again.

Fate, however, has its own ideas about the best path to healing.

This book has been previously published.

Warning: Healthy servings of m/m lust, salty language, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance.

Jackson knows he needs protection from a stalker, but the last thing he wants is to want his bodyguard.

A Serving Love story.

After receiving several suspicious “gifts”, His Honor Jackson Benedict is assigned an agent for protection. He’d be fine with a bodyguard…if he was anyone but the man who enters his courtroom looking hotter than any man has a right to look. Thank God Jackson’s robe hides his interest.

Trey London is more than happy that Jackson has practically been handed to him on a silver platter. If his job requires he stay close to one of the country’s youngest federal judges, it’s no skin off his back. The closer the better, actually.

But someone else is getting closer, too, and when the gifts turn into attacks, Trey is forced to trade his status of new lover for that of protector. He’s not about to let anyone come between him and his judge.