Title: Irresistible
Author: Andrew J. Peters
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: August 13, 2018
Heat Level: 2 - Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 79100
Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, humorous, romantic comedy, rich man/poor man, action/adventure, abduction/kidnapping, criminals, Greece
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Synopsis
Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss is an Ivy
League-educated trust-funder who Gotham Magazine named the most eligible gay
bachelor in New York City. He lives for finding his soulmate, but after walking
in on his boyfriend of three transcendent months soaping up in the shower with
an older female publicist, he’s on a steady diet of scotch, benzodiazepines,
and compulsive yoga. Men are completely off the menu.
Callisthenes Panagopoulos has a problem
most guys dream of. With the body and face of a European soccer heartthrob, the
vigorous blond hair of a Mormon missionary, and a smile that makes traffic cops
stuff their ticket books back in their utility belts, he’s irresistible to
everyone. But being a constant guy-magnet comes with its discontents, like an
ex-boyfriend who tried to drive his Smart car through Cal’s front door. It
makes him wonder if he’s been cursed when it comes to love.
When Brendan and Cal meet, the
attraction is meteoric, and they go from date to mates at the speed of
time-lapse photography. But to stay together, they’ll have to overcome Cal’s
jealous BFF, Romanian mobsters, hermit widowers, and a dictatorship on the
brink of revolution during a dream wedding in the Greek isles that becomes a
madcap odyssey.
A gay romantic comedy of errors based on
Chariton’s Callirhoe, the world’s oldest extant romance novel.
Excerpt
Irresistible
Andrew J. Peters © 2018
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
Brendan Thackeray-Prentiss was not
interested in finding a boyfriend.
He reminded himself of this whenever he
passed by an attractive young man on the Upper East Side streets, or when this
or that friend took to social media to proclaim a change in their relationship
status, or when he clicked through an especially earnest e-mail driving for
donations to help gay couples maintain their legal status in the Deep South
Bible Belt, and most of all when people asked him, “How is it possible the most
eligible gay bachelor in New York City is still single?”
Brendan had made a vow, and it had
received the endorsement of his therapist, Dr. Clotilde Trapp. He was taking
time off from sex and dating in order to clear his head, and to renew, and to
rise up from the ashes like a phoenix, if he wanted to be dramatic about it,
which he truly had earned the right to be.
Thiago, a model and an erstwhile
compulsory homosexual, had thoroughly shattered Brendan’s belief he knew
anything about love. After three full months of practically living
together—including traveling together to St. Barts for the most
we-belong-together weekend ever experienced by two sexually attracted,
socially, intellectually, politically and morally compatible people in the
universe—the fantasy had dissolved to black and been unveiled as a waking
terror when Brendan returned to his apartment one afternoon and walked in on
Thiago and a fortysomething, obscenely nippled fashion publicist in the shower.
Thiago’s only words— “You can join us if you want.”
Brendan was on a detox from the gays
(and those who styled themselves as “gay-adjacent”) for at least thirty days.
His hookup and dating media had been deactivated. His libido had been
psychically stowed up in bubble wrap and locked away in storage. No flirting
with the coffee shop barista when he purchased his daily macchiato. Eyes on his
own business in the locker room at the tennis and racquet club. No “what-if”
conversations with himself about a new guy in the neighborhood who kept the
same schedule for picking up his groceries. Brendan was entirely committed to
an asexual lifestyle, drawing on the same well of discipline that had seen him
through his presummer purge of sugar, bread, and alcohol.
That was until he opened the tinkling
bell door of The Golden Fleece Antiques and Curio Shop on Lexington Avenue, and
a young man at the cashier’s desk looked up at him with the buoyancy of a
hand-raised golden retriever.
“Hi!” the clerk said.
He had a preternaturally handsome face
of Mediterranean origins and the vigorous, cherubic hair of a Mormon
missionary. He wore a teal, graphic T-shirt, which augmented the stunning
aquamarine color of his eyes. The T-shirt rode up his upper arms, which were
well defined like an Olympic diver or a god of Mount Olympus for that matter.
The shirt was emblazoned with a triple-scoop ice cream cone and a question:
“Want a lick?”
Brendan’s mouth hung open. He couldn’t
produce a word or even budge. Helpfully, the shop clerk didn’t act like he was
a mentally impaired patient run free of his caretakers.
“Sorry to startle you. I guess I overdid
it with the welcome. I haven’t had a customer all morning. Take a look around
and don’t mind me. Or go ahead and mind me if you need any help.”
Brendan smiled, nodded, and took a
stumbling step toward the nearest display of bric-a-brac.
The shop felt like a cage in which he’d
been ensnared. Brendan tried to fix his attention on the chintz teacup sets and
art deco tumblers, but his awareness of the clerk was too much. Was he supposed
to pretend he wasn’t sharing the same space with the most deathly adorable
creature he had ever seen in his entire life? Brendan’s heartbeat accelerated
to the range of near cardiac arrest, and he was reasonably sure he was sweating
through the armpits of his burgundy gingham shirt.
He drifted discreetly behind a shelf of
African fetishes to consider his options. He could make a sprint for the door
and fast-track down the street, never to step within ten blocks of the shop,
praying to never run into the clerk again. The alternative was to have to face
that otherworldly, beautiful man as a garbling, awestruck lunatic.
Brendan clamped down on his panic. He
was twenty-eight years old, far removed from his scarring teenage years at
boarding school, charting out routes through campus to avoid running into his
torturous crush—Jacob Chandler, captain of the lacrosse team, who used to punch
his shoulder and call him “Brendawg,” which sent him into a withering,
red-faced fits of aphasia. Brendan now held his own with men. He had no reason
to feel inferior. He kept his body in shape. He wasn’t too modest to
acknowledge his WASPy good looks claimed attention at times. Gotham Magazine
had named him the most eligible gay bachelor of 2018.
For all he knew, the clerk was one of
those oblivious heterosexual types who didn’t notice when other men took an
interest in them. It made no difference anyway. Brendan had sworn off sex and
dating. Even if the clerk was amused or offended by his shrinking, girlish
behavior, they were nothing but passing strangers.
A reasonable plan came together. Brendan
would grab the first thing in reach, pay for it at the counter, and exit the
store with the dignity of having conducted himself like a normal customer.
“Looking for anything in particular?”
Brendan seized up like a jailbird caught
in searchlights. That friendly, innocent voice. A hint of a lazy, Upstate
accent? A cool wash of awareness passed over Brendan. Was he really plotting
schemes to rush out on a stranger whose shop he’d entered quite willfully?
Brendan came around the shelf, holding it together for the moment.
“My grandmother’s birthday,” he said.
“She collects cameos. I’ve been buying them for her since I was a kid.” Brendan
tried something breezy. “I saw the name of your store and thought I might be in
luck.”
The clerk set down a leather-bound book
he’d been reading. “We’re Greek, but we don’t have any cameos that old. I mean,
the store’s Greek. My uncle owns it. My great-uncle actually. I’m only half
Greek. The other side’s Polish and German. But we do have some Victorian cameos
in the cabinet.” He stood up from his chair and waved Brendan over to a
glass-enclosed jewelry case.
Ornamental pins and pendants swam in
Brendan’s vision. His gaze bobbed stubbornly up to the clerk on the other side
of the cabinet. He was as adorable as a puppy. Barely out of college, Brendan
guessed. Was he a cuddly puppy in bed? Christ. Brendan’s imagination had burst
free from its hinges, and he couldn’t stop himself from stealing glances at the
clerk. His pectorals filling out his T-shirt. The golden hairs on his
anatomically perfect forearms. The flecks of sun on his long, broad nose. His
supple, berry-brown lips. “Want a lick?” Yes, please. At the crook of the
clerk’s neck, and his armpit, and his nipples, and every blessed place between
his legs. A smoldering image blew up in Brendan’s mind’s eye. The clerk’s mouth
opening wide to swathe his tongue around a triple-scoop ice cream cone.
“I’ll show you what we’ve got.”
Brendan buried his gaze in the floor
while the clerk unlocked the cabinet. A blush seared his face. He felt like a
pervert and never more happily so.
The clerk brought out a double cameo
silver hair comb and two cameo brooches and set them neatly on the glass
counter. Brendan awakened to the world of the antique shop. Grandmum’s
birthday. Focus Brendan. He looked over the jewelry. A gold-framed brooch with
a cherub carved on its oval plaque caught his eye. His grandmother had an
extensive collection of ladies’ silhouettes. The cherub was special.
“I like that one too,” the clerk said,
looking from the brooch to Brendan with a grin.
“It’s gorgeous,” Brendan said.
“Is your grandmother romantic?”
Brendan smirked. “I suppose. She’s been
married three times.”
“It’s Eros. The god of love. That’s why
I asked.”
Was there a defensive tone in the
clerk’s voice? Had Brendan been too brusque? The thought of hurting his
feelings shamed him. “It’s really exceptional,” he said.
“She’s lucky to have a grandson like
you.”
Brendan shifted this way and that like a
bashful boy.
“I mean, a lot of people, when their
grandparents get old, they hardly pay any attention to them at all.” The clerk
said it like he was sharing shocking news from an investigative report. So
sweet and unpretentious. Brendan’s insides turned to goo.
He came back together. “Oh. My
grandmother and I are very close. She practically raised me. I’m closer to her
than my mother and father.”
Their glances met for a breath and then
darted away.
“You know, you’re a really sweet guy,”
the clerk said.
Brendan ventured a glance at him. “You
barely know me.”
“I think you are. I mean, how many guys
take off from work in the middle of the day to buy birthday presents for their
grandmother?” The clerk tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and
rocked back on his heels. His face darkened, and he looked askance with a
self-reproachful snigger. “I shouldn’t have said that. Probably made you
uncomfortable. Never mind me. I’m always going on too much, talking to the
customers.”
Brendan shook his head. “I don’t mind at
all.”
“So what’ll it be? Is that the one?” he
asked, giving Brendan a playful shrug of his blond eyebrows.
“Definitely.”
The clerk grinned. “I’ll get it wrapped
up for you.”
Brendan followed him to the cashier
counter, where he brought out tissue paper and cellophane tape. With the
impending termination of their transaction, a sorrowful ache worked through
Brendan. His glance pivoted around. It was only lust. In which he was not
permitted to indulge. But what if the clerk was “the one” he was meant to be
with? What if fate had conspired to introduce him to his soul mate while he’d
marked off a blackout period in his dating life? He had to take these things
into consideration.
He noticed the leather-bound journal on
the counter. Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud. The clerk was reading love poems
by the most notorious, iconic homosexual who had ever lived? This was
encouraging.
“You like Rimbaud?” Brendan asked.
The clerk looked up from his wrapping.
“Yeah. I thought I’d try to read his work in the original French this summer.”
“I minored in French literature,”
Brendan blurted out.
This earned him a smile of gleaming,
white teeth. “I was a classical studies major.”
“I minored in that too.” Brendan tried
to explain without sounding pretentious or mentally unbalanced. “I was an
English major, but I couldn’t really decide what I wanted to do. I ended up
triple minoring in French lit, classical studies, and art history. With a
certificate in dramaturgy.”
“That’s amazing. What do you do now?”
“Um, my family has a business. It’s not
anything related to my degree.”
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Meet the Author
Andrew J. Peters has been writing fiction since his elementary school principal let him read excerpts from his mystery novel over the PA system during lunch period, an early brush with notoriety, which quite possibly may have been the height of his literary celebrity. Since then, he has studied to be a veterinarian, worked as a social worker for LGBTQ youth, and settled into university administration, while keeping late hours at his home computer writing stories. He is the author of eight books, including the award-winning The City of Seven Gods (2017 Best Horror/Fantasy Novel at the Silver Falchion awards) and the popular Werecat series (2016 Romance Reviews Readers’ Choice awards finalist). Andrew lives in New York City with his husband Genaro and their cat Chloë. When he’s not writing, he enjoys travelling, Broadway shows, movies, and thinking up ways to subvert heteronormative narratives.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest
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