Hearts and Flour
by Tara Lain
Blurb:
Can a raw food enthusiast find love with a guy who bakes cupcakes?
When Micah Truveen’s devoted health-food customers start showing up with white flour, Micah wants to chew nails! To make his misery worse, he finds his yoga teacher boyfriend in bed with another guy the day before Valentine’s Day. Micah decides to drown his misery at a friend’s anti-Valentine’s Day orgiastic hookup party—and meets the beautiful Queen, a gorgeous cross-dresser who’s got Southern sugah in his mouth and the right equipment under the dress. But when the hookup turns serious, Micah has to compromise to protect Queen’s secrets from his beloved grandmother. With everything against them, can two hearts rise above the flour?
Second Edition
First Edition published by Etopia Press, January 2013.
Available for purchase at
Excerpts
Micah
stashed his bike in the shed behind the house. He couldn’t stop chuckling.
Dharmaram would be so happy. Micah fingered the wrapped box in his pocket. The
bracelet that rested inside was pure gold and engraved with abstract shapes the
salesman had told Micah were dolphins. That sold him, of course. It cost a
bundle, but he didn’t care. He loved it. The look on Dharmaram’s face when
Micah gave it to him tomorrow would be worth twice the price. He knew it.
At least
he was home early tonight, so maybe they could watch a little TV and snuggle.
Tomorrow Micah would start prep on the meal in the early afternoon. He wanted
to blow it out. Candles and flowers. Good china and silver. Well, he didn’t
really have good stuff, but he’d bought a new deep pink tablecloth that would
set off his plain white plates and make them special.
He fit
his key in the lock and stepped into the kitchen. Funny, the lights were off.
Dharmaram usually turned on every light in the house when he got home. Maybe
he’d had an extra class to teach this afternoon and hadn’t thought to mention
it.
“Merwaor.”
Micah
paused and let Furtwangler step onto his shoulder from the top of the
refrigerator. He scratched the cat’s chin. “Hi, guy. How you feeling?” Like the
glacier for which he was named, at seventeen Furtwangler was slowly
disappearing. One of the only good things to come out of Micah’s time with his
mother, Furtwangler was still a great cat.
Micah
turned on the light and slipped his shoes onto the shoe rack. He pulled the
package from his pocket. “Where shall I put this so that our nosy roommate
won’t find it, guy? What do you think?”
“Merwaor.”
Micah
glanced up at the high glass-front cabinets in the kitchen. Good thought.
Dharmaram hated to cook, so if he was left alone he’d never open a cabinet.
Just graze in the refrigerator on whatever Micah had left for him.
Holding
on to Furtwangler with one hand, Micah stood on tiptoe and opened the top door.
He slid the present behind the teapot he used for herb infusions. He really
wanted to give the bracelet to Dharmaram tonight, but he’d force himself to
wait. It would be more special tomorrow.
He walked
through the dark dining room into the living room. No lights. He turned on a
low TV-viewing light. “Stay here, guy. We’ll watch some TV, okay?”
The cat
slithered off his shoulder to the comfortable, cotton-velour-covered couch, and
Micah headed down the hall to the bedroom.
“Umpf.”
Micah stopped. “Ohhhhh.” Shit, was that Dharmaram? Had he hurt himself doing
his damned backward-bending pose again? He took two more steps.
“Oh, oh,
oh!”
What was wrong?
Micah ran the last seven steps and threw open the bedroom door in time to see a
large bare ass in the air and a very big dick shoving its way into the pink
butthole of the guy Micah had just spent five hundred dollars on.
He pushed
through the swinging kitchen door and found a couple of caterers laughing and
gossiping quietly in a corner. Bet they had something to talk about. And there,
back to him by the sink, was the woman.
As he
looked at her now, Micah realized there was no way she could be a caterer,
unless she owned the company. The red dress was silk and those four-inch
stilettos would have paid his mortgage for a month. She wasn’t real tall. Even
with the shoes, he guessed she’d be a little shorter than his six feet. Very
slim with just a slight rounding at her hips, strong, lean legs, and willowy
arms in the long sleeves. A mane of golden hair fell over her shoulders. The
color looked real but well tended, like it cost a bundle to keep that silken
shine.
Why the
hell was he staring at her? Unlike his erstwhile boyfriend, he had no interest
in women in any sexual or romantic sense. Never had. But what was she doing
here?
She
filled a glass from a spigot of filtered water.
Her head
went back, so he assumed she was drinking. Suddenly she turned toward him, and
he was staring into brilliant blue eyes. “Did you want some water too?”
Her voice
was soft and low. A lilt suggested moonlight and magnolias.
“Uh,
sure. Yes. I’d like some.”
She
reached into a cabinet like she owned the place, pulled out a glass, and filled
it from the spigot. Micah watched the play of muscles across the low back of
her dress. Then she turned with the water glass extended. Man, what a beauty.
Delicate, sculptured features—wide eyes, soft lips, a pointed chin—all
surrounded by the velvet blanket of smooth gold hair.
Micah
stared and… stared. Beautiful face.
Beautiful Adam’s apple.
“You’re a
guy.”
She… uh…
he smiled. “Of course. Why else would I be here, sugah?” The “why” sounded like
“wha” and the “I” like “ah.”
Micah
grinned. “Excellent question. You’re quite convincing as a woman. And very
beautiful.” Jesus, his body didn’t care what the guy was. Total turn-on. Who
knew he’d get excited over a cross-dresser?
“Thank
you, kind sir. So are you.”
Micah
stuck out his hand. “I’m Micah.”
He took
it. His skin was so soft Micah could barely feel it except for the warmth that
flowed straight to his balls. He smiled. “I’m called Queen.”
“But
you’re not a queen, are you? I mean, a drag queen?”
He
smiled. Hell, it was practically demure. “No. Just a man who likes to wear
women’s clothes sometimes.”
Micah was
out of his depth here, but he felt willing to drown. “Like a transvestite?”
Queen
sipped his water. “I prefer to avoid labels. I only get the chance to dress up
occasionally. I’m perfectly happy in men’s clothes as well.”
Micah
smiled. “It’s confusing.”
Queen
looked up through his lashes, which were darker than his hair. “How so?”
“I’m not
usually attracted to women.”
“Ah, but I’m not
a woman.”
About the Author
Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 32. Her best-selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Paranormal Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soul-mate husband and her soul-mate dog near the sea in California where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”!
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