Cover and Excerpt Reveal: Save Me by Scarlet Blackwell

So excited to be able to share this beautiful cover and an excerpt of Save Me by Scarlet Blackwell!  This book will be available in e-book format and as part of your Kindle Unlimted subscription on June 1st!

 Blurb:

"The man I see in the mirror now wears nice suits and has an expensive haircut. I like to think he doesn’t look like a whore, but then I never study his eyes too closely. I can’t bear to.

Morgan Martin is a high class rent boy with a dark past. No kissing on the mouth is his cardinal rule and he sticks to it.

Logan Madden is his new client, a man with touch and trust issues, bringing his own past traumas to a bed that’s soon awash with guilt and memories as well as explosive passion.

And he’s a cop. 

Against his better judgment, Morgan takes him on. Things soon become complicated. Rules are made to be broken and soon the two of them are falling deep into something neither of them can control.

I want to ask him to be something he was never supposed to be.

Morgan isn’t free to be with anyone. He’s in thrall to the gangster who runs Moonlight Cove, the man who hurts him and beats him, and demands his utter loyalty. Keeping this from Logan becomes harder and harder until all their lives are shattered by fall out no one could have predicted.

Possible Spoilers:

Themes: hurt/comfort, angst, crime

Genre: Dark, gritty contemporary crime romance

Warnings: Violence and strong language. Sexual scenes. See front of book or author’s social media for more.

Excerpt:

"It’s Tuesday night. I’m sitting in the bar of the Seaview hotel in Moonlight Cove. It’s an upmarket place, expensive, but I know the manager, Michael, and he lets me rent a room by the hour. For favors obviously. I think he’s half in love with me and I try not to encourage him, but what can a man do? 

Tonight, I’m meeting a man named Logan. He found me via my website as most people do these days, now I’ve reinvented myself as high-class after years of hanging around on street corners as the lowest kind of rent boy. My website is tasteful—no naked shots or anything as crass as cock size or prices. 

I’m not choosy about being with men or women. The women are harder to please than the men. I always seem to get the ones who can’t come during penetrative sex. Maybe that’s why they come to me, seeing as my oral skills are legendary. I’ve never sent a woman home without an orgasm and I’ve had ladies crying in gratitude on their way out the door because they’ve never come in their lives before. That’s quite a satisfying part of the job I can tell you.

As for men, well, I like men. I like to get fucked by men, but men are selfish creatures not looking to please the guy they just paid to get them off. And why should they? It’s all about them after all. I’m there to provide the service.

Logan sounded nervous and hesitant on the phone yesterday. At my most professional, I took charge of the situation, telling him I would meet him in the bar at this hotel. I told him we would have a drink, and then go up to the room if that was okay with him. He agreed and then I ran through a list of prices and asked him what he wanted.

He was silent for a long time and then finally he said, in the lowest voice, “I don’t know.”

I formed a mental image of him. Either a married guy in his thirties, or a very young virgin with no sexual experience at all, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was gay. He didn’t sound that young though. Either way, it sounded like a nice easy night for me. Nothing to place too much pressure on me.

“That’s okay,” I reassured him. “Is it likely to be anything not on that list?”

“No.” 

“All right. Then we’ll discuss it in further detail when we meet. What’s your name by the way?”

“Logan.”

“Okay, Logan, I’ll see you on Tuesday. Looking forward to it.” 

I’m sitting at the bar with a vodka, eyeing the door, when a man walks into the room and my glance turns to a stare. Holy fuck. He’s maybe in his late thirties and tall, perhaps six feet two, and all muscle, his biceps straining the smart black shirt he wears. His black hair is pushed back from his pale face with styling products and gleams under the lights. He’s handsome as all holy hell and I can’t take my eyes off him. Neither can some of the other patrons in the bar.

 He pauses and looks around for a moment, and it feels like my heart jumps into my mouth. I really can’t be so lucky, can I?

Then his gaze focuses on me and he starts to walk toward me and, oh my God, my cock actually twitches. No, surely not? Oh my God, yes! Fucking yes!

I swallow, wipe my damp palms on my pants and smile as he reaches me. “Logan?” I try not to stare, try not to let him see how hot I find him.

He nods. His smile is tight, his teeth kept prisoner behind his lips. He holds out a hand. It’s larger than mine and I feel the power of his body in his handshake. I feel arousal too. My cock starts to harden. Fuck. 

He slides onto the stool next to me and stares straight ahead, rather than looking at me.

“What can I get you?” I ask.

“Jack and Coke.” 

“Same again for me.” I gesture to the barkeep with my empty glass. He nods. He’s used to seeing me sitting here with different people every day. He never comments. He starts to pour me another vodka. 

My client’s body is held so stiffly in his seat he must be hurting. The tension radiating from him in palpable.

“Have you come far tonight?” I don’t particularly like the small talk. I don’t want to find out about my client’s life because they will then become real to me and I’d rather they weren’t. I have to keep something of myself apart from this job.

“Laguna,” he says without looking at me.

“Not too far then.” 

The barkeep places our drinks in front of us. Both of us take a gulp at the same time. 

“What do you do for a living?” I don’t give a fuck what he does. I want him upstairs in that room and I want to earn my money and go home. However, with him looking the way he does, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to be too much of a chore. Maybe this talking is a nice form of foreplay.

He glances at me then and his eyes are an odd color, like honey, with tinges of green and amber, fringed with dense lashes. They change color when he turns his head to the light. God, he’s absolutely beautiful. Why the hell does a man like him need to come to a man like me? This kind of client comes once in a lifetime, no pun intended.

“I can’t really tell you that,” he says.

Alarm bells go off in my mind. “If you’re in any kind of law enforcement, you need to turn around and walk back out of here.” My tone is sharp. “I haven’t entered into any kind of contract with you and I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Logan gives a sigh. He folds his hands together on the bar, his knuckles white. “Okay, I’m a cop.” I slide from the stool. He reaches out, grips my wrist. “Don’t. I’m not here to arrest you. When we go up to the room, you can check I’m not wearing a wire and I’m not carrying my badge or my gun.”

I heave a breath, still poised to flee. “This is fucked up.” I grab my drink and down half of it. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

He swallows and turns to look forward again, watching me in the mirror behind the bar.

Realizing he’s not going to answer, I try again. “How can I trust you?” But even as I say the words, I’m thinking of Logan in uniform. To say I have a fetish is an understatement. I’ve been arrested for soliciting a couple of times, and honestly, they were the hottest moments of my life, to be handcuffed and manhandled by a cop. My eyes have probably gone glassy at the memory. I’ve never fucked a cop and I’ve always wanted to.

“How can I trust you?” he replies and our eyes meet. “It works both ways.”

“What’s your full name?” 

“Logan Madden.” 

“And that’s your real name? Logan Madden?”

“Yes.” 

“And you’re on the force in Laguna Beach?” 

“Yes. There. I’m not much of a threat to you now, am I? You could ruin me. Sit down.”

I slide back onto my stool and look at him skeptically. I wonder why he would want to give me so much information. But I feel reassured by his honesty. Sometimes my trouble is I trust people too well. Which is usually when I end up getting really hurt in my line of work. This nervous and apparently shy man could probably snap me in half like a twig. I’m an idiot for even still thinking of seeing this through.

Am I really going to go up that room with him?

I finish my drink and the alcohol swarms through my veins. Too strong and too much. I like to drink, I can’t lie, but I usually restrict it before work. It isn’t professional to attempt to please someone when drunk. However, on the times I only have to lie there and provide a hole, the alcohol is quite welcome. He’s finishing his drink a little slower than me. The silence between us is awkward. 

Am I going to do it? Yes, I fucking am. I want him and I’m going to get paid for the privilege.

____

Whew!  Are you as ready to pre-order Save Me as I am?  You can also add it to your Goodreads TBR