Today I am so pleased to welcome Tia Fielding to Joyfully Jay. Tia has come to share an exclusive excerpt from Thirteen. Please join me in giving Tia a big welcome!

Excerpt

Mark plopped his empty beer bottle on top of the bar and blurted out. “I’m gonna take a leak.”

He grabbed his jacket and all but fled toward the bathrooms.

Francis said something, but it wasn’t aimed at him, so he continued spurred on by the weird feeling that tried to encapsulate his whole being.

Mark made it into the back corridor, where three restrooms were located. Ladies and gents on the right and an accessible one on the left. He was about to pass the door to the ladies’ when someone grabbed the back of his shirt and steered him left and into the accessible restroom.

His cop brain was ready for an attack on some level, but he already knew who had followed him. When the light flickered on and the door locked behind them, Mark turned to look at Francis.

“This is what you want, right?” Francis asked in a serious tone.

“W-what?”

“Consent, Mark. I need your consent here.”

“Oh,” he said stupidly. “Yeah.”

“Well?” Francis seemed amused now.

The word was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted so, so fucking much. It had been too long. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, but he still let the word drop into the space between them. “Yes.”

“Don’t, for a second, think you’re in charge here.” Francis’s voice changed to a lower register, something that made Mark’s whole body tingle.

“W-why?”

“Because you’re fitter and taller than me, Mark, and I don’t know you.” Francis took Mark’s jacket from his suddenly numb fingers and hung it on the wall with his own coat. Then he approached Mark again. “As soon as I saw you I could tell you were closeted, Mark, and I know what happens sometimes when a closeted guy gets to call the shots.” Something dark flashed in Francis’s eyes then.

“No, no, I would never—” Mark felt horrified at the suggestion that he might be violent.

“Yeah, that’s what they all say, officer.”

“Deputy,” Mark corrected automatically.

“What?”

“I’m a sheriff’s deputy.”

Blurb

Deputy Mark Forrest and Nurse Francis Archer can’t deny the chemistry that arises between them. A chance meeting awakens the idea of something greater than either had ever imagined.

Mark craves being able to let go, and Francis loves to take him out of his head. But Mark’s past bears a truckload of personal demons that have kept him in the closet and made him lash out at the LGBTQ community in the town he’s come to regard as home.

Despite finding love and a new purpose in Acker, Francis’s new job might end up being temporary, and he doesn’t want to lose the life he’s settled into. Can the two of them build a future together despite a bitter past, and diverging paths?

Trigger Warning: Abusive, homophobic, and racist language, light D/s, homophobia, vague descriptions of domestic violence and sexual abuse.