Today I am so pleased to welcome Lisa Henry to Joyfully Jay. Lisa has come to talk to us about her latest release, Only for Ollie. She has also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

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Excerpt

It surprised him how easy it was to talk to Ollie, even when he was facedown on the table and Ollie was digging his fingers painfully into his left thigh. Xander grimaced through that and then caught himself listening as Ollie went off on a tangent about some juice bar on Front Street that had charged him two dollars extra for a shot of protein powder he hadn’t even asked for.

“Of course you didn’t. You don’t look like a protein powder kind of guy,” he said, and Ollie retaliated by digging an elbow into his back and pushing all his breath out of him. He had just enough left to wheeze out a laugh. “Hey!”

“Just showing you how scrawny I really am.”

He grinned at Ollie’s cheeky tone.

“You should watch out,” Ollie continued. “The juice thing happened months ago, but I’m still holding a grudge. I’m a very spiteful person.”

“So what you’re saying is that in a few years, out of nowhere, you’ll come up and jam an elbow in me again?”

Ollie laughed, patting him on the back before starting to work on his shoulders and neck. “When you least expect it, sure.”

Xander relaxed into his touch.

“It’s weird, coming back to someplace you grew up in as an adult,” he said at last. “Like, there have always been juice bars and massage places and other hippie-dippy shit here—it’s California—but I never really noticed that as a kid. Me and my brother used to roam the foothills a lot, you know? We’d go up to Two Trees a bunch, though fuck knows why. There’s nothing there. Maybe because it’s private property and we wanted to be bad seeds.”

“Um, massage is not hippie-dippy shit,” Ollie said. “That’ll get you another elbow if you’re not careful.” He dug a thumb into his shoulder, releasing a tense knot there. “And come on, you expect me to believe the worst thing you ever did was trespass?”

“When we were kids,” Xander protested. “Like nine or ten. It was totally rebellious.”

“Such a bad seed,” Ollie said with a laugh and swept his palms along Xander’s shoulders.

The oil was warm and smelled good. It tingled as it settled into Xander’s skin, or maybe that was nothing to do with the oil at all, and just from being touched. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been touched in this way. He was no stranger to massages, but they hadn’t always felt this…gentle was the wrong word, since Ollie could bruise a diamond if he put his mind to it, but solicitous? Ollie’s touch was more careful than he was used to from massages—the team massage therapists at Allard were rough as shit, in all the best ways, but his body couldn’t take rough right now, and he was glad because that meant he got this instead: slow, smooth sweeping touches, precise and careful. It felt nice to be cared for like this, to have someone take their time with him.

He closed his eyes, the light reflecting off the pool bright enough to paint patterns on the backs of his eyelids. Ripples and endless receding shapes, as rhythmic as the faint slap of water against the sides of the pool, and Ollie’s perfect touch, which gentled again as he worked the back of his neck. Ollie’s thumbs pushed up to the ridges of bone behind his ears, and he groaned at the sensation. It felt more intimate than when Ollie dug his fingers into his glutes, and it brought him out in goose bumps. Felt so fucking good.

Ollie hummed, as though he was pleased, and then fell silent. His touch was as strong and sure as always, and Xander didn’t even care if he was getting massage oil in his hair. He’d worry about it later.

Ollie ran his thumbs behind his ears again, his fingertips coming down to graze the edge of his jaw, scraping against his stubble. Goose bumps prickled Xander’s skin again, and heat pooled in his stomach and then shifted lower, suddenly molten and heavy in his balls. His dick twitched, and he jolted slightly, opening his eyes to stare at the tiles under the table.

“Okay?” Ollie asked softly, his thumbs making another sweep of the ridge of bone behind Xander’s ears.

“Yeah,” he managed to push out. He curled his fingers and tried not to feel his dick pressing into the table underneath him. He wanted to lift himself up to take the pressure off it, but the movement would draw Ollie’s attention, and he would immediately know what was going on.

“You got tense all of a sudden.”

That was one way of putting it.


Blurb

only for ollie coverStar Crossed, Book 3

Xander Finch is a top-ranked MotoGP rider, desperate to get back to the circuit after an injury. He’s going stir-crazy in his parents’ house in Ventura while he works on his recovery. Xander has tunnel vision when it comes to his sport—it’s all he’s ever wanted to do in life. When he hires a massage therapist to help speed up his recovery, he’s not expecting the guy to completely flip his universe on its head.

Ollie Baker is living in his car after a disastrous break-up, and jumps at the chance to earn some extra cash through massage. Xander Finch might be hot as hell, but Ollie’s not going there. He’s never going to let some rich guy screw him over again. Besides, Xander’s straight. Isn’t he?

When their friendship deepens into something more, Xander discovers that Ollie makes him feel a way that nobody ever has before, and maybe motorbikes aren’t his only passion after all. Navigating Xander’s newly discovered demisexuality isn’t the only challenge they’ll have to face if they’re going to be together, because Ollie’s been burned before. It’s hard for him to trust Xander, to believe that he’s really willing to make room in his life for Ollie as well as his racing—assuming he recovers enough to race at all.

Only for Ollie is the third book in the Star Crossed series, where regular guys meet famous ones, and sparks fly.


Bio

lisa henry avatarLisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters.

Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape.

She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly.

She shares her house with too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up.

Lisa has been published since 2012, and was a LAMBDA finalist for her quirky, awkward coming-of-age romance Adulting 101, and a Rainbow Awards finalist for 2019’s Anhaga.

To connect with Lisa on social media, you can find her here:

She also has a Facebook group where you’ll be kept in the loop with updates on releases, have a chance to win prizes, and probably see lots of lots of pictures of her dog and cats. You can find it here: Lisa Henry’s Hangout.


Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Only for Ollie, Lisa is giving away a $20 Amazon Gift Card! Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win!

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