Guest Author Day with Erin O'Quinn

Hi, fellow authors  and readers! I’m happy to meet you here on Dawn’s lovely site and to introduce you to my latest gay hero, Aidan Williamson, and my new series “Aidan Undercover.”

Last year about this time, I wrote the fourth Nevada Highlander novel, an ongoing series centered in Scotland. In the novel, the protagonists travel to that country’s famed Highlands, where they meet a tousled young Sergeant Constable who helps them in their pursuit of the bad guys.

The character was memorable, in many ways. Young but smart…good looking but unaware of his own appeal…skilled but seemingly stuck in a backwater hamlet in a boring job. A reader of my blog suggested that I consider him as the center of a new work.

The result was Where There’s Smoke.

The tiny hamlet where Aidan is stationed is a stone’s throw from Balmoral Castle, owned by Queen Elizabeth and her family for over one hundred years. As her annual summer visit looms closer, the cops are getting nervous. Someone in the upper echelons hears about Aidan, and voila! He’s plucked from his routine life into the dangerous realm of undercover detective for Police Scotland’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

A young hiker has been murdered, only a few miles from the Queen’s castle, in a place called Devil’s Point. Aidan is the logical man to visit that rugged place in pursuit of a killer.

Aidan’s Achilles Heel is his infatuation with mystery. It puts a “stick of dynamite in his arse,” in the words of his superior Inspector Gowan—and it draws him to a quiet, enigmatic man named Kenneth Logan, the self-exiled caretaker of the area.

The novella is as much an erotic love story as it is a murder mystery. And it leads to the next adventure, set only days later, called Deep Fury. That story is centered on the long-ago “Widow’s House” of Queen Victoria, a shuttered hunter’s lodge also on Queen Elizabeth’s royal estate.

In that story, a publicist and her companions report the death of s writer, found face down in a lake next to Victoria’s old place of refuge. They’re seeking “Victoria’s Secret”—and naturally, Aidan is in hot pursuit of it also.

In both novellas, Aidan finds ways of being “undercover,” both on the job and off. He and Logan become strongly attracted. Their partnership, sooner or later, spills over into his new job. A final piece of the story is now underway, titled Spilled Passion. Watch for it!

This excerpt is taken from the time Aidan and Logan first meet, in the place Scots call “The Demon’s Penis.” Aidan, out of shape and severely dehydrated, finds himself on the floor of the stone hut where Logan lives.

~O~

Fingers of pain seized his calf muscles— cramping, tearing, flexing and releasing in a dervish of agony. He fell to the rough floor, writhing, unable to get to his feet.

When a pair of strong arms lifted him, he simply gave in.

After a while he opened his eyes again, staring up at wooden trestles on a high ceiling…and actual stones for wallpaper. This must be a closed-off part of the bothy, Logan’s private space. For some reason, in spite of the cramps, he felt acute embarrassment.

“I—sorry. Intruding like this.”

“I need to take off your boots.”

“Excuse me?”

“And your trousers. When I do, cover yourself. Here.”

He offered a gritty towel, and Aidan took it.

While Logan untied his boots, he watched the man, the way he kept his eyes on the task of unlacing the hiking boots, then pulling them from his feet. In spite of his large frame and giant hands, his touch was precise, almost tender.

“Undo your trousers. Try not to think about what I might see. Just cover your modesty.”

Aidan mutely obeyed. The process seemed much too brief. Logan had his trousers off in a few seconds, like a magician whisking a tablecloth from full-laden surface, while Aidan clutched the towel over his lap.

He knew what the man was about to do. The stitches in his calves had grown worse, making his lower legs twitch and dance to silent music. Aidan felt the tears gather at the side of his eyelids and let them pool on his cheeks while he surrendered to the touch of a stranger.

With skilled fingers, the palms of his hands, even the meatus of his thumb, Logan worked his magic until Aidan felt no pain at all in his calves. But the slow strokes, the man’s sure knowledge of his body, brought a different pain to another place. His groin was on fire, and there was nothing he could do about it. Except lie there, and enjoy it to the max while grieving for his vanished smokescreen.

“Better, lad?”

Aidan realized that Logan’s heavy Scots accent had disappeared ten minutes ago, leaving only a pleasant deep burr in its wake. Maybe both of them had tossed aside their mask.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“No thanks needed. I’ve come to the aid of many a bagger in my day. And even a few who weren’t.”

Aidan felt a flame leap to his face. Or was it the sunburn?

Logan was kneeling at the side of the bed, close as a kiss. It happened fast, a spark flying from a fire. Their lips met, and then their tongues. A few seconds only, a stunning rapture of need.

~O~

I hope you’ll read the “Aidan Undercover” series, and don’t forget that the third novella in the series should be out in about month.

~gay ~mystery ~love story ~action ~heat level high

Publisher New Dawn Press (O’Quinn’s indie press)

Amazon Kindle series page: https://amzn.to/2XKxIR2

Erin O'Quinn (Bonita Franks) was born almost literally on the side of a mountain in Nevada and was hauled kicking and screaming into the nearest town, fifty miles away, to attend first grade. To this day, she claims to be kindergarten-deprived.

O'Quinn earned a few degrees from the University of So. California, but her real education began on the back docks of the Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal newspaper; on the good-old-boy car lots in Abilene, TX where she sold new Chryslers and used cars; and in a big-box store in Austin, TX where she alternately hauled pallets and ran a garden center.

You'll find a lot of action-adventure, and a character-centered, plot-centered group of seven series and a few stand-alones

Of 42 published works for adults, 33 are in the gay lit (M/M) genre. From the Noble Dimensions series (small town/contemporary) to Old World Ireland, Jacobite-era and modern Scotland; and back to the retro world of Ireland in the Roaring 20s, she says,

"My men, and my settings, are no-frills, no hearts and flowers. But I think a certain nobility and even a spiritual element often creep in among the honest sexual feelings.”

Amazon author page http://amzn.to/1w8PVgI

QueeRomance Ink http://bit.ly/2mnG1hL

Smashwords http://bit.ly/1s3cf1q

Facebook author page https://www.facebook.com/ErinOQuinnEroticWriting/

Facebook public page https://www.facebook.com/bonita.franks

Other links on request, including five blog sites