"The Bling Ring" Soundtrack; Openly Gay Frank Ocean

I've had this link about The Bling Ring soundtrack and openly gay Frank Ocean in my in box for over a week now and other things kept popping up that trumped it. But I do like to mention openly gay performers as much as I can so that the people who read this blog who aren't openly gay (for their own personal reasons) see that things are changing.

In other words, I hate to label Frank Ocean and single him out as gay. In a perfect world I wouldn't do that. But I do know that there are many gay men of all ages out there who are still struggling with coming out. I always think people like Frank Ocean and Matt Bomer inspire them. At least that what they tell me in e-mails.

In any event, there's a new film called The Bling Ring and the soundtrack is supposed to be excellent. I've read about this in several places already and being a huge fan of Frank Ocean and his music I can't wait until it's released.

 "The Bling Ring" features unruly teenagers robbing the homes of A-list celebrities, so it's only appropriate that the movie's soundtrack presents a lineup of A-list musical acts to underscore the glamorous film.

And they aren't screwing around. There is an A-list that you don't often see in film sountracks.

Even more fitting is the song selected to close "The Bling Ring": Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt's collaboration "Super Rich Kids." Part of the song's refrain finds Ocean singing, "The maids come around too much / Parents ain’t around enough / Too many joy rides in daddy’s Jaguar / Too many white lies and white lines / Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends / Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends."

You can read more here, where there's a list of songs from the soundtrack. The film will be released June 14, and the soundtrack on June 11.

Sex Slaves Want Resignation; Benjamin Leroy on Queries; Women who Love Gay Fiction

Sex Slaves Want Resignation

This is something I never knew. Thousands of women were forced into prostitution during WWII in Japan. And now it seems two former Korean sex slaves in their 80's want the resignation of Mayor Toru Hashimoto because he actually tried to justify this act of sex slavery and prostitution.

The women, who did not appear in public, said in a statement they were heartbroken by Hashimoto's "outrageous comments" and didn't want to be seen contributing to a less-than-sincere apology.

Instead, they demanded that Hashimoto, 43, apologize and resign as mayor of Japan's second-biggest city.

It's a fascinating, heartbreaking piece from the sex slave angle in itself, but when you read about how someone actually insulted these women and tried to justify these actions of the past it will blow your mind. I have always been a proponent of legalized prostitution. I actually do believe we all have the right to do what we want with our own bodies, men and women. However, there is a huge difference between forced prostitution and legal prostitution. One is a choice. The other is taking away a fundamental choice that leaves the kind of emotional scars that never go away.

I hope he does resign.

Benjamin Leroy on Queries

If you haven't experienced the fresh hells of querying a literary agent, I suggest you read this post. I don't want to turn this into a negative thing. I truly don't. There are excellent agents out there who handle the query process with professionalism, and they never insult you or treat you like an inferior. I've had both good experiences and bad with queries (mostly good). And I am very pro-agent.

For a long time the query letter was the only lifeline between authors and publishers. If you didn't have an agent the odds were your books would never be pubbed. Although it's still like this to a certain extent with large publishers, there are many new authors out there, both pubbed and un-pubbed, who have been paving the way in indie publishing for other authors. I even include the recent announcement from Amazon with Kindle Worlds here. Fanfic authors deserve credit, too, because they are constantly building readership in spite of the obstacles.

In any event, learning how to actually work the query process is a good thing for authors. You learn how to write tight book descriptions and you learn how to handle rejection as well. But while I think it's a good idea to query widely and to research agents, I also think it's a good idea to query and explore all your options as an author nowadays. And you do have other options besides querying.

Benjamin Leroy has a list of the top things you shouldn't do when querying an agent. Some are good, others annoy me. This is one that I find a little tired now. But it's not the worst thing I've ever seen.

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Don’t tell me your book is a “guaranteed bestseller” because nobody knows that kind of thing and if you’re delusional about that, you’re going to be delusional about a bunch of things and I’m too old to deal with that.

A lot of new authors tend to do this...make promises like the one above. They don't mean any harm. They are nice people hoping for the best. I've had more than one calls for submission for anthologies of my own and I've worked with a lot of new authors. I tend to enjoy their innocence. I like meeting them and I don't think they are delusional. But this is also where new authors have to be careful. There are vipers out there who don't have the time or patience for newbies. Try not to be too innocent. You don't get points for that from everyone. So this is good advice from Leroy...it's excellent advice. But it's good in the sense that it proves how insulting the query experience can be sometimes and how careful you have to be while querying.

There's a simple reason why a scorpion will always sting: it's in their nature.

Women Who Love Gay Fiction

I've had excellent responses to the calls for submission that I released in January for my upcoming anthology, The Women Who Love to Love Gay Fiction. Yesterday I replied to everyone who submitted and I told some of them their stories will be included in the anthology.

This is going to be different than most anthologies in many ways. And not just because of the theme. The authors who will be included have given me a wide range of stories that cover all kinds of territory I found fascinating. And one author submitted three short stories in an almost short story trilogy fashion. At first I thought I would only take on one of the stories. But once I started reading them I wanted to find out what happened to the characters, and I decided to publish them all back to back.

I'll post more about this with excerpts in the coming weeks. I haven't set an exact release date yet, but I will do that very soon. I originally thought it would be August, but things are moving along so well it might even be sooner.

On another note, here's a great link to the Alumni Association of Princeton University that will lead you to a video about Gay Marriage.

During the Every Voice conference for Princeton's LGBT and ally alumni, Hayley Gorenberg '87, Deputy Legal Director for Lambda Legal, discusses the strides made in the marriage equality movement and what needs to be done in other realms such as the trans-rights movement and HIV-AIDS rights.

Amazon Sells Fan Fiction; Nude Cumberbatch Shower Scene in Star Trek

This week a lot of places on the interwebs went berserk with Amazon's recent announcement they will be selling fan fiction. It's going to be called "Kindle Worlds." I want to get into what fanfic is, how it's different from parody, and what some of the details are with this announcement from Amazon.

Although I know very little about fanfic or fandom, my first thought was how can they do this legally? From what little I do know about fanfic, it's always been a genre that's been shared and not sold for monetary gain. It seems the crafty people at Amazon have figured out a way to avoid this, and it looks as if what they are doing is perfectly legal. Keep in mind. This is NOT parody. This is fanfic and the two are completely different. My books like An Officer and His Gentleman and Pretty Man are highly erotic parodies of mainstream straight stories that I wrote to be satirical accounts of mainstream fiction with gay characters. The titles alone are parody. If I had wanted to write fanfic, I would have taken a gay story, like Queer as Folk, or Brokeback Mountain, and written tender loving romances based on them in alternate worlds. But I didn't want to do that: my statement was more political as a gay writer who was tired of the way gay romance is treated in the mainstream. And the odds of me ever writing a novel based on any *gay* story are about as strong as me wearing dad jeans in public.

For those who know nothing about fan fiction, you can read a good description here.

Here's how Amazon can do this legally.

The company has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment division for Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar; Pretty Little Liars, by Sara Shepard; and Vampire Diaries, by L.J. Smith. All three are also incredibly successful TV shows in their own right, which should add to the interest both from fans and aspiring writers.

In other words, right now you can't just write any fanfic. It has to be based on one of the above. I do see more in the future, though. If there's a market for it, they are ALL going to cash in on it. And if this is what readers want, no one can blame them.

This is the actual announcement from Amazon. Get Ready.

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group's Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

This next blogger makes a few good points.  There was a m/m romance that came out a little over a year ago that spawned an epic shitstorm in the m/m community with readers and reviewers because many alleged that the author of this book basically copied everything from a gay film. There were even chapter by chapter examples given comparing this author's m/m romance to the gay film...even song lyrics. It was NOT parody. This m/m author and the publisher have gone on to become very popular in spite of this, will be very popular at the upcoming Gay Rom Lit in Atlanta, and that particular book seemed to sell very well to m/m romance readers. In other words, the readers want this, and if that's what they want I see no issue. However, as this blogger below states, it's not all that fair to those who are true to fanfic. And what about the fact that readers can get great fanfic for FREE, and have been doing so for years?

The weird thing is what happens to that comfortable space that separated canonical from non-canonical. Like, one assumes that the fan-fic remains officially non-canonical — and yet, people are paying for it. And getting paid in return. Which lends a kind of intellectual and emotional legitimacy to it. And allows for a very weird thing to happen: it lets the licensed fan-fiction to become, in theory, bigger than the material that spawned it.

I wish I could say I did, but I don't have any strong opinions about all this...except this next part bothers me. Is Amazon trying to define porn now? Evidently, there are a few stipulations that sound a lot like censorship to me.

Though there is another reason that this might not be as successful as Amazon is hoping. From the content guidelines: “We don’t accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts.” It’s unclear whether this is the same as Amazon’s normal ban against “pornography” that doesn’t include the huge amount of erotica that they publish, or a higher standard imposed by the licensing agreements. But one thing is for sure – a lot of the fan fiction that people would be willing to pay for includes “graphic sexual acts.”
You can read more here.

The typical ban against pornography on Amazon is basically the same as it is everywhere else. I listed these things in my upcoming anthology, The Women Who Love to Love Gay Romance.

Standards apply: No Incest, rape, underage characters, or bestiality.


But does this apply to Amazon's "pornography" rules with fanfic? Or is Amazon and the people they are in partnership with in Kindle Worlds going to define "porn" for us? It should be interesting to see how this plays out.

In any event, fanfic does sell and readers seem to want it. Fifty Shades of Grey, which is allegedly fanfic based on Twilight has proven this. And the example I gave above about the m/m romance author proves this as well, too. He has built quite an epic following. And if this is what readers want, Amazon is going to give this to them. The hard part for me is that if anyone wants to read good fanfic, and I do believe there is good fanfic out there, you can get it for nothing. Only most people don't know about this, and they will be shopping at Amazon to pay for their fanfic.

If you do a simple search, you'll see what I mean about how this announcement has ignited tons of opinions. Here's one more link I found interesting, because this person also wanted to know how Amazon found out a way to sell fanfic legally.

I personally am not the biggest fan of fan fiction, as some of you might know. But rest assured that the Scanners "Head Asplode" pic I've used to lead off this article doesn't come from a place of distaste as much as pure shock at Amazon's insane, bold, and genuinely brilliant plan to sell legal fan fiction.

Nude Cumberbatch Shower Scene in Star Trek

This next article talks about a nude shower scene in Star Trek with Benedict Cumberbatch. Why they would remove a scene like this passes me by.

"We had a scene with him where we saw him actually take a shower," Abrams told Conan O'Brien. "It's not in the movie but we have this. It's one of those things we ended up cutting." In true Abrams fashion, the brief moment plays against the backdrop of Star Trek-ian dramatics, with water showering over Cumberbatch as he stares ominously. (Maybe thinking up his next move?)

I'm just glad it wasn't a nude shower scene of Chris Pine they'd cut out. I know this isn't huge news. But as an erotic romance author I find these little things both interesting and silly sometimes. We're not watching Star Trek just for sexual reasons. We like it for many reasons. But the fact is that Cumberbatch and Chris Pine are extremely attractive men and if they had faces like mud fences we most likely wouldn't be watching Star Trek. So why the need to always cut out what might be a great sexy scene? It's not like we want Chris Pine or Cumberbatch to drop the soap or anything in the shower.

E.L. James photo attribution here.

Dan Brown 10 Questions; Dan Brown Viral Parody; Surviving Mean Criticism

In the 10 Questions section of this week's Time Magazine, the focus of the interview is on author, Dan Brown. One of the questions that gets interesting is the way Brown launches a book when he's finished writing it.

There are three angular boxes that I bought when I was in Costa Rica, made out of rosewood. As you remember, rose and rosewood played a role in The Da Vinci Code. One of these three boxes is held by myself, one by my editor and one by my agent. On the night before the book is released, the three boxes come together and form a giant blade and chalice, and we just thank each other for all the hard work and cross our fingers that the world likes what's about to be born.

Authors all have their little quirks, including me. I have this deal about always beginning a new novel on a Friday. I actually plan for this ahead of time. And even if I'm ready to begin on a Thursday, I'll delay beginning the book until Friday. Don't ask. I can't explain this. It makes me feel good.

You can read more about Dan Brown at Time.com.

Dan Brown Parody and Mean Criticism

Although I hate to post things like this, I'm doing it for all authors who have suffered bad reviews and have had critics parody them. It's happened to me, it's happened to people I know. Here's one article that talks about the reviews for Brown's latest book, and a parody about his writing. As a side note, I've never actually read a Dan Brown book, so I don't know anything about his writing.

The American author’s latest book came out May 14 to rather dismal reviews, with some saying the fourth book in his Robert Langdon series is the worst one yet. The three previous books in the series include Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol, and were generally regarded as harmless fun despite Brown’s occasionally awkward prose.

And here is another where the critic actually parodies Brown's writing in one of the most vicious ways I've seen since Romfail. For those who don't know what Romfail is, check out that Romfail link. It was an interesting time, and several authors I know were changed forever by this one act of meanness. The reason this parody of Brown reminded me of Romfail is because someone actually set up a twitter account to parody Brown, in detail, just like Romfail.

Renowned author Dan Brown got out of his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive $10 million house and paced the bedroom, using the feet located at the ends of his two legs to propel him forwards. He knew he shouldn’t care what a few jealous critics thought. His new book Inferno was coming out on Tuesday, and the 480-page hardback published by Doubleday with a recommended US retail price of $29.95 was sure to be a hit. Wasn’t it?

However, in the same article above, 10 Questions, Brown handles the next to the last question like we all should whenever we're dealing with criticism.

A parody of your writing style went viral recently. Do you find that kind of thing insulting?

On some level you have to take it as a compliment. Of course you hope and you wish everybody loved what you do. In the creative arts, that's just not how it works.

That fact is that you can parody anything you want to parody. You can take excerpts from a romance novel, from a mystery, and even from the bible and parody them. I wrote a whole post about this once, where a snarky blogger went after the erotic romance genre. My post showed how I could write the same snark about non-erotic romance. Though I mentioned no names in my post, the actual excerpts I used came from a best-selling sexless romance novel that certain critics LOVED and promoted until we were sick to death of it. My goal was simple: to show that anyone can parody anything, and anybody can be mean.

Brown's reaction above really is the absolute truth. Whether it is a huge author like Dan Brown, or a small group of helpless struggling authors who never harmed anyone but had to suffer through Romfail, you buck up and take the criticism. You don't complain and whine either. You can keep lists and names in private. If and when these critics fall or suffer some horrible personal tragedy you can smile and take pride in their misfortunes because you know they deserve what's coming to them (Karma). But you have to prepare yourself for the fact that not everyone is going to like what you do and you can't take that personally...not if you're going to survive as an author.

Photo attribution

Marketing for Romance Writers - Coffee Time Romance

When I see things like this I like to share because marketing for romance writers can be hard at best, but there's an interesting link/thread over at Coffee Time Romance that discusses this in more detail.

From Coffee Time Romance, a web site that I've always liked and followed. And I don't follow that many.

The Marketing for Romance Writers motto is "Seek, teach, share, learn, succeed." MFRW is open to the literary community. We teach members marketing and publicity, and work together to provide opportunities. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and now Coffee Time Romance. We brainstorm ideas, get feedback, and find others for mutual promotion. We are associated with MFRW The group was founded in 2006 by author Kayelle Allen, and has a staff of over a dozen volunteers. All our training is free. Join us!

I would imagine this could help all authors in all genres, depending on how it's applied. And I'm sure everything they discuss is legit...unlike a lot of the fakery going on these days with marketing and promotion where there seems to be so much collusion.

I also like to remain true to romance, and I've always found that Coffee Time Romance does this well. I don't like it when newbies come along and say they want to change romance and put an end to HEA. If they feel that way they shouldn't be writing romance, or m/m romance. Just my opinion.

Check out the link above, if you are so inclined. As side note, a lot of people often get intimidated by Twitter because they aren't sure how it works. I use twitter like I use everything online. I figure out what it can do for me and that's how I look at it. With twitter it's all about news and getting information. I'm not there to chat, but I find it invaluable for other things.

Stephen King Refuses E-book Format: I'll Read J. A. Konrath Instead

When I read that Stephen King is refusing to release his next book in e-book format, I did a search to make sure I hadn't missed something. I thought surely this must be a mistake. However, I have two links and it's evident King is serious about this.

I wonder if this is for publicity. I wonder if this is something personal to him. I always thought that the print books I was in would always remain print books and I took a silent pride in that. But when they all started being released in digital format, I realized there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't like it, but I've learned to live with it.

However, I've also made the switch to e-books completely. I didn't spend all that money on Kobo e-readers, a tablet, and a mini-iPad to sit and hold print books again. I'm just as likely to read a book now on my iPhone as I am on my e-reading devices. King doesn't seem to think this is a factor...or he doesn't care that he's insulting so many readers like me.

King has reportedly gone out of his way to buy up the all the digital rights to the novel in order to prevent it being distributed as an ebook.

"I have no plans for a digital version," King told the Wall Street Journal.

"Maybe at some point, but in the meantime, let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore rather than a digital one."

Ha! Fat chance I'll be doing THAT. You can take the stick, stir it, and shove it. And even if I did buckle to this kind of intimidation from an author, we only have one brick and mortar bookstore left around here and it's in a tourist section of town which means I would have to pay ten dollars to park just to buy King's book in print version. If I drove to a mall, which I don't have time to do, it would cost me another ten dollars in gas just to read King's print book.

I think I'll stick with J. A. Konrath's digital books for now and pass on Stephen King's new book until he releases it in digital. What he's failing to realize is that he may be able to intimidate readers this way in the mainstream to sell enough books right now. A lot of people haven't made the complete switch to digital books. But he won't be able to intimidate readers like me who have switched to digital books with this tactic, not now...or in the future.

Those of us who read digital only do not screw around.

You can read more here, and here.

Men Wearing Nail Polish; Behind the Candelabra; FREE Excerpt Cowboy Bad Boy

For the past few weeks the topic of men wearing nail polish has been following me around for some reason and I decided to look for some viable links and post about it.

I'm not sure this would be considered gender bending. From what I gather the men who wear men's nail polish are straight, have no inclination to be cross dressers or transgenders, and it's nothing more than a fashion statement from them.

A few years ago, Josh Espley, a former marketing exec for a sex toy company called Fleshlight, noticed that his kickboxing friends were wearing polish to cover their banged-up nails. The practice was becoming popular, he noted, with the mixed martial arts crowd: Former Ultimate Fighting Championship star Chuck Liddell famously sported dainty pink fingernail polish in fights. Espley occasionally reads Us Weekly—to help him chat up women, he says—and saw polish on male celebrities such as Zac Efron, Jared Leto, Dave Navarro, and Johnny Depp. So in 2009, as a way to supplement his income, he created Blakk Cosmetics. Its first product was Alpha Nail paint, which the company sold in $12 pens in colors like “cocaine” (creamy white), “burnin’ rubber” (dark navy), and “gasoline” (charcoal gray).

I've seen the trend first hand. I have a few straight friends with teenage sons who are basically your typical high school jocks and they're painting their toenails in multi-colors. And frankly I'm thrilled to see this. I have to admit I'm usually very conservative with colors, in fashion and in design. My house is about twenty shades of taupe. My clothes run from black to white, with shades of gray in between. But I've often wondered why men in our society are so regulated to the same business suit they've been wearing for over a century now. It changes in little ways. But it's still the same old business suit. Maybe this nail polish trend will kick off a few more interesting ideas for men's fashion, because it's pretty damn dull as it stands right now.

What I also find interesting is that I wrote a few blog posts a few years ago about men painting their toenails. No need to pat me on the back :)  I even wrote a short story about it in a Christmas anthology titled, "Tipsy Pink," way before this became a new trend. It will be interesting to see if this catches on with the mainstream. So far, it's an isolated trend from what I can see.

 Behind the Candelabra

The new HBO film about the life of musician Liberace is airing this Sunday, and I wanted to post about it one more time in case someone missed it. I did post about it here.

And it has bravura performances from film stars Matt Damon as a hunky, often bewildered Thorson and Michael Douglas as Liberace himself, letting his middle-aged paunch show in an explicit depiction of a sex and drug-laced relationship that puts a new, jarring vision of the easy listening pop culture icon onscreen.

I'll be watching for several reasons. One, I remember Liberace as a kid and always wondered about him...he lived a basically closeted life in public in spite of his flamboyance. Two, I want to see how they handle the topic. I wasn't too thrilled in the previous post I wrote...link above.

It's interesting. So they couldn't find one single gay actor to play the part of Liberace's lover? I know. I'm supposed to be open about that and all actors should play be able to play any role regardless of their sexual orientation. It's just that I don't see anyone breaking any doors down to offer Jeffery Self...or other openly gay actors...any lead roles in feature films. That idiot Brett Easton Ellis didn't think Matt Bomer could play Christian in 50 Shades.
I hate to harp on something. And I love Matt Damon. I really do. But I recently posted about Matt Bomer playing the lead the Fifty Shades film adaptation and how people thought he was too gay to play Christian. Evidently, no one thinks Michael Douglas or Matt Damon are TOO STRAIGHT to play these gay roles in Behind the Candelabra.

I'll be posting about this again early next week. The problem is no one does talk about these things, and Hollywood gets a away with things no one else can get away with.

Free Excerpt from Cowboy Bad Boy

The title of my upcoming novel in the Bad Boy Billionaire series is "A Cowboy in Love." I pulled out a lot of emotion with this book, and I set it in Texas on a ranch just outside Dallas. I wanted a main character this time who was grieving for his husband, and I wanted to show the stages of grief he goes through, which includes meeting someone new and starting all over again. In this particular scene below, the main character goes horseback riding with someone his sister is trying to fix him up with...someone he doesn't want to be fixed up with. It also shows how Bailey can be a little mean sometimes.

This is the unedited version.

Bailey patted Cyclone’s neck and smiled. “He has a little more energy than most horses, but he’s perfectly harmless. Would you like to ride him?” He figured Devlin would try to climb into the saddle and Cyclone would start jumping around the way he usually did. He also figured when Devlin realized how unpredictable Cyclone could be, he would climb down before they started and he would ask to ride the other horse. Bailey wasn’t sure he could ever break Cyclone, but he had a feeling he could break Devlin.

            But that’s not what happened. The instant Devlin slipped his olive green shoe into the stirrup and threw his long leg over the saddle, Cyclone started jumping around and Devlin pulled the reins and said, “Knock it off.” Then he glanced down at Bailey and asked, “What are you waiting for, an invitation to the prom?”
            So Bailey climbed up on the other horse and didn’t say a word. When they were ready to leave, Bailey’s head jerked sideways and his eyes popped open as Cyclone went up on his two hind legs, screamed, and took off in a fast gallop. Bailey followed Devlin and Cyclone with the same wide eyes, amazed at the way Devlin knew how to control the unpredictable horse. Devlin showed no signs of fear; he didn’t complain or glance back once. He continued at the same incredible pace toward the back pasture, and Bailey had trouble keeping up with him. Though Bailey knew how to control Cyclone, no one other than Christopher had been brave enough to ride him for any length of time.

            It was amazing to watch in the distance. Cyclone jumped over fences, rocks, and even a tree that had come down in the last storm. Devlin held him steady and never wavered. By the time they reached the farthest stretch of the ranch, near the creek where Bailey had embarrassed himself with Garrett, Devlin slowed down and came to complete halt. He glanced back at Bailey in the distance and said, “If you’re having trouble keeping up with me, I can go slower for you.”

            Cyclone didn’t stop jerking and fidgeting once, even though they stopped. This didn’t seem to bother Devlin. He remained in the saddle and moved with each jerk and move as if he’d anticipated them. But more than that, he showed no sign of fear whatsoever. His voice didn’t even go up when Cyclone went all the way up on his hind legs and spun around.

            When Bailey caught up with them, he asked, “Are you sure Cyclone’s not too rough for you? Maybe this was a mistake. I should probably be riding him. I’m used to his quirks.” He started to feel a little guilty about setting Devlin up this way. The guy wore bad shoes, but Bailey didn’t want to see him get hurt.

            Cyclone went up on his back legs again and he made that loud bray sound. Devlin remained steady and said, “It’s cool. I like a horse with a little life in him.”

            Bailey shrugged. “Maybe we should rest here a little.” He pointed to the trees. “There’s a creek over there.”

            Devlin hopped out of the saddle without waiting for Bailey. He patted Cyclone’s head, looked into his eyes, and said, “You’re not so bad.” Then he smiled at Bailey and said, “Would you like any help getting down.”

            Bailey frowned and said, “No thank you. I can manage.” Then he hopped off his horse and guided him to a tree.

            While they tied the horses to separate trees, Bailey noticed how casual and restrained Devlin behaved with Cyclone. When Cyclone tried to jerk away and pull back, Devlin looked into his eyes and spoke with a clear even tone. And he spoke as if he were speaking to a human being who could actually understand him. “Whoa, boy. You’re not the one in charge. I’m in charge.”

            Bailey flung him a look and said, “I have to admit that for a guy who rides in Chatsworth you sure do know what you’re doing.” He’d said Chatsworth as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth.

            Devlin shrugged and said, “I live in LA, cowboy. But I grew up on a ranch in Montana.” He patted Cyclone’s neck again and laughed. “Hell, I’ve ridden stronger horses than this one bareback.”

            His smug attitude made Bailey’s skin crawl. He’d been so worried about him getting hurt it hadn’t occurred to him Devlin might actually know what he was doing. Bailey felt a little foolish, and he didn’t like feeling that way. He preferred to be the one in control. So he decided to turn things around and test him in another way. Only this time he was certain about whether or not he wouldn’t wind up embarrassed or vindicated.

            “I think I’m going for a swim in the creek,” Bailey said.

            “In the creek?” Devlin made a face.

            “Sure. It’s great.”

            “But there’s a fantastic swimming pool back at the house,” Devlin said.

            “If you’re not interested, I’ll go alone,” Bailey said. “I hope you don’t mind that I swim in the nude.” He turned and headed to the creek, leaving Devlin standing next to the horses with a confused expression.