Hello everyone! To celebrate the Spring Fling Blog Hop – Manlove Event, I’m giving away two e-copies of my crime drama Wild Hearted. All you need to do is leave a comment and your email. I will contact the winner. Good luck and have fun playing!

Gang leader Tomor is a shrewd, ruthless bastard who lives a lonely life on the outskirts of society. Using females has always been an easy way to let out steam, and he never expected a young man in his ranks to fall for him!

It’s true what they say—only the strongest survive.

These last weeks had been the worst, most grotesque days of his life. He hated his helplessness, loss of purpose, and obsessive need to delve in melancholia. He loathed who he had become: a lazy, dirty, unshaven bully, a self-pitying abuser, as far from the gang members’ ideals as they could tolerate. Not that he’d had particularly high morale earlier, but now he owned none, and his sole needs involved swallowing liquor and snorting coke. Any and every thing that stopped the torture and momentarily erased the memories.

It’s ’cause of Luz. She’s under my skin, that cat.

Ah. He grimaced from the overload and could no longer stand on his feet. He let himself slump on the floor and rested his forehead against the wall, clutching his hands and grinding his teeth.

But there is another way to soothe the pain.

He would have to stand up again, then. He kept his weapons in a cupboard next to the door.

A loud gasp to his back startled him.

“Shit, man! Are you sick?”

David squatted next to him and put a warm hand on his shoulder.

Fuck off. Leave me alone.

But the hand grabbed one of his arms and pulled, lifted, helped him up again.

The kid was strangely strong and eager. And really fucking annoying.

“You okay?”

Tomor couldn’t speak or look at him. He was so beside himself he needed space, air, time to think. Trembling, breathing hard, he shoved the boy away with a hard move, not in a mean or brutal way, but a careless, selfish one, with concern only for himself.

His whole body shook. Not from cold. Not from abstinence. He needed to get his knife; it was the only thing that could help.

It’s not the first time. Just look at my other scars. They’re not all what you think.

Few would understand how self-inflicted physical pain—so searing, so gruesome it stole all your mind’s attention—overshadowed mental agony, granted a short glimpse of peace, helped make it through the next hours…

And that’s all I’m asking for. Survival.

This time he’d do the ultimate; reopen the scar Luz nursed the first time he kissed her. Their scar. Retrace it at the same place, right in the long, straight wound. Make it bleed and burn, the way his heart did. Cruel, consuming, the way the loss of his girlfriend devoured him.

Exhilarated by a sudden surge of anticipation, his head spinning but luminous, clairvoyant, he strode to the cupboard, found the dagger, and pointed the sharp blade at the thin, pinkish tissue.

The first incision would be the easiest. It would open the top skin layer like steel through butter and split neat, clean edges. Then there’d be no turning back.

The next layer, thicker and more resistant, would demand pressure, insistence. The beginning dribble of blood would blind his view, obstruct the precision. But that’s when it started getting interesting.

A faint, subtle tingle of pain would prickle in the apparent flesh like the sting from the tiniest of needles—only a tease, a seducing wink, a promise of sharper sensations the third cut would engender.

Sometimes it’s so good it gets me hard.

A blurry mass slipped into his vision, a dark shape, filling his sphere. Someone muttered, “Don’t.” The word was so close and present he instinctively moved his head back.

A warm, tentative palm set on his right wrist, its strong fingers curling around it, locking and—firmly pulling his arm away, shocking him, awaking him.

Why such force? You intruder. Violator. Leave me alone.

A choked gasp, a whine, words expelled with a short breath. “Please don’t do this.”

He raised his slow eyes to meet the ones vibrating in front of him and refocused on their intensity, swallowed their strength, captured their intent.

He opened his mouth to speak, but instead his body took a long, profound breath, one he’d held in an eternity, and filled his sore lungs with coldness.

At that moment, he became aware of the galloping in his chest, the pulsing in his throat, the throbbing at his temples. He curled his wicked lips into a grin. It wasn’t over; he could still do it.

He tugged at his locked wrist, pulled at the restraint, willed the opposition to relent.

You don’t know who you’re playing with.

“No, don’t hurt yourself.”

A tone so strangled, a plea so sincere he chilled his smile and agreed to concentrate on the obtrusion.

David’s eyes were level with his, somber but glowing like the blackest of crystals, battling, exuding, demanding.

At the soft touch of the boy’s breath on his lips, Tomor realized their closeness, their intimacy, their need. Inches away. A presence as invasive as rape, yet so fervent he could neither ignore nor escape from it.

But I can’t allow it. I’m not like that, kid.

He made another pathetic attempt of tugging at his cuffed wrist but more so for show as voices, screams, yells of fury raged in his mind, filled him, cluttered him.

Still—for some reason—he could not summon enough strength or meanness to push David away, refuse his proposition, deny his want. He could only endure.

If I close my eyes I’ll be all right. If I close my eyes and pretend it’s her, she will save me.

The boy’s short, warm breaths approached and Tomor resisted the instinctive, inborn urge to turn away. Instead he held his own, remained still and waited.

That’s what loneliness did to him. It twisted his mind and drove him slowly crazy until he no longer knew right from wrong. Like a lost ship at sea rolling in endless monstrous waves, carried further and further away from any sense of time or direction or self.

In the end you take whatever comes your way and accept its comforting presence, for without it you might as well drown in the gigantic haze of nothingness.

Instant, brutal shock rushed through his entire system as foreign lips softly brushed his, leaving a trace of manly scent to his nose before retreating. He just barely held back a gasp of disgust.

No time to recover. The lips closed in again and met his this time, touched, pressed, lingered; and this first kiss rocked him so hard a low grunt of disapproval and shame built in his throat. How could he let this happen?

Perhaps he refrained from rejecting the boy’s caress because a familiar stirring grew in his groin, proving his loss of will.

While reeling in stupor, all muscles tense and still, he caught himself thinking that this was no different from a girl. David’s second hungry kiss told him a boy’s lips are equally warm and wet and lusting, and why would that be such a wrong thing?

He let the knife drop in a gesture of surrender and consent, heard it clatter on the floor, felt the freeing of his wrist, but still wouldn’t and couldn’t open his mouth to let a man in.

Sparkling blue-green eyes flashed in his mind, skimmed his awareness and left as soon as they came, as if taken away in a gust of wind.

My girl.

Eyes watering, he lifted his chin so high the boy had to let go.

My Luz. I miss you so much, my sweetie, my love.

He opened his eyes and steered them to the ceiling while one lone tear, finally released, rolled down his cheek and dropped on his chest, losing speed and heat as it slid and met resistance.

I miss you so!

The second jolt of shock came when the boy’s wet tongue grazed his nipple, pressed against the small bud, made slow, teasing circles around it before moving to the other and nibbling it. The tongue licked its way down to his stomach, crossing scars and hairs with shameless assurance and purpose, leaving fresh wetness in its path.

Staring hard at the ceiling, he let it happen. His treacherous organ had already reacted anyway, accepted the invite.

Expert hands opened his pants.

Again he closed his eyes and, teeth grinding, shook his head at the horror of the situation.

So this is how low I will sink.

These were his last thoughts because when the boy’s hot mouth enveloped his cock, he could no longer make any sense of anything. He simply let himself drift away.