The Mediator
is one of my favorite stories, and I recently got the chance to revamp and
expand this naughty little male-male romance set in the world of boxing.
Like my protagonist, Icarus Smith, I spent
a long time searching for true love and before I started writing romance
novels, I was a boxing writer. I had no trouble meeting guys because, I
learned, boxing fanatics (like me) are a lonely bunch. And, um, well, some of
the guys are just nuts.
There. I said it.
Nuts.
I used to get a lot of marriage proposals
and death threats in my ten years as a boxing columnist. I preferred the
former, but I do believe the latter were more sincere, especially if I covered
a fight and some dingbat sitting at home didn’t see the bout the same way I
did.
I’d get the rudest emails! Truly. Like I
said, boxing fans are nuts.
But guys were intrigued by me. I was a
woman who knew and loved their sport. I’ve maintained friendships and met my
boyfriend through the sport, but oh jeez, did I kiss some toads along the way…
The first date depicted in this story
really happened. I know, I know, everything that happens in Vegas is supposed
to stay there, but I’m a writer. I harvest my stories from my life and
everyone’s around me.
I’d had high hopes for this guy who asked
me to meet him at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas for an early dinner before a
big heavyweight fight at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. I’d met him
ringside but had no idea he was a heavy gambler and um, well, he got drunk and
fell in one of the canals.
Yeah, I sure know how to pick ‘em.
I related the story that night to a
photographer sitting beside me ringside. At first he seemed okay, and
commiserated on my spectacular bad luck with the opposite sex. Then he started
complaining in a very crude way about his ex-wife and I got really
uncomfortable. He gave off a weird vibe. He seemed angry and standoffish, and I
started avoiding him at future boxing matches.
It turned out Dale Hausner was a dangerous
sociopath who went on to become a serial killer and took his own life whilst serving
six life sentences in an Arizona prison.
I sometimes wonder what might have happened
if I’d ever taken him up on his offer of coffee. I’m glad I passed and that
I’ll never need to know.
But still, meeting some of the colorful
people I did in boxing definitely helped shape The Mediator.
It’s a book close to my heart, and my left hook!
Icarus
Smith has two problems, and they both want him…their Mediator.
Icarus Smith has just landed an unusual
assignment. A licensed mediator used to handling squabbling spouses, he’s been
hand-picked to negotiate a forty-million-dollar welterweight championship title
fight. The problem is, these two world boxing champions hate each other. Worst
of all, Icarus has discovered that one of them, Italian superstar Paolo de
Luca, is the man with whom he had a passionate affair in Italy the previous
summer. Paolo cruelly dumped him, and Icarus realizes he is still devastated.
Can he overcome his personal feelings to work with Paolo and the boxer’s
arch-nemesis, US champion Adam Wyler?
So far, the fight scheduled to take place
at New York’s Madison Square Garden is a bust. Fans have bought tickets, and
Pay-Per-View sales are through the roof. Just like Lady Di’s face once adorned
dishcloths, these guys have their faces on buttons, badges, posters, TV and
print ads. And they don’t care.
But Icarus has an even bigger problem. He’s
just accepted promoter Thaddeus Halsey’s huge wad of cash to broker this deal
and Icarus wants the money for a restoration project in his hometown in Las
Vegas. Can Icarus go through with mediation? Can he persuade the man who broke
his heart to face the guy who now apparently wants it?
Reader
Advisory: This book contains scenes of multiple male ménage.
Publisher's
Note: This book was previously released by Totally Bound under the same
title. It has been expanded, revised and re-edited for re-release.
“You’re ordering that?” Jerome Curtin
scoffed at me.
I looked up from the menu, trying to hide
my embarrassment. Ten minutes I’d known the guy, and it was ten minutes too
many. Before I could respond, a man in red silk pants and a lime green shirt
rushed by me on stilts. Jugglers followed him, then came the singers. The
diners around us began to applaud. To my astonishment, the statue of an old man
sitting on the bench right opposite me came to life.
Ah, Venice.
The briny smell of St. Mark’s Square and
the canal’s waters filled my senses with nostalgia. The singers in their
brightly colored costumes gathered near the fountain, gaudy masks held to their
faces, and started to sing. The Carnevale di Venezia came beautifully to life.
The twilight ambience with its flickering wall sconces put me in a better mood,
as did the old Italian folk melody. I recognized it, but didn’t remember how.
“Sir?”
I glanced back up at the waiter. Pity
flashed in his eyes. I guessed he’d had his share of bad dates, too.
“Sorry.” In a flash of joy it came back to
me. “Lu Me Sceccu,” I practically shouted.
My table companion looked startled then he
rolled his eyes. “Number one on Billboard, was it?”
Well! No need to be rude. “I know that
song!” I tried to place it and it hit me.
I couldn’t believe that almost eighteen
months later, I’d buried the memory so deep that it hurt to recall it. It was
like a scar on my soul. I spent my whole life counseling people, urging them to
forget the past. Me, I’d just submerged the pain in work. I took a deep breath
and grabbed my glass of iced water.
“Sir?” The waiter’s eyes were full of
sympathy. “Are you okay?”
No. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
Jerome Curtin suddenly leaned across the
table and kissed me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he slipped his tongue into
my mouth. It was like being invaded by an electric eel.
I pushed him off me. “What are you doing?”
I sputtered as iced water ran down my suit and tie. It figured that the one
time I’d splurged on new clothes, they’d be ruined.
The waiter produced hand towels out of
nowhere and gave them to me, still looking like he felt very bad for me.
“Thank you.” I pressed the towels against
my soaking wet shirt.
“You looked like you wanted to be kissed,”
Jerome said.
Not by you.
“You had this look in your eye.”
Yeah, I could just imagine. I’d thought I
was over it—him, that is. The astonishing man I’d met that summer, when I’d
found the love I’d thought would never die. Lu Me Sceccu. I smiled
now, recalling that it was an elderly woman’s love song to her dearly departed
forty-year-old donkey.
“Icarus, you’re keeping the man waiting!”
Jerome blared the words at me over the top of the singers’ voices.
A busboy appeared and deftly replaced the
tablecloth, gave me a new napkin, then refilled my water glass. I thanked him.
I could feel water seeping into my underpants. Later, I might find this funny.
Right now, I wished I’d gone home and caught up on case work, like I usually
did.
“I’ll have a dozen oysters,” I said, changing
my order. “And the tomato ricotta salad, please.”
The waiter nodded. “Excellent choice, sir.”
As he took Jerome’s order, I grasped for
the fleeting moments of sheer happiness I recalled from that magnificent Sunday
lunch when Pio had taken me to meet his family. I had never felt so accepted,
so…embraced by a family. I’d wanted to be with them forever. And it wasn’t like
me, not at all, to fall so quickly, so hard.
To love total strangers so deeply.
A.J.
Llewellyn is an author whose obsession with myth,
magic, love and romance might have led to serious stalking charges had it not
been for the ability to write. Thanks to the existence of some very patient
publishers, A.J.'s days are spent writing, reading and dreaming up new worlds.
AJ has definitely stopped Google-searching former boyfriends and given up all
ambition to taste-test every cup cake in the universe to produce over 150
published gay erotic romance novels.
A.J. wants you to read them all.
You can find this author lurking on Facebook and Twitter - part-time class clown being another occupation. When not writing or reading, A.J.'s other passions include juggling, kite-boarding and spending a fortune buying upgrades for Diner Dash.
A.J. wants you to read them all.
You can find this author lurking on Facebook and Twitter - part-time class clown being another occupation. When not writing or reading, A.J.'s other passions include juggling, kite-boarding and spending a fortune buying upgrades for Diner Dash.
How
to find/friend me:
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