He took a slap shot at the empty net, raising his arms to an imaginary crowd and giving an almost silent cheer. Skating slowly to retrieve the puck, he said. “If we wanna make the show, we’ve got to be the best. We got to push harder and want it more.” He tossed the puck on the ice in front of Robbie. “Do you want it more?”

“More than who?” Robbie stared into his eyes, hands resting on the top of his stick.

“More than anyone else does. More than you want anything else. Do you want it that much?”

Their eyes met, glittering in the harsh shadows of the bare lamp light. Finally, Robbie nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

Paul tilted his head. “Then let’s get to work.”

They skated hard for some indeterminate length of time Paul knew he would never forget. The world had narrowed down to a frozen space of biting cold air, moon shadows, and the sounds of metal blades carving through the ice.

As they sped down the ice, Robbie right on Paul’s tail, an owl broke out of the trees, swooping low over Paul’s head with a swish of feathers and an eerie hooting. “Dang,” Paul said, throwing up his arms and ducking.

“Oh, crap,” Robbie yelped right before he crashed into Paul. Down they went in a tangle of arms and legs.

Robbie landed on top of Paul, knocking the air out of his lungs. Paul’s first thought was that the parka did a great job of insulating him from the cold. The second was that having Robbie laying on top of him felt really good.

Robbie started to push away, and, Paul moved without thought, wrapping his arms around Robbie.

Robbie stopped, raising onto his elbows to stare Paul in the eyes. His eyes were such a warm brown. Paul’s breathing grew heavy, and he felt Robbie’s chest pressing against his with each exhalation.

He licked his dry lips, and Robbie’s eyes dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes. “Can I kiss you?” Robbie asked quietly.

Paul’s muscles tightened, and his breath caught.

Mistaking his silence for a no, Robbie blushed and tried to pull away. Paul grabbed Robbie’s coat awkwardly, fingers clumsy beneath the thick gloves, and pulled him back down.

Robbie’s lips were cold, but his breath was warm as he kissed Paul gently. He lifted his head to check Paul’s reaction.

Oh, Paul thought. Oh. He raised his head off the ice to reach Robbie’s mouth.

Robbie kissed him again, harder this time, pushing him back down to the ice.

Paul whimpered at the feel of Robbie’s lips on his. When Robbie’s tongue flicked against the seam of his mouth, he opened willingly, letting the heat in. Robbie’s thick gloves thumped to the ground as he pulled them off without breaking the kiss.

Robbie shifted on top of him as he explored Paul’s mouth, aligning their bodies in a way that made Paul’s eyes roll back in his head even as the ice numbed his ass through his jeans.

Skates scratching against the ice, Paul bent his knees, clamping his thighs against Robbie’s sides.

Robbie took what he wanted from Paul, tilting his head to the side with a hand, and encouraging Paul to open up with sharp nips to his lips.

He pushed Paul’s head back with pressure on his chin, his mouth moving down the column of Paul’s neck as best as he could through the protective barrier of outerwear.

Paul panted through his open mouth as Robbie set his teeth on Paul’s skin and sucked, tongue flicking against the pulse in Paul’s neck. “Oh, fuck,” he moaned, hips rising of their own accord as his body fought for some friction.

For most of a decade, he’d imagined what it would feel like to be held down by a man, to feel someone strong and hard pressing against him, matching their strength to his. His imagination had not come close to reality.

Robbie pushed up onto his arms, forcing his body down onto Paul’s rapidly growing erection. The place where his mouth had been was suddenly freezing in the cold air. Paul’s head to toe shudder threatened to throw Robbie off. “Oh, God, oh, God,” Paul groaned. “Don’t stop.”

Robbie leaned down for a long hard kiss that stole the air from Paul’s lungs. He smiled as he looked at Paul. “If we don’t go inside, we’re going to freeze to death, stick to the ice, and Mrs. Pierson is going to find our bodies in the morning.” He jumped up and held a hand out to Robbie.

Paul couldn’t process what was happening as he let himself be pulled up. Was that it? Was it over? Would the kissing stop when they got inside? Please don’t let it stop. He needed it so badly. Needed to shut off his brain, just for tonight. Please.

Robbie skated off the rink and headed towards the door. Paul followed him.

What would people be most surprised to know about you?

I have a master’s degree in Political School from the London School of Economics.

How do you relax?

Driving. I love to drive. I will drive for hours. The longest road trip I was ever on was for three months. My goal is to fit out my van so I can live in it, and drive around the country visiting friends and writing different places.

Do you have a favorite quote?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? – Mary Oliver “The Summer Day.”

How long have you been writing and what made you fall in love with writing?

I’ve never not written. It’s all I’ve ever done in one form or another. Before I put stories down on paper, I used to make them up in my head. I come from a very loud Long Island, New York family with 4 kids close in age. I used to go to bed early, so I could lie in bed making up what was basically self-insert fan fiction! My favorite fandom was Trixie Belden. I used to imagine hanging out with the Bob-White gang. I would wonder what it would be like if they could see the technological marvels of the late 70s. J

Reading make me fall in love with words. The first time I wrote a story down, I was hooked.

What are your ambitions for your writing career and what’s your favorite part of writing?

My ambitions are not uncommon. I want to make enough money on a regular basis to be able to write full-time, travel around see my friends and family, and pay my bills.

My favorite part of writing is creating the characters. I love it so much. And then the actual writing, I love dialogue. I could just have my characters talking, talking all book. Fun fact, I try to make all my characters have speech patterns that are unique to them. I do a lot of research on idioms, syntax, and vernacular of different areas of the country and world.

For Paul, who is from Alabama, and Troy, who is from West Virginia, I watched a lot of YouTube videos to get the accurate sound.

Sergei Pregov, the main goalie for the Thunder, was born in Russia and moved to Quebec, Canada as a young teen. He speaks a mix of English, Russian, and Quebecois French with a Russian accent. His story is next, and writing his dialogue should be fun. I have some Quebecois friends I’m going to him up for him. Their cursing is fascinating. Russian cursing is an art unto itself. I will probably avoid most of it.

The most fun I had with that is for a fantasy series that no one reads. The main characters are American Ruska-Roma. It’s very difficult to find valid sources of any information on the culture, especially the American Roma community, since most of the research is on Eastern European communities. There are also intricate clan and family connections and dialects. Luckily, there is a professor at the University of Texas who has done a lot of work, including assembling a dictionary and basic grammar. I’m sure I got a lot of it wrong, but it’s important to try.

We’re writers. Words matter. Word choices are important.

What scene in your writing has made you laugh the hardest or cry the most?

I wish I could remember! I cry at some point during every book.

Benny and Mikey’s marriage proposal scene in Paper Hearts made me laugh

I cried a lot over Paul and his dad in Country Boy. Their big talk. It helps the tears come if you listen to Alex Clare’s “Too Close” over and over while reading it. That’s how I wrote it.

Paul’s father is very religious, but he loves his son more than anything. And he is trying to protect him. Paul knows this, and loves his father, but he is coming to the conclusion that he’s wrong, and that he can’t be the person his dad wants him to be.

These are some of the song lyrics, if you’re not familiar with it:

You know I’m not one to break promises
I don’t want to hurt you but I need to breathe
At the end of it all you’re still my best friend
But there’s something inside that I need to release
Which way is right?
Which way is wrong?
How do I say that I need to move on?
You know we’re heading separate ways

I can lie no more
I can hide no more
Got to be true to myself

You’ve given me more than I can return
Yet there’s oh so much you deserve
Nothing to say
Nothing to do
I’ve nothing to give
I must live without you
You know we’re heading separate ways

Can you give the readers a brief summary of your latest book?

Country Boy is a coming of age book. Two young men, both just beginning their professional lives, meet at the cross roads of existential crisis.

Paul and Robbie were on rival NCAA hockey teams. Robbie was a Bemidji Beaver. Paul was a Huntsville, Alabama Charger. The met off the ice late one night in between back to back games, and they hooked up.

The next game, Paul punched Robbie in the face and called him a bad name. Two years later, they’re on the same team.

Paul is a conflicted, very religious young man. He knows he’s gay. He just doesn’t want to be, but he’s starting to realize it’s never going to go away.

The only thing Robbie is good at is hockey. But he’s not sure that hockey has any value to the world. He was raised believing our job is to make the world a better place, and he has no idea how playing hockey is going to matter at all.

Obviously, they fall in love and have to figure out how to become the men they want to be and still hold to the values that are very important to both of them.

What genre does it fall in?

Gay hockey romance

Share a few words about your latest book, other than the usual blurb.

A little excerpt? I’m not sure if you know it, but athletes are very superstitious. Unfortunately for Paul. (R –rated excerpt!)

“What do you mean we can’t come?” Paul’s head thudded back against the door Robbie had pushed him against the minute they were in the room.

He couldn’t process what Robbie was saying. Seemed to him like they’d been well on their way to orgasm-city a second ago. Paul was more than ready. This was the first chance they’d had to do more than make out since the night before when they’d had a spectacular and unexpected win against the Red Wings.

“Look,” Robbie said reasonably as if Paul could be anything approaching reasonable with Robbie’s hand on his dick. The bastard was brushing his fingers over Paul’s balls even as he explained why no one —no one in this room anyway—was going to get off.

“We won last night, right?”

“Yeah? And?”

“And the night before?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, we keep getting interrupted before we can, ah, finish. And it’s making you all frustrated and on edge.”

“Damn right, I am.” Between the exhausting travel schedule, the constant presence of their teammates, and stupid fire alarms, they hadn’t been able to do more than share a few quick, unsatisfying, groping sessions despite having a hotel room all to themselves.

Now they were finally in the room alone after escaping from the celebration down at the hotel bar. They had the day off tomorrow, and Paul’s plan had been to get into bed and stay there as long as they could before someone inevitably came looking for them.

Privacy on the road was a rare commodity. And now they were going to waste it by not having sex?

Robbie leaned in, his breath ghosting over Paul’s neck. He pressed his tongue against the pulse there, and Paul shivered. He didn’t know why, but that weakened his knees every time. “Shit,” he whispered.

“You were on fire out there. We were awesome together.”

Grabbing a handful of his soft hair, Paul pulled Robbie’s head up. “Yeah, we were.” He flipped them, putting Robbie’s back against the door and kissing the breath out of him until Robbie was whimpering and trying to push Paul off.

“Wait, wait,” he said, hands flat on Paul’s chest.

“What?” Paul asked with a pained sigh, rolling his forehead across Robbie’s.

“I think,” he said through deep breaths, “I think that all this sexual frustration is why we were so good.”

Paul was sexually frustrated all right. Robbie looked half-wrecked. Eyes bright and unfocused, cheeks flushed, and lips swollen and pink. His jacket lay on the floor at their feet, his tie hung loosely around his neck, and his cock made a huge tent in his impeccably-tailored suit pants.

“But I haven’t even gotten to touch your dick yet,” he said, defeat in his voice. They’d gone further in a couple of hours back in Minnesota than they had in the four days since they’d started this thing.

Robbie pulled Paul’s hand to him, pressing it against his cock. “You will. I promise. You can touch it right now. But you can’t come, and you can’t make me come.”

Paul closed his eyes and took his hand back, pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew what Robbie was thinking now. “Until we lose, right?”

“Yeah,” Robbie said.

“I’ll throw the next game then,” he said as Robbie grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket that he miraculously still wore.

“You won’t,” Robbie said smugly, pushing Paul’s jacket down his arms.

“Fuck you.”

“Not until we lose.”

“Fucking superstitious hockey players,” Paul cursed.

“Do you want to risk it?” Robbie asked. “How would you feel if I dropped to my knees right now and sucked your brains out through your dick, and then we lost?”

Paul knew then that he wasn’t going to come tonight. “I hate you.”

Will we be seeing these characters again any time soon? Is this book part of a series?

100%! I love writing this series. So you’ll see a lot of the Thunder players and their friends. It’s the gayest team in the League!

Bryce and Dakota, the couple from the first book, will be getting married in Mexico around Valentine’s Day. I’m stretching the Thunder bye week a little further into the season. It’s going to be like an episode of Melrose Place. We’ll see a lot of the characters from all the book.