Have a little “make it through lockdown” pressie…
 
It’s the dark days of November, and lockdowns are happening everywhere, so have a little present to keep you entertained during these days.
 
From 23rd November for a week the box set of the first three books in the Delphic Agency is only 1.99.  Also included are three steamy shorts that enlarge the stories and explore a few more kinks.
 
Step into the world of the Delphic Agency by Romilly King where wealthy Emptores buy the time of beautiful Venditores and love blooms amidst carefully negotiated BDSM contracts.
 
This collection includes three full-length steamy gay romance reads plus three additional spicy shorts. Guaranteed ten plus heat level throughout.
 
The Delphic Agency series begins with Paid to Kneel, where submissive first time Venditor Richard is paired with rich dominant Ash for a short term contract that leads to so much more.
 
Next, in Paid to take Control, find out what happens when super smart, super hot Brio meets Painter, the only Dom to ever truly match his high maintenance needs. Their road to happiness is full of electrifying exploration and fiery full on BDSM scenes.
 
Things get complicated in Paid to be Shared, when sweet experienced submissive Birch is contracted to meet the needs of two very different Doms.  Will their interactions be a recipe for disaster or a hot ménage?
 
Also included in this collection are Free to be Tied and Free to Play, two sizzling scenes starring Richard and Ash as their relationship moves forward, and Due to be Punished, a very steamy insight into Painter and Brio’s life together and how Painter tames his brat.
 
Each story has Alpha dom’s, fascinating submissives, and a full gamut of safe and consensual playtimes along with a happy every after.
 
Enjoy…and keep an eye out for the second book in the Handled series – Cleansed – coming this week!

"Handled", my new dark gay romance is released tonight.

There are trigger warnings all over this friends, it's violent, it's certainly steamy, it may be a bit much for some people.  Just remember, these are not real people, and this is not a real world!

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Chapter One 

Gray 

I wake no less irritated than when I went to sleep.  Frustration and arousal are rolling at a low level simmer in my brain and my body.  I should have sought a release but I couldn’t make my mind up if I needed to hurt, or be hurt.

Normally I know exactly what I want.

Watching the kill turned me on, it always does, there was pain involved, and although I was fifteen feet away I could feel it, smell it, almost taste it as the wire of the garotte carved through the dirty skin of the neck.

It was the laziness of the killer that confused my arousal though.  He was sloppy, his victim was random, there was no finesse anywhere, no evolution in technique, no learning or adapting. 
The pain on the victims face had caused a jerk in my limbic system, my cock going half hard, my blood sluggishly stirring, but the lacklustre carry through from the killer snuffed my rising hormones.
I know I will be a lot harder when I kill him.

The pleasure will last a lot longer.

The best I can say about last night’s kill was that it was quick. Which was a blessing for the victim.
It was the second time I had seen this killer perform, and the previous operation had been no more inspiring than this one.

I roll out of bed, I have time for a shower before watching the congressional committee do their annual rehashing of old issues before failing to find a way out of their ethical conundrum.

It is essential viewing, it gives me insight into which way the wind is blowing on Capitol Hill with regard to my employment and more than that, my existence. 

Chances are the wind will still be gusting in my direction. The public remains fascinated and frequently aroused by people like me, but reluctant to face the unpalatable truth that the human genome throws us up for a reason, and that reason is survival.

Apart from that it's always amusing to watch the Director deliver this year's version of his you can’t handle the truth monologue.

Under the warm water of the shower I feel again the urge to give into the sexual side of my issues but it’s not worth it.  It won’t assuage the itch, and I still can’t decide, hurt me or hurt someone else.

Sometimes, when the disconnect is bad, I look down at my body and I am surprised, because it isn’t what I expect to see. I see smooth lean muscle and length when what I expect to see is skinny and short and dirty, with old blood on the backs of my legs, grime ground into too pale skin, and my ribs like a toast rack.

The curling arousal makes it worse. I need to kill or this vision of me becomes the more prevalent one, and that isn’t helpful, it takes the confidence away.

I don’t have bad memories per se, I just had my evolution forced, and so the real me, the me now, it sometimes regresses, and if I look in the mirror I see both of us, one standing inside the other.  The grown Handler and the tortured child.

Once I get my new Witness and handle this killer it will be so much clearer, and then I can take my release with clarity and passion.

Rubbing my hair dry I walk naked into the bedroom and flick on the tv.  The committee is coming to order, the Director adjusting his microphone smoothly on the desk in front of him - I honestly don’t know how he has the patience for this, but then we have different mentalities.  His various assistants are congregated behind him looking like a row of funeral directors, which is essentially what they are - all dark shiny graduates of the Witness program.

It would be nice if one of them was assigned to me, preferably one that I won’t want to kill within the first half hour, and then we can get the show back on the road and I can finally let the curling, aching need in me find its path to completion.

Paid to Pretend, the fifth and last book in the Delphic Agency Series, is published 2nd October 2020. Here is a little sneak peek from the opening.

Beneath his feet the ground was icy and slick and Christian kept a close eye on the path ahead in the wavering light of his head torch.

Pathfinder, watch your step.

The wind from the lake was cold tonight and the icy rain found ways under his compression shirt and chilled the back of his neck.

He glanced at his wristwatch and picked up the pace a bit, he was behind his schedule.
In the distance the lights of the agency were a bright white beacon on the rise above the lake while the boathouse windows were pinpricks of more welcoming gold.  Sara must be home Christian thought, because Tay and Cash’s cottages would be dark for a long time to come.

For a moment he felt a flash of jealousy.  They got their happy ending.  They found each other.  Christian gritted his teeth and fiercely pushed down the feeling.

Feel nothing, fear nothing, desire nothing.

He pushed the unwelcome emotion to his muscles and took the bend in the track faster, digging his mud caked feet into the curve, pumping his arms to keep his balance.  Icy water splashed up his bare calves.  He was on the home straight now.  Half a mile ahead the bur oaks that surrounded the boathouse were a bare branch silhouette against the sky, and Christian put his head down and went for it.

The burn in his muscles was a fierce joy.  One of the few he allowed himself.  If he made it to the boathouse by his scheduled time he might allow himself a warm shower.  It would probably be wise given the run around the perimeter of the lake in November would have dropped his core temperature despite the exertion.

Can’t get ill.  Not allowed to be ill.  Not allowed to be weak.

Suck it up boy.

The runner’s euphoria powered him the last half a mile in a blur of hot endorphins and needle pricks of cold against his skin.

He sprinted the last 100 yards and pulled up under the bur oaks, panting. Bent over, hands on his knees, he glanced at his watch.  On schedule. Good.  Not early, not late.  On track.  Perfectly acceptable.

He breathed in and out deeply, and then straightened slowly.

The lights of the end cottage of the boathouse shone in front of him.  Those lights had never been lit in the five years he had worked at Delphic.  Through the rain beating down they glowed and burst in prisms of light. Christian gasped and his heart leapt.  His mouth went dry.

“No,”

The lights were golden spills of welcoming warm colour, the little square in the front door, the portholes on both sides, and the floor to ceiling multi-pane arched window above the entrance.

“Not now,” Christian didn’t know if he spoke aloud or if the words were in his head, “I can’t, I’m not ready,”

He felt his legs give way and the next thing he knew he was kneeling in the shallow mud beside his long-time home, his hands curled into fists on his thighs.

He raised his head, and through the long wet strands of his hair he saw the tall man who leaned against the side of the window, arms folded, one ankle crossed over the other.  “Michael,”
Christian stared up at him, just like always, and Michael looked down on him.  Christian swallowed the surging emotions, rage, guilt, sorrow, and blinked the water and mud out of his eyes, trying to see Michael’s expression.

When Michael turned away from the window Christian felt his heart break all over again.
 

I dearly love the Delphic Agency, it gives me an increasingly detailed stage on which to play out love stories and it says things that are close to my heart.  Stuff that I believe in.

I couldn’t leave it without telling Michael’s tale – Every prologue has been written in Michael’s voice and so I think it’s only right that his story closes this chapter of the Delphic Agency.

So who is Michael Bond, other than the man behind Delphic?  And why is he so disappointed in Christian?
 
Paid to Pretend

Christian De Olio, natural-born Boy Scout, head of the Delphic Security Team, exemplary son of a proud family, pretends every day of his life.

He pretends he is sexless in a world where arousal rules.

He pretends that he works for Delphic because it was the obvious choice after his time in the army.

He pretends that whenever he listens to the far-off voice of Michael Bond, the long-absent Director of Delphic, it doesn’t take him right back to one night 15 years ago.  To the one night, he didn’t pretend.  To the one night, he was himself.

And then the Director comes home, and Christian isn’t sure he can pretend anymore. Not when Michael looks at him the way he does, with such disappointment, because Christian can endure anything except being a disappointment to Michael.

Particularly when he thought he was doing so well.

Paid to Pretend is Book 5 in the Delphic Agency Series and features a second chance romance, a hero so clean-cut he glows in the dark, and plenty of steamy kink exploration along with a HEA.