New Release Giveaway: Loose Lips & Relationships By AJ Rose and Kate Aaron

Title: Loose Lips & Relationships
Series: Flaming, MO Book 1
Author: AJ Rose and Kate Aaron
Genre: M/M Romance, contemporary
Release Date: February 26, 2019
Pages: 298

New Release Giveaway!

Loose Lips & Relationships By AJ Rose and Kate Aaron

3 Lucky Winners to Receive:

Winner #1 to receive: Digital copy of Loose Lips & Relationships (Flaming, MO #1) and $10 Amazon gift card.

Winner #2 and Winner #3 to receive: Digital copy of Loose Lips & Relationships (Flaming, MO #1)

**Giveaway Eligible in US Only**

Book blurb:

Flaming, Missouri is the perfect place for police officer Marc Warren to heal his battered heart after a broken marriage. The tourist town is an easy beat and he finds sanctuary in his beautiful cabin on the Lake of the Ozarks. So when Grant “Good Time” Taylor shows interest, Marc is in no hurry to let Flaming’s resident bad boy rock his boat.

Grant has no interest in dating locals. Tourists are plentiful and don’t want more than he’s willing to give. But a bar bet turns personal when Marc hands him a humiliating public rejection. If Grant wants to get under the mysterious officer’s skin, he’ll have to offer more than a temporary port.

The small town rumor mill gets a jumpstart as Marc and Grant realize what they’ve been missing all along—each other. But not everyone is happy for them. Someone will stop at nothing to sink the budding relationship. Can Marc and Grant overcome their fears to fight for each other, or is their happiness destined to drown?

Award winning authors AJ Rose and Kate Aaron have teamed up to welcome you to Flaming, MO, a cozy thriller series with feel-good themes, charismatic characters, and a small town with a big heart.

Excerpt:

Grant

Marc lied to me, and I didn’t know what to think. He’d run out of the bedroom that morning so fast, I was jarred awake. The hasty way he’d thrown on clothes and bolted out the door made me wonder if he regretted the night before and was avoiding me. I’d yanked on a pair of sleep pants draped over a chair by the deck doors and followed, slowing at the sound of him answering a woman’s question about my bike, saying the motorcycle was his.

He doesn’t want whoever’s out there to know I’m here.

Standing beside the doors, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them, and when he called her, “Mom,” cold dread blossomed in my belly. Why didn’t he want her to know he had company?

Marc was angry with her, and I deduced enough to realize they’d had an argument the previous evening, and she was the likely cause of his upset before I arrived. It was obvious he was in a hurry to get her to leave. Was it because he didn’t want her to discover I was still there first thing in the morning?

Not wanting to eavesdrop any longer, I’d returned to the bedroom to brush my teeth and put on a t-shirt. I debated getting dressed and leaving, but I couldn’t if Marc didn’t want his mother to see me, and it was clear he didn’t since he told her my bike was his. Besides, how would I leave if not on my bike?

Don’t jump to conclusions. Maybe he doesn’t want you to meet his mother under awkward circumstances, like first thing in the morning while you’re wearing his pajama bottoms. So instead of dressing, slinking out, and roaring off on the bike that wasn’t mine, I decided to make coffee. Maybe he’d tell me about it when he came back inside.

But he’d said it was just someone turning around at the dead end. He didn’t want his mother to know I was there, and he didn’t want me to know his mother had come to see him. If he was shooing her off after she’d driven down from Columbia, he was pulling some serious avoidance.

I’d been prepared to drink my coffee quickly, get my stuff, and go, but then he’d seemed so disappointed we couldn’t spend the day together, and he’d been sincere about wanting to meet up for drinks later. I couldn’t get a read on him. Everything about his demeanor said he was happy to have me there the morning after, interested in continuing to see me, and didn’t seem to care who saw us in public. He didn’t hesitate.

Maybe the argument with her had nothing to do with me. Not everything’s about me. But then why lie about me to her, and then about her to me? It was weird. People lied to hide things, but he was out with his family. I knew that because he was open about divorcing Dave. His brother knew we’d returned to his house from a date, too. So if his mother knew he was gay, what was he hiding from her?

Just me. He’s hiding me from her.

He’d known which fancy silverware to use on our first date because his mother liked the finer things. He’d been comfortable in Delmonico’s, like he belonged. Unlike me, a lake rat mechanic who had to scrub the grease out from under my fingernails every day after work. Sure, Marc was a cop, and his cabin wasn’t incredibly huge—more comfortable than posh—but maybe he wasn’t ready to introduce his roughneck boyfriend to his hoity-toity mother.

“Earth to Grant.” Joe snapped his fingers in front of me. “What’s up with you?”

I looked toward the door of The HookUp again, wondering where Marc was. My straying attention didn’t go unnoticed.

“Expecting a certain sexy cop to join us?” Lily smiled wickedly and scooted over to allow a woman to wedge herself through the crowd around the bar. “So things are going well with you and Officer Warren?”

I sipped my beer to buy time to decide how much to say. “I think so. I mean, I stayed over last night.”

Brandon, who’d come over with a glass of wine for the woman beside Lily, tilted his head in our direction, so I knew he was listening even as he took the customer’s card to start a tab.

“There’s a but coming. I can feel it.” Joe popped a peanut and waited expectantly for me to elaborate.

“I don’t know. I’m being paranoid.” I explained what I’d overheard and how Marc had hidden the encounter from me, finishing with, “I don’t know what to think.”

Brandon, ever the practical, no-nonsense part of our little group, cut right through the bullshit. “Why don’t you just ask him about it?”

Uneasiness had me scrutinizing my fingers, and I absently scratched at a bit of grease I’d missed after my shift. “Maybe I’m afraid of the answer. He talks like he grew up pretty well off. What if he doesn’t want to introduce his grease monkey boyfriend to his rich parents?”

“That’s stupid.” Joe’s vehemence surprised me. “A guy embarrassed to be roughing it wouldn’t agree to meet up with you in public.”

“Yeah, but with my friends. At my favorite bar. It’s my crowd here. Where’s the risk?”

“Okay, why take you to Delmonico’s for your first date? That place is full of ladies who lunch and have cornered the market on gossip.”

Maybe Joe was right. I’d never been insecure with men before, so this was new territory. Then again, I’d never been anyone’s boyfriend before either. Maybe there were meet-the-family rules I didn’t know. Marc already knew my only family.

“I still say ask him.” Brandon pointed at the door. “Especially since he just walked in.”

---

About the Authors:

AJ Rose

It began with a Halloween themed short story assignment from a second grade teacher, and from then on, AJ Rose fell head over heels in love with writing. Time has seen the beginning and end of many things, college and graduation, a finance career, and a marriage, and through it all, writing has been their first love. Now, AJ is also head over heels for their wife, fellow author Kate Aaron, who gets it, the twitchy fingers when word counts are low too many consecutive days, the thousand-yard stare when an idea turns AJ’s vision inward, and the jitters when the word-babies go out to meet the world. Nothing could stop the tall tales about imaginary people that refuse to be ignored. With a life full of this much passion, it’s no wonder AJ chose romance. The voices in their head are mostly of the male persuasion, so m/m romance was an excellent fit. But don’t be surprised if the occasional ghost still pops up.

Kate Aaron

Born in Liverpool, Kate Aaron is a bestselling author of the #1 LGBT romances What He Wants, Ace, The Slave, and other works.

Kate swapped the North West for the Midwest in October 2015 and married award-winning author AJ Rose. Together they plan to take over the world.

---

Rafflecopter Giveaway:

Click for the Rafflecopter giveaway