Tell me that you forgive me – #ParanormalRomance #AgeGap #MFRWHooks #99Cents

Welcome to this week’s Book Hooks blog hop. As part of my continuing celebration of Pride Month, today I am featuring a hook from my gay paranormal romance At the Margins of Madness. I’ve dropped the price of this full length novel to only 99 cents for the month of June.

Blurb

Both power and love can lead to madness

Nineteen year old Kyle sees visions of disasters, visions that tear his world apart. Everyone assumes that he is schizophrenic, but Rob, the cop who picks him up off the street, knows better.

Rob's own experience has taught him that psychic powers are real, and potentially devastating. Since his telepathic sister's brutal murder, Rob wants nothing to do with "gifted" individuals like Kyle. Yet he can't deny his attraction to the beautiful, tortured young man – an attraction that appears to be mutual.

When a brilliant, sadistic practitioner of the black arts lures Kyle into his clutches, Rob faces the possibility that once again he may lose the person he loves most to the forces of darkness.

The Hook

Kyle’s mouth was so dry he couldn’t swallow. His ears rang. Ants crawled under his skin, creating an internal itch impossible to relieve. He recognized the side effects of Thorazine. Must have been a heavy dose. He groped through a fog, straining for consciousness. Anything was better than the smothering lethargy the drug produced.

He risked opening his eyes. A yellow halo surrounded the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. The brightness made him squint. It was all familiar.

He didn’t remember checking himself in. He didn’t remember anything, really, after leaving Rob’s apartment. His chest ached at that memory. He’d been so naïve, imagining that Rob might be different. That he might actually care.

Despair closed in around him. I wish I’d never woken up, Kyle mused. I wish this was all over. He closed his eyes again, willing the blackness to swallow him, but his mind remained stubbornly aware.

“Kyle? Can you hear me?” That voice, soft but strong. What was he doing here?

Kyle turned his head, fighting the drug-fuelled tightness in his neck muscles. It was déjà vu. Once again, the sandy-haired cop sat at his bedside, fidgeting with his cap, his face sombre and worried. A tiny flicker of hope kindled in Kyle’s heart. He extinguished it immediately.

“Go away.” He rolled to his side, turning his back on the blue-clad figure.

“Please, Kyle. Listen to me. I’m so sorry. Really, I was so stupid…”

Resolute, Kyle closed his ears to Rob’s pleas. No one is going to hurt me again. Especially not you. He thought about razor blades and rat poison. Alcohol was too slow. He’d do what was necessary to escape from the madness, to spare himself—and Rob—any more pain.

An image of gleaming steel fluttered through his mind. Gradually the scene returned, the terrible vision that had sent him screaming into blind insanity. Enough of the drug lingered in his system that he could inspect his recollections impassively. The vivid and disturbing premonition had been atypical, a waking fit in which he personally experienced the predicted horrors. The patterns of his madness seemed to be shifting. What did it mean?

All at once, he remembered the images he had seen when he first met Rob, the pulse-pounding blow job, the joy of being on his knees serving the powerful older man. That dream had come true, at least in spirit. Saliva gathered in his parched mouth as he recalled the weight of Rob’s cock on his tongue, the solid force of the other man’s thrusts, the sharp flavor of his ejaculate.

Rob’s hand clasped his shoulder. Kyle’s cock stirred, defying the deadening effects of the medication.

“Forgive me, Kyle. Please. Look at me, baby.”

It was the endearment that did it, cracked Kyle open and let the pain and desire flow in. He allowed Rob to roll him onto his back. He gazed up into the cop’s sky-blue eyes, tears gathering in his own.

“Rob…” he began.

“I know. I know. I’m an idiot. I tried to push you away. I lied to you. Tell me that you forgive me. That you’ll give me another chance to be with you. To take care of you.”

“Why?” Kyle struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. Rob grabbed the thin pillow and tried to help. Kyle noticed the straps hanging from the chrome rails. Restraints. He must have been really crazy. “Didn’t you want me? We were so good together.”

“I was afraid.” Rob sat back in his chair, staring at his shoes. “Afraid of your powers.”

 

At the Margins of Madness (ebook version) is on sale for only 99 cents throughout Pride Month, at all outlets. Find the buy links here: https://www.lisabetsarai.com/marginsofmadnessbook.html

Be sure to visit the other authors participating in today’s Book Hooks!

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