Hi guys, we have Remmy Duchene stopping by today with her upcoming release Trust and Control, we have a brilliant guest post and a great excerpt for you to check out, so enjoy the post! <3 ~Pixie~
Trust and Control
Remmy Duchene
Wealthy real estate mogul Christophe Lafavre has everything—except any love life to speak of. Though he has a brilliant head for business, when it comes to relationships, he’s often left fumbling in the dark.
To put a stop to the whispers about his pitiful social life, Christophe takes a suggestion from a friend and goes to a club on masquerade night. There, he meets an elusive hottie who calls himself Raj, and though Christophe cannot see Raj’s face, there’s definitely a connection. Over the phone and online, Christophe and Raj get to know each other. Their conversation is easy and arousing. It’s hard for Christophe to believe the strength of the feelings he’s developing toward a man who is still essentially a stranger, but he can’t get Raj out of his head. They eventually give in to their physical longing—but still Raj refuses to show his face or divulge his identity.
When it comes, the revelation will rock Christophe’s world and redefine more than one relationship in his life.
First Edition published as If I was Your Man by Breathless Press, 2013. This edition has been re-written, revised and re-edited.
Second Chances by Remmy Duchene
Hello everyone. First I’d like to say I am very happy to be here today at MM Good Book Reviews. I am supposed to talk to you about my newest release Trust and Control and I will, but first, a little backstory.
A few years ago, I wrote this story called If I was Your Man. It was a short story—about twenty thousand words. It was supposed to be just a naughty little tale you read on a hump day with a glass of wine and chocolate covered strawberries. As many of you may know, it was released to Breathless Press. Not long afterward, that publisher sent all its authors a little note that they would be going bye-bye and we had our rights back. To say I was gutted would be the understatement of the year because this wouldn’t be the first of my publishers to crash during that time. Now, this story, was just one of the many I had the rights back for that would be sitting on my computer gathering virtual dust.
After going through a few publisher implosions over the past year and a half, I was just about ready to highlight all those stories and hitting “delete.” This is another thing writers have to worry about on top of getting a story right, into a publishing house, polished, given a face and make it ready for its grand opening, so to speak.
After speaking to a friend, he encouraged me to get the story out there again, and since writer’s block was kicking my butt, I pulled it out, dusted it off and gave it a gutting and a rewrite. Now it’s a full novel and Dreamspinner Press has decided to give it a new go at life. I am super excited to retell Christophe’s story and feel blessed that it was given a second chance by others. I truly hope you will enjoy my boys and I look forward to writing more like them.
Excerpt
THE SUN wasn’t even out yet when Christophe Lafavre climbed behind the wheel of his car. Shadows lurked beneath the trees, and from somewhere in the distance, a lone dog barked. He couldn’t see the moon, but it still felt like the dead of night. Why he agreed to drive to this race from hell was beyond him.
For a breath, he sat in the Jeep Rubicon and closed his eyes. Inside his head a battle was raging—did he really need to attend, or could he just go back to bed? The fact that he was beyond exhausted didn’t help make his decision any easier. The past month and a half had been nonstop, absolutely crazy, and he’d completely forgotten they would be doing the Mudder Challenge to help raise money for breast cancer research. He was looking forward to finally getting a chance to sleep in. Perhaps he’d been so tired that he didn’t find it suspicious that he had a whole day clear in his calendar. A day free of drama or meetings or viewings was rare in Christophe’s life, so he should have known something was missing.
He inhaled, held the breath, counted to ten, then exhaled. All that did was make him feel light-headed, and it didn’t make him feel any better about what he had to do. He frowned deeper, started the engine, and rolled down all the windows, hoping the breeze would wake him up before he reached Jaswant’s place.
It didn’t work.
At Jaswant Singh’s house, Christophe still felt as if he’d fall on his face if he stood, so he didn’t get out of the vehicle. He merely pulled up behind Jaswant’s silver sports car and honked.
Jaswant stuck his head out the bedroom window to wave.
“Come on! Get the lead out!” Christophe tilted his head out the car to yell. He didn’t have to wait long for Jaswant to walk out of the house carrying two travel mugs of coffee. “God bless you, Jaswant.” Christophe held out both hands for one of the mugs.
As Christophe took a sip, Jaswant laughed and shook his head. “Do I know you well or what? Let me guess—you slept in rather than make coffee.”
Christophe moaned and took another sip. “Yeah. The debate was between shower or coffee—coffee lost.”
“That’s not wise, my friend. Not wise at all. Coffee should always win.”
“You say that now,” Christophe said. “But you’ll be thanking me later when you’re not getting hit in the face with my BO.”
Jaswant laughed. “Noted.”
It was barely six, so the streets were remarkably empty. It was a little unnerving to Christophe since he was used to the hustle and bustle of rush-hour traffic, sitting in one place for up to half an hour. Breezing down the highway felt a little foreign. They made the journey in silence, the only sound the slurp of hot joe. Christophe was happy for the peace. He took the time to allow the caffeine to clear his mind and prepare him to be less of a zombie when they finally faced everyone else at the challenge.
After finding a parking space behind the building, Christophe walked inside with Jaswant. It took some wrangling, but they finally found the changing room.
“You’d think they didn’t want people to use this place,” Jaswant muttered. “What the hell was that? A trek to Narnia?”
Christophe chuckled. “Poor building planning, my friend. It sucks balls.”
“No kidding. Listen, there’s going to be a party at Motions in a couple of nights,” Jaswant said, lacing up his shoes. “You should go.”
“Will you be going?”
“Nope. I have a thing.”
Christophe arched a brow. “I’m sorry. You have a thing? Since when?”
“I’ve always had things.” Jaswant laughed. “If you must know, I’m going to meet up with Fritz. He’s in town for a few days—passing through, really—and I did promise if he was ever here, I’d take him to dinner.”
“I remember him. You met in Prague last year, right?”
Jaswant nodded.
“I also recall telling you the two of you would make an amazing couple.”
“Oh no. Fritz and I talked, and we decided we’re much better friends than lovers.”
Christophe rose, pulled his shirt over his head, and eyed Jaswant. “You mean you talked out your ass so much that he got extremely exasperated and just agreed?”
“Ass.” Jaswant laughed. “No. We actually talked. The distance alone would have been killer. I’m not leaving here, and he wasn’t leaving Prague. So, moot point. And we have no sexual chemistry at all.”
“Did you two try?”
“No, we didn’t have to.” Jaswant twisted his lips, then continued. “I want the kind of chemistry where all I have to do is look at him and want nothing more than to rip his clothes off and have him right there—don’t matter much where or who’s watching.”
“Damn,” Christophe whispered.
“Yeah.” Jaswant rolled his shoulder. “Another reason why he and I wouldn’t work. He has this… this… look about him.”
“What look?”
“Like he’d die if I told him I wanted to pull his hair and spank his ass.”
Christophe laughed until he snorted.
“Anyway.” Jaswant sighed. “Like I was saying. Motions is gonna be hot. It’s a masquerade party, so you don’t have to tell a guy your real name if you don’t like him.”
“You sound a little too insistent on this.”
Jaswant made a face. “Well, you haven’t been having great luck in the love department.”
“I do fine.”
“Oh right. And which of the amazing ex-boyfriends was Mr. Right?” Jaswant leaned his back against the locker and folded his arms over his large chest. “Was it Mr. Spot-Me-Ten-Grand-to-Start-My-Music-Career? Oh, I know! It was the one who tried selling personal photos to the newspaper…. Or maybe….”
“I get it!” Christophe held up a hand. “Shit, man! Am I that bad?”
Jaswant shrugged. “Come on. We got some mud to fall over in.”
“Why do we do the Mudder Challenge every year again?”
“For a number of reasons. One, we’ve been doing it since university so it’s now tradition.” Jaswant nodded as if to confirm this to himself. “Second, it’s for a good cause, and third, it’s fun!”
Christophe made a mental note to discuss the definition of fun with Jaswant later. “Fun? For whom?” he grumbled.
“Come on already!” Jaswant called.
Still, it took Christophe a second to get his feet moving. He moaned but followed Jaswant out of the changing rooms. Jaswant was right—ever since university, the two of them would train like they were going to join the Marines for the one day that would end with them having mud in places they hadn’t even known existed.
There were tents along the perimeter of the massive field. In the center was a series of obstacles each challenger had to overcome: climbing walls, crawling under wire on their chest in mud, running through hoops, hopping over tires.
“Tell me again this is for a good cause?” he pleaded, rubbing his back and glancing around at the other competitors.
“It’s for a good cause. I know you’re tired, but we can do this. We don’t have to win—just knowing we did it is enough.”
Christophe nodded. Every year Jaswant fed him that line, and every year Christophe was stunned at how true it had become.
They made their way to check-in so they could get their numbers and hand in their sponsor forms. Once that was done, Christophe and Jaswant went to the starting line. They saw a few familiar faces and waved to them, but didn’t really stop to get into any conversations.
Before they knew it, the race began. People darted from the starting line, hopped through large tires, crawled under barbed wires in the mud, climbed over walls, and swung on ropes across mud pits. One obstacle led into another, and Christophe felt just how old he’d become in the past year. He reached down for Jaswant’s hand to help him up one side of a log wall before they slid down the other ahead of two competitors who had been dogging them since the beginning.
Jaswant and Christophe were the second team to cross the finish line. They fell behind a team of twentysomethings from Albuquerque who looked as though they’d walked off the cover of a magazine.
True to form, at the end of the challenge, Christophe had mud everywhere. He moaned as he flopped on his back beside Jaswant, panting and feeling more adrenaline than he could remember. He was soaking wet and caked in mud, but he didn’t care. The tiredness he had been feeling at the beginning of the challenge had become nothing but a distant memory.
He laughed. “My, how moods can change,” Christophe mused.
“As in yours?”
“Haan,” He nodded. “I mean, before the challenge, all I could feel was this sore exhaustion. Now I feel I could do the course again.”
“Slow down, Superman,” Jaswant joked. “Once a year is enough for your body.”
“Superman? Forget that. I’m Batman!”
“Fine—Batman.”
“Then again, Optimus Prime is kickass awesome!”
Jaswant groaned.
Christophe laughed and sat up. “Come. We should get a bottle of water before they’re all gone.”
“And get into the showers before everyone else.”
They wound up going to the showers first, and then Christophe followed Jaswant through the crowd to one of the pop-up kiosks where they grabbed a couple bottles of water. Nearby someone was handing out sandwiches, so Christophe accepted two before leading Jaswant to an empty, dry patch of grass and the two sat.
“Jas, about Motions.” Christophe handed Jaswant one of the sandwiches. He remained silent until they both unwrapped their food and took bites. “I was thinking of—”
Jaswant lifted a hand but finished chewing before speaking. “I know. Motions isn’t really your thing. It’s not PG enough for you. It was merely a suggestion.”
“I’ll go,” Christophe said. “Everyone’s been telling me I need to get out of my shell more, and this might be a step toward that.”
Jaswant eyed him.
“I’m serious.”
“Don’t do me any favors. Think about this and make sure it’s something you really want to do. I suggested it because—well, because it’s about time you got laid.”
Christophe made a face. “Not like that. Sheesh.”
“You’ll have fun.” Jaswant wiggled his brows suggestively. “Even if you don’t dance with anyone, you can get the lay of the land, if you will.”
Christophe laughed and finished his sandwich by shoving the rest into his mouth. “So, aside from going home and taking a real shower, what’re you going to do with the rest of your day?”
“Well, I was thinking of lying on the floor until my back stops throbbing.”
“Like I’ve been telling you—we’re getting too old for this. Leave the obstacles to the young folks. We can help by writing a check.”
Jaswant made a face. “It’s not the same.”
“I know that. But the adrenaline is wearing off, and when it does, we’re going to be aching in places we’ve never had pain before.”
“Old age is a bitch, isn’t it?”
Christophe groaned and pushed to his feet, then reached down to help Jaswant up. “You said it, brother.”
About Remmy
Love is love, no matter who feels it, writes about it or live it. Born on the beautiful island of Jamaica, Remmy Duchene moved to Canada at a very young age. Though she always wrote, she never took it seriously. An English teacher at her high school read a story she wrote for a project and insisted she consider doing it more. In her free time, Remmy loves photography, Blue Jays Baseball, cooking, spending time roaming Toronto and spending time with family. When not writing, Remmy works in the legal world.
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