Beauty

By D.J. Manly

Bruno felt he owed Freddy for pulling him out a bad situation awhile back. So when his introverted friend asks Bruno to break the ice for him with the sexy guitar playing paramedic in a bar one night, he doesn’t hesitate.

But when Bruno sees Holden, he is as infatuated with him as Freddy is. Can he keep in sight that Freddy saw him first, or will a late night trip back to the hot medic’s condo throw all his good intentions to the wind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Jan 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781554876358

D.J. Manly

D.J. Manly is first and foremost a writer, but is also a college professor, a small business operator and a sociologist who works as a consultant on research projects. D.J. is a proud Canadian who lives in French Canada, and speaks both English and French. Human rights are a great concern, and D.J. longs for a peaceful world free of sexism, racism, and homophobia. D.J. writes for the pure love of writing, and always with the reader in mind. If D.J. doesn't enjoy reading it, it won't be written. Great characters, great sex and a great love are the elements you’ll find in D.J’s work. There is nothing quite as exciting as beautiful men falling in love. Come taste D.J’s work, but be careful, you may become as addicted to reading it, as D.J. is to writing it. One reviewer said of Manly’s work that reading it can give you “…third degree burns in an air conditioned room…” I think that says it all.

Book preview

Bruno felt he owed Freddy for pulling him out a bad situation awhile back. So when his introverted friend asks Bruno to break the ice for him with the sexy guitar playing paramedic in a bar one night, he doesn’t hesitate.

But when Bruno sees Holden, he is as infatuated with him as Freddy is. Can he keep in sight that Freddy saw him first, or will a late night trip back to the hot medic’s condo throw all his good intentions to the wind.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Beauty

Copyright © 2010 D.J. Manly

ISBN: 978-1-55487-635-8

Cover art by Angela Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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Smashwords Edition

Beauty

By

D.J. Manly

Chapter One

Beauty, obligation, desire. Those three things churned inside me every waking hour. I tasted them, breathed them, and detested them. But no matter what, I couldn’t rid myself of them.

Tonight, from my rooftop, I watched him. He stood there as he usually did at this hour, his shoulder length auburn hair lifting gently in the summer breeze. The white silk shirt he wore, attached only by one button in the middle, blew around his well-muscled torso, torturing me, driving that desire directly to my groin. He was alone tonight and somehow that comforted me. But I knew that one night I’d come out here and he wouldn’t be alone. It was only a matter of time.

I couldn’t have him, and what made it worse, of course, aside from the fact that we always want something more acutely when we can’t have it, is that there was a time when I think he might have wanted me. I was sure of it. But it was impossible. It couldn’t be.

In spite of the impossibility of this desire, every night at around this time I knew he’d come up to the roof of his condo and look up at the sky. I always wondered what he dreamed of, what he was thinking when he surveyed that endless sea of stars. What do you long for?

Sometimes he swam naked in the heated pool, and I almost couldn’t look…almost. When I did look, I cursed the distance between us and my fingers would curl at my side, and I’d literally ache to touch him. Every night, I waited for him to appear, waited for my heart to start beating in earnest, waited for my prince to come on his white horse and take my breath away. A fantasy. He was that. Only that. And a fantasy he had to stay.

He looked so alone out there tonight. His hands cleaved to the railings as his face slanted upwards. He sought out the stars that were shrouded in the light-polluted sky. I wished I could read his thoughts, know his most intimate needs. I would have given him everything, fulfilled his deepest, most depraved desire. My heart actually hurt as I watched him. And yet I cherished this time we spent together. It was our time, the time I thought only of him. Even if he had no idea I was there with him, looking at the same sky. It didn’t matter. This was our time.

Just a few nights ago, he’d had a party out there on the roof. The moonlight shone down on the heated pool in waves of reflections as the glasses chinked. He laughed and talked and entertained his friends. He was so relaxed and happy. And I almost left my building and rang his bell, longing to be close to him as the others were.

He was supposed to have been for Freddy, but in the end it didn’t work out that way. Freddy still hoped, in spite of the time that had gone by. How could I tell him that he’d never have him, that neither of us ever would?

Still I couldn’t just act with my heart, without a care about the consequences, and hurt