Strike a Pose

By Nell Iris

Didrik would do anything for his best friend, Filip, including taking pictures of Filip’s dad, Johan, for a charity calendar. Naked pictures, of beautiful, irresistible, wonderful Johan, who was single-handedly responsible for Didrik’s gay awakening. He was also happily married and unavailable ... until he wasn’t.

After losing his husband five years ago, Johan finally seems ready to move on, and as they start the charity project, everything changes. With every meeting, every conversation, every pose for the camera, the attraction between them swells and grows, until it burns hot and threatens to consume them.

Their interactions, their relationship is surprisingly easy, but it’s not without its challenges. The age difference for one thing. Telling Filip for another. Is their connection enough to last? Can they overcome the hurdles to get the happily ever after they deserve?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: May 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685501303

Nell Iris

Nell is a forty-something bisexual Swedish woman, married to the love of her life, and a proud mama of a grown daughter. She left the Scandinavian cold and darkness for warmer and sunnier Malaysia a few years ago, and now spends her days writing, surfing the Internet, enjoying the heat, and eating good food. One day she decided to chase her lifelong dream of being a writer, sat down in front of her laptop, and wrote a story about two men falling in love. Nell writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angst, and wants to write diverse and different characters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I should have never let Filip talk me into this project!

Yes, I want to help my best friend commemorate the fifth anniversary of his beloved father’s death. Yes, I’d do anything for said best friend. Yes, I love spending time with Filip’s other dad, Johan. And yes, I was flattered when Filip called me and told me about the photo calendar and how he and Johan needed the best photographer in the world to do the project justice.

Filip knows me too well. He knows which buttons to push to get me to agree to whatever he wants; he knows flattery is my Achilles’ heel. So of course, I said yes when he asked me to be a part of this year’s charity project in honor of his father.

How could I have known that said photo calendar was going to feature naked pictures of Johan?

All the other events they’ve done as a family to raise money for cancer research have been clothed—the marathon-running, the black-tie fundraiser, the art show featuring local cancer survivor artists—but when they decide to get me involved, Johan is going to be naked.

Johan. Naked.

Johan, the man responsible for my gay awakening. My first crush, the crush I’ve never really gotten over but spent the last fifteen years of my life ignoring because he’s been unattainable.

He’s my best friend’s dad. My best friend’s dad who’s married. Correction—who used to be married, but is now widowed.

You haven’t heard of Naked Gardening Day, Didrik? Johan asks as he pours coffee into my cup. I’m sitting in his airy kitchen, invited to discuss the project. Filip was supposed to be here, too, but he was called into a last-minute emergency meeting, so it’s just me and Johan. Discussing nakedness.

I cross my legs and groan so loudly internally that I’m sure he can actually hear me.

No. I’ve lived in an apartment my entire life. My dad says Mom has the blackest of thumbs and can kill even artificial plants, so I didn’t grow up around gardens. And even though I’m an outdoorsy person these days, I tend to stick to the forest. Very few gardeners there.

Or naked people.

He joins me at the table, grinning. I grew up the same way. I was a concrete flower when I met CM, but he insisted we had to live in our own house. Eventually, I agreed but made him promise to take full responsibility for the garden. And he did, at first. Then he decided he wanted me to join in ‘the fun’— he makes air quotes with his fingers —so he introduced me to Naked Gardening Day. Johan’s smile is fond as he remembers.

How did he do that?

"We’d lived in the house for only a couple of years. I went out for my morning run, and CM was still asleep. He would sleep the day away if I let him, and Filip’s the same, so I didn’t expect him to wake up anytime soon. It was a lovely morning, so I took a longer route than usual, and when I returned, I got the shock of a lifetime. There he was, digging in one of his raised garden beds, wearing absolutely nothing. I almost ran head-first into a tree, but he just looked at me and stood, with that shit-eating grin of his, dick flopping around like a fish stranded on the beach. He shakes his head with a chuckle. Crazy bastard."

His words paint such a vivid picture, I can’t help laughing, but then my smile turns into a wince. Am I the only one thinking there are creatures in nature I wouldn’t want anywhere near my exposed…junk?

Oh, gawd. Did I just mention my junk? To Johan? I fight the instinct to run and hide; I’m thirty, not thirteen. I can do this; I can casually mention my dick in a conversation with another adult.

He laughs at my question. "No, Didrik, you’re not the only one. And it’s not just wasps and fire ants and such. Ever heard of stinging nettles? Rose bushes? Can you imagine if he’d decided to prune the roses in the buff? I would’ve had to take him to the emergency room and explain why his junk— he waggles his eyebrows at me —was full of rose thorns."

I groan and my hands fly to my lap and land on my crotch, as though I’m trying to protect my cock from imaginary garden dangers.

Exactly.

So what did you do?

I yelled at him to get dressed and stop scaring the neighbors.

But your neighbors aren’t close enough to see anything.

No, but I was in shock, what can I say?

I snicker. Did he do it?

He laughs even harder. You met him. You know he never did as he was told.

"Yeah, I remember. What did he do?"

"He could be a very persuasive man when he wanted to, so he talked me out of my running gear. I still don’t know how it happened, but there I was. Pruning things—not the roses—naked. He shrugs as though he really doesn’t know how it happened. Maybe he hypnotized me?"

I snort, a snort that turns into a chuckle that turns into a laugh. Yeah, you tell yourself that, man.

Hey!

"You couldn’t come up with a more plausible fake excuse than hypnosis?"