by
Mending fences, chasing dreams
Brew Lloyd, openly gay, has come back to his hometown of Noble, Nevada to live in his parents’ home while they travel to see his dying uncle for the last time. Since graduation he’s been gone four years, avoiding his gay-hating father who now maneuvers him into securing a summer job at The Chase, a ranch owned by a friend . There Brew finds himself face to face with an old fantasy—the rancher’s son Chase, former football hero at the local high school.
For his part, Chase has struggled with his sexuality for years. Even though hugely popular in school, he’s shunned the dating life in favor of staying on the ranch. Unable to come to terms with his frequent fantasies of a young man he’d secretly admired in high school, he pours his energies into his ranch work. When he sees Brew again after six years, he’s at last forced to confront his hot desire for the glib guy who’s not shy about his own sexual preference.
As these two young men get closer, two other men stand in the way. The first is a crooked federal agent. The other is Brew’s lawyer father, who could never guess that his own son is having an affair with an ex-football player.
- 4 To Be Read lists
- 1 Read list
Publisher: New Dawn Press
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 5
Romantic Content: 5
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Gay, Questioning
Protagonist 1 Age: 18-25
Protagonist 2 Age: 26-35
Tropes: Coming Out / Closeted, Criminals & Outlaws, Families/Raising Kids, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Healing Power of Sex, Thrill of the Chase
Word Count: 50211
Setting: ranch near Nevada small town
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
From Chapter Four:
When they got to Monday’s fence-post operation, Chase stopped the truck with a sudden shearing of tires on gravel, spinning the truck in a semi-circle. He grinned when he saw Brew clutch the hanging strap. “Sorry. I’m not used to passengers.”
In his gut, he knew he’d done it to show off to this man, wanting him to react, maybe to grab hold of his arm or leg in alarm. He’d thought the memories of Brew were buried deep. Maybe not deep enough.
“Hey, this is nothing. I drive a turbo, too. ’Course, it’s a Saab Turbo X. A little different rush.”
“You got me there, Brew. Let’s put up a fence post.”
He slid out of the truck, pulled his large pliers and a shovel from the bed and waited for Brew to get out. When he emerged, he stood by the passenger door. “What’s next?” Brew called over to him.
READ MORE“Take off your shirt. Unless you want it torn up by barbed wire.” Then he stood quietly and watched while the tall, slender young man unbuttoned the tailored white dress shirt. Watching him pull the tails out of the fancy jeans, Chase felt his prick hardening. Shit. Not now.
He turned away and walked to where he’d left the cedar post, fighting a stubborn hard-on. By the time Brew joined him, his new helpmate had removed his shirt completely. His pale chest showed both lack of muscle and his aversion to sunlight. Maybe aversion to manual labor also. Too bad. That’s about to change.
Chase picked up the post and leaned it strategically over the swelling in his jeans.
“Okay, Brew, here’s what you’re gonna do. As soon as we set the post in the hole, you hold it tight and straight. Yes?”
“Tight. Okay. Straight. I’ll try.”
Chase knew he could easily lift the post, but he waited until Brew was next to him. “On three, we put it in the hole.”
He watched in appreciation as Brew’s muscles seemed to strain and his breath came out a little harshly as they lifted. “Now hold it, while I fill the hole. Then we’ll make sure the wire’s taut on both sides. Good and straight, and tight. Got it?”
“Yeah. I got it straight and tight, Chase. Quit teasing me and do it.”
Then Chase couldn’t help it. He smiled and looked into Brew’s eyes. They were standing close, almost touching.
“Okay.”
Still he didn’t move away, and Brew didn’t drop his eyes. Chase waited until he thought his prick would betray him if he stayed this close. He bent to pick up the shovel and began to fill the hole. He took his time, moving around the other man, quickly adjusting the crotch of his denims while watching the smooth back of Brew’s neck. He saw the muscles on the nape jump a little, and he almost tasted the thin film of sweat at the dark, lustrous hairline, and one wet line trickling slowly down his shoulders.
When Brew turned his head, a question in his eyes, Chase moved quickly to the wire. He wound it from the post into the wire next to it, then he walked to the other side where Brew was still standing, trying to keep the post straight.
“Can you sidle over a little, Brew? Good. There. Now hold it.”
While Brew held the post steady, Chase pulled the barbed wire, tighter and tighter, testing Brew’s strength. He watched the pale muscle bunch and strain, appreciating the smooth, almost ivory skin. Feeling like a truant kid, he let his own arm brush into Brew’s while he handled the pliers, pulling the wire taut. And then he noticed the crotch of Brew’s fancy jeans was bulging. Exhilarated, he leaned a little more into Brew’s arm, then his chest, as he twisted.
Brew had begun to breathe very hard. Chase found his own breath catching, his gut tightening as they stood there straining hard against each other. And then he dropped the pliers and bent away, pretending to retrieve them.
“Hold it, while I tamp the hole.” He began to move slowly, making Brew hold the post straight, hard, while his mind played tricks with the sight of the slim man with a gigantic post of a prick. He went to the truck, drank long from his canteen, and took his time returning. Little by little, he dumped more soil and gravel in the hole and tamped it hard.
Then he stood back a foot from Brew and lavished one last look at the vision of a slender, handsome man holding the erect fencepost as though part of it. “That’s enough. That’s good, Brew. You passed.”
As soon as he said it, Chase was pissed at himself. This guy Brew was way too smart—and smart-assed—to let a statement like that go by without challenge.
He walked a few feet away. Brew moved next to him.
“Passed. Passed what, Chase?”
He looked again into the other man’s eyes. “Never mind. That’s enough for the day.” He knew they needed to straighten a bunch of other posts, too, but something stopped him from mentioning it.
“No. You were testing me. What grade did you give me?”
He shook his head and lied. “No grade.”
But Brew would not let go of his eyes. “Then let’s repair another post. Let’s brand a calf. Let’s…let’s do what ranchers do. And you test me on it.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“I’m not pissed. I’m fucking turned on. Can’t you tell?”
COLLAPSESusan Wilson on Amazon wrote:I just loved this story. These two men knew of (and were drawn to) each other in high school, but never even spoke. Chase is older and is drawn to listening to Brew speak....anywhere, whether it was the debate team practices or the plays Brew was a part of. He didn't understand why he was drawn to the younger man, he just was. Brew lusted after the big, gorgeous football star, but was sure that he would never be interested with all the girls hanging off him. Chase graduated and went to work with his Pa on the ranch. As soon as Brew graduated he flew out-of-town to get away from his very un-accepting father.
Several years later, Brew comes home and his father sends him to his friend Roy's ranch (The Chase) to help out. As soon as Chase (Roy's son) and Brew set eyes on each other it is instantaneous FIREWORKS!
Something I really love about men (especially the ideal in my books) is that they don't beat around the bush! As soon as Chase realizes he loves Brew, he TELLS him! This is so refreshing.
Now all they have to do is figure out who is trying to steal part of The Chase and deal with Brew's dad....
You will NOT want to miss this book it really does have it all - love, lust, sex, mystery, sex, conflict, and more scorching hot sex! This book flows so naturally, keeps moving the entire way. I had a very hard time putting it down!
Greebo on Amazon wrote:Erin O'Quinn knows her cowboys. She's written several books and stories in which the hard-working outdoor-loving ranchers feature prominently. The Chase shows us that she also knows her townies well, too.
In this engaging romp through her created universe of Noble, Nevada, she introduces us to Chase Grayson, a young rancher living his (lonely) dream working the ranch with his dad, and Brew Lloyd, a near-perpetual student living nobody's (lonely) dream at all-but-odds with his dad. The men renew an old acquaintance and the air sizzles with the recurrence of desires and fantasies neither had possessed the courage to speak of years before. Well and good.
Except for the complicating factors: there's something rotten in Noble and that rotten something wants very much to get its hands on the abandoned silver mine on the Grayson ranch; Brew's father's homophobia doesn't just rear its head, it's as much a part of daily life for father and son as which foot gets the shoe put on first.
How can the man with the golden mouth, as Chase thought of Brew, and the man with the golden body, Brew's view of Chase, prevent the underhanded machination of a mining company and friends from severing a part of the ranch that is more than a simple livelihood to the Grayson family? The help they need most would come from Brew's lawyer father, at his dying brother's bedside. Will he still be willing to give that help when he discovers that Brew and Chase are lovers? Solving one problem won't necessarily solve the other, as Brew and Chase discover.
I enjoyed this book tremendously, and find myself returning to it over and over, aching for Brew and his father, ready to fight with Chase and his dad, and laughing at the interplay with a completely captivating minor character, the Scottish Terrier Mackenzie, or Fuzz Nuts as Brew calls him.
A full five stars for fun and romance surrounded by intrigue and heartache.
Oh, my my my. Erin O'Quinn is amazing. Her books have become an obsession of mine. She writes the most wonderful stories about strong, masculine men, who love hard. The characters are written beautifully. With every single story, I fall in love with them as they fall for each other.
In "The Chase", she gives us Brew, a young man who is close to graduating college... He comes home for the summer because his parents are heading to Chicago to be with his dying uncle. His father has money, and is most definitely NOT thrilled to have a gay son, so things are quite uncomfortable. Dear old Dad gets him a job as a ranch hand on his friend's ranch, and that is completely out of his comfort zone. Imagine a wealthy, sort of preppy man being thrust into a daily routine of working in the sun, replacing fence posts and herding cattle.
Chase is the rancher's son, and he's shy and sensitive. He was a high school football hero, but after graduation, he stayed on the ranch to help his father. The two of them do pretty much all of the work on their own. It turns out that Chase and Brew went to the same school. They were aware of each other, even though they traveled in different social circles. Both admired each other from afar. When they set eyes on each other at the ranch, their chemistry just EXPLODES.
They come together quickly, but it's just perfect. They NEEDED each other. There was such a powerful emotional connection between them. Along with that emotion, there's the heat...oh the heat. The sex scenes are so explosive. I can't really even come up with the right words. Anything I try to say will sound cliché, and I don't want to make Chase and Brew a clichéd gay couple, or any couple for that matter. They're unique in their passion. Their love is tender, but their sex is primal, and that makes a good story a GREAT story.
I'm not giving anything else away. Please, please, please get this book! It's the first in a series called, "Noble Dimensions", and I just know that Ms. O'Quinn has wonderful things in store for the residents of Noble, Nevada.
