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| Cover Artist: Ronaldo Gutierrez |
Dirty Dining
by E.M. Lynley
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult, Erotic, M/M, Romance
Jeremy Linden’s a PhD student researching an HIV vaccine. He’s always short of money, and when biotech startup PharmaTek reduces funding for his fellowship, he’s tempted to take a job at a men’s dining club as a serving boy. The uniforms are skimpy, and he’s expected to remove an item of clothing after each course. He can handle that, but he soon discovers there’s more on the menu here than fine cuisine. How far will he go to pay his tuition, and will money get in the way when he realizes he’s interested in more from one of his gentlemen?
Brice Martin is an attorney for a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. When he’s asked to take a client to the infamous Dinner Club, he finds himself unexpectedly turned on by the atmosphere and especially by his server, Remy. He senses there’s more to the sexy young man than meets the eye. The paradox fascinates him, and he can’t get enough of Remy.
Their relationship quickly extends beyond the club and sex. But the trust and affection they’ve worked to achieve may crumble when Jeremy discovers Brice’s VC firm is the one that pulled the plug on PharmaTek—and Jeremy’s research grant.
Dirty Dining was born about two years back as a free serial on my website where I could play around with some unabashed smut. Who wouldn’t like to have a sexy young man serving dinner and taking off a piece of clothing with each course?
Six courses, six pieces of clothing and… well you get the idea and the attraction of this fictional dinner club. It was such fun to invent the themes and costumes the serving “boys” would wear, however briefly.
Of course Jeremy Linden, my financially challenged grad student doesn’t exactly jump at the chance when he’s first offered the job. Just how broke does he have to be to do something like this? But he soon finds his bank account even more anemic than usual, and he gives the job a shot.
The Dinner Club isn’t just fun and dirty games. On Jeremy’s first night he meets Brice Martin, who’s hot and as shy as Jeremy is with the sexually charged atmosphere at the Club. They really click, and it’s the prospect of meeting Brice again that makes the job a pleasure—in every sense of the word. These two have chemistry that had me overheating just writing it. There are quite a few obstacles to their relationship, but you know right away they belong together.
It was easy to come up with the sexy premise and envision those first few scenes that hooked hundreds of readers on the free chapters I posted.
What wasn’t so easy was deciding where the story would go once I decided to keep writing when I picked the manuscript up again in 2014. Over the intervening couple of years my writing had changed a lot, in style, content, and technique. I didn’t want this story to end up as a series of sex scenes loosely cemented together.
I wanted to turn the sexual chemistry between Brice and Jeremy into something more meaningful. But they’d met under such debauched circumstances, so making that shift organic was quite a challenge. I had to set up both characters so they would be open to a relationship, despite both of them being at this Dinner Club. Under normal circumstances neither would ever go there, and both are pretty focused on work and haven’t given much effort to pursuing relationships. But both of them soon realize their attraction is more than skin deep.
There’s an age difference of about ten years, and Brice is financially secure, so they have some growing pains, and plenty of false starts when they do try to bring their relationship out of the bedroom, but that makes it so much sweeter when they both discover they actually want the same thing: each other.
Whether you enjoy some good, clean smut or a romance or a story that delves into layers far below the surface, Dirty Dining is sure to leave you more than a little breathless.
Jeremy had to set out earlier to get to the city Wednesday night. Without a bike he was forced to use the campus shuttle to BART and arrived at the club’s staff dressing room with barely enough time for a quick shower. Three guys from his previous shift were here: Kit, Rand, and a slim Asian guy named Law—short for Lawrence.
“Hiya, my tasty macaron, nice to see you back again.” Kit gave Jeremy a European-style double kiss, though the second one landed on his mouth and not on his cheek. “Have fun last time?” He asked with innuendo dripping from each word.
“Fun enough.” Jeremy grinned and gave the other boys a wave. “What’s with Kit and the bakery talk?”
“Oh, he’s on a diet and can’t eat any of that. It’s the only way he can handle the deprivation.” Rand shook his head. “Anyway, glad you’re back,” Rand said and introduced Jeremy to the two boys he didn’t already know.
“Tonight’s costume theme is sailor boys.” Thomas handed out costumes. They were all variations of blue and white, with caps and blue or white shorts. He had a handful of sailor scarves in different colors, but he held onto those. “Need to get the assignments first. You’ll get a scarf to match your gentleman.”
Jeremy went to one of the stations and slipped into his: tiny white shorts, a sleeveless white shirt with buttons down the front, and a little white cloth cap. He practiced sitting in the tight white shorts so he could find the most comfortable way and not risk pain and damage to his balls. Kit noticed and came over.
He cupped Jeremy’s dick through the tight, thin fabric, then gave Jeremy another wholly unnecessary squeeze. “To get you started.” He winked and went back to fixing his own costume.
Thomas came in and took the scarves from Rand. “We had to switch a few boys around. Here’s your assignment.” He handed out the first four scarves, still holding a sky blue one and the green one as he approached Jeremy. He gave Jeremy the blue scarf.
“Hang on. I thought I’d be getting Mr. Green again.”
Thomas looked at Jeremy head-on. “Sorry, Mr. Green asked for someone else tonight. I double-checked because I thought you two worked out well last time.” He spoke softly, but the others could see which scarf he had been given. It was obvious what had happened. Kit looked away.
Jeremy’s stomach felt like it sank through the floor and kept going. “Didn’t he like me?” He whispered the question, ashamed to have his rejection so public, despite Thomas’s obvious attempt to spare his feelings.
“Yes, he did. But he wanted variety. We can discuss this in private later if you want.”
Jeremy blinked. Why did he take this so personally? This was supposed to just be a job for quick easy cash, not a matchmaking service.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
E.M. Lynley continues to impress me with her versatility as an author and DIRTY DINING is a sensual extravaganza. Gifting readers with an intricately developed romance, tantalizing story line, engaging characters, and sizzling sexuality, Lynley delivers one of her best stories to date.
I instantly fell in love with Jeremy. He's smart, funny, sexy, adventurous, and at the same time endearingly sweet. It took me a bit longer to warm up to his love interest, Brice, but he won me over in the end with his love and determination.
The entire cast of characters just clicked for me. Everything felt right, even when parts of the plot were going oh-so-wrong, and my anticipation kept the pages turning. Since you can't get a reservation at the Dinner Club I recommend the next best thing, picking up a copy of DIRTY DINING as a sexy treat to yourself!
View all my reviews
EM Lynley writes gay erotic romance. She loves books where the hero gets the guy and the loving is 11 on a scale of 10. A Rainbow Award winner and EPIC finalist, EM has worked in high finance, high tech, and in the wine industry, though she'd rather be writing hot, romantic man-on-man action. She spent 10 years as an economist and financial analyst, including a year as a White House Staff Economist, but only because all the intern positions were filled. Tired of boring herself and others with dry business reports and articles, her creative muse is back and naughtier than ever. She has lived and worked in London, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., but the San Francisco Bay Area is home for now.
She is the author of Sex, Lies & Wedding Bells, the Precious Gems series from Dreamspinner Press, and the Rewriting History series starring a sexy jewel thief, among others.
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