Billionaire With Benefits Tour Stop!

It’s just a friend thing.

Before confessing his gayness to his best friend, Tierney Terrebonne’s sex life is -strictly restroom. After confessing his gayness to his best friend . . . it doesn’t improve much. Why bother trying when the man he’s loved for fourteen years (see: “best friend”) is totally unattainable? Good thing Tierney is an old hand at accepting defeat; all it takes is a bottle of bourbon. Or fifty. Repeat as needed.

Dalton Lehnart has a history of dating wealthy, damaged, closeted, lying, cheating, no-good, cowardly men, so of course he’s immediately attracted to Tierney Terrebonne. Fortunately, Tierney is so dissolute that even Dalton’s feelings for the man would be better described as pity. Which becomes sympathy as they get to know each other. Followed by compassion, concern, caring, and hopefulness as Tierney struggles to change his life. When the man comes out very publicly and enters rehab, Dalton finds himself downright attached to Tierney. And as everyone knows, after attachment comes . . .

Uh oh.

But post-rehab Tierney can’t handle more than friendship, so Dalton should be safe from repeating his own past mistakes, right? Right?

To be honest, this story started out a bit slow and confusing to me personally.  But thankfully it started to pick up and once that happened, I couldn’t put the book down! I am really glad that I ended up pushing though the beginning because this book was one that I am glad to say that I read, because it was so well written and amazingly done that if I wasn’t already a fan of Ms. Tenino I would be now!

I thought that the characters were extremely well written; the attention to detail given to each one was done very well and it kept me very interested in them and wondering what was going to happen next.  I especially liked how Ms. Tenino was able to talk about something that is very serious, a drinking problem, in a way that while she used comedy to almost offset how serious the topic was, she was still able to show how serious of a problem it is.  And how important recovery is.

I personally liked Tierney’s character the best, but that is because I am a total sucker for the anguish characters.  What he was going through was so powerful, being able to follow along with what he was dealing with, and to be able to see the change in him throughout the story was really enjoyable for me personally. 

I also liked how Ms. Tenino brought back Sam and Ian from the first book in the series.  While they played an important role in this book, they didn’t overtake any scenes that they were in, which was something I was worried about because Sam is such a powerful and strong character.  But in this book, he was more there to be supportive.

Overall I did enjoy the book and I hope that Ms. Tenino will be releasing another book in this series soon.

Amazon US || Barnes & Noble || ARe || Riptide

Hello, and welcome to the Billionaire with Benefits Blog Tour! *fanfare, etc*

You might have noticed this book took me a while to write . . . or maybe you didn’t notice, but take my word for it, it did. That might be why it ended up longer than it needed it to be. Ultimately we trimmed over 15,000 words from the original Billionaire manuscript, so posts from me (as opposed to spotlights and reviews) are all going to be cut scenes from the book. Sort of like the extras on a DVD, but, you know, not.

A list of stops on the tour can be found here. Why would you want to follow the tour? Well, because I’m giving away a fabulous, one-of-a-kind Voodoo Ken Kit, which the winner can use to seek revenge on any or all of their exes. How do you win? Check the bottom of each tour post for details.

What a bizarre fucking night.

First he’d dragged Ian to some bar to apologize, then nearly confessed his feelings for the guy. But Ian had saved him—when Tierney had choked out that he was jealous of Sam, Ian jumped to the wrong conclusion. Except it was right.

“Shit,” Ian had said. “It’s true? You’re gay?”

Fessing up to that was easier than telling him what he’d really been saying.

Right after that, Ian had gotten a text, gone white as a sheet, and run out of the bar.

Tierney was still staring after the dude trying to figure out what was going on when his cell rang. It was his brother, Chase, and he almost didn’t answer.

He kind of wished he hadn’t. Because now he was sitting in a small private waiting room at the hospital, waiting for someone to come tell them that Grandfather had kicked it. For sure the old guy was going to croak—they didn’t put people in private waiting rooms unless the reaper was already knocking on someone’s door.

This had to be either karma or irony, but he couldn’t decide which. Now that he’d finally confessed to Ian about liking dick, Milton Terrebonne had had a massive and unexpected heart attack.

When the doctor eventually did come in and told them Grandfather had been pronounced dead at 7:03 p.m., Tierney felt nothing. Or everything. His emotions were chaotic, and it was all too confusing to make sense of, so he gave up and went numb.

While they waited for someone to show them to the emergency department so they could “spend some time with the deceased,” he sat next to his mother. She kept dabbing at tears—real ones, he could tell from long experience—and clutching his hand, her grip alternately loosening and tightening.

Father stood near the door, pale and tense, and Chase sat with his head hanging down and his fingers interlaced tightly between his knees. His wife Emily sat next to him.

How do I look to them?

“I don’t know what to do,” Mother said in his ear.

“Um, I think what we’re doing is fine.” They may own and operate an ambulance company, but none of them had ever worked as paramedics. Still, Tierney’d been on enough ride-alongs, and in enough hospitals, to know the drill. “Um, there might be quite a bit of cleaning up to do in order to make Grandfather look, you know, presentable.”

“Yes,” she whispered, pressing the side of her fist over her lips for a moment before continuing in a shaky voice. “What I meant is that your grandfather didn’t anticipate this.”

Who the hell anticipated having a massive heart attack after being declared healthy as a horse a month before?

“He didn’t leave any instructions.” Her voice rose, and her fingernails were starting to dig into Tierney’s hand. “I’m just not sure what the appropriate memorial—”

“Hyacinth.” Father sat across from her. “A social worker . . .” He adjusted his still-knotted tie. “Someone will be along soon to help us make the arrangements. In the absence of guidance from my—” he swallowed “—f-father, we’ll have to rely on their expertise.”

“But . . . will it be what Milton would want us to do?”

Father took a deep, quavering breath. “We’ll simply have to do our best. We have no other choice.”

“Oh no.” Mother’s voice broke, and she began ugly crying. Tierney patted her hand while his father and brother inspected the room for features of interest.

Finally, thank God, Emily moved to sit on the other side of Mother, putting her arm around the woman and murmuring to her. When his mother let go of Tierney to clutch at her daughter-in-law, he fled to a chair near his father.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to muddle along without him,” Father said, but he didn’t sound sure.

Tierney considered moving again, to sit next to Chase, but he and his brother couldn’t get along on a good day.

“A wake?” Mother asked, lifting her head and peering at Emily. “You think he would approve?”

“Of course,” Emily assured her. “I recently read in Forbes that the family of the Whitewash Consulting Group CEO held a wake in his honor.”

Forbes covered wakes? Not likely. The quick grimace Emily shot at Chase and then him told Tierney it was a lie, anyway. She got them, didn’t she? Emily understood that what his parents needed most in this moment was for someone to tell them what to do and how to behave as a proper Terrebonne.

I need a drink.

“Mr. Terrebonne?” A man appeared in the now-open doorway. Chase and Father stood. “If you’re ready . . .”

It wasn’t until Emily got out of her seat and helped Mother up that anyone moved. Then, like good little Terrebonnes, they all trooped off to go say their farewells to their overlord.

Raised on a steady diet of Monty Python, classical music and the visual arts, Anne Tenino was—famously—the first patient diagnosed with Compulsive Romantic Disorder. Since that day, Anne has taken on conquering the M/M world through therapeutic writing. Finding out who those guys having sex in her head are and what to do with them has been extremely liberating.

Anne's husband finds it liberating as well, although in a somewhat different way. Her two daughters are mildly confused by Anne's need to twist Ken dolls into odd positions. However, other than occasionally stealing Ken1's strap-on, they let Mom do her thing without interference.

Wondering what Anne does in her spare time? Mostly she lies on the couch, eats bonbons and shirks housework.

Check out what Anne’s up to now by visiting her site. http://annetenino.com

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Want a chance to win Voodoo Ken? Well, keep looking, because this isn’t the post with the magical question. FYI, I’ll ship worldwide, so anyone can enter.

A list of stops on the tour can be found here.