Part of writing is cutting the parts of the book that you may like but don’t serve the plot or pace of the story. As a book, Training Complex, the sequel to 2013’s Training Season, contains a lot of sex, but at one time it contained even more. In fact, four sex scenes were cut from the final book and I will be sharing them on various blogs over the next couple of months.
This scene was actually written for Training Season back in 2013 but was cut from that book for various reasons. I loved it so much, though, that I tried to work it into Training Complex. I made editorial changes to the setting and the situation, but, for the most part, it’s the same scene. I probably spent six hours reworking this, though, and so it hurt a little when once again it ended up on the cutting room floor.
But I present it to you now in hopes that you may enjoy it just a little and get a taste of some of what might be offered in Training Complex itself.
Head on over to Diverse Reader for a SEXcerpt and a reader’s choice giveaway!
Click through HERE to read a cut sex scene from Training Complex and to participate in a rafflecopter for a reader’s choice giveaway! Any of my books are available to one lucky winner!
As a tease, I’ll start the scene off for you here!
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Warning: 18+ readership and mildly spoilery for the issues in the book as a whole, as well as a particular kink.
Matty sat on the toilet and shook the cock cage, rattling it to the best of his ability. The vibration of the lock on the polycarbonate resonated against his straining flesh but it gave him no relief. “Fuck, fuck,” he whispered, needing more stimulation, needing anything that would take his mind off his desperate need to come.
He’d never, ever felt so horny in his life. He knew this was true because while every single hour since putting on the cock cage had consisted of escalating horniness, rising unbearably moment-to-moment, but the fact that he’d been so overwhelmed at a dinner with Anja and Ben, of all people, that he’d had to leave the table and frantically, uselessly masturbate in the toilet stall said it all. Hands down, it was both the most horny and most mortified he’d ever been. Well, maybe failing at the Olympics was worse. Or that time with Rob and the toilet in Montana, but that had ended up being weirdly intimate. Oh, God, he didn’t need to think about anything intimate.
“Matty?” Rob’s voice preceded the fall of his footsteps and the sound of the bathroom door swinging shut. “You okay in here?”
“I’m fine.”
“What’s taking so long?”
Matty looked down at his dick, pressed hard and miserably against the polycarbonate cock cage, and then at his swollen, aching balls, already so full of unreleased spunk. Fuck, he needed to come.”
I want to be Leta Blake when I grow up! *sigh* I always need to sit back and decompress after reading one of her books. Where do I begin here? Okay, Training Complex is the sequel to Training Season. We join Matty and Rob in New York. Matty is coaching figure skating and Rob is a PT. These two love like no others. Leta brings that all consuming, old fashioned, From Here to Eternity feel to the love they have. Of course on a hotness scale it just explodes. SO HOT! They have a BDSM relationship and I want to buy Leta a huge ass drink for getting it right. You want to know how BDSM works? THIS, HERE. She knows what she’s talking about. She addresses SO many issues in this book, Disordered eating, depression, anxiety. And it’s breathtaking. I love reading her books because it’s like being wrapped in a blanket of perfection. There are a million layers to her plots, and her characters. She flows through it brilliantly and it feels almost effortless. Training Complex is the perfect balance of angst, happiness, love, loss, and fear. Leta brings them together in a way that you are left truly content. Bravo, Leta. Another 5 star story!
When I went on up to Gatlinburg to work on Smoky Mountain Dreams last June, I took some pictures of the town and my little rented condo. Not all the pics are awesome, but they’re all being shared here. 😀
Driving toward Parkway, there was this view of the mountains through my car windshield.
Driving up the mountain to Gatlinburg.
The little condo.
Oy, this is a bad pic. But I wrote most of the book on that sofa with my feet on that ottoman.
The view out the window.
Now on to Gatlinburg itself!
The taffy stretcher and piecer.
This is
This is a thing that exists. For real.
Puckers!
The chair lift over the creek before it ascends up the mountain.
Because OF COURSE.
The shady drive to my condo.
So, I think what we learned from this is that I’m a shoddy photographer. 😛 And that Gatlinburg is weird. 😀
I lost so many hours the other day watching random stranger’s vidoes of Gatlinburg on YouTube. I don’t even know why. Heh. I mean, I am doing it to make these blog posts but I know no one is even gonna watch these videos. Still, here’s a favorite. See, we don’t get snow in this area and this is considered insane–snow on Halloween! Highlights of this video: THE ACCENT. I don’t speak like this, but these are examples of how many people in this area sound, including Gareth and others in the book. And the views. ❤ Love it.
Sometimes holding on means letting go Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him. There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart.
So, the Christmas Tree farm that Jesse and Christopher went to is a real place. I’m going to post some pics I might’ve stolen from their Facebook page.
I’ve never been to it, but I’d love to go. It seems dreamy and magical.
Sometimes holding on means letting go Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him. There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart.
It’s that glorious time of year when everyone whispers sweet nothings in Santa’s ear, hoping for a little extra something in their Christmas stocking. Fictional characters are no different.
So this is what I posed to my writer friends:
One of your characters is sitting on Santa’s lap, and whispers something in Santa’s ear. Who is it, and what did they say to ole Saint Nick?
Jesse: I’m not a big believer in Santa Claus but if I could have anything this Christmas it would be some sort of legal way to take over my wife’s care from my sister-in-law. The lack of resolution for everyone is still hard, though having Christopher in our lives makes it easier.
Christopher: I got everything I wanted for Christmas, Santa. Thank you. You really delivered this year. You’re the best. Now, if you’d maybe fix my family up a little that would be–no, never mind. I’m good. I don’t really need any of them nosing around in my life. So thanks anyway. I hope you have a nice holiday break, Santa, after all the presents get delivered. Thank you again. You’ve been so good to me.
Sometimes holding on means letting go Christopher Ryder and Jesse Birch are two men hanging on to the past. While Christopher has let go of his failure as a country singer in Nashville, he’s still trying to please his narrow-minded, non-accepting family. His beloved Gran loves him the way he is, but Christopher feels painfully invisible to everyone else. He’s happy enough performing at the Smoky Mountain Dreams theme park in Tennessee, but even when Christopher is center stage he aches for someone to see the real him. There’s more than meets the eye when it comes to bisexual Jesse. He’s raising two kids and fighting with family after a tragic accident took his children’s mother. There’s no room in his life for dating, his kids are his priority, and he doesn’t want more than an occasional hook-up. He sure as hell doesn’t want to fall hard for his favorite local singer, but when Christopher walks into his jewelry studio, Jesse hears a new song in his heart.
Here is a VERY SPOILERY epilogue for my book Smoky Mountain Dreams. I wrote it and it just didn’t fit as an ending, so, snip! It was cut from the book itself. But as a Christmas gift, I’ll share it here on my blog for those who might be interested.
I’m going to put it behind a Read More cut. Hopefully that will work, so those who don’t want to be spoiled can look away now.
Okay, here we go, everything below this? SPOILERY!!!
I don’t always cast my books, though sometimes it does help me to get a handle on a character if I have a very clear view of what they look like. While I absolutely love and am entirely satisfied with the cover of Smoky Mountain Dreams, the guys don’t fit the image I had in my head for Christopher or Jesse, nor do they fit the almost-good-enough attempts I made at casting them with photographs. I thought it might be fun to show readers the closest, but not quite right, approximations I’ve got for a few of the characters in the book.
First, let’s talk about Christopher. The inspiration for Christopher was originally a real human being that I saw performing at Dollywood. He was handsome enough, but not stunning, thin enough but not cut, cute but not amazing, and his singing talent was well beyond my own but he’d never be famous. I have no idea what his name was, but I decided then and there to write a book about him. Well, eventually, I wanted to describe Christopher in more detail and I set about trying to find a photo that captured what I’d found so compelling about this performer at Dollywood. I finally settled on this picture of Jesse Spencer. Though I feel compelled to say that not every picture of Jesse Spencer works for Christopher, in fact, this may be the only one. But I returned to this one time and again to try to capture the feeling the character of Christopher gave to me.
Now, Jesse was a lot harder. I had a couple of pictures I referred to for him, actually. One that mainly just captured the body confidence I thought Jesse had. But this one is probably the closest in terms of the face. Only, uh, without that full, messy beard .Jesse just had scruff, and the hair is shorter by a bit, and his eyes are tired here because of the burdens of his life (and maybe the sex he had with Christopher all night long), but, yes, this was the closest I could find…probably. It’s still not just right, but whatcha gonna do? 😀
More pictures of that model (Maximilio Pantane) that I used as references for Jesse:
Both of these were my references for Young Jesse:
Now, Gareth. Yes, he was pretty easy. I saw this picture one day and was like, “Holy crap, what is Gareth doing on Pinterest??” So, yes, this is what I think Gareth looks like.
Every reader obviously has their own idea of what the characters look like and I hope seeing my thoughts doesn’t taint your own. I also hope it was fun to see these! 😀 If you’ve got ideas of what Christopher and Jesse look like and pics to go along with that, please to be sharing in comments below!
Leta Blake 