Making Waves

by Pepper Espinoza

Andy Smith is just trying to do a good deed when he takes his sister's fiance home from a bar. After all, Scott Huxley is a major Hollywood star, and one drunken picture two nights before his wedding could be a huge embarrassment. The two men have nothing in common except an intense attraction. An attraction neither want to acknowledge. Andy doesn't want to betray his own sister, and Scott's secret runs so deep he can't even be honest with himself.

But it doesn't take Andy long to learn that he doesn't have to acknowledge an attraction to be completely overwhelmed by it...

Gay / Contemporary / The Arts

Genres: M M Romance, Contemporary, Romance, Gay

89 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 8, 2009

About the author

Pepper Espinoza has published several books with Liquid Silver Books, including The Zebra Wore Fishnets and The Zebra Wore Red Stockings, Amber Quill Press, Whiskey Creek Press, and Samhain Publishing. She currently lives in Utah with her husband and two cats. She hopes to complete her Masters degree in Literature in May, 2008.

Ms. Espinoza also collaborates with Vivien Dean, and they publish as Jamie Craig. Together they have Amber Quill Press bestseller The Master Chronicles, and The Silver Series with Juno Books
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Reviews

[LauraSt · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

This was a very quick and short read. I admit the idea has huge potential, I think is a bigger scale it would have been a definite home run. But it was short and rough and well, kinda hot but just too quick and surreal. Still entertaining though....

[Saritza · Rating 3 out of 5]

We all need those books that you pick up to read and truly be entertained and feel good about after reading it. This is one of those books.

Summary: Andy is just trying to do a good deed when he takes his sister’s fiancé home from a bar. After all, Scott Huxley is a major Hollywood star, and one drunken picture two nights before his wedding could be a huge embarrassment. The two men have nothing in common except an intense attraction. An attraction neither want to acknowledge. Andy doesn’t want to betray his own sister, and Scott’s secret runs so deep he can’t even be honest with himself.

But it doesn’t take Andy long to learn that he doesn’t have to acknowledge an attraction to be completely overwhelmed by it...

What I liked about this book: While the story is rather predictable, the banter is fun to read. This is not a book to cover a lot of ground as it spans a little over 24 hours but it doesn't leave out much for the reader to wonder. It's the perfect little love story wrapped around a drunken movie star, a marriage of convenience and hot mansex, of course!

Excerpt: Susan should have been here. She would know how to comfort Scott, she would know how to give him whatever he needed. She had to know. That’s what fiancées, and wives, did. Right? But Susan was in Napa.

“If you weren’t being an actor right now, what would you do?”

“What would I do?”

“Yeah. Remember, what happens in this room stays in here. What would you do?”

“If I weren’t acting…if I were just me…I would do this.”

Andy didn’t have a chance to respond before Scott curled his fingers in Andy’s shirt and pulled him forward. Their mouths met, and the rich smell of whiskey hung around Scott’s head in a cloud. He was so stunned by the contact, he couldn’t open his mouth. He couldn’t push Scott away. He couldn’t do anything except let Scott tease his mouth.

There were many reasons why Scott shouldn’t kiss him. At the top of the list was the fact that Scott was engaged to Andy’s sister. Only slightly below that was the fact that Scott wasn’t gay. And to round out the top three, Andy didn’t kiss, touch, grope, or have sex with very drunk men. Generally, it never ended well for him. There were even more reasons why Scott shouldn’t kiss Andy. And yet, there they were, in a kiss that seemed to be deepening instead of ending.

Scott was a good kisser. He must have had a lot of practice. Before he became involved with Susan, he was always in the tabloid papers with a different girl hanging off his arm. And being Hollywood’s leading man meant that he got more than his share of kisses on the silver screen. Except that was just pretending. And there was nothing fake about the way Scott explored his mouth. There was nothing fake about the way Andy reacted. As he warmed to the caress, he became desperate for more, hungry to taste Scott’s mouth. Andy’s tongue tingled a little from the alcohol still lingering on Scott’s lips and inside his cheeks.

“Scott…”

“You won’t tell anybody, will you?”

“No…no…I won’t tell anybody.”

“I’ve wanted to do that before.”

“Did you?”

“But I can’t.”

“You can’t?” Andy’s head was floating above his shoulders. He couldn’t even feel his feet anymore. “You just did.”

“I didn’t make you uncomfortable…did I? Look, if you want me to catch a cab, I will. I should go home.”

“You don’t have to.” Andy didn’t know where the words came from. Scott absolutely had to. Scott should go home, and pack his bags, and catch a flight up to San Francisco, and he could be with Susan again by the morning. But…a man who could kiss another man the way Scott just kissed him might not be interested in flying several hundred miles to climb into
bed with a woman.

[Elisa Rolle]

The story is not very long, and it's a shame since one of the characters is my favorite type, an actor. The starting point is pretty common, a famous Hollywood actor, Scott, has to remain in the closet to not ruin his career and he even asked to a woman to marry him. But the night before his wedding he has second thoughts and to find the courage to go on with the fake marriage he decides to get drunk. Andy his the bride's brother, and his sister asked him not only to find Scott but also to bring him to the wedding ceremony in San Francisco. Problem is that Scott, as soon as he sees Andy, makes a move on him and Andy is not enough stoic to refuse the man, since he has a crush on him since his sister introduced them.

As I said the plot is not very original, but it's original as the author deals with it. Nor Scott or Andy are the usual perfect hero: it's necessary very little persuasion to Andy to have an affair with his sister's groom the night before the wedding. Even if Scott knows well that he is making a big mistake, he decided to marry a woman to hide the true from the media, that he is gay. Scott is not at all a brooding character, he is not strong and sure of his behavior, to go on with his plan he needs to get drunk. When they are together, other than having sex more than once, Scott and Andy smoke pot, since Scott wants to try everything he has never done, before marrying his lover's sister.

Reading all this, have you had an idea of both Scott and Andy? have you realized that no one of them is a square perfect All American hero? All right, Andy is openly gay, but he is also a grown man without a steady work, he lives in a borrowed house, he realizes that he is betraying his own sister, but still he does so, and not only, he even tells everything to his best friend! (kiss and tell philosophy...). Actually between the two, probably I like best Scott: all right he is lying to the media, but be honest, can he do otherwise without loosin his career? probably he is only wrong when he decides to marry a woman instead of choosing the bachelorhood, but this is another story, and you need to read the book to know what will happen.

All in all, the story is good and enjoyable, I like the atmosphere of little escapade and also the relationship between Andy and Scott, with all their faults and imperfections; probably, at long distance, a real relationship will be not simple between them, no one of them is strong enough to be the mainstay, but the book covers only two days.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1602728453/?...

[Ivka_s_knihou · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book has really good potential. But I don't like main characters at all. :(
Both of them at the beginning rather choose cowards way out than deal with their attraction. They do almost anything to have an excuse for acting on it (alcohol, drogs). And Scott's decision of taking his life into his own hands is RUNNING from the wedding? *sad sigh* ...The only person I like was Susan and the best and funniest part of this story was her revelation being lesbian. :)

[Simone · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars