The Writing Experiment:
When I wrote Toys for Boys, I had already been playing around with placing myself in the story as writer, as scribe. Because I’d walked the Wainwright Coast to Coast, and because I remembered those days when all I wanted at the end of the day was to be warm and dry and asleep in my bed, I already had common ground with Doc and Will and their trials. Writers are always voyeurs to some extent. Certainly we’re always people watchers. And quite often we feel like we’re doing little more than reporting our characters’ stories as they whisper them in our ear. When that happens, it’s always amazing, the unexpected directions a story can take.
I wanted to bring that experience of the characters telling their story to the forefront of Toys for Boys and make it a literal part of the story – sort of share with the reader what we writers experience with our characters on a daily basis. I was very lucky because Will and Doc were more than happy to share.
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High tech meets low tech in a wilderness adventure that sizzles.
Blurb:
Alpha nerd Will Charles teams up with Caridoc ‘Doc’ Jones in a coast to coast walk across England reviewing outdoor gift suggestions for the Christmas edition of Toys for Boys—an online magazine dedicated to the latest gadgets to tickle a man’s fancy.
Will is recording their adventures with the latest smart phone technology. Doc is reviewing the latest outdoor gear. The two quickly discover the great outdoors provides even better toys for boys, toys best shared al fresco, toys that, in spite of Will’s great camera work, will never be reviewed in Toys for Boys.
Note: Toys for Boys has been previously published as part of the Brit Boys: With Toys boxed set.
*****
– Hard Going -- Excerpt:
After the traditional dipping of their boots in the Irish Sea and choosing a stone to toss into the North Sea at walk’s end—all of which Will fucking Charles insisted on videoing, all of which Doc would have skipped in favour of a quick start, they were finally on their way. Doc was more than pleasantly surprised at Will’s pace, long, sure strides in well-used walking boots convinced him that Will should take the lead. It didn’t take him long to doubt the wisdom of that choice. The mist had closed in enough to limit the view over the red cliffs out to sea, but the view of Will’s arse in the well-worn walking shorts only scant steps in front of Doc on a steep incline more than made up for it.
For an instant Doc fought an overwhelming urge to reach out and grab a handful. His cock twitched, his foot slipped, and suddenly the groping fantasy became a reality as his outstretched hand landed on a tightly contracted buttock in his flailing efforts to balance himself. A glancing touch became more of a grope just as Will lost his footing and slid back against him.
“Whoa, mate! You all right?” In a lightning-fast move, Will turned and grabbed Doc by the arm to keep him from going down.
“Mud’s a bitch,” he said, then turned and walked on, leaving Doc breathless and on the verge of a stiffy, struggling not to contemplate the movement of muscle beneath thin shorts and the certainty that there was nothing beneath those but... well, muscle. Yup, no matter what the weather, this was going to be a very hard walk.
In spite of the late start they’d set a good pace, but as the day wore on, the rain worsened and an icy breeze blew in from the north. When Doc suggested they not stop for lunch, but press on to Ennerdale Bridge, Will had offered a nod and a smile. Then he reached into his jacket, pulled out two energy bars, handed one to Doc, and they slogged on. Two energy bars and an eternity later, the weather had worsened to the point that standing up was becoming a problem, let alone walking, and still they pressed on.
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– Flesh to Flesh -- Excerpt:
“We’re not going to make Ennerdale tonight,” Doc yelled into the wind.
Will’s answer was incoherent, an incoherence that wasn’t entirely because the wind was interfering with Doc’s hearing. They’d already got lost once and had fought their way back to the trail. Doc was fucking freezing, but he had spent enough time outdoors in bad weather to push his body way further than most people could. No matter how fit Will was, Doc recognised the signs of hypothermia when he saw them. They had to get out of the weather and get warm.
They lost the trail twice more before Doc made the executive decision to set up a tent in the first spot halfway flat. To his surprise it had been the damn urBrain that had saved the day. Will had downloaded detailed, interactive OS maps, but in his condition, Doc doubted if he could read his own name in bold letters, let alone the contours of a map. He’d pried the device, safe from the weather in its own little waterproof sheath, from Will’s icy hands and, with the light from the screen, he was able to find a wooded area relatively flat and as shielded from the weather as they were likely to get. The rain turned to hail and the Arctic wind made it feel like bird shot against all bits of exposed skin as Doc struggled to set up the tent. He’d shoved another energy bar at Will, and when he’d only stood there looking at it, Doc had opened it and half crammed it down his throat before he went back to work on shelter, desperate to get Will out of the weather.
Once the tent was secure, he chucked the bags inside, then grabbed Will by the collar and dragged him into the tight little space.
The energy bar must have helped. Will seemed coherent enough. “I can’t feel my hands,” he said, battling to get his sleeping bag out of its waterproof sack.
“Give me that,” Doc said through chattering teeth. “Let me do it. My hands aren’t all delicate and dainty like yours.”
“Would you look at that?” Will said as Doc grabbed the bag. “Amazingly, my middle finger works just fine.” He flipped him off.
“So does your smart mouth.” Without thinking, Doc zipped the two bags together.
“What are you doing?” Will was suddenly serious.
“You’re hypothermic. Get your wet clothes off and get into the bag.”
“Oh. Right.” But Will could no more manage the buttons and zippers on his clothing than he could his sleeping bag.
This time when Doc shoved his hands away and pushed the waterproof jacket off his shoulders, Will only watched, eyes focussed on the process as though it were something totally new to him. Doc cursed the fiddly buttons on the man’s shirt, his own hands none too agile from the cold and wet and the fact that he was undressing Will fucking Charles, about whom he’d been having less than pristine thoughts since his first view of the man’s arse. Will fucking Charles with whom he was about to cuddle down into a sleeping bag butt naked, never mind that it was with good reason.
Will sucked in a harsh breath. “Your damned hands are like ice cubes, Woodsy.”
“Oh shut it, William, or I’ll kick your arse outside and make you sleep in the rain.”
“Fucking like to see you try.” Will’s teeth were chattering hard, and his whole body trembling from the cold as Doc worried the shorts down over his commando bum and found himself face to cock, which made the blighter burst into hysterical laughter. “Have we ulterior motives, Mr Jones? Where the hell’s urBrain? I have to get this on camera.”
“Want a selfie of your cock, do you, you shivering bastard?” Doc turned his attention to the walking boots, which had stopped all progress of getting the man naked.
Focussing on something other than the naked, very vulnerable body of Will fucking Charles helped clear his mind. He was too cold, too tired to get hard over what was essentially a matter of life and death, he told himself. Surely!
Once the boots were dispensed with, he shoved the man into the sleeping bag and went about the awkward business of stripping himself.
“Where the hell is the urBrain when I need it?” Will chuckled between chattering teeth.
“You point that thing at me, and I’ll shove it up your arse.” Doc’s own teeth sounded like a couple of spastic tap dancers had been turned loose in his mouth.
“Now that’s a function I didn’t find in the instruction manual,” Will replied.
What started out as ribald comments on the shrivelling effect of the cold on male tender bits dwindled to nothing more than the sound of convulsive shivering. By the time Doc had shed the last of his clothes and shoved his way down next to Will, he was seriously worried. It took all his strength, which wasn’t a helluva lot at that moment, to pull the bloke into his arms and hold him close enough to share body heat, what little there was of it. The worry subsided a bit when Will threw his arms around his neck and gave a harsh chuckle against his throat.
“This was seriously worth getting hypothermic for. Pity I’m too fucking tired to appreciate it.”
Though Doc agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment, his focus was on getting Will warm. Then he’d get out the backpacking stove and fix them something hot. That was the last thing he remembered, that and the feel of Will’s body shivering against him, in the tent redolent with the male scent of core heat and wet gear, all overlaid by the icy metal smell of the fells in a storm.
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Buy Toys for Boys Here:
Universal Amazon link: http://mybook.to/toysforboys
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2jPjrN2
iBooks: http://apple.co/2jpYvxK
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2kbYbQa
Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2kmFbRg
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About K D Grace/Grace Marshall
Voted ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes, K D Grace believes Freud was right. In the end, it really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears out a pair of walking boots. She loves mythology. She enjoys spending time in the gym – right now she’s having a mad affair with a pair of kettle bells. She loves to read, watch birds and do anything that gets her outdoors.
KD has erotica published with Totally Bound, SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The Initiation of Ms Holly, Fulfilling the Contract, To Rome with Lust, and The Pet Shop. Her paranormal erotic novel, Body Temperature and Rising, the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as honorable mention on Violet Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding the Ether, and Elemental Fire, are now also available.
K D Grace also writes hot romance as Grace Marshall. An Executive Decision, Identity Crisis, The Exhibition, Interviewing Wade are all available.
Find K D Here:
Websites: http://kdgrace.co.uk/ and http://www.thebritbabes.co.uk
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KDGraceAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KD_Grace
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/kdgraceauthor/
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