Six Black is in over his head. And he's not sure he wants to come up for air. After a sheltered upbringing with an oppressive family, he's not ready for adult life. He's not ready for the world outside. And he's definitely not ready for the clandestine nightclub known only as Blossom & Bite—or the strange, scarred man he meets there. Senzou Ueda. When Blossom & Bite specializes in matching displaced young men with wealthy older "patrons," it's not hard to guess what Senzou wants when he invites Six into his home. Yet there's more to this arrangement than Senzou would ever tell, and while each night Six sleeps alone...he finds himself falling more and more beneath this mysterious, black-eyed behemoth's quiet spell. Especially when he discovers... Senzou Ueda is the architect of Six's darkest desires. Every hunger. Every longing. Every breathless, twisted curiosity that lives inside Six was born of Senzou's macabrely erotic art, and the more he learns of the man, the fantasy, the story behind battle scars and delicate tattoos... ...the more Six craves. Cut free from his tethers, Six is awakening from a fragile, frightened boy into a creature of insatiable passions—and neither he nor Senzou can resist the temptation of illicit desires. In each other, they find the answer to unspoken, forbidden needs. In each other, they find kindred spirits. In each other...they find something broken. Something beautiful. But the love building between them has a time limit, and it's counting down—to the day when Six learns the truth. The real reason Senzou came for him. The hidden hand pulling both their strings... ...and the secret of the black tattoo.
Author
Slender. Angry. (Part) Asian. Yeah, that about sums me up. Hi. I’m Cole. Xen. Whatever you want to call me; both are true, and both are lies. My pen names are multitudes, my nicknames legion. Tall, bi/queer, introverted author of a brown-ish persuasion made up of various flavors of Black, Asian, and Native American. I’m cuter than Hello Kitty, more bitter than the blackest coffee, and able to trip over cats in a single half-asleep lurch; I’m what happens when a Broody Antihero and a Manic Pixie Dream Boy fight to the death, and someone builds a person from the scraps left behind. Beardless, I look like the uke in every yaoi manga in existence; bearded or not, I sound like Barry White. About half my time is spent as a corporate writer, and the other half riding a train of WTFery that sometimes results in a finished book. Romance, erotica, sci-fi, horror, paranormal; LGBTQIA and cishet; diverse settings and diverse characters from a diverse author. Sometimes I shout about things on the internet. Usually intersectional feminism and marginalized voices, and whomever’s punching down in those directions today. Sometimes human sociology, the psychology of sex and gender, and my own gender non-conforming arse (he/him, by the way). Sometimes I get really mad at Stephen Hawking and nerd out all over the place about hairy black holes, and believe it or not, that’s not a terrible pun or even worse innuendo. That’s it. I’m a huge dork. My humor’s so dry it could empty oceans. I’m a native Southerner from the New Orleans area with zero Southern accent; I’m a mess of multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-lingual influences; I have two cats. I wake up at daft hours of the morning to go running. I crochet terrible, lumpy things that never really turn into anything. I’m older than you think I look. I’m much more shy than my fury makes me sound (signifying gods only know what, but probably nothing). Recently I decided, at 36, that I needed to restart my life and move cross-country, so I tossed 75% of my possessions in the trash and randomly trucked it to Seattle. I’m in love with books and music and technology, and they war with each other for dominance and sometimes come together in a beautiful confluence. Most of the physical books I own are strange, obscure, out of print, overseas imports, or any combination of the four. Most of the physical books I used to own were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, and have been replaced with the infinite library on my Nook. My wallet has a dangerous attraction to anything with pages; it flirts and teases and gives its all, until there’s nothing left but emptiness and ruin. There will always be things you don’t know, and I won’t tell. But ask me late at night over live music in a seedy bar, and you might just get an honest answer. ...or you can poke me via: * Email: blackmagic@blackmagicblues.com * Twitter: @thisblackmagic * Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/xen.cole * Website & Blog: http://www.blackmagicblues.com * Tumblr: http://thisblackmagic.tumblr.com/ And there's my Xen Sanders SFF / Horror profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
