TCO Reviewer: Erin

Today’s Exclusive Guest Post is from K.C. Wells and she is talking about SEX!!!! Specifically, how much do you want in a book? And “boy”, is she is spot on, that author’s will never be able to please everyone. Check out the great guest post, and excerpt, and let us know what you think…how much is too much or not enough sex in a book?

When Kel Taylor’s life changes irrevocably, he finds himself alone in the world. He might have rebelled a little against his parents, but that didn’t mean he was ready to lose them. Unable to cope with his grief and feelings of guilt, he turns to booze, but before he hits rock bottom, someone dives into the murky waters to save him.

Luc Bryant watched Kel grow from the little kid whose football broke a pane in his greenhouse, into the sexy young man who sent heat racing through him. That was when Luc stopped watching and distanced himself, because he didn’t want to be that kind of a man. And that’s how things continued, until he saw to what depths the boy had sunk. Luc will be damned if he’ll let Kel kill himself. What Kel needs is a friend, and Luc’s shoulders are plenty big enough to bear his burdens.

Kel doesn’t need a friend. He needs a pair of strong arms to hold him, a broad chest to curl up against, someone to listen to him, someone who cares for him… and a whole lot more.
What he needs is a Daddy.
He just doesn’t know it yet.

A stand-alone book that contains an age gap relationship between a sexy daddy and a virgin.

Kel’s Keeper

KC Wells

M/M Romance, Daddy/boy, Age gap

Release Date: 09.01.19

Cover by Meredith Russell

Photographer by Ben Fink

Models: Adam Keith and Joe Ryan

 

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

 

So that’s one order of plot. How much sex did you want with that?

The one thing every author knows? You can’t please everyone.

“There was too much sex in it.”

“There wasn’t enough sex in it.”

“The relationship was too slow to develop.”

“I LURVE a slow burn!”

“The age gap was too big.”

“The age gap was just right.”

You probably know where you fall in these comments.

But sex scenes can be problematic. Not writing them – although I have been known to leave them to the end on occasions, and I know I’m not the only author who does that 😉 – but deciding how many to write.

When I first started writing, I wrote a LOT of sex scenes. I recall #3 of the Learning to Love series had a few cut out, and as for An Unlocked Heart…. Yeah, a few never made it to the final edit. (Leo and Alex were like bunnies!)

But I learned. A sex scene has A PURPOSE.

It moves the story along.

It reveals something about one or both of the MCs.

When I wrote BFF, I wanted their first time together to be written differently. And I love how it came out.

“When we reached the point where we wanted more, I had to laugh when it turned out we’d both been shopping for condoms and lube. Great minds, huh?

And that’s when things got really serious. Because we’re talking fingers, slick fingers going where nothing had ever gone before. Mind-blowing discoveries, like “What the hell did you just do?” and “For God’s sake, do it again, and again, and again.” Moments that almost stopped my heart, like when he looked me in the eyes and told me he wanted to see my face while I was inside him.

Inside him. Sweet Jesus Christ, I was inside him, and it was tight, and hot, and so, so good.

Oh my God. Slow rocking into him, feeling him tighten around me.

His legs wrapped around my waist, heels digging into the swell of my ass as he urged me to go deeper.

That feeling of being connected, the one that nearly broke me, when I was as deep inside him as it was possible to be and his arms were around me. I swear my soul wept to see that look in his eyes. The look that said “I love you,” and “I’m yours,” and “You’re a part of me now.”

Because I was. God help me, I so was.”

The sex scenes in BFF were right at the end of the book. And some readers felt it wasn’t a romance.

In Truth Will Out, there were none. I literally closed the bedroom door. And you know what? It was right for that book. The romance took a back seat to the mystery. Of course, by book #2, they’ve loosened up a bit. 😉

Now, when I wrote the Damon & Pete stories, under the name Tantalus, there was a LOT of sex. With those stories, the sex came first, then the character development. By the end, Damon and Pete were fuller, more fleshed out, and you cared about them, because you got to know them.

Pride & Protection had maybe two or three sex scenes, but I had so much fun writing them. Standing up, over a desk….

And that brings me to another important point. Research.

Yes, I watch porn. You’d be amazed what’s going on inside my head when I do, however.

‘How do I communicate that look? That noise? That sigh?’

I don’t watch scenes that have no emotion. I want to see a connection.  And sometimes you come across a scene that takes your breath away, because it is SO GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL and Holy hell How do I write that?

When I was writing Kel’s Keeper, I was spoiled for choice. Too many inspirational scenes, too little space to write them. In the end, I wrote more sex scenes in this book than in anything I’ve written in a long while. Before I started writing, I asked readers who read a lot of Daddy kink for their thoughts on what they expected to see in a sex scene. And you can bet I referred to these thoughts when I was planning the scenes.

And how did readers react?

Some loved it. Some skimmed the sex scenes because there were too many.

Some loved the emotion portrayed between Luc and Kel. Some said there wasn’t enough.

Which brings me right back to my first point:

You can’t please everyone. (But you can sure try 😉 )

The time for worrying about Kel had long past. Luc had to do something.

After the funeral, he’d kept his promise and checked in on the boy regularly, and at first it had looked like Kel was coming through this. At least, Luc assumed he was. He didn’t get to see Kel all that much, but their brief conversations over the property boundary were proof that Kel was alive and well, if looking a little thin.

Then the conversations dwindled, as did the phone calls. Kel politely refused Luc’s invitations to eat with him. He refused Luc’s offers of assistance. And lately there had been far too many occasions when Kel didn’t answer his phone. No reply to texts. When Luc had ventured across to knock at the door, there had been no answer. Of course, he could have been out, but somehow Luc doubted that. When April gave way to May, Luc’s disquiet increased.

There were signs of life at the house next door, however. Walmart trucks came and went, and more than once, Luc dashed out to catch Kel before he closed the front door, but he was never fast enough.

Almost as though the boy was avoiding him, which if it were true, would be extremely ironic.

The day arrived when Luc wasn’t content to sit back anymore and wait for something to happen. It was time for the last resort—and that meant Christine’s spare key, the one he’d never gotten around to giving back to Kel. Thank God.

Luc grabbed it from the hook in the kitchen where he kept his keys, and went out of the house. Kel’s car was in the driveway, and judging by the state of the ground beneath it, Kel hadn’t moved it for a while. That only added to Luc’s sense of foreboding.

He went around to the front door, not bothering to ring the bell. After weeks of his knocks going unanswered, there seemed little point. Luc inserted the key into the lock, praying there wasn’t a chain attached on the other side. Thankfully, the door opened, and Luc stepped quietly into the silent interior. He peered into the sitting room, then the dining room, but there was no sign of Kel. When he entered the kitchen, the sight was enough to stop him in his tracks.

Dishes were piled high on every countertop. The dishwasher door was open, and Luc peeked inside. It was full of dirty dishes. The sink was full too, and the trash looked like it hadn’t been taken out for weeks.

Luc noted the pizza boxes and take-out cartons. At least he’s eating something. It was only when he took a closer look at one corner of the kitchen that the full extent of the situation hit him.

Bottles. Lots and lots of empty bottles. And most of it was the hard stuff, Luc was dismayed to see. There were empty cans and bottles of hard cider, and bottles of wine too. It appeared as if Kel had drunk his way through the contents of a bar.

Dear God, what state is he in, if he’s drunk all that?

Luc checked the rest of the first floor, but there was still no sign. He paused at the foot of the stairs, his nostrils flaring. The smell of stale alcohol was very noticeable. Luc mounted the stairs, his heart pounding. This is not good. This is way worse than I thought. Already he was kicking himself for not charging in sooner.

When he reached the door to Kel’s room, Luc paused, steeling himself for whatever lay beyond it, and praying fervently that the boy hadn’t choked to death on his own vomit. He pushed open the door and heaved an internal sigh of relief at the sight that awaited him.

Kel was in his bed, only the top of his head visible above the comforter, but he was clearly breathing. The room was in semidarkness, and the reek of alcohol was at its strongest, accompanied by the smell of stale sweat. Luc crossed the floor, put his hand to the lump beneath the covers, and gave Kel a light shake.

Nothing.

Luc gave him a stronger shake, and Kel’s groggy voice shattered the quiet. “Wha?”

“Kel,” Luc said urgently. “It’s Luc.”

“Go ’way.”

Like Luc was going to do that. “No, I’m not going anywhere. Remember?” He slowly drew back the comforter, only to have Kel seize it from him and pull it back over himself. Half-closed brown eyes regarded him with incredulity.

“How’d you get in here?”

“I have a key. You mom gave it to me. Remember, she asked me to check on the house?”

Kel propped himself up on his elbows, and the comforter slid lower, revealing…

Well, I certainly didn’t expect that.

KC Wells has written some pretty good books dealing with kink of all sorts. This one missed the mark for me though.

Kel is 24 and in the closet. Because his father and grandfather are preachers and he was brought up to believe it was wrong. He knows it isn’t really wrong, but he just doesn’t have it in him to come out. And then an accident means he doesn’t have to.

Luc has been Kel’s next door neighbor as long as he could remember. Always a nice guy, but his parents didn’t really socialize with him being that he wasn’t in the church. But the exchanged pleasantries. Those pleasantries turned into helping Kel when his parents died.

For a guy who was brought up hardcore Christian, he didn’t seem to struggle all that much with, well, anything. There were moments, but nothing like other stories I have read.

It’s a very slow burn. Mostly because neither wanted to admit their attraction to the other. But once they finally do- holy hot, they are all in. Although vanilla, they are having sex everyday, twice a day. Which is just fine. Except the blurb calls it a Daddy/boy book. And there is a little bit of Luc calling Kel “boy”, it’s more out of habit than anything else. Kel is kind of clueless.

So if you are looking for a Daddy book, this really isn’t it. They don’t embrace that until basically the end of the book. Total disappointment.

I honestly wish it hadn’t been labeled that way because without it I think I would have liked it a lot more. But I kept waiting…and waiting…and waiting for Luc to talk about his kink. And there were plenty of opportunities.

I did love the dynamic between the two. The way Luc immediately started taking care of Kel. They were loving and caring right from the get go. Add in the steamy sex and they were a great couple. But kinky Daddy and boy, no.

I’d go up a full star if they had embraced the Daddy/boy kink WAY sooner in the book. But as is…meh

3 Pieces of Eye Candy

K.C. Wells started writing in 2012, although the idea of writing a novel had been in her head since she was a child. But after reading that first gay romance in 2009, she was hooked.

She now writes full time, and the line of men in her head, clamouring to tell their story, is getting longer and longer. If the frequent visits by plot bunnies are anything to go by, that’s not about to change anytime soon.

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