Talking About Trouble
-- Eli’s Top Five Scenes in “The Trouble with Tony”
By Eli Easton
“The Trouble with Tony” is a light-hearted, rom-com of a m/m
romance novella. In the story, Tony DeMarco,
a private eye, goes undercover at a sex clinic during his investigation into a
young woman’s murder. He ends up
falling for the dead girl’s therapist, Dr. Jack Halloran, a steely-eyed ex
combat surgeon who’s PTSD has relegated him to doing therapy work. But before Tony can act on his attraction to
Jack, he has to prove the good doctor is innocent of murder and also deal with
the little problem that Tony’s lied to Jack since the moment they met.
There are two things I love in a m/m romance story—humor and
lots of sexual tension. I did my best to
infuse this story with heaping helpings of both. Here are my top five favorite scenes.
Eli’s 5 Favorite Scene:
#5 The
‘you are lying’ scene
Tony
is trying to find out if Dr. Halloran, or the sex clinic, had anything to do
with the death of Marilyn White. So he decides
to go undercover as a new patient in order to sniff around. He’s clicked around the clinic’s website and
he knows the disorders they treat, so he has his cover story all ready. What he didn’t count on, though, was that Dr.
Jack Halloran is far from stupid. I love
this scene because it’s the first time Tony realizes just who he’s dealing
with.
““It’s like this, Doc. I’m a sex
addict.”
“Oh?” Halloran looked a little
surprised.
“Yeah. And it’s starting to
affect my work and everything, so, you know, I figured I needed help.”
Tony put on a distraught look.
He wouldn’t call himself leading man material, but he was a bullshitter from
way back. You had to be with a mother like his. Ma seemed to know by osmosis if
he’d clipped his toenails or jerked off that morning, and would be sure to
bring it up over breakfast so that all four of his brothers and his father
could be in the loop.
“What kind of work do you do?”
Halloran asked.
“Insurance investigations,” Tony
hedged. It had a thread of truth in it. If you squinted.
“I see.”
Dr. Halloran said nothing for a
long minute, just studied him. Shouldn’t he be making sympathetic sounds?
Asking questions? Offering helpful advice? Tony shifted in his seat, feeling
vaguely like a bug under glass.
“How often do you masturbate?”
Halloran asked.
Tony choked a bit, but managed
to make it look like a tickle in his throat. “Uh… two, three times a day.” He
forced a cheeky grin. “And that’s in my off days.”
Halloran lifted the pencil and
tapped it thoughtfully on his chin, those steely blue eyes unwavering.
“And you have partners as well?”
“Oh, hell yeah! Lots.”
“Female? Male?”
Tony shrugged. “Doc, I’ll tap
anything. I told you, I’m an addict.”
Halloran’s eyes narrowed. He
sucked on the end of the pencil lightly. Still, his piercing gaze never
wavered. What was his problem? Whatever it was, Tony was feeling the pressure.
It reminded him of being in Sister Mary Frances’s algebra class. That nun had
eyes that were like frickin’ pinholes in space-time.
“Do you watch porn?” Halloran
asked calmly.
Tony froze. What was the right
answer here? But he had to stick with the story he’d already been building. He
snorted and made a “come on” gesture. “Why would I need porn when I get laid
all the time?”
In a flash, Halloran was out of
his seat, around the desk, and in Tony’s space. Tony gasped in shock as
Halloran leaned down, quick as a snake, and grabbed his crotch.
And there they were, Tony
sitting in the chair, and Halloran leaning over him, his hand grasping Tony’s
dick through his trousers. Halloran’s steely blue eyes were far too sharp. Why
had Tony thought they were cornflower? Cripes, they were a cold blue, like
steel, like ice—inches away from his own. Those eyes were locked on him like a
weapons system.
And Tony’s dick, which had been
soft in the first place, now tried to crawl back into his body like Napoleon’s
army retreating from Moscow. Great.
Thanks, you goddamn coward.
Halloran gave him a cold smile
and spoke, low and deadly. “You. Are. Lying.” And with that he let go and straightened
up.”
#4 The “BM” scene
Tony
left behind a big Italian family when he moved from Brooklyn to Seattle. Part of the reason he lives far away from his
big horde of relatives is the fact that he’s gay and he doesn’t think his macho
brothers would be able to accept that.
But despite the distance, Tony’s family is involved in our story (Tony
might say overly involved). Here’s part a phone call from Tony’s mother. She’s one of my favorite characters in the
book.
“What about you, Tony?” his mom asked.
“You feeling good? No colds?”
“I’m good, Ma. Healthy as a
horse. It was all that garlic you fed me in utero.”
His mother laughed. “You make
fun, but it’s true. I swear! How are your BMs?”
“Ma,” Tony warned.
“Do you go daily? Because it
should be daily.”
Tony hit his forehead into the
steering wheel with an audible thunk. He was really, really glad he was alone
in a parked car on a dark street, and that there was no reason for anyone to
bug his car. “Ma, I really don’t want to talk with you about my bowel
movements, okay? What am I, three years old?”
“You know what your Uncle Harvey
always said, ‘What comes out shows the quality of what went in.’”
“Ma, Uncle Harvey had dementia.
That’s what comes from obsessing about BMs.”
“Don’t be so full of yourself!
I’m your mother, and I have a right to know these things.”
“My BMs are fine, okay? Peachy!
Daily and… fine.”
“Not too hard?”
“Ma!”
“If they get too hard, you’re
not eating enough fiber. Are you eating plenty of vegetables? And bread. But
not that white crap—sourdough, like I make. You should find a good Italian
bakery there.”
#3 The prostate exam
Did
I saw something about sex earlier?
Right. Sex! In
this next scene, Dr. Halloran insists on giving Tony a physical exam, as he
does every new patient, to make sure the root of his alleged sexual problem is
not physical. Tony hates the idea, but
thinks he can endure if it he must. This
is the first time Tony realizes he’s in trouble because he’s strongly attracted
to the man he’s supposed to be investigating.
Jack stood up and went to the
door of his office, where a white doctor’s coat hung on a hook. He started
putting it on. “As I mentioned, before we can start treatment, I need to do an
exam. I have to rule out any obvious physical issues first.”
“I can assure you, Doc, the
plumbing is fine down there,” Tony said, now definitely panicking.
“Oh? When was your last
physical?”
Tony tried to joke. “Me? I’m
Italian, I’m male, and I’m under fifty. I wouldn’t go to a doctor unless my
eyeball was hanging out so far I could floss with it, or my piss was the color
of pink lemonade, maybe even bloody mary mix.”
Jack turned to him with a raised
brow, blocking the door and folding his arms, his feet slightly apart. “Uh-huh.
That’s what I thought. Do you want me to treat you or not, Mr. DeMarco? Because
if you’re not serious about this, I’d rather you not waste both our time.”
“I… I am serious, Doc. But—”
Halloran pointed to an exam
table set against the back wall of the office. His voice was so cold it could
have sunk the Titanic. “Then go over to that table and drop ’em.”
…
Jack walked over. As he drew
close, Tony felt a nauseous flutter in his stomach. He closed his eyes.
“That’s fine, Tony. Close your
eyes and relax.”
It sounded suspiciously like
something a serial killer would say. Tony bit his lip as he felt hands unbutton
the lower buttons on his shirt and tuck the ends to either side. A cool breeze
wafting over his dick let him know he was exposed. Nice.
There was absolute silence for a
moment and then Jack chuckled. “You’re going to make your lip bleed. It’s not
all that bad, is it? Didn’t you play sports in school?”
A warm, latex-covered hand
rested on his left thigh while another gently, but confidently, lifted his
flaccid flesh. He felt Halloran check his slit carefully with the brush of a
fingertip, probably looking for discharge.
“Wrestling,” Tony said with a
sharp exhale. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter.
“Yeah? High school freestyle
wrestling?” Halloran’s gentle fingers prodded along the length of his penis,
felt around the base of it, then palpitated along the top of his groin. A hand
nudged him to spread further.
“Yeah,” Tony managed in a
strangled voice. “Freshman year through Senior. Letter jacket and everything.”
“That right? Did you win a lot
of matches?”
A gentle hand cupped him and
felt carefully around his scrotum and the space underneath, pressing sure,
confident, clinical fingers.
“Better than average,” Tony managed.
“My ranking was 80.90.”
Tony knew Halloran was just
trying to distract him, but he was grateful to have a reason to think about
something, anything, else. “It ran in the family. I had four older brothers and
they all wrestled. I guess it kept us from killing each other. When we’d get in
a fight, my dad would make us wrestle on the living room floor, college rules.”
The hands vanished. For a
moment, Tony felt joyfully relieved. He’d survived it.
“Turn around, please,” Halloran
said.
Tony’s eyes popped open. “Oh,
hell no! Please, Doc. Say you’re joking.”
Halloran managed not to smile.
Much. But his eyes were dancing like it was a fucking jolly holiday. “Don’t be
a baby, DeMarco. It’ll be over before you know it. Think of it as a wrestling
match.”
“I hate you,” Tony said
sincerely. But he turned. He felt like a doofus with his pants around his knees
and his bare ass hanging out.
“Lean forward,” Jack said
softly. He placed a hand on the middle of Tony’s back and lightly urged him
down over the table. Tony went. Halloran pushed the tail of his shirt up to the
middle of his back. Then Tony heard him squeezing something, no doubt some
medical lube, onto his hand. The edge of Halloran’s thigh pressed into his left
leg, and one hand returned to his back as if to hold him steady.
And that’s when it happened.
Tony felt a hot rush explode from every place where Halloran was touching
him—along the length of the leg that pinned him and the latex-covered hand that
was cupped on the small of his back. A rush of lust surged through his body
like an express train. His dick went from zero to sixty in about three seconds,
and it pushed, hard and heavy, against the edge of the exam table. And just
about the time Tony, in total shock, had registered what was going on, Halloran
went in for the kill.
The hand on Tony’s back slid
down to pull one cheek slightly open and then Halloran’s finger, covered in
latex and lube, slid home.
“Fuck!” Tony cursed, loud and
long.
Halloran twisted his finger a
bit, as if to loosen him. The hand not busy plowing Tony’s ass slid back up and
spread out over the center of his back. Perhaps that was meant to be
comforting, but it smacked of being held down to be fucked and, damn, Tony
suddenly wanted that. That. More than he’d wanted a Dean Martin jacket for
Christmas at age twelve or for Aaron to say he was joking the night he’d
announced his move to L.A.
“Relax,” Halloran said calmly.
“It’ll be over in a moment. So is 80.90 high? How good were you, DeMarco?” It
was his index finger; Tony could feel that now, feel the palm of Halloran’s
hand pressed against him as that finger stroked and prodded for….
“Oh, fucking hell!” Tony cursed
again, his body shaking.
#2 The epilogue
The
epilogue takes place on the Skyline Trail at Mt. Rainier, one of my favorite
hiking trails of all time. In this
scene, Tony and Jack are sitting at an overlook when Tony gets a call from his
mother. He’s been meaning to come out to
his family and tell them about Jack, and he decides to go ahead and do that right
there at the overlook. You’ll have to
read the book to see how they respond since I don’t want to spoil it. ;-)
#1 The massage scene
And…
more sexual tension. My favorite scene in
the book is a hot one! Tony breaks into
the clinic after hours to snoop around and Jack catches him leaving. Jack misinterprets why Tony is there so
late. He thinks Tony is an E.D. patient
(erectile dysfunction) and he’s having which Jack calls ‘hallelujah time,’ a
rare moment of arousal. With no
surrogate on hand, Jack decides to give Tony a little touch therapy in the form
of a massage. Tony knows it’s dangerous
territory, but he’s been crushing on Jack big time and he just can’t resist
taking the good doctor up on it.
He knocked on the door of the
massage room and heard a muttered, “Come in.”
Tony was lying on his stomach
with the white towel arranged neatly from his waist to upper thigh. He was
sumptuous laid out like that, and the low hum in Jack’s gut kicked up a notch.
Tony had broad shoulders, very broad, and well-defined arms. His back was
strong, golden-skinned, and perfectly smooth. His waist was trim, and there was
the shape of a fine ass under the towel. The picture was completed with solid
thighs and calves. Yes, Tony DeMarco was a man in his prime. He deserved to be
as sexually active as he wanted to be.
Then
again, thought Jack, don’t we all?
He noticed that there was a
light red flush on Tony’s back, across the shoulders. He must still be nervous
and embarrassed. Jack thought the tell was rather adorable. His awkwardness was
endearing.
Jack stepped over to him and
placed a hand in the center of Tony’s back. “There’s nothing to be worried
about. You’ve had a massage before, yeah?”
Tony nodded without looking up.
“Well, this is just like that.
Except if you’re able to get aroused, that’s fine. Let yourself go. And if you
don’t, that’s fine, too.”
Tony turned his face into the
table with a muttered, “Oh God.”
Jack hesitated. Tony was a lot
shyer than he’d expected. “Do you want to continue? We can scrap this if you’re
not comfortable.”
“Not stopping,” Tony said in a
small voice.
“All right.” Jack rubbed his
hand soothingly over Tony’s back for a moment and then went to wash his hands
and get some massage oil from the cabinet. No latex gloves for this. Skin on
skin fostered trust and intimacy.
“Do I need a safe word?” Tony
mumbled, obviously joking.
Jack laughed. “For touch
therapy? ‘Stop’ will be fine.”
“What about ‘don’t stop’?” Tony
said softly and not, apparently, joking.
Jack felt a little heat at the
base of his spine. “You can say that, too. I might even listen, depending.”
Jack walked to the table and squirted a line of massage oil up Tony’s back and
then put some on his hands, rubbing them together to warm them up.
“Depending on what?”
Jack didn’t answer. He froze as
he saw the scar tissue on the back of Tony’s left thigh. It was a bullet exit
wound, large and raw-looking, covering an area about four inches long and two
inches wide. Tentatively, Jack touched it, feeling an emotion he had no idea
how to define.
“You were shot,” Jack said
quietly.
Tony stiffened. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I was… a policeman for a while.
But after the shooting, I quit.”
Jack was not entirely surprised.
Tony had a certain tough bearing that said “cop.” But it was not unlike a
military bearing, and the only full-blooded Italians like Tony he’d ever known
had been in the Army. He’d just sort of accepted it as part of the Italian
persona.
Jack realized he was lightly
stroking the scar.
“Does it gross you out, Doc?”
Tony asked. He sounded vulnerable.
“God, no,” Jack said. “I’ve
got…. My arm….” His voice cracked. He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“In Iraq, right? What was it?” Tony
asked quietly.
Jack swallowed a lump and
cleared his throat. “An I.E.D. I was trying to get a kid out of a mess of truck
bombs that had driven into our compound. One of the trucks hadn’t yet
exploded.”
Tony lifted himself up on his
elbows and turned his head to look at Jack. His face looked serious. “You’re an
amazing guy, you know that, Doc?”
Jack snorted. With some effort
he pulled his mind away from the war. Way to kill hallelujah time. Poor Tony.
“What I am is a guy with some amazing scars. Lots worse than this little
blemish. Now come on. Lay down.” He patted Tony’s back. Tony laid back down.
Jack let his hands trace lightly
over Tony’s back, feeling the perfect, warm skin, getting Tony—and himself, if
he was honest—back in the right frame of mind. When he felt Tony relax, Jack
placed the heels of his hands on Tony’s lower back and ran them up his
shoulders, firm.
Tony shivered. He lifted his
head and let it fall with a thunk back down on the massage table. Jack wasn’t
sure what the gesture meant, but he kept going. He massaged Tony’s back with
firm, sure stokes, alternating that with running light fingertips up and down
his sides. The form of massage he’d learned in his surrogacy class was
different than most. The goal of touch therapy was to relax the patient, yes,
but only to the point of quelling any nerves. The massage was also intended to
foster intimacy and to arouse.
He stroked down Tony’s left arm
and smoothed out his clenched fist. He rubbed his thumbs into Tony’s palm,
caressed the base of his fingers, then folded his own fingers through Tony’s so
he could stimulate the space between. Finally, Jack pulled light fingertips up
the length of each digit, from palm to fingertip.
Jack noted, with some interest,
that his right hand performed the massage with no hint of tremor. Oh, what the
body could do with the right motivation.
Tony was growing tense under his
hands. “Fuck, you’re killing me.” His voice was shaky and the blush across the
tops of his shoulders had deepened.
“Feel good?” Jack asked in a low
voice.
Tony nodded.
Jack ran his hands up to Tony’s
neck, rubbing it for a moment before running his hand into Tony’s hair, palm to
his scalp, massaging fingers just lightly tugging at his hair.
God, his hair felt nice—so thick
and soft.
Tony tilted his forehead farther
into the table, as if his scalp was trying to get more of Jack’s hands. He
groaned. The sound was clearly that of arousal and it caused an echoing pulse
in Jack’s groin. He was completely hard. For a moment he had a flash of a
fantasy, himself crawling onto the table and lifting that towel, burying his
cock in Tony just like this, his hands full of that hair, mouth on that neck.
It was a strong, compelling image.
Jack took a deep breath and let
it go. He was only human. That didn’t mean he had to act on every impulse his
mind conjured up. “You all right?” he asked Tony, bringing his hands down to
rub at his shoulders.
Tony grunted in the affirmative.
Jack did the other arm and hand,
spending time on Tony’s palm and long fingers. They were nice hands, slender
but strong. Very nice hands. Tony shivered every time Jack pulled his
fingertips up one of Tony’s fingers. It was a move that was particularly erotic
and suggestive. So Jack did it again. Tony moaned.
“How are you feeling?” Jack
asked gently as he moved down to massage Tony’s feet. He picked up a lower leg,
braced it against his chest and rubbed circles on the bottom of Tony’s foot
with his thumbs in much the same way as he had his hands.
Tony didn’t answer for a while.
Jack moved to the other foot, kneading the arch.
“I’m feeling like I’m about to
do things to this massage table that are ethically and hygienically
questionable,” came Tony’s muffled voice.
Jack chuckled. He moved up to
the center of the table and laid a hand lightly on Tony’s back. “We can’t have
that, can we? How about you turn over?”
Tony hesitated. “I’m… hard,
Doc.”
“That’s good, isn’t it? Come on,
DeMarco,” Jack said with a smile. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
I
hope you enjoyed this sneak peek at “The Trouble with Tony”! Thanks to the lovely Kim Fielding for hosting
me.
Eli
About Eli Easton
Eli Easton is a new nom de plume for an author who has
primarily published mystery thrillers in the past. As an addict of m/m romance novels, she
decided to tip her size-nine toe in the water and write in the genre herself. She has various other m/m titles out or soon
releasing from Dreamspinner Press. She
lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband, three bulldogs, three cows,
and six chickens. You can get news about
her books at the links below:
Eli on goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7020231.Eli_Easton
Eli’s blog: www. elieaston.com
Eli’s Tumblr: http://elieaston.tumblr.com/
Eli’s Twitter:
EliEaston
“The Trouble with
Tony” links:
Eli Easton’s website:
www.elieaston.com
Great choices Eli. The BM conversation cracked me up when I read it and Ive just snorted again and yep, the UST in that massage scene is heated... with a Capitol SIZZLE! The whole book is brilliant. Thanks. :D
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