Tuesday Tangent: Pound-able Politicians

So I wrote an erotic romance about sex and love on the campaign trail…

Yeah, in retrospect that was a little cray cray. Believe it or not, I didn’t mean to write a story about a political family during a campaign year. It happened, as so many of these things do, by accident.

Hunter Ford appeared first in Holsum College 4 as Brooks’ asshole friend. Wealthy and connected, he toys with everyone around him. Hunter appeared again in Holsum 5 as Tyler’s regular hook-up partner.

In Pride and Politics (Holsum 6), Hunter’s uncle drags him out on the campaign trail to boost his reputation as a gay friendly candidate. Along the way, Hunter falls in love with the image consultant his uncle hired to keep him in line.

The book is releasing August 25^th—right when the news will have veered away from the Olympics and back onto the inevitable blood bath that will be the 2012 election. Jeepers! What timing! I just hope the campaign coverage helps my sales rather than hinders them.

But really, who says politics can’t be sexy? There’s nothing sexier than power. And more often than not, politicians are relatively good-looking people.

Reagan might have been old by the time he was in office, but he was damn fine in his day. I never saw the sex appeal of Clinton, personally, but I admit he had a certain devilish charisma.

Franklin Pierce? Man, I have no idea what he did or didn’t do in office, but if the portraits are to be believed, that man was pretty!

 

 

 

Andrew Johnson looked just like Tommy Lee Jones.

 

 

The Grover Clevelands were a bit of a trainwreck looks-wise, and don’t even get me started on Eisenhower. But the Bushes are good-looking bunch, if you’re into the good-old-boy/country club thing.

 

 

 

Now, Mitt Romney is extremely handsome. Like, action movie star handsome. And I have a strong suspicion he’s ripped under than suit.

 

 

 

 

But it’s pretty hard to top Obama in the sexiness department. I adore big, brown eyes. It’s hard to say whether Obama is sexier, or whether there are just more pictures on the Internet showing him being sexy. After all, he’s had four years already to be sexy in public. Whereas Mitt’s just getting started.

 

 

So as the election season approaches, I’m just going to imagine the candidates naked, and with the bodies of Olympic athletes under their thousand-dollar suits. I’ll turn off the sound and imagine that Mitt and Obama are actually trying to top each other in some kind of naked wrestling scenario. I’ll picture the campaign staff’s orgies going on behind the scenes.

Come on admit it…you thought those pics of Anthony Weiner were hot, right? When power comes with washboard abs? Well, then—hot damn!

Here’s a sneak peak of the very first scene of Pride and Politics!

Comment with your email addy for a chance to win an ARC of Pride and Politics (Men of Holsum College 6). Please note: I won’t have ARCs for a couple weeks, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll receive your copy before the release date on August 25^th.

* * * * *

Steve hadn’t expected to meet Hunter in his underwear. No, he’d been ready for a lot of things as a member of Chase Ford’s campaign staff, but a half-naked college kid standing in the doorway wasn’t on the list.

“Can I help you?” Hunter leaned on the doorway to his apartment, his blonde hair spiked to the side, his white dress shirt unbuttoned and turned up at the collar, and his red designer briefs on full display. He tilted his head back so he could look down his nose at Steve through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“We had a meeting.” Steve crossed his arms and lifted his chin. He wasn’t going to be talked down to by a little shit four years younger than him—even if said shit’s uncle was Steve’s boss. “Nine thirty. The campaign office called to confirm it yesterday.”

A voice came from inside the apartment. “I can go if you’re busy.” It was cheerful and young and definitely male. But Steve had known Hunter was gay. That’s why the damned office had assigned him as Hunter’s babysitter for the campaign trail.

But they were idiots for thinking Hunter and him had anything in common just because they both liked men. Steve was nothing like the spoiled playboy.

“You’re gonna have to come back later.” Hunter reached behind his ear and pulled out a cigarette. He balanced it on the edge of his lip, and then looked imploringly at Steve’s pants. “You got a light?”

Steve plucked the cigarette out of the Hunter’s mouth. “I don’t smoke, and neither should you. At least not where anyone could see you.” Steve could almost feel a camera at his back, or over his shoulder. He imagined a picture of Hunter Ford, nephew of a future vice president, looking like a drug-addled hooker on the six o’clock news. He’d get fired before his job even started. “Now get inside before someone sees you.”

There was a moment where Hunter crossed his arms and stood up straighter. He looked like a statue, with his aquiline nose and sharp jaw. Steve could tell in the way his lips pinched and twisted to the side that Hunter was considering whether to do what Steve said.

He could also tell by the way he cocked an eyebrow that Hunter Ford wouldn’t do what he was told without a good fucking reason.

“We both know you agreed to this,” Steve said, trying to hint at the threat without saying it out loud. The deal was simple—Hunter acted like a fine, upstanding citizen, posing for pictures with his uncle to boost his ticket’s reputation as gay-friendly, and he got a cool half million.

Continue acting like a fuckup slut and every American’s worst image of a gay man, and Hunter would get cut off. No more allowance, no more apartment, hell, no money even to finish his degree.

The choice seemed pretty damned simple to Steve. Especially since Steve always acted like a decent human being and no one had to pay him for it.

“Fine. Come in.” Hunter stepped out of the doorway and waved Steve inside. He didn’t make any move to close his shirt. “But give me my damn cig back.”

Steve rolled his eyes and handed it over. It wasn’t in his job description to make the idiot kid any healthier. He only had to make him seem healthier. He followed Hunter into a brightly lit apartment with a gigantic white couch. It looked like an upscale porno set, complete with a young guy in his underwear sprawled out on the throw blanket.

* * * * *

Aloof and arrogant, Holsum College Junior Hunter Ford has enjoyed all the perks of being from one of America’s most prominent families. Hunter can have anything he wants–except time away from his family’s political spotlight and the image consultant hired to keep him there.
Steve’s job is simple—make Hunter toe the line for the duration of his uncle’s vice-presidential campaign. This is the break Steve’s been waiting for and a chance to provide a better life for his deaf sister. But he didn’t count on an attraction to the broken scion—one that rearranges everything Steve thought he knew about himself.

As Steve melts Hunter’s icy exterior, the heat between them threatens more than just their hearts. Then a ghost from Hunter’s past shows up on the campaign, challenging Hunter’s stability, and straining Steve’s ability to defend and protect the man he’s growing to love.

* * * * *

Birkenstock-wearing glamour girl and mother of two by immaculate conception, Daisy Harris still isn’t sure if she writes erotica. Her romances start out innocently enough. However, her characters behave like complete sluts. Much to Miss Harris’s dismay the sex tends to get completely out of hand.

She writes about fantastical creatures and about young men getting their freak on, and she’s never missed an episode of The Walking Dead.