Spotlight, Excerpt & Giveaway: Guarded by Cat Grant & L.A. Witt

Hi! Thanks for joining me and Lori on this blog tour/giveaway celebrating the release of our first joint self-published book, Guarded. We know you’ll enjoy this super-hot, super-kinky tale of a rock star and his bodyguard. Leave a comment for a chance to win a special Guarded swag pack, featuring an exclusive T-shirt and signed paperback! Each comment counts as an entry, so follow us on all of our stops and rack up more chances to win!

Here an excerpt to whet your appetites – an emotionally charged scene where Jordan Kane, our volatile rock star, shows his bodyguard Jase Hewitt a little piece of his soul…

The paramedics hustled Daniel out of the ambulance and into the ER, but when Jase and I tried to follow, a wall-sized security guard blocked us. “You can’t go in there.”

“Please, I need… he needs…” Fuck, my throat was closing up. Eyes going blurry. Jase’s hand under my arm was the only thing holding me up. “I have to see him.”

Why was he looking me up and down like that? “Talk to the charge nurse inside.”

We ran to the entrance, nearly plowing into the line of people stretched from the check-in counter to the sliding glass doors. “Hey,” I called to the woman behind the counter, “I need you to let me in the ER right now.”

She was looking at me weird too. “If you’ll wait in line with everyone else, sir—”

“He’s dying! I don’t have time to wait in a fucking line!”

Jase tried to pull me away, but I wasn’t going anywhere. Not even when the crowd started pointing and whispering. Shit, they’d recognized me—

“What the hell’s going on?” It was Martin, pushing through the crush of bodies with a pair of his own security guys. He stopped dead, cursing under his breath when he saw me. “Jesus, Jordan, put something on!”

He shoved his jacket at me, and—shit, no wonder everyone was staring. Jordan Kane, standing bare-chested in the middle of an ER waiting room—

And now everyone was pulling out their phones.

“Let’s find someplace a little more private,” Martin said, hustling Jase and I down the corridor. Jase helped me on with Martin’s jacket, but even his arm around my shoulders didn’t stop me from shivering.

Martin shot us a sharp look, but I ignored it. People were trying to peek around the corner, but I ignored them too. I didn’t give a fuck who saw us. I just needed to see Daniel.

One of Martin’s security guys disappeared, then came back a few minutes later with a hospital security guard. He escorted us to a fluorescent-drenched conference room that looked out on the parking lot, already jam-packed with people and TV news vans.

“I’ll go find out what’s happening,” Martin said. He pointed as Jase. “You—make him stay put.”

The door clicking shut sounded like a fucking gunshot.

I dropped into a chair. Buried my face in my hands. My headache—which had never really left this time, just receded to a dull throb—starting pulsing again. “Um, pills?” I asked softly, glancing up at Jase.

There was a carafe of water on the table. Jase poured me a glass and handed me one precious white droplet of pain relief. I swallowed both, letting my eyes drift shut.

Jase’s hands settled on my shoulders. “Shall I go looking for some coffee?”

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

I wasn’t sure how long he was gone. I wasn’t wearing my watch, and the clock on the wall just looked… wrong. The hands weren’t moving. Felt like time itself was grinding to a halt. Coming apart. Melting, like in that weird-ass Salvador Dali painting.

This wasn’t how it would end. Daniel wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t. I had too much left to say to him, to apologize for, to beg forgiveness—

The door opened, and in came Jase, carrying two large paper cups. “Thanks,” I said, taking the one he offered me. “Did you see Martin?”

He shook his head and pulled out the chair next to mine. “He probably went out to talk to the local news.”

“Oh. Right.”

I sipped my coffee—not too awful for cafeteria swill—and started idly tapping my fingers on the table. Took a minute before I recognized the first few notes of Daniel’s guitar solo from the full-band version of “Forth Into Light.” We hadn’t played that live in, what? Two, three years?

“You wrote it for him, didn’t you?” Jase said.

“Pretty obvious, huh?”

“That everything in your life that means anything revolves around Daniel? Yeah, I’d say so.”

Hard not to miss the note of envy in his voice. “We’ve been through hell together. If it wasn’t for Daniel, I’d probably be dead.” Cryptic much? Jase wasn’t pushing me for details—and wouldn’t, if I knew him at all—but damn it, I wanted to tell him. “Or dealing drugs, if I wasn’t too busy pumping ‘em into my own arm.”

He reached for my hand—the one still tap-tapping on the table—but he didn’t say a word. His reassurance came through loud and clear.

“We, um, grew up together, literally. Daniel’s folks were… messed up. They took off when he was eleven or twelve. He knocked around foster care for a while before he came to live with us.” I closed my eyes and tried to summon up the memories. They still hurt, but God, was it a relief to finally let someone else in. “He’s the one who taught me to play guitar. We started writing songs and playing at every local dive that’d have us, and dreaming of getting out of our cracker-ass town. We got on a bus for LA the day after we graduated high school.”

“And the rest is history?”

“Don’t I wish.” I finished my coffee. Crushed the still-warm cup in my hand. “I went kinda crazy the first few months. I mean, LA was fuckin’ Wonderland compared to the shitty little town Daniel and I grew up in. I got drunk or high every night. Slept with a different warm body every night—guys, girls, it didn’t matter. Then my folks got killed in a car wreck over Christmas and I… lost it.” I swallowed. “I mean, Daniel took it hard too, but I really went down the fucking rabbit hole. I got high and stayed that way. Got arrested. Got so damn strung out I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Daniel’s the one who pulled me back.”

Jase leaned forward, forehead creasing. “What turned the tables?”

I knew he’d ask. And he deserved an honest answer, no matter how much I wished now that I’d never brought all this up. “We love each other. We always have,” I whispered. “I figured, if there’s anyone I had a shot at being happy with, it’s him. So we tried, and…” My voice cracked. “It fucking wrecked everything.”

Two seconds away from another breakdown, and all it took was Jase’s arm around me to head it off. I crumpled against him, sighing as his lips brushed my forehead. “It can’t be all your fault,” he said. “I’ve been around you and him long enough to see that.”

“I never should’ve asked him to—” Oh fuck. Was I really going to say it? “I blacked out when he choked me. Practically had to peel him off the ceiling once I came to. He was fucking hysterical. He thought he’d killed me.” Shivering, I glanced at the clock. Forty-five minutes since they’d taken Daniel in. Where the hell was Martin? “I fucked him up. I fucked us up.” I wiped my eyes. “He’s the closest thing to family I’ve got left. I can’t lose him.”


guardedTitle: Guarded by Cat Grant & L.A. Witt
Publisher: Cat Grant Books
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic, M/M, Romance, BDSM
Length: 344 pages/Word Count: 105,000

Summary:

On the surface, rock star Jordan Kane has it all. His band No Rules is burning up the charts and headlining a world tour. His bodyguard doubles as a hot, kinky boyfriend who knows just how to push all his buttons. But behind the scenes, he’s suffocating.

Jase Hewitt never imagined he’d have a shot at bedding the larger than life rock star – never mind dominating him – but now he’s worried he’s in over his head. Jordan’s kinks run deep, dark, and sometimes dangerous, putting Jase’s desires to both pleasure and protect him at odds.

They might have a fighting chance at finding the safe, happy medium between what Jordan needs and what Jase is willing to give, but there’s one problem: Daniel, Jordan’s childhood best friend, the band’s talented guitarist — and a volatile, hard-partying drug addict. Jordan is determined to save Daniel from himself, but Jase has been there, done that, and desperately wants to protect Jordan from the inevitable heartache of watching an addict self-destruct.

When Daniel goes off the rails again, Jordan calls off the tour to get him help. Tension within the band skyrockets and pressure from the record label sends Jordan into a dark spiral. Now his band — and his life — are balanced on a knife’s edge, and Jase is the only one who can pull him back… but only if the echoes of his own tragic past don’t push him over first.

Read my review HERE.

Purchase Links: ARe * Amazon * B&N * Smashwords * iTunes


Author Bios

Cat Grant lives by the sea in beautiful Monterey, California, with one persnickety feline and way too many books and DVDs. When she’s not writing, you can usually find her watching movies or TV (Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries are among her favorite shows), singing along to her favorite band (30 Seconds to Mars), or fantasizing about kinky sex with Michael Fassbender and/or Jared Leto.

Here’s Cat’s various hideouts on the Internet: Website * Twitter * Facebook * Goodreads * Amazon Author Page * Email * Newsletter

L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer currently living in the glamorous and ultra-futuristic metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two cats, and a disembodied penguin brain that communicates with her telepathically. In addition to writing smut and disturbing the locals, L.A. is said to be working with the US government to perfect a genetic modification that will allow humans to survive indefinitely on Corn Pops and beef jerky. This is all a cover, though, as her primary leisure activity is hunting down her arch nemesis, erotica author Lauren Gallagher, who is also said to be lurking somewhere in Omaha.

Author Links: Website * Twitter * Blog

Follow the rest of the tour HERE.

24 Comments

Filed under Contest, Excerpt

24 Responses to Spotlight, Excerpt & Giveaway: Guarded by Cat Grant & L.A. Witt

  1. Michelle L

    Thank you for the chance.

  2. Sarah

    Wow – loved the excerpt!

  3. Trinitee Mitchell-Dunn

    Looks awesome!! Thanks.

  4. Lee Todd

    intense excerpt!
    count me in please

  5. Michelle

    Fantastic excerpt. Please include me. Thank you for the giveaway.

  6. Trix

    This sounds just fantastic!

  7. Max Thomas

    Thanks! Sounds like a winning story. I already want to finish the book!

  8. Lisa Parker

    I want to get my hands on this book. It sounds amazing.

  9. Nancy Hartmann

    I pre-ordered it yesterday. The anticipation is killing me. 🙂

  10. Timitra

    Great post

  11. Penumbra

    This sounds so good, I’d love to win this. Thanks!

  12. Suzanne Edwards

    Sounds very emotional…would love to win 🙂 Thank you!

  13. H.B.

    Ohh…that was a good excerpt. Please count me in!

  14. SHELLEY S

    GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BOOK AND THANKS FOR THE GIVEAWAY! COUNT ME IN.

  15. Katherine

    I’ve been on a rock star kick lately. Count me in!

  16. Landry Breaux

    This book sounds like it will reach in deep and pull hard on my heart! Thank you for the opportunity to win.

  17. laurie g

    Wow – loved the excerpt!

  18. Lisa G

    This sounds intense! Really looking forward to reading this – love these two authors.

  19. Alaina

    Love the excerpt! Can’t wait to read! Thanks for the chance to win!

  20. Suzanne Edwards

    I love signed paperbacks! Especially ones that sound so hawt!