Whoever said space was cold, never found love from the stars ... Some people never learn. This is the tune playing once again in Alex Beaumont’s head when he sees a vision in white attracting odd glances in the quiet little seaside resort of Padstow. He came to get away from it all, to bury himself in work, to forget every man he ever falls for eventually needs to get away ... from him. Adrift in the universe, Mani searches for a place to call home. The planet he finds is cold and inhospitable, not at all what he was expecting. He feels lost and alone, until a stranger’s smile warms him. And with that smile comes another kind of heat, one he’s never before experienced. Love is not what Alex ever imagined it to be. They say space is infinite, but the distance between what Alex wants and what he has experienced romantically seems to be growing ... until now. Like a shooting star, he’s about to fall long and hard. Will he crash and burn, or find the love he’s always dreamed of when looking at the night sky?

Space, Man

The stranger turned, administering another shock. The man was completely hairless…everywhere, except for those tumbling white waves that sprouted from the top of his head. How had he failed to notice that? With nothing hidden, Alex received an eyeful.


Humiliation brought on pain and dizziness, a sense of falling, his muscles loosening even as his skin drew tight. He’d lowered his head but, hating the old pattern of the lino—a remindful sight that he was lusting after a stranger in his parents’ bathroom—Alex looked up, caught in the glare of that intense glittering violet gaze. He expected David to sneer, for those lips to curl, to speak an insult he would understand in any language. Worse than that, David smiled, his expression—the tilted head, raised eyebrows, slow developing smile—speaking of curiosity and innocence.


Chapter 8