Friday, May 5, 2023

Excerpt from Undertaking Love by Megan Montgomery with a GIVEAWAY



Undertaking Love by Megan Montgomery
Publication date: April 1st 2023
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance

Synopsis:

Bethany West upgraded her lucrative career as a sex worker for her dream job as a death worker when she partnered at Smythe & Co. Mortuary. She expected her eco-friendly innovations and death positive attitude to blow the roof off the Victorian-era relic. But that was seven months ago, and during that time, she’s only managed to piss off her embittered business partner, George Smythe, a man dead set on maintaining the status quo and driving Bethany out of his namesake business.

When the pair reluctantly travel together to a mortuary conference in New Orleans—and compete in dueling embalming demonstrations—George finally recognizes the value of Bethany’s business model for the first time. He’s also starting to recognize a growing attraction to his blonde bombshell business partner. Meanwhile, Bethany learns the truth behind George’s cold contempt, and it’s much worse than she thought, stemming not from a single incident, but from the constant on-call status, the compassion fatigue, and the overwhelming stress of the job.

Bethany has 4 days to crack open his tough outer shell to reveal the compassionate man she knows is inside, and she has a plan, but unless George learns to open his heart and lean on her, at the risk of succumbing to their cremation-level attraction in a dangerous way, he’ll jeopardize both the business and their hearts by refusing the true partnership they both need.



Excerpt:  

George

I gripped the edges of the cot and crouched on the balls of my feet, taking a minute to steady
myself, head hanging low on my shoulders. I gave myself two full seconds before standing up
and getting to work.
No point in wasting time.
I removed my jacket and unbuttoned my shirtsleeves, rolling them up to my elbows, still
thinking about what it must be like to walk through life looking like her, putting people under
spells.
It wasn’t just her beauty, although I had to admit she was objectively beautiful.
Playboy beautiful. OnlyFans beautiful.
Men spent a collective fortune to look at still images of her. Or so I was told. I would
never ever go to her site. Not even to satisfy a morbid curiosity. Why the hell would I? We were
oil and vinegar. I spent every waking moment trying to avoid my business partner.
A body could only look so good naked.
I had to hand it to her though; the way she deliberately dulled herself to look more
approachable, less intimidating for clients.
Wearing polo shirts and khakis for pickups didn’t quite work, though. There was nothing
she could do to disguise her bone structure or her crystalline eyes. Or lips that were full and
plump and pink even without her bloodred lipstick. The best she could do was drape her
otherworldly figure in baggy, unflattering, generic workwear.
In those tight, vintage-glam, days-off dresses, her body was indecent, perhaps even
downright obscene, the way her mountainous hips curved out from a tiny waist. If she wore those
outfits around here, her giant boobs displayed alongside the caskets and urns, nobody would be
able to get any work done. Who could make a decision around that?
She was cartoonishly drawn, the utmost decadence sprung to life in the form of a woman.
Obscene beauty. It was too bad it was packaged into such an unlikeable creature.
Or maybe it wasn’t bad at all.
Because despite her extra helpings of bone structure and sex appeal, the woman posed
not the slightest whiff of temptation. Not for me.
Sure, stunningly gorgeous women had once been my type. Just the thought of slipping
my hands around a woman’s waist, moving lower as wide hips inched my fingers farther apart
would make my dick hard. I used to love that overt type of femininity that threw back to a
different generation, with heightened proportions, heels, lingerie. I liked to clutch a woman’s ribs
and delicately trace the underside of heavy boobs.
Too Much, amplified by the confidence to own it definitely used to be my type.
Now I had no type. I was as celibate as my brother, Gus, in his last year of seminary. I
was ruined by divorce, work, stress, and the feeling that nothing I ever did was good enough.
The constant need to push myself further, do more for the clients, make things perfect at any
cost. That drive was my mistress now.
I wasn’t a man, I was a granite statue, ensconced in my niche that was this home, this
business. There was no blood or desire left inside me. My hands were plastered to my sides,
unable to reach for the soft skin of another. Any hardness wasn’t in my cock but in my soul.
So, no. I wasn’t tempted. Temptation was for men who didn’t work eighteen-hour days,
remaining on-call the other six. Temptation was for men who could allow themselves to be hurt
again.

Temptation was for men who had a future.



AUTHOR BIO:
Megan Montgomery writes romance. Sometimes they're funny. Sometimes they're morbid, but all her characters have cool jobs. She and her husband, Johnathon Olavarria co-host Forced Proximity podcast, a weekly romance book and movie club.

Her debut novel, Well . . . THAT Was Awkward was inspired by her homesickness for southern Maryland. She now lives halfway across the US on the prairie with her husband, son, and mom. 

When she’s not writing, reading, lifting weights, or cooking dinners her son won’t eat, you’ll find her toiling in the garden or brewing potions from her medicinal herbs.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20680329.Megan_Montgomery





 

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