“Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending.” ― George Eliot
Title: Payoff (A Market Garden Tale)
Author: L.A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Pages/Word Count: 57
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Blurb: Tristan and Jared have got it made. When they aren’t raking in the cash together at Market Garden, they’re burning up their own sheets and getting closer by the day. But something isn’t right. Tristan’s on edge, and Jared doesn’t understand why.
Before they can hash things out, their services are requested by none other than Rolex. And Rolex doesn’t just want to be a bystander this time. He wants Jared while Tristan watches, and he’s more than willing to pay for it.
But Tristan’s reached a breaking point, and even that huge wad of cash might not be enough to keep tonight’s arrangement from crashing and burning.
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Review: Disclaimer: I would read a Market Garden Tale featuring Tristan and Jared even if L.A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov decided to write a story about the boys doing nothing but mundane life stuff: laundry, furniture shopping, whatever. I’d still read and love it because I’d be the one imagining all the ways they’d have hottie sex and mess up their freshly laundered clothes on their brand new sofa. Yes, I’m pervishly obsessed with these boys, so what.
But more than my obsession with them, I think I love them so much because, of all the couples who’ve been featured in this series so far, Tristan and Jared have the most to overcome, if not the most to lose. Both being rentboys within the elite Market Garden stable, these men are being forced to examine and reconcile their feelings for each other with the fact that not only do they want to be with each other as something more than just friends with bennies, but they also know that their job means touching and being touched by, and having sex with, men who don’t care for or about them, sometimes while the other watches.
Someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Seems Tristan has finally gotten to the breaking point, where the mere idea, let alone the witnessing of another man touching Jared—something that’s been done over and over again throughout their experimental relationship—has finally brought Tristan to the edge of what he can and can’t accept any longer with respect to Jared and their job. These two authors mined all the inherent tension built into that conundrum and poured it into the telling of this story, and it translated perfectly as a make or break moment that not only works for Tristan and Jared but also gives more depth and interest to their as yet unnamed client, who I ended up loving as well; not only that, but the authors have set him up handily for a story of his own that I can’t wait to read.
Tristan and Jared’s intrigue and mystique has always been about the sex. They’re both sexy and seductive, and this writing duo seems to enjoy directing and plotting these two characters almost as much as I enjoy reading about them.
You can buy Payoff (A Market Garden Tale) here:
