Blog Tour and Giveaway: Dirty Minds by Rhys Ford – Part 11

To celebrate the release of my new book, Down and Dirty, I’m inviting you to follow along with the blog tour serial of a Cole McGinnis case, Dirty Minds! Enter to win a giveaway at every site!

Rhys Ford’s Down and Dirty Giveaway

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

Dirty Minds: Part Eleven

I don’t know what hit first—the dog’s teeth or the shotgun blast booming out from one of the side windows. My already bruised up shoulder was the dog’s target and from the blown out glass and tarp raining down on my head, I could take a guess my good friend Popcorn was armed with the shotgun.

Sam howled as I scooped him up and rolled over onto my back. My shirt tore, my sleeve left in the clenched teeth of a fierce looking mutt whose mother appeared to have fucked a mangy raccoon. About the size of a small sheep, its marble-coloured hair stuck out around its plump body as if it stuck its wet nose into the mother of all electric sockets.

“Dude, come on. That thing’s going to gum you to death.” Bobby yelled at me from the gate. “Get over here.”

I don’t know what dog Bobby was looking at but the reject from Where The Wild Things Go To Die had enough teeth to rip me to shreds. And considering it was holding the remains of my shirt sleeve its jaws, I wasn’t going to stick around to test out his theory of a gummy death.

Someone in the house was trying to get outside because the rusty security gate across the front door rattled as I scurried by. Trying to get Sam under control and avoid the snapping furry Roomba at my ankles, I didn’t see the business end of the shotgun poking out between the jamb and the door until it was nearly too late.

“Cole!” Bobby shouted as I dove down into an azalea hedge, taking Sam with me.

Shot cut through the air above my head, and I heard an old woman screaming at the top of her lungs for the police. The cat squeaked and somewhere behind me, the dog began a high-pitched tirade of barking and yelping. Not wanting to stick around to see if she could reload and get a better aim, I bolted for the front gate.

Bobby’d wedged himself between the joined gates, forcing an opening barely wide enough for a toddler to get through. Giving him a scowl, I tried juggling Sam away from my chest as his paws unsheathed and the tiny part of his brain domesticity diminished suddenly woke up, churning up a vicious, primitive memory of enemies and foes.

Unfortunately for Bobby and me, at some point in Sam’s genetic past, his ancestors declared war on humans and he was now back for revenge.

The placid mewling fluff ball unfolded to his evolved form, sprouting adamantium claws from his poofy soft paws. He took me out first, hooking into my nostril in the hopes of finding my sinuses but luckily for me, the damned cat couldn’t reach that far. He did, however, find a vein or something because after a spot of flaming pain, my nose began to gush a river of blood.

“Give me the damned cat,” Bobby yelled, trying to get his hands around the flailing demon.

Dawson was going to have to wait. Sam the Enraged had other things on his mind, more specifically, the squat mutant he’d been sharing space with over the past twenty-four hours. The dog lunged up to sink its teeth into my arm, and Sam was waiting for it, ten toes of fury and a mouthful of needle-sharp fangs.

The woman finally got the door open, and she fought to get the shotgun out of the threshold, its stock wrapped around something pink and frilly she’d left by the door. Leathery to the point of being jerky, she was about as toothless as Bobby thought the dog had been, gaping spreads set between long, fence post teeth staggered behind her thin lips. Yellow foam rollers fought for space in her coarse grey hair, and she’d forgotten to put a bra on that morning because when the sun struck her thin cotton housecoat, I could see the pendulum motion of her aged, elongated breasts swaying beneath the fabric.

Definitely not the last thing I wanted to see before I died.

The dog got the worst of it from Sam. In the middle of the blood, fur and spittle battle going on across my chest and legs, I was pretty certain I saw a flash of lasers shoot out of the cat’s eyes just before I got him through the thin space Bobby got between the joined gates. Sam got in one last swipe, and then hell descended upon us, the air ripe with Valkyrie, fat white ponies and singing helmeted bald men.

“Drop the cat and put your hands up,” a booming voice cut through the screeching. “This is the police!”

Blurb – Down and Dirty: From the moment former LAPD detective Bobby Dawson spots Ichiro Tokugawa, he knows the man is trouble. And not just because the much younger Japanese inker is hot, complicated, and pushes every one of Bobby’s buttons. No, Ichi is trouble because he’s Cole McGinnis’s younger brother and off-limits in every possible way. And Bobby knows that even before Cole threatens to kill him for looking Ichi’s way. But despite his gut telling him Ichi is bad news, Bobby can’t stop looking… or wanting.

Ichi was never one to play by the rules. Growing up in Japan as his father’s heir, he’d been bound by every rule imaginable until he had enough and walked away from everything to become his own man. Los Angeles was supposed to be a brief pitstop before he moved on, but after connecting with his American half-brothers, it looks like a good city to call home for a while—if it weren’t for Bobby Dawson.

Bobby is definitely a love-them-and-leave-them type, a philosophy Ichi whole-heartedly agrees with. Family was as much of a relationship as Ichi was looking for, but something about the gruff and handsome Bobby Dawson that makes Ichi want more.

Much, much more.

Purchase Down and Dirty at Dreamspinner Press or on Amazon

About Rhys Ford: Rhys Ford was born and raised in Hawai’i then wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of books, a lot of odd food, and a stray boyfriend or two, Rhys eventually landed in San Diego, which is a very nice place but seriously needs more rain.

Rhys admits to sharing the house with three cats of varying degrees of black fur and a ginger cairn terrorist. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, a Toshiba laptop, and an overworked red coffee maker.

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And at the Starbucks down the street. No really, they’re 24/7. And a drive-thru. It’s like heaven.

My books can be purchased, folded and first chapters read at Dreamspinner Press.

Down and Dirty Blog Tour:

Dec 30 Part One — 3Chicks after dark
Dec 31 Part Two — Boy Meets Boy Reviews
Jan 1 Part Three — Joyfully Jay
Jan 2 Part Four — LoveBytes
Part Five — On Top Down Under
Jan 3 Part Six — Prism Book Alliance
Jan 4 Part Seven — It’s About The Book
Part Eight — The Blogger Girls
Jan 5 Part Nine — Sinfully Sexy
Jan 6 Part Ten — NDulgent Bloggers
Jan 7 Part Eleven — The Novel Approach
Jan 8 Part Twelve — Under the Covers Blog