Blog Tour: On the Mountain: Riley Hart
• Audiobook to follow. Narrated by Zane Daniels.
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What to expect:
Snowed in on a mountain
Hurt/Comfort
Small town
Primal Play
MC Raised in a Cult
Town Outcast
Possessive/Protective MC
One feels he’s not worthy of love. The other fears he doesn’t know how. But the sizzling chemistry between them has both tempted to explore the unknown.
Cyrus
I was intrigued by Crow at first glance. Who wouldn’t be? He’s a mountain of a man, who was raised in a cult, and now lives secluded in the wilderness. But the draw I feel to him goes beyond mild interest. When his intense gaze falls my way, it feels like he can see into my soul, to my deepest yearnings and desires.
I took a bold chance venturing to his mountain uninvited. But I can’t help myself. Despite Crow’s dangerous facade, I feel at home when I’m near him. I’ve never felt wanted or needed…until the mountain man took me in his arms.
Crow
The mountain is my home, the only place that truly suits me. I reveled in my solitude…until Cyrus showed up looking as lonely as I felt. The warmth in his gaze made me welcome someone into my home and my heart when I never have before.
The way he smells. The way he feels. I come apart with his every touch. The past haunts us both. Yet when we’re together, the weight of it is manageable. Cyrus is mine, and I don’t ever want to let him go. Still, I fear that eventually he’ll want to leave the mountain, and for the first time in my life, I don’t want to be alone.
This is a different type of love story. It is powerful, intense, obsessive, and almost feral. But that is because of the characters, their past trauma, and the sheer magnitude of their loneliness and need for the most basic human connection.
Crow is a man who isolates himself on a mountain and only comes into town once a month and does not speak to anyone. He is an outcast and survivor of a cult and he outside world that does not understand him and it has marked and shaped him. He is untrusting, lonely, detached, and afraid of making connections.
Cyrus is new to town and sees Crow on one of his visits. He is immediately fascinated and his brokenness recognizes Crow's. Cyrus is also alone and lonely, and has mental health struggles, past pain, and trust and abandonment issues.
A series of events brings them into contact and Cyrus ends up on the mountain with Crow. Resistance slowly begins to give into attraction and need, And more importantly, begins to peel back the layers of protection over their battered hearts, break down barriers and trust issues, and begin to be open, honest, and hopeful for once in their lives. Their needs are very raw, desperate, primal, and all-encompassing. But it also comes with fear of possible rejection or loss.
One does not feel like he deserves love and the other feels like he has nothing to give and does not understand real love. But together they balance their pain and issues and develop a true understanding about how the other thinks, feels, and what they need. Their story is an intense and raw love story of two outcasts finding peace, trust, companionship, support, acceptance, purpose, and healing together. They balance each other in the most basic ways.
My heart was totally invested in these two broken men and how desperately they needed each other. I loved seeing how they began to grow, change, accept, and find their own self-worth and bond together. It is a powerful, beautiful, and inspiring triumph over tragedy.
My heart was totally invested in these two broken men and how desperately they needed each other. I loved seeing how they began to grow, change, accept, and find their own self-worth and bond together. It is a powerful, beautiful, and inspiring triumph over tragedy.
Keep reading for a look inside On The Mountain!
Cyrus shook his head. Our gazes stayed locked, my fingers slowly working up his foot. He didn’t use words at first, but I could tell that the higher I got, the more pain he was in, until I reached his ankle and he said, “Yes. There.”
I took the ice pack and placed it on his skin. He trembled, and I looked down. Looked at the foot of another man resting on my knee. At how pale it was compared to my sun-kissed tan. His nails were perfectly trimmed. He had a slight dusting of hair on his big toe. Veins ran the length of his foot, attached to fuzzy legs.
It was strange seeing someone touch me this way. I’d fucked Hillary when I was sixteen. She had been nineteen and was the newest on the path to Enlightenment. She’d only been there six months when it started. I was drawn to her because she was the closest person to my age I’d ever spent any amount of time with. What I’d really wanted was a friend, but Chosen had said that even though she wasn’t worthy of me, he thought I should enjoy her physically. Men were sexual beings. We needed to fuck, and he wanted me to start early. That was something else my mother hadn’t known about.
I’d gone without until I was twenty-one, and then it had been Debra. I paid her for sex, but it had only taken once for me to realize that much like Hillary, it felt wrong. Ever since then, it had only been Bruce. But that was just an action, a means to an end, a way to have an orgasm. It didn’t feel intimate the way his foot on my lap did.
I hated the fact that I loved fucking so much, that I always yearned to bury my cock in someone, because it made me feel like Chosen. He’d slept with most of the women in The Enlightened, acted like it made him powerful.
Cyrus’s foot fell off my lap when I shoved to my feet.
“Ouch. Shit,” he cursed, but I ignored him, walking away, needing space. It was one thing to do that with Debra or Bruce, give them money and put my dick in them, but it was something else entirely to have someone here I wanted, someone I coveted.
I didn’t want to touch him again.
I wanted to touch him everywhere.
“Wrap it,” I growled with my back to him.
“Why the fuck did you do that?”
I turned to see him with his foot on the couch. He grabbed the bandage from the kit and fumbled, trying to wrap it himself.
Leave him. This isn’t your responsibility. He is nothing to you.
But my feet moved of their own accord. I jerked the bandage from his hands and began wrapping his foot. Once I had it covered, I propped the limb on a pillow so it was elevated, pressed the ice to it again, then stalked to the chair on the other side of the room to watch him.
I craved space as much as I craved his skin, but I couldn’t leave him alone in my home.
“Why did you bring me here?” When I didn’t respond, he added, “Are you taking me to my car tomorrow? It’s my left foot, so I can drive.” At that, I gave a simple nod. “So…I’m supposed to sit here all night with you watching me?”
I ignored him, and he sighed, maneuvering himself so he lay down.
We sat there in silence, for an hour, maybe two. He watched me, and I watched him, wondering what he saw in my eyes. Something wild? Angry? Wrong? Strange? Did he know that his gaze bled with sadness? That I could see that he was even more alone than I was? That for the first time in my life, I almost felt like I saw myself in someone else? That made me want to hate him…made me want to possess him too.
“I understand it…why you like it out here. Somehow the seclusion and quiet helps silence the voices in my head.”
My pulse punched against my skin. Words felt about to escape me in a way that was foreign to me.
But I didn’t have to respond because Cyrus closed his eyes and went to sleep.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. When the ice got warm, I grabbed another pack and laid it against his ankle. I took in his flawless skin, the freckles on his nose. What would it be like to be inside this man? My hands twitched, and I forced myself to return to my chair, eyes open all night, taking in every angle of him, every dip and valley, the way he breathed and mumbled soft sounds.
Maybe I was more like Chosen than I thought, because part of me wanted to keep him here and never let him leave.
Riley Hart's love of all things romance shines brightly in everything she writes. Her primary focus is Male/Male romance but under various pen names, her prose has touched practically every part of the spectrum of love and relationships. The common theme that ties them all together is stories told from the heart.
A hopeless romantic herself, Riley is a lover of character-driven plots, many with flawed and relatable characters. She strives to create stories that readers can not only fall in love with, but also see themselves in. Real characters and real love blended together equal the ultimate Riley Hart experience.
When Riley isn't creating her next story, you can find her reading, traveling, or dreaming about reading or traveling, spending time with her two snarky kids, and swoony husband.
Riley Hart is represented by Jane Dystel at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret Literary Management. She's a 2019 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Of Sunlight and Stardust.
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