RECENT RELEASE
Book Title: Hard Count: Book One of The Piper Ashton Saga
Author and Publisher: Lucas Malone
Cover Artist: Erin Craig
Release Date: July 9, 2026/Paperback: July 31, 2026
Genres: Dark MM Sports Romance
Tropes: Forbidden love, forced proximity
Themes: Coming out
Heat Rating: 4.5 flames
Length: 67 000 words/369 pages
This is book one of the series and ends on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited
Blurb
Meet Piper Ashton.
Football consumed Piper.
Every snap, every route, every victory was a masterclass in control.
Until Noah Reyes.
Piper’s rival quarterback, who smiled like sin and threw like a freight train
Noah was the one player who could make Piper’s perfect world crack wide open with nothing but a wink across the line of scrimmage.
An obsession, so all-consuming, that two of the league’s most watched men began making the kind of mess that could end careers, reputations and their lives.
The truth is, Piper’s life was never really his to begin with. It belongs to a powerful billionaire who has spent years pulling every string in his life, and that man doesn’t share.
One championship.
One forbidden, toxic obsession.
One secret that could burn the entire league to the ground.
But first… a WARNING.
Hard Count is an unapologetically dark MM romance. It contains explicit sexual content, psychological abuse, coercive control, alcoholism, homophobia, eating disorders, trauma, gun violence, coarse language, and other disturbing themes. If you’re looking for a lighthearted sports romance, this isn’t it.
Excerpt - Chapter Seven
Los Angeles
The studio smelled of hot lights and baby oil.
Taxidermy lions stood between the lighting rigs, frozen mid-snarl and paws up. The campaign concept was developed by a gay 32-year-old marketing major from USC named Taylor Love. The idea he developed was beasts in briefs.
Piper arrived first. He always did. Lighting rigs, black backdrop, concrete floor, photographer already moving between equipment with restless energy.
“Hey I’m Taylor, nice to meet you Piper, I work on the marketing team. We really appreciate you signing on to this, it’s gonna be fire,” he said, seemingly coming out of nowhere and pouncing on Piper.
“Nice to meet you too, Taylor. The lions are quite the touch,” Piper replied.
“Ya, kind of extra, but who doesn’t like extra, right?” Taylor laughed as Piper nodded his head and smirked.
The wardrobe assistant landed next and handed him the campaign look without making eye contact, which he appreciated, because Piper hated small talk and Taylor spent thirty seconds depleting his quota for the day. He changed quickly into animal print boxer briefs that left nothing to the imagination.
When he stepped onto the set, the photographer looked at him for two seconds.
“Damn. That body is doing its thing,” he said as he looked Piper up and down. Joan, this fucking pervert better not test me.
Piper rolled his eyes knowing if he said what he wanted to say, Joan might leave him, and he hit his mark.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
He moved with the precision he used on the field. His chin up, no smile, jaw on point, shoulders back. Every motion deliberate. An assistant applied oil to his shoulders and chest. He closed his eyes for a second and when he opened them, the photographer was leering at him like a dog with rabies. “Good, you’re doing great,” the photographer muttered. “Don’t think. Just be beautiful for me.”
He was thinking. He never stopped thinking. His layered thoughts often got the better of him. Just do what you’re told like you always do. Be a good boy like they want you to be, Piper thought as he changed positions.
The studio doors opened.
The room stopped. Piper felt it before he turned around.
Noah Reyes strutted across the concrete floor without urgency. He was wearing dark jeans with a shirt hugging his chest and biceps that appeared one flex from splitting the seams. Hair slightly damp, as if he’d come straight from the shower. An excess of David Yurman jewelry that he somehow got away with. His eyes found Piper across the studio immediately. He smiled, then nodded.
“Ashton.”
“You’re late as fuck,” Piper said annoyed at Noah’s arrogance.
“Got pulled over for speeding.”
Piper didn’t believe him. Noah walked into rooms late because he wanted them to wait.
Noah glanced toward the wardrobe rack, then back.
“Nice setup, are these lions real taxidermy?”
“Do you really think PETA would allow that? Go fucking change,” Piper said.
“Noah, they’re stuffed animals. Didn’t the team make them look hyper-realistic?” Taylor said, looking up at Noah’s towering stature as his eyes zeroed in on his bulging arms and muscular chest etched through his t-shirt. Taylor was in heaven at this moment. Two of the hottest quarterbacks in the league in his campaign.
Noah’s grin widened. “Got it. I gotta change before Piper stabs my eyes out with that stare.”
He was gone for twenty minutes. Piper shot two more setups while he was away. He didn’t watch the wardrobe area. He hit his marks and told himself today was a job.
Noah stepped back onto the set in a pair of animal print boxer briefs. Piper slowly turned his head Noah’s way like he was in some sort of slow-motion fantasy he saw in a movie. The outline of Noah’s cock noted and impressive.
That giant cock is going to need to be airbrushed out of these shots, Piper informed Joan, and returned his eyes to the photographer.
“Gentlemen,” the photographer said. “Face each other like you’re each other’s prey.”
They did. The studio quieted when something was working. Piper held his posture. Noah held his gaze.
The camera fired.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
“Closer, keep selling this hunger!”
They stepped forward simultaneously.
About the Author
Lucas Malone writes glossy novels that feel like Thelma & Louise put the keys into their 1966 Ford Thunderbird and, instead of driving off a cliff, drove straight into a power plant across the street from a Birkin factory.
When he is not writing, he is watching far too many movies, and trying to live a normal life collecting material for the continuing Piper Ashton Saga.
He has a particular weakness for Paul Verhoeven movies and attractive people making terrible decisions.
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