HANDLE HIM by Alec Arden. Between the Rules, Book One.
The spanking was not the dangerous part. Dinner afterward was. HANDLE HIM editorial card.
ALEC ARDEN

Gay romance. Complicated men. Questionable decisions.

The debut novel · Coming soon

HANDLEHIM

Between the Rules, Book One

Broderick Wells can handle anything.
Then Rafael Ramos gets his hands on him.

A contemporary MM erotic romance about workplace proximity, kink discovery, and the complicated business of asking for what you want.

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BETWEEN THE RULES / 01ALEC ARDEN
Workplace proximityAge gapKink discoveryNegotiated control

The assignment

His boss told him
to handle
the consultant.
She did not
mean like that.

Broderick Wells knows how to be needed. Asking for what he wants is another matter.

A private encounter with Rafael Ramos introduces him to the pleasure of surrender. Then Rafael turns up as his company’s new consultant, and the part of Broderick’s life he thought he could keep separate starts walking into meetings.

Instructions become anticipation. Praise gets under his skin. Being claimed feels good. Figuring out what it means is more complicated—especially for a man who’s used to earning his place by making himself indispensable.

A little more about HANDLE HIM

Friday nights become instructions. Spankings. Private assignments. Praise Broderick pretends doesn’t affect him. Exposure he definitely shouldn’t want.

But the man who makes surrender feel possible is becoming harder to leave in one compartment of his life.

HANDLE HIM is an explicit contemporary MM romance about the relief of letting go, the risk of being known, and the difference between giving someone control and letting them decide who you are.

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The series

BETWEEN
THE RULES

Wanting someone is only the beginning.

Between the Rules explores the pleasure of giving someone control—and the complicated question of what that gives them.

Beginning with Broderick Wells and Rafael Ramos in HANDLE HIM, Alec Arden’s continuing series moves through offices, leather socials, friendships, and dinner tables. These are men who can manage a crisis more easily than ask for tenderness, and who sometimes mistake being indispensable for being loved.

Desire brings them closer. Living with one another’s desires asks more: honesty, room for privacy, and the willingness to discover that someone you know still has a life you haven’t understood.

Expect explicit heat, dry humor, negotiated power, and relationships that keep developing beyond the first admission of what someone wants.

01   HANDLE HIMComing soon
A glimpse between the rules.

Behind the books

About
Alec Arden

Alec Arden writes gay romance about complicated men, questionable decisions, power, intimacy, and what happens when the rules stop working.

Originally from the Southern United States, Alec moved to New York City in his early twenties. Growing up with little room to express his sexuality shaped both his voice and his fascination with the lives he might have lived. Writing gives him space to explore the desires and possibilities he once felt unable to embrace as a gay man.

When he isn’t writing, Alec enjoys a creative life with his husband and their two dogs. He hopes his stories bring readers back to the comfort of curling up with a really good book.

HANDLE HIM, Book One of the Between the Rules series, is coming soon.

[email protected] ↗
Broderick Wells personnel file. Status: active. HANDLE HIM.
Rafael Ramos personnel file. Status: active. HANDLE HIM.

Meet
the men.

Two personnel files. One complication.

The fixer

Broderick Wells

He solves everyone else’s problems. Discovering how much he likes being told what to do creates a few of his own.

Strength: indispensable.
Weakness: being indispensable.

The consultant

Rafael Ramos

Older. Observant. Infuriatingly patient. Very good at his job—and at making Broderick forget how to do his.

Notices everything.
Rarely explains what he noticed.

Alec Arden wearing clear glasses and a dark Henley, arms folded against a warm brown background.