Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I thought we’d celebrate with a book sale (details about the sale is at the end of the post) and a short story featuring two guys you know by now: Iggy and Ronan from Awakenings & French Songs.

I hope you all have a great day, and I hope that you enjoy this little sneak peek into Iggy and Ronan’s future. ❤️

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Valentine’s Day & French Songs

“What’s all this?”

Ronan’s voice startles me out of my close inspection of our dinner table, and I squint at him. “What does it look like?” I bark, cross my arms over my chest, trying to hide the nervous flutter in my stomach.

He steps closer to the table; his eyes taking in the flickering tea lights, the fancy place settings with the huge red wine glasses he loves so much, and the bottle of Bordeaux decanting in his Grandmother’s old crystal carafe. There are no roses though, I draw the line at clichés such as roses and heart-shaped chocolate.

“It looks like a romantic dinner.” He steps closer to me, nudging my shoulder with his arm. “But that can’t be it, can it? Surely Iggy Wilker wouldn’t do something as banal as a romantic dinner for his partner on Valentine’s Day?” He clutches a strand of imaginary pearls and flutters his eyelashes.

“Shut up,” I grumble and slide my hand around his waist, burying my nose in his upper arm and inhale his scent.

“If I remember what you told me last year correctly,” he continues and flings his arm around my shoulders, “the only way Iggy Wilker, gay party-boy extraordinaire, will ever spend Valentine’s Day is with go-go boys in red skimpy underwear or giving head in a public bathroom.”

I tilt my head back and shoot him a glare. But the impish look in his eyes tell me he’s enjoying himself far too much and there’s only one way to shut him up. So I reach up, cup the back of his head, pull him down, and kiss him.

It’s hot and wet and eager and dueling tongues and clashing lips, and my knees go weak when he moans.

When I pull back, his eyes pupils are blown, his lips puffy, and his mouth stretched in a wide, sunny smile. He wraps his arms around me and crushes me against his body.

I cuddle close, resting my cheek on his chest. The beat of his heart is strong and steady in my ear. His hands wander up and down my spine and he presses a kiss on the top of my head.

“I did it for you,” I blurt.

“What?”

“This. I did it for you. Because I’d do anything for you, even celebrate fucking Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh Iggy,” he says in a shaky voice and tightens his grip on me.

I look up and meet his gaze. “I wanted to do something special since Emery is with Maya.”

He meets my gaze and cradles my face in his hands. “Every day with you is special.”

“You’re a sap.” I rise to my toes and brush my lips against his before letting him go and pulling out a chair. He sits. and then knits his eyebrows together as though he just thought of something. “You didn’t cook, did you?” he asks with alarm in his voice, peering out into the kitchen.

I chuckle. “Honey, no. I’m trying to wine and dine you. Not burn our house down and poison you.”

He laughs, eyes crinkling with happiness and glittering with mirth, making my heart stutter in my chest.

“Pour us some wine and I’ll go get the food,” I say.

On the way to the kitchen, I press play on the stereo. A moment later, I rejoin the love of my life, hands laden with food, accompanied by Edith Piaf singing Je ne regrette rien.

I couldn’t agree more.

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All ebooks are 40% off at JMS Books thru Monday, even pre-orders. So if you want to buy cheap books, click here to get to my author page.

#SuperShort

I thought I’d bring back flash fiction to the blog, but only once a month and not every week like I tried last year for a brief period of time. Doing it every week is too time consuming and I need to have time to write other stuff, too 🙂

And I start off by being lazy. The first #SuperShort is something I wrote for Boy Meets Boy Reviews back in November 2018 and their month long anniversary celebration. But because I’ve been traveling to Sweden and have two pressing deadlines and haven’t had a lot time to write, I decided to publish it here on the blog now. In case you missed it.

All authors participating in the anniversary shenanigans were given a picture to use as inspiration, and this was my picture.

The Inappropriate Bunny

“Hey, cut it out,” I chuckle. The rapidly moving, slightly cool rabbit’s nose tickling against my side ignores my order. The bunny keeps sniffing and butting his head against me.

“Hey, you. I’m trying to drink my coffee.” I throw my arm back and scratch him behind his ears. He stills and lets out a small grunt.

“Thank you.” After a final scratch, I grab my cup and inhale the scent of the bitter black tar with a content hum. The bunny jumps up on my back and flops down on his side.

“Is that how it is?” I ask with my voice full of laughter and he buffs his cheek against my spine in reply.

His soft fur is silky against my skin and I love our quiet mornings spent like this; he flopped on his side on or next to me, and me drinking coffee and reading a couple pages in my book before it’s time to get dressed and go to work.

When my cup is empty, I put it back on the bedside table and the sound makes the bunny twitch. He jumps to his feet and starts sniffing me. He nudges and sniffs his way down until he reaches the sheet covering the lower half of my body and grabs it between his teeth and tries to toss it out of the way.

“Hey! Stop that!”

He doesn’t listen and soon he’s managed to expose more of my skin. When he honks and sniffs my ass cheek, I bury my head in my pillow and groan. “Seriously, Jonah. If you’re gonna do that you have to shift back. You know your bunny nose on my ass freaks me out.”

He buffs me with his nose a final time, jumps off me, and starts shifting next to me on the mattress.

Soon, I have a warm, cuddly, and very naked man beside me, and this time when he resumes his previous activities, I have no complaints whatsoever.

#SuperShort

Happy Friday everyone! Today is a very special day: it’s part 8 of Alan and Jon’s story. Also known as The End. One last peek into their lives before we leave them to their HEA. Because of course they will have a HEA. I have loved writing them, but it’s time to move on to something else.

Also, maybe I’ll take a break with the #SuperShorts for the rest of April, since I’m doing Camp NaNoWriMo and have to focus on my projects. I’m not saying it’s definitely going to happen, I’m just saying don’t be surprised if it does.

Have a great weekend everyone. I hope you enjoy Alan and Jon one final time 🙂

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Alan and Jon’s story if you need to get up to speed.)

The rain woke me up. It hammered against the bedroom window so furiously I feared it would crack. I peeled one eye open to take in the weather mayhem outside. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought someone was up on the roof and poured buckets of water on my window, that’s how much it rained.

I scrunched my eyebrows together. What was wrong with the curtains? Was it the glum light from the outside giving them that weird color?

A bolt of lightning flashed outside, followed by a loud thunder crack, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Crap. Rain and thunderstorm meant Jon wouldn’t do his early morning yoga on the porch and that the chances for me ogling his yummy butt while having my first cup of tea had just dropped to zero.

Double crap.

I sighed so deeply my lips made a sputtering sound on the exhale.

A hand slid over my middle and landed on my belly and I flinched. A gravely question followed, “What’s up with the sigh, honey?”

A warm body plastered itself against my back. My lips turned up in a smile and I relaxed.

Right. I didn’t need to mope over the rain. I had the man here in my bed.

I peeled open my eye again.

Strike that.

The man had me in his bed. That explained the curtains. And the only reason I had forgotten our first official sleep-over was that I wasn’t a morning person. That was my story and I was sticking to it.

I scooted back until I was so close another air molecule wouldn’t fit between us. “I was grumpy about the rain.” I lay my hand on top of his.

“Why?” Hot puffs of air from his breath tickled my skin and sent a shiver down my spine. He rubbed his nose up and down my neck, hooked his leg over my hip, and gave me a full body hug.

I sank into his embrace. The scent of warm, sleepy man surrounded me and quickly turned this into the best morning of my life.

“I like having you in my bed,” he mumbled and kissed my nape. My shoulder. My ear.

“I like having you in my life,” I replied.

He gasped. Then he climbed over me and lay down on the edge of the bed, facing me. He tugged the blanket up to the tips of our noses as I grabbed his side and pulled him closer. I shuddered as his broad chest touched mine.

His nose against mine. His hand on the small of my back.

I let my eyes drift closed. There in his arms, my brain was unusually quiet. Content. I could stay there forever. I lay my hand over his heart, his kind, loving heart beating so steadily against my palm.

“I love you, Jon.” The words slipped out on a sigh, but I didn’t regret them even for a second.

“You fucking better,” he grunted, leaned in and took my lips in a soft, tender kiss.

I was going to assume that was Jon-speak for I love you, too.

#SuperShort

Happy Friday everyone! Like I hinted about last week, here’s part 7 of Alan and Jon’s story. This week, I have a special treat for you: not only will you meet Alan here, but you’ll also be able to catch a glimpse of Alan somewhere else. In this episode, Alan has a little freak-out and calls his BFF Kyle.

Who’s Kyle, you might ask? Well, he’s one of the MCs in my dear friend and writing partner Kris T. Bethke‘s ongoing Flash Fiction story about Kyle and Asher. So this is a little cross-over between our worlds. Don’t you just love cross overs? 🙂 Maybe it’s also a teeny-tiny preview of what’s to come, because our first joint writing project is going great and we are so in love with our characters 🙂

I’ll post the direct link to her post as soon as she’s posted it. Until then you can click her name in the paragraph above and catch up on Kyle and Asher if you haven’t been following them like I have.

Update: here’s the link as promised.

I hope you enjoy Alan and Jon as much as I enjoy writing them. 🙂

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of Alan and Jon’s story if you need to get up to speed.)

“Hello?”

“Kyle?” I hissed out my best friend’s name as I hid behind a tree a couple houses away from Jon’s place. “Kyle, you there?”

“Alan? Why are you whispering?”

“Omigawd, omigawd, omigawd, I’m freaking out. I need you to tell me to stop being an idiot.” I grabbed the skinny tree with my hand, so I wouldn’t flap it like a full-blown drama queen.

“Okay. Stop being an idiot.”

Wow. That wasn’t helpful at all. Usually, Kyle could talk me down from any emergency—real or imagined—but not today. I groaned and leaned my forehead against the bark.

“What’s going on that you need to be reminded of this?” Kyle asked.

“I was on my way home from work and I saw him hugging another guy.”

“Who was hugging who?”

“Jon. Jon was hugging someone who wasn’t me. Right there on the street.” I pointed at the scene of the crime as if Kyle could see me. “He was blond and tall and hot as sin. But it didn’t mean anything, right? Jon isn’t the kind of guy who would do something like that, is he? He isn’t. I know he isn’t. Gaaah. Even if he would cheat on me, he wouldn’t do it literally in front of my house, right? Who would do that?” I knew I was blabbering, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “Besides, it wouldn’t technically be cheating because we haven’t said we’re exclusive. But I like him so much. He wouldn’t do that to me, right? I know he wouldn’t do that to me. But I can’t help it. I’m hiding behind a tree and I’m freaking out.” I drew a deep breath, getting ready for round two—or was it three?—of my harangue, but Kyle interrupted.

“Alan, babe, you really are an idiot.”

No. Nope, it didn’t help the second time either. “But…”

“No buts. Go there and talk to him. Don’t hide behind a tree. Don’t jump to conclusions based on what you think you saw. Don’t be like one of the Too Stupid To Live characters in your beloved romance novels that you always complain about. You know, the ones who run screaming after only hearing one side of a phone conversation.”

For the first time since Jon and Mr. Blond Hotness had walked into Jon’s house, I took my eyes off his door, turned around, and leaned my back against the tree. “Did you just accuse me of enacting The Big Misunderstanding?”

“If that’s what it’s called, then yes,” said Mr. Smug Best Friend.

“Crappity crap.”

“You can say that again. Now, march your ass over there and talk to him.”

And just like that, the panic bled away. “Thank you, Kyle. I knew there was a reason you’re my best friend.”

“You got that right. Go. Call me later and let me know what happened. Love you.”

“I will. Love you. Bye.”

I jammed my phone into my pocket, stepped away from the tree, and jogged the last few feet to Jon’s house. After a deep breath, I knocked.

I didn’t have to wait long before the door flew open.

Jon’s eyes lit up and his face broke out into a smile. “Alan! I’m happy to see you.” He reached out and grabbed my wrist with his strong fingers, hauling me flush to his body and wound his arms around my waist. He leaned in with his gaze zeroed in on my lips. My hands flew to his face, cupping his bearded cheeks.

His mouth was demanding on mine, his tongue invaded and dueled, and his breath turned ragged. His grip on my waist tightened, making my panicked fluttering heart race for a completely different reason than it had just moments before, and my dick twitch in my pants.

He ended the kiss far too soon and stared at me with hooded eyes. “I missed you,” he said.

Wow. I really was an idiot. I needed to buy Kyle a fucking present for his help.

I slid my hands down Jon’s neck, his clavicles, his chest, and rested them on his stomach. “I missed you, too.”

He waggled his eyebrows at me with a teasing smile. “I’m glad you decided to stop hiding behind the tree.”

My eyes rounded. “You saw me?”

“Oh, honey.” He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss. No tongue. I felt like pouting. “The Neighborhood Association just planted that tree. It’s a baby tree. Not even you are slender enough to be invisible behind it.”

I groaned and hid my face in his neck. His hands caressed my back, leaving trails of goosebumps in their wake. “I’m an idiot,” I muttered for the millionth time in ten minutes.

Jon kissed my temple. “Mhm.”

“Hey!” I gave him a light smack with my palm on his stomach. “You’re not supposed to agree.”

“Sorry,” he said, but the laughter in his voice told me he was anything but. I’d let him get away with it. This time. “Who were you talking to out there anyway?”

“My friend Kyle.”

“Ah. The BFF, right?”

“Yeah.” The mortification had abated and instead I was hypnotized by his scent.

“I really need to meet him one day soon.”

I looked up and met his gaze. His eyes were soft and fond as he looked at me, and my stomach jumped. “You want to meet Kyle?”

“Of course, I want to meet my boyfriend’s best friend. Why wouldn’t I?”

My breathing stuttered to a halt. Boyfriend. Did he say boyfriend? He said boyfriend, right?

“Breathe, honey.” Jon chuckled and kissed my nose.

I did. And I could swear the air felt different. It was the kind of air only someone with a boyfriend breathed.

Our moment was interrupted by a deafening yell from somewhere in the house. “Johnny! Where’d you go?”

“Coming!” Jon hollered back. To me, he said, “Speaking of meeting important people. Come meet my cousin Joe.”

Cousin?

Oh man. Kyle was going to laugh his ass off.

Who cared? I had a boyfriend.

Happy weekend everyone.

#SuperShort

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you like Alan and Jon, because you’ll get to meet them again today. This is part six, and it contains chicken soup and more medicines than you can possibly need. And here’s a virtual kiss to my friend Kris for coming up with that particular idea 😘😘

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Alan and Jon’s story if you need to get up to speed.)

Was it possible to become addicted to someone after only a couple weeks?

I hadn’t seen Jon in forever—three days counted as forever, it did—and I suffered from severe snuggle withdrawals. He’d been away on a business trip and was expected home tonight. As soon as I was released from my prison, eh work, I was storming over there. I needed warm, strong Jon-hugs right this second. Preferably yesterday, dammit.

As six o’clock drew close, I got more and more restless. The contents of my screen blurred together, my gaze wandered, and I glanced at the time once every minute.

When my phone buzzed with a message, I did my special butt wiggle dance on my chair. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the text.

Home with a cold and fever. Gotta cancel. Miss u. xoxo

My smile turned into a frown and my fingers flew over my screen as I typed out a reply.

Oh no! I’m so sorry. Do you need anything?

Thank u, but I’m fine. Don’t want u 2 catch anything.

I wanted to object and to rush over there and smother him in care, but I didn’t want to scare him off. I needed to respect his wishes.

Sigh.

Deep, deep sigh.

After texting him a ‘get well soon’ message, I collected my things and left the office. Now that I didn’t have a warm embrace to hurry home to, I took a detour to the grocery store. Uninspired, I picked up the things I needed. Cereal. Fruit. Milk. Boring boring boring.

As I passed by the chicken, I was struck by an idea that erased the grumpiness from my face. I hustled through the aisles, threw the additional stuff I needed in my cart, made a detour to the drugstore, and rushed home to execute my plan.

A couple hours later, I sent a text to Jon.

I know you said not to come over, but I have something for you. Can I leave it on your porch?

I stood by my kitchen window, bouncing on my feet as if someone had attached a spring to them, and stared at his house, waiting for him to reply to my message. Maybe, I should just sneak over there and leave it outside his door and go back home. No, that would be a stupid idea if he was asleep and the neighborhood cat found it.

Oh shit. That was it. He was probably already asleep. Unless I woke him up with my text. Should I text him and apologize for disturbing him? Should I—

Buzz buzz.

I picked up my phone at warp speed and opened his reply.

Don’t b silly. Come over.

After shoving down the phone in my back pocket, I slung the stuffed tote bag over my shoulder, grabbed the huge pot, and made my way out. I kicked the door shut behind me, and when I was halfway across the street, Jon stepped out on the porch.

He was wrapped in a soft-looking knitted blanket, his eyes that usually sparkled with life were dull and glossy, and his cheeks were flushed.

“You should be in bed,” I called out to him with a scowl on my face. I increased my speed and soon I reached his side. “Get inside right this instant!”

“Someone wanted to give me something,” he said with a fond smile.

“I know. Someone—” I spit out the word in air-quotes, “clearly didn’t know what they were talking about. Get in.” I flicked my head to the open door.

I followed him inside, kicked off my shoes, and carried my things into the kitchen. He trailed after me.

“What is all this?” he asked.

After I’d put down everything, I turned to him. I touched my wrist against his forehead. He was warm. I frowned.

Jon chuckled. “What’s the prognosis, doctor Parsons? Will I live?”

“Shut up,” I muttered under my breath and started unpacking the contents of my bag. A huge box of tissues with lotion. NyQuil. Tylenol Cold for multiple symptoms. Tylenol cold+flu. Sudafed.

He was laughing at me now. “Did you buy the entire drug store?”

“No. I didn’t buy the hemorrhoid cream.”

A strangled sound behind me made me swirl around. He had covered his mouth with his palm, presumably to keep his merry laughter trapped inside. His eyes crinkled and his gaze was warm.

That look in his eyes…Wow. I shivered.

I reached out and removed his hand. Then I gently cupped his face and swept my thumbs across his cheekbones. “I made you chicken soup.”

His mouth fell open. “You made me chicken soup?”

“From scratch.” I nodded and brushed his sweaty hair away from his face. “It was my nana’s recipe. She used to make it when I was sick. It always made me feel better.”

“Oh, honey.”

My breath stuttered. I looked him right in the eye. “You called me honey.”

“I did.”

 I flung my arms around his neck and pulled him in for a hug.

“Don’t. You’ll get sick, too.”

“I don’t care. You called me honey.”

He wrapped his arms around my waist—finally, hallelujah!—and pulled me close.

“Thank you, honey.” He emphasized the endearment. “No one has ever made me soup when I was sick before.”

“Want some?” I should let go of him. I should fix him a bowl, make sure he took some medicine, and go back home so he could sleep.

“I’d love to.”

I buried my nose in the crook of his neck and inhaled before I reluctantly let go and stepped away. “I’ll get you some. Sit down.”

He grabbed my hand. “Will you stay and have soup with me? I really did miss you.”

My heart swelled in my chest and I had to swallow. “I’d love to. I missed you, too.”

Happy weekend everyone.