Along with my character and setting inspiration pictures, I also collect images that spark new story ideas. The ones below have me coming up with all sorts of storylines.
(c) Anna_Omelchenko / fotosearch Stock Photography
(c) fotosearch Stock Photography
Photo License: CC0 Public Domain
Photo License: CC0 Public Domain
Photo License: CC0 Public Domain
Photo License: CC0 Public Domain
(c) vojtechvlk / fotosearch Stock Photography
I’m thrilled to share this amazing cover from artist L.C. Chase for my short story collection FOR LOVE AND FOREVER, which will be released this month in both ebook and trade paperback formats. I’ll post links here and in my newsletter once it’s on sale at bookstores. Here’s the full description:
Six gay love stories from Sloan Parker, award-winning author of M/M Romances.
Cops and Lovers: SWAT teammates Sawyer and Finn have been secretly sleeping together for two years. Sawyer couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. Until Finn gives him an ultimatum.
His Roommate’s Secret: Brady harbors a secret crush on his straight college roommate, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get the chance to climb into Rex’s bed. Until Rex shares a revelation of his own.
Swept Away: Eddie just wants to spend a quiet night celebrating with his partner on their fifteenth anniversary. Only this year, Mike has a surprise in mind. A surprise that may be more than Eddie imagined possible.
The Break-In: Billy’s been breaking into his ex-lover’s apartment every Friday night for a little solo sex in the bed they used to share. One night he almost gets caught. Now he has only seconds to decide if he should stay or run from the most erotic encounter of his life.
A Lesson in Truth: After two years of longing, David can no longer deny what he feels for Michael, his professor and graduate school advisor.
Something to Believe In: Sean and Gavin meet on the streets and fall in love. Now they must search for a way to find a home and build a life together.
All of the stories in this collection were previously released as individual ebooks. This collection contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and one all-male menage relationship. 55,412 words.
Here’s an excerpt from the story “Cops and Lovers” available in my new e-book FRIENDS AND LOVERS, coming March 8th! You can pre-order a copy now at: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, iBooks, and Smashwords. These stories are the revised and expanded versions of the brief three-word scenarios titled “Partners” and “My Roommate’s Surprise” that I previously wrote as a creative exercise for my blog and website.
Sawyer Crenshaw drew in a long breath and leaned back on his elbows. His T-shirt lay crumpled in a ball beside him on the mattress and his jeans were open at the front. He didn’t bother to zip up his fly. In a few minutes he and Finn would get back to where they’d been headed.
Who the hell got half-naked, kissed like they’d been doing a minute ago, and then stopped before they got to the fucking? Something was seriously messed up between them. Had been for a while.
Finn stood across the room. He had his back to the wall, his arms folded across his bare chest. He sported a scowl that said everything Sawyer didn’t want to hear.
Or maybe he did. Maybe they needed to have this conversation. Get everything out in the open. Finally. Before the incredible tension that had been building between them for the past few months seeped into the job.
Not that either one of them would let that happen. They were damn good cops.
Both served on the department’s SWAT team. They’d been friends since the day Finn joined the unit, and as two of the team’s few single guys with no kids–and the only gay ones–they spent a lot of nights after work and weekends hanging out at Sawyer’s apartment or Finn’s house, spending their time off watching movies or lifting weights at the gym or working on one of Finn’s many home-improvement projects.
Then eventually they devoted a lot of that time to simply fucking each other.
Although they hadn’t slept together in far too long. Now they spent their downtime watching retro TV, shit like those old ’70s cops shows. They didn’t talk, didn’t laugh at the stupid-ass crooks or the retro hairstyles they usually mocked all through the show.
It was awkward and weird and completely fucked up.
From where he still lay on the bed, Sawyer threw Finn a smirk, knowing that alone would piss him off. “You’re mad at me.”
Finn kept his hard gaze locked on Sawyer’s chest. “I’m not mad.”
“Screw that, Masters. You’ve been mad at me since the raid on that house on Pickett. Like it was my fault.”
“You got shot. Twice.”
“I didn’t ask the guy to shoot me.”
Finn made eye contact for the first time since the kissing ended. “You might as well have. You went at him like you had no training at all.”
Sawyer sat up with a jolt. “Are you calling me a shitty cop?”
“No. I’m calling you a reckless one.”
“I know you don’t mean that.” Sawyer sighed in frustration. It hadn’t been his abilities–or lack thereof–that had gotten him injured. It was the asshole homeowner and his brother who’d fired on them as they were attempting to execute a search warrant. He got off the bed. Slowly, like he might spook Finn if he moved too fast, he went to stand in front of the younger man. “Just like I knew in that house you’d have my back. Like always.”
Finn met Sawyer’s gaze again and snorted out a laugh. He didn’t let up on the tense posture, though. “You always think you know everything.”
Sawyer let out his own terse laugh before he returned to the more serious expression. Maybe too serious, but somewhere deep inside, there was a part of him that ached to hear Finn say the words. Out loud for once. “Just admit it. You’re pissed about the shooting because it freaked you out like nothing else on the job ever has.” He jabbed a finger at Finn’s bare chest. “Because you’re in love with me.”
Finn’s lips parted. He sucked in a shallow, audible breath.
That was enough of a reaction for Sawyer. He reached for Finn and cupped his cheek, then drew him forward until they were back to the kissing, this time their mouths and tongues and bodies coming together slowly, tenderly, all of Finn pressing into him, focused on him with that usual intensity of his. Shit, Sawyer would never tire of kissing this man.
Read the rest in FRIENDS AND LOVERS, coming March 8th! You can pre-order a copy now at: Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Kobo, iBooks, and Smashwords.
Here’s another selection in my “Favorite Scenes” series. It’s from TAKE ME HOME, winner of the Oklahoma RWA’s International Digital Awards in the Contemporary Novel category.
Why I chose this excerpt: This is Kyle and Evan’s first kiss in ten years, and it starts them down an inevitable, explosive path. I loved taking a guy like Kyle and transforming him so he’s totally fixated on one man, focused on proving himself to the only sexual partner he’s ever loved.
Evan shivered. Which made no sense. He was still warm from the run, the sweat on his skin not even dry yet.
Kyle took another step. Evan wanted him to stop. He wanted to shout all the reasons why this had to stop, before it got started, wanted to tell Kyle not to move another inch.
He didn’t.
And Kyle didn’t stop coming at him until they were practically touching, Kyle staring down at him.
Evan tried to focus on Kyle’s words, on the news about the journal and his grandpa, but all he could think about was what he’d seen when he’d walked into the apartment: Kyle, all skin and taut muscles, wearing only his tight-as-sin white underwear, the briefs stretched over his cock, and the way Kyle had looked at him in the dim light of the hallway.
Just once. He’s leaving anyway. Evan closed his eyes and forced himself to concentrate on the conversation. He looked up at Kyle again. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Kyle said the word with a slight curve of his lips. He took a step back and reclined against the wall, looking casual, like he was about to flirt with a bartender for a free drink. “After I read it, I was thinking about that night in the motel room in Iowa on our first drive out here.” He slowly swung his head in Evan’s direction. “Do you remember that night?”
Evan nodded.
“Do you ever think about it?” Kyle’s voice was barely a whisper.
Up until a few months ago, Evan hadn’t let himself, but since he’d moved in with Kyle… “Sometimes.”
“Like right now?”
“Yeah.”
Kyle slid along the wall, traveling the last remnants of space between them. “Ev, I’ve been waiting ten years to finish what we started.” He pushed off the wall and turned until they were face-to-face again, his dark eyes unflinching as he leaned in. He stopped before their lips touched. The heat of that mouth and body so close stoked the fire inside Evan.
His own body reacted, his cock pushing at his shorts. He wanted to shove Kyle against the wall and kiss him until morning, do everything he’d ever dreamed of when it came to touching Kyle, everything he ached to feel about the man.
The smile Kyle gave him next wasn’t the usual cocky one he’d used with countless guys over the years. He pressed forward and slid his lips along Evan’s skin from the base of his neck to his earlobe, leaving a trail of goose bumps in his wake. He lingered over Evan’s ear and whispered, “You smell so damn good. I want to fuck you, Ev.”
Evan shivered again. “We shouldn’t…” He couldn’t say more. Didn’t want to. The time for talking was over. Kyle ran the tip of his tongue along the outside of Evan’s ear, and Evan instinctively moved closer. His breath hitched with the touch of Kyle’s bare abs against him. Why had he worn a T-shirt to go running?
Using only the weight of his body, Kyle turned them until Evan’s back was against the hall wall, then flattened his palms to the wall on either side of Evan’s head. He licked his lips and spread his legs until their bodies lined up groin to groin, then rolled his hips, putting pressure against Evan’s cock. “God, Ev…”
With that movement, those two words, Evan groaned and let his head fall back to the wall. He couldn’t stop himself. He rocked his hips in time with Kyle’s. The feel of Kyle’s body, his hard cock against him, drove Evan’s own arousal higher.
Kyle spoke again, his voice even lower. “It could be so fucking good.”
Evan lost track of the arguments he’d been telling himself since he’d left the apartment earlier. He raised his head, and their lips met, the softest brush of flesh until Kyle opened his mouth, seized Evan by the back of the head, and slid his tongue into the touch. The kiss deepened, and Evan thought he’d never be able to stop feeling Kyle’s mouth on his, their tongues pressed together.
(c) Sloan Parker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.
The full story is available at: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | iBooks | B&N | All Romance eBooks | Kobo | Google Play
Here’s my fourth selection in my “Favorite Scenes” series.
Why I chose this excerpt: I’ve always been a fan of the calm, private moments where people who are in love allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other, when they are lying in bed together, sharing intimacies and dialogue that only they (and the reader) can fully understand.
Spoiler Alert: this excerpt is taken from the end of the story and gives away certain twists.
Roger sighed. “Damn. You always were a sweet fuck.”
I laughed and smacked his arm. “I’m feeling the love.”
He sat up so fast the bed creaked. He leaned over me. “You should. And next time, don’t run from it.”
I nodded, and Roger sank back to the bed.
Doug reached for the blankets and lifted them over us. “Sleep.”
I could do that. I hadn’t been so relaxed since the night before I’d been arrested.
“Billy,” Roger said.
“Huh?”
“I think we had a break-in. They left the window open.”
I laughed again. Leaving the window open had been my reminder I had to leave. When I jerked off on their sheets, it was easy to focus on my cock and forget my heart. Forget I didn’t belong there.
I threw the covers back, lunged for the window across the room, and tripped. I landed on the floor with my feet stuck in the twisted blanket and my hands gripping the long curtains on either side of the window.
Doug laughed, cackled, whatever you called it when someone couldn’t sit up and was clutching their gut while the laughs poured out.
Roger shifted to the foot of the bed and peered down at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I am now.” I kicked off the blanket, stood, and slammed the window shut. The faint sounds of honking horns, the hum of the traffic, the occasional shout disappeared. All I heard was the slowing laughter behind me and the low, deep voice that said, “You’re home, Billy.”
(c) Sloan Parker, 2011. All Rights Reserved.
The full story is available at: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | iBooks | B&N | All Romance eBooks | Kobo | Google Play