Another Conversation with Matthew from the MORE series

Posted on March 13, 2018 by SloanParker

The following conversation takes place early on during MORE Book 3 (More Than Ever).

Matthew opened the front door, and his face lit up with a huge smile. “Hi, Sloan.” As it always was with him, he seemed so excited to see me.

The feeling was completely mutual.

I offered him a return smile. “I’m glad you had time for a visit today.”

“Me too. Come on in. I was just starting dinner.” He motioned me inside and then led me through the house and into the kitchen.

“Can I help?”

“Sure. I’m making fajitas. With homemade tortillas. You wanna chop the vegetables?”

“You got it.” I got started on the onions and peppers while he set to mixing the ingredients for the tortillas. After a few minutes of silence, I asked, “Where are the guys?”

“Still at work.” He opened his mouth to say more, and I knew he was going to talk about Luke and Richard and how they were doing and what they were up to. I didn’t want to hear about them right then.

Before he could say anything, I asked, “How have you been doing lately?”

He lowered his head and shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess.”

“You still waiting to hear about that job?”

“Yeah.” There was a long pause. He took a deep breath. “I really want this one.”

“I know you do.”

He nodded. Keeping his gaze on the dough he was now kneading on the surface of a wood cutting board, his next words poured out in a rush. “I’m not gonna ask you how it turns out because I know I have to wait, but if there’s anything you can do…” He trailed off.

I set the knife down beside the strips of peppers and onions and gave him my full attention. “I’m going to do my best for you, Matthew. I promise you that.”

He smiled at me again, his eyes beaming with genuine affection. “I know you will.”

I probably shouldn’t have said anything more, but I couldn’t keep the words inside. “Thank you for trusting me with your life. It means a great deal to me.”

He laughed. “I should be the one thanking you. I wouldn’t be me without you. I’d be somebody else.”

I laughed too. “I guess that’s true.”

Then he studied me with an intensity that reminded me of Richard. “You’re going to make me tell them about the other stuff that’s been on my mind lately, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you think you should?”

“It’s not a big deal. None of it is.”

“That’s not true, and you know it.”

He finished with the dough and then went to the sink to wash the sticky residue from his hands. After drying his hands with a towel, he turned to face me. His voice wavered on his next words. “Yeah, I know.”

“It’s going to be okay. They love you, and they’re going to help you through this.” I took a step toward him and grasped one of his hands in mine. “But most importantly, you’re going to help yourself.”

He wiped a tear from his cheek and nodded. He met my stare and squeezed my hand. “Yeah. I am.”

Haven’t read the MORE books yet? Read the opening chapters for free here: MORE book 1 and book 2.

Sloan’s Favorites: A meaningful moment in MORE

Posted on December 18, 2015 by SloanParker

Here’s another selection in my “Favorite Scenes” series. It’s from MORE (More Book 1).

Why I chose this excerpt: Selecting an excerpt from this book was actually much harder than I thought it would be. There were several I wanted to share. I decided on the following moment because I love that Luke is finally asking the question he wondered the very first night he met Richard: how did Richard get the scar on his chest. It takes Luke a long time, but he’s also finally able to open up and say he wants to live with them.

This excerpt is NSFW.

Richard jerked back. “I want you both to move in with me, permanently.”

It took a moment for my swimming head to shake off the desire. “Stay?”

“Stay. Indefinitely. Stop pretending you’ll be looking for an apartment at some point. Move all your stuff here. No talk of this place as mine anymore. It’ll be ours.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I know this is a huge thing for you.”

I stared at my hands. No tensing. No freaking. No desire to run. “Okay.”

“What?”

I looked up at him. Hopeful green eyes gazed back at me.

“It may not seem like it, but I’m trying. I want to stay here. I want to make this work.” I want to believe nothing will make me leave. Not me. Not my father.

Richard flung himself at me. The force sent me sailing over the side of the chair. I landed on my back with him on top of me.

“Oh God. Luke, are you okay?”

“Yeah. Ow. I think so.” I laughed and rubbed the back of my head.

His fingers explored my scalp.

I brushed his hands away. “I’m fine.”

He smiled at me, and his lips covered mine again. He rolled us around on the floor, tickling my sides. I laughed more, letting the ease and comfort wash over me.

I attempted a dodge of his movements. My hips and ass wiggled, but his solid body pinned me in place. He unbuttoned the top of my pants and slid a hand in. I was still laughing as he grasped my dick.

He didn’t relent with his hand or his mouth. I thrashed my hips into his touch. He knew how to work me with his big fist. I could smell my own need.

My hands grazed his bulge as I went for his pants, and he groaned. I lowered the zipper, pushed down his underwear, and released the red, swollen prick. As it always did, his cock firmed more with my touch. I considered taking him in my mouth, but his next words stopped me in my tracks.

“God, Luke. I need to fuck you.”

I stilled. “Maybe we should leave the clothes on.”

Richard threw his head back and laughed. “I’d hope I can have at least some control.” I stroked his cock. His eyes rolled back and he pumped his hips. “Uh…okay. Let’s leave the clothes on, but let me at your dick.”

He undid my pants and lay on top of me. We rocked in swift jabs, sliding our dicks together, and came fast. We lay on the kitchen floor, breathless, our shirts lifted, our stomachs slick with our spunk, and our spent cocks lying free.

Some goddamn humping, and it was one of the best fucks of my life.

Richard reached for a kitchen towel and wiped us clean before he fell back onto the floor beside me. “Shit, never thought you’d say yes.”

“Me neither. When you first asked us to stay, I thought I’d be moving to Walter’s after two days.”

He rolled onto his side and propped his head on a bent arm. “That was my fear. It only grew the more I got to know you. At first I didn’t want to see you leave before you gave us a try. Then I didn’t want to see you go because I didn’t think I could take you walking out on us.”

I pushed him over and straddled his hips. I drove my lips, my body, my hands against him, letting him feel me, showing him I had no intention of leaving.

I swept my hands under his shirt. I’d never get over the addiction of his skin. My fingers brushed over the scarred flesh. “How’d you get this?”

A laugh rushed out of him. It was almost Matthew’s giggle. It took a moment before he could form words. “Matthew asked me that the first week you were here.”

“I never said I was one for heart-to-hearts.”

He lifted a hand to my face. “I never asked you to be.” His fingers stroked my cheek. He dropped his hand and snaked it under his shirt to the edge of the scar by his nipple. “Some homophobic asswipes attacked me at a college party. One of them had a knife.”

“Oh God.” I unbuttoned his shirt and ran my fingers through the blond chest hair, over the firm pectoral muscles. His flesh jumped. Small bumps rose up. The color of his tan skin darkened. My fingertips examined the raised line of flesh.

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Luke.”

I traced the scar to his underarm and back.

“I’ve never liked anyone touching me there but you.”

Heat rose in my cheeks. “It was bad?”

“I was in the hospital for a week. I lost a lot of blood, and there was an infection. It was full of dirt and glass from the beer bottles. They dragged me pretty far.”

“What happened?”

“I’ve never hidden who I prefer to sleep with. My junior year I lived in a frat house on campus. Some of the brothers didn’t like knowing a gay guy slept in the same house they did. They wanted me out, and beating the shit out of me was their best plan. I lost the fight.”

“That’s hard to imagine.”

“It was me against five. I knew I’d never win. Not when I saw the knife. But I couldn’t back away. I couldn’t let them push me around.” He laid a hand over mine. “No one bothered me again. The rest of the fraternity respected me for fighting—for staying when it would have been easier to leave.” He moved our combined hands along the scar until my palm lay over his heart. “They sent me to a plastic surgeon, but I didn’t want it fixed. I wanted the scar.”

“Why?”

“To remind me no matter where I go in life, someone could always have an issue with me. For whatever reason. Because I’m well-off. Because I’m opinionated. Because I’m gay. I can’t let people get in my way or I’ll never succeed. I’ll never get what I want.”

“What do you want, Richard?”

“Right now? I want you to move in with me.”

The full story is available at: Amazon US | iBooks | B&N | All Romance eBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Sloan’s Favorites: Best friends become lovers in TAKE ME HOME

Posted on October 16, 2015 by SloanParker

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.

The full story is available at: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | iBooks | B&N | All Romance eBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Sloan’s Favorites: My Fave M/M “Dad, meet my boyfriend” Scene

Posted on September 23, 2015 by SloanParker

Here’s another selection in my “Favorite Scenes” series. It’s from MORE THAN JUST A GOOD BOOK.

Why I chose this excerpt: The relationship between Scott and his father was a special part of this story for me. I wanted to show that the most important man in Scott’s life had always been his dad. Until he met Mark. His dad and Mark could’ve ended up fighting over Scott’s attention, but that wasn’t the kind of man I wanted his father to be. When I was writing the scene below, I knew that a dad who so deeply loved and cared for his son could’ve attacked Mark as soon as he saw those bruises, before listening to Scott. But Scott’s dad was the kind of man who typically listened first, then reacted. I love how this scene showcases that. Of course his dad wants to immediately take Scott out of the situation, but he also stops to find out the truth, find out what his son wants and how he feels about it.

Please note: Amazon currently has this title listed as part of the MORE series. It is not. We’re working with Amazon to get that information corrected.

“Your roommates said you’d moved out. Owen at the coffee shop told me where to find this place.” He threw a heated look Mark’s way. “I’m guessing it was your idea that my son lie to me?”

“No,” Scott said. “Dad, I—”

“Not telling me you’re living with someone is lying. The kind of man who encourages you to lie to me is not good enough for you.”

It wasn’t hard to miss the clench of Mark’s jaw. He didn’t react, though. His voice was neutral when he said, “I should go put on some clothes.”

“Yeah, you do that.” Scott’s dad turned his back on Mark.

Mark gave Scott a look, part apology, part worry, part support, then headed for his bedroom.

After the bedroom door shut, his dad opened his mouth as if to say something else but gasped instead. He gripped Scott by the elbows and held his arms up, examining one wrist, then the other. The slight bruising was almost gone, but it was still obvious enough, even in the low light of the candles. And with the way the marks had faded, they looked like fingerprints wrapped around Scott’s arms.

“Did he do this to you?”

“It’s not—”

“Go get your things, Scott. You’re not staying here.”

A flash of lightning lit up the room, immediately followed by a crack of thunder that tore through the small apartment.

Scott stood frozen in place. He’d never heard his dad sound so pissed off.

“Dad, it’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” He reached for Scott’s arm again. “He’s hurting you.”

“No!” Scott kept his gaze locked on the floor. He so didn’t want to explain this. “Please don’t ask.” That was when the lights decided to turn back on. Perfect timing. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott could see his dad intensely watching him.

“Is he hurting you?”

Scott shook his head.

“Is someone else?”

“No.” He crossed the room and dropped onto the couch. His still-heated ass stung with the action. He held back the wince.

His dad came to sit next to him. “What happened?” He examined Scott’s wrists again, more closely this time. “This is from being tied up.”

“Please. Can we just drop it? You’re my dad.”

“That’s why I have to know.”

“But it’s embarrassing talking about this with you.”

“I’m sorry about that, but we are not going to drop it. Mark did this to you?”

Oh God. What was he supposed to say?

“He ties you up?”

Scott nodded.

His dad didn’t say anything more right away. Hopefully he’d decided to let the completely embarrassing conversation go.

Or not.

More softly he asked, “It’s something you want him to do?”

Yet again, Scott couldn’t find the words.

“I have to know, Scott. Is this from him doing something you wanted?”

“Yes.”

“It’s something you enjoy?”

There was no getting out of admitting the truth. He swallowed, then spoke again in a rush. “Yes.”

“Does he hit you?”

He could still feel the warm sting of Mark’s hand on him. He searched for the right words. “He doesn’t hurt me.” He dropped his head and buried his face in his hands. His next words were muffled. “Can we not talk about this?”

There was a long pause, and then his dad said, “It’s okay.” He ran a comforting hand over Scott’s back, then sank back farther on the couch. “In fact, your mother liked that sort of thing.”

“Dad!” Scott lifted his head but still couldn’t face him.

“Oh, I forgot. Parents don’t have sex.” He could tell his dad was smiling now. “She was a wonderful person. Having a lot in common with her is not a bad thing.”

“I know.” He always loved when his dad compared him to her. He wouldn’t let what they were talking about change that reaction.

“I should’ve guessed when I saw those marks. She bruised easily like you. It’s just… I worry about you.”

“Mark is a really good guy. He cares about me.”

“I can see that.”

Scott looked at his dad for the first time since moving to the couch. He was staring off toward the end of the hallway.

Mark stood there, now fully dressed, concern evident in the confused expression on his face. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Scott tried to keep his voice even, despite the awkwardness of the moment. “Everything’s fine.”

Mark nodded. “Okay. I’ll let you two talk.” He hesitated like it was taking all his effort to walk away. He gave Scott another nod and headed back down the hall for his room.

After the door closed, his dad said, “I trust you. I trust your judgment. But I need you to promise me one thing. That you’ll never let him or anyone else do something you don’t want. No matter what you feel for him. And if it becomes too much, if it’s changing into something you don’t want and you don’t know how to walk away, you’ll come talk to me.”

“I promise. Can we not talk about this anymore?”

The full story is available at: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | iBooks | B&N | All Romance eBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Sloan’s Favorites: An excerpt from my M/M Erotic Romance THE BREAK-IN

Posted on September 16, 2015 by SloanParker

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.”