Gay Romance Reader Appreciation Day & Giveaway, Saturday September 21st

TSS_WebsiteBanner

This Saturday, September 21st is our monthly Reader Appreciation Day at the Sweet Spot Yahoo Group. Stop by to enter the giveaway, read excerpts, and chat with authors of M/M romances. The giveaway runs from 8 am – 8 pm EDT.

The following authors have generously donated these books or other prizes.

RAD_09_2013_Banner_04 RAD_09_2013_Banner_03 RAD_09_2013_Banner_01 RAD_09_2013_Banner_02

 

Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

  1. If you haven’t already, join the Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheSweetSpotMM/
  2. On Saturday, September 21st watch the group page (or your email if you choose to receive emails from the group) for a message with instructions on how to enter. The subject of the post should read something like “RAD Giveaway: Reply here for a chance to win”
  3. Reply to that message anytime between 8am and 8pm EDT indicating you’d like to enter the giveaway.

That’s it. You’ll be added to the drawing for your chance at a random prize.


Complete List of Prizes & Donating Authors

Hope you can join us at The Sweet Spot Reader Appreciation Day.

Authors of m/m romances, if you’re interested in joining us for our next RAD, we’d love to have you. Send me an email and I’ll add you to our author contact list.

My Brother’s Best Friend: My new three-word scenario

3Word_BrothersBestFriend

I had such fun writing this latest scenario about a guy who’s seriously crushing on his brother’s best friend. I know, sounds like a porn setup, right? It’s actually a sweet scene. You can check it out on my website or read it below.

7/6/2015: Edited to change story link and add the full text below.

My Brother’s Best Friend
by Sloan Parker

“You done with that pumpkin yet?” Leo was examining something on his computer. His eyes never left the screen as he asked me the question with as much interest as if he was talking to a telemarketer.

So much for confessing my feelings for him on Halloween.

We’d been seated across from each other at the kitchen table for the past hour, but until he’d asked about the pumpkin, neither of us had said more than five words. He had a trial to prepare for, and I had a pumpkin to gut.

Why’d I buy the thing anyway?

Because I’d always been a sucker for the holiday. As a kid I’d loved the costumes, the candy, going to my Grandma’s for a tall glass of cider, and trekking with my brother through the fallen leaves that covered the sidewalks of our neighborhood in search of those rare houses with the king-size candy bars.

Those fond memories were why I’d thought tonight would be the night I’d work up the courage to tell Leo I no longer thought of him as just my older brother’s best friend, to tell him I was seriously crushing on him.

I had been since the night my brother came home to the apartment we shared and announced that Leo was going to crash in our spare room for a while because he and his wife had separated.

“He’s gay,” my brother added as if that was all the explanation I needed. Maybe he thought all gay men instantly understood each other and didn’t need to speak at all.

But I did need to speak. It was driving me crazy not telling Leo how I felt.

He’d been staying with us for months now. Most nights my brother went out with whatever girl he was seeing, leaving Leo and me alone. We’d have dinner together, then he’d get some work done or suggest we rent a movie. Sometimes we’d just listen to music and shoot the shit for hours. I wasn’t usually as tongue-tied as I was now.

Of course, we’d never before discussed how much I wanted to suck his dick.

“Blake?” He leaned forward and snapped his fingers in front of my face. “You in there?”

“Yeah. What?”

“Did you finish it?” He gestured with his head to the pumpkin on the table.

The bumpy, orange surface before me only had one triangular eye carved into it and nothing else. I hadn’t had the focus to do more than that. “Sure. It’s done.”

Even without a mouth, the pumpkin seemed to be laughing at me.

Leo stood and stretched his arms over his head, giving me a glimpse of his stomach as the bottom edge of his T-shirt rose above the top of his jeans. I wanted to lick that skin, use my lips to trace the line of dark hair disappearing into the jeans that were unbuttoned at the top. I wanted to know if he wore boxers or briefs underneath, and if he was as controlled in bed as he was during the day in the courtroom. Or did he let go when he fucked? I wanted to know how it felt to have those serious, dark eyes staring at me in bed.

I licked my lips as he came around behind me to get a look at my pathetic carve job.

“That’s just about the scariest jack-o’-lantern I’ve ever seen.”

I elbowed him in the thigh. “Shut up.” I wanted to reach back and stroke that thigh with the palm of my hand. I held still.

He didn’t. He placed an open hand on the table beside the pumpkin and leaned over me so he could get a better look.

He was close; his chest made contact with my shoulder on his every breath. Neither of us spoke for a minute. Maybe two.

He didn’t need to stare at that stupid one-eyed jack-o’-lantern that long. There wasn’t much to see.

Maybe tonight was the night, after all, and maybe he wasn’t going to tell me to fuck off like I’d feared.

I turned my head his way. He did the same until we were eye to eye, and in that moment I knew. He wanted me the way I’d been wanting him.

The air in the room seemed to come alive with energy, like a spark of lightning had zipped through the space.

“Blake.” He breathed my name more than said it.

Then he moved with amazing assurance and speed. I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d wanted to. He tugged me out of the chair and backed me against the refrigerator behind us. I hit so hard, the upper freezer door popped open and smacked me in the back of the head. I didn’t care. He was touching me.

His mouth covered mine.

I wrapped my arms around him, clutching his back, dragging him closer, desperately wanting to memorize every inch of his body under my hands, every moment of the consuming kiss. Because that one kiss might be all I’d get.

As if I had a gift for prophesizing, he pulled back.

But he didn’t go far. He leaned in again so his forehead was pressed to my left temple. “I’ve waited so long for this.” He kissed my cheek, my earlobe. “Years.”

What? Did that mean… “So before?”

He looked away, toward the table and the pumpkin still sitting there with that taunting eye. Then he met my gaze again. “Yeah. Long before she and I called it quits.” He nuzzled the side of my neck. The scratch of his dark stubble on my skin had me very aware of his touch as he kissed his way up to my ear. “I think I’ve wanted you since the day I met you.”

We’d met when I was sixteen, when he and my brother had been freshmen in college.

Which meant… He’d wanted to be with me for over ten years.

“I just didn’t know how to accept it,” he added. “I pushed it aside, went on with my life. Only, my life was all a lie.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why tonight?”

He laughed. “I’ve been trying to make a move for weeks now. Just couldn’t figure out how. Never came on to a guy before, never kissed one.” He shook his head, glanced at the table again. “Watching you there, I couldn’t resist. You just looked so damn adorable carving that thing.” He kissed me, taking his time now, his hands exploring, his soft, wet tongue brushing against mine. Then he was backing me across the kitchen, moving us toward the hallway, toward my bedroom.

Passing by the table, I caught a glimpse of the single carved eye socket of that stupid, beautiful pumpkin—the best damn jack-o’-lantern on the planet.

“I love Halloween,” I murmured as my lips brushed his again.

Copyright (c) September 2013 by Sloan Parker

Read more 3-word scenarios and other free fiction by Sloan Parker

Part 8 of MORE THAN JUST A GOOD BOOK is now available

Cover-Sm-MoreThanJustSerialGenre: Gay Erotic Romance
Length: Part 8, 5700+ words

Read Part 8 for free online

Vote for your favorite new cover

Excerpt from part 8

Mark shifted to kneel on the floor before him. He laid his hands on Scott’s knees. “People who have love behind them are stronger than those without it.” He gripped him by the thighs and tugged him forward until Scott was straddling his lap on the floor. “They have more to fight for.” He drew him even closer, and they were plastered together, Scott’s legs wrapped around Mark. He slid a hand up Scott’s sides, under his T-shirt. Then he removed the shirt in one fluid motion.

Scott gasped as Mark kissed his skin at the base of his neck, an openmouthed kiss that went from his neck to a nipple without stopping. He gave another long tongue-filled kiss all the way back up to Scott’s ear, his warm breath drawing out goose bumps as he said, “Love makes you brave.”

Oh God. Scott tilted Mark’s head back and kissed him, unable to keep from showing how his words and actions affected him.

Never breaking the kiss with the movement, Mark rolled them, pinning Scott on the floor beneath him.

Scott clutched at his arms, tugging him closer, needing more of his kisses, his touches, more of Mark.

He wanted to feel every inch of Mark pressing down on him, wanted to connect with him beyond what sex or words could ever offer. Only he had no idea how to show that to him.

Read Part 8 for free online

 

10 things I’m loving about writing MORE THAN MOST (More #2)

SP_more_coverSm

  1. I’m learning more and more about Richard. I thought I had him all figured out in book one. Writing from his point of view in this sequel has definitely given me more to explore about him, including things that I hadn’t really considered before now.
  2. Whenever the very-damaged Luke opens up without being prompted, I just smile and think… Now that’s progress!
  3. I love when I reach that magic moment in the manuscript where a scene becomes so much more than what I’d planned in the outline. There’s more depth and meaning, and the dialogue sparks reactions and interactions that I hadn’t planned on.
  4. It’s been such a relief (and a surprise) that the sex and emotional scenes are still the easiest for me to draft. I was afraid writing a sequel with an existing relationship would mean I’d end up forcing the sex into the story, or that it would lack any kind of emotional punch.
  5. I’m really enjoying the moments where Matthew makes a comment that puts things into a new perspective for the other two.
  6. I adore the moments when the three men just let go and laugh together. Especially when it comes after an intense interaction.
  7. Richard, despite all of his strength and determination to succeed, can admit to his weaknesses and fears, and I find that very sexy.
  8. Revising is still a highlight of the writing process for me. I’ve gone back over the first few chapters several times now. Reworking the plot points, the characters’ actions and reactions, the dialogue, and the writing itself always gives me such a rush as the scene becomes more finalized.
  9. Hearing from readers who are excited to spend time with these characters again motivates me like nothing else.
  10. I still love writing about love. That’s fundamentally what it’s all about for me. There’s power and beauty in the briefest conversations and the smallest touches between lovers.

Three-Word Scenario: My Roommate’s Surprise (A Coming Out Story)

3Word_2013JulI wrote another one of my three-word scenarios. For these, I take three random words and write whatever comes to mind, using each word at least once.

The three random words this time are voracious, hallmark, illustrious, and the piece is called My Roommate’s Surprise (A Coming Out Story). You can read it on my website or check it out below.

 

My Roommate’s Surprise (A Coming Out Story)
by Sloan Parker

“I’m gay.”

Two words from my college roommate, and I couldn’t blink, much less speak, or even keep my mouth from hanging open like I had a spontaneous, uncontrollable drooling problem.

I had lived with him for the past two years, and I’d had no idea.

I forced down a swallow. “You’re…”

“Gay.” He spoke the word slowly as if I might not understand what it meant.

What a laugh. Everyone had suspected I was gay long before I’d been certain of it myself. When I’d worked up the courage to tell my parents during Thanksgiving dinner four years ago, my mom exhaled a long breath like she’d been waiting for some horrible news instead, then said, “That’s not news to us, honey, and we are very proud of you. Please pass the mashed potatoes.”

So that was that. I was gay, and I’d been the last person in my life to realize it.

But Rex? The illustrious twenty-eight-year-old tattoo artist who, on a dare from a customer in his shop, filled out an application for Harvard, and when he was accepted, had decided to sell his shop and move to a dorm on campus so he could have the full “college experience.”

Did that mean he wanted to do the curious-college-gay-experiment thing too? Or was he really telling me he already liked to fuck guys?

Rex had always had a voracious appetite for women. And they for him. What with the tribal tattoos covering his upper body and a physique that had the art students begging him to drop his pants for their Nude Drawings course. He was always dating women. And fucking them.

Or so I’d thought.

Maybe I’d never really known him.

Maybe these past two years had all been an act.

He threw me his hallmark grin. The one that showcased the dimples, even though the dark stubble on his face. The one that came with the pointed look in his eyes that said he was about to tease me about my love of cock—which had been happening more and more often as of late.

I was beginning to get that I might’ve missed something about him after all.

This time he didn’t tease. He came to me, grabbed me by the back of the neck, then kissed me.

Not a slow, soft brush of lips, but a passionate, wild kiss that ended with me panting, sprawled out on my back across his bed, his body pressing into mine in all the right places.

He pulled back and gave me that grin again as he rubbed my cock through my jeans.

He’d definitely done this before.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re gay.”

And for the next hour and a half he showed me just how gay.

Copyright (c) July 2013 by Sloan Parker

This short has now been revised and expanded into a longer story. It is now available in the e-book FRIENDS AND LOVERS.

Read more 3-word scenarios and other free fiction by Sloan Parker