Driftwood

by Harper Fox

  Even though Alex is so deep in the closet he doesn’t even admit he’s gay, Darren finds himself falling hard—until their idyllic night together is shattered by the blinding light of reality…

  Warning: One explicit m/m sex scene and a great deal of swearing.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Shining in the Sun:

  “You must think I’m mad.”

  Well, yeah. Darren took a step back, gauged the best angle to run. But I kind of hoped you were harmless with it. “Why?”

  “‘Don’t go past, I think I’ll die’?” Alec’s laugh too had expanded, grown warm and wry. It sounded genuine, honest, likeable. But then, so had Max’s honey-coated charm. “Dear God. It was a bit…stalkerish, wasn’t it? I’m not like that.” He turned away from the sea as it retreated before them both in its long, gentle afternoon withdrawal. His smile was that sweet, closed-lipped affair, all warm eyes and head-tilt that Darren felt had to be trained in. Nothing that heart-stopping could have come about without years of practice, surely?

  “I’m not normally like that,” Alec corrected himself. “It’s the combination—it’s you and the summer. They made me brave. For a moment, at least.”

  The hairs stood up on Darren’s arms, and the skin down his spine prickled, as it did when he felt the perfect wave build beneath him and knew it was now or never to catch it. Make the wrong move and it would drill him into the ocean bed, gone for good. What the…? “Yeah.” He tried to swallow and couldn’t quite manage it. “It does that to me too. The summer, I mean. You gotta ride the wave while it’s there, because the rest of the year’s gonna be shit no matter what.”

  Alec’s mouth fell slightly, and if it was possible the intensity of his gaze picked up, blue laser bright. “Oh God, you too? It’s as though this is the only month I’m alive. I spend all the rest of the year being what other people want me to be. I’m not normally like this, because this is really me.” He took a step forward, hand out.

  Darren’s heart drummed against his throat. The crawling sensation up his back intensified as all over his body his skin decided it had to be awake for this. He could feel it building like static electricity, streaming off him into the sky. Clouds should be boiling right now. If he let that outstretched hand touch him, lightning would follow the circuit, arcing down through them both, coring him out and leaving him gutted and smouldering, changed beyond all recognition.

  He flinched away, dodged round the back of the board. “Hell, yeah. We must’ve been separated at birth, ’cause I know exactly what you mean.”

  Alec took his hand back, looked at the palm and rubbed it slowly across the hollow of his hip. The moment passed, and in the undertow Darren cursed himself for missing it. Before last year he would have flung himself recklessly into that wave. Not any longer. “Come over here. Are you right-handed or left?”

  The sun, low on the horizon, shone orange as a streetlamp as he positioned Alec’s feet on the board. Alec’s hand braced on his shoulder as he felt the cling of the wax and the tilt of the board beneath him, not at all balanced on its three stubby fins. “You have to…get…”

  Darren pulled ankles farther apart, pushed down on corded thighs in lieu of explanations, manhandling Alec into position. The threat of lightning crackled in his finger ends, his face so close to Alec’s thigh he could feel the heat of it, welcome now that the day’s warmth was draining away. He ducked his head and pressed his cheek to the soft cotton shorts. Waited for the hand on his head, the low-voiced, anxious command to “suck me”.

  It didn’t come. Alec wobbled and laughed, spread out his arms like a child pretending to fly, and for a long poised moment, muscles working beneath Darren’s exploring fingers, he was balanced on the nose and a single fin. “Shit!” said Darren, tension wiped out of him by admiration. “You know you might just be okay.”

  After that performance he had no hesitation over getting the board in the water and Alec with it. He zipped his wetsuit closed once more as insulation against more than cold and pushed out to waist height. Swell tugged and nudged him. The lips of the waves curled over, all golden and crinkly as toffee paper. Above, a dozen seagulls flamed like phoenixes in sunset’s fire. Alec yelped and hopped. “Oh, oh God, you didn’t tell me it was this cold.”

  Darren laughed, forgetting money and tricks and broken bones. He shoved Alec in the chest while he hopped and watched him go over in a flume of flying topaz spray. Alec emerged with his well-cut hair looking thick and slick as an otter’s pelt, the new T-shirt clinging to cold-peaked nipples, and a sputtering laugh that hovered somewhere between play and accusation. He scrambled, streaming, to his feet and launched himself at Darren in a rugby tackle that took Darren’s knees out from beneath him.

  The sky streaked overhead—a brief blurred image of cliffs and cloth of gold—and the sea came up to meet him. Grey underwater light, lances of sunset glitter through the ripples, and that first breathtaking chill of his dry wetsuit soaking up water. Then he emerged to find Alec laughing in glee and—bless the man—holding on to the board so it wouldn’t float away.

  This laugh suited the new, private Alec, whose existence he’d only just begun to suspect—unaffected, unashamed. Darren liked it. Lunging back he got an armful of Alec’s narrow waist, his head jammed up against Alec’s breastbone. They went tumbling together, Alec’s heartbeat racing beneath his ear like the throb and hiss of the sea. Arms about him and long entangling legs between his. They wrestled, slippery in the surf, tumbling and laughing, breathing in the gold and flames of the sunset.

  He let Alec win, lay under him, surrendered, while the froth of ripples tickled up him and teased his hair. Moving his hands he placed them carefully on Alec’s back. It seemed a moment for care, a moment suspended between two futures. The body above his was warm. Goose bumps stood out under his fingertips, but beneath the sea-chilled surface the core of Alec’s heat welled out in a delicious tide over his belly and groin. Closing his eyes, he waited for the expected kiss. And waited again. Alec’s interest wilted against his hip. Looking up, puzzled, Darren smiled. “You got me.”

  “But what am I to do with you now?” Alec rolled off, sat hugging his knees, the leash of the board still in one hand. He watched the waves as though they worried him.

  “You really don’t know?” Darren scrambled up onto his knees, leaned over and took the leash out of Alec’s hand. The fingers opened reluctantly, as if Alec clung to more than a board. What was going on here?

  Sun, deep red as a flaring ember, touched the sea. He expected to hear the thunderous hiss and boil as it quenched itself, but only a chill, wilderness-scented wind came from it. Sand hollowed beneath his knees. What was going on? Could it really be that Alec didn’t know the score? They both had the same board but were trying to play different games?

  “I think I’ve said before that I’m not really like this.” The goose bumps Darren had read like Braille beneath his fingers now stood out visible on the smooth white skin of Alec’s biceps, swept down the length of his arm. Silver-steel droplets of water splashed off the ends of his hair, darkening his T-shirt as fast as it dried. Closer to the town a ghost of sunlight still toasted determined sunbathers, but here beneath the shaggy brown cliffs, night came early.

  Rising, Darren pulled at Alec’s arm, hauled him to his feet. “C’mon, it’s getting too cold. How about we get some tea, and you can tell me what you’re really like.”

  Watch that first step. It could turn your life upside down.

  Life, Over Easy

  © 2010 K.A. Mitchell

  Fragments, Book 1

  Until a fall ended his Olympic diving career, John Andrews lived for the seconds he spent in the air. Now he’s adrift on a college campus, grounded by paralyzing vertigo and double vision. Worse, he sees shimmering colors over everyone’s heads.

  The last is hardest to ignore, and impossible when it comes to Mason. While sex with the hot, moody computer major gives John a rush as heady as diving, Mason’s the only person J
ohn’s ever seen surrounded by two distinct colors.

  Mason feels like a stranger in his own life. His lover is dead, and he drowns his guilt in bourbon and sex—until John’s innocence reawakens the man he used to be. After Mason gives the young virgin a proper introduction to sex, he plans to send him on his way. But John sees too much to make things that easy.

  For John, their connection is more than just sizzling sex, it’s something worth fighting for. The more he learns about the colors, though, the more he realizes the free-spirited Mason isn’t free at all. John doesn’t take second place to anyone—even the dead.

  Warning: Anyone wishing to read this title should be an adult, free from any condition that might be aggravated by the presence of a not-too-scary haunting, sizzling sexual chemistry, and angsty young men having mildly kinky sex. Other restrictions may apply. No additional equipment needed—unless you like that sort of thing.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Life, Over Easy:

  Mason’s hand had been resting on the small of John’s back and now it slid down to cup his ass through his Dockers. His dick liked that a lot. He hoped it wasn’t far to Mason’s house.

  “So, John, what do you like?”

  His voice. Screw the wind, Mason’s voice curled around John’s ears like dark purple velvet. John’s favorite color, a purple so dark it was almost black. The same color as the collared shirt he’d worn to the party. It was bad enough for the sound to have color, but to feel it? That purple voice slid against his skin.

  “You up for fucking?”

  “I—uh—”

  “Oh, man.” Mason moved closer, and that just made the color more intense as he whispered into John’s ear. “First time? That’s kinda hot.”

  Mason’s hand landed on John’s dick. Maybe he was just being nice, trying to make sure John was really interested, but John thought the fact that he was here answered that already. And they might be in Albany, New York and not Waco, Texas, but John didn’t want to stand out here as a target for anyone who decided that tonight was the night to get rid of some queers.

  “C’mon.” Mason tugged him down a driveway made up of two uneven strips of sidewalk that ran parallel to one of the houses on the street. They climbed up the back porch steps, and Mason let them into a dark kitchen. As he opened the fridge, the light showed a sink full of dishes and a table full of books and papers and a laptop.

  “Want another beer?” Mason asked over his shoulder.

  John’s throat was dry, but beer had too much vitamin pee in it, and he didn’t want to screw this up by having to work on getting his dick to switch functions halfway through.

  “No thanks.”

  Mason uncapped a bottle for himself and drained half of it. Moving more swiftly than he should have been able to, he rolled the icy lip of the bottle across John’s lower lip.

  “You’re fucking hot, but you look scared. You okay with this?”

  John wasn’t scared, just startled. And he was more than okay with it. It wasn’t as if he were saving his virginity for a special occasion. When he found someone, he’d kind of like to know what he was doing. At the rate Mason was drinking, if John did something stupid, Mason either wouldn’t know or wouldn’t remember. Good enough for tryouts.

  “I’m fine.”

  Mason tipped the bottle, and John let some of the beer slide down his throat. With a small smile, Mason moved the bottle down over John’s lips to his chin to his throat, until it rested in the notch of his collarbone. John shuddered.

  “This is gonna be fun.” Mason finished the bottle and added it to the dishes on the counter, and then tugged John close for another kiss. Definitely beery this time, but still good, setting his heart pounding, blood reheating all the spots that Mason had chilled with the bottle.

  “C’mon,” Mason said again, though John had hardly been the one to hold anything up. He left his cane at the foot of the stairs and followed Mason to a room with piles of clothes on the floor and a tangle of sheets on the bed—which was just a mattress on the floor.

  Mason flopped on the mattress and unbuttoned his jeans. “Get naked. I can’t wait to see what you’ve got.”

  Mason had his jeans around his ankles and was kicking them away as John peeled off his shirt.

  “Oh shit. Never mind. Slow down.” Mason reached up and pulled John onto the bed, running first his hand and then his mouth over John’s chest. He jumped when Mason’s tongue flicked hard over a nipple.

  “All right. Let’s get your pants off before anything else happens.” Mason’s fingers had trouble with the rivet, so John arched his hips and shimmied out of the pants himself.

  Mason did much better lifting the elastic of John’s jockstrap. “Mmmm. This is why your ass felt so good even through those pants.” Mason dragged the elastic down over John’s knees and tossed it away.

  John was wondering if he was supposed to say something too. Mason was still in his T-shirt and shorts, so John couldn’t see much besides his legs. He was glad Mason had left the lights off. It was easier, and John’s head exploded less when it wasn’t too bright. He was thinking he’d need to wear sunglasses to class, even if everyone called him Stevie Wonder.

  Apparently, Mason didn’t need any conversational skills from his bed partners since he pushed John onto his back and started flicking at his nipples with tongue and fingers.

  “God, what I’m going to do to your ass.”

  It was fine. Because John could just let that voice float all around him, wrap him in that warm purple velvet while every stroke of Mason’s tongue made John’s dick pulse and twitch.

  “Gonna eat you. Loosen you up with my tongue until you beg for my dick.” Mason’s mouth moved below John’s navel and not talking was good because he was pretty sure that the only thing that would come out of his mouth was “Finally.” Roald didn’t kiss, and reciprocating a blow job was out of the question.

  “You’re gonna scream a little when I get it in you, but then it’s gonna feel so good.” Mason’s thumbs started under John’s balls and stroked up in the crease of John’s thighs, coming to rest on his hips like he was going to hold him down.

  Not necessary. John wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Sweet cock.” Mason licked the head. “Anybody ever do this to you before?”

  “No. No one.” Maybe holding John down wouldn’t be a bad idea because he wanted to arch up, slam his dick to the back of Mason’s throat, and as he knew from personal experience, that took a minute or so to work up to.

  Mason’s lips wrapped tight around the head, tongue flicking the slit. Hot. Wet. Oh God. This was so worth…

  The tongue stopped moving, the pressure eased. John brought his hands to that soft prickle of hair just above Mason’s ears.

  “Mason?”

  Silence. John lifted his head and then propped himself up on his elbows.

  If John didn’t have a sense of proportion, he might have thought it was the shittiest thing that had ever happened to him. But shitty or not, Mason had passed out, head heavy on John’s thigh, lips slack, stuttering breath teasing the wet skin on John’s dick.

  John let his head flop back against the mattress. This was so not his year.

  Easy come, easy go…until the heart gets involved.

  Pricks and Pragmatism

  © 2010 J.L. Merrow

  English student and aspiring journalist Luke Corbin should be studying. Instead he’s facing homelessness, thanks to the lover who’s just kicking him out of their posh digs. It’s not his first rejection—his father tossed him out at age sixteen—but Luke has no problem trading his favors for a home and security. Especially with rich, powerful, handsome men.

  Except now, with finals bearing down, there’s no time to be choosy. He needs a roof over his head and he needs it now. Even if it means settling temporarily for a geeky, less-than-well-off chemical engineer called Russell.

  Luke's fully prepared to put out for the guy—because after all, in this world no one gets something f
or nothing. But Russell isn’t just a nerd; he’s an honourable nerd who wants to save himself for someone special.

  At first Luke is annoyed, but the more time he spends with Russell, the closer he comes to a devastating realization. He wants to be that someone special. Except he’s fallen for the one man he can’t seem to charm…

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Pricks and Pragmatism:

  I clocked Russell the minute I walked in the door of the café. He was sitting on his own at a table in the corner playing with his mug, short stubby fingers moving nervously over the china. I was almost worried to say hello in case I made him spill his drink. Tom had been right. Russell really wasn’t my usual type. He was… Well, he was a bit of a geek. Actually, he was a lot of a geek. Round face and too-long mousy brown hair, although at least he’d washed it. An actual beard to match; and we’re not talking a neatly trimmed goatee, either. He wore a shapeless sweater over a shirt his mum must have bought him, and glasses from Nerds’R’Us. No spots, thank God. He looked around thirty, although from what Tom had said he ought to be a lot nearer my age. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time Tom had given the truth the odd nip and tuck.

  Three weeks to Finals, I reminded myself. And beggars can’t be choosers. So I plastered on my best cheeky smile, pulled out the chair opposite him with a scrape and sat down. He looked up, startled, and just managed not to drench me in coffee. “Hi, I’m Luke. You’re Russell?”

  “Er, yes,” he said, like he wasn’t really sure. “Nice to meet you.” He didn’t say anything else, just stared into his coffee cup as if helpful suggestions were going to spell themselves out on the foam on top. His fingers linked around the sides of the mug like he was giving it a cuddle. I wondered who’d taken away his security blanket. Maybe it was in the wash.

  “Coffee any good here?” I asked. Actually I’d been here a few times before and I knew it was shite. But they were really good about letting you hang around all day when it was cold outside, and one waitress in particular was always good for a free refill if you flashed her a smile.