2016 Top Ten Gay Romance

by Snyder, J. M. ; Black, Becky; Creech, T. A.

  “Elijah, I want you,” Kirk whispered against his lips, then he leaned his forehead against Elijah’s. “But we’ll go as slow as you want.”

  “Slow?” Elijah grinned and shook his head. “Let’s go to bed.”

  As they head down the short hall to Elijah’s bedroom, Kirk said, “You’re walking pretty good on that leg.”

  “I saw the doctor today. It’s just about completely healed. I still can use the leg brace when walking but I can start trying it without it more and more.”

  After they had undressed, Kirk covered Elijah’s body with his, fusing their mouths together. His breath hitching, Elijah wrapped his arms tightly around Kirk’s waist.

  Coming up for air, Kirk smiled. “Your glasses are jabbing me.” He slipped them from Elijah’s head and put them on the bedside table. “Condom and lube still in the bathroom?”

  “No, there in the drawer. I moved them closer. Ah.” He groaned when Kirk stroked his cock. The drawer opened and Kirk fetched what was needed.

  “On your stomach,” Kirk said softly.

  Elijah did as he was told and spread his legs. It felt good to be without the brace for the first time in a long time. Reaching underneath him, he grasped his erection.

  “Hold on tight, Elijah.”

  Kirk had placed himself down by Elijah’s ass and now he used his thumbs to part the cheeks. He expected to feel Kirk biting him again, but instead he felt the flick of Kirk’s tongue at his hole.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Kirk’s tongue entered him, pushing in deep and Elijah was lost, lust shooting through him. Soon the other man had added a lubed finger alongside his tongue, pushing into him, stretching him, making him crazy.

  He worked his own cock faster, stroking it and rolling his balls. Shaking with the need to come, he begged Kirk to enter him.

  “Oh, yeah,” Kirk said with a warm chuckle.

  Elijah turned his head to watch him slip on a condom. After lubing himself, Kirk poised himself between Elijah’s cheeks

  “Please.”

  Kirk thrust in, deep, powerful. He grasped Elijah’s hands as he pumped into him, their bodies joined as one.

  With each brush against his prostate, Elijah felt his orgasm coming fast. He quickened the jerks of his cock, his hand sliding over the shaft again and again.

  “Kirk, I can’t hold out,” he gasped, feeling the tingle at the base of his spine.

  “Don’t,” Kirk said hoarsely. “Let go, Elijah, come.”

  His dick pulsing, strings of cum splattered his hand. He screamed his release, biting the sheet next to his face.

  Seconds later, it seemed, Kirk jerked above him, and then collapsed on top of him.

  “Oomph.”

  Kirk laughed and rolled off. “Sorry. You sort of drain me.”

  “I’m not sorry.” Elijah turned and snuggled close to him, wrapping his arms once more around Kirk’s middle. “Thank you for coming over tonight.”

  “It was absolutely my pleasure.” Kirk kissed him and then tucked a strand of hair behind Elijah’s ear. “I was afraid I screwed up and you wouldn’t talk to me again.”

  He blushed. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Kirk. I’m basically socially awkward. I read more into our night together than I probably should have.”

  “Not at all. I wanted to spend more time with you. I really had been busy with work.”

  Elijah nodded. “You think even when you do get busy, you can just at least let me know you might be thinking about me?”

  “Definitely. I learned my lesson.” Kirk flipped him over until Elijah was under him. “I know this sounds weird, and that the bus accident was horrible, but that’s what brought us together, you know. I don’t think it ever would have happened for us otherwise.”

  “You may be right. You know they were talking about canceling the bus because of city budget cuts.”

  Kirk nodded. “Yeah. So, I’m going to take that as a sign, Elijah. You and I are meant to be.”

  He smiled. “Kiss me.”

  And Kirk leaned down to kiss Elijah senseless.

  THE END

  A Pint of Beer, a Bag of Chips, and Thou by JL Merrow

  I walked into the living room three days before Christmas to find the coven was in full swing.

  In case you’re thinking that sounds a bit weird, I should maybe mention I was raised by witches. Three of them, which anyone who’s read their Macbeth (or their Pratchett, for that matter) will know is the only sensible, or even possible, number of witches. I grew up with my Mum, my Aunty Des and Aunty Mags, all of us living together in the little house in Camden that used to belong to my Granny, God rest her. I’m Liam, by the way. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m the one solitary male in the household, unless you count the cats. And to be honest, they’re not as male as they used to be, poor things.

  There is, in fact, a fourth sister, my Aunty Gerry. Rejected by the coven on the cruel grounds of numerical superfluity, she became an Anglican priest to spite them. Well, that’s how she tells it, anyway, although I can’t say I’ve noticed a great deal of spite in their relationships.

  “I pray for their souls every night,” Aunty Gerry told me piously one evening not so long ago, before collapsing into very un-Reverend-like cackles and passing the gin.

  You’re probably wondering exactly what I mean by witches. Well, they don’t wear pointy hats, and I’m the only one of the family generally seen in head-to-toe black, but don’t let that fool you. They have a way of knowing things they’ve no business knowing, and although we’re not rich—far from it—still, things have a habit of turning out just the way my mum and my aunties want them to. We had some unfriendly neighbours, once, who seemed to think it their duty to pass judgement on how I live my life. You wouldn’t believe the trouble they had with that house—pipes bursting, fuses blowing, leaks in the roof, that sort of thing. They spent a fortune fixing the place up, and eventually sold it at a rock-bottom price to a young family who are as nice as you could wish for. And who haven’t had a day’s trouble with the house since they moved in.

  So I learned at an early age which way was widdershins, and why it was vitally important to leave a bowl of milk on the doorstep at sunset. For the fairy folk, I thought for ages, but it turned out it was just for next door’s cat all along. They were raising it vegan, and my aunties don’t hold with that. My dad was never much on the scene. Mum likes to refer to me as her youthful indiscretion, but seeing as I’m twenty-three and she’s fifty-five…Well, you do the maths. My father was, cliché of clichés, the milkman, who popped in for a Christmas sherry and barely escaped with his (very) young life. He’s forty-two now, with a wife and a brand new baby, and who’d blame him for being embarrassed about having a grown-up son? Not I.

  Me? I’m a musician. Currently between gigs, which means I spend a lot of my time on the London Underground, busking. It’s not as bad as you’d think—it’s in the warm, and I like seeing all the people go by. Wondering where they go to, and hopefully cheering them up a little on their way.

  There’s one man in particular I’d like to cheer up, although not just by playing the saxophone. He wears a rumpled trench coat like Columbo, filled out nicely by a pair of broad shoulders I can just imagine laying my head on, he has iron-grey hair cut bristly on top and his eyes are the brightest blue you’ve ever seen. He never looks like he’s in a hurry, not like most of the people you’ll see in a Tube station…ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

  “Liam, my love.” That was Aunty Des. She’s as thin as a rail, with a sharp, pointed nose. Aunty Mags is round as a peach, with soft curves that all but smother you when she gives you a hug, which she does at the drop of a hat. For years, when I was little, I used to call them Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, and to their credit, they never spanked my cheeky young arse for it. “Where have you been? It’s nearly time for tea.”

  I noticed all three of them had thrust their knitting under cushions. There’s a wealth of cushions on our sofa, as good for
easing weary bones as they are for concealment. “Would those be my Christmas presents, by any chance?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Aunty Des spent long afternoons teaching me to do that, bless her bony self.

  “And what makes you think you’re getting any presents this Christmas?” Mum asked sharply. “Lord knows I don’t ask much, but it’s been my fondest wish these last ten years to see you settled with a nice young man before I shuffle off this mortal coil, and what have you done about it?”

  “Mum! I was only thirteen ten years ago! And it’s not that easy, okay? You wouldn’t want me to settle for just anyone, now would you? Anyhow, you’re as strong as an ox. I reckon you’ve got another forty years at least before you start getting ready to do any shuffling.”

  Aunty Mags sniffed. “The rest of us aren’t getting any younger, either. And it’s not right for a young man to be on his own at Christmas time.”

  “Ah, but I’m not on my own, am I?” I said, perching on the arm of the sofa and putting my arm around her. Well, halfway around her, at any rate. “I’ve got my three lovely ladies here.”

  “None of that!” Aunty Mags giggled, but Aunty Des pursed her lips. “Girls, it’s time for a confab. Liam—go and put the kettle on. And mind you take your time about it.”

  I swung my feet back to the fluffy carpet and stood. “I’ll be seeing you in the New Year, then,” I said as I went out to the kitchen.

  I swear they’ve put some kind of spell on that kettle. There are times you put it on and it only takes a minute to boil; and there are other times when it seems to take all day and half of the next. This was one of those times. When I finally returned to the living room, a quartet of steaming mugs in my hands, they were sitting in an expectant little row on the sofa, Aunty Mags holding something fluffy in her lap. I knew it wasn’t one of the cats, because it was livid purple.

  All right, maybe I just hoped it wasn’t one of the cats. Like I said, raised by witches…Witches, I might add, with a wicked sense of humour. I put down the mugs carefully on the side table and stood waiting to be told what was going on. It’s best not to be carrying anything likely to make a mess if dropped, not when my aunties are about to make a pronouncement.

  “We’ve decided,” Aunty Mags said. “You’re to have your Christmas presents early.”

  You might think witches wouldn’t celebrate Christmas. You’d be dead wrong there—no witch worth her salt would ever pass up the opportunity to be given presents and get drunk on sherry at ten o’clock in the morning without censure.

  “Here you go, love.” Aunty Mags held out the purple thing to me.

  I took it carefully, just in case it really did have claws and teeth. “What is it?”

  “It’s a hat, you numpty.” She’s a collector of words, is my Aunty Mags. And she’s generous with them, too. “Go on, put it on.”

  “Aunty Mags! I can’t wear that. It’ll flatten the mohawk.”

  “You’ll wear it and be grateful, my lad,” Mum said darkly.

  Sighing heavily, I pulled on the baggy purple monstrosity and went to look in the mirror above the fireplace. About the best you could say for it was that the colour looked good with my pale skin and brown eyes. It was in a coarse, scratchy wool I reckoned I’d heard Aunty Mags call mohair, and had a shaggy pom-pom on top. It hadn’t, actually, flattened the mohawk—just sort of settled around it. With the height and all, it looked like someone had put an old-fashioned cosy on a teapot and bunged it on my head.

  “There. That’ll keep you nice and warm when you’re out busking,” Aunty Mags said.

  I sent her a pleading look. “I can’t wear this out in public! People will think I’m drunk.”

  “Then you’ll be doing your bit for raising awareness of people with a drinking problem,” Aunty Des put in, with the smug piety of the professional heathen.

  “Aunty Des,” I explained patiently. “Everyone’s aware of alcoholics. But they don’t go round giving them money they might spend on drink.”

  “Then you’ll just have to play twice as well and convince them you’re sober, now won’t you? Be off with you now, love. Shoo!”

  * * * *

  When I got outside and on my way to the evening rush-hour shift, there was a steady sleet falling, which made me feel better about the godawful hat. Sleet’s death to hairstyles, and there’s nothing sadder than a droopy mohawk. Especially when there’s someone you’d like to impress. I’d put my leather trousers on special, and doubled my body weight with all the studded gear I was wearing. I was going to take the hat off once I got inside the station, but then I thought, ah, sod it. It’d dry faster on my head than off.

  So I hopped on the Northern Line, filled my lungs with the heady aroma of burnt diesel, and rode down to King’s Cross, catching a few more smiles than usual from people who glanced up from their Kindles or their copies of the Evening Standard. Seems a six foot punk is a tad less intimidating when wearing a tea cosy on his head—who knew?

  I made my way to my pitch at the bottom of the long escalator, got out my saxophone and launched straight into Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” Commuters like that. Everyone likes to think they’re wild and free at heart, even if they work nine to five in an air-conditioned office with no natural light. Especially then.

  I don’t know if it was the Springsteen, the Christmas spirit or—God forbid—the hat, but I was soon raking in the cash. If it carried on this way, I’d be able to buy Mum the fake fur coat she had her eye on for Christmas. She’d been dropping more hints than I’d had hot dinners, quite a feat considering I lived with a trio of women who liked nothing better than to be huddled around a hot, steaming cooking pot. I let the smile in my head carry through to the music—it’s the only way I can thank people while I’m playing, after all.

  And then there he was, the man I’d been waiting for. Did I say his hair was iron grey? If I hadn’t been too busy playing my saxophone I’d have bitten my tongue. Pure silver, that hair was, and underneath it, his face looked shockingly young: clean lines, chiselled jaw with just a shade of stubble. I reckoned he’d be about my dad’s age: perfect. I’ve always gone for older blokes—there’s a lot to be said for an experienced man. Most of it gasped out in words of one syllable when you’re a mite distracted at the time. He was shorter than me, but muscular, heavy-set. Probably fucked like a pile driver…Did I say that? My mum would make me wash my mouth out.

  My aunties would hold me down and wash it out themselves.

  I segued into my party piece, the riff from “Baker Street.” Always brings in the money, but you can’t overdo it or it loses its potency. So I always saved it for my silver fox. Child of the eighties, wasn’t he? Sexual fantasy and target market, all in one tight little trench-coated package.

  As I played, my eyes tracked him down the escalator. He always stood, instead of walking down—I liked to think it was so he could hear as much of my music as possible. He never looked at me, though. Up, down, right, left—his gaze went everywhere but at me. That’s what made me think I might have a chance, if I could only manage more than thirty seconds, once a day, of his company. Because if I meant nothing to him, he’d be able to look at me. At least, that was my theory, and I was sticking to it like fake snow on a windowpane.

  This time, though, he was frankly staring. Well, I couldn’t blame him, now could I? He’d probably never seen a busker with a tea cosy on his head before. He stared so long he didn’t notice the end of the escalator and practically fell on top of the woman in front. Busy apologising to her, he was swept away by the stream of commuters before he could throw the usual pound coin in my saxophone case.

  Ah, well. I wasn’t going to starve for lack of a pound, and at least I’d got his attention.

  I launched into the English Beat’s “Mirror in the Bathroom” to celebrate.

  * * * *

  I never saw him in the mornings. Not because I couldn’t manage to haul my lazy arse out of bed, mind. That pitch is a popular one, and there was another guy who
had the morning shift. I lay under the duvet on the morning of the twenty-third and wondered if he missed me.

  I’d explain who I was talking about, but you’ve been paying attention, haven’t you? You know I mean my silver fox. Him with the strokeable hair, the bright eyes, the broad shoulders, the stubble just waiting to burn my skin when he kissed me, the powerful frame to weigh me down as he fucked me—

  Ahhhhh.

  Would you pass me that box of tissues? Thanks.

  * * * *

  I was on my way out that evening—well, afternoon really, but when it’s pitch black outside already and the Christmas lights everywhere are twinkling, it makes more sense to call it evening—when Mum called me back.

  “Liam! Liam, come here, love. Your Aunty Des has got something for you.” She frowned, hands on her hips in that pose that even in her fifties still made delivery men get hot under the collar.

  She’s got an old-fashioned figure, my mum: think Marilyn Monroe or Nigella Lawson and you won’t be far wrong. Not a single straight line about her. Hair like Nigella’s, too: tumbling locks I swear she keeps that rich, dark shade of brown by black magic alone. There’s a plumbing firm that’ll only send married men to our house these days, and the pizza boys won’t deliver at all anymore.

  “You’re not wearing your Aunty Mags’s hat. Do you want to hurt her feelings, now? Go put it on this instant.”

  I sighed, pulling the purple monstrosity out of my pocket. “I was waiting to see if it was cold out.”

  “You were waiting to see if anyone had their eye on you, and don’t you deny it, my lad. Now put it on, and come into the living room.”

  I trooped in behind her, dragging my boots on the shag-pile, to find my Aunty Des sitting on the sofa with a determined look on her face and a bag on her lap. “There you are! Happy Christmas, my love,” she said, handing me the bag.

  It was a big bag. It had to be, to hold the several pounds of wool that tumbled out in a multicoloured strip about twenty feet long. “Aunty Des, what the hell is this?”

  “Mind your language, my boy. What if your Aunty Gerry were here? It’s a Doctor Who scarf, of course. Every boy should have one.”