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This month, I have Together as part of the freebie giveaway if you sign up for QueeRomance Ink’s Newsletter. These stories are more towards romance with MM characters and Gay literature.
Together is the first story I wrote and published with Amazon and was part of a people of color charity anthology back in 2017-2018 originally called Beautiful Skin. I was proud to be a part of it because stories about people of color, or written by people of color, are beautiful and make the work richer. The anthology is out of print now, but the story is still available. A couple of years later, I wrote a flash fiction ficlit, an epilogue of sorts, as part of a blog tour I did August 2020. Thank you again to Sharita for the idea so many years ago. You will need to read Together in order to enjoy the vignette below.
While re-reading it for this post, I did a little more editing on it so it would flow a bit better. This is version two of the teaser that hasn’t been published before. -wink- Eventually, I will re-release Together with the epilogue. Perhaps I can get my act together this year. 🙂
~Eloreen
Saturday Night Date Night
It was Saturday morning and my turn to pick what we were going to do for our date night tonight. I thought making plans for two people for semi-regular dates was nail-biting. Try planning a date for three people regularly. We all have such different tastes and personalities that it can be a challenge. Luckily, we took turns choosing. If I had to do this every time, I’d go crazy and probably flail.
“Whatcha doing?” Enrique Cruz, my little writer said faintly but rapidly getting closer, startling me slightly. I quickly closed out of the browser I was looking at so he wouldn’t find out my plans and ruin the surprise. I had set things up to do this thing a few weeks ago with my best friend and business partner, Angela Carter, since I was neck deep on some major software updates that we’d rolled out for our mobile game we had first released a couple years ago. This Saturday night date night was special and too important to not have help. It was the one-year anniversary of myself, Enrique, and our other partner, Miguel Armenta, finally getting together as committed partners to each other. If the three of us could legally marry, I would have popped the question a while ago.
When he got close enough, I turned around in my chair and quickly pulled him into my arms and lap for a quick peck on the lips as a distraction. Except, it wasn’t quick. At all. He deepened it and claimed my mouth like it was going to disappear. Silly man. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Someone moaned. Might have been me. Then I felt another set of hands sliding down my naked chest as I had just gotten up from our bed earlier and didn’t bother to put a shirt on to finish the plans.
I gasped a mumbled explicative as my senses fired up when Miguel’s hands found my nipples and started rubbing them just like I like them. Something was nagging at me though. Something important.
Suddenly, I wrenched my now swollen lips away from En’s assault and placed my hands on El’s to stop his movement. I panted a little while I waited for my brain cells to get online and thing again. Fuck, we didn’t have time for round two.
“Stop.”
They tensed, stilling instantly.
“Sorry, nothing’s wrong, loves.” I kissed En first to reassure and then turned my chair, vaguely noticing that at some point the screensaver had kicked in and my chair was sideways. Someone must have moved me to get to me, the little minx.
“Mornin’,” I gave El a kiss on his impish lips to reassure him as well. They both relaxed and then I had a double lap full of my men. Good thing I had splurged for a high-weight computer chair.
“I’m sorry, my dears,” I started after they settled. “While I would love to go back to bed, we need to get ready for tonight’s date.”
Miguel glanced at the clock on the screensaver. “It’s only 11 am.” He turned back to me, confusion in his blue eyes. Then they cleared and narrowed. “What did you plan?” He stood up to get a better look at my facial expressions.
I was so close. I really couldn’t hide anything from El. Both of them really, but especially El with his sharp litigator mind. It’s why I had Angela make the arrangements in the first place. I was about to see the details of said plan when En came into the room.
“Nothing,” I said innocently. Not really, and it wasn’t working for either of them if their disbelieving expression where anything to go by.
“Uh, huh,” En said flatly, and stood up too. Yeah, that didn’t work either. En was a sharp observer too. They put their crossed arms on their equally naked chests nearly at the same time. That was hot.
I broke down. “Ok, there is something going on with tonight’s date night, but I actually don’t know what the details are yet.” I looked at them sheepishly. Out of habit when I got embarrassed about something, I looked down pulling my dreads forward and tried to hide behind them.
“Look at me,” El said with love and reassurance in his voice. I felt his hand gently lift my chin so I would look at him. When our eyes met, he continued. “I love you. You know we will love anything you have planned for us.”
“Yes, but I wanted it to be a surprise,” I sighed. “It’s why I had Ang make all the arrangements with my contingencies in case there was something on my initial list that wouldn’t work.” I had several options and back up plans to keep this particular date a surprise that I had to keep myself in the dark too.
En interjected, “You are fine, honey. I love you, too.” He put his hand on my neck and his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes content as they both returned to my arms and lap.
Speaking of lap, we needed to get moving if we were going to get started on this afternoon’s activities. “Let me up,” I said as I gently pushed them to their feet.
“There’s stuff starting in an hour or two and we are ending at The Melting Pot downtown.” I said the last thing absently missing the expressions on my men’s understanding faces as I went back to the computer.
“Fuck me, he’s proposing,” En blurted out at the same time El sucked in a breath shocked.
I paused from logging in. Damn, they really did know me well.
Moonbeams over Atlanta welcomes AG Meiers. She has a new gay romantic suspense in her Jake’s Bar series Book 4: Down the Line.
Revenge is a Dangerous Obsession.
Dean Hunt needs the story of a lifetime—Since his uncompromising attitude got him fired, the investigative journalist is hell-bent to expose the powerful and corrupt Conway family. It’s a career move, and absolutely not a vendetta against the oldest son Noel, who ghosted Dean after a mind-blowing weekend together.
Noel Conway needs a new start—After years away, Noel has come home to rebuild the bridges he’s burned. Too bad his past caused a ripple effect he can’t outrun. Now, he’s asked to save his family from the one man he never expected to see again but can’t forget.
Dean is chasing front-page news, and Noel is trying to protect the ones he loves. But the line between enemies and lovers gets blurred when a dangerous criminal from Noel’s past resurfaces. Will the truth shatter their tentative trust? Or do they have a shot at happily ever after?
But none of that matters when suddenly Noel disappears…
Down the Line, the final book in the award-winning Jake’s Bar series, is a spicy, M/M romantic suspense featuring a rainbow-colored bar full of quirky characters, and all the romance you can handle. So, download today, and get ready to fall in love with Jake’s Bar.
Warnings: smoking cigarettes and weed in the hot tub, kidnapping (on page scenes restrained), verbally abusive father
The award-winning Jake’s Bar series is a set of steamy, M/M romantic suspense novels, featuring a rainbow- colored bar full of quirky characters, and all the romance you can handle.
Giveaway
AG is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this tour: a Rafflecopter giveaway
a Rafflecopter giveawayDirect Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47310/?
Excerpt
As Dean reached the top of the staircase, a man stepped out of the shadows in front of his door. Dean straightened his shoulders. “Detective Conway.”
“Hunt.”
In a parallel universe, they might have been friends. They were fighting the same fight. Had the same enemies. In this world, they weren’t brothers in arms. In this world, Dean had been cast as the villain.
“How can I help you this fine morning?”
“Open the door. We gotta talk.”
“Look, it’s been a long night—”
“Just open the damn door.” Conway snarled, pushing into Dean’s personal space.
Dean stood his ground. “Are you here in an official capacity? Because then, the answer is no, I won’t let you in. You have no warrant, no permission to search my property. I don’t consent—”
“Just shut the fuck up. None of us wants this shitshow to be on the record,” Con growled.
Dean, curious, took a step back and raised his empty hand, palm up. “Okay.”
He fished for his key, pushed open the door, and quickly disarmed his alarm system. Conway didn’t wait to be invited in, just crossed the living room, dropped his shearling coat onto the sofa, then walked over to the large window overlooking the river.
The view was the only redeeming feature of Dean’s otherwise-generic apartment. The mess didn’t help. There were dirty dishes piled up in the sink, a pizza box on the breakfast counter separating the cramped kitchen from the living room, and an unmade bed in the other corner of the room.
“For a guy who anxiously waited at my doorstep, you’re awfully quiet.” Dean smirked. “Coffee?”
“No.” Conway turned his back, now studying the row of framed newspaper front pages Dean had hung on the apartment’s interior wall. His personal collection of historic headlines—headlines that changed the world.
The oldest was from July 6, 1776. The Pennsylvania Evening Post, printing the Declaration of Independence on its front page. Next to it, the Daily Telegram, declaring the end of the Second World War. The two most recent, the New York Times’ “OBAMA: Racial barrier falls in heavy turnout” and, of course, the front page the day after 9/11.
Dean had added a few more personal favorites, like Moneta J. Sleet’s photography of Coretta Scott King at MLK’s funeral. The first Black man to win the Pulitzer for journalism.
Conway took his time examining each framed newspaper. Dean already regretted allowing the intrusion into his space. He felt exposed—vulnerable—under silent scrutiny.
Irritated, he started banging around the kitchen. He was in no mood to explain that looking at those headlines every day fueled his ambitions and inspired his dreams. Dean believed with every fiber of his being in the power of a free and independent press.
He turned on the coffee machine and leaned against the counter. As if Conway felt Dean’s angry glare across the room, he finally turned and stared right back. For a moment, they engaged in a silent standoff.
Unease flittered through Dean. Camille had been right. Her brother was seething with anger. And Dean had no fucking idea what he’d done to piss him off. He sighed and shook his head, then took two mugs out of the cabinet and put them onto the island. “Miguel, have a damn coffee. You look like you need it.”
“Says the man who clearly slept in his party clothes and crept home at sunup.”
“Guilty as charged.” Dean shrugged.
Conway curled his lip. “I do not know what my sister sees in you.”
It wasn’t a question, so Dean didn’t bother with an answer. “You wanted to talk? So, talk.”
Instead of talking, though, Conway pulled out a stack of papers. Pushing aside the coffee cups to make room, he spread them out over the counter.
Dean froze. The first blurry photograph featured Dean in another man’s arms. In the next, the same man was pressing Dean against a white porch railing, his own hands tangled in the man’s messy curls. Conway fanned the stack, revealing nearly a dozen more.
Dean and Noel Conway, kissing.
Suddenly, he was there again, the ocean breeze tugging on his clothes. Noel’s warm skin, tasting like sunshine and a hint of salt, his eyes blown with desire. Goddamn, so fucking beautiful, with that shy smile, whispered promises—
Dean’s throat was desert dry. His ragged breath and the hissing of the coffee machine came together like a fucking symphony. “I—”
“Save it. My sister thinks you’re this hotshot journalist. Full of passion. Braving adversity. Motivated by a noble cause. Yeah, fuck that. You’re after my family because Noel pounded your ass, then dropped you like he does everybody else. Your pride—your precious ego—is hurt because you’re just another notch in my brother’s carved-up bedpost.”
Conway grabbed his jacket and walked to the door. He turned and added, “Watch it, Hunt. You got no job. No friends. No prospects. But if you think you’ve reached rock bottom, think again.”
Dean contained himself until he heard his door close with a soft click. Only then did he allow himself to swipe papers, cups, and the fucking photos off his counter. The cups shattered on the tile floor.
Author Bio
Eighteen years ago, AG Meiers came to the US for adventure and stayed for love. Currently, she lives in New England with her husband and two awesome kids—balancing work, friends and family, and writing.
When she has some free time, her favorite thing to do is travel and visit new places. Her past trips have already brought her to a variety of countries on four continents. She never passes up an opportunity to experience different cultures, diverse people and amazing locations.
Even though she has been dreaming up stories all her life, she has only recently started to write them down and share them with the world. As a writer she loves to put her characters through a lot of challenges, conflict and heartbreak, before she allows them to find their happy-ever-after.
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