12 Days of Kissmas: Sloan Johnson

TCO is so excited to bring you 12 Days of Kissmas. We have 12 of your favorite authors ahead over the coming days, bringing you beautiful pictures of men kissing that the authors have chosen themselves, along with exclusive posts, excerpts, and giveaways. The idea sprang from a conversation with an author that just turned into a “what if…”, and when I started asking a few authors, they immediately said they were in. Make sure you enter the giveaways, as there are lots of them! Thanks for stopping by, and a HUGE thank you to all the authors for their generosity, and loving spirit. Happy Holidays to everyone!

 

Sloan Johnson, author of the Homeruns series is stopping by today to bring an excerpt from Down By Contact. This book will be the first book in a football series spin off from the Homeruns series, Zach’s story.

Add it to Goodreads here: Down By Contact

“I want to hate you,” he admitted, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Life would be so damn easy if I hated you. But I realized tonight that I don’t hate you. I love you. I always have, even though I shouldn’t. I can’t change that. And now, my teammates know about me and they said they’ll have my back if anyone gives me shit for it, so there’s no reason for me to not love you. Expect that part about how you wrapped a chain around my heart and dragged it down the road when you left. Maybe Nate’s right. Maybe what we need comes into our life when we need it and it’s up to us to recognize that.”

“Zach, don’t. Please,” I begged again. His words were giving me hope, and I’d been through that before. With him. If he was sober, I’d have thrown myself into his arms and thanked him for cracking open the door to reconciliation. But he’d been drinking. He’d had a stressful night. He’d come out to his teammates. There was far too much going on in his mind for him to be thinking clearly. “If you really mean what you’re saying, you’ll still mean it tomorrow. Let’s talk when you’re not so… excitable.”

“Fuck that,” Zach spat out. “You think I’m saying this because I’m drunk, don’t you?” I did, but I’d be damned if I was going to admit that to him. “You’re right. I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m talking out of my ass. If anything, being drunk is helping, because I can’t hold back what I’ve been wanting to say to you since I saw you in that meeting. This shit has been there the whole time, but now, I’m not trying to convince myself it’s a bad idea. And what do I get in return? You telling me it’s a bad idea. Maybe I should take that as a sign that this really is a stupid fucking idea.”

He turned to storm out of the room and I jumped off the bed. It’d be smart to let him walk away and cool down, see where his head was at in the morning, but fear was stronger than logic. If he walked out of what I’d started to think of as my bedroom, he may very well shut down and we’d never have this chance again. I reached for him and he jerked out of my weak grasp. His shoulders slumped and he leaned against the wall. “I’m not trying to fuck you because I’m drunk.”

“I didn’t realize you were trying to fuck me at all,” I quipped. My cock twitched, reminding me how long it’d been since anyone had given me a good, hard fuck.

“Well, not just that,” Zach admitted with an empty chuckle. “But I can admit I’d thought about the night ending that way.”

I placed my hands on Zach’s shoulders and turned him around to face me. We stood so close our feet were touching. I leaned in slightly, resting my hands on his hips. If this went the way I feared, tonight would be my biggest regret in life, not the night I walked away the first time. “I know you think I’m being an asshole by telling you we can’t do this, but I think you also know I’m right. I’m not saying never, I’m just saying not tonight. Not when you’ve been drinking. At all. If we do this, I want both of us clear-headed. Because if I’m with you again, I’m not walking away. And I won’t let you run, either.”

“That’s what I want, Grif. It’s what I always wanted,” Zach admitted. He lifted his hand to my face and I closed my eyes, reveling in the warmth of his body. I felt his body shift and I knew what was coming. I swallowed back the emotions overtaking my body. Bit back the pleas for him to ignore everything I’d just said and throw me back on the bed again, consequences be damned. His breath ghosted over my neck as he spoke, the words shooting through my body like an electric shock. “I know you don’t want to hear it right now, but I still love you. It was always you, and no matter how much I tried to hate you for destroying what we had, I knew why you did it. Deep down, I knew you did what you thought was best for both of us. But it wasn’t, because now we’ve both spent three years alone and miserable, because no one since then could compare to what we had.”

Not trusting my voice, I did what any man would do when they’re that close to the other half of their soul. I opened my eyes so I could watch him as I pulled his hips closer to mine. And then, I kissed him. It wasn’t sloppy and desperate, it was a promise to him that we would be talking about this more in the morning. Hopefully, early enough that we’d be able to spend the rest of the day not talking. Zach moaned into my mouth, sliding his hand around to the back of my neck, carding his fingers through my hair, tugging slightly to expose my neck. He broke the kiss and I knew we needed space between us, but I was frozen in place. His mouth moved lower, sucking and biting at the side of my neck. My knees nearly buckled when he found the hollow behind my ear and started teasing me.

“Always you,” he whispered before standing straighter and pushing me back just enough to slide out from between me and the wall. “If you change your mind tonight, you know where to find me.”

It would’ve been easy to climb into the bed next to him. And if he was still the way he was in college, he’d be so sound asleep that he’d barely even move as I settled against his side. I could take one night next to him, just in case he did change his mind in the morning. But I didn’t, because when I was next to him, I wanted him to know I was there. I love you, too, Zach, I whispered into the darkness and rolled over, trying one last time to get some sleep. It never came.

Wild Pitch

Curve Ball

Triple Play

Sweet Spot

Change Up

Line Drive

 

Sloan is giving away an ebook copy of all of her Homeruns series to one winner. Just tell us what your favorite sport to watch is (or isn’t…).

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