All First Chapter Samples

Five fucking thrift stores.

“Five.” I got a dirty look from the old lady across from me on the bus, but I wasn’t going to feel bad about losing my mind. If she’d gone to five thrift stores all over the city for a stupid Christmas present for her boyfriend, she’d be insane too.

Leaning back against the seat, I tried to relax, but the hard plastic and constant bumps from the winter-ravaged roads made that impossible. The potholes were probably the only thing keeping me awake, so I should have been grateful for them. I wasn’t. I also wasn’t grateful for the early shifts and the cold weather.

But I shouldn’t even be complaining about the hours I’d been working.

When winter had hit and the landscaping jobs had stopped for the season, I’d thought I’d be out of work for months except for the occasional odd job. Thankfully, I’d been one of the handful of guys they’d kept on payroll for the snow removal side of the company.

“Tag. You’re it.” Conner looked more insane than usual as he glared a guy into the chair beside me. He literally pointed and frowned like the guy was a misbehaving dog who needed to go in time-out. Was he a pup? “I’m done going in circles and I think you’re the best one to get straight answers out of him.” Conner pointed to my guest when I just raised one eyebrow. “Ben’s out tonight, and if I can’t spank him, I’m not dealing with him.” When the dramatic club owner twirled around and walked away, I gave up expecting good answers from him and turned to the man who’d just out-bratted the biggest troublemaker I knew. “Good evening.” “I don’t […]

Oh, I wish he’d have worn clothes for this.

Would that have been too much to ask?

“Finley…” The teasing, singsong way he drew out my name had me blushing. “You’re not paying attention to me. Naughty, naughty boy.”

Shit.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and told myself he would behave if I stopped reacting. “Sorry. It’s been a long week.”

Conner’s giggle said that hadn’t been as believable as I’d hoped.

Aiming for mature and not too distracted, I opened my eyes and did my best to make immediate eye contact with the half-naked troublemaker.

Shoot.

I found him on Craigslist. It probably wasn’t some place you were supposed to go to meet people. I mean, the personals were fun to look at, especially when you were drunk or something, and the section for trying to get in touch with that random stranger you saw on the street was hilarious. But no one actually met people from Craigslist. Well, no one except me.
He was interesting.

Sometimes I couldn’t decide if I liked him or not. Other times it felt like I might be obsessed with the guy. It seemed like a relationship where someone who was outside looking in would label it as unhealthy or odd. It didn’t feel that way.

It felt natural. Like I’d known him forever.

I’d read somewhere that good roommates were supposed to be like that. The article, or maybe it was a book…maybe an online magazine—that wasn’t the point—had said that a good roommate was like a lover.

You might know by just looking at them that the chemistry would be amazing. It might take you a while to get there, but in the end, it would feel perfect. Or they’d turn out to be totally crazy, and while you suspected that to begin with, you didn’t listen to the little voice in your head.

I wasn’t so sure about the lover analogy, but the article had gotten one thing right. I’d known that he was the perfect roommate from the moment we met. The lover analogy still confused me, even after we’d been living together for almost six months. I thought that once he’d moved in it would help me make sense of it, that I would finally just get it one day. But maybe I needed to have a lover first for the author’s meaning to sink in.

If he got any more nervous, I was going to put vodka in his bottle. Vodka and orange juice went well together, so maybe apple would work in a pinch.

“I know. You don’t have to say it again.” But the way Bryan was aimlessly wandering around the apartment pretending to clean said I probably should.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” Starting in on my speech for the third time, I smiled when he jumped in.

“But I need to remember that they won’t think any less of me and there’s nothing to worry about.” Bryan sighed as he finished. “I know it up here.”

He gestured toward his head then shrugged. “It’s the rest of me that keeps forgetting.”

Dr. Shepard thought the best way for Bryan to ease into being little around others was by being in that headspace around Kevin. It was a sound idea, but it wasn’t easy. Bryan had kept all of that inside himself for so long, sharing it made him feel more exposed than if he was running naked through campus.

I had a feeling he’d rather run naked through campus.

But he wanted to be able to play with other littles, and I had a feeling he wanted to prove it to Cody. Their relationship had gotten better, but Cody was still nervous around us because Bryan was so nervous around him. It was a weird cycle that needed to be broken…and the only way to break it was for Bryan to get more confident.

“Furniture? He wants a small business policy for custom furniture?”

“Yup.”

He couldn’t picture the bouncy guy being focused enough to have a business, much less one that made custom furniture. Maybe that was just his perception of him, but it wasn’t completely baseless. From what Garrett had seen, Wyatt was polite and perpetually cheerful but forgetful and constantly in motion. The two opposing pictures didn’t mesh.

“You’re sure?” He should have known better than to ask.

“How often am I wrong?” Calen gave him a look that spoke volumes. Bossy Dom. He should have known better than to have hired another Dom as an office manager. But when his closest friends were all in the scene he didn’t have much of a choice.