12.13.08

Hard Candy

Posted in New Release at 10:19 am by Ally Blue

 My Christmas-themed short story “Hard Candy” is available for FREE download from Samhain Publishing! It stars Matt and Chris from Love’s Evolution, playing with chocolate *g*

 Click here to download the book in PDF. Click here for a list of all Samhain’s free ebooks. Keep reading for a blurb and a teeny snippet

 Blurb: Matt’s a disaster in the kitchen. But a chef like Chris can make dessert out of anything. All it takes is a little chocolate and a lot of imagination.

 Excerpt:

 The third time Matt scorched the chocolate, he threw the whole damn pot in the sink and swore he’d never try to cook again.

Just like the last two times, the vow only lasted long enough for him to remember why he’d decided to do this in the first place. With a sigh, he scraped the ruined chocolate sauce into the garbage disposal and opened the dessert section of Chris’s cookbook. Maybe he couldn’t make Chris’s favorite, but surely to God he could find something he was capable of cooking.

“Matt? What are you doing in there?”

Shit. Untying Chris’s apron from around his waist, Matt threw it aside. “Nothing, babe! Go back to sleep.”

No answer. Matt breathed a sigh of relief. Chris had been sick as a dog for the last week and half with a vicious strain of the flu. He’d barely been able to get out of bed. Matt had done okay at taking care of him, except when it came to cooking. He’d always been useless in the kitchen, but it had never bothered him until now. Preparing meals for a professional chef was pretty daunting, even if said chef couldn’t eat anything but soup and crackers.

Now that Chris was on the mend and getting his appetite back, Matt was bound and damned determined to make him the sweets he’d been craving ever since he first got sick. Matt figured it was the least he could do, since Chris had been forced to skip the baking he normally loved to do for Christmas.

The scuff of slippers on wood jolted Matt out of his thoughts. He whipped around just in time to see Chris shuffle through the archway from the living room, yawning and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. His blue terrycloth robe hung open over his pajamas, a couple day’s worth of stubble shadowed his jaw and his black hair stuck up all over the place. Matt thought he looked adorable. 

“Hey, Chris.” Shoving the chocolate-coated saucepan deeper into the sink and thus out of sight, Matt jogged up to Chris and wrapped his arms around Chris’s shoulders. “What’re you doing out of bed?”

Chris arched one dark eyebrow. “I came down to see what all the noise was about.”

“Oh.” Matt winced. “Oops. Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Chris slipped his hands under Matt’s Christmas sweater. His palms still felt too hot against Matt’s bare skin, even though his fever was way down today. “I’m feeling much better now. I fail to understand why you want me to stay in bed.”

Matt flashed his most evil grin, the one that always made Chris’s green eyes glaze with lust. “Same reason I want you in bed the rest of the time, babe.”

Laughing, Chris leaned forward and pecked Matt on the lips. “My darling, you are the horniest person I’ve ever known.”

“Yeah, other than you.” Matt returned the kiss, along with extra tongue. “Which is why you married me, I guess.”

Chris smiled, his eyes shining. “One of many reasons.”

Matt’s chest went tight. Every time he thought of his and Chris’s handfasting ceremony that past summer, he got choked up.

Sentimental, that’s me.

It didn’t bug him any. He’d never been one to deny what he felt. Luckily, Chris had always liked that about him.

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