Rainbow Snippet: Six Sentences from “Rough Love”

It’s been an exciting couple weeks for me with the release of my MM romance anthology Falling Hard: Stories of Men in Love and some stellar reviews. So for this weekend’s Rainbow Snippets meme, I’m going to share a bit from “Rough Love,” which appears in  Falling Hard  and was reviewer Eddy LeFey’s favorite of the bunch. It’s about two college students negotiating their first serious relationship. The blurb: Blake thinks new boyfriend Michael doesn’t like French kissing. Michael thinks Blake doesn’t like rough sex. Neither are virgins, except in the art of conversation. Can they set things straight before the honeymoon’s over?

Eddy said, “[L]eave it to Dale to make a potentially awkward conversation about sex a very sexy affair indeed. This type of real-life situation, that is sometimes hard to deal with, isn’t what every ready wants or what every writer is capable of doing in a humanistic, humorous and humble way. Dale can and does. This is an exceptional story, especially considering the erotic nature of the story and the expectations of the genre.”

And now for the snippet:

I figured the best approach was to ask him if something was wrong. It was such an obvious solution I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t thought of it before. We were at a table in the back corner of the science library, in the ichthyology section because there were always free tables there. The fish fossils and skeletons on the wall made it a slightly creepy place to hang out, but I usually ignored them. Michael made it easy. He was unfairly hot that day, in a tight black t-shirt with a low scoop neck that showed off his collarbones.

You can read Eddy’s review at his Land of the Book Fairies blog, and you can find more Rainbow Snippets on the Rainbow Snippets Facebook page or by looking for #rainbowsnippets on twitter. It’s one of my favorite ways to discover new authors!

And feel to free to browse other story snippets I’ve posted on my blog.