Free The Sweet Side Of The Ropes: Enthralling Tales Of Male-Male Romance by Kiernan Kelly Page B

feel, but his pride insisted that he return the favor, if only for a little while.
    To his surprise, Booger grinned at him. “Knew it,” he said, looking up at Travis, beaming.
    "Knew what?"
    "That you'd learn."
    "Learn what , Booger? How to tie a knot? My daddy taught me how to do that when I was ten."
    Booger laughed. “No. How to fight. How to take back control. You forgot how , Travis. That's why those people out in California got you all twisted up in them velvet ropes. You let them, Travis, just like you let me tie you up."
    "Damn it, Booger...” Travis sighed. “Okay, okay. I get the picture. When I get back to LA, I'm going to have a talk with Bernie.” He smiled and bent his head, taking Booger's earlobe into his mouth. He worked his way down, nibbling at the sensitive skin below Booger's ear, slowly rubbing his softened erection against Booger's tight abdomen. When he had Booger squirming on the mattress, he let go and grinned down at him. “Who knows? Maybe I'll move back home, fly to Nashville or out to LA when I need to record. But there's one thing we're going to need if I do decide to move back,” Travis said, looking directly into Booger's eyes.
    "What's that?"
    "A helluva lot more rope.” Travis laughed and then kissed Booger until his eyes crossed and his knees knocked.
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WAITING FOR DIMI
    Foreclosure .
    It's an ugly word that ranks right up there with castration and emasculation . God knows it has damn well near the same results, at least for me.
    Yesterday, I owned a beautiful three bedroom, two-bath ranch on a quarter acre of land in a peaceful if older, pretty little subdivision. Today, all I have to my name are three small cardboard boxes and a plastic Hefty bag full of clothes, old remote controls, and a few mismatched pieces of dinnerware.
    The bank took everything else.
    Or rather, the bank took whatever my ex had turned her surgically sculpted nose up at during the divorce. Which wasn't much.
    Bitch.
    It was Tennyson, I think, who said, ‘ Tis better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all .’ Bullshit. I've loved and lost, and trust me, the lost part sucks the big fat one.
    Actually, that isn't really fair. I know that I never really loved Holly. But the divorce still sucked big time, and believe me, I'm paying for my crimes in blood.
    She wasn't content to simply dump me and run off with her new boy toy with his tennis whites, bottle tan, and capped teeth. Oh, no. She had to grab my balls in an iron fist and tear them clean off my body, via my wallet. No anesthetic either, unless you counted the bottle of Jack Daniels I drank last night during my final hours in the house I used to own. It didn't numb the pain, but it did give me the satisfaction of blowing chunks all over the new rugs we had put in last spring.
    The only reason she'd been generous enough to give me the house during the divorce was because it was mortgaged up to the shingles. And did I see a single penny of the money we'd taken out against it? No, of course not. She needed a new BMW. She needed a cruise to the Virgin Islands. She needed a fucking fifteen hundred-dollar blue horse coat Shar Pei, whom she promptly named Princess, spoiled rotten, and slept with more than she did me.
    All I needed was to have my head examined. But as with everything else, what I needed wasn't on her priority list.
    The mortgage payment was simply beyond my means now I had to pay alimony. I'd tried everything to keep it, taking on an extra part-time job, advertising for roommates, but it wasn't enough. I tried to sell the house, but the market was in a slump. By the time sales revived, it was too late. I'd lost my home.
    But that's the story of my fucking life—a day late and a dollar short.
    And so I'm sitting on the curb with a handful of worthless junk and a hangover that could bring Superman to his knees as the sheriff slaps a big, silver padlock on the door of what used to be my home, waiting on