Kimberly Gardner challenged my feelings over the question “How soon is too soon?” The answer,
I suppose depends on the individuals involved. I found the two men’s battle with their feelings heart rending and ultimately, uplifting.”

Read the entire review. http://tinyurl.com/7kvhowl

My holiday story, Drag And Drop is available today from MLR Press.

It’s a short novella about how two young lovers celebrate New Years in Key West Florida and I hope you’ll have a look.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=KGDRGDRP

http://www.loose-id.com/Slave-Masters-Choice.aspx

The book is my first attempt in the fantasy subgenre of m/m romance and it has a beautiful Anne Cain cover.

Read the blurb and an excerpt after the jump.

You don’t even have to own a Kindle to participate. How cool is that?

Just go to the following link, choose the book you want the autograph for and that’s it. Easy peasy, right?

http://www.kindlegraph.com/authors/kimberauthor,

I’m incredibly excited as this will be my first signing and because I am a long-time fangirl of so many of these writers. Here is a link to the event. I hope to see you there. It promises to be a fun evening.

http://www.giovannisroom.com/event/evening-gay-mens-romance

“For a short vacation from everyday life, I highly recommend Dressed to Thrill by Kimberly Gardner. This feel good and humorous novella will transport you to Key West as you join Oliver and Drew on their romantic and passionate journey to happily ever after.”

Read the entire review,

http://whippedcream2.blogspot.com/2011/06/dressed-to-thrill-by-kimberly-gardner.html?zx=af91faa5e8f87fa

Both “ficklets” feature the boys from my m/m/m contemporary novel Bound To Please so check them out.

Here are the links,

http://www.fictionwithfriction.com/2011/05/15/fun-in-the-sun-vacation-plans/

http://www.fictionwithfriction.com/2011/05/22/more-fun-in-the-sun-by-the-pool/

But yeah, I am pretty excited about this. The Beanpot contest sponsored by the New England chapter of RWA is a well-respected and reader-judged contest.

The other awesome thing is the book competed against other books in the erotic category including non-LGBT titles and placed second.

WooHoo!

By Kimberly Gardner

From Loose-ID

Blurb

Dumped. Right before spring break. What rotten timing! Since the trip to Key West is already paid for, Oliver decides that he’ll go anyway. Who knows?

maybe he’ll meet a hot guy to make him forget his woes. Little does he suspect he’ll be drawn in both by the gorgeous locale and a sultry drag queen.

Drew knows he has what it takes to be a star. If he has to wear a skirt and stilettos to make it happen, so be it. He looks good as a woman. But then he

meets Oliver and has his doubts. He can’t tell this terrific new guy what he does in the evenings. Not when they’re having such a great time and not when

Oliver will be gone in a week. Given the circumstances, what’s the harm in a little white lie?

But plans change when secrets are revealed, and both men’s deepest desires become their greatest thrills.

T

Copyright 2011 by Kimberly Gardner, all rights reserved.

Excerpt

“I’ll have another one of those,” Oliver said. He angled his head toward the empty margarita glass on the table in front of him.

“Rocks and salt?” The waitress had to yell to be heard over the music.

Oliver nodded, and she scooped up his empty before hurrying away.

He let his gaze wander the crowded club. All the nearby tables were full. Couples, many of them male, leaned in toward each other, laughing and talking, as they yelled directly into each other’s ears to be heard over the music blaring from giant speakers on either side of the stage.

As Oliver watched, a blond kid who didn’t look old enough to order a beer legally leaned in and laid a smacking kiss on the lips of his silver-haired companion. It was no little peck either, but an extended lip-lock that brought heat to Oliver’s cheeks and a rush of envy so strong he had to turn away.

That should be Jonathan and him, sitting together all cozied up at one of the round tables, exchanging stolen kisses and covert gropes. If Jonathan hadn’t turned out to be such a lying, cheating bastard.

The waitress appeared with his fresh margarita. She slid the glass in front of him and leaned in. “You want to run a tab?”

Did he? Was he going to be here long enough for that?

What the hell?

“Sure,” Oliver shouted over the techno-dancified version of “Venus” currently blasting through the club. But as the waitress turned, he waved to get her attention. She lifted one dark brow. “What time is the show?”

She pointed to her watch. “Soon.”

Oliver’s attention was drawn back to the couple at the next table. The angle was just right for him to see the older guy’s hand slip into Blondie’s lap. And the smile curving the younger man’s lips told him precisely what that hand must be doing.

The older guy looked sort of like Jonathan, or the way Jonathan might look in twenty years. But in Oliver’s opinion, the twink didn’t resemble himself at all. Actually, he looked kind of like Jonathan’s twink, the kid Jon had supposedly been tutoring.

Yeah, tutoring, sure. And what was worse, he had believed that lame-ass lie.

Oliver picked up his glass and glugged down a huge swallow. He was not going to think about that asshole anymore. He was in beautiful Key West, the Mecca of gay spring breakers everywhere, and damn it, he was going to enjoy himself. And if he was lucky and his interviews went well, he would be leaving at the end of the week with the promise of a job after graduation.

“Here’s to me,” Oliver said and raised his glass in a solitary toast just as the lights came up on the stage and the music changed.

The woman…man…drag queen who slinked onto the stage was tall and slender with a mass of wildly curling hair spilling down her back. Her dress was made of some red shimmery stuff and clung to her lithe body. She sashayed to the microphone, picked it up, and purred in a sexy contralto, “How y’all doing tonight?”

The audience went crazy. Whistles, catcalls, and applause grew in volume until they nearly drowned out the music.

What the heck was he doing here, in a drag bar watching this gender-bending beauty — because she was a beauty — flirt and flash long bare leg and seduce the crowd of primarily gay men? He wasn’t into drag queens or cross-dressers. He should go to the strip club across the street and watch the boys dance while he got trashed.

Except Dante, the guy who worked at the guesthouse where he was staying, had said Mango Mango was the hottest club in town, the place to go for good drinks, a good show, and maybe even a hook-up.

And there was something about that sequin-clad figure up on stage that drew his eye, something that made it hard to look away.

The drag queen, Faith Cummings — Oliver let out a snort of laughter at that — had begun to dance to an ancient Cher song that sounded like Cher and not like Cher, since it wasn’t actually Cher doing the singing, only a Cher sound-alike. But Faith wasn’t singing either, only lip-synching the words as she slithered and pranced around the stage. Hell, she probably couldn’t sing at all. She probably had a voice like a bullfrog despite the beautiful face and killer body.

Still, Oliver didn’t get up and leave. Still his attention remained riveted on the sexy queen as she swirled her skirt and flashed leg through the thigh-high slits.

He remained that way, essentially mesmerized, through her entire routine. As she moved from one song to the next, Oliver found himself leaning forward, his drink forgotten on the table as he hung on her every gesture.

She was so glamorous, so sexy, so…fascinating.

“Now don’t y’all forget to tip your waiters and waitresses,” Faith sang out. She strutted to the stage steps that would bring her down into the audience right beside Oliver’s table. “And your gratuities are always appreciated by the entertainers. That would be me.”

As she floated down the steps on her high skinny heels, Oliver grabbed a dollar from the scattering of change left on the table from his first drink. He picked up the pen lying next to the e-mail sign-up card, and without stopping to think too hard about what he was doing or what it might mean, he scribbled his number on the back of the dollar and held it up where she would be sure to see.

She did and danced over to him. But rather than lean in so he could slide the bill into her fake cleavage as she’d done with other patrons, Faith swung one long, gorgeous leg across Oliver’s lap and straddled him.

The people at the tables around them hooted and whistled and cheered as the drag queen rocked forward, bringing the two of them crotch to crotch.

Oliver inhaled. Under her perfume, her scent was a little hot, a little sweaty, and more than a little male.

Mmm.

Oliver’s face flushed hot, his heart began to pound, and his dick twitched and began to fill.

Faith leaned forward, wrapped her arms around him, and pressed her scarlet mouth to his. As she parted his lips with her tongue, she rocked against him, letting him feel the hard length of what was most definitely a nice-sized cock. She ground their hips together, creating the most delicious friction of cock against cock.

Oliver groaned into her — no, his — mouth and tried to pull that amazing body closer and keep the contact going.

But the fantasy in his arms drew back and smiled at him with red-smeared lips before sliding off his lap and fading into the crowd, leaving him there with an aching hard-on and a dollar with his own phone number clutched in his hand.

Sometimes attraction is stronger than the best kept secret, even when it’s Too Soon For Love.

Michael Stricker is still reeling from his partner’s sudden and untimely death when he meets someone new, someone he could really care about. But first he needs time, time to get his life back in order and time to get over is lost love. But learning to live alone again is nearly impossible with his well-meaning relatives treating him like a poor helpless blind guy.

When Alan Stuart befriends Phillip DiMartino’s grieving partner, the last thing he expects is to discover hidden lies and infidelity. Guilty over his attraction to the still-grieving man, Alan resolves to stay silent. But the truth has a way of coming out, and soon a dead man’s secrets bring about more heartbreak than Alan could have imagined.

Although both men vow to keep their distance, staying away is easier said than done, even when it’s Too Soon For Love.

<<<<<<<< Excerpt >>>>>>>>>>>>

© Copyright 2011 by Kimberly Gardner, all rights reserved.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …”

The voice of the priest–Father Malone, was it?–droned on, the words of the Catholic burial ceremony little more than a buzzing in Michael’s ears.

The February sun, brilliant and bright after the snow storm, felt warm on his face. But the wind was all teeth and claws as it whipped across the open cemetery grounds. Inside his boots Michael could no longer feel his toes. Thanks to the valium Dr. Z. had prescribed, some of that numbness had seeped inside him. He hated the numbness, hated feeling like his emotions were wrapped in cotton, but even that feeling of chemical detachment was better than the wrenching pain that was his constant companion ever since Phillip’s death nearly a week ago.

Yes, Phillip was really gone. For the first time in nearly twelve years, Michael was alone, the pain his only companion despite the people who’d surrounded him ever since he’d made that first phone call.

“Michael, here’s a flower.” Phil’s sister Jane pushed a stem into Michael’s gloved hand. His fingers closed around it. He’d raised it halfway to his face before stopping himself, suppressing the nearly irresistible urge to stroke the petals along his cheek, either that or crush them between his fingers just as his lover’s death was crushing him now. Slowly he lowered his hand.

“C’mon,” Jane whispered, “we’re going to put it on the … you know.” She took his free hand and tugged him forward.

Why couldn’t she say the word coffin?

Jane took the flower from him then gently turned him away and guided him back to his place. He heard her sniffle, but whether she was crying again or it was from the cold he couldn’t say.

For his part he had yet to shed a tear. All his tears were frozen inside him, a huge icy lump where his heart used to be.

At last the service ended. The voice of the funeral director cut through the icy air as he invited the mourners to the luncheon. Boots crunched on the frozen ground, people making their way back to their cars.

Jane clutched Michael’s hand in a death grip. “Let’s go.”

“Just a minute.” Michael hung back. He wanted to stay, to have just a few more minutes with Phillip before they put him in the ground in this cold, desolate place. He recalled a scene from a book, he couldn’t remember which one, where a grieving mother had literally thrown herself in the hole in the ground atop her dead child’s coffin. Totally unrealistic since they didn’t put the coffin in the ground until after everyone had left. They wouldn’t put Phillip in the ground until he and others were safely tucked away in their cars on their way to the post-funeral party. If he stayed right here, if he refused to leave, maybe Phillip wouldn’t have to go into the ground at all. What would they do if he simply refused to go?

Jane tugged at his hand. “Michael, c’mon, I’m freezing, and they’re waiting. Let’s get in the car.”

Fuck them. Let them wait. He wasn’t ready to go, wasn’t ready to leave Phillip here in this frozen place of death, in the hands of strangers.

And he almost said so, almost told Jane to just go without him, to leave him here with Phillip. But he didn’t, and she wouldn’t, even if he had. Because of course the blind guy couldn’t be left alone in the cemetery. How would that look? What would people say? What would happen to him?

He knew he was being unfair to Jane and the others. They were just trying to look out for him, to help him through this difficult time. Difficult time. What a bizarre euphemism that was. As if having your heart and soul ripped out could be classified as merely a ‘difficult time’, something you would, with the passage of days and weeks, months and years, get over.

But he would never get over this, and didn’t want to.

“Michael?” Another tug on his hand, more insistent this time. “I’m frozen. Can we get in the car?”

He nodded, let Jane lead him away from the graveside. He would come back, maybe tomorrow and bring flowers. He’d talk to Phillip, just stand there and talk to him. Stand there until the icy emptiness in his chest spread to every part of his body and he froze.

But of course that wasn’t going to happen because, not being able to drive, he couldn’t get to the cemetery on his own. Why had he let them bully him into putting Phillip here?

Phillip had wanted to be cremated, to have his ashes scattered on the beach. Or that was what he said on the few occasions when they had actually talked about such things. Talked about them in that rather detached way people do when they believe, however falsely, that death is a distant specter, something they’ll have to face someday, but not any time soon, certainly not today.

They were almost back to the limo. He could hear the engine idling.

Suddenly it was all too much. He simply couldn’t take it anymore and he stopped walking. “I’m not going to the luncheon. Where’s the driver? I have to tell him I want to go back to the house. And I need my cane. I have to get it from the car.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going to the luncheon?” Jane asked.

The door to the limo was open. Michael felt the blast of heat from inside. “I just can’t. I want to go home.”

“Problem?” Ross, Janey’s husband stood on the other side of the open car door.

“Michael wants to be dropped off at home,” Jane said. “Would you tell the driver, honey?”

“That’s ridiculous.” Ross’s voice was too loud in the stillness of the cemetery. “We’re all going to the luncheon.” He laid a meaty hand on Michael’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze then a brief pat. “Everyone’s expecting you, Michael. Besides, the house is in the opposite direction.” Another pat. “We’ll go, have some lunch, then Janey and I will take you home afterward.”

“I said, I’m not going, Ross.” Michael flinched from the touch. He hated being touched unexpectedly, having his personal space invaded, and Jane’s husband was big on that sort of thing. Ross was big on a lot of things Michael wasn’t.

“Michael, look–” Ross’s tone changed, his words losing the sympathetic but no-nonsense let’s-just-get-through-this tone and taking on that of a parent talking to an unreasonable child.

“Ross, honey, please?” Jane took a step toward the open door. “Michael, I know this is hard on you, but can we just–”

“I’ll give Michael a ride home.” A new voice, one Michael recognized immediately, broke in.

“Alan, I didn’t know you were here.” Michael tugged his hand free of Jane’s and held it out. Alan took it and they shook. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course I’m here. I wouldn’t have not come.” Alan released Michael’s hand and spoke to Jane and Ross. “I’d be glad to give Michael a ride home.”

Though the offer was made quietly, it had the effect of cutting off the argument before it could really get going. And for that Michael was grateful. After three days with Phillip’s family hovering and tending and lovingly bossing him around, he needed space and silence. If Alan Stuart could get that for him, then he was all about that.

“Thank you, Alan, I appreciate that. ” More than you can ever know, Michael added silently. He turned back to Ross. “Can I, please have my cane from the car, Ross?”

Alan Stuart had been one of Phillip’s nurses while he was in the acute care wing of the nursing home. Not really a nurse though, more of a minder, a certified nursing assistant hired by the family–not that the decision had been unanimous, not by any measure–to supplement the care he got from the facility staff. Seeing him now, here at Phillip’s funeral, was somehow comforting, like Alan had not entirely finished caring for Phillip, not until Phillip’s grieving partner was safely home.

It was a strange thought, but today was a day for strange thoughts.

“Michael, are you sure you won’t come to the luncheon?” Jane’s voice rose, high and thin, like she might start crying again any second. If she did, he would stand no chance of escape.

“I’m sure, Janey.” He turned to her, hugged her. “I just can’t. Okay?”

She hugged him back, clinging for a long moment. “Okay.”

“Here’s your cane, Michael.” Ross shoved the folded up cane into Michael’s hand. “I wish you’d reconsider. You’re putting us in a hell of an awkward position, you know, having to explain why you aren’t at the luncheon.”

Michael opened his mouth to tell Ross what he could do with his awkward position. But before he could make a bad situation even worse, Alan spoke up.

“Shall we go then?”

Michael nodded. He turned resolutely away from Phillip’s sister and her bully of a husband and braced for the awkward few moments of explaining to Alan the best way to guide a blind person. But rather than grab Michael by the hand, the way you would a five-year-old, the way most people did, or seize his arm, or worst of all, try to tow him along by his coat sleeve, Alan offered his elbow just the way you were supposed to.

Michael took it and they walked across the frozen ground and away from Phillip’s well-meaning relatives.

Alan didn’t try to make small talk as they walked, another thing for which Michael was grateful. The only sounds came from their feet on the snow, the crunch of tires, the thunk of closing car doors and the purr of departing engines.

“Here’s my car,” Alan came to a stop. Keys jingled and a lock clicked. Opening the door, he stepped back. He didn’t try to ‘help’, only waited as Michael placed his hand on the door and slid into the passenger seat. The door was closed after him and for a moment he was blessedly alone.

Michael took a breath. He hoped Alan wouldn’t try to make conversation. He wasn’t up for that.

The driver’s door opened and Alan got behind the wheel. He started the engine and when the radio came on, he turned it off. “The heat will take a few minutes, but eventually it’ll warm up in here.”

“I’m fine. It’s just good to be out of the wind.”

And it was. The heater whirred and blew cold air on Michael’s legs. He shivered.

In the close confines of the car, he could smell the other man, not cologne, but something clean and a little piney. Soap maybe. It was nice.

“I know what you mean. I sometimes think cemeteries are the coldest places on earth.”

Something twisted in Michael’s chest as he thought of Phillip again. How long would they wait before they put him in the ground?

He turned in his seat and faced Alan. “Would you do me a favor?”

“Sure, if I can.”

“Would you just drive around until everyone’s gone, then bring me back here? Just for a minute?” He took a breath, suddenly desperate and terribly afraid Alan would say no. Or laugh at his request, the way Ross would have. “I wasn’t really ready, you know, when it was time …”

“I can do that,” Alan said very quietly.

For perhaps five, maybe ten minutes, they drove around before Alan stopped and turned off the engine.

“They’re all gone, if you’re ready.”

Michael nodded. He ran his hand over the door panel, found the handle and opened the door. The wind slapped at him, blowing snowflakes into his face.

They walked back to Phillip’s grave in silence. Just as they reached it and stopped, a man’s voice asked, “Problem?”

One of the grave diggers, Michael supposed, one of the men who would put Phillip in the ground and throw shovels full of dirt on top of him. Michael started to answer, but Alan replied for him.

“We just wanted another minute, if that’s all right.”

“Sure, sure. Take your time.”

Wordlessly taking Michael’s hand, Alan placed it on the coffin.

Michael pulled off his glove and pressed his palm to the wood. But it wasn’t enough. Leaning in he pressed his cheek to the side of the coffin. Despite the freezing temperatures and the relentless wind, the wood felt warm from where the sun struck it.

“I miss you,” Michael whispered. He closed his eyes against the first prick of tears. He wouldn’t cry, not here. But if not here, then where? Blinking hard, he drew a deep breath of frigid air and choked back the ball of grief clogging his throat.

God, Phillip. God.

Moments passed, he couldn’t have said how many, and he might have stayed there, bent over just that way, except for the hand that settled lightly on his back. Funny, but he didn’t flinch or pull away, didn’t even want to. Because that hand, that touch, didn’t require him to respond in any way. It wasn’t there to rush him along. or break into his last moments with Phillip, it was simply there, offering support and a connection.

But it wasn’t long before he began to get cold.

“I have to go,” he told Phillip. “I love you.” He pressed his lips to the sun-warmed wood, not caring what Alan or the other men thought of his actions, then he straightened and turned. “I think I’m ready to go now.”

Back behind the wheel, Alan slid a glance at his passenger as he started the engine and turned on the heater.

Michael sat quietly with his hands in his lap. One hand was still bare, his glove clutched in the other. His cane lay on the floor at his feet. Strain and grief showed in his expression, the set of his jaw, the tightness around his mouth. That beautiful mouth.

Stop it.

The man was grieving, and here he was admiring his mouth, and, not for the first time, he’d let himself imagine what it would be like to kiss that mouth, to feel those full lips part under his own. Oh, but he’d like a taste of that mouth.

“Turn left in point two miles.” The synthesized female voice of his GPS broke into his inappropriate musings. Shit, he had no idea where he was going.

He jerked his attention back to the road. “What’s your address, Michael?”

Michael started and turned his head, his eyes concealed behind dark lenses. “Oh, I guess that would help, wouldn’t it?”

“Unless you want to come to my house.” He made it sound like a joke, even if he was only half kidding.

One corner of Michael’s mouth lifted briefly, just the ghost of a smile. It gave a tantalizing hint at what Michael’s smile really looked like.

God.

As Phillip DiMartino’s attendant, Alan had seen quite a bit of Michael Stricker, the longtime partner of his patient. During the days that stretched into weeks following Phillip’s stroke, Michael had sat by the bedside, his hand stuck through the side-rails, holding his lover’s hand and talking to him about anything and nothing, his quiet voice a constant refrain against the other, softer sounds of the hospital. Day after day, night after night, Alan had watched as Phillip’s condition remained the same and Michael’s grew steadily worse. He lost weight, his skin taking on a grayish pallor until Alan had become more concerned with the partner than the patient.

Then, five days ago, Phillip’s body had at last given up the fight and he had died.

Alan sought out the announcement of the death, watching the paper each day until he found the obit. He had marked the time and place of the services, so he could pay his respects, and not, he told himself, so he could see Michael Stricker again.

Buy the book from MLR.

http://www.mlrbooks.com/Bookstore.php?bookid=KGTOSOON