Hello, everyone! I’m here as Holly Day today 😊 Have you made it through the December frenzy so far? It’s easy to get overwhelmed with everything going on. It’s okay to walk into a room, barricade the door, and sit down to read for a bit. If you need a new story to get you through, I have just the thing for you 😆 Chocolate with a Bite is out today!
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, JMS Books has been hosting an advent calendar where one not previously published story has been given away only to then be published for real the day after. If you’ve missed it, keep an eye out next year, because we’ll be doing this again!
I’m the last person out, so today you can grab Chocolate With a Bite for $0.00 between 12:00 am EST and 11:59 pm EST. I only have one little caveat and that is that I believe you’ll enjoy it more if you’ve read A Vampire Chew Toy first.
Chocolate with a Bite is about Devin and Mars from A Vampire Chew Toy, and what you get is a peek at how they’re doing and how much M&Ms one household can consume.
So if you haven’t read A Vampire Chew Toy, hop on over to Smashwords where it’s currently 50% off, and then you hop on over to the JMS Advent calendar and grab Chocolate with a Bite for 100% off, and then you lock the door to whichever room you’re in. They should last you a few hours 😄
Chocolate with a Bite
Devin Jace lives in a huge mansion together with six other people, four of them turn furry, one needs to drink blood to survive, and one is a former blood slave, just like him. Most days he’s happy with his life with his vampire boyfriend, Mars O’Ceallaigh, but today he’s arranged a chocolate-tasting evening for everyone in the house, and Mars is nowhere to be found.
Mars has a problem. The guy delivering his blood bags can’t get hold of any, and Mars is starving. He doesn’t dare go near Devin since he’s afraid his control will shatter, and he’ll eat him. In a bad way. Without informing anyone, he sneaks out of the house to try to figure out what’s gone wrong with the blood delivery.
The night doesn’t turn out as Devin had expected, but he does his best to hide his disappointment. Mars never meant to hurt Devin’s feelings, but what is a hungry vampire to do? Eat his favorite person?
Download link:
Paranormal Gay Romance: 12,941 words
Grab it for FREE in the JMS Books’ Advent Calendar!
Excerpt:
“Okay.” He nodded since he didn’t know what else to do. “So… I’ll add up the result then!” He plastered on a smile and whirled around, doing his best not to acknowledge the lump in his throat. Mars most likely had a good reason for leaving. Maybe he’d gotten hold of someone or gotten a lead or whatever. Though was a closed blood bank something you got leads on? And if there had been new information, he would have informed his team, would he not?
It didn’t matter.
Devin added up the numbers from the M&M voting, having to count several times since his head wasn’t in it. Once he had the numbers and had double-checked them, he tried to find joy in English Toffee Peanut being in the first place, but he didn’t care anymore. He heaved a sigh, worked up to a happy expression, and turned around to face the others.
“We have a result, ladies and gentlemen.” He shook the paper he’d written on to make a sound.
Hanna grinned at him. “Give it to us!”
“In tenth place, and a sign you have no taste whatsoever, we have Mexican Jalapeno Peanut.”
Hanna cheered and clapped her hands, which made Devin grin for real.
“In ninth, we have Coconut. Which is another sign you need to have your taste buds examined. I bought Wild Cherry, so we’d have a clear loser, and you fucked it up.”
Rei chuckled and leaned back in his chair.
“In eighth place, we have the real loser. Wild Cherry.”
There was a soft boo from the doorway, and Devin almost hurt his neck when he turned from the group at the table to locate the source of the sound. Dillon was hovering on the threshold.
“You should all know, Dillon has no taste either, so it’s not only you furries. He placed Wild Cherry as his favorite.” Devin grabbed the Wild Cherry bowl and slowly walked closer to Dillon. He held it out for him. “There are Maltesers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on the table if you want.” He spoke low to not scare him off.
“I’m good.” But he accepted the bowl, and Devin walked back to his place by the island.
“In seventh place, we have Crunchy Raspberry. Not a huge surprise, I don’t think.” There were some hums of agreement. “Then in the sixth, we have Coffee Nut.” Devin made a seesaw gesture. “In fifth, we have Dark Chocolate Creepy Cocoa Crisp. I don’t know if anyone will be sad to see it go. It’s a limited edition.” If it was. He wasn’t sure, he’d only assumed since they were Halloween-themed.
“Now it’s getting a bit interesting.” He looked at them one at a time, ending with Dillon who was still standing in the doorway. Devin was glad he’d remained for the result, even if he didn’t join the others by the table. “In fourth place, Crispy Mint! I think if I’d served coffee at the tasting, it might have climbed a spot, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.” Hanna grinned at him. “I wouldn’t mind if you bought more of them.”
“I have a couple of bags of each flavor in the pantry. I didn’t know how many you’d need to eat to be sure of your choices.” He waved a hand in the direction of the pantry and suspected they’d be gone in a couple of days. It didn’t matter. He’d stocked up on other chocolates, too. It was Christmas, and chocolate and Christmas went hand in hand. He should buy things for the Christmas dinner too; in case the store ran out of stuff. He’d never made a real Christmas dinner before, but he was looking forward to the challenge. Or had been up until now. Now he wanted to go hide in his room.
Focusing on the paper again, he took a deep breath. “In third place, Fudge Brownie.” He gave a low cheer. “Are you nervous now?” He directed the question to Murrie.
“Not at all. I know which is the best, and if you say anything else, you’ve fiddled with the result.”
Devin snorted. “I’m sorry, man, but the original only made it to second place.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. Everyone placed them high, but not as high as they placed today’s winner. English Toffee Peanut!” He clapped his hands, as did Hanna and Rei, though Rei’s claps weren’t as enthusiastic.
“That’s it, folks. I thank you for your cooperation in the important study.” He bowed and smiled as a few of the others laughed.
About Holly Day
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
Connect with Holly on social media:
Website :: Facebook :: Twitter :: Pinterest :: BookBub :: Goodreads :: Newsletter :: TikTok
Ofelia Grand 