Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“Stay still, Reed. Stay still. Be good for me, and let me fuck you slow and deep.” Because I remember that first time. How he asked if I needed to come again, though he was on the edge of coming himself. That memory has occupied my brain ever since. Wondering what would’ve happened if I’d told him to hold off until I came again. If he would have. If he could have. “But don’t come until I’m done.”
“Anything,” he promises gruffly, fisting his hands in the blankets. “Anything you need.”
I begin riding him slowly, my fingers stroking my clit. By the first time I come, my cunt’s so slippery and swollen that each up and down slide must feel like an endless wet sucking the length of his cock. As I come the second time, Reed’s heaving beneath me, his voice hoarse and begging—until I tell him it’s finally his turn, and he flips me around, but doesn’t stop fucking me until somehow I come again.
A while later, I’m lying bonelessly atop him and wallowing in the feel of his skin, his heat, his strength. My nap’s long overdue, but I’m not sure now that I want to miss a single second of this day.
Because this truly ended up being the best Christmas ever.
Reed
Reed
This is the shittiest book I’ve ever written. Just stupid. Only one day ago, I told Abbie, I think I get better the more I write. Then I produce this fucking pile of garbage.
I power down the Neo and shove away from the table. Outside the window, icicle spears drip from the eaves. The sun’s a blinding glare against all the white. Even as I watch, glops of snow fall from the trees. The warm front must have arrived, exactly as forecasted. Melting everything. And if it keeps up, this time next week, the road will be clear enough for us to leave.
Fucking hell.
I stalk across the cabin. Abbie’s at her easel, working. I should be working. But there’s no goddamn point. The book is shit, my writing is shit, the characters are shit, the whole idea is shit. Fuck it all.
I pace back to the window. My thigh muscle still pulls with every step, though it’s not so painful now. More like the soreness that shows up two days after a brutal workout. I could use an hour in the gym now. I get some of my best thinking done in between sets, when I can just let my brain poke and poke at the story. But pushups might do.
There’s enough room by the table. I drop, do fifty, then lie on the floor. Then fifty more.
I’m about to sprawl out on the floor again when Abbie waves her hand in front of my face. She’s crouching beside me, her eyes dark with concern.
I slide my headphones down.
“Are you okay?” She looks me up and down. “Is this cabin fever? Do you want to go on a hike before it gets too slushy?”
“It’s not cabin fever.” I roll over onto my back. “I’m just…thinking. Trying to work something out.”
“In your story?”
“Yeah.”
“Will it help to talk it out?”
“I don’t know. I never have before.” I scrub my hand over my face. “I just don’t know how to describe something.”
“Do you need the internet to research it first? Can you skip over the description until you get back?”
“No. It’s a necessary part of my main character’s motivation. But I’m having trouble being precise.”
“Well,” she says, settling crosslegged on the floor next to me, “I’m good for bouncing ideas off of, if you want.”
I go up on my elbows and see her gaze dart to where my shirt has ridden up on my stomach. The tip of her tongue touches her upper lip, as if she’s picturing licking or kissing that spot, and that immediately makes me feel better about the whole damn world. “It’s just…love.”
Her widened gaze flies back to my face. “What?”
“In my book. Or not in my books. A few weeks ago, I read a review of my last release—”
She sucks in a breath. “Even I know not to do that.”
“Normally I wouldn’t. But I’ve followed her blog for a while and our tastes are similar. So when she recommends something, I know I’ll probably like it.”
“Then your book shows up in her feed and you can’t help yourself?”
That’s exactly what happened. “It was actually a good review. Four out of five. And she said that she likes my work in general, but that she’d realized what was missing in all my books—because the main characters are all loners, and although some of them have people they care for and some have others they protect, there’s never anyone in the story that they actually love. And if they have loved, that person’s always gone and grief is all that’s left. But she said at least the grief offers the characters some emotional depth that might otherwise be missing, since they don’t love anyone else within the story.”