Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 17808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 89(@200wpm)___ 71(@250wpm)___ 59(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 89(@200wpm)___ 71(@250wpm)___ 59(@300wpm)
So…I’d run, and we’d never chatted again.
It was my biggest regret, which again, totally tame and ridiculous, but it was how I felt. Somehow, I knew MakeYouSmile had been the man for me, and I’d let him slip away.
When I didn’t answer, another reply came through from BoyToy.
BoyToy5600: Why don’t you just go skinny-dipping?
It sounded so easy when someone said it like that. For a second, I thought about lying, but it wasn’t as if these guys knew who I was. If I couldn’t be honest with them, who could I be honest with?
WordsAreLife: I don’t want to go by myself. I want to do it with a man…someone I’m interested in…so I can try to capture a moment I lost eight years ago.
If I were in one of my novels, I’d go for it, or some sexy hunk of a man would strip me and carry me into the water with him. We’d meet and get naked and fall in love. It would be hot AF.
I had a pretty active imagination.
BoyToy5600: Then find someone and ask them to get naked with you. What about that guy? The one you’re secretly obsessed with?
I blushed, even though there was no one there to see me. No way could I ask him.
No way could I ask Ronan.
WordsAreLife: Obsessed is a strong word. I prefer the guy I’m crushing on.
BoyToy5600: Do it. I’m gonna ask you about it every time you’re online until you do.
Could I? And if I did, what was I supposed to say? Hey, wanna engage in my strange kink with me? No? Kthanxbye.
I would never ask and if I did, he would never say yes. It was silly to even pretend otherwise. Still, when I went to bed that night, I fantasized about not only skinny-dipping with my secret crush, but all the other things I knew he would be able to do to me.
CHAPTER ONE
Mickey
I loved writing dirty, filthy things in public.
I was a wallflower. Small, twinkish, ginger, freckled, and quiet. I wore dark-rimmed glasses and didn’t demand a lot of attention. At twenty-six, I’d had penetrative sex exactly one time, had given two blow jobs, and was often told I looked like a choir boy, whatever that meant. That’s why it gave me a secret thrill to write erotic sex scenes while in Extra Shot, my favorite coffeehouse on West Ninth Street in Cleveland. No one would expect such a thing from me, and I’d basically die if anyone ever discovered who I was.
That might sound dramatic but it was true.
I only wrote at the coffee shop when my favorite table was available. It was perfect—a small circle in the corner where I could put my back against the wall, and no one could see what I was doing. I’d get off from my job as a librarian, head over to Extra Shot, and transform from Mickey Boring—that was literally my last name—to Adrian Raynes.
The eye candy didn’t hurt either.
Extra Shot was owned by Ronan Winters, who was maybe the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. He was tall, because they always were, and he had dark hair, dark eyes with thick lashes, and a sinful mouth. That’s what one of the characters in my erotic novels would call it, at least. He also happened to run Sex with Ronan, a queer podcast I was maybe a little addicted to. Another of my guilty pleasures. I listened every week, imagining Ronan’s face when he talked about being sex positive and how good sex made people happier. Unlike me, he wasn’t in hiding when it came to his after-work activities. Nearly everyone who came into Extra Shot knew who Ronan Winters was.
Another secret—one that maybe got me off when it was just me and my hand or my dildo—Ronan read my books. I only knew because he’d spoken about them on his podcast. I’d almost lost my shit the first time he’d mentioned them. He was apparently quite the fan. He talked about how my characters owned their sexuality and lived out their fantasies and how brave my writing was. He’d said that about me. He’d genuinely called me brave. WTF even was that? No one who knew me would ever call Mickey Boring brave, but apparently Adrian Raynes was. Or at least Ronan thought so.
I opened the door to Extra Shot on a Thursday night. I’d left the library, gone home to shower and change, then made my way to the shop. Ronan was there. I was pretty sure he was always there, and I wondered if he had a secret room in the back where he recorded his episodes of Sex with Ronan. I also wondered what it would feel like to actually have sex with Ronan, but it wasn’t as if that would ever happen.
“Hey, Freckles. You’re a little late today. I worried my favorite customer wasn’t going to come in,” he said before he grinned at me.