Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
This shouldn’t be hard to say. But it’s tough for a guy who’s obsessed with control. So I talk around it. “Things I want you to do to me. That sort of everything.”
A sexy smile spreads nice and easy on his lips. “Everything with you sounds good to me.”
“Yeah?” I ask, excitement and arousal pinging through my cells.
“Really fucking good, TJ.”
So many deliciously dirty daydreams fight their way to the front of the line, crowding my head, making it hard for me to form sentences, let alone words. I try to say something witty or sexy, but the only thing that slips past my lips is a heated mmm.
Perhaps sensing what I need, Jude speaks to me first through touch. His hand slides down my arm, then to my hip, finally resting on my ass. “Maybe you can share more of that list with me in Vegas. Sounds like the perfect setting for everything,” he says.
My heart hammers wildly just from the man I want saying—for all intents and purposes—that he’ll fuck me soon. Very soon.
“Sounds good to me,” I say.
He gives me a firm squeeze. “Now I’m horny again.”
I steal an obvious peek at the evidence. Yup. He’s half hard. Same here. “That’s pretty much a given for me when I’m with you.”
Jude lets go, stretching his arms above his head. “Have you ever heard of this book called Happy Trail?”
I laugh lightly. “Um, maybe. Is the author a strapping stud with a great beard and a cock you love sucking?”
Jude languidly shifts to his side, brushes his fingertips down my chest. “Remember that scene when Clint took Nick back to his ranch home, ripped off his clothes, and tossed him down on the couch?”
That sneaky fucker. That sexy, sneaky, clever fucker. Mouth agape, I stare slack-jawed at Jude. “You were trying out a scene from one of my books?”
He shrugs slyly. “Well, Clint liked to bite Nick, and Nick discovered he liked Clint’s teeth. That gave me the idea.”
“You do enjoy fieldwork,” I say, somehow even more satisfied than I already was.
“I didn’t know if I’d like being bitten, but it was so sexy in your book. So once you bit me, I wanted to find out.”
“And the verdict is . . . do it again sometime?”
His eyes darken. He holds my gaze in a way that feels more than sexual. “I want to do everything again when it comes to you.”
What a perfect line from a hero. Only it’s real, and it’s mine, and I want to keep it all to myself.
I don’t want to put it in a story because I want it to be ours.
Only ours.
Before the day coasts into twilight, I get dressed and head to the door. Jude follows.
“I’d invite you to stay,” he says, “but I demand you go home and handcuff yourself to your laptop.”
That’s my plan. I’ll miss him, but this novel won’t write itself. “You’re feeding me orgasms to get me to make words,” I tease.
“Good thing I like both coming and reading.” He glances at the clock in his kitchen, quickly shifting to a new topic. I appreciate that he didn’t ask to see my pages. I’m not ready yet to show anyone but Hazel and my agent. “Want to share a car to the airport on Thursday?”
“I’m sure Slade would want us to,” I say.
Jude closes the distance, holds my face. “I’m not asking for Slade. I’m asking for me, TJ. Will you share a car with me because I want to go with you?”
My chest glows. I know this feeling. I chase this feeling for my characters.
Infatuation.
With Jude, it’s even more terrifying the third time around, especially since I say yes.
19
MY SECRET CAVE IN MIDDLE EARTH
TJ
First comes the bright tone of the trumpet—next the majestic rumble of the tuba. Then the crisp rattle of the snare drum.
Mason rounds his desk, waving an imaginary baton, conducting the marching band pumping through his computer.
“You wanted a parade,” he declares as I stare from the doorway, my jaw on the floor. In the pantheon of Mason praise, this is Everest.
“For real?”
He stretches across his desk with a flourish, hits a key, then cuts the sound. “For real, but don’t let it go to your head, kid.”
“You do an excellent job at downsizing my head daily.”
The dapper man takes a chair across from the couch, gesturing for me to grab a seat too.
I do, and I’m literally and figuratively on the edge of it. The possibility that the pages I sent him last night aren’t garbage is exhilarating. But just to make sure . . . “So? You like the first few chapters?”
“No, TJ. I just planned that entire Sousa reenactment on a Wednesday morning because I hated them,” he says with an aggrieved sigh, lifting his gaze heavenward. “What is it with today’s youth? They’re so needy. Back in my day—”