Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54836 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
I turned, moving into the living room, dropping down onto the couch, and letting her ride me as my hands moved over her, teasing up her ribs, closing over her breasts, twisting her nipples into tightened buds.
Her lips came over mine as she moved, deep and long, until I felt it in my bones, in my damn soul.
The rightness of this.
Of her and me.
Together.
I had a ring in my sock drawer upstairs.
I think it was time to finally offer it to her.
Mari - 7 years
“Honey, what did you order, one of everything?” Wells asked as he came in the front door carrying one of the boxes I’d seen the delivery guy bringing up to the door on a dolly. No less than three times.
I felt bad for the guy, but reminded myself that I’d put out a big basket of treats for Christmas to thank them for their hard work.
I’d been having to order a lot of author copies of my books the past few months.
Through some hustling, I’d started up a direct sales store where my readers could buy signed copies of my books. Which meant that I typically had hundreds, or even thousands, of books to sign every few months.
“I know. It was a big order this time,” I said, moving forward, but getting a stern look from Wells. His gaze moved from my face, to my belly, then back up again.
I wasn’t supposed to be lifting anything heavier than twenty-five pounds. Which I was already doing that several times a day when our toddler simply refused not to be picked up.
“I should probably hire an assistant to do this kind of thing,” I said as I watched Wells bring in box after box.
“I think you are far enough in your career to warrant one,” Wells agreed, giving me that pride-filled smile that never failed to make my heart squeeze.
He was right, though.
I’d come so far in such a relatively short amount of time. While being a wife to him, a fur mama to our fur babies, and then a mother to our actual children.
At the beginning, riding high on the praise from new fans, I’d written relentlessly, day and night, often waking up in the middle of the night to get more words written.
Those first three years, I wrote seven books total.
Once our son was born, I’d needed to slow down.
But once he’d gotten on more of a schedule, the writing bug had bitten me in the butt again, producing another three books during the course of my pregnancy. Which would allow for an elongated “maternity leave” while I enjoyed time with my little girl.
I was making easily double what I was making as a physical therapist, even working half or a third as much as I used to.
I wasn’t surprised to find that a lot of my fanbase was women who enjoyed the stories where the heroines always got the bad guys in the end.
True crime was almost always focusing on the perpetrators.
I framed the focus away from them in fiction.
I wouldn’t declare my love of true crime had diminished, per se. But I was much more selective in what I consumed now, refusing to give my eyes and ears to any content creator who focused too much on the killers and not enough on the victims or survivors.
My hand went to my belly, wondering if our baby girl would consume true crime as she got older. If she might come across content framed around the man who’d tormented me.
We would raise her to be prepared and aware. Wells’s job also made him hyper-aware of the dangers of the world. Especially toward young women. He’d already made me agree to putting her into martial arts as soon as she was old enough.
Yes, we hated the idea of having to do that.
Or to bring children into a world where they could be victims.
I’d really struggled with that before we’d decided to start trying to have children.
It had been Gawen, over dinner one night, who’d convinced me otherwise, who told me how important it was to bring more good people into the world to balance out the bad.
For all we knew, our kids would grow up to catch bad guys like their father. Or become the psychologists who would heal the cracks in someone’s soul before they lashed out and hurt someone else.
Whatever they wanted to do, I was sure they would bring goodness into the world. And that was all a parent could hope for with their children.
“How was work?” I asked, following Wells into the kitchen as Hector kept nudging his head under his hand.
Out back, we had the most recent NBPD K9 unit fail.
A sweet, droopy-eared Bloodhound who was meant to sniff for heroin, but only seemed capable of following his nose in the direction of any food in the vicinity. Even if that meant leaping over a fence, and stealing it off of someone’s picnic table.