Page 85 of Lemon Crush

No. It was Wade.

“Do you want some water?” I asked hurriedly. “I’m parched. I’ll grab us a bottle and be right back.”

I rolled away from him and out of the bed with more speed than one might expect from liquified limbs, then tossed on his shirt. I’d reached the door before he finally responded.

“You’reparched?”

“That’s whaty’allsay here instead of thirsty, right?” My attempt at an accent was embarrassing.

Parched. Thirsty. Scorched. Bone dry.

That last one wasn’t true, I thought as my slick thighs slid against each other on my way down the short hall.

Tell him about it, August.

Why? I’d never told him about the other characters I’d based on him, even though he’d probably figured it out by now because he’d read the books and I was not subtle.

They also hadn’t liked rough sex in as many interesting positions as this one did. At least, not on paper.

I never really followed the “write what you know” rules of fiction. It was fiction—I wrote about other worlds with empowering feminine magic and true love with worthy partners, where the villains rarely won in the end.

That wasnotwhat I knew. But I’d inadvertently wandered into knowing territory with my current work in progress. The mechanic and the introverted woman in her forties who was obsessed with him.

Like I said before, I never thought that anyone but Chick would read it.

Merlin lifted his head from the couch and I paused on my way to the kitchen to scratch him behind the ears. He grumbled but leaned into the touch he considered his due. He’d been more affectionate lately. Maybe the hurricane had him rethinking his priorities too. Maybe he appreciated me more now that I left the house occasionally.

“It’s a good thing you refuse to sleep in the dog bed I boughtfor my room,” I told him with a giddy grin. “I wouldn’t want to ruin your beauty sleep with all my fun.”

He stared at me blandly, unblinking until I left him for the kitchen.

I took two water bottles out of the fridge and then leaned heavily against the sink to stare out into the darkness. Everything felt different now. Not only because of Wade and the epic sex we’d just had.

Epic. That was definitely the right word. It had been more life altering than losing my virginity, and I’d gotten flowers for that. True story. Both my mother’s friends and my sister had sent me flowers the day after I finally did the deed at the ripe old spinster age of twenty-two.

My sister had been the one to spread the word, and Morgan’s bouquet had been all stalks and no blooms, celebrating my “deflowering” and proving that she really could have a wicked sense of humor when she wanted to.

That had to go in a book someday.

The fact that I was thinking about “someday” books instead of dreading unfinished manuscripts was something I wanted to give myself flowers about. That and the race were the only future-related things I was willing to pay attention to right now.

I thought about my argument with Morgan again. She hadn’t been doing anything I didn’t do to myself all the time. Questioning my decisions. Worrying them to death and anxiously dissecting all the imaginative ways things could go wrong.

But I wasn’t going to fall into that trap this time. I was only going to focus on the present. And in the present, there was a man I’d always wanted, who—wonder of wonders—liked what he saw when he looked at me, was amazing in bed, and wasn’t pushing for or expecting anything more than I was able to offer.

So why was I standing alone in the dark kitchen when I could be snuggled up in bed with him?

As if thinking of him had made him appear, his arm came around me from behind and his hand reached for the extra water beside me. Still holding me, he took a deep drink, emptying half the bottle.

Then he set it down and turned me in his arms, pressing his growing erection against me through the T-shirt. “You were about to tell me about a dirty book?”

“I knew you wouldn’t let that drop.” I slid my hands over his chest, unable to resist indulging in this newfound ability to touch him. “I may or may not be writing a spicy book about a guy that works on cars, looks exactly like you and likes to give his heroine orgasms. It’s basically an exercise,to get my writing chops back for my main series.”

He didn’t leer at me or look uncomfortable. Instead, he started kissing a line from my jaw to my neck, pausing only when the collar of his shirt got in the way.

“You going to let me read it, August?”

“I thought you said you had enough ideas of your own?”

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