Page 28 of Wait With Me
“We did! This is a true story!” I retort and keep going. “And somehow, they think we’re their honored guests for the evening. We think the people they were expecting never showed up. I guess. I don’t know, the details of that are still fuzzy.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“We kinda just rolled with it because we were tired and we thought, ‘all we need is a bed to crash in, who cares what this woman is doing with a dude on a leash. That’s her business.’”
“Your ex won’t tell his family what you do, but he was open-minded to that kind of scene?”
I bark out a laugh. “He was as high as a fucking kite! He had consumed three edibles in retaliation to the fact that I forgot to book a hotel room. I don’t know, he’s an idiot.”
“Agreed,” Miles adds with a scowl.
I can’t help but giggle at the serious tone in his voice. “I don’t think he even realizes what he’s seeing. Like I think he was actually seeing dogs on leashes, not human subs.”
A full-on belly laugh erupts from Miles, and he eventually asks, “What happened?”
My brows lift. “You mean, did we participate?”
“Yeah,” he admits with a shameless shrug.
“We did not,” I reply with a sad smile. “Since we were the honored guests, we were only there to watch. The Head Mistress was very clear about that. She ushered us into this Western-looking parlor room and seated us in frickin’ thrones, complete with sashes and crowns. Then, they basically put on a BDSM performance for us. It was frickin’ insane!”
“Sounds like it.”
“Naturally, I go to bed that night and think, I have to write down everything that just happened or no one will believe it. So I did. It wasn’t super hard for me because I was already a copy editor and a huge reader. But I was pretty much writing it like a book, not a journal. It was complete with dialogue, descriptions, and the whole nine yards. I thought it would be really fun to take creative liberties with the story, so I kept going. Next thing I knew, I had a damn book!
“I came up with this utterly ridiculous pen name when I was drunk one night. A crazy story deserved a crazy pen name, so I settled on…”
I pause for dramatic effect, and Miles rolls his hand out in front of him, encouraging me to continue.
“Mercedes Lee Loveletter.”
I shrug and giggle, enjoying the stunned look in his eyes right before he asks, “What’s your real last name then?”
I pause and bite my lip, quickly trying to decide how far I want to take this. It’s a quick internal debate, though, because I know without a doubt that I love being Mercedes with Miles ten times more than I’ve ever loved being Kate, especially with men like Dryston. “It’s Smith,” I reply honestly because it’s not like he’ll find me on Facebook or something. I removed my personal account a long time ago because it was too much to monitor that profile as well as my pen name.
“Smith,” he repeats with a nod, the corners of his mouth turning down with a concealed smile. “So why Loveletter then?”
“Well, because that was how the BDSM performance all started. This giant dominatrix removed a ball gag from her slave’s mouth so he could read a love letter he’d written to his mistress. It was really sweet actually. He even cried.”
Miles shakes his head. “That’s how your journey began then?”
“Yep,” I reply with an audible pop. “I self-published the story and didn’t even know it hit the New York Times until an agent emailed me to ask if I had representation.”
“Holy shit!” Miles exclaims, clearly impressed. “That’s an incredible story.”
“Book-worthy,” I correct with a grin. This is fun. It’s been forever since I’ve thought back through the whole saga, and Miles is lapping it up like a dog. “And it clearly gave me the itch to write because once I started, I couldn’t stop.”
“Until your slump with this book.”
“Until Tire Depot saved me.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “And you said this book is the last in the series?”
I nod my head. “Yep.”
“And then on to the next book.”
“It’s like an itch I can’t stop scratching.”
