Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
And is it cliché to say that knowing she is now sans panties excites me?
I don’t care. It does.
She is looking down at me now. And she smiles. “Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Sorry about that.”
“It was worth it, don’t you think?”
She nods. Almost bites her lip, but thinks better of it. “Now what?”
Oooh. Is that code for ‘be my Master?’ I think it is. “Take off my tie.”
It’s already loose—that ‘after-hours’ look really was genius—so she slips it over my head and tosses it out into the Land of Throwaway Shoes.
What comes next is unexpected—Master Choke would have a heart attack, but I don’t. Because Cordelia doesn’t wait for more instructions. She just starts unbuttoning my shirt.
I look down, watching her nimble fingertips pop each and every button until she gets to the part where it’s tucked in. She doesn’t even hesitate. Just grips my shirt with both hands and tugs until it comes free. She pops the last two buttons, spreads my shirt open, and takes a long, long look at my chest.
When our eyes meet up once more, I see a glint of lust in her.
Then… well, I’m not completely sure what happens. We’re kissing, and it’s sloppy, and filled with lots of tongue, and all the while her nimble fingertips are popping the top button of my trousers. Then there’s a rip of a zipper. And while she’s doing that, I’m lifting her dress up and grabbing her thighs, pulling her towards me, so at just the right moment she’s lifting her hips and I’m pretty happy with how all those underwear tribulations haven’t affected my showing, and then—we’re sighing.
I’m inside her.
She’s moaning, and her fingernails are gripping my shoulders, and I’m hugging her tight and kissing her neck, and pulling her dress down to reveal her luscious breasts—kissing those too.
And it’s literally the best fuck of my life.
“So, I kicked his fucking dog!”
Slamming back yet another shot of Jägermeister, Leslie Munch, aka Raylen Star, barks a malicious chortle that would send paroxysms of anxiety through a coven of witches, unaware of the gawking she is receiving from the assembled company.
“You… kicked… a dog?” asks Persephone Marlowe, author of the bestselling Carnival of Indiscretions novels. (And the presumed creator of the ‘clown college’ romance subgenre.)
“What?” spits out Leslie, suddenly self-conscious in a way that Leslie Munch does not enjoy. “The guy wouldn’t stop asking me for money. Sorry you’re homeless, pal! Not my fault!”
And then, politely, but swiftly, the effulgence of gathered romance titans all begin to peel away from Ms. Munch, excusing themselves back to their suites to try to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s panels do start early, after all.
One by one they take their leave, until the only revelers remaining in the grand seating area of the Aria’s Ultra Lounge are Leslie herself, one Britney Kincaid, and SS—the genial hostess of this spectacular event—along with her now-dozing husband, Mike.
Britney, good and thoroughly tippled, turns her head back toward the conversation in which she was previously engaged and, referring to Leslie, makes the following observation: “So… she’s just genuinely awful, huh?”
SS, aka Essie, equally tippled, sighs long and heavy before acknowledging, “Yeah. It’s a shame.”
“What do you mean? What’s a shame?” a curious Britney Kincaid asks, searching the bottom of her champagne flute for the last drops of the bubbly nectar.
“She was on top of the world for a long time and then…” Taking a considered look at the former queen known as Raylen Star, Essie shakes her head. “And then I dunno what happened.”
Britney also glances over at the angry woman still at the bar as Leslie now, in the absence of her formerly captive audience, turns her attention to the bartender, who forces a smile as he pours Leslie another shot and she reaches for his hand in a somewhat inappropriate way.
“Yeah,” Britney says, allowing the word to roll around in her mouth and draw out before adding, “I read her stuff. She was great.” Then, turning her head once again back toward SS and a lightly snoring Mike, head resting on his wife’s shoulder, Britney raises an eyebrow and asks, “Hey, why did she call your brother a liar?”
There is something of a pregnant pause before Essie responds with, “What?”
“Earlier. In the signing room place. This morning. She came over to where your brother and Cordelia and I were talking, all upset about her placement or whatever, and she told Cordelia to be careful about letting you guys read her book. And when Cord asked her why, she kind of implied that you’re… liars. I just…” Britney Kincaid allows the sentence to trail off upon seeing the expression on her new friend Essie’s face, a narrowed, concerned, but simultaneously skeptical type of look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Essie interjects with something like exhaustion in her voice. “I don’t know. I mean, I can guess, but…” And, as Essie pauses to take another sip from her own glass, she seems to study Britney. (Whether or not Britney is aware of this scrutiny is unclear.) “You know about the lawsuit? The accusations and all that?”