“Did we figure out a cover yet?”
“The designer is looking. She knows the drill. Hot guy, shirtless, abs for days.”
“Well why doesn’t she use a picture of you?”
“Riiiiight. You haven’t even seen me with my shirt off, how would you know?”
“I felt your abs through your shirt last night,” I tell him.
“Ah. She admits that last night happened.”
“Fine but it’s over so please stop talking in third person.”
“I’m flattered that you think I do steroids but honestly I’m way too pretty to be on the cover of an erotica novel.”
“I think your ego may be in some need of a boost,” I muse dryly.
“So you’ve noticed? It’s hard to stay confident when the main woman in your life won’t return your god damn texts.”
“Well you won me over with Mike Rotch, so what does that say about me?”
“It says let me come get you, let’s write this bloody thing.”
“Fine. At the library. The one at the school is still open.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t think we should be alone together.”
Silence. I can practically hear him thinking. “And why is that?”
“Because sex makes things messy.”
“Messy is good.”
“And according to you, so is greed and we won’t even get a chance to be greedy if we’re too preoccupied with sex.”
“Believe me, you’ll be greedy,” he says lazily. “You’ll have the greediest cunt around once I’ve gotten through to you.”
My cheeks flame. Damn.
“You’re speechless,” he says after a beat.
I clear my throat a few times. “I’m trying to think of a witty comeback.”
“Don’t think so much then. In case you didn’t notice, we didn’t have sex. I just kissed you. And I asked permission.”
“No you didn’t, you just told me you were doing it.”
“And you were totally fine with it.”
“I was caught up in the moment.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with that. When should I get you?”
“I’m serious,” I tell him, my resolve coming back. “Meet me in the library at six, the same corner we were in the first time we met there.”
“Ah, memories.”
“See you then.” And I hang up on him before he can say anything else.
Lord help me get through this.
***
Despite not texting Rio earlier, she ends up texting me about wanting to go to the beach and smoke some weed, so I agree to spend the day with her on the sandy shores of Cordova Bay Beach.
Though the sun is hot and strong and I have to apply SPF 50 every twenty minutes, it is still May and the ocean is only for the brave. I don’t smoke a lot of pot but I have a toke or two, enough to just relax and get my mind to stop racing over all the Blake and my family bullshit. Rio, however, runs in and out of the water, shrieking as she goes, much to the annoyance of families nearby. She’s actually quite the sight – even though it was her idea to go to the beach and she managed to pack a cooler full of cider and sandwiches, she’s wearing mismatching bra and underwear in lieu of a swimsuit and you can totally see her nipples.
I really want to talk to her about Blake but somehow I keep it inside. It helps that when she gets high, she talks a mile a minute and about her own romantic endeavours. I learn that the single dad is gone, some foreign exchange student named Xan is in temporarily, and she’s seriously considering abstaining from sex and chocolate for the rest of the summer.
“You’re nuts,” I tell her.
She shrugs, her dark curly hair falling over her shoulder. She’s lying on her stomach on her ratty towel, reading the latest issue of Travel and Leisure with a dreamy look on her face. “I like a challenge. Don’t you?”
I thought I did. I turns out that the erotica is the easiest part of our whole deal. It’s Blake who is going to test me till the very end.
At just before six I get to the library and Blake is already there, the corner set up with his laptop and notepads and it’s like we’re starting our night shift at the perv factory.
He looks up at me inquisitively, hair rumpled, the slate grey sleeves of his shirt rolled up to showcase his strong forearms. He’s so utterly gorgeous, I have no idea how I’m going to survive tonight.
“I was worried you chickened out,” he says quietly as I take the seat across from him. My eyes linger on his strong jaw and I remember the way his stubble scraped against my sensitive skin last night, how badly I wanted him to keep going.
“We’ve got some smut to write,” I tell him, taking out my computer. “A world of horny women are depending on us.”
He stares at me for a moment, smiling faintly. There’s no masking the sheen of intensity in his eyes, the way they hold me in my place.
Please stop staring at me like that, I plead internally, ignoring the flash of heat between my legs. Say something.
He doesn’t say anything but he eventually looks away and starts typing. We both have our last chapters to write, which of course are pretty much nothing but sex, then there’s the epilogue from Ford’s POV, which again is full of weeping cocks and clenching pussies.
Only now I’m stuck, just as he was the other day. I really want this scene to pop but once again I’m wary that I’m not saying anything new. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find different words for dick and cock and pussy and cunt. After a while you just have to accept that erotica is going to always be a bit repetitive, even though you strive to be different.