I swallow hard and clear my throat. I need to get my head back in the game. “You know,” I say teasingly, running my hand down her neck, down her chest, cupping her breast. Her nipples are immediately hard as my thumb brushes over them, circular and slow. “I owe you a spanking from last night.”
“A celebratory spank?” she asks deviously.
I’d never spanked her before so I’m surprised to see her open to it.
“I’m not joking,” I say, raising my hand. “Eighty for the eightieth spot.”
She wiggles with anticipation and then closes her eyes, mouth open, neck arching back as I pinch her nipple hard.
“Will you pretend to be Ford Titan?” she says huskily, head lolling as I bring my mouth to her nipple and suck. Slowly, gently.
“If you’ll be the naughty school girl,” I murmur against her breast.
“Do we have a ruler?”
I raise my head, mouth going for her neck. “I have measuring tape.”
“Good enough. But you can only use twelve inches. Otherwise it’s not fair.”
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s what you wish she said.”
She’s got me there.
***
“We have our first one-star review,” Amanda grumbles from the patio.
I pad out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around my waist, and spot her with the computer out, looking like a pile of shit has just been dumped on her.
I mean, she’s still stunning wearing one of my worn U-Vic t-shirts, with the sun lit behind her, her face devoid of makeup, the freckles coming through. But her teeth seem to be grinding against each other and I think she’s about to toss the computer off the balcony.
“Well we both knew that was inevitable,” I tell her as I walk up to her, reaching across the table to take a long swing of her coffee. “Not everyone likes every book and the internet breeds assholes. It’s a wicked combination.”
It’s been three days since the book released and we’ve spent nearly every moment together watching it climb and climb to the number eleven spot on Amazon’s list. It’s funny how excited we were with eighty, but now that we’re almost in the top ten, it’s a letdown to be on the cusp of it. We got spoiled really fast and the fears that we’ll fall from our new height is building.
That said, sales are steady, the majority of reviews have been positive and we’ve even started getting fan mail sent to our joint Blake Lovecox email account. I know we’re supposed to be writing new stuff to keep the momentum going, but the thrill of release week and the marketing is taking over. The marketing never bloody ends! We have to pay more attention to our social media feeds—Facebook groups and blogs and Twitter and Instagram and Google Plus (just kidding—no one uses that) —and we even got our cover designer to come up with a logo for us. Our tagline? “No gimmicks, just smut.”
“I get that people are jerks but this is different,” she says, jabbing her finger at the screen. “This is from a blogger who writes her own books on the side without disclosing it, which is some real shady stuff. All this time she’s had a blog and leaving authors all sorts of nasty reviews and then gives her own books five stars. It’s not fair and now she’s being a total cunt to us.”
I can’t help but laugh every time I hear her use that word. It sounds so wonderfully wrong coming from those sweet lips. “Maybe she was having a bad day.”
“Yeah well we’re her biggest competition now so obviously we’re on her radar.”
“Take it as a good sign,” I tell her, coming around and rubbing her shoulders. “This just means we’ve made people stand up and take notice. The more popular we get, the more arrows will be fired our way and I bet a few of those reviews come from other authors anyway. But who cares? As long as we keep being honest and doing what we’re doing, their own desperation will ruin them. Just ignore them. And stop reading reviews.”
“I’ve tried, I can’t help it,” she cries out.
I slam her laptop shut. “There. Stop reading them. They will ruin you.”
“You haven’t even read it!” she protests. “All you’ve seen are four and five stars.”
“And I’m taking the five stars with a grain of salt,” I tell her. “Just as you should with all of them. Look, we’ve done the best we can with the subject we had. The book is done. It’s released into the world. You can’t control how people feel about it so reading reviews is absolutely pointless. Just ignore them and let’s move on.”
She pouts, looking absolutely adorable. “When did you become such a criticism guru?”
“Darling, I went to an all-boys school in England. You only heard criticism. You learn to handle it.”
“And somehow your ego survived intact and grew bigger than ever.”
I grin down at her, slipping my hand down the soft skin of her chest. “What can I say, it was overdue.”
“Seriously though,” she says, putting her hand on mine to stop me. “We have to keep going. With the writing,” she adds.
“All right, well, back to the drawing board.” I sit down across from her and steal her coffee again.
“Hey,” she chides me.
I shrug, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and pushing it back to her. “Sorry darling, I’ll make you another cup. Okay, so we still have those other ideas we came up with.”