Page 112 of Foreplay on Words

“Fuck,” she groaned as her head rolled to the side. She was panting as much as I was.

“I’m gonna feel that later,” she giggled as she ran a hand along my abs.

“I’m sor––”

“No, it was good. I obviously enjoyed myself once I relaxed enough.”

Letting out a breathy chuckle, I carefully collapsed to her side on the bed.

She had a satisfied smile as she looked over at me. “Well, that was new.”

Reaching over, I pulled her against my chest, kissing the side of her head as she snuggled into me. “I love you.”

“Mmm. I’m sure you do now. I’ve heard the way to a man’s heart is good anal.”

Laughing at her sarcasm, I pinched her side.

“I love you too.” Her voice was tired, and her eyelids started to droop. “Nap time?”

I was quite sure I’d had more of a workout than running would have given me this morning.

“Go to sleep, baby.”

She sighed and burrowed into her pillow as I reached down to pull the covers back over us. My thoughts drifted to the almost complete manuscript sitting in Google docs. Another week or so, and it’d be ready to send to Is and Adrian.

I closed my eyes and pulled Chase tighter, trying to shut off my brain and live in the moment.

“Are we really doing this?” We worked on the book all day and were almost ready to submit the manuscript.

“Yeah, I think we are,” she nodded as she smiled at me. “It feels ready. I’m sure Kristine will decorate it with her red pen, but the storyline is solid.”

“They’re going to freak out.”

“Probably,” she shrugged, “but how else are we supposed to do it?”

“You set it to locked, right? Only they have access, but no edits, right?” I was always overly cautious with document settings before sending them. You never knew when an email would fall into the wrong hands.

“Yes. I’m not an amateur,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. We sat on the couch with the laptop propped on our legs as we finished getting the completed manuscript ready to submit to Isobel and Adrian.

“Should we turn our phones off?” Adrian would be on the phone as soon as he realized what we were sending him. I was almost afraid of his reaction; he was unpredictable sometimes.

“No, as much as I’d like to, Isobel would make Adrian drive her out here.”

“She probably would,” I agreed. “We definitely don’t want that. One of them would be bad enough. I don’t want both of them teaming up to come after us.”

“You ready?”

“No,” I groaned as I looked over at her.

“Do you want to delay sending it to them?” Her voice was filled with concern. I knew she would wait if I asked her to, but that wasn’t fair considering all the work we’d put in.

I growled as my finger hovered over the send button. “No. We need to submit it, but I don’t know if they will go crazy. What if the house won’t publish it? We’re both locked into other contracts. What if we wrote a book no one will ever read?”

“They’ll publish it, trust me,” she assured. “They fast-tracked my last book. It’s trendy, and people are curious about it. I think we put a new spin on the subject that’ll sell. Crossing over genres will bring new eyes to both of us. That means more sales for them.”

Her hand came up to caress the side of my face. “It’s good, Evan. If I thought it wasn’t ready, you know I wouldn’t turn it in.””

“I know, but what if my readers all flame it?” Her audience obviously liked sexual content, but mine would not expect it in my current book, much less another one with much more racy content.

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