Page 161 of Foreplay on Words

More laughter filtered through the crowd, and I smiled as I returned the microphone to Chase.

“That’s probably enough of us gushing over each other,” Chase laughed as she grabbed my hand and winked at me. “Let’s talk about this book and our female protagonist Frances.”

Chase read a passage like the one we’d used before, her voice calm and strong, the whole room captivated by her.

“That was wonderful, Chastity. Let’s open it up to some questions.” Dottie smiled as she borrowed the microphone from Chase.

“I’ve got one.” A tall, slender figure stepped forward from the back of the room, and I immediately recognized Dorrie Elkins, one of my mother’s best friends. “This is for Chase, I mean, Chastity.”

Chase smiled as she shook her head. “That’s okay. I think our cover is a little blown around here.”

The crowd chuckled.

“So, we know that you’ve been working with erotic fiction for several years, and quite fantastically, I might add,” Mrs. Elkins complimented. “But my question is, how does a collaboration work with two authors from such different genres? Do you each write certain parts and try to combine them? Or do you write it all together?”

“Well, for this book, we developed a structured story outline first, mapping out the scenes we wanted to include, and then we decided which of us felt comfortable writing a draft of that scene,” Chase explained.

“Then we read the scene together and edited as we needed to. Luckily, our styles seemed to fit together well,” I added as I leaned close to Chase.

“Seems that’s not the only thing that fits well together with you two,” Mrs. Elkins laughed, and I felt my cheeks warm at her insinuation.

“I’ve got one too,” said Sharon, another of my mother’s old friends, excitedly as she pulled Dorrie’s arm in her direction. “What kind of research went into this book?”

I knew that one of them was going to ask this question. I felt my throat tightening and knew I couldn’t answer this one.

“I have a consultant I’ve worked with before that helped teach Evan about the BDSM lifestyle,” Chase explained calmly. “He worked with us to develop Frances’ inner dialogue and some of the scenes we included.”

“Was there any first-hand experience you two drew from in the book?” Sharon asked with an innocent smile on her face.

I coughed and rubbed the back of my neck, my eyes dropping to the floor. I could hear low laughter from the third woman standing in the back, my neighbor Hazel, with her hand covering her mouth.

“We did have to learn quite a bit to get into her head, but I’d rather not reveal any trade secrets on this one,” Chase winked, successfully deflecting their inquiry about our sex life, but I knew it’d take a while to calm my flaming cheeks.

The rest of the questions were tame, but Chase still fielded most of them. She was so much better with the crowd than I was.

“You’ve got five minutes to regroup, and then we’ll get started with signing,” Dottie told us once the questions were done. “I’ll have them start coming to the register to purchase their copies.”

Chase pulled me down a quiet aisle and pushed me up against a shelf in the back corner of the store. She cupped my cheeks and forced me to look into her eyes. “You did great. I know you’re not used to those questions, but don’t be embarrassed. People are simply curious by nature.”

“I don’t want my mother’s friends speculating on my sex life. It’s kind of weird.”

“Honey, your sister has said they’re a little raunchy in that group. I wasn’t surprised by some of the questions, to be honest,” she smiled.

“It’s still embarrassing,” I insisted, a little shudder running through me. They did not need to know those kinds of personal details about me.

“No. What’d be embarrassing is...” Chase started, but a masculine voice interrupted.

Evan

Chicago

“What’d be embarrassing is your older brother reading a book you wrote with your boyfriend he didn’t know about, whose main character is a badass Dominatrix?”

Chase spun around as two men, probably a little older than she was, walked down the aisle toward us.

“Oh, my God. When did you two get here?”

The one who’d spoken was slightly taller than Chase and shared a few of the same traits. He had bronzy reddish hair and more freckles than she did, but it was obvious by his face shape and nose that they were related.

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