Page 6 of Hunting Harbor

My heart pounds as I set the letter aside and drag my writing journal onto my lap. The leather cover is cool against my skin, almost too intimate for something I keep writing smut in.

Words buzz in my brain, bees swarming. I want to, I need to—

— but I can’t.

Instead, I’m frozen here, watching the candlelight flicker. Watching the words that terrified and thrilled me. Watching them until I’ve memorized their jagged rhythm, every sharp angle:

destroy. run. screaming.

They have a rawness to them. A certain violence. The words—and the man behind them—hold nothing back. I want to say they’re just what I’ve been needing, but there’s a small part of me that’s still too shy to admit it. The part that’s spent too long smiling at readers and critics who expect a very different Harbor.

At first, I’d been terrified this was some fucking stalker, but then I remembered that I had actual fans now. Real people who read my work. It’s gotta come with the territory… right?

I stare at my journal’s blank pages like they’re ghosts haunting an empty house.

What if the words just... never come back?

I want to write, need to write, but instead I’m here, thinking over that letter.

My pulse quickens.What would it be like… to have a man… want me so badly, he’d hunt me down, tie me up and...

No. This line of thinking wasn’t becoming.

“You coward,” I whisper as I flip past another bunch of pages where a fanfic I’d written of this letter sat crawled in black ink.

You coward, you coward, you coward...

“Coward,” I whisper again, when my gaze flickers back to the letter.

The words sear my mind as I re-read them, this time out loud.

I want to.

I need to.

So I do.

The black ink pen quivers in my fingers, and then I’m scrawling:

“He knew she was scared.”

A soft smile teases my lips. The kind you give your lover when you catch him undressing you with his eyes from across the room, and the whole restaurant fades away...

...until you hear someone clear their throat.

...until your skin prickles, knowing everyone is watching.

That soft smile grows into a grin when I turn the next page, ideas flowing.

My hand cramps, ink smudges, the scent of vanilla thickens. The words keep tumbling out:

“Her breath caught. Her pulse raced. Her fingers curled and her toes tingled.”

The thrill in my chest is almost like an ache.

The joy in my stomach is almost like a bruise.

The letter flutters off my lap and I don’t even care because, finally, the snow globe is spinning with new words instead of doubts.

---