Page 49 of Spark

Kendrick touches my hair. “Ask me anything. I’m an open book.”

I snort. “Says the man who literally snatched away an open book from me.”

I giggle at my own cleverness, and Kendrick cracks up, too.

“That’s actually an amazing segue to my question. What’s ‘Spank’ about?”

“Here we go.”

“I know I can’t read it, but can you tell me the gist?” He doesn’t respond, so I add, “Just tell me if it’s about spanking the monkey or spanking an ass. Tell me that, and then I’ll drop it.” I probably shouldn’t be steering this intimate conversationin bed to anything sexual—even a sexual song or poem. But I can’t resist.

Kendrick smiles. “It’s about both. Spanking my monkey while fantasizing about spanking a woman’s ass.”

I gasp. “Kendrick Cook, you naughty boy.”

He grins. “‘Spank’ is all about the primal urge to have dirty, raw sex.”

“It sounds like the perfect starting point for a sequel to ‘Hate Sex High.’”

“They’re not proper lyrics, though.”

“The rest of us could whip them into shape. Seriously, the title alone would make it a hit.”

“How much of it did you read?”

“Just the title and the first line. But just that bit had me frothing at the mouth to read the rest.” I pause to remember the scrawled words on the page. “‘Lying awake, my body staging a coup.’ That’s about your insomnia?”

He nods slowly, his eyes wide.

“What’s the next line?” I whisper.

Kendrick exhales. “Nope.”

“Come on, KC. Please?”

“You said you’d drop it, Ruby.”

“I will. Just tell me this. Were you lying awake, spanking your monkey, and your body was staging a coup because you were so horny? Is that what that line meant?”

He smirks. “What else? I was horny as fuck, jerking myself off and thinking about how much I wanted to fuck someone. Spank someone. Anyone. I mean, that part was honest. But the rest was just a creative writing exercise. No basis in fact whatsoever.”

“I don’t get why you’re so embarrassed to show it to me. Everyone masturbates and gets horny and lonely. And everyone fantasizes about spanking an ass or getting their ass spanked, as the case may be.”

“I’m not ashamed to jerk off or get horny. I just don’t have any desire to share something I wrote about my hottest sexual fantasies.”

“Oh my gosh. Your hottest . . . ? Kendrick Cook, you have to let me read it.”

“Nope.”

The image of Kendrick making love to that blonde on that couch all those years ago pops into my head again. My god, Kendrick was going to town on that woman, but with his palm tenderly cupping her cheek. For years afterwards, that was myhottest sexual fantasy. Until, of course, I managed to exorcise the image from my head and genuinely accept the fact that Kendrick and I would never be anything but best friends.

The thought jolts me back to reality. The fact that Kendrick has never thought of me as anything but his close friend. Like a sister. And one fake kiss didn’t change that for him.I’mthe only one who went to visit the other one at their school, unannounced, because I was hoping the weekend might lead to me losing my virginity. Kendrick never did that. Or even thought about that. Only me.

I reach out and touch his hair. “Okay, I’ll drop it.”

“Thank you.” He yawns, which makes me yawn.

“You’re sleepy?” I whisper.

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