Page 31 of The Love Interest
There was a large fountain at the center of the circular maze, rose bushes, and a stone bench situated under two small trees as a reward for successfully reaching the end goal. When William arrived, Lucy was facing the bench, shoulders rising and falling, and she was waiting for him. In one swift motion, he took her in his arms again, brought her down to the bench and onto his lap, and cradled her face in his hands.
“I’m going to kiss you until you beg for more, dear Lucy.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before brushing his mouth against hers and then parting her lips with his tongue.
She chastised him while kissing him back, writhing around in his arms, on his lap, in the most delicious and excruciating way. “I’m going to kiss you back until you beg me to stop.” She tugged on his earlobe with her teeth. “Also, get over yourself.”
“I’ll be getting a leg overyousoon enough—wife.”
“Not if I get on top of you first, husband.”
* * *
Bloody hell. Gettin’ right into it, babe! Now we’re talkin’. Bit unconventional for a prologue in a Regency romance—but fuck it. Let’s mess things up, shall we? I’m here for it.
I got blue eyes this time, do I? Interestin’ innit?
Not sure ’bout that whole “get over yourself” business, but it’s a decent first draft, all things considered.
Well done, you. ’Bout a thousand words down now, under eighty thousand to go, yeah?
Good show.
Let’s hope you’ll see that bloke again tonight, since he wouldn’t give you a shag this mornin’. What a knob. Good thing you can take care of your randy self, eh? Maybe you’d better take another “Romance Author Nap.”
Go on, then. Take one for me, luv. Plug in that bad boy. You need all the power you can get between those legs after that snog.
13
FIONA
“Ican’t believe he canceled last night. Are we mad at him? Because I still want to know who cuts his hair.” Jed assembles himself cross-legged at the end of my twin bed, holding his phone in one hand and his cup of coffee in the other. He could have sat on Keiko’s empty twin bed four feet away, since Keiko is always at her boyfriend’s place, but she’s mean and we’re scared of her.
“Technically he didn’t cancel because he was onlyhopinghe could see me after his work dinner. But now he has a meeting this morning. So, he had to sleep. It’s fine. I got a lot of writing done. And I slept. So that’s all great. You didn’t bring me coffee?” I’m still lying down and staring up at the ceiling, but I would have broughthimcoffee if I’d woken him up at the ungodly hour of noon. Jed and I have known each other since Berkeley, and he’s the only reason I can afford to live in a two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.
“This coffee’s for you,” he says before taking a giant gulp. “And you got a lot of something else done last night too. I heard you.” He gives me an exaggerated wink.
“Oh God. I will never get used to these paper-thin walls.” I cover my face with the pillow.
“You should haveOh God-ed into the pillow last night. What kind of work dinner did he have?”
“I didn’t ask. I think he’s a lawyer. He seems like a lawyer.”
“You haven’t looked him up?”
“No. I don’t do that. People are never who they seem to be online.”
Jed’s staring at his phone, and his eyes are bugging out of their sockets. “Uhhh. Hold my coffee.”
I sit up and take the coffee mug from him. “What? Don’t tell me. Is he married? I don’t want to know. What? Wait, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t know yet if he’s married—do you want to know what I do know?”
I am so jittery now it feels like I’ve already had twelve cups of coffee. “Jed! I don’t know! Do I?”
“You made out with a New York Times best-selling author of thriller novels yesterday, girl.”
“What?! Shut up.”
He shows me the Google Images of Emmett on his phone, and I grab it from him, giving him back the coffee mug. “He’s a writer? That doesn’t even make sense. Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”
