Love and Sorrow (Small Town Secrets Book 5), стр. 84
That’s because I had stories swirling in my head, stories that had to be told. Big stories.
Oh, and did I mention? They were what mild-mannered audiences might consider naughty.
That’s where Ridley came into play, so to speak. For some reason, I was compelled to write steamy scenes, but I often wondered how believable they were. I was also afraid they’d start to sound the same—you know, limited by my imagination (or lack thereof, because I didn’t get out much). I was lamenting my nonexistent sex life one night and had gone downtown to have a drink in a local bar—and there appeared Ridley like manna from heaven.
And he was actually hitting on me. Me. Little ol’ me.
Well, not so little. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to sound like one of those women who bitches about her weight when there’s really nothing to complain about, but I’ve always been large breasted. And maybe not so small, considering I carry an extra ten (okay, okay, ten-ish) pounds around as well. I’m not heavy, but I’m self-conscious, and I’ve often imagined that my additional padding is unattractive.
It couldn’t be that I don’t click with men because I seem standoffish or shy or too cerebral for a chat over a beer. Of course not. Don’t be absurd.
That night when I met Ridley, though, I’d been feeling particularly sorry for myself and decided to give in to the pity party that had been brewing inside. I was going to have a couple drinks, damn it, and no one was going to stop me. I was on the second one when Ridley sat on the stool next to me.
Oh, my God.
Instantly, I felt his eyes on me. That was weird because guys just didn’t check me out as a rule. Sure, they’d steal a glance at my boobs, but that was it. They stopped there. As soon as I told a man what I did for a living, I became intimidating.
Not that night, though—not with a little liquor in me. I’m afraid I was probably a little more forward than usual, too. So Ridley sat next to me, his arms were full of tattoos, and you should know right now that tattoos make me weak in the knees. The more, the merrier. I have no idea why, but human skin as a canvas really does it for me, and that’s something I didn’t admit to most people.
As for Ridley, well…I didn’t know at the time that several of his were prison tats.
I’m book smart, okay? Not always street smart. But I can be trained.
So he hit on me, or I hit on him, or it was a combination—I’m not sure now. But one thing led to another and he came to my place.
Let me preface this by saying I hadn’t been with a man in a long time.
A very. Long. Time.
So we fucked all night long. My God, he was just what I needed. Although it would have explained his insane libido, he had not just gotten out of prison. We just had some crazy chemistry that night.
Or maybe it was just the alcohol.
Yeah, it was most definitely the alcohol, because the next morning was awkward as hell. But he saw my books, the ones with my pseudonym Eliza Brennan—and maybe if that had been all he’d seen, I could have just pretended that she was my favorite author. But no…I also had a six-foot banner on the desk next to them, one I’d used at a book signing the week before and hadn’t stuck back in the closet yet. Oh, and all the bookmarks I’d signed so I could mail them off. Those were also a dead giveaway. In all fairness, though, I didn’t have many visitors, so I hadn’t prepared for him. By that point, the ice had not only been broken, it had shattered, so I made us a little breakfast, and he’d brought a couple of my books out to the kitchen where he was skimming through them.
Ridley didn’t seem to be the reading type, but he seemed earnest as he flipped through the pages. “Wow. Couple of F-bombs. Nice.” He started laughing but then he pulled the book closer.
Shit. Had to be a sex scene. I turned back to the eggs and moved them around the skillet with the spatula. As I slid the eggs onto a plate, he said, “Holy shit, woman. You write this stuff?”
Biting my lip, I turned around, meeting his eyes, and even though I felt a little embarrassed, the look on his face was priceless. He was actually impressed.
He was also re-invigorated, shall we say. I wrote my books to warm up bored housewives, but apparently they had the same effect on men as well, and he just couldn’t wait. We fucked up against the counter, and then he ate warm eggs standing by the stove.
The thing about Ridley? He made me feel desirable in a way I never had before, and that made my writing better than it had ever been. I think he loved the novelty of it all. We probably never would have seen each other again, but I made him a proposition before he finished the last slice of bacon. I explained