Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
I manage a stiff smile. Sometimes I forget how crude he can be. “As long as writing is the priority.”
“Good, yes. Of course it will be,” he says, nodding quickly. He shoots a glance over his shoulder. “I have to get back to the store. Send me your files tonight and I’ll turn them over to the editor.”
“Sounds good,” I tell him. “Talk to you later.”
I turn away from him and head down the street as a force field comes over me, the one I used to have before I got all caught up in him. I don’t have any experience with casual sex, but if I want to keep having my fun, I’m going to have to learn to rein all my feelings in before things get complicated.
Then again, I’m having hot sex with my writing partner. I’m starting to think it’s complicated already.
CHAPTER 15
Blake
Iswear I don’t understand women.
I never will.
After I shagged the hell out of Amanda and she shagged the hell out of me, she totally lost the plot. And I don’t mean that in book terms. I mean, things got weird. I think it was because Kevin called her my girlfriend in front of her. And me. And my father. I could practically see her jumping out of her skin in horror.
But then after I explained to her that we were basically fuck buddies who worked together—an office romance, if you will—that didn’t help either. If anything, she seemed to shut down in front of my eyes, completely withdrawing.
If she were any other girl and this were any other situation, I would have just said “see ya, I have no time for your daft bullshit." But because I do like her, you know, as a person, as well as her being a good shag, and I work with her, that really wasn’t an option. We had to see each other whether we wanted to or not.
Actually, it ended up being for the best that we couldn’t ignore each other.
So we kept on meeting up to work on the book.
And we would put all that weird shit aside and we’d write.
We went through edits together one night.
And then I ate her out on the couch.
The next day we did more edits.
She sucked me off in my car when I dropped her off.
After that we tried our hand at formatting before I took her doggy-style on her bed, not even caring that her roommate could hear us.
Needless to say, we got the book professionally formatted instead.
Which left us more time to screw.
Fuck.
Shag.
Bang.
Basically anything that involved getting off.
Anything to loosen her up.
Anything to take advantage of her kinky side which was very slowly coming out to play.
And then…
Then we pressed publish.
And we sat back.
Waited.
Until the book was live.
Falling for the Secret Male Stripper, with its pithy blurb and headless model on the cover (holding a Photoshopped ruler, because of course he’s also a teacher) popped up on Amazon, ready to purchase.
We did it.
All systems are a go.
Amanda is curled next to me on the couch, her feet pressed up against my side, nursing a glass of red wine. Her glasses are off and her hair is down and her face is flushed for so many reasons, but I know one of them is because I just went down on her moments ago. I can still taste her on my tongue, something I don’t mind lingering.
We both have our laptops out, and we’re both on Amazon’s KDP page monitoring our sales. The Facebook ads just started running, so we’re waiting to see if that translates into results because at the moment, we have zero.
I glance at her. “You sure the ad is running?”
“Yup,” she says, flicking over to the tab. “But I don’t think it’s been viewed yet. What about the bloggers you contacted?”
“They said they’d leave their reviews on Amazon today.”
“And they’re five-star reviews?”
“The ones I saw on Goodreads were,” I tell her. “But then there were a few one-star reviews from users who hadn’t even read the book.”
She scoffs. “Why would people do that?”
“Who knows. Maybe they saw the word “stripper” in the title and got offended.”
“Or maybe they read the blurb.”
“Or looked at the cover.”
“Maybe it’s my mom.”
“Maybe a stripper broke their heart and it’s a trigger book for them.”
“Any sales yet?”
“Nope.”
After a while, the waiting game gets pretty boring. And tense. And I know what we’re both thinking: we’ve made a huge mistake. The whole thing has gone tits up. Really, who were we kidding?
“Let’s go for a drink,” I tell her, desperate to get us out of this funk. We hop in Mr. Mean, cruising around Oak Bay before we head to Spinnakers. When we get to our usual table, Amanda brings out her phone and I can tell she’s going straight to the KDP site or the Top 100.