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 hold out my hand. “Give it to me.”
Her head snaps up, a guilty, pleading look on her face. “Oh please, I have to know.”
“Nope.” I wiggle my fingers. “Give it or you’re getting a spanking later.”
A wicked grin spreads across her face and she holds the phone close to her chest. “Promise?”
“Fine. If you don’t give it, no spanking.”
She grumbles, rolling her eyes, but it works. She hands it over. I take her phone and slip it in my pocket.
“The ads are running,” I remind her. “The bloggers are promoting. If we had friends and family to tell, I’m sure they’d be spreading the word but we don’t, so this is the best we can do. Let’s just see how it does. Tomorrow, if there’s nothing, we’ll try something else. Maybe more money into ads or try contacting other bloggers. Have a giveaway on our Blake Lovecox author page.”
“We have no followers,” she points out.
“Maybe tomorrow we will. Hope for the future, live in the moment.” I say that just as the waitress delivers our drinks. “And this moment includes drinks.”
We say cheers again over our release day.
To being fucking done.
To potential sales.
We clink glasses to us.
We say cheers to letting go.
And we say cheers to good sex because when all is said and done, at least we have that.
I guess we’re just a pile of nerves, brimming with weeks of work and worry and strain because we end up drinking our faces off.
I mean, we got bloody obliterated. I think I start dancing on the pub’s pool table at one point, while Amanda rides the cue stick like a horse.
We take a cab back to my place where we promptly pass out on the bed. I have to wonder if all authors go through this on their release days.
When the next morning rolls around—actually it’s closer to noon—we can barely remember our names.
It’s a good thing.
There’s just the both of us, naked, gazing at each other with sloppy smiles, living through the hangover.
Then Amanda remembers the sales.
She stumbles out of bed and staggers to the living room, and I can hear her flip open the computer. I’ve nearly fallen back asleep when I hear her gasp.
“Oh. My. God. Oh my god!”
She’s either having a self-induced “Big O” or something brilliant has happened. I quickly fumble out of bed and join her, blinking hard at the light from the living room windows.
She’s kneeling on the floor, pointing to the laptop screen on the coffee table and grinning like she’s lost her bloody mind.
“One thousand,” she whispers, her mouth dropping open in a contained scream. “Ahhhhh!”
“What?” I’m sure I’ve heard her wrong.
“One thousand!” she shrieks.
I drop to my knees beside her, resting my hands on her shoulders and holding on tight.
“Open the Top 100, open the Top 100!” I tell her, eagerly peering over her.
Her fingers can’t move fast enough.
We both hold our breaths in unison as she clicks along each section until…
Eighty.
We are number eighty.
The fucking eightieth bestselling book in all of bloody Amazon, in all of the millions and millions of books.
Eighty.
I look at her, wide-eyed.
She looks at me.
We burst out laughing at the same time.
“Eighty!” I cry out. “Bloody hell! We fucking made it!”
“The book works!” she says. “The ads work! It all works!”
“We work,” I tell her, grabbing her face in my hands and kissing her softly, sweetly, a mix of emotions pouring through me. It only occurs to me then that I normally don’t kiss her like this—it’s always a part of foreplay or something that happens during sex.
But fuck, it feels good.
It feels right.
I slowly pull back and her eyes slowly flutter open, gazing at me with thoughts I’m too afraid to read into. Something serious beneath all the laughter. Something that strikes me hard in the gut.
I swallow hard and clear my throat. I need to get my head back in the game. “You know,” I say teasingly, running my hand down her neck, down her chest, cupping her breast. Her nipples immediately harden as my thumb brushes over them, circular and slow. “I owe you a spanking from last night.”
“A celebratory spank?” she asks deviously.
I’ve never spanked her before so I’m surprised to see her open to it.
“I’m not joking,” I say, raising my hand. “Eighty for the eightieth spot.”
She wiggles with anticipation and then closes her eyes, mouth open, neck arching back as I pinch her nipple hard.
“Will you pretend to be Ford Titan?” she says huskily, head lolling as I bring my mouth to her nipple and suck. Slowly, gently.
“If you’ll be the naughty school girl,” I murmur against her breast.
“Do we have a ruler?”
I raise my head, mouth going for her neck. “I have measuring tape.”
“Good enough. But you can only use twelve inches. Otherwise it’s not fair.”
“That’s what she said.”