Shy Girls Write It Better

by May Sage

  She definitely was dreaming. Nothing could ever be as perfect as this.

  She shifted and immediately realized that every single naughty thing she remembered had really happened: there was no reason why her whole body felt like it had been run over by a love truck.

  Ouch. That was sore.

  “Morning,” she replied groggily.

  He sat down on the bed and put the tray in his hands next to her, before bending towards her.

  Cassie hid under his cover, shaking her head in protest.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He looked sincerely worried.

  “Morning breath. I taste of old socks.”

  Carter smiled, rolling his eyes before pulling her to him.

  “That’s why I didn’t brush my teeth – I taste like old socks too.”

  He moved the sheet and brushed his lips against her.

  “Morning Cass.”

  “Morning Carter,” she replied shyly.

  “Let’s eat. Then you can explain just why you haven’t told me that your boss is a dick.”

  The morning was perfection. Softness, warmth, affection, cuddles – slobbery ones where Buddy was involved.

  “I guess I don’t want to feel like what we’re doing is affecting my work in any way,” she’d said with a shrug.

  Now he saw what his mother was saying all along: Elena had wanted plenty from him, without giving much in return – Cassie gave everything and expected nothing, which was why she deserved everything.

  “I’m firing her.”

  “What?”

  She sounded point-blank offended.

  “If she’s bothering a subordinate because she feels threatened, I don’t want her on my team.”

  “I’m no fan of Michelle, but she works super hard, and she loves her job. She shouldn’t be anyone’s boss, so by all mean, demote her, but don’t fire a loyal employee. It’s just stupid.”

  Carter stood there, wondering when was the last time anyone had called him stupid – except maybe his mother.

  Then, he laughed.

  “Alright, alright, I get it. We’ll see if she can be transferred to finance, working directly under Trick. That’s technically a promotion but she won’t have the power to make anyone feel like crap this way.”

  “Sounds good, but you’ll need a head of accounting.”

  “Interested?”

  She shocked him again, by shaking her head.

  “Hell, no. No way, no how.”

  “Why?”

  She hesitated a little before confessing, “I guess I know my heart wouldn’t be in it, you’ll need someone really focused on their career, and well, I like my job.” From the way her face crumpled, she didn’t, “but I love my books, and honestly, I don’t think I’ll stay on as an employee for very long, if my sales stay steady.”

  The entrepreneur in him immediately switched on.

  “How much do you made out of the three you’ve got out?”

  “The first month, thirteen thousand. Ten on the second, seven on the third. By the fourth, I got paid my first lot of royalties so I invested in some ads, and I was back to ten or so.”

  Carter just stared at her.

  “And why are you working for me, again? I mean, there’s no way we pay you as much.”

  She hesitated.

  “Well, I don’t know. Everyone has told me writers couldn’t really make it, and if my sales collapse all of the sudden, what do I do?”

  He wanted to say, you rely on me. That’s what partners do. Or he could have gone for, your sales aren’t going to collapse if they’ve held steady for months and you have the capital to maintain the advertisement.

  Instead, he said, “I’ve changed my mind. Never mind Michelle: you’re fired.”

  Epilogue

  “I’m not interested,” he repeated for the umpteenth time.

  “But… but you can have my ass, too!”

  “I’m going to get married, Tara. I’ll fuck my wife’s ass from now on.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would that make us stop?”

  Carter was going to get a headache if this conversation didn’t stop. Yesterday.

  Suddenly, the phone was yanked out of his hand, and into a pair of freshly manicured fingers.

  “Listen, bitch: he’s just not that into you. Don’t make it more embarrassing that this needs to be. You can keep the clothes, you can keep the credit card until the end of the month, but then you’re done. There’s ten thousand left on it. Have at it. Cause us problems, and I’ll dig up every bit of dirt on you and send it to your boss. Starting with the fact that you’ve spent a year whoring your prissy cunt.”

  On that note, Lucy hung up, before typing away on his phone.

  “I’m redirecting her calls to my phone. I’ll handle her from now on.”

  He stared at his assistant, stunned. She’d always been a ball buster, but he’d never seen her sound and act quite so coldly.

  “What? There’s a reason why they call me the Psychobitch. I can take a lot of shit, but there comes a point where I snap. It’s normally not pretty.”

  He nodded, making an internal note: he was never messing with her.

  Ever.

  “By the way, congrats. I didn’t know you’d proposed.”

  “I haven’t yet.”

  “And you say you’re getting married. Very confident of you.”

  He shrugged in response.

  “Not really. I’ll ask her everyday if I need to, so I’m sure I’ll get the answer I want.”

  Eight days had passed since the first time he’d made love with Cassandra Franklin. Three days ago, she got her periods, confirming that they hadn’t made a baby, to his chagrin. When she announced it, he was inexplicably sad, and he understood just how committed he was to that woman, to their future.

  So yeah, one week was most probably a stupid amount of time to have dated someone until popping the question, but he didn’t need any more. He knew. His mother knew. Hell, even Buddy knew she was their forever.

  Now it was time to inform her, in case she’d missed the memo.

  Next

  Hi guys, I hope you enjoyed shy girls write it better!

  Next, you can expect

  The Psychobitch, which starts at the Halloween Party.

  Lucy is a perfectly reasonable person, up until she isn’t. She bottles up incidents, willing to forgive and forget, until it gets too much – then, that’s when she becomes what her friends have called The Psychobitch.

  There’s one person who has it coming; from their very first meeting, Trick Johnson, CFO of Harris Toys, has been a contemptuous ass to her, but she held her tongue…

  Until her boss asks her to work with him for a month.

  The Psychobitch is likely to be released within three months or so, join my newsletter to be notified!

  Next, I’m adding a few samples of my upcoming work so stay in tune!

  Little Morning Star

  She knew she was imagining things – Lily Star Morgan wasn’t the kind of girl a guy like him checked out – but she had felt eyes on her back quite frequently over the course of the morning, and when she’d been bold enough to turn, she’d met his eyes a time or two.

  Come on, Lil. You’re just paranoid or delusional.

  The annoying little voice at the back of her mind had a point. There was no way the new guy – who had been ogled, and then promptly accosted by the beautiful trio of perfect girls next to whom he now sat – was paying attention to her.

  He wasn’t hot; hot was too common a word for a man of his stature, his composure. If someone had blown a trumpet and announced that His Majesty the Prince of Some Kinda Country Out There had arrived, no one would have raised an eyebrow.

  He wasn’t gorgeous either, the term lacked maturity; one couldn’t help picturing a pretty boy with a whitened smile and fake tan. He looked older than the average freshman, probably close to twenty-five, and he seemed intense, handsome, charismatic; and sensual, too. Afte
r meeting the green eyes under his dark lashes, she couldn’t possibly portray him without using that term. He definitely knew a thing or two about smoldering.

  All that being said, Lily wasn’t particularly drawn to the newcomer. She’d lived through close to two decades without ever feeling the stomach dwelling butterflies romance books were on about, and apparently that wasn’t going to change.

  Obviously, she was curious. Was he an actor? A model? The heir to a Fortune 500? There was something about him; he projected too much confidence to be an inconsequential nobody – hence why she could formulate no logical reason why he would be looking at her.

  Lily was…

  She sighed, resigned and a bit dejected because if she was sincere, the most accurate word to describe her was “weird.”

  For a start, Lily was a witch; not a wiccan, but a full-fledged witch whose spells actually created visible, concrete results. She may not have looked like the usual stereotype, warts and all, but she exuded a vibe, an otherness that warned others to stay away.

  It had been three months since she’d started trying not to be a witch; she hadn’t even casted a micro-mini spell, and well, it wasn’t exactly working out as planned. She felt on edge, restless, and irritated, which probably projected “the vibe” over a five-mile radius.

  Ignoring the fact that she was able to conjure fire and wind to exercise her bidding, she was your average nineteen-year-old, really. A light skin with a greenish tone, suggesting an exotic heritage – alas, her similarities to Mila Kunis thus ended. Her eyes were a shade of blue too piercing to suit her complexion and her hair just couldn’t make up its damn mind. Some strands were blond and other, actually black; after spending most of her teens covering it under layers of dye, she’d finally given up, and resolved to pretend that the multicolor mess was supposed to be a thing. It worked rather well with the leather-jeans-boots combo she had going on, firmly establishing her as an edgy weirdo no one normal should want to hang out with.

  All of that to say, there was zero chance of Mr. Come-To-Bed-Eyes actually checking her out.

  Come on, the guy wore a shirt. If it wasn’t for the two open buttons at the top, and the fact that it hung loose around his chinos, she might have taken him for a lawyer.

  Lily couldn’t help the compulsion, she turned again, and there he was, sitting three rows up, a perfectly poised blonde’s hand on his forearm; Nathalie Maine, admittedly the most attractive freshman at NYU, was trying to get his attention, and failing, because the aforementioned sexy green eyes were fixed on Lily.

  The little voice she’d heard before conceded that she might have had a point; he was looking at her… and it had one word to say about it; one simple word–

  danger.

  Her life might have been simpler if she had paid more attention to her first impression.

  She put her things away after the doorbell rang; it always took a little while because despite what the chaotic hair and the rock-chick image might suggest, Lily was quite organized.

  Her mahogany brown satchel had cute little pen holders inside; she kept her gold trimmed Waterman fountain pen on the right, next to an assortment of Bic ballpoints, and there was room for just one pencil. Needless to say, she never used anything but the pencil.

  A MacBook Air of the first generation, bought used three years back, took up most of the room, and next to it, she carefully fitted her textbooks upright.

  “Getting your bag ready for a photoshoot?”

  Lily started, almost dropping her satchel, because the voice sounded close, and she hadn’t felt anyone’s presence.

  One of the many reasons why she was a weirdo: she knew where living things were, feeling their energy around her – which had made her the worst playmate, ever. She owned the fuck out of hide-and-seek.

  Lily lifted her head and her eyes narrowed as she took in one of the three pretty girls who’d hogged the new guy.

  The stranger was tall, with sleek platinum hair bobbed into submission and she wore bright red lipstick; classy and carelessly elegant.

  Now she saw her right in front of her eyes, Lily totally felt her, but even so, her energy was wrong – different, somehow.

  Bigger, stronger.

  What are you?

  Her energy didn’t feel like one of a regular human, or a witch for that matter. Lily just itched to perform a scanning spell and…

  No, she admonished herself firmly. You’re a boring old normal person and normal folks don’t do magic.

  “Sorry, do I know you?”

  It wasn’t the nicest thing she could have come up with, but come on – that girl was part of the pretty, popular trio; common sense dictated that they shouldn’t be on each other’s radar unless she planned on inviting her to prom and throw pig blood over her dress.

  “Not yet,” Pretty Girl replied, extending her hand.

  To Lily’s surprise, the girl’s nails were painted black. It so deliciously clashed with the rest of her persona, giving her a little edge.

  “Raven,” she introduced herself.

  Great. That girl was called Raven and she, the borderline goth, went by Lily Star, like your average fairly distressing maiden? There was something wrong with the universe.

  “Cool name.”

  Raven smirked.

  “I know, I chose it. You don’t even want to know what my maker came up with. Anyway, I see the new boy and you had a little eye-fucking fest going on?”

  And there it was, her reason for acknowledging her existence.

  It meant that she really wasn’t crazy, the handsome newcomer had been looking at her. Right now, she had two options: brushing it off like she didn’t know what Raven was on about, or owning up to it.

  Lily didn’t really have anything to justify; if there had been any eye-fucking, it had been one-sided, and regardless, it wouldn’t have been any of Raven’s business, so she lifted her chin, waggling an eyebrow and replied, “And you have a point?”

  Raven smirked in response.

  “I like the attitude. I don’t have a point, not exactly. Just… be careful, okay? He’s after something – and if you’ve got it, he’ll stop at nothing to take it from you.”

  The Playgirls

  She needed sex and she needed it now. Seriously. It had been thirteen months. Thirteen.

  Alice set her music a peg higher, although it was well past midnight, and reached out for one of her dicks, almost shaking.

  The curved pink dildo hit the top of her wall right away, poking at the bundle of nerves that needed to be eased. Her movements weren't very gentle. Savagely, without a care, she rammed it inside her, again, and again and again, ten times quicker than the rhythm of the blues blasting around her.

  Eventually, she'd eased the ache – momentarily. No halleluiah for her, though – she'd never orgasmed in twenty-five years, and didn't think she ever would. But her body was sated. For now.

  It didn't last long. She went back to her book – a boring romance; there was nothing remotely erotic, but the first kiss the protagonists exchanged had her reaching for Bob, this time. She needed the vibrations.

  It had grown worse over the last couple of months, and it was completely their fault.

  Her job at On Top, the newspaper Linda Donovan – an old school friend – had started up, was the stuff of dreams: she was needed at the office about three hours a week. The rest of the time, she was expected to write, attend cool events, fly around interviewing interesting people; Linda hadn't meant her columns to be about the A-List – not even the B or C-list – but genuinely fascinating individuals; there had been the occasional author, a few dancers, self-made businessmen, cut-throat lawyers who never lost their cases.

  And at the beginning of the fall, there had been the Colburns.

  Yes, those Colburns.

  They had been a bit of a leap, because they were quite high up in the A list, but Linda had asked Alice to reach out nonetheless; her article hadn't been about Xander's latest movie, Kellan's match, Colt o
r Kane's business ventures, but about them, as a family unit. A little bit of a "yeah, we're normal people, actually."

  The thing was, unexpectedly, Alice had clicked with Tamsin, Xander's wife. Tamsin was new in town, which meant that her contact list wasn't long; obviously, Alice's name was at the very top, because she somehow ended up meeting her two or three times a week.

  She wasn’t complaining: Tamsin, a writer herself, was a bundle of fun.

  But half of the time, Xander – or one of his three yummy brothers – had been around, hence Alice's desperate need for quality time with her fake cocks. Thank god she had a few.

  She was giving it a third go when Skylar Grey's voice was replaced by the generic iPhone ringtone. Dammit. She'd been enjoying that round.

  Without bothering to unsheathe Bob, she grabbed the phone, saw Tamsin's name and answered with a: “Bad timing, sweetie. Really fucking bad timing.”

  She didn't try to hide her breathlessness, relishing in the idea of making the prim and proper British woman blush.

  It was hilarious that Tamsin – a sex symbol in the flesh, exotic with massive tits and an ass like that – blushed to every suggestive comment, while Alice – who was pegged as the good girl – was the one whose mind resided in the gutter.

  The response didn't come from the voice she'd expected, though.

  “Do I want to ask?”

  It was a guy; definitely a guy.

  Shit.

  There was no point guessing which of the Colburn she was now addressing; either way, the fact was, she was on the phone with a sex god, while a yellow dildo was lodged insider her.

  Alice was mortified for about three long seconds, before laughter took over. Damn, she was so going to write something about that.

  “Believe me, you don't.”

  “I sincerely doubt that,” the man teased.

  That immediately ruled out Xander; the tone had been on the flirty side and Alexander Colburn didn't flirt with anyone, save for his wife.