Knight: The Wordsmiths Book One

by Harlan, Christopher

  I don’t want to say any more words to him. Tomorrow there can be words. Today I just want him, and I’m not holding back anymore.

  9

  Knight

  There are some women who are put on this earth to remind you that you’re a man—women who seem to embody every quality that your body is looking for in another person. Everleigh is one of those women, and right now her mouth tastes like the answer to life, and the smell of her hair is the only reason I can think of to take in breath. She’s pressed against me, awakening every nerve ending in my body all at once.

  There we are, making out against some random person’s car parked in the alleyway. I’m pushing into her, pressing her back up against the passenger side window, but right now I have no care for where we are. I run my hands through her hair and grab a bunch of it in the back and pull her head away from me. She pushes back, wanting more of me, but I hold her in place so that our mouths are only an inch apart, and we breathe into each other, our bodies anticipating the next moment of contact. I don’t let go of her hair. Instead I pull her towards me and our lips meet, our tongues smashing together.

  We’re moving fast but the moment seems to be in slow motion, like I’m watching a movie from outside of my own body. At the same time my senses are on overload: the feeling of her hair, the smell of her sweet breath, the taste of her mouth, and the sensation of her breasts pressed up against me under her dress make me want to fuck her right here in the alleyway.

  When our mouths separate for a second I kiss her neck hard, and she leans in and whispers, “You feel so fucking good right now.” I’m so turned on that I almost forget where we are. I should be using my head more. Anyone could walk back here and catch us, and then this whole weekend could end up with a headline in a local paper reading ‘indie romance author arrested for indecent exposure.’ That would be a bad look all around, but I just can’t help myself. I don’t care about any of that. Fuck the consequences. Fuck anyone seeing us. And fuck this guy’s car. I feel alive for the first time in a long time, there with Everleigh in that alley, our bodies aching for one another, and no other care in the world.

  I kiss her neck even harder, burrowing my face against her soft skin. She moans, and I can feel her nails digging into my back on top of my shirt. “We need to go somewhere now.”

  “Okay,” I say, snapping back into reality for a second. My dick is so hard that it hurts. Like a fighter who only feels his bruises after the fight’s over, it’s not until I separate from Everleigh’s body that I feel the hardness pressing into the front of my pants. My body is warm, with little beads of sweat forming on my forehead, and my core temperature is through the roof. I can tell that she’s feeling the same. Her cheeks are flushed red, making her face even more beautiful, and the fact that we have unfinished business gets my heart racing in anticipation of what’s going to happen next. “Come on.”

  I take her by the hand and we leave the alley. By some miracle no one sees us, or if they do they just keep on walking and pretend they didn’t just witness an intense make-out session happening behind Jameson’s Burgers and Fries. Either way I don’t care. She’s holding onto my hand tightly as I lead her back across the path we took to get there in the first place. We pass by a lot of people on the street, some of them are surely readers here for our event, but I’m so turned on and in the moment that I pay no mind.

  When we get back to the hotel she stops at the front door. “Wait.” She’s looking inside at the crowd gathered in the lobby and near the bar. “If we go in there holding hands and get in the elevator together there’ll be posts all over social media before we’re finished. Some of these women can be like girls in high school. They love gossip, and an author sleeping with a reader is a bad look for any of you guys.”

  She’s right. I’m busy being a horny male whose only thoughts are of fucking this woman silly in my still unpacked hotel bedroom. Meanwhile I’m not remembering the context of where we actually are. But now that she’s snapped me out of my sex zombie state I start to notice how many people are around. Male romance authors have a lot of stigmas surrounding them, like I said. One of those stigmas is that we write shitty books for the sole purpose of sleeping with fans. Like we’re the literary version of Motley Crew—writing bad songs and going on tour basically to do drugs and get laid. There are certain authors with that reputation, justified or otherwise, but I’m not one of them.

  That reputation is career cancer. Once people think that of you then it becomes a thing behind the scenes—whispers and rumors that you’re just out there to bang women, not to be a real author. Me? I could care less about that other shit, I’m here to write great stories and bring them to readers who’ll appreciate them. But I know how bad this looks from the outside.

  “You’re right,” I say, letting go of her hand and trying to hide my enormous erection by hanging my hands in front of my crotch. I don’t think it’s working, but it’s starting to go down slightly. “I really want to finish what we started.”

  “Me, too,” she answers. “More than you know. But not now. It’s too early in the night and too risky, people are everywhere. I can meet you up in your room later. Unless you’re bunking with one of the guys?”

  “No,” I tell her. “I dodged that bullet. I’m more of a loner when it comes to things like this. Don’t play well with others. I need my own space to write and walk around naked.”

  “Really? You walk around naked?”

  “All the time. But it’s kind of an alone activity, know what I mean?”

  “Not for long.” Everleigh looks around the room and then reaches down and squeezes my dick so quickly that no one sees. The last few seconds of trying to kill my erection goes to total shit, and I’m right back at attention.

  “I’ll be up there. Gonna text Colt and Gray that I’m not feeling good and that I’m gonna hang out in my room for the rest of the night. They’ll be pissed, probably, but I have all day tomorrow to entertain readers. Can you slip away before too long?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. Keep your phone handy and keep that cock ready.”

  “For you it’s always ready,” I tell her, smiling a devious smile. “Go mingle, I’ll be up thinking about you.”

  Everleigh walks away towards the bar, and I can’t help but stare at her ass as she does. It shifts side to side as she moves, and my dirty mind can’t help but think of a thousand different positions I want to get her in. She’s the hottest girl I’ve met in forever, and I also really like her a lot. I told her things that only Gray and Colt know—about Jenny, about my writer’s block, all of it. And she opened up to me. I don’t care what happens tomorrow, tonight makes this whole trip worth it, and watching her ass shake its way to the bar, I can’t wait for the next few hours to pass by.

  10

  Everleigh

  What the hell am I doing?

  I just made out with Michael Knight in an alleyway, and if there hadn’t been a million readers in the lobby, I would have slept with him for sure. He still thinks I’m going to. Don’t get me wrong, I still really want to, but now that I have a second to breathe I wonder if that’s the right thing to do. I’m in a weird headspace with Jeremey, and I’m a little awestruck at seeing my favorite author in person. Not just seeing him, but getting to know him and having him get to know me.

  I told him things today that only Rowan and Harley really know about in detail, and I know he did the same about things in his life. But still, is it wrong to hook up with him so fast? Am I wrong about him? Is he one of those stereotypical male romance authors you hear stories about? The ones who hook up with readers and fans and use their status basically for that reason alone? I don’t think he is, but I need to figure out how I want to play the next few hours so that neither one of us are uncomfortable with the situation. I hear a shout from behind me.

  “Where are you going lady?”

  It’s Harley! I was so distracted walking in that I didn’t even see them sitting in the lobby. I walk up a
nd give her a hug. “You finally got here. What took you so long?”

  “My GPS is shit,” she says. That’s a typical Harley answer. Brazen, blunt, and very honest. “It took me the most fucked up way.”

  “And you just listened to the random British voice?” Ro asks, joking around. “Not what I’d expect from my non-conformist best friend. I figured you’d just print out directions and memorize them, knowing you.”

  She smiles. “It was a French lady, first of all.”

  “Sorry,” Ro says, throwing her hands in the air.

  “And you’re right, I put too much trust in that stupid thing. But screw it, I’m here now. What are we doing? Besides standing in a hotel lobby, that is.”

  It’s funny how personalities work in groups of friends. The three of us have been friends since high school, and even then we balanced each other out. Rowan’s the organizer—the mother hen, the one who keeps the group in line and seems the most conservative on the outside even though she’s not. Harley’s on the other end of the friendship personality spectrum. She’s the wild one, the party girl, the one who’s the most obviously fun and extroverted, but she still has a solid head on her shoulders. Me? I’m somewhere in the middle. I have my crazy, party-girl moments, but I can also be too mature for my own good.

  “You wanna get some food?” I still want to get that dinner we said we’d get together before I stormed off on my own. I haven’t gotten a chance to explain that whole thing to Ro, I just kind of left her stranded at the bar.

  “Yaaas! I’m starving!”

  “Alright, it’s decided,” Ro says. “Let’s go out and explore the town.”

  “Are you all checked in, Harley?”

  “Yeah, just before you got here. Was that…?” She stops and raises an eyebrow at me. I didn’t even think about the fact that they could both clearly see Michael and I walk in together from where they were sitting in the lobby. I don’t know what to say, so I just stare at her for a second until I see the eyebrow go down and her lips go up into a smile. I know that she knows, and I smile too.

  “It was.”

  “Knight?” she asks. “You and Knight?”

  “No,” I say hastily. “I mean, yes. Sort of. I don’t know.”

  “Is that where you snuck off to?” Rowan looks at me and I realize that I owe her an explanation. It wasn’t my intention to keep any of this secret. They’re my best friends and they know everything about me. We’ve never kept secrets from one another, especially where guys are concerned, and she deserves to know why I left her at the bar.

  “Not exactly,” I tell her. “I’m sorry I ran off, though, I overreacted to something. Let’s go talk.”

  “And eat,” Harley says, jumping in. “Eating is crucial.”

  “We’ll eat, I promise. You can even pick the place.”

  “Yay.”

  Before we go I think about Michael. He’s upstairs waiting for me, and I don’t know what to do. I told him I’d see him later but I feel weird about it. Ro and Harley get their bags and we start walking. Before we’re even a few blocks away I get a text. When I look down at my phone I almost cant believe what I’m reading, in a good way. His text reads:

  Michael: Not yet. You’re the best kisser, maybe ever. I’ve never been so turned on. But I also really like you, and already you mean more to me than just one amazing evening of sex. Let’s wait. What do you think?

  I know that some women would take a text like this as some kind of rejection, but it makes me so happy that I read it three times in a row. How many guys who have a woman willing to sleep with them ask to wait because they think it could be something more? None that I know. I understand right away what he means, and after I read it a fourth time I text him back so that he doesn’t think I’m angry.

  Me: I love that you wrote this. Not yet. Let’s wait until next time. Whenever that is.

  He texts back a smiley emoji, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Don’t get me wrong, in the moment I would have been with him without regrets, but I think it was a blessing in disguise that we had to delay. At the same time I’m going to do my best to stop thinking about Jeremey and just enjoy this weekend for what it’s meant to be—a fun time with friends, authors, and other readers. I text Michael one more time to see what his plans are.

  Me:Are you coming down?

  Michael: I think I’m enjoying my alone time. There’s plenty of time for selfies and smiling tomorrow. I want to do something I haven’t done in a long time—write. I’m feeling a little inspired. Can’t imagine why.

  Me: Yeah.Can’t imagine where that inspiration came from. Make the scene hot, okay? As hot as it would have been tonight.

  Michael: Don’t you worry.I’ll burn up the page. See you tomorrow at the signing.

  Me: You sure will.

  I put my phone back in my bag and head out into the night to have dinner with my girls. This weekend is already shaping up to be pretty damn memorable.

  11

  Knight

  I like to sleep naked.

  I always have. I never understood those guys who sleep in shirts and pants or, God forbid, PJ’s. Fuck all that—I like to sleep the way God made me. So the fact that I’m waking up in full clothing explains why I don’t feel that rested. That, and the fact that I’m in a weird-ass position on the bed. I usually don’t pass out with my computer still on and next to me on the bed, but that seems to be the situation from last night. It’s dead now, but I know that I had it on when I finally closed my eyes. I don’t remember falling asleep at all, but I remember writing. It’s the first time I’ve written anything of substance in a long time.

  I stretch and get my body out of the position it’s probably been in for the last six hours. My neck feels like an Olympic wrestler’s had me in a headlock for a while, and I have a minor headache to boot. So why am I so happy? Normally waking up in a state like this would make me a very unpleasant person to be around, but I’m in a great mood. First, there’s the signing. I’m genuinely happy that I get to meet some readers today. I get to see how happy they are bringing one of my books to the table so that I can write my name and theirs in black sharpie.

  But the real reason I’m so happy is just leftover emotions from last night. There are so many layers to such a simple encounter that I don’t even know what had more of an effect on me: meeting a hot woman who loves my work and is totally cool, making out with her unexpectedly, or having those two things allow my mind to open up and let words out for the first time in a long time. It’s all three, for sure, but that last one in particular.

  Writer’s block is a term everyone uses, but it doesn’t do justice to what it’s really like when your brain just can’t find the words to express itself. When you have writer’s block, your mind becomes a black hole that nothing can escape from, like all of the characters, plots, and stories that tie them together get trapped, and there’s no way to see or hear them. You can try to force it—and I have tried—but mostly it produces writing that looks and reads like the crap it is.

  My computer still has a little bit of juice left—only a few percent, so I turn it on and look in the left hand corner of the Word document and I see the number 5,000! Five thousand words of my new book in two hours. Once I knew that sleeping with Everleigh was the wrong move, at least last night, I also knew that I wanted to spend my time doing something as enjoyable. Okay, that’s bullshit, being with her would have been much more enjoyable, but a close second is writing my new book. Five thousand words isn’t a lot when you plan on writing seventy to eighty thousand of them in total, but it’s an amazing chunk of material when you’ve barely cracked one thousand in the past two months combined.

  Who knows if it’s any good, I’ll have to read it later. But for now I’m gonna ride the happy wave right out of this bed, these clothes, and into a hot shower. Standing naked in the middle of a hotel room seems as good a time as any to send a text to Grayson and Colt because, why not? Knowing how hard they were hitting the bars I’m sure they’re
not up yet. It’s 6:30 am. The signing is in a small room, so the person in Colton’s reading group who helped organize this whole event set it up so that there will be three different mini-signings that the readers had to buy tickets for. The first was at noon, the second at one o’clock, and the last at three, with an hour in between for us to get food and relax our signing hands a little bit. I have time, but I’m going to use it for something more productive than just setting up my table—even though I have to get that done also. I’m going to finish the chapter I’m working on.

  Thirty minutes later I’m stepping out of the shower. The mirror is steamed, and my body is the kind of hot that gets inside of you and stays a while, long after you’ve left the confines of the steamy bathroom. I needed to shave, so I made it a point to make my face smooth, and without my usual shower mirror I’m hoping that I didn’t shred my face something awful. I don’t see any little drops of blood, so I think I’m good. I let the remaining water fall off of my naked body as I stand there, using my forearm to try to clear a little space in the mirror where I can see myself. I feel great, and it’s all because of her. . .it’s all because of Everleigh. I can’t wait to see her again.

  But first thing’s first.

  I towel myself off. Once I’m dry I sit back in the lounge chair in the corner of the room with my laptop. I’d let it charge while I was in the shower, so it’s only at 30%, but that’s all I need. If it dies I’ll use my phone. If my phone dies I’ll pick up a damn piece of paper and keep on writing. The forum doesn’t matter—that’s all ancillary. What matters are the thoughts. The impulses. The moments playing out in my mind that I can capture as written word.