Colton: Wordsmith Chronicles Book 2 (The Wordsmith Chronicles)

by Christopher Harlan

  “Of course. Knight will be cool with it, too. I don’t know if he’s doing the same with Everleigh now that they’re engaged. I know he asked her to help a while back.”

  “So, then, that just leaves you.” I tell him.

  “I have a PA, it’s you fools who are all alone.”

  “Well now Mike’s got Everleigh, and she was always involved in the community as a reader. I don’t know how much she’s getting involved with Mike’s actual writing career, but I know she’ll be helping also. Why don’t you ask Rowan?”

  “To do what?” he asks me, looking at me sideways. “Be a second PA? I think I’m okay with just the one.”

  “No,” I answer. “Not as a second PA. Look, you can deny it all you want, but I saw the sparks that were there at Mike’s cover reveal dinner and afterwards when the four of us went to the bar. You two barely acknowledged that there were any other human beings around you. I could tell that you were into her. Why don’t you invite her?”

  “I’m not going to deny it,” he says. “But I don’t know what it is exactly. Yeah, I liked her. She’s beautiful, and we really had a lot of similar interest. She just started reading romance and I was giving her a tour of the kind I write.”

  “I’m sure you were,” I joke. “And where exactly did that tour take you?”

  “To the dark romance region of the indie world. My region.”

  He’s right. Dark romance is his thing. We all have our niche in the romance community. Michael leans a little more towards the traditional, I’m down the MMA rabbit hole, and Grayson vacillates between really funny and really dark stuff. His romantic comedy, or Rom-Com books are funny as hell, and his dark romance is sexy and cutting edge. It fits his personality well.

  “Well, all the better, then.” I tell him. “Invite her along.”

  “It would be out of nowhere. I haven’t spoken to her since that night.”

  “Why not?”

  “The depression. I don’t mean to use it as an excuse but, like I said, I haven’t done anything that I haven’t committed to or had to do. I feel like I let an opportunity slip by me. She’s probably talking to like ten other guys, she’s hot.”

  “She is hot,” I say. “But I doubt the last part. I’ll find out, though.”

  “How?”he asks, looking worried.

  “I have my ways.”

  I keep taking slugs of my coffee as we speak, and Gray does the same. He’s drinking some bs tea that smells like flowers while I work my way on a solid 600 milligrams of caffeine to get my mind going for later. Gray takes out his phone to check his fifteen different social media accounts. I guess you have to spend a lot of time in the digital world and on your phone when you’re as present as he is. The kid literally responds to every mention, every message, every share. That’s why he easily has the most loyal readers and fans of all of us. “Oh, shit!” he says.

  “What is it?”

  “This shit never seems to end, does it?”

  “What shit? What are you talking about.”

  “Look.” He hands me his phone. The screen is open to Gray’s Instagram feed, and when I look down I see the smug grin of Roland Rays. Roland is one of the Brotherhood—this bullshit group of male authors that KL Steiner started to compete with us. That whiny little bitch wanted to be a Wordsmith, but Gray and I voted him down because we recognized what a prick he was. Turns out we were right. So he gathered two hack authors who pump out crappy BDSM books and got them into a group he named the Brotherhood. I guess Roland is feeling his oats, because he decided to call me out on social media.

  “Shots fired, huh,” I say, looking at Gray’s screen. “The little coward didn’t even bother to tag me. What fun is that?”

  I’m not easily embarrassed, but what I’m looking at is a picture of me getting arrested right outside of my house. It looks like I’m doing the perp walk. There are three pictures in the post—the first is when I opened the door to the knocking of the NYPD, the second is them handcuffing me, and the third is of me, handcuffed, in the back of a squad car. The post reads “Didn’t know Colton Chase was writing crime fiction now. He must be getting really into character. #arrested #assault #dirtyauthor #criminal.”

  “How the hell did he get those pictures?” Gray asks. “That looks like. . .”

  “The night I was arrested. It is. I have a nice following but I’m not so famous that paparazzi are waiting outside my door at all times to photograph me. What the fuck?”

  I start to rack my brain to think how he got these pictures. Then I start to get really concerned, and I feel the anxiety flood over me. The fact that I’ve had enough caffeine to kill a water buffalo isn’t helping at all. What was excitement quickly becomes a near panic attack, and I feel the tightness in my chest, followed by an increase in my already rapidly beating heart.

  I’ve been trying to keep my arrest a secret. It sounds crazy, but there’s really no way anyone would know about my legal trouble unless they happened to see me get arrested or saw me in the courtroom for my sentencing. The only way I knew it could get out is if KL went on a sympathy campaign and uploaded pictures of himself after I beat his ass, accusing me of assaulting him. Even after I got out of jail it was radio silence from him. I thought he wanted to handle this privately through the legal system—which is a still a bitch move in my opinion, but at least it doesn’t have to get dragged into our careers. Now his lackey is posting shit about my arrest, which is going to bring up so many questions that I’m definitely not prepared to answer yet.

  “What do I do about this?” I ask Gray, genuinely seeking his advice.

  “In my opinion, nothing. You do nothing.”

  “Nothing? That’s your sage wisdom? He just put my business all over Instagram.”

  “Yeah, he did, and how do you think people are going to respond? The people who hate you will keep hating you—and they’re in the small minority. The people who love you will probably just be concerned, and a bunch of others will forget once the next book world drama takes hold. I’d stay out of the mud if I were you.”

  I know he’s right. He’s usually right. But my fucking blood is boiling. I said it to Harley when I got out of jail, and I still believe it. This is fucking war. These guys haven’t learned their lessons yet, and maybe I haven’t either, but sometimes people just need to be put in their place. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it’s not going to be nothing. I’ll follow Gray’s advice for now, but there’s a reckoning coming when I see these fools at RAAC.

  “Nothing it is, then. Fair?”

  “Wow, look at you,” Gray says, not realizing that I’m just placating him while I think of my next move. “Growing as a person.”

  “Yeah, it must be that fifteen minutes of therapy doing its work.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” he asks.

  “It’s a long story, don’t ask.”

  “Or a really short one.”

  “Hey, question,” I say, looking at him intensely. “How about we do that training tomorrow?” I ask, still heated.

  “Yeah, I’m down, but will you still be too sore?”

  “Don’t worry about me, Gray. I’m too fucking angry to be sore. And as I’m pounding the fuck out of that heavy bag and grappling dummy, I’m going to imagine they both have Roland Ray’s face!”

  10

  Harley

  I passed out on my couch before, and I fell right into REM sleep.

  I’m a lucid dreamer.

  I always have been. That means that I have the ability to control what happens in my dreams, rather than watching them unfold like an audience member at a movie. I’ve had some crazy dreams in my life—probably because of the crazy things that have happened to me.

  I realize I’m dreaming because things are different in dreams, even lucid ones. It’s similar to reality, only the rules of physics and time don’t exist in the same way. Lucid dreams are like reality without the constraints, and at this exact moment all the constraints have melted away, leaving on
ly my deepest desires to come true.

  The setting is the Wordsmith signing, at the moment that I met Colton in person for the first time. I’d seen him around on social media—on his live Facebook and Instagram videos, on his Snapchat Story, and I’d read his books, but seeing the man himself was a different experience. No selfie—no matter the filter—could do the man justice. The expression tall, dark, and handsome is so trite that I hate even saying it, but that’s exactly what he is. Wait, I think I can use even better words. He isn’t tall, dark and handsome—he’s imposing, dark, and fucking hot. When we first met he put his big arms around me to give me a hug. He was dressed simply but he looked damn good. I still remember the outfit because I’m weird like that.

  He was wearing tight jeans that fit his body perfectly so that you could see the shape and size of his legs. On top he had a light pink v-neck tee shirt that showed off the tattoos on his right upper arm that peek out, along with the obvious shape of his chest. I could tell his hair had just been cut because it looked clean and sexy—shaved a little bit on the sides, and what remained on the top was thick and black, accentuating his dark eyes. When he held me it felt like I was being engulfed, and it was an embrace that I didn’t want him to release.

  Suddenly I wake up. My heart is racing. Fuck! Things were just about to get good!

  It’s early, sort of. I fell asleep after a long day of work. I’ve been dead tired recently. Probably stress. But for a second when I wake up I’m disoriented and don’t know what time it is until I grab the phone that rang and woke me. It’s only 10:00pm! Not early, but not really late either. A few years ago in college I’d just be starting my night, and it wouldn’t end until about 4:00 a.m. I used to be wild. I used to love a good time. But that life got me into all sorts of situations that I’d rather not remember. It seems like a different me. Now I’m the boring girl that goes to sleep before ten.

  I open my screen and see a text from Colton.

  Colton: Hey. Can I call you? Are you up?

  Me: I am now (smile emoji). Yeah, call me, I don’t feel like texting right now.

  A few seconds later I’m picking up my phone. I hear the sound of his deep voice on the other end and feel that tingle between my legs. I’m wet from the anticipation of what was about to happen in my dream, and the sound of his voice on the other end of my phone, coupled with the imagery that was about to run through my head makes me want him here, on top of me. But I’ll take a conversation for now.

  “Hey,” he says, sounding sexy as fuck. He really has a great voice. I wonder if he does audiobooks? “What are you doing?” I can’t answer him honestly, but I want to. I want to tell him, I was about to have a dream where you fucked me unconscious in the middle of your signing room while I came over and over again, but I hold back. He’s not ready for all that just yet.

  “Nothing. Just watching some Netflix before I pass out. Long day.”

  “I hear ya,” he answers. “Anything good on Netflix?”

  “I’m thinking of watching Making a Murderer—I love that true crime stuff.”

  “Shit, that’s a good one! I watched that a few months ago. I hear they’re coming out with a season 2.”

  “Then I’d better get started.”

  “For sure. Listen, tomorrow I’m working out in the afternoon with Gray, but I thought maybe we could hang out later in week. What do you say?”

  “You going to the gym?”

  “Sort of. Fighting stuff. Striking and a little grappling.”

  “Sexy.”

  “Yeah, if the ever present smell of sweat and guys rolling around on top of each other is sexy.”

  “It is, but that’s my own fetish.”

  “We’ll have to come back to that,” he jokes. “But for right now you haven’t answered me. Can we do something after at night?”

  “Of course we can.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Eh,” I say. “Dinner’s boring. We’ve eaten together enough, let’s do something fun.”

  “So eating with me isn’t fun, I got it.”

  “Don’t be all sensitive,” I joke. “Eating is eating. Talking is fun, but I like to do things, too. Let’s do something like one of those couples on a dating show.”

  “Come again?”

  “Like one of those stupid shows on MTV or something where they make you go out and you have to choose a fun activity.”

  “I don’t know how I managed to miss those, they sound awesome.”

  “Shut up, you know you’d love them if I made you sit down and watch them.”

  “Made me?” he asks.

  “Yup,” I answer. “If I said I want to sit on a couch for an hour and watch dumb shows you’d definitely watch with me.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Trust me, you’d be right here next to me.”

  “I’d love to Netflix and chill with you,” he laughs. “You’d get no fight from me.”“Colton, there’d be nothing chill about it.” I’m in a crazy sex mood right now. All I want to do right now is fuck him, only I can’t. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, and we’re technically not in a relationship so having him come over now is a bad look. But I can still let him know how I feel without actually saying it. Plus I like to shock sometimes.

  “Ummm. . .you have me at a loss for words again.”

  “Kind of what I was going for. Think of something fun and text me. I’m down for whatever.”

  “I will. Night.”

  “Night.”

  I hang up the phone but he’s still on my mind. I don’t need to dream anymore, I can just imagine. That kiss the other night was electric, and it made me want more from him. I have the covers pulled up high to my neck, but that’s not why I’m sweating. I put my phone on my nightstand and reach down to feel the wetness between my legs. I’m soaked through my underwear thinking about him. His dark hair and eyes. His huge arms. That look he gives me like he’s wants nothing but to be with me.

  I have just the thing for this kind of moment.

  In the bottom drawer of my nightstand is a gift I bought for myself. I got one for Everleigh and Ro also as a sexy Christmas gift, but who knows what they did with them. Mine has been put to good use, and right now is as good a time as any. I got the Je Jose Mimi on Amazon. It’s this little pink vibrator that’s the best one I’ve ever owned—and I’ve owned my share! It’s fully charged, and about to get some good use right now. I take it in the palm of my hands and reach my hand back down underneath the covers. I slide my panties off, close my eyes, and put the little pink slice of heaven in just the right spot.

  It starts to move in gentle vibrations at first, and I image Colt knocking on my closed bedroom door. “Come in,” I say, and he walks into my bedroom wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. As I look at him I can’t believe how muscled he is. He’s a badass to begin with, but he has the body to match his attitude. His six pack is well defined and sits just below his hard pecks. His legs look like he’s been working on them for a long time, and I’m taken by his size. I stare down at his boxer briefs, waiting for them to come right off.

  I turn the vibration on a little higher as my fantasy plays out in my overly active imagination. He steps closer to me and rips the covers off of my body. I’m naked from the waist down, and I’ve soaked the sheets beneath me. In my fantasy he leans over, reaches down between my legs and rips the vibrator from my hand. “You won’t be needing this anymore,” he says, tossing it aside. He crawls onto the bed and positions himself in front of me. I know what he’s about to do, and my body responds. He puts his hands on both knees and spreads me open, dipping his head down and starts to eat me out.

  That first feeling of his tongue against my pussy almost makes me come, but I hold my breath and wait for more. It doesn’t take long before his finger is inside me as he licks. He knows exactly how to move. He’s not too fast and not too slow. His tongue bathes my clit in warm circles, then up and down, and his pressure is perfect. His finger is deep in
side me as he licks me, and my body starts to writhe around the bed uncontrollably. “Fuck, Colton, that feels good.”

  He doesn’t stop and doesn’t acknowledge my commentary. He just keeps going at it like a champion, pleasuring me with that amazing mouth of his so that I’m in complete ecstasy. I run my hands through his black hair, and he reaches up, underneath my shirt with his free hand and grabs onto my naked breast. He’s all over my body and I’m overwhelmed with the stimulation. But it’s that tongue that’s bringing me to the brink of orgasm, fast. He keeps going, his jaw never tiring, until I get so close that I let him know. “Oh fuck, Colt, I’m going to fucking come!”

  He ignores me again, his mouth is busy, after all, and he just keeps going even faster knowing that I’m close. Within seconds my body is erupting, and I arch my hips upwards as his face is buried in my dripping wet pussy. It only lasts a few seconds, but it feels like heaven, like the most intense convulsions my body has ever experienced.

  I open my eyes and realize that I just came for real. My hand and my vibrator are soaked in my juices, and my heart is racing. I take a few deep breaths and close my eyes again, basking in the feeling.

  Fuck, I think, I can’t wait until this happens for real.

  11

  Colton

  Calem isn’t teaching today but he agreed to come in to help me train. What a solid dude he is. First of all, for an older guy who’s not working anymore he’s fucking jacked—he’s the only guy in the gym who has my type of physique. On top of that he’s a two stripe black belt and an amazing teacher. Add all that to the fact that he literally couldn’t be a nicer guy and you have an amazing teacher.

  I drive into the dojo with Gray, whose seems to be in better spirits today than the last time we spoke. Maybe the idea of getting off his ass and sweating a little bit makes him happier than moping around his place trying to write his next book. “We should have invited Mike,” Gray says. “He could use a good workout. Kid’s getting soft in his success.”