Crazy Girl

by B. N. Toler

  I listened and waited, taking my time. First there were pants, short clips of air escaping her, then as I moved more, her hand rose and smacked against the window. I was almost there. Adjusting but a breath more, I found it and she played my song. We were in a car going fifty on backroads, but I had to look—I had to see her. Her head was back, her face to the sky, her chest out as she arched her back, her legs spread wide. Damn, it was beautiful.

  “Fuck,” she groaned, her voice gritty with lust and pleasure. My arm was starting to cramp from the awkward position, but I kept my motion steady, careful not to slip, knowing moving even the slightest of a fraction would steal it from her. “I’m going…” she panted, her hand still pressed to the window, her fingers spread wide against the glass.

  “Tell me, baby,” I ordered her, my voice husky. I was rock hard, and if I could have, I would have let go of the wheel and stroked myself, I was so fucking turned on. She moaned, her hand closest to me reaching up to my shoulder and fisting the fabric of my shirt. “Tell me,” I demanded.

  “I’m coming, Wren,” she cried out, lifting her hips from the seat, her body chasing that release.

  “Fuck, babe,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. Her dress was hiked up now, her body arched, as she continued her melody—a slew of curse words that danced out of her mouth on the coattails of moans. After a moment, she grabbed my wrist, holding me steady, telling me to ease up. The body was funny that way—how something that just gave you so much pleasure could be so sensitive afterward. Returning her bottom to the seat, she gasped for air and let her legs relax leaning inward. I kept my hand over her sex, holding it with pressure.

  Neither of us said anything for a moment. I understood. She needed a minute to come down. Slipping the fabric of her panties aside, I slid one finger inside of her, motioning it in circles. She was wet and smooth, and I ached I wanted her so badly.

  Her body relaxed as her breathing slowed. She still held my wrist, but she wasn’t stopping me. This wasn’t about making her come again, it was just touching her, feeling her…and letting her feel me. After a moment, her hand slid between us and she palmed my cock.

  “No,” I stated.

  We glanced at each other and her brows were slightly arched in confusion. “I want to make you feel good, too.”

  I smirked. It was nice knowing she wanted to please me, too. As much as my dick was throbbing, I would wait. “Not right now. This was about you.”

  I could tell she didn’t like my answer as she frowned, taking her hand back. But when I pulled my fingers from inside her and slipped them in my mouth, sucking her wetness from them, her eyes widened, a flicker of lust flashing in them.

  “Mmm…” I growled before licking my lips. “That was for me.”

  When we got back to the house, we spread out our feast of gas station food—burgers, chips, and beer—and plopped on the couch. Shifting in my seat, I felt something hard under my ass and realized I was sitting on a screwdriver I’d used earlier to remove the wall mount for my flat screen. Tossing it on the cushion beside me, I looked around at all of my stuff piled up and boxed around the room. My new place wouldn’t fit all this junk. It already came furnished and the garage wasn’t big enough to store my car, bike, and furniture. I’d need to start getting rid of some things, or I would have to get a storage unit.

  “Think I’m going to get rid of some of this furniture. You got any interest?”

  Her mouth was full as she chewed, but she lifted her brows. When she swallowed, she took a sip of her beer before answering. “That’s nice of you to offer, but I don’t need anything.”

  I motioned a hand at my love seat. “I’m probably just going to give it away. Are you sure?”

  Her gaze fell to her burger resting on grease-covered foil in her lap. Quietly, she responded, “No thank you, Wren.”

  I wasn’t going to push. Biting into my burger, I hoped my expression didn’t show what I was thinking because if it did, she’d see I was annoyed. She had no furniture. I had furniture and no place to keep it. Seemed like a win-win to me. So why wouldn’t she take it when I was giving it to her for free? I thought about our conversation when she’d first arrived; what she’d said about not wanting to own things anymore. I understood the concept of minimalism, but to go without furniture—not even a small couch or recliner to sit on—that seemed a bit extreme. Though, minimalism wasn’t quite what she’d touched on. I decided not to delve into the subject with her. If she didn’t want it, I wouldn’t force it on her. But I could not deny it bothered me for some reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  After dinner, we decided to call it a night since I had to work early the next morning. Or at least turning in was the plan, but as we settled down in bed, her body spooned to mine, and it wasn’t long before we were naked and Hannah sang for me again.

  “Lie. Put down on paper the most interesting lies

  you can imagine…and then make them plausible.”

  -Chris Bohjalian

  The next day, after working for my brother, I sat at a corner table in the Black Bean Coffee Shop near the gym where I played volleyball with a hot cup of joe and fingers itching to tap the keyboard of my laptop. I had two hours to kill before my game, and I intended to use them wisely. But before I could write, I checked my emails. It still boggled me I ever did anything someone else might admire. So when I received emails or messages from readers telling me how much they loved my book, or how my work affected them, it was a high like no other. I wanted someone to pinch me, so I knew for certain it was true. I cherished my readers and in some way, that’s what had made the last couple of years so hard. I felt like I had let them down, especially with my last released book. It wasn’t my best, and they deserved better than that. But even with my misfortunes in life, I would still receive lovely words from readers, or find touching reviews on sales sites, and I knew I was damn lucky for that, too. Even in one of the darkest times of my life, not all was lost. And I desperately wanted to reward them for their faith in me with something beautiful. I had to give them this. Redeeming myself with a stellar book was my goal.

  After responding to readers’ emails, I messaged with a few of my author friends. We had a signing coming up in a week, and though financially it was daunting for me to go, I was crazy excited to see them and our faithful readers. Aside from my best friends, these were the ladies that understood me the best. For all things bookish, of course. I’d die if any one of them knew about my personal life.

  I chuckled as I responded to a group message from Lynn Evans, an author I admired greatly for her work, but also respected like hell on a personal level.

  LE: When is everyone getting in? How much rum should I stock?

  Oh yes. It was going to be a good time.

  Me: I’ll bring the soda.

  Closing out of the group chat, I sighed. I wanted to chat with everyone longer, but writing could not wait. I had to get this story out of me. What happened the night before between Wren and I was burned in my mind. I felt like I’d explode if I didn’t write it down.

  My WIP, or work in progress, was starting off nicely, though I wasn’t writing in my usual pattern. Normally, I’d sit down and write a book from beginning to end. Some writers created a timeline to keep them on track, but that had never worked for me. I wrote day to day, and created the story as I went. That’s not to say I didn’t have an overall idea of what my story was going to be about, but even with an ending in mind, I found more often than not, my story changed as I wrote.

  I’d named the hero in my story Alex and the heroine Katrina. Both characters were loosely inspired by Wren and me. I wondered if modeling a character after myself wasn’t a sign of desperation in my writing—an indication I was grasping for straws—but Katrina was like me in many ways, but also different. Both characters, no matter how inspired by real life people, would be embellished, therefore Katrina wasn’t entirely me. The same could be said for Alex, he wasn’t entirely Wren. I also argued with my inn
er critic that every book had parts of me in it; little pieces of myself tucked away within the story; parts of my heart laced within sentences. Keeping this in mind, I forged forward, happy that, regardless of my concerns, I was writing again. It felt good to have something to put down. That had to count for something.

  This time around, I was writing in chunks. I wrote scenes to be placed somewhere later when my manuscript started coming together. This was new, and I wasn’t sure if I’d regret it later. What if I spent all this time creating these scenes, stressing myself to write them down, and later realized I couldn’t use them, or they just didn’t fit? But that was writing. How many thousands of words had I deleted in my other works? It was simply par for the course. After taking a few sips of my coffee, I pulled out my journal from my purse and opened it, reading over the notes I’d made. Then I let my mind lead my fingers across the keyboard and began trying to write about what Wren did to me in his car the night before, but from Alex and Katrina’s perspectives. Just the thought of it made my cheeks heat. After we’d gone to bed, and after we’d lost ourselves in each other and Wren had fallen asleep, I slipped out of his room and crept quietly downstairs where I’d left my purse. Using the light of my cell phone, I jotted down everything I could about our drive home.

  The pad of his finger circled against the soft flesh of my inner thigh in a maddening but delicious tease.

  The way my belly tightened in anticipation as he inched closer and closer to my core.

  The rich smell of his leather seats, soft on the nostrils yet exciting.

  The struggle to sit still, to wait for him to touch me where I desperately ached to be touched.

  The look of determination on his face as he watched the road, mouth tight, the muscles tensing from his neck all the way down his right arm.

  The cool glass beneath my hand.

  The radio softly playing in the background.

  I was lost in my scene, typing away, when I heard the chair across from me at my table screech against the floor. Popping my head up, I found a bright-eyed Brigham taking a seat, a cup of coffee in hand.

  “Hello, friend.” He beamed a perfect grin, his eyes squinting slightly.

  “Hey,” I squeaked out, surprised to see him. “What are you doing here?”

  He snorted because it was a ridiculous question. Obviously, he was there for coffee. Shaking my head, I backpedaled. “Hi, Brigham,” I started over as I leaned back in my chair. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  “See how we make such amazing friends,” he replied. “I like coffee,” he motioned to the cup in his hand before motioning back to me, “You like coffee.”

  “Clearly it was fate that we met,” I jested.

  “There’s no such thing as fate, Hannah.”

  Tilting my head, I watched him a moment before responding. “Or luck…” I said, touching on something he’d said the night we met.

  “Or destiny, chance, serendipity, happenstance. None of that shit,” he shot back.

  I smirked. “So cynical, Brigham.”

  “Smart,” he retorted as he leaned forward putting his forearms on the table. “What are you over here working on? You had your head buried in that computer and didn’t even check me out when I came in. I’m offended.”

  I laughed. He was impossible. “Writing.”

  He tilted his head. “Writing what? You got some kind of virtual diary on there where you jot down little notes about love and destiny?” He was mocking me. Jerk. But his teasing really didn’t faze me. And maybe because I actually didn’t care what Brigham thought of me, it didn’t bother me. Not even a little bit.

  But teasing him was too much fun. He was the type of person that needed attention. So I glared at him pretending to be offended. “Actually, I write romance novels.”

  And there it was…that flicker men got when I told them what I did. Romance meant something so different to men than to women. Women thought love and passion. Men wanted to know how vivid the sex scenes were.

  “Seriously?” he inquired. His upper lip curled slightly as if pleased by this revelation.

  “No, I’m lying to you,” I snared. “Yes, seriously.”

  “You know,” he bobbed his head a few times, “I always thought someone should write a book about me.”

  I pressed my lips together to fight the smile. What he’d said was pretty much what seventy percent of men said to me. They all thought they’d lived this impressive life that should be written into a masterpiece like they’re some kind of Rudy. Oddly enough, not one woman I’d ever met and informed them of what I did had said that to me.

  “I’m not quite sure I could capture your true essence,” I teased him. “Nor do I have the time to try and make your sexual escapades sound romantic to my readers.”

  He chuckled, his blue eyes twinkling. He enjoyed our banter. He liked firing me up. “I’ll have to look you up.”

  Again…how many men had said that to me? I’d lost count. I’d give this one about a ten percent likeliness of that happening. “Can I read what you’ve got there?” He pointed to my laptop.

  I glanced at my screen at the scene I’d written and debated. That wasn’t something I did usually, unless it was with Courtney. My best friend was one of the only people I ever let peek at my work before it was completed. The scene, though descriptive, was short so I couldn’t think of a reason not to let him. It didn’t give the storyline away, and Brigham didn’t strike me as someone that really cared anyway. “Sure,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure at all. If I thought about it too long, I’d change my mind. “It’s just a small scene.”

  Spinning the computer around, he pulled it to him and used the mouse to adjust the page. I sipped my coffee as he read, watching him, as if any movement of his face might reveal his thoughts to me. When he was done, he smirked and nodded a few times. Turning the computer around, he pushed it back to me.

  “So that’s what you write?” I couldn’t gauge what he thought about it. Maybe it surprised him I’d let him read such a vivid and erotic scene, or maybe it surprised him plain old me even wrote something like it to begin with.

  I shrugged in answer, refusing to ask him what he thought. I would’ve liked to have known if he thought my writing was good.

  “So I’m guessing this guy Alex is the usual perfect alpha male like in most of these lady sex books.”

  “Lady sex books?” I raised one brow.

  “You know what I mean.” He scratched at his chin. “The man that doesn’t exist. This guy that has plowed through women his entire life, looks good, has money, the whole package, that suddenly lays eyes on one woman and he changes for her.”

  I grimaced. That was basically what I was writing about, damn it. Alex was just as Brigham had described, but even as cynical as I was about men, I hated how ridiculous he made it sound—as if a man like Alex, couldn’t exist. “What’s your point?”

  He didn’t answer my question. He simply moved on to asking another. “Orgasm in a Beamer, eh?” he finally said. “Sounds like a gangsta-player move. I’ve tickled the shotgun on a few ladies myself.” Glancing up, I met his stare. Why did what he had just said bother me so much?

  His brows lifted as soon as his gaze met mine. “Holy shit, Hannah,” he gasped. “This was you.” He pointed at my computer. “Your face expresses all sorts of being offended.”

  My face flamed. Brigham may have been open about his own sexual wants and experiences, but I wasn’t willing to go there with him. The characters were Alex and Katrina. There was no reason for him to think otherwise. “It’s fiction,” I replied.

  His mouth curved up. “Based on actual events.”

  How did he know this? Was I that terrible at hiding my thoughts? Rolling my eyes, I closed my laptop and began busying myself with packing it up. We needed to be at the gym in twenty minutes. It would only take five to walk across the street, but I was desperate to get out of this topic of discussion. “No, Brigham,” I groaned.

  “Who is he?”
>
  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I informed him.

  “Hannah,” he said my name sternly, causing me to glance at him. “It was good. I can tell it meant something to you.”

  My mouth suddenly felt dry. It had been good. More than good. It had been amazing. And I’d held on to it, knowing I would write it so well, knowing it would make an amazing scene in my novel. But it had been more than that. It had meant something to me beyond its potential for a place in my book. Wren took me somewhere that night, and I didn’t mean literally. He gave me something I didn’t know I had been dying for—my own passion. He took me beyond my worries, beyond the voices of characters in my head, away from reason and overthinking. He took me outside of myself to my own spontaneous, reckless, and erotic scene. My stomach knotted with that thought.

  “Boyfriend?”

  Clearing my throat, I managed to chuckle, pretending his question was ridiculous. “No. I just made this up. It didn’t have anything to do with me. I’m just a good writer.”