As his imagination ran rampant, his body stiffened, and his warm, creamy seed spilled out, covering his fist. He pumped until he’d emptied himself. When he was finally done, his muscles relaxed, and his breathing returned to normal. He had to find a way to get to her. They would be so good together.
“Let’s see, Roark, what should I have you do to this one? The readers love it when they sass you, and you feed them your cock after spanking them, then fucking them from behind. I don’t think you’ve taken one of their asses that way in a while. Now, what should she do, and where should she do it…”
Sage cackled. As usual, her physical release, singing, and dancing had helped immensely. The words started to flow. She loved when the writing came so easily, she could barely type fast enough to keep up with the words as they came into her head, describing the scene. Sage turned up the music and typed, absorbed in the work, and the hours sped by. By the time she looked up, dawn was beginning to creep over the horizon.
She hit save and stood, stretching her arms overhead and arching side to side. She kissed her fingertips and pressed them to her favorite Roark Samuels’ cover she’d had made into a piece of stretched canvas art.
“I’ll see you later, Roark,” she said, and headed up to her bedroom to take a shower.
When Sage’s cell phone rang, she glanced at the caller ID and sighed. It was Gail. Sage knew if she ignored her, Gail would just call back.
“Well?” Gail said without preliminaries.
“I’m almost done. Just wrote the last sex scene. I need to do a wrap up where he hands the heiress off to her wimpy fiancé, and she longingly watches him walk off into the sunset. It should be done before the end of the day.” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “This is the last Roark Samuels novel… at least for a while. I thought I’d take a little vacation and start a new paranormal series.”
“You live at the beach. How much more vacation do you need? As for that silly werewolf idea…”
“Not werewolves, wolf-shifters,” she said, enthusiastic about sharing her idea. “There’s no tortured transition into some grotesque, misbegotten shape, just one minute you’re human, then a kind of shimmer, then you’re a wolf…”
“Whatever. Roark Samuels sells. You can do a vanity project next year.”
“It’s not a vanity project, Gail. I need to grow as an author, to hone my craft—”
“For Christ’s sake, Sage, Roark pays the bills.”
“The books are predictable. Sometimes, it feels like all that changes are the names and the locales… well, more than that. I mean, I work really hard to keep things fresh and always keep them guessing about what’s going to happen, but they are becoming a bit formulaic.”
“People like predictable. They know what to expect from you. It can’t be that taxing. Hell, Sage, anyone could write them. It’s not like you’re ever going to be the next Nora Roberts. You simply don’t have that kind of talent, but few do.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I don’t want to be Nora Roberts or any other romance writer. I like being me and fortunately for both of us, so do my readers.”
They had this argument each time Sage neared the completion of a novel. In the end, she always capitulated and did what Gail wanted—without Gail, she would never have had a career, something Gail always reminded her of—but the other characters in her head were vying for her attention. She’d even started a wolf-shifter and a bear-shifter, but both times, Roark had asserted himself and intrigued her with a new twist on his normal plot lines.
“Look, sweetie,” Gail continued. “I know I’ve been a tough taskmaster of late, but I have to work hard on your behalf, and you don’t want to let your fans down. They’d be so disappointed if you retired Roark. And what would everyone say if your next novel failed? You don’t want them to say you’re just a one-trick pony—that if it isn’t Roark that you can’t write it.”
“But that’s what worries me. What if I am?”
“You won’t know that for sure unless you write something new and different, and it falls flat on its face. I know you’ve read the articles about picking your lane and staying in it. It’s the best way to expand your market. I’ve worked so hard to put you and Roark on the map and everyone’s Kindle.”
“But maybe my readers would like it if we took a different road, a path less traveled.”
“Sage, sweetie, less traveled means less money.”
“I make enough money…” Sage started.
“There is no such thing as enough money. Come on, you can do a couple more before the end of the year, don’t you think? I’ll tell you what, why don’t you finish the next two, then you and I will sneak away for a long weekend in London. We’ll eat at all the best restaurants, shop in the best stores, see a play in the West End… maybe even see if we can get you into that club… what’s it called?”
“You know perfectly well it’s Baker Street, and you know how much I’d like to go there.” Sage knew she was being played. “Let me guess,
