Breaking Stone: Bad Boy Romance Novel (7 page)

I
caught
the last part of Katrina’s phone call with her mother. Should I have walked away and given her some privacy? Probably. If I were decent, I would have done that. On the other hand, the call was on company time, as they say. In a sense, while Katrina was here, I owned her. I paid her to dedicate a certain amount of hours to me each day, and during that time, I could do whatever I wished with her so long as my actions were lawful.

She was becoming my study, my muse, and proving useful in crafting a different sort of character to the ones I usually put in my books. The time had come for Steele, my fictional manwhore, to find the motivation to change from his slutty habits and settle down. Poor bastard. I pitied him and wondered if that was the reason I was dragging my feet over getting down and writing the story.

Katrina was turning out to be an intriguing CJM plant, but Sarah hadn’t thought this through. There wasn’t a lot to keep Katrina occupied because I wasn’t going to have her running to the shops for me or doing my housework.

Her back was to me, and I waited a moment, studying her as she gazed out the window. Her shoulders spoke of despair, a half-deflated, forgotten football. She’d unraveled her braid and made some sort of knot on top of her head, held in place with a couple of pencils. I was fascinated that something so simple inspired so many ideas, all of which involved copious bodily fluids and no clothes. The way she’d clung to me on the motorcycle made me hard, as did the way she chewed her food, blushed, laughed, and tried to hide her indignity.

Little inspired me these days since Lily. The idea of a hookup felt hollow. Flirting with the fans was often a marketing chore rather than the fun it used to be. Teasing Katrina was a worthy distraction.

“Everything okay here, Poppins?”

I’d startled her, and she quickly flicked the browser window on her laptop to show she was working on my Facebook page.

“All good. I’m just working on your social media.”

“Mothers are such an emotional suck, aren’t they?”

She turned and looked at me. Everything there was honest, the hurt in her eyes, the confusion, all the shit I was well acquainted with. I used to see it in the mirror when I was a child. Fuck that. For some reason, it pissed me off that Katrina’s mother still had some kind of hold on her.

“They are. Sorry about the personal stuff during work time. It won’t happen again.”

I waved it off. My guess was that it would happen again, and I didn’t need to add to Katrina’s guilt load. “We’re not on a strict timetable here. If you need to deal with family stuff, roll with it.”

“She’s nosy. Likes to involve herself in every detail of my life.”

“So that she can control it.”

There again on her face, the truth. We weren’t about to become therapy buddies, and my mother had never tried to control my life. She could barely control her own. Having a child had been so overwhelming, she’d had to put me aside so that she could exist.
Don’t crowd me, Stone. I need to breathe
.

Katrina grimaced. “Your fans are rabid.”

“And competitive. What are they up to?”

She pushed her laptop across the desk. I couldn’t see anything beyond the regular veiled offers of sex, which typically escalated to blatant propositions. I scrolled through. The usual suspects were there, along with some new ones.

“Nice work, Poppins. Some of them are actually discussing the books.”

“Most of them are discussing your body parts, one piece of anatomy in particular.”

“Those chicks are nuts.”

“Have you ever...you know...taken them up on their offers?”

“What do you think?”

“From this,” she waved her hand at the screen, “I can’t tell.”

“Which is the way it should be. Mystery, myth, longing, peppered with a dash of possibility. The ‘maybe’ is what keeps them coming back.”

“Your stories keep them coming back.”

“Sometimes, it’s hard to separate the two, which is why I should stay away from this shit. And why I don’t. I do a lot of living in my head. When I break out, I do a lot of experiences. It’s the way it is.”

“It’s an unreal way to live, don’t you think?”

“Some of us are destined to burn bright and fast.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s a choice, not a destiny.”

I burned her cheeks with my smile. I was a prick like that. It was easy with most women, to work out what made them squirm, what made them melt, the hostility, the happiness. My looks were a gift, and the dimples and the smile weren’t my talent. What most guys didn’t understand was that if you added effort and knowledge, looks were immaterial.

“Let’s work out why you’re really here and how you can help me. Come and have a glass of wine with me.” I left the room, confident she’d follow.

I took the wine and glasses out to the patio, where we sat a safe distance from each other. The evening was warm, and at the bottom of the garden, a great blue heron took flight, looking almost prehistoric, almost struggling to become airborne as it gathered its long wings and hauled itself off the ground.

I handed Katrina a glass of wine.

“I shouldn’t if I’m working.” She’d brought a pen and notepad with her.

“This is casual. I’m outlining.”

“Oh, right.”

She made to pass the pen and notepad to me, but I stopped her with a raised hand.

“You’ve read the series?” I asked.

“Most of it,” she said, taking a gulp of wine as if even thinking about the stories required fortification.

“What worked for you, and what didn’t?”

“There’s a lot of sex.”

“Does that fall into the realm of what worked?”

“I think it does for your fans. I found Steele somewhat shallow. I don’t mean to be rude, but he’s not my type. I wouldn’t be able to trust him, and anyway, he’d never look at someone like me, so it’s not really an issue.”

I rubbed my hand over my mouth, considering Katrina. “I think you’d be a big issue to Steele.”

“Write it, then,” she said, her eyes filled with mischief. “Give your fans something different, a heroine they identify with.”

“It’s fantasy, Poppins. Steele doesn’t exist. What exists is all in the reader’s mind. They project themselves into the story. Those fans, a lot of them want to be the one to tame Steele. The others just want a good fucking. What I write about him is the blueprint for an alphahole manwhore, but the readers add the embellishments, the crystals and sprinkles, until they’ve made themselves the perfect hero. Whether he’s lovable or loathsome is up to the individual reader. How do you see him?”

“Lo—” She stopped before she gave herself away. Wise woman. “It’s not really my genre, so I don’t feel qualified to give my opinion.”

“The fact that you’re a woman qualifies you.”

We both took a drink.

“I don’t agree. You need to give your fans what they want. Hit the marks they expect, fulfill the fantasy for them. Isn’t your ability to do that what makes you successful?”

She was right, of course, but I’d lost my hunger for it. “It is, but it’s not what I want anymore.”

“So, why do you write romance?”

“Money. I’d written a couple of serious things that Sarah had shopped around for me, but although publishers liked them, they didn’t see a market for them at the time. I was frustrated, so I asked Sarah what the publishers did see as the market. She said, ‘Bring me romance, a hot guy who’s always hard. Bring me kinky sex and a hero who walks the edge of decency, and who’s not afraid to cross the line. A guy who every woman thinks she wants, but whom most would run a mile from in real life. Bring me their wildest fantasy, Stone. Bring me you.’”

I paused for Katrina’s reaction, enjoying the rapid play of emotions across her face. Distaste, excitement, arousal—all quickly packed away and sealed up in an airtight little evidence bag that she could hand in to CJM if required.

“People say the books are autobiographical.”

“Writers lie if they say they’re not.”

“So the person who writes serial killers wants to murder? Is that what you think?”

I winked at her. She’d work it out. I moved to pour more wine, but Katrina put her hand over the top of her glass.

“I’ve probably had enough,” she said.

I couldn’t tell if she referred to the wine or the revelations. “You’ll fall in love one day, Poppins, and discover that there’s never enough.”

She leaned back in her chair and pulled her legs up. She looked that way women often did when you talked about love. Wistful.

“How are you going to make Steele fall in love?”

“Easy. I’m going to write him the woman of his dreams. Someone with so much inner beauty, he doesn’t notice what’s on the outside. His world without her will be a bleak nuclear dawn. Of course, she’ll fuck like a rabbit in heat and give head like she’s competing for the star role in the Linda Lovelace biopic.”

“And never get a UTI.” Katrina giggled, nudging her glass toward me. “I think I need more wine.”

I happily obliged.

“So, this girl. She’ll give head like Nina?”

Nina was the impossible-to-choke, cock-sucking champion I’d written into book three. If she was in a scene, she was either on her knees or lying on a bed with her head tipped backward over the edge, begging for Steele’s cum. “She’ll be better than that.”

Katrina’s eyes glinted, her lips parting and forming a shape that distressed my dick.

“That’s hard to imagine,” she finally said.

“Not really,” I replied, pouring wine into my mouth and focusing on the distant river, hoping to quell the surge of activity making my jeans too tight. My hand had been the only thing to touch my dick since Lily, and the drought didn’t look like it would be ending soon. “Love will change his perception of great sex from a physical release to something deeper.”

“So, the sex won’t be so...rough.”

“The sex will be how they both want it to be. It will rise organically from their relationship and suit whichever scene they’re in. It will be rough and tender. I can guarantee that.”

“It’s a bit overwhelming. The idea of a guy expecting sex like that would knock the confidence from me because I know I’d be hopeless at it.”

Halfway through her second glass of wine, Katrina was loosening up. Something in me—my ego, I expect—wanted to show her that, yes, it would be overwhelming, but if anything, it would leave her full of confidence. Thankfully, I still had enough wits about me to put that thought away. “One day, Poppins, I hope you discover that’s not true.”

When her eyes widened again, I had to look away.

She nursed her glass, stroking the stem, oblivious to how that appeared from my point of view.

“The love thing. How are you going to make that happen?”

“Don’t you worry about that. It’s what I’m paid to do.” I honestly had no fucking idea.

“Except, you’ve never written a happily ever after.”

Thanks for the reminder, Poppins.
I’d never experienced one, either. But there was a novel about a psychotic killer gathering dust on my hard drive, and I wasn’t a murderer. Love, I hoped, would be a piece of cake. “This time, I have to, so I’ll do it.”

“What if you created this character, this love interest, and Steele doesn’t go for her?”

“As an assistant, Poppins, you suck. Of course he’s going to go for her. He just needs to recognize that she’s his ideal woman.”

She slipped off her glasses, folding in the arms and placing them carefully on top of her yellow legal pad, which lay on the patio table, before giving me the cutest grin. I’d like to blame the wine, but I didn’t think that was the reason Katrina was getting sexier by the minute.

“But, we’re back to that love thing. People just don’t fall in love. There has to be a reason.”

“There isn’t a reason beyond attraction. Love is a biological drive that exists outside logic. That’s why you get the lawyer falling for the drug dealer. They can’t help it. Some fight it, but in the end, they either walk away, alone and miserable, or they make a career-ending hookup. There’s no escape and there’s no avoiding it, because love is as subtle as a punch to the gut.”
Allegedly.

“Do you think everyone’s capable of falling in love?”

I’d never had a conversation like this with a woman before. In fact, I’d never thought this hard about love. “Sure they are. I’m just not sure every person will find
the one.
Or that the person they believe to be the one will be available for a relationship.”

Watching Katrina, I couldn’t tell if she’d had her heart broken or never been in love. I was about to ask her when her phone rang.

“Oh, hell, it’s Sarah.”

She pushed her wine across the table, then answered the phone. There was a lot of head nodding before Katrina told Sarah I wasn’t there. Obviously, that got a reaction.

“What I meant,” she said, “is that he’s locked away, working. Yes, I believe the book’s coming along well.”

When she finished the call, she gave me a look of exasperation. “I had to lie for you,” she said.

“You don’t have to lie for me.”

“Well, I had to lie for me, then. I need this job, Stone, and you need to write.”

“Relax, Poppins, you’ll get your book.”

“On time?”

“Of course.” My phone buzzed. I ignored it, not wanting to deal with Lily right now.

“You’d better get that.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“It might be Sarah.”

“If I don’t answer, she’ll think I’m working.” When it buzzed again, I remembered Todd and some friends said they might stop by on their way back from a trip up north. I glanced at the screen. Todd. “I’ve got some friends coming over—”

“I’d better go.” Katrina leapt from her chair, grabbing her things.

“You can stay. Have some dinner with us. They’re bringing takeout.”

“No, really, there are things I have to do. Other work.”

“For your mother?”

“Don’t.”

“Let me drive you home.”

“It’s a mile down the road. I’m fine. Thanks for the wine.”

I was pleased she was going. Todd was worse than Steele, and God knows who he had with him. My quiet day was shaping up to be a long, loud night.