Writes of Submission (5 page)

“There is some truth there,” Kane admitted. “Maybe we can work with it. Let’s take you, for example. How much pressure do you feel to, say, wear the right clothes or have perfect hair?” He looked appraisingly at her pony tail. “Now, see, I like the fact that you’re comfortable the way you are, even though—”

“Even though I’m not perfect?” Her voice was harsher than she intended. Both men reared back a little, as if she’d threatened them.

“I was going to say even though you’re dressed casually,” Kane went on in a calm tone. “See, that’s the problem. Now, personally, I would say you’re pretty close to perfection the way you are, but you seem to think I just insulted you.”

“Sure you do.” She gave a little snort of derisive laughter. “I think we’re getting a little off-track here. Maybe we should go back to the story.”

“Absolutely, but that was where I was going. If we take a woman like you, who’s gorgeous but doesn’t believe it, what kind of situation can we put her in where the guys will need to convince her of it?”

“Maybe she could be doing something undercover,” Dante suggested. “You know, like in
Miss Congeniality
.”

Nikki smiled. “She couldn’t be like me.”

“Why not?” Dante sounded genuinely curious.

She gave him a pitying look, debating whether or not to ask him to please not bother flirting with her. It was no doubt a conditioned habit with him, but there was no point here. She just wasn’t going to buy it.

“I’m way too old and overweight to carry off something like a beauty pageant,” she said.

Both men exchanged an eye roll. Nikki stood up. “Look, there’s no point in this discussion. I’m going to get some more—” She stopped, eyeing her tea mug. “Actually I’m going to have a glass of your wine, if you don’t mind. Then we need to stop with the fake flirting and really get down to business. We’ve only got a month to get this written. We don’t even have the plot started yet.”

“Sure we do,” Kane said, pulling the cork back out of his bottle and waiting for her to bring over another glass. He filled hers and then topped off Dante’s and emptied the rest into his own. “We’re getting a feel for our heroine. The plot will come from her. All the best stories are told by the characters themselves.”

“Oh, no.” She put down her pen and gaped at him. “Don’t tell me you don’t use an outline!”

“Of course I don’t. Outlines kill creativity.”

Nikki put her face in her hands. “We’re never going to get this book written. I’ll have to start flipping burgers for a living.”

He laughed. “I’m messing with you. Sort of.”

She lifted her head. “What? Do we burn incense and pop some peyote until we have a vision of the story?”

“Now you’re talking,” Dante said, chugging his wine. “That sounds like fun. When do we do that part?”

Kane smirked at him. “I’m game if you two are. But for now, let’s decide what our protagonist wants, then we can figure out what rocks to start throwing at her.”

“Rocks?” Dante sounded confused.

“I don’t remember who said it,” Kane said. “But somebody said the art of writing consists of sending your character up a tree, throwing rocks at them, and then bringing them back down.”

“Uh-huh.” Nikki smiled in spite of herself. “So how do we get her in the tree?”

* * * *

Two hours later, Allie came down to start dinner. She paused on her way through to ask how things were going.

“Let me know if you have any preferences on food or dinnertime,” she said. “My guys and I are planning to have most of our meals in the kitchen to give you some privacy to work.” She gave Dante an apologetic smile. “You’re welcome to come eat with us if you think it would be helpful.”

He sent a quick glance to Kane. “Would you guys mind if I hang around you? I’m really fascinated by this writing process of yours. It’s giving me some good marketing ideas that will help with your book.”

“That’s fine with me.” Kane’s first reaction was to say no. He wanted the good-looking blond around Nikki as little as he could manage it. But he also realized that he liked the guy, despite himself, and he was starting to look forward to hearing his ideas. He waited to see what Nikki’s reaction would be. She’d loosened up a bit once she’d finally tried the wine, but he had a feeling this was going to be an uphill battle. She seemed to think that every detail of the book needed to be determined before anything got written down. He’d finally convinced her to take a shot at writing the first scene and introduce the characters. They’d come up with a preliminary situation and some basic character traits and he was going to let her take the lead, at least as long as she was comfortable with it. He would wait and see where the book started heading before choosing which scenes he wanted to write. He just hoped she wasn’t too hung up on the plotting thing. He was more of a seat-of-the-pantser himself, and it had worked pretty well for him so far.

But that was writing by himself. What would happen now that someone else was doing at least part of the writing? Would the characters still talk to him? Would Nikki accept it if they talked to her? What if the things they said to Nikki were the complete opposite of what they said to him?

He wasn’t at all confident anymore that this had been a good idea. She was cute, sure, but that didn’t mean they were compatible, personally or professionally. She seemed so serious. Could he deal with that? He liked to goof around, working or not, and sometimes he got his best ideas when he was doing something completely off the wall, like sitting naked in the hot tub with a cigar and a glass of brandy. Somehow he just couldn’t see Nikki joining him in that activity.

“You don’t have a hot tub here, do you?” Kane asked Allie.

She looked a little startled. “Not yet. It’s at the top of my list to get when we have a little extra money.”

Kane glanced at Nikki. An image of the two of them naked together in the water popped into his brain and took hold. His dick responded with a twitch. Great. Now he was going to be thinking of that all night. “Probably just as well. I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate anyway.”

Chapter 4

Dante chugged the last of his wine and stood up. “Is that the brainstorming session for today, then?”

Nikki was packing up her supplies, a determined look on her face. “I’m going to go to my room and start this scene while it’s fresh in my mind.”

“You do that.” Kane tilted the last bottle into his glass, then when nothing came out, he squinted into it with a rueful look. “I think I need to make a run to the liquor store before I can think any more.”

“Can I help with dinner, Allie?” Dante asked, following her into the kitchen. “We can start discussing our strategy.”

She hesitated. “Shouldn’t that wait until Karl and Brad are here?”

“Well, we can,” he said slowly, leaning against the wall to show that he wasn’t planning on getting in her way. “I do want to talk to you about something first, though, and I’d love to watch you cooking—unless it would really freak you out. I’m surprisingly good at chopping vegetables, too.”

“All right.” Allie tossed him a bag of potatoes. “Why don’t you peel those and cut them up into segments for me?”

“Potatoes?” Dante gave her a mock look of astonishment.

“Yes, potatoes. I like to start small with new people. It gives them a sense of security before I spring the more unique stuff on them.” Allie rummaged in the fridge, bringing out a variety of items.

“That’s more like it,” Dante said approvingly, nodding at the growing collection. He picked up a turnip and sniffed it thoughtfully.

“Look.” Allie stopped and faced him, frowning as she handed him a peeler. “Are you going to make me look like some kind of weirdo here?”

“What? No, not at all.” Dante pulled the garbage pail to the kitchen table and settled himself to work. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring wink. “In fact, I’m going to make you look interesting and innovative. I’ve got some other ideas, too, though, and that leads me to what I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.” She still sounded wary as she got out a large bowl for the potatoes. “Go ahead.”

“First of all, I think it’s fantastic that you have two other writers here right now. The timing couldn’t be better. I gathered that this is an establishment that caters to the kinky community?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, since Kane writes about BDSM, why not piggyback off each other’s marketing and catapult you all through the roof?”

She frowned. “How do we do that?”

“Simple. Candee Appelbaum has a healthy following already. Even though her sales have slowed a little from what Kane said, she’s got a good backlist. We can generate some real interest with this whole ‘She’s a man’ reveal, as well as the ‘Who is Candee Appelbaum’s new cowriter and what is the relationship between them?’ thing. The public loves a good relationship mystery, and the kinkier the better. She’s already known for her BDSM. Let’s tie that into the fact that they’re here, they’re new, they’re writing some fresh, hot stuff, and they’re loving the food and the hospitality at Clifftop Fantasies.”

“Okay,” Allie said slowly. “I see how that could benefit all of us.”

A thought occurred to Dante suddenly and he paused in his pealing. “Do you have a problem with me working with Kane and Nikki, too? Because if you’d rather, I can just concentrate on your book. That is what I’m here for, after all.”

“No, no.” Allie shook her head as she began sautéing some chicken. “I have no problem with you working with them, too. They seem like very interesting people.”

“They’re amazing,” Dante told her. “I’d really like to watch as they get acquainted and write a book together, at least if they don’t kill each other in the process. It’s going to be educational, if nothing else.”

Allie smiled. “Do you think they’ll be able to work together?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He tossed a potato into the bowl and picked up another one. “Either they’ll balance each other out and it’ll be a great combination or they’ll combust in a spectacular fireworks display. Can I ask you another question?”

“Sure. I would think you’re probably going to be asking a lot of questions over the next month.”

“You don’t mind talking about your lifestyle?”

She gave him an odd look. “No. That’s why we’re public, to help people understand. I jumped at the chance to have Nikki and Kane come here to work on their project. Kane does a pretty decent job of writing realistic BDSM, but we all agreed that his coauthor would need a good grounding if she was going to avoid some of the common misconceptions in BDSM literature.”

“Great. I want to know about polyamory. You and Brad and Karl seem to have it dialed in pretty well. Did that take a while?”

“Sure.” She chuckled as she stirred her dish. “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right? It takes some getting used to, especially when we’re all raised to think that our partners should never want anyone else. Brad had some issues with it at first, but once he realized how freeing it was for him not to have to pretend to be interested in everything I wanted to do, he warmed up to the idea pretty quickly.”

“What helped most in the adjustment?”

“Structure.” There was no hesitation in Allie’s voice. “Having a hierarchy is a real benefit in multiple-partner situations. We all know what each of us is best at. At certain times I’m in charge, because that’s my area. We all listen to Brad when it comes to money, business and investing. He’s a genius there. But when something comes up that’s not in one of our specialty areas, Karl is the boss. We all have input, and Karl listens to our opinions about everything. Then he makes the decision, and we all abide by it. Nobody feels like they have to fight to get their way, because we know our views have been taken into consideration.”

“Sounds like a sensible system,” Dante nodded thoughtfully to himself as he worked. “I can totally see the benefits to having multiple partners. You have more people to bring in income, help with household chores, support one another and to do things with.”

“Exactly.” Allie sounded enthusiastic, as if she hadn’t expected him to grasp the concept so quickly. “If you have kids, you have a bigger extended family to help when needed.”

He raised his head. “What do people tell their kids about their partners when they’re poly?”

“It’s really no different than other people,” Allie said. “If you were a single parent, would you feel the need to explain your sex life to your kids? You still have friends, family, and dates coming over and the kids just know that these people are part of their lives. Later, when they’re old enough to understand, you can choose to tell them as much as you want to. Kids are remarkably resilient, and having extra adults around actually makes for a more stable environment for them, as long as you don’t have different people constantly coming and going. That’s the same as dating, though. Bringing home a different date every night of the week would be confusing for the kids no matter what the parent’s lifestyle is. Your children don’t need to think of your partners as family members until the relationship becomes stable. It can be an extremely healthy environment, just like a close extended family.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”