Chapter 1
Sienna
Sienna
With each click of the keyboard, the sex scene on my screen comes to life. My clit throbs as my hero pushes her to her knees, his eyes sparkling as he looks down at her. The submission in her eyes makes him harder. He takes his throbbing cock in his hands.
“That should say pulsating member,” Kate says from over my shoulder. I scream and slam my laptop closed, the moment lost as I try to regain my bearings.
“What the fuck, Kate?” I yell as I turn to her. She winks and backs away from me. “You know I hate it when someone reads over my shoulder.”
I look around my condo, my heart rate slowly decreasing as I calm down from being scared out of my mind by my best friend and personal assistant.
“How did you get in here anyway?” I ask.
“I used my key. You weren’t answering me, and I had some stuff to discuss with you.”
“I need that key back,” I huff.
“Nope, it’s mine,” she laughs. “But seriously, throbbing cock is so overused. Pulsating member. That’s where it’s at.”
My left eye twitches as she moves around my space, her finger trailing on the spines of my books. I’ve published six books so far, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.
I turn back to my laptop and let my head drop as I realize the moment is gone. There’s no coming back from this interruption. I just gave my characters blue balls because the scene remains unfinished.
“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice muffled against the desk.
“Huh?” Groaning, I lift my head and turn back to the current bane of my existence.
“What did you need to discuss with me, Kate?” She places the book in her hand back on the shelf and turns to me.
“Besides pulsating members?” She laughs, and my eye starts twitching again. I will not stab her. I wouldn’t look good in prison orange. Stabbing her isn’t worth going to prison for.
“Kate,” I growl out her name, and her lips twitch. She loves getting under my skin. It’s like her personal hobby.
“That was a sexy growl, Sienna. Does your character growl while he strokes his…”
“If you say pulsating member one more time, you’re fired,” I interrupt.
Her twitching lips turn into a full-blown smile as she walks back over to me.
“What’s the matter, Sienna?”
“You just cock-blocked my characters, Kate,” I screech. “And you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“You need to get laid.”
“Is that what you came here to tell me?”
“Nope,” she pops the P.
I love my best friend. I truly do. But some days, like today, I want to take that title from her and pretend I no longer know her. I push the hair out of my face, the ends frayed and in desperate need of a good washing. I study the strands in my fingers, wondering if it would be worth it to chop it all off so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. But then I couldn’t do my messy buns anymore and that is not acceptable.
“You were chosen for a book box,” Kate says, pulling my attention from my hair and back to her.
“What?” My brain is misfiring. There’s no way I could’ve been chosen for a book box. I’m still too new in the scene to have that type of clout.
“Yep, I got the email this morning. They want Bend for Me as the featured book for the month of July.”
“But when? How?” I question. I don’t understand how this even happened.
“You did it, Sienna,” Kate responds as she approaches me. Kneeling in front of me, she grabs my hands and grips them in her hold. “It doesn’t matter how.”
I stare into her eyes, seeing the pride in them. It’s a rarity in my world and seeing it in her eyes only makes mine water. My parents don’t know what I do, don’t understand why I’m not out in the corporate world like they are. Don’t get why I’m not more like my sister, Sabrina. And while I adore my sister, there’s still that small cloud of jealousy that forms when I think of our childhood. She was the golden child who could do no wrong with her perfect grades. My parents never understood me. Never understood why I am the way that I am.
“Snap out of it,” Kate berates me. I’ll never know how she knows when my brain goes down the detour that leads me to my family.
“I got an invitation to Sabrina’s wedding today,” I whisper. Kate grimaces. And while she knows a little about my relationship with my sister, she doesn’t know everything. I’ve been compared to Sabrina for as long as I can remember. I fell through the proverbial cracks when it came to my parents, but they still made sure to get in those barbs when they could. Always asking why I can’t be more like my sister. I may have escaped and charted my own path, but I never forgot the look of disapproval in my parents’ eyes as I grew up.
“Are you going?” Kate asks, pulling me from my thoughts yet again.
“I have to. It’s expected of me.” Her lip curls at my words. I take a deep breath, trying to center myself. "My mother called to inform me that my presence is required and that she has something she'd like for me to meet." I take another deep breath, doing my best to get through this without crying. "I already know what she's going to do."
"And what's that?" Kate asks, her eyes holding my own.
"She's going to attempt to marry me off again," I confess.
“What do you mean, marry you off?” Kate asks.
“Every time I see her, she’s attempting to set me up with someone from her crowd. Maybe she thinks it will fix me,” I scoff.
“You don’t need to be fixed, Sienna.”
“I know that, Kate.” She pulls me into a hug, and I close my eyes as I wrap my arms around her.
“We need to find you a date to this wedding.”