As y’all know, I’ve been writing. And as you know, I usually always have more than one book being written at a time. Usually when I get close to the end of one, I’ll concentrate on it solely until it’s finished. Or sometimes I’ll even work on one a lot until I get to a place where I’m not sure how to continue and I’ll work on another book until I figure the first one out.

I’m still working on Cowboy Justin and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I thought today that I’d shared with y’all some lines from my current Works In Progress. You can see on the sidebar over there that there are quite a few of them. So, let’s get started, shall we?

From:

Twisted Up (Cowboy Justin and his girl, Ella)

She never saw him lift the jug and hold the bottom in his palm. She never saw it coming at all until the water hit her, soaking her face, her hair, the tee shirt she wore.

She sputtered and he laughed.

“Wha—Justin …”

“I told you to stop that.”

She wiped water from her face and he helped by slicking her hair back, just as he had his own. “I can’t help it if you’re so good looking. Go get ugly or something and I won’t gawk.”

He pressed a kiss to her soaking wet head and turned her so they could walk back to the house with his arm around her and tried to keep from looking down at her nipples, which were at present trying to poke holes in the shirt she wore. “I don’t want to get ugly. I like you gawking at me, but I have other plans for us for today that don’t include a mud bath.”

Too Bad (Jackie and Mac)

“Why do you do this, Jax?”

She loved his little nickname of Jax for her. He was the only one that called her anything other than Jackie and she loved it. She’d never tell him that though. He made her feel… Hell, she wasn’t sure what he made her feel. Which was a completely lie. She knew exactly how he made her feel, what he made her feel.

“I’m not doing anything.”

She just wished he would stop treating her special and start treating her like he treated everyone else. She wished he would stop looking at her with that all knowing little smile and that twinkle in his eyes. He wanted her. He knew she knew it. She wanted him. He knew she knew he knew that too.

“Bullshit.”

“What do you want me to say, Mac? Great, I’m glad you’ve decided we should finally fuck and get it over with?”

Drive Shaft (Alli and Jason)

“Not bothering me. How about you, Jake? Are you bothered that Alli stopped by?”

“Nope, not a bit.”

Jake had come to stand beside Cam against the side of the car and suspicion started to set in. She looked back and forth between the two men. What the hell was going on? “Okay, well, on that strange note, I’m gonna be going now. I’ll call Grant from the car to find out why he sent me over here.”

Alli turned around and put one foot in front of the other, continuing to look over her shoulder. Both men were staring after her, the oddest looks on their faces.

“You’re here for me.”

That was a voice she hadn’t heard before and she stopped in her tracks. Alli spun on her heel and looked beyond Cam and Jake to the office doorway. “I’m here for you?” Which was fine with her given the yumminess of him. He was young, shaggy blond beneath his cowboy hat, long and lean in dark jeans and cowboy boots. A tee shirt stretched across his chest, but not too tightly. There was a little scruff on his face. And he was young. Damn good looking from across the room, but young. Too young.

Had she told herself enough times that he was young? The way her belly did funny little swirly-do’s she didn’t think she had. Not near enough.

“Yes, ma’am.” He winked. “Me.”

Alli groaned and the sound echoed around the cavernous room. Oh dear God, he called her ma’am. With a wink. Yep. Way too young. “I don’t understand.” But she was afraid she did. She just needed some clarification.

Hot Yummy took a few steps toward her and those swirly-do’s in her belly picked up speed. If they kept it up, they were going to end up as a full blown twister.

“Grant set us up. A blind date.”

Forever In Blue Jeans (Blue and Cort)

“Shit.” Shit. Shit. Shit. Cort couldn’t stop the word from repeating itself inside his head. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. He looked up through the windshield, hoping the woman’s face and hair and body were different than the face and hair and body of the one he’d first glimpsed when he pulled up in front of the large house. It wasn’t. She wasn’t. All of it was the same, every last inch of every last feature he could see. “Shit.”

Did she recognize him? He hoped not. On the other hand, he hoped like hell she not only recognized but remembered in great detail every moment from that one night, every moment up until the time she left while he was still blissfully, ignorantly snoring.

Shit.

He made a big production in the cab of his truck and was pretty sure he looked like a raving lunatic tossing notepads and pieces of paper up, down, and across the seat, but he really didn’t give a fuck. Especially not in front of her.

When he finally did get out of the truck and proceeded to slam the door behind him to make a point, if only to himself, his boot slipped and he nearly fell on his ass in the wet red clay that was synonymous with the South. He gripped the door handle and held on for all he was worth, pulling himself up, rigid and locking his knees until he regained his balance.

“Careful there,” she called from the porch. “The rain we had last night hasn’t dried out yet and that is some slick stuff you’re stepping in.”

Yeah, no shit. Instead of actually saying those words, he simply slid her a look that had she been closer, would have spoken for him. Another deep breath. A clenching of his jaw until it hurt. An almost painful grip on the door handle…

Slowly, Cort put one foot in front of the other and walked away from his truck. He kicked off what mud he could when he got to the small gravel lined walk that led to the steps. She was waiting at the top for him, looking like she hadn’t a care in the world and could wait all day for him. Too bad she hadn’t waited for him to roll over and wake up all those years ago in that Savannah hotel room.

Get Lost (Annabeth and Billy)

Annabeth peered inside the coffee container one last time just to be certain she hadn’t just imagined the contents were all gone. Nope. Not imagined. Actually gone. Every last ground bean was gone.

With a calm she still couldn’t seem to muster up on the inside, she set the canister back down on the counter and stalked through the bedroom into the master bathroom she shared with Dave. She whipped open the shower curtain.

“Babe, what the hell?”

“Did you drink the last of the coffee?”

Dave pulled the curtain closed. “I was going to go get some after my shower.”

Annabeth yanked the curtain open again. “But you did drink it? The last of it? Dave, there was enough in there for both of us for this morning. And you drank it all.”

“Shit, Beth will you stop doing that. You’re letting all the steam out.”

“Unfuckingbelievable. First my mother calls all night long even when I told her not to, and now I wake up to no coffee in the house. You know I can’t do anything without my morning coffee. You know this. Why would you drink it all?”

Before he could say anything in response, she stomped out of the bathroom and over to the dresser for a pair of socks. Once she had those on, she forced her feet into her slippers and pulled on a sweatshirt over her pajama top. She should be warm enough to go down to the Starbuck’s on the corner. It might have snowed last night but she should be okay to get there and back before she froze.

Grabbing a beanie hat off the hook by the front door, she let herself out. The elevators looked promising but at the last minute she decided the stairs would be the better way to go. The running down of three flights would heat her up inside and keep her warm. And if she power walked from the downstairs door to the corner, she might not even feel the cold at all.

She pushed the stairwell door open and took the stairs at a decidedly moderate clip. Her slippers weren’t the best running shoes around. A small bit of heat started to flow through her blood by the time she got to the door that lead outside. She took a deep breath and pushed it open, swearing like a sailor as the cold wind hit her smack in the face.

Well, if that wasn’t enough to wake her up…

No matter. Nothing was going to deter her from her destination. Starbucks. Coffee. Caffeine. More important than the blood flowing through her veins at that moment.

Annabeth dodged piles of snow and stepped into foot holes where others had trod before. She was almost there. Almost… just a few feet more… just… “What the fucking hell?”

Dumbfounded she stared at the sign that in big black letters read “Due to a water main break, we are CLOSED”.

The growl and scream that came out of her throat startled those passing around her but had no effect on her at all. She didn’t care that she was making scene and losing her mind there on the sidewalk. The meltdown had been coming for a while. She’d been feeling it for months. The knots in the back of her neck and the tightness in her shoulders. The need for more and more caffeine. The long walks around downtown that she’d started taking more frequently to get away from people demanding, bitching, whining. She was due to explode and here in front of the Starbuck’s with a broken water main was where she did it.

Trouble In The Making (Johnny and Liz)

He leaned down toward her and brushed his lips against her ear lobe. “Naughty girl. Your mind is in the gutter.”

She shook her head and her hair brushed over his face. He did laugh then. She was exactly as he remembered her. Shy yes but beneath it, wanton, wild, sexy as the day is long. He’d been such a fool to turn her away. He wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

“I just thought… With what you said… People are watching, Johnny.”

“Let them watch, Liz.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.” He lifted his head and looked down at her. He always had towered above her and he’d always felt protective of her. The people that milled around them, that waved and pointed, that stopped to say hi, that were figments from a past that he could care less about meant nothing. Sure, they’d been friends for four years during school, shared classes, had parties and proms, shared a lot of memories that he’d always have and remember, but they meant nothing in the grand scheme of his life now.

“Say the word, Liz. We’ll stay or go.”

“You’d do that for me?”

Johnny nodded. “I would. If you want to stay, we’ll stay all night. If you want to go, we’ll leave right now.”

“Will we have to come back tomorrow to the brunch and the other activities?”

She had that anxious look in her eyes again and again the thought flashed through his head about how she would survive being on the road and surrounded by people with him, but he pushed it aside. He’d bring that up later. “No, not if you don’t want to.”

“Then I’d like to go and not come back.”

“You know what I’m going to do with you instead, right?”

End

Okay well… Guess I should get back to work, yes? Are you tempted at all? Are you feeling the slightest bit of teasing? Even just a little hint of it?

~lissa