Quick NaNoWriMo update: I’m at 35971. Not a huge gain, but it could have been nothing, nada, zilch. Gotta see the bright side. Today will be challenging too because I’m heading back to Little Rock for the monthly Diamond State Romance Authors meeting.

Since I’m in a rush to get a shower and get out the door, I hope you enjoy a peek at something I’m working on now. Please forgive any errors—I am not an editor, I just write these kinky little things.

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“A girl’s gotta do what girl’s gotta do,” Jolene Ledbetter muttered and cinched the belt of her silk robe tightly around her waist.

She eyed the long, hard body stretched across her soft cotton sheets and just barely suppressed an appreciative sigh. No, she wasn’t going to slip back into bed with the man—no matter how tempting the package his large hand caressed in his sleep.

Even snoring, he oozed sex appeal. His nude, six-feet-four, hard-muscled body sprawled diagonally, taking up most of her queen-sized mattress. The sheets were pooled on the floor at the foot of the bed, because they’d both dozed off, sweating after the last round of mind-blowing sex. A dark, bluish shadow hugged the curve of his jaw and she could well imagine how it would feel scraping against her breasts or between her thighs.

“Mmm-mm-mm,” she breathed, not wanting to wake him, not just yet. She still had to work on suppressing the need curling deeply inside her belly and stiffening her noodle-limp backbone.

Time for Gabriel Devine to piss or get off the pot. Time for him to man up.

She’d been his doormat for far too long—his go-to girl when he wanted company for a meal or sex. And it was all her fault. She’d fallen into his arms the first night they’d met and she hadn’t said no to a damn thing since.

Her half-Asian, half-African-American mother had been only slightly less of a doormat than her Asian grandmother. She’d inherited the doormat gene, doomed from birth.

Gabe said she was the only woman in his life and she believed him. However, being his one and only didn’t seem to mean the same thing to him that it did to her. She’d expected after nearly a year of dating that they would have made some progress toward commitment.

He still rolled out of her bed in the wee hours of the morning, hadn’t brought a toothbrush or any clothes, and he hadn’t mumbled a single word about where he wanted this relationship to go.

A pang of guilt tightened her chest.

Neither had she. Her best friend Lexie Burns had warned her that if she didn’t set some expectations, some limits, and let him know right up front that he couldn’t expect a free ride for life, that he’d keep up the same old pattern.

And Lexie should know. She was a syndicated advice columnist. Plus, and this qualification was a helluva lot more meaningful to Jolie, Lexie was engaged.

If Jolie had hoped that Gabriel would take a page from the same book after watching how happy his partner Tyler was with Lexie, she’d been doomed to disappointment.

Every time she brought up how content they appeared, Gabe grunted and changed the subject. Jolie was beginning to believe that Gabe was either dense or purposefully trying to throw her off the scent of marriage.

Well, even if she was a pushover, she wasn’t a quitter. And her mama hadn’t raised no fool, even though her mother still waited on her dad hand and foot. At least she’d gotten a ring for her efforts.

All Jolie ever got was sex. Mind-blowing sex, yeah, but when the sheets cooled, she was always left alone.

Jolie cooked special dinners for Gabe, carried his laundry back and forth to the cleaners, was ready at the drop of the hat to have sex, wherever and whenever he wanted. She’d gotten tested and gone on The Pill when he’d asked—all because he didn’t want a condom to interfere with his pleasure.

All the man ever had to do was crook his finger and she scampered over to him, panting and eager to please.

He might be the finest thing she’d ever seen draped across her sheets, but enough was enough.
No more. Gabe Devine had just had the last free ride he was gonna get. The next time he wanted anything, an éclair or a blow job, it was gonna cost him one engagement ring.

Not that she wanted anything extravagant. He was a cop after all.

She stared down at her naked hand and curled her fingers into claws.

Time to wake him up and tell him what for.

Jolie took a deep breath and approached the bed, hovering over him for a moment and sucking in the scent of him—male musk, sex, a slight whiff of the spicy cologne she’d given him for his birthday. Dayum, the man made her mouth water. Just the smell of him made her knees weak and her sex all soft and wet.

She reached out an index finger and poked his shoulder, afraid to touch him with her whole hand, well, because she knew where that would lead. “Gabe, time to wake up.”

He grunted and his hand closed tighter around his sex. His eyes cracked open, and shards of icy-blue glinted at her. “’S early.” He scowled and glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. Then he turned back, a dark eyebrow rising. “Need somethin’, baby?”

God, that sexy purr of his melted her like butter. She firmed her lips and poked him with a stiff finger again. “I need for you to get your sorry ass out of my bed.”

His eyes widened and one corner of his mouth quirked up. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. Before she could suck in a deep breath, he’d pulled her down on top of him. “Mad ‘cause I fell asleep?”

“Nope.”

“Mad ‘cause I didn’t make you come?”

She pursed her lips. “You know damn well you did.”

“So what’s got you so hot and bothered?”

Jolie clamped her lips together. This close, plastered to his chest, his thickening cock nudging against her open thighs, she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t be strong. She melted all over him, her breasts flattening against his chest, her belly rubbing against his.

The bastard had the nerve to smile. Prickling started at the back of her eyes.

He rolled her, his arms encircling her, and thrust a knee between her legs. “Baby, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” she muttered. Although she already knew. Her eyes were quickly filling, and he hated tears, even happy ones, and these weren’t happy. She blinked away her frustration.

God, she was doing it again. Pleasing him.

She jutted out her chin and stiffened her body. “Get off me, Devine.”

“I’m not ready to. You woke me up.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanted this.”

“Sure you did.” To prove his point, he reached down, parted her robe and slid his silky, hot cock between her folds.

Her pussy clasped him, the wet sound louder than their deepening breaths.

Gabe stroked deep and sighed. “This is good. What we have.”

It’s not enough, she wanted to say, but she didn’t want him stopping what he was doing, not yet. Already her body tightened; her belly curved to take him deeper. She sighed, resigned that she couldn’t kick him out until after she’d come. Then she opened her legs, lifting her thighs to hug his narrow hips.