Shy Girls Write It Better Read online

  He was an engineer, designing complex, unique toys for a living. He could open up most computers, take out every part and rebuild it within hours. He was not going to lose against a coffee maker.

  “What’s this handle for?” he asked, pushing a metallic tube down.

  Scorching hot vapor came out of the damn thing, burning his hand.

  “Jesus, this thing is a damn liability!” he cursed, putting the contract he was holding on a nearby table to protect it from the machine, before turning at the sound of a discreet chuckle just behind him.

  Cassie was standing close – close enough for him to get a whiff of her delicate, floral scent. Wordlessly, and without saying a word, she grabbed two cups, put them side by side and pushed a few buttons, doing some kind of magic until the machine yielded to her power.

  “Cappuccino, latte?” she asked, turning to her left – towards Trick, rather than him.

  She just glanced quickly, blushed, and returned to her task.

  Carter didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all. Her timid response to Trick meant that she was just excessively shy, not particularly nervous around him as he’d believed before. Damn, that was sobering. Perhaps he wasn’t so special after all.

  “You can do the posh stuff? Then yes, please. Either would be lovely.”

  She took some milk from the fridge and used the dangerous metal thingy that had left a red mark on his palm to fluff it up.

  Then Cassie looked at him. For one instant, those emerald eyes that were too big for her face met his as she opened her mouth to speak; then she turned tomato red, shut her trap and bit her lip, unable to utter a simple word.

  That was more like it.

  “I’ll just have mine black. Thank you, Cassie.”

  That made her look up again, gorgeous eyes full of questions. She wondered why he knew her name, of course. Good question, sweetheart. He met people every day and he only bothered to recall the names of those who mattered; influential businessmen, reputable celebrities, fellow professionals… and Cassie Franklin.

  Damn if this wasn’t a slippery slope – he was man enough to admit it. He couldn’t spend any amount of time with the girl without wondering what her lips would look like wrapped around his cock. He couldn’t explain it, not even to himself. She wasn’t his type, dammit. He liked older women, sophisticated socialites who looked perfect on his arm when he took them to functions. Actresses, models, or professionals at the top of the food chain.

  The hardness pushing against his zipper was in disagreement with the head he should be listening to.

  Retreat. Now was the time to retreat.

  “Enjoy your lunch,” he heard himself say as he absentmindedly gathered his things and put them back in his bag.

  Carter turned around and headed out, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Trick was going to be on his ass about the incident.

  “You and little Cassandra Franklin? Really?” his friend asked as soon as they were out of the door.

  “Leave it.”

  His tone held a real warning, but Trick was probably the one person in the world who wasn’t intimidated by him. The idiot just laughed out loud.

  “You’re serious about this. You like her.”

  “I don’t know her,” he said, only half lying. He had plenty of information on her, but that didn’t tell her what kind of woman she was, really.

  “But you’d like to,” his friend probed.

  “She’s a sweet girl. I don’t have time for sweet, innocent girls.”

  Trick smiled like he disagreed, but thankfully for everyone involved, he let it go.

  For now.

  Chapter 3

  Cassie spent the rest of her workday in a daze, completely unable to focus on just about anything for more than three seconds at the time.

  Thank you, Cassie, he’d said. That was it; nothing more or less. That was soooooo not a reason to stare into space and fantasize about his intense grey eyes gazing down at her for hours on ends, but she couldn’t help herself from doing just that.

  Thankfully for her sanity, he didn’t make it back to his office by the time she was off the clock at five. Still, she’d spent most of her afternoon tensing up every time the elevator pinged on the ninth floor, so when she finally made it home, the first thing she did was fill up a decadent bath, full of relaxing oils and salts more expensive than the bottle of Chardonnay she opened up to go with it.

  Sometimes, it payed to have a big sister working in cosmetics. Helene sent her so many samples her small bathroom looked like it belonged in a luxury spa.

  Cassie took a healthy sip of wine before firing up her iPad and checking her emails. Her smile broadened like it did every single day; her personal email account had received the fifty-something requisite daily spams, but her attention went straight to her second email account.

  There were eleven messages; a few months ago, she only got the occasional one a week, now give or take, she received a dozen every day, and all of them were about her books.

  Some were replies from advertising platforms, others, notifications from social media, and of course, there was the occasional email from her readers. Obviously the last lot were the best thing ever, but every single one of those emails made her belly tingle with pride and excitement. They confirmed it in black and white: she really was an author.

  Cassie had always loved books, and she’d spent most of her childhood writing stories. Her parents, like many would have done, encouraged the hobby in her youth, and later, progressively made her understand that writing wasn’t a viable career option. Wannabe authors are a dime a dozen, they’d say; they made her understand that aspiring writers were just like starry eyed blondes dreaming to make it big on Broadway because they’d gotten a role or two in their high school musical. She had to think of a sure, guaranteed path that would secure her future.

  It was sound advice, in all honesty. From what Cassie saw in the various forums and groups she’d joined since she’d first thought of publishing her books, the majority of her fellow professionals didn’t make over a hundred dollar a month.

  There was a reason for that, though. She didn’t want to be mean, but most starving authors out there wrote books – good books, even amazing ones sometimes – and then, that was it. They had a great story and they just didn’t understand why it wasn’t taking off. That was doubly true for those who went the traditional route and chose to have publishers: they expected everything served on a silver platter.

  Cassie took a different approach. She decided right away that she wanted to self-publish; that meant more control over what she wanted to write, the look of her covers, the prices she wanted to set… Everything. Having one unpleasant boss had taught her to be wary of having to depend on someone else’s wiles. She went to all those forums and read on and on, soaking in all the information selflessly shared by awesome indies, studying her market. Five months later, she had a couple of thousand dollars saved; a quarter went to an awesome cover designer, and the rest went into advertising. She published her three books simultaneously, making the first one available for free; it wasn’t the only approach she could have taken, but as a nobody, completely unknown in the romance scene, she was willing to offer up a sample to let her potential readers decide whether they wanted more. To her delighted surprise, an astounding number of people did. She passed the hundred-dollar threshold one hour in her first day of launch. Month one, she made five figures; the sales had dropped, since, but she was still making a steady amount and more importantly, she’d grown her fan base – thousands of people followed her on various platforms, eagerly waiting for her next book, according to their frequent messages.

  She knew she wouldn’t have got there if she hadn’t eaten ramen for a few months to save up for her launch. Writers, like every other self-employed professional out there, needed to invest in their businesses. Hell, they were lucky: there weren’t many careers that only needed a few thousands to start them up from scratch.

  Wel
l, that and the ability to write great books – but many authors had the talent, the drive, the patience. They just lacked the understanding, or the funds; often both.

  That was the reason why Cassie didn’t resent her parents for deterring her from that path earlier on in her life; they encouraged her to find her other strengths, and for that, she was grateful. There was a good chance that she wouldn’t have approached her writing in an entrepreneurial manner if she hadn’t gone to school for business.

  Mixing water and electronic devices was most definitely not a great idea for someone as clumsy as her, but somehow Cassie managed to check all her emails without chucking her iPad in her bathtub. Afterwards, she started reading a romance book, but her mind soon took a different direction; she was yet again thinking of her latest manuscript.

  It had been finished weeks ago, but every day, she re-read it, dissatisfied. It was missing something.

  Her books were set in NYC, around a group of tight knit friends that she may or may not have based on her and her four best friends from college. The first one had been a teacher entangled in a romance with a single father – something sweet and highly amusing – and the second had a thing with her neighbor. Her last one had been between a Navy vet and the childhood sweetheart he’d left behind. With all those books, she – or at least her alter-ego, Cassandra Frank – got all of her readers drinking in her words, basking in the romance of it all, and yelping in excitement at the occasional highly explicit, highly arousing sex scenes. That was what most of the reviews said in any case.

  There were other opinions though. Of course she got bad reviews; it wasn’t humanly possible to please everyone. The issue was that most of them said exactly the same thing. They liked the stories, they liked the style, but the sex was… tame. Some had gone as far as to say that it was plain boring after a while.

  Cassie couldn’t deny it, in all honesty. She’d stayed in her comfort zone, describing the stuff that she found arousing, and well, she didn’t have enough experience to make it very exciting; her hence her struggle on the last story.

  This time, Amy, her fourth protagonist, was matched to a billionaire who liked kink. Cassie had never done anything that could even remotely pass as kinky. How was she supposed to make it realistic?

  She read hundreds of naughty books on the spicy side, doing her homework before attacking the project…but she still wasn’t sure about the result.

  What she needed was a good critic. Her beta-readers always said they liked what she sent, and that was just about as useful as tits on a bull. Of course, compliments were encouraging, but not when she knew something was amiss. She needed someone who said it like it was.

  Her mind went to her sister, the most brutally honest person she knew, but helpful as her feedback might have bit, it wasn’t an option; that meant telling Helene that she was writing erotic romance, and well, that wasn’t part of the plan. Then, there were her friends, but as much as she loved each and every one of the crazy girls she hung out with, there was no way that they’d keep their mouth shut.

  No one knew she was Cassandra Frank, and she liked it that way. She hadn’t even bothered coming up with an imaginative pen name because, in all honesty, no one would ever guess. Hell, most people she knew would be shocked if they thought she even read anything like it.

  She couldn’t help smirking, picturing the shock written on her coworkers faces if they ever found out.

  Unconsciously, her mind jumped from her colleagues to her boss’s boss’s boss.

  “Yes, Mr. Harris. I love to write mommy porn in my spare time.”

  She could only imagine his response. If it had been one of her stories, he would have found it incredibly sexy and demand naughty favors in exchange for keeping her secret, but in reality, he would probably just fire her sorry ass.

  Thankfully, he’d never find out.

  Chapter 4

  Carter prided himself in knowing people; businessmen didn’t make it to his level without a good understanding of characters.

  That’s why he’d stood there, completely unable to form a coherent thought since he’d opened up the brown folder and looked down at what was most definitely not a contract between Harris Toys and Slade Technology.

  “What the…” he’d asked, as he took in the title. Tame Me If You Can. He couldn’t finish his sentence out loud when he read the name of the author, scribed in bold letters underneath.

  Cassandra Frank. He stared dumbly as he forced his brain to compute the simple information before his eyes.

  Carter recalled every detail of his interaction with Cassie during her lunch hour. She’d been working on a stack of papers before helping out with the damn coffee maker; they must have mistakenly taken each other’s folders.

  At that realization, the decent thing to do would have been to put the papers back in the folder and give it back to her the next day. He contemplated it for all of ten seconds before turning the page.

  It was her fault; she shouldn’t have given her manuscript such an intriguing title. If she’d called it something girly and boring like Flowers and Rainbows, he would have packed it up right away; but Tame Me If You Can sounded… naughty.

  Feeling quite justified, he started reading, intending to skim through to get an idea of the content. His plans were dashed from page one. Her writing was fun, lighthearted, downright hilarious in places. He found himself engrossed, fascinated by what was a crash course in the inner working of the other sex’s mind.

  He’d said he didn’t know Cassie when Trick had poked him about her; these words written by her changed that. Now, he knew she was funny, sarcastic, and…

  Naughty.

  He really, really hadn’t expected the naughty part.

  The plot of the story was straightforward; Amy was a poor, but gorgeous girl, about to lose her apartment because of a sudden increase in rent, and she went to give the new owner a piece of her mind. The man in question, an attractive billionaire, took a liking to the girl and thus started their torrid affair.

  Carter was hard as a rock when he read about Amy wetting her finger with her tongue before stroking her inner lips and imagining Clark’s tongue on her.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” he swore, suddenly painfully aware that the scene had been written by Cassie Franklin.

  The faceless Amy suddenly had dirty ash blonde hair, a headband and a pouty lip with a pink gloss he didn’t care for as she masturbated in his mind.

  He should have closed the book then, ignored he’d ever opened it in the first place. This was downright inappropriate…

  He carried on.

  One hour in, Carter was laughing his head off. Little Cassie was talented, and the words flew naturally, so she was an experienced writer, there was no denying it… But that being said, she absolutely sucked at writing BDSM. Every other feeling, situation, incidents were realistic and well expressed. The bondage, though… It sounded painful, awkward, and just about anything but sexy.

  Without thinking, he armed himself with sticky notes and a red pen, and started inserting little comments. She would probably be pissed that he’d invaded her privacy, but who cared, the girl needed all the help she could get.

  His gaze went to the digital clock on his bedside table – one in the morning. He’d been on it for a good four hours already, but the time had flown by. Reluctantly, he closed the manuscript, knowing there was no way he’d finish it unless he pulled an all-nighter.

  Carter tried to go to sleep, in vain. His mind had never been more awake…or more focused on a woman.

  Absentmindedly, he held his cock and started stroking it up and down; his balls tightened approvingly, but he stopped himself before setting a rhythm.

  What. The. Fuck.

  When was the last time he’d needed to masturbate? His active sex life made self-satisfaction completely unnecessary.

  He grabbed his phone, intending on calling Tara at first, but his finger hovered over her name, reluctant. Instead, he fired up his browser and started
researching Cassandra Frank.

  Her profile picture on Amazon surprised him: it was her – the shot only showed the bottom of her face, her lips painted red, and a tight red silken shirt. It was sexy, provocative, and completely unlike the shy little girl he knew.

  The question was, who was the real Cassie Franklin?

  And damn her, but he had to find out.

  He didn’t have the time for her in his life; she was the exclusive, committed relationship kind of woman, of that, he was a hundred percent certain, and none of these three adjective described the women in his life. He liked those who could date casually, seeing other people; those who didn’t get attached. They had fun and then, went their separate ways.

  Even if she had been up for a casual affair, he just couldn’t risk to infuriate one of his employees – that was needlessly jeopardizing the company he’d built from the ground up with his sweat.

  But she was interesting. She was an author, for crying out loud. How many actual authors did he know? None, that was how many.

  That meant he could satisfy his curiosity, and spend some time with her… as long as they remained friendly, strictly platonically.

  He could manage that, he wasn’t a horny teenager.

  Carter went to sleep satisfied with his reasoning, firmly ignoring the little voice in his mind that said it wasn’t going to work.

  Cassie had tossed and turned all night, or close to it. The last time she’d clock watched, it had been five in the morning; then she opened her eyes and it was eight thirty, which meant that she was super-duper late.

  Officially, they started at nine but everyone made it in at least half an hour early. As the commute to the office took at least forty minutes on a good day, she was screwed.

  Well, more screwed than she already was – which admitting was an achievement.

  She’d been through various states ranging from panic to outright despair since she’d opened the folder supposed to contain her manuscript and discovered a contract instead.