Wait With Me (Wait With Me, #1)(25)

Miles’s eyes are bright and blue when he exclaims, “You didn’t?”

“We did! This is a true story!” I retort and keep going. “And somehow, they think we’re their honored guests for the evening. We think the people they were expecting never showed up. I guess. I don’t know, the details of that are still fuzzy.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“We kinda just rolled with it because we were tired and we thought, ‘all we need is a bed to crash in, who cares what this woman is doing with a dude on a leash. That’s her business.’”

“Your ex won’t tell his family what you do, but he was open-minded to that kind of scene?”

I bark out a laugh. “He was as high as a fucking kite! He had consumed three edibles in retaliation to the fact that I forgot to book a hotel room. I don’t know, he’s an idiot.”

“Agreed,” Miles adds with a scowl.

I can’t help but giggle at the serious tone in his voice. “I don’t think he even realizes what he’s seeing. Like I think he was actually seeing dogs on leashes, not human subs.”

A full-on belly laugh erupts from Miles, and he eventually asks, “What happened?”

My brows lift. “You mean, did we participate?”

“Yeah,” he admits with a shameless shrug.

“We did not,” I reply with a sad smile. “Since we were the honored guests, we were only there to watch. The Head Mistress was very clear about that. She ushered us into this Western-looking parlor room and seated us in frickin’ thrones, complete with sashes and crowns. Then, they basically put on a BDSM performance for us. It was frickin’ insane!”

“Sounds like it.”

“Naturally, I go to bed that night and think, I have to write down everything that just happened or no one will believe it. So I did. It wasn’t super hard for me because I was already a copy editor and a huge reader. But I was pretty much writing it like a book, not a journal. It was complete with dialogue, descriptions, and the whole nine yards. I thought it would be really fun to take creative liberties with the story, so I kept going. Next thing I knew, I had a damn book!

“I came up with this utterly ridiculous pen name when I was drunk one night. A crazy story deserved a crazy pen name, so I settled on…”

I pause for dramatic effect, and Miles rolls his hand out in front of him, encouraging me to continue.

“Mercedes Lee Loveletter.”

I shrug and giggle, enjoying the stunned look in his eyes right before he asks, “What’s your real last name then?”

I pause and bite my lip, quickly trying to decide how far I want to take this. It’s a quick internal debate, though, because I know without a doubt that I love being Mercedes with Miles ten times more than I’ve ever loved being Kate, especially with men like Dryston. “It’s Smith,” I reply honestly because it’s not like he’ll find me on Facebook or something. I removed my personal account a long time ago because it was too much to monitor that profile as well as my pen name.

“Smith,” he repeats with a nod, the corners of his mouth turning down with a concealed smile. “So why Loveletter then?”

“Well, because that was how the BDSM performance all started. This giant dominatrix removed a ball gag from her slave’s mouth so he could read a love letter he’d written to his mistress. It was really sweet actually. He even cried.”

Miles shakes his head. “That’s how your journey began then?”

“Yep,” I reply with an audible pop. “I self-published the story and didn’t even know it hit the New York Times until an agent emailed me to ask if I had representation.”

“Holy shit!” Miles exclaims, clearly impressed. “That’s an incredible story.”

“Book-worthy,” I correct with a grin. This is fun. It’s been forever since I’ve thought back through the whole saga, and Miles is lapping it up like a dog. “And it clearly gave me the itch to write because once I started, I couldn’t stop.”

“Until your slump with this book.”

“Until Tire Depot saved me.”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “And you said this book is the last in the series?”

I nod my head. “Yep.”

“And then on to the next book.”

“It’s like an itch I can’t stop scratching.”

I exhale heavily and watch Miles’s face morph into a warm, affectionate smile as he stares down at me. He’s mesmerizing when he looks at me like that, all sweet and masculine. It’s also totally frickin’ obvious that he’s thinking of a hell of a lot more than just the story I told him.

Damn it, men are confusing. How the hell can he look at me like that and not want to kiss me? The level of my urge to kiss him is at an all-time high.

I decide to smash the tender moment into pieces using the giant elephant in the room. “So does this mean we don’t have to be awkward?”

He chuckles, those crinkles in his eyes framing the steely blue of his irises. “I thought you telling me the story of you and your ex waltzing into a BDSM bed and breakfast pretty much confirmed that fact.”

“Fair enough.” I nod in confirmation. “So we’re friends, then?”

“Friends,” he approves with a panty-melting smile.