AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Harlow.”
“Stop giving me that look, and I’ll answer.”
I could hear the slight smile in his voice. “What look?”
“Like you know I’m not being honest with myself, and you’re going to laser-eye me until I tell the truth.”
Ian laughed quietly under his breath. “Interesting. Didn’t know I had that superpower.”
I pried my eyelids up again. His gaze had softened, something intimate buried there that plucked at a long-neglected chord under my ribs. “You have a lot of them.”
Mouth hooked to the side in a wry grin, Ian lifted a hand off his stomach and motioned for more. But it wasn’t compliments he was seeking. Not this man. He wanted me to peel back all the layers, one by one by one, and expose all my deep, dark secrets. Apparently, Ian knew when to push too.
I sighed heavily. “It felt safer,” I whispered.
“Safer how?”
Oh sure. It was easy for him to ask, all calm and steady because he wasn’t the one having his soft underbelly ripped open.
“If I failed.” This time, I didn’t whisper it. I kept my eyes on his and refused to look away. My heart raced when pride lit his features. “If I proved them right. I could hide it more easily.”
Ian made a small sound from deep in his throat. Not a hum. Not a sound of agreement. He was thinking about this, not rushing to talk me out of how I felt. “You didn’t fail, though.”
My chin rose an inch. “No, I didn’t.”
“Maybe someday soon, Harlow Keaton will get to claim all those things she did right.”
“I don’t mind flying under the radar,” I admitted. “It’s a little easier to go unnoticed sometimes.”
Ian arched an eyebrow slowly. “You go unnoticed? Doubtful, sparky.”
My mouth went dry, and I looked away before the heat in my cheeks gave me away.
Slowly, he stood from the couch, idly scratching at his stomach, and the briefest glimpse of dark hair disappearing behind his jeans had a wave of very unwelcome heat slipping over my skin.
“Got plans?” I asked. My voice was only a little breathy when I said it too.
“I need to shower. Have a … thing that I have to do at the shop.” He passed behind me and paused, leaning down toward my ear. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. “You are an incredible writer, Harlow.”
Then he squeezed my shoulder, a warm press of his big hand, and left the room.
I slumped in the chair. God, it was like a hit of ecstasy to the bloodstream or something, like I’d snorted something delicious that went straight to the dopamine center of my brain, lighting up all the feel-good receptors that I had in my possession.
His words echoed as he closed the door to his room.
The need for validation was a dangerous, unavoidable truth in my job. Yes, I needed to believe in myself, and I did. It’s how I got as far as I had the last twelve years of being a published author. Without that belief in yourself, all the external validation in the world couldn’t serve as effective motivation. We’d talk ourselves out of it, dismiss it, or worse, let it paralyze us because there was no internal foundation in our own minds that found truth in it.
Maybe my internal foundation had been hiding a little, battered by my own inner critic, but it was still there. Ian’s praise could take root there because it felt good to hear him say it. The whole conversation had the same effect as a good, soft rain on dry earth. Slowly, slowly, everything would be lush and green again, but it would take time.
I chewed on my bottom lip and opened up the email from Bea. Up until today, I’d put it out of my mind, not really in the mood to try any of her prompts. Then I clicked on the link she’d sent while I took a sip of water.
My eyes widened. If I had pearls, I would’ve clutched them. Then I read the second one, and promptly choked on my water, almost sending it shooting out my nose. Once it was determined I wasn’t choking to death, I patted my chest and took a couple of deep breaths.
“Okay, she wasn’t kidding about the prompts,” I mumbled.
I read a few more and squirmed in my seat. A slightly hysterical laugh bubbled out of my throat. Ask me to write a murder scene, and I didn’t flinch, but a setup including a stern, handsome boss saying things like I won’t touch you unless you beg had my face heating to about a thousand degrees.
The prompts were specific and … graphic. Some with aliens parading human pets around on collars and Mafia bosses taking you by force into their limo. I passed by both of those easily. Some were just a line of dialogue, and a few of those had me lingering, an undeniable whirring in the back of my head.
