Page 29 of If I Didn’t Have You

“Was it?”

“Until you walked in and called my mountains nipples.”

“Well, come on, Mom. Those are not mountains. But if you keep it up, you might have a talent for painting erotic images.”

Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be an artist like I thought. My back groaned as I got up, taking off my apron. Hours of sitting in one spot didn’t agree with my body. I wasn’t used to sitting for so long in one position.

“Well, maybe I’ll have better luck with my writing.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. Any idea what you’re going to write?”

“I was thinking about maybe a female detective mystery.”

She grimaced at the idea, her nose scrunching up as she turned away from me. Obviously, she wasn’t on board with that.

“Okay, then what do you suggest I write?”

“Well, if it were me, I’d say write what you know.”

That left very little to work with. “So, I should write about being a bored housewife?”

“Or a romance.”

After my fight with Ben the other night, I wasn’t sure I was the right person to give my two cents to the romance community. “I’m not sure I have anything to say about that subject that anyone would want to read.”

“Just write about you and Daddy.”

She made it sound so simple, but what was once a passionate romance between us had dwindled into something no sane person would care to read about.

“Do you really think a book about old people having sex would sell?”

“You’re not that old. Besides, you can write about when you were younger.” Her eyes filled with laughter as she waggled her eyebrows at me. “Make it dirty.”

“Krista!” I couldn’t believe my daughter was talking to me like that. “I would never put my sex life out there like that.”

“Why not? Plenty of people read it. I bet you didn’t know that the romance genre takes up fifty-five percent of the market.”

Rolling my eyes, I walked away from the ridiculous conversation. “How would you even know that?”

“Because I’ve been going to the bookstore quite a bit lately. I have a thing for bikers.”

I really didn’t want to know any more, yet I found myself glancing back at her curiously. “Like, you’re taken by a biker and…forced to ride his bike?”

She barked out a laugh at my naivety. “More like he takes me back to his clubhouse and makes me get a tattoo of his name. Among other things,” she grinned.

I covered my face, mortified that my daughter was telling me about her fantasies. “I can’t be hearing this.”

“And sometimes, the biker takes his woman in front of everyone.”

“Oh my gosh! Stop!”

“And when she’s really bad, he spanks her.”

I was burning up, partially from embarrassment, but also with curiosity. It wasn’t like I’d never read a dirty book before, but I definitely never discussed it with my children.

“Well, you can be sure that I’ll never write something like that.”

“Why not? I bet you’d enjoy it.”