Good Evening Lovelies,
As many of you probably already know I've been working on several works in progress that will hopefully be released this year. I've also finally made the decision to submit the second novella in the Boardroom Acts series, Persuasion Skills into trade publishers. Eeek! The whole thing is more than a little nerve wracking!
The Boardroom Act series is all in response to all of your great feedback on Negotiating Skills, I decided it wold be fun to write a series of contemporary novellas centered around lust, love and the work place. Each book will feature main characters that work together in some capacity. If you like Veronica and Victor from Negotiating Skills, then you're sure to love my H/h for Persuasion Skills, Pepper and Jaxon.
For the last few weeks I've been writing and re-writing the last chapter of Persuasion Skills, but tonight is the night! That sucker is being written and that's that! Lol. After my little procrastination session last night I actually got some good hours of writing in and I'm finally happy with where this final chapter is going. To be fair I think all the re-write had more to do with separation anxiety than anything else... But anyhoo, in celebration of finally releasing my baby to my editor tomorrow morning I decided to give yo guys a quick taste of Persuasion Skills before my editor/savior/super hero/evil queen of grammar cleans it up :) Either way enjoy the sneak peak!
Talk to you soon,
Laurel
Persuasion Skills...
He felt the usual sense of peace seeing her always gave him, right before his skin tightened in a zing of awareness. Seeing her never failed to jump start his senses. Her features had changed very little since college but she’d grown her afro out to a long mass of curls that stretched past her shoulders.
At that moment the mouth he’d secretly lusted after for years was set in a firm line and blaze of anger shone in her steady gaze yet that still didn’t prevent a smile from spreading across his face as the car drew near.
She wore a white snow cap with earflaps, her curls spilling around her shoulders and what looked like a white heavy winter coat. She looked like a ferocious bunny rabbit.
If looks could kill, he thought chuckling softly.
He swung the axe one last time and planted the blade firmly in the chopping block before walking leisurely to the top of the drive and waited.
It wasn’t hard to keep the smile on his face as his gaze caught hers and held. He could practically feel the waves of rage rolling off of her as she pulled the car to an abrupt stop only inches from where he stood.
He merely winked at her and gave a cheerful wave. God he loved hunting rabbits.
She stared at him for a searing moment before climbing out of the tall vehicle and dragging out a medium sized piece of luggage. She snapped up its telescoping handle and marched the few steps it took to stand in front of him.
He let his gaze wonder over her frame, taking in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the tip grip she had on the luggage handle and the clenching and unclenching of her free hand. Yet the only thing that caused his smile to dim was the hurt he saw mingled with the outrage on her lovely face.
He let his gaze drift back to her clenching fist for a moment before looking at her face again. Looking into her eyes, he let loose a loud sigh as he widened his stance and shoved his hands into his coat pockets. This is going to hurt.
“Go ahead. Do it. You know you want to.”
He let the taunt hang in the air waiting for her to speak, react, do anything. She stared at him for a few seconds before he saw her eyes swell with unshed tears.
The sight caused a small ache in his chest. Nothing ever hurt as much than seeing Pepper cry.
The thought barely registered in his mind before she pulled back her clenched fist and slammed it squarely on his jaw.
His head snapped to the side with a snap.
“Fuck!”
He let loose a few more choice expletives. Trust Pepper to have a killer right hook.
The stars in his eyes cleared just in time for him to watch her turn and stomp toward the porch steps and up to the front door of the cabin.
“Feel better now,” he yelled out the words to her retreating back.
He answering response was a decisively unladylike hand gesture over her shoulder before entering the cabin and slamming the door behind her.
He rubbed his jaw for a few seconds before turning and walking to the car door. Peering inside, he saw the keys still dangling from the ignition.
Reaching inside he pocketed the keys before popping the hood of the SUV open.
“Well let the games begin,” he muttered to himself as he walked to the front of the car and reached under the hood.
He barely winced in pain as a smile spread across his face and he reached into the belly of the car and yanked out a bundle of wires.
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