All First Chapter Samples

“Killing her this way just isn’t going to work. You’re going to have to get more creative with this one.” He’d boxed himself in and no amount of research was going to help. “I told you in the beginning there were only so many native plants that were poisonous.”

No matter what anyone said, writers were just as insane as any other artist.

Dakota gave me a scathing look as his pacing increased to an almost frantic level. “There has to be another option. That’s the point of the series.”

When he’d started his series based on a small town that had lots of crazy deaths, it had sounded like fun, but he hadn’t expected it to go on long enough that he’d run out of local plants that were poisonous or could remotely be from that region.

“What about an invasive species or someone who’s moved into the area from a weird part of the world?” I rolled over and stretched out on the floor. Desks were for boring people. “You said the college was going to be hiring next year. Just move up the timeline a bit.”

Kenton was not nearly as vanilla as he seemed to think he was, but the most important question on my mind as I watched him bounce around my backyard was if he knew that.

I just couldn’t decide and that was the only thing holding me back from asking out the excitable cutie.

Everyone he worked with seemed to treat his exuberance and wiggles as perfectly normal, but I’d never met anyone like Kenton before…and that said something.

Every time I thought I had a handle on him, he surprised me. When I decided he was sweet and probably as innocent as he seemed, he cracked a dirty joke. When I decided he was as dirty as his joke, he didn’t seem to understand why he couldn’t stare at my bulge without one of his coworkers redirecting him to something more appropriate.

They were really good at distracting him.

And that just gave me even more questions.

“It’s not stalking—it’s getting coffee.” The voice coming from behind me wasn’t as quiet as the speaker probably thought it was, because even though it was low, it was still perfectly clear in the busy coffee shop.

“It’s stalking when you do it just to follow someone.” Where the first voice had been teasing and slightly sarcastic, the second was…sweeter somehow. Even if the words had been boring, I think the difference would’ve drawn my attention.

“It would be stalking if you kept obsessively walking past a store and trying to follow him home.” There was an unsaid duh in the voice that made me want to laugh. But since I seemed to be the object of their not-stalking, I thought it might be inappropriate, or chase them off. Neither of which was the goal at that point.

The second voice still sounded skeptical. “Okay, yeah…that’s really stalking, but I think this counts too.”

“You’d look sexy dressed up like that.” Bailey must’ve been deep in thought when I spoke because instead of focusing on the sub, who was decked out in leather straps and not much else, his gaze jumped to a little in overalls that had an elephant on the front.

Bailey’s eyebrows went up, making me chuckle. “No, not him. The sub behind him. That’s not what I would call sexy.”

Cute was probably a better word for someone who was sucking on a binkie and dragging around a three-foot rabbit stuffy by the ears.

Anywhere else the sight might’ve had people asking questions, but at Bound & Controlled, a gay BDSM club, it was par for the course.

Bailey was still giving me an odd look, so I nudged his shoulder and grinned. “You’ve got the body to pull it off.”

He was muscular but lean rather than bulky, not what I’d call a twink, but he looked damned good in everything from a suit to nothing at all.

“I’m pretty sure everyone is supposed to be completely sober when they do BDSM shit.” Glancing over Tate’s shoulder, I couldn’t resist peeking at Joel who was stretched out on the couch giggling to himself.

My grandmother had a higher tolerance for alcohol than he did.

“Who said that?” Tate scoffed, pouring another screwdriver.

He only drank “girly” drinks, but he was the only one of the three of us who’d have a chance of out-drinking Grandma.

Who had said that?

I shrugged. “The internet?”

He snorted. “They also think that we need to invade Area 52 and that Elvis is still alive.”

“One.” What was Joel giggling about?

“I’m not being nosy.” Somehow our nosy neighbor thought saying that would make it true. “Santa doesn’t like nosy subs and he’s always watching. But if you wanted to explain what kind of relationship you had, I would be a very good listener.”

Huh?

The weird guy who was dating cranky guy was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at us like he’d made perfect sense, but I wasn’t sure what he was actually fishing for. Did he just want to know if the three of us were dating?