Samantha was right on time, and I helped her transfer stuff from her car to my trunk. I settled down in the driver’s seat, and the inside of the car lit up when I woke my phone up.

“What are you doing?” Samantha asked while setting our coffees in the cup holders.

“Texting J.P.”

“Oh, this is getting exciting,” Samantha clapped her hands and then rubbed them together.

“Why?” I asked her while trying to compose a text.

“Because you’re often texting with the sadist.”

“J.P.”

“J.P. the sadist,” she added.

“J.P. the sadist who is helping me with my book.”

“Right…J.P. the sadist who is helping you with your book and that you have no feelings for,” Samantha added.

I sighed and concentrated on the text while we sat in the driveway.

“Speaking of the book,” Samantha started. “How is it coming along?”

“Good actually. My target word count is in line with all the other novels, and I’d estimate that I’m almost to the halfway point.”

“Great! Do you have a—”

“Release date? No, not yet. I need a little more time with it before I determine the date.”

“And the title, are you still going with Dark Kiss?” she asked.

I confirmed that Dark Kiss was still what I wanted to use for the title.

“I brought all the mail from the post office box. I thought we could go through it on the drive.”

Samantha grabbed the bag from the back seat and commented on how much she loved fan mail. I knew this would be a fun way to spend the drive versus her grilling me about J.P. and the book release date.

For the next several miles, Samantha read letters from fans out loud. Many of the letters were from names that I recognized from social media. All the letters were positive and had something great to say about one of my books.

“Shall I open the mysterious bubble mailer?” Samantha asked as she shook it.

“Why not?”

Samantha went to work on opening the package. Apparently, she had looked inside and burst out laughing but hadn’t pulled the contents out yet.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

“This is great. Really great.”

Samantha pulled out a packaged butt plug. I frowned when I glanced over at it.

“And they sent—” Samantha was laughing so hard that she couldn’t even talk. “They sent lube.”

She pulled out a travel sized tube of lube.

“How thoughtful.”

“It was thoughtful, Aims. They obviously wanted you to enjoy this.”

“Obviously.”

“Wait, there’s a letter with it.”

Samantha cleared her throat and began to read out loud.

Samantha was still in a fit of giggles over this and dabbing her eyes.

“Oh, my God, that was so funny. It’s an inspirational gift from the pages of Unexpected Love. You can’t get much better than that, Aims.”

I smiled as I thought about Unexpected Love. It’s the story of a well-off twenty-something who joins a humanitarian project in college for a semester. Her group goes to Africa where her eyes are opened to things going on outside of her little Ivy League college life. It’s a very different life, and she soon finds herself falling in love. She ends up experiencing anal sex for the first time with the well-endowed project leader, Desmond.

Samantha continued to read some out loud.

I raised an eyebrow and spoke as if I were answering Lani’s mail on a radio show. “No, Lani, I don’t have a man. Thanks for your call.” And of course, Samantha had to chime in as if she were Lani.

“But, Amy, if you did have a man, would you consider swinging? You see, my husband and I would love to bang the hell out of you,” Samantha said in a mocking voice.

Samantha asked me in all seriousness if I’d ever considered doing that with a reader.

“Um, no,” I said, surprised that she would even ask if I’d do that with a reader or fan. “That has disaster written all over it.”

“Inquiring minds want to know,” Samantha said.

“If I had a man and he wanted to try it, I’d probably be up for it if we knew the other couple.”

“Note to self…find Amy Andrews a man so she can frolic with Ryan and me,” Samantha mocked.

Finally, we pulled into the hotel parking lot where the event was being held and unloaded the car. While Sam and I stood in line at the registration check-in table, I sent a text to J.P.

I didn’t even comment on what I was doing when I met Samantha’s stare. She knew what I was doing. I slipped my phone back into my purse and pulled out my I.D. and registration confirmation that Sam gave me. Moments after presenting our I.D., we were given badges and shown to our table.

“Remember, there will be lots of dark romance writers at this event. So, it might be good to check out their tables and meet them. All walks of life read dark romance.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Okay, go get ready, and I’ll begin setting up your table.”

Samantha shooed me away. I found a bathroom in the hotel lobby and quickly changed and touched up my makeup. I made it back to the exhibit hall with a few minutes to spare before the group photo and then the book event opened to the public shortly after that.