My phone rings and I grab it off the nightstand, wincing a little when I twist. My incision site is healing well, but I’m still sore as fuck.

I see the name on the screen and consider ignoring the call. Do I want to talk to him right now? Not really, but if I don’t answer, I’ll have to call him back eventually. Might as well get it over with.

“Yeah.”

“Weston,” my dad says. “What’s going on? Did you wreck your car?”

Of course he asks about the car first. “I was in an accident.”

“You weren’t drunk, were you?”

I grit my teeth for a second before answering. “No, Dad. I was sober. The accident wasn’t my fault.”

“That’s good. Something like that could ruin your career.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Are you back to work yet?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

“Why not? Who’s seeing your patients?”

I let out a slow breath. “Dad, I spent a week in the hospital. I needed emergency surgery, not to mention I have a broken arm.”

“What about your patients?” he asks.

“Ian is taking the ones who can’t wait, and Tanya rescheduled the rest,” I say. “And since when do you give a fuck about my patients?”

“I give a fuck about the practice,” he says. “So, how are you?”

“Don’t,” I say.

“Don’t what?” he asks.

“Pretend like you care,” I say. “It happened two weeks ago, Dad. I haven’t heard a word from you.”

“I’ve been out of town,” he says.

“I suppose you were on a tropical island with no cell service,” I say. “For two weeks.”

“I took Jenny on vacation,” he says.

“Who the fuck is Jenny?”

“You’ve met Jenny,” he says. “Well, maybe not.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. My dad has had an endless string of girlfriends since my mom died. “Is there any other reason you called, or did you just want to find out what happened to my car?”

“Speaking of cars, I just bought a new one,” he says. “Borrow my old one until you get yourself a replacement. I’ll send it over so you’ll have a way to get to work.”

“Fine, whatever.” I just want to get off the phone at this point. “I’m not at the house, though.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m staying with… a friend.”

“Get me the address,” he says. “Listen, I have to go. Jenny and I have brunch reservations.”

There’s a muffled woman’s voice in the background. I hang up without waiting to see if he was going to say more.

I shouldn’t expect anything else from my father. He didn’t give a shit about me when I was a kid. Why would he start now?

I get up out of bed, breathing through the burning ache in my ribs. My arm itches beneath my cast, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Another couple of weeks and the cast comes off. Then I’m going to need physical therapy to get my strength and dexterity back. I move my fingers as much as possible, hoping to keep them limber.

Living with the use of only one arm—my non-dominant arm, at that—is shitty. And with the pain in my midsection when I bend, twist, reach—basically when I do anything—I’m fucking useless. I do need to go back to work. Get a new car. Start putting things back together. But for now, I’m stuck here until I can be on my feet for more than an hour without wanting to die.

I give my armpit a quick sniff before I open my bedroom door. I haven’t showered in a couple of days—it’s a pain with the cast—but I smell okay. God knows Kendra will tell me if I don’t.

It’s weird, depending on her so much. She helps me with almost everything. But she never makes me feel like a burden. She just goes about her business, taking care of me like it’s something she’s always done.

Her voice carries down the hallway. She must be on the phone.

I don’t know how she does it, but just hearing her voice soothes my shitty mood. Despite how bored I am being stuck here, I’d hate it a lot more if Kendra wasn’t around. She’s not annoying to talk to. She doesn’t pry or ask me a lot of stupid questions. She’s… pleasant.

I find her at the kitchen table, her laptop open; looks like she’s on a Skype call with someone. Her hair is up, bits of it sticking out in all directions. I don’t know what I thought was wrong with her hair when I first met her. It’s cute. She’s wearing a black t-shirt and another pair of pajama pants—striped ones today. But hell, I hang out at home in my underwear all the time. I guess she just likes to be comfortable.

It does occur to me that maybe her messy hair and clothes struck me as odd when I first moved in because I’m not used to seeing women like this—at home, relaxing, being themselves. I’m used to meeting them in public, when they’re out looking for men, just like I’m out looking for them. Full makeup. Careful attention to their hair. Sexy clothes. But now I wonder how many of the women I’ve shagged once or twice sit around their own houses just like Kendra—hair up, makeup off, in a t-shirt and striped pajama pants. I’m just never around to see it.

I only see the show they put on. I don’t see them being real. Natural.

Kendra is all natural.

She glances at me over her shoulder, giving me a smile. I catch sight of that little dimple by her lips and my mouth twitches in a grin.

Client, she mouths at me.

I nod and head for the fridge, but she puts up a hand to stop me, then turns back to her screen.

“Sorry, Shannon, just give me a second. Roommate.” She turns back to me and whispers, “Don’t get in front of the webcam.”

“Why?” I whisper back.

Her eyebrows lift. “You’re not wearing pants.”

I glance down. I have on a gray t-shirt and boxer briefs.

Her client—Shannon, I guess—covers her mouth, but we can both hear her laugh. Kendra’s eyes close and she shakes her head.

“Hot roommate?” Shannon asks.

Kendra snorts. “Don’t encourage him. Sorry, apparently Weston is allergic to pants, so I’m trying to keep him out of view.”

Shannon laughs. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe he’ll inspire me.”

“Yeah, well, he’s definitely…” Kendra glances at me again, her cheeks flushing. “Anyway, where were we?”

I wonder what she was about to say; he’s definitely what? I walk around the other side of the table and get a bottled water out of the fridge. Without stopping her conversation, Kendra holds out her hand. I give her the bottle and she opens it for me, not breaking stride for a second.

“I think you’re good up until they get to the bedroom,” Kendra says, handing the water bottle back to me. “It’s once they start taking their clothes off that we run into problems.”

That gets my attention. I lean against the counter and take a drink. What kind of book is her client working on?

“I agree,” Shannon says. “I’m just not good at sex scenes. I needed a ton of help with them in my last book, and even then, I know they could have been better.”

I take my water to the table and sit across from Kendra. She meets my eyes and for a second, it looks like she’s going to say something to me. But she gives her head a little shake and turns her attention back to her screen.

“You just need to get out of your own way. Let it flow,” Kendra says. “I think your biggest problem is you’re too mechanical. There’s a lot of tab A into slot B stuff. Including a little of that is good; it grounds the scene and helps the reader picture what’s happening. But you also need to include the sensations—the feelings.”

“That makes sense,” Shannon says. “I’m just not sure how to do it.”

“Think about things like skin touching skin,” Kendra says. “Her nipples, erect against his chest. His stubbly chin, dragging against her cheek. Think about the juxtaposition of hard and soft.”

My eyes are locked on Kendra’s mouth, and my cock twitches at the word hard. I probably should have put on pants.

“Let’s walk through this scene and maybe I can give you some specific ideas,” Kendra says.

“Sounds good,” Shannon says.

“Okay, so Cherry and Max get to the hotel room. I think Max needs to be more aggressive with her. Instead of gently laying her on the bed, he should be more frantic. The reader needs to feel like he has to have her, now.”

“What do you mean, like he pushes her down?” Shannon asks.

“Why not?” Kendra asks. “Have him shove her onto the bed. Women love that.”

I take sip of my water. Damn straight, women love that. I wonder if Kendra does.

“That’s not too intense?” Shannon asks.

“No, you want intense,” Kendra says. “He’s not trying to hurt her. He’s just being kinda rough. Dominant. Trust me, that’s sexy as hell.”

There’s more keyboard clicking. “All right, I’m taking notes.”

“Good,” Kendra says. “Now, for this particular scene, I think you have them taking too long before they get to the good stuff. Sometimes that works. But here, they’ve had an entire day of thinking about how much they want to bang the shit out of each other.”

“What was happening before this?” I ask.

“What?” Kendra asks.

“You said they’ve been hot for each other all day,” I say. “What was going on?”

Kendra pauses, looking at me like she’s confused. “Well, they were at work, and then at a company party, like after hours. But Max is Cherry’s boss, and they can’t be together in the open. So they spent the party flirting and kind of sneaking around. Now they’re alone and they can finally unleash all their pent-up sexual tension.”

I nod. “Then he’d be aggressive at first, but he doesn’t want to blow his load too fast. So he won’t just toss her on her back and pound her into oblivion. I’m assuming this guy is good at sex?”

“Yeah, she’s writing a romance. That’s pretty much expected.”

“And I need to turn up the heat,” Shannon says. “Way up.”

“Turn up the heat, huh. Well, if he knows what he’s doing, he’s going to drag it out for a while to drive her crazy,” I say, an image forming in my mind. “Throw her down, but tease her and make her wait. He’d get his mouth on her pussy and make her come like that first.”

“This is great,” Shannon says. “What else?”

I shift in my seat and take another sip. “So he really goes to town on her, right? Licking and sucking that clit like it’s fucking candy. He loves it and she comes hard. Now he can’t take not being inside her anymore, and she’s begging for his dick. He gets on top of her because he wants to be the one in control. He’s taking her for a ride and she doesn’t need to do anything, just let him fuck her senseless.”

Kendra is staring at me, her lips parted. I can hear Shannon’s keyboard clicking.

“He pushes her legs open and thrusts inside her,” I continue. “Hard, you know? Now he’s not playing around.”

“And she’s relieved she can finally let loose,” Kendra says. “So she makes a lot of noise. Moaning, exclamations of how good it feels, repeating his name.”

“That’ll get his blood pumping—hearing her.” Shit, this is getting my blood pumping. I should definitely be wearing pants.

“Exactly,” Kendra says. “And don’t forget the other senses. He hears her, but he also smells her, tastes her on his lips.”

“Everything will make him want to fuck her harder,” I say.

Kendra’s nodding along. “Absolutely. Ramp up the intensity here, and don’t forget to focus on what it feels like. Her body is responding to him. She gets hotter, wetter. He’s overwhelmed with how good it feels.”

“Should they stay in one position the whole time?” Shannon asks.

Kendra meets my eyes and we nod to each other. “Yeah, I think so,” she says. “The purpose of this scene is to show them giving in to all that pent-up lust. Sex gymnastics can come later.”

Sex gymnastics. That sounds fun. Although thinking about it kind of makes my ribs hurt.

“This is so helpful, Kendra,” Shannon says. “Thank you. And thanks to the hot roommate.”

I wink at Kendra and her eyes linger on me for a long moment, a mystified expression on her face. “It’s no problem.” Her eyes move back to her screen. “Let me know if you have more questions or want to go over any other sections in detail.”

Taking advantage of Kendra’s attention being elsewhere, I stand, nonchalantly tugging on the edge of my t-shirt so it covers my erection in case she does look up. She’s still talking; I leave the kitchen and head down the hall.

I had no idea Kendra had such a dirty imagination—or such a dirty mouth. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but the entire time I was talking, I was picturing myself with Kendra. My mouth on her pussy. Tasting her. Making her come so hard she can’t breathe. Driving my cock into her. Giving in to our pent-up lust.

I slip through the bathroom door and run a hand through my hair. Fuck, where did all that come from? What pent-up lust? What the hell, Weston?

But god, Kendra is fucking sexy. I have no idea how I missed it before.

She’s beautiful, and not in a fake, done-up way. She’s gorgeous stumbling out of her bedroom in the morning, making a beeline for her coffee maker. Her smile does weird things to me. And her body. I could destroy that body in a hundred different ways.

There’s one of her tank tops and a pair of panties on the floor. She must have left them there when she took a shower. Careful of my ribs, I lean down and pick up her panties, then bring them to my nose and inhale. My eyes roll back in my head. Oh fucking hell, she smells good.

I can imagine that smell all over me. In my bed, on my sheets. Tasting it on my fingers. Licking it off my lips. I need to stop. I drop the panties back where I found them.

But I can’t get the image of fucking the shit out of Kendra out of my mind.