bitty words #4

"Whoa, whoa," the laughter was back in his voice but it wasn't as annoying this time. I kissed him to make him be quiet but he pressed his gym-calloused hands to my shoulders and broke away.

"Are you sure? We don't have to do anything. We can just lay here if that is what you want." A coy grin played across his gorgeous mouth, like he was pretty sure he knew what I wanted but he liked asking anyway.

In the shadows of his room, his body was moonlight and muscle beneath me and his Adonis-worthy face was so damn pretty it felt like a sin just to look at him. I leaned forward, matching our bare chests together.

"I want you." I heard his intake of breath and added, "Now."

In an instant he had flipped me onto my back, positioning himself between my legs. A shiver ran through every cell like an electric shock. This was going to be amazing. I reached for him, catching his mouth in a messy, urgent kiss. I could feel myself drifting away from logical thought, becoming a heated ball of raw desire, but I had one more important question to ask first.

"Have you been tested recently?"

Laughing a yes against my collarbone, his fingers trailed up my thigh but not quite to the place that craved his touch most. "I'm good, but are you on the pill?"

We were still close, still touching, still kissing between the questions but this conversation felt a little like a buzz kill. I mean, it was super important to be safe, careful, and responsible but if he was about to fight me over a condom I might just have to leave for real this time.

"No, but even if I was -" He was off me before I could finish my sentence. "Where are you going?"

He back standing at the foot of the bed in seconds. "Just getting this." He threw an unopened condom onto my stomach. I snatched it up just before he launched himself on top of me again. Our already urgent kisses reached a new level of frantic.

"Put it on me," he breathed across the soft skin of my chest.

Fresh desire rocketed through me as I tore open the package and rolled it over him. Thoughts came to me in disjointed clusters without much meaning. All I knew for certain was that at that moment, I needed him.

"You're sure?" he asked again, throbbing against my thigh.

Why was that question so hot? Consent, as it turned out, was seriously sexy.

"I'm more than sure," I said, then reached for him and proved it.

bitty words #3

Something about the way he looked at me in the dark made me tell him. And like the asshole he truly was, he laughed.

"Wow, that is definitely not what I expected." He couldn't keep the mirth out of his voice. 

Embarrassment flooded every inch of my body and I felt my temperature rise. At a loss for words for the first time in living memory, my fight or flight reflex kicked in and the response was definitely flight. I rolled away from him and sat up, calculating the quickest and least revealing way to extricate myself from this situation. 

What the fuck had I been thinking? I didn't know if I was more upset with myself for being stupid enough to tell him why I was hesitant or that I was idiotic enough to have gone there in the first place. 

I felt his arms around my waist, pulling me back to him but I planted my feet on the floor and didn't budge. 

"Hey, hey, where are you going?" 

I tried to pry his arms off me. "I'm leaving. This was a mistake."

"What are you talking about? We haven't done anything yet."  He was still on the verge of laughter. Why was he incapable of being serious? 

"It's obviously better that way."

"Oh, you're like having a thing. Maybe I should serious it up a bit."  

My desire to slap him was unreal.  I made to stand up but instead of breaking his grasp, it gave him the leverage to pull me back into bed with him. 

He kept himself wrapped around me. "Seriously, I'm just surprised. You don't seem like the kind of girl to have hang ups about sex." 

"So you thought I was easy." Even I find a little laugh this time because it is so untrue. 

"Not really." He still didn't moved his arms. "I just thought you  would have slept with who you wanted when you wanted. That's just your personality." 

I couldn't fault that. I was a take what I want, screw what anyone else had to say about it kind of person. 

"Well, I've got baggage apparently." 

He laughed again and I squirmed to get free. "You can't have baggage from one person. You have the opposite of baggage." 

I cracked a smile despite myself. He was right. One person shouldn't have felt so heavy and saying it out loud helped me see that. 

Then he tickled me. In hindsight I could see his logic in trying to take my mind off the heavy stuff but it was still a stupid thing to do. I started writhing immediately. I had always been irrationally ticklish. 

"Stop." 

He didn't.

"I'm serious. Stop." I repeated. He still didn't. 

"I'm going to hit you if you don't stop." He laughed. 

Thwack. My elbow connected with his sternum and he let go. And I burst into laughter. 

"You're a monster." He gasped, catching his breath. 

"I warned you." And then, because it felt like the right thing to do, I crawled on top of him.

bitty words #2

Panic raced through me alongside adrenaline and desire, but stronger than both.

Number 2.

Every girl regrets the second guy she sleeps with.

I rolled away from him, overwhelmed and breathing hard.

"What's wrong?" His hand crept across my hip in a soft caress.

I stared at the ceiling, lost in the popcorn texture and my own doubts. "I can't do this."

"What? Why?" I felt the surprise in his fingers. "You called me, remember?"

The ridiculousness of the whole thing forced a laugh from my lips. "True."

After a moment of thick silence, he moved his hand from my hip, wrapping it instead across my waist and throwing one of his long legs over my own. He pressed the front of his body against the side of mine as I continued to stare at the ceiling.

"You're safe here," he whispered in my ear before dropping his head onto my chest.

The sudden change from brash, sarcastic banter to such a tender moment  pushed me further off balance. Who was he? What was this? What was I doing here?

"Tell me what's wrong," he asked, pulling me closer.

How could I tell him he was only number 2? That the seductress of casual sex I had been three minutes ago was all an act? Did I want to?

I turned on my side to face him, still within the embrace of his limbs. "Nevermind." I pressed my lips to his, urgently, trying to remember why I came here in the first place. He opened his mouth to meet me and my panic receded. "It doesn't matter," I said, in gasping breaths as his scalding fingers danced across my back.  "This is just a one time thing."

It was his turn to pull away, finding my eyes in the dimly lit room. "It doesn't have to be."

bitty words #1

I broke away from his kiss as his chauvinistic words sunk in.

"You're an asshole," I said, no hint of laughter in my voice. "I don't think I want to do this anymore."

Despite my tone, he laughed. "I am. And you're a pain in the ass but this is going to be amazing."

I was still processing this latest statement when his lips crashed into mine again. It took approximately ten seconds for me to agree with him but I wasn't sure which of us was in for more trouble.

Updates

Humans of the Internet, 

I've been kind of MIA lately. I have dropped so many balls in the last three months that I have lost count. I have failed. 

It is really hard for me to say that. I am accustomed to not meeting my own expectations and having to adjust goals but I straight up failed this fall. 

And it sucks. 

But I am slowly trying to make the changes I need to in order to recover but it is hard. Adulting is hard. Life is hard. Writing this is hard. 

I told Twitter a few days ago that I am not okay and I meant it. I am struggling with my day job and balancing my other commitments. It is even making my excitement about performing in Nutcracker stressful instead of the best thing ever. 

My word of 2016 was BALANCE and I sucked at it. 

So I'm struggling but you know what helps? Writing. 

I don't have time to sit down and really work on any of my book ideas/outlines/WIPs but I do occasionally have a few spare moments to let the words flow a little and it really helps.  I'm going to start sharing those words here. I'll probably come up with some snazzy hashtag and compile them on their own page. I haven't figured that bit out yet. 

Now, more than ever, I would love to hear how things are going for you. Personally, professionally, bookishly. Share with me. 

Series Review: Radleigh University Trilogy by Dahlia Adler

If you don't know who Dahlia Adler is, you should go follow her on Twitter and I guarantee if it isn't Shabbos she will make your life better in the first 24 hours. If it is Shabbos, it might take 48. She's a huge resource to the writing community and she makes phenomenal inappropriate comments. Basically, she's a keeper.

You should also go buy her NA Radleigh University trilogy: LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT, RIGHT OF FIRST REFUSAL, and OUT ON GOOD BEHAVIOR.

Lizzie, Cait, and Frankie start off as college roommates and become best friends. Each book chronicles one of the girls' happily ever after and the bumpy ride to get there!

LWaT is Lizzie's story of extreme loss, huge responsibility, and falling for her TA.
RoFR is all Cait and her long lost first love with some NCAA sports and roommate drama thrown in for good measure. (I try to not have favorites in this trilogy because they are all amazing but this might be it)
OoGB is pansexual Frankie trying out monogamy with Cait's new roommate. So. Much. Drama.



I'm actually having a hard time with this review because I thoroughly enjoy these books so much it hard to be serious about it. But really. Adler rocks at the gushy romantic parts, the steamy sexy parts, AND the kickass girl friendship parts. What is not to love?

The only answer is that the trilogy is over!

Can we also talk about these gorgeous covers for a hot second? 

Go read these books. I promise you won't be sorry!

xoxox
LSM

Mid-year reflections

At the start of every year I reflect and pick some goals or inspirations. This year I picked the word BALANCE and wrote about it here.

But A LOT has happened since January. 

• my book debuted with a fabulous party 
• I started a fulltime day job but didn't quit any of my others
• I rocked my professional conference 
• My great uncle died
• My grandmother who lived with me since I was five died (peacefully in her sleep)
• I walked in my Masters graduation ceremony (without my thesis done)
• I started my summer job
• My house was painted
• I went to Europe for the first time (and it was amazing)
• I have made some time to see friends - including going to the Renaissance Festival with my BFF

So yeah. Life has been happening. Good and Bad. However, since early June I have not been in ballet class. The season was over but summer classes hadn't started yet and it was hard. I went to Europe feeling incredibly out of shape. I walked around the Paris Opera and found the Bavarian State Ballet rehearsal hall and it made me ache to dance.  So today, for the first time in nearly two months I put on a leotard and took ballet. 

And it kicked my ass. But I also felt amazing. I know ballet can ruin lives. I've seen it. But I also know that it regularly saves mine. I put on my leotard and I feel powerful. I don't feel dainty and pretty and thin. I feel like a force to be reckoned with. I feel like I am in control. 

I'd be lying if I didn't say that I also worry slightly about the extra bit of fat that has accumulated on the inside of my thighs and the underside of my arms. But those things don't defeat me. They are things to work on, to further improve. That I am CAPABLE of changing. 

I had a great weekend with my best friend but last night I was scrolling through Facebook (WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF?!) and started comparing myself to my high school classmates. My high from BFF times deflated fast and I felt like a failure really quickly. Even as I got ready for ballet this morning, that feeling still lingered. Now, after class (and work), with my muscles already sore and protesting mere existence. I look back at the same Facebook posts and feel nothing. 

Mikhail Baryshnikov once said "I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself." 

Damn. If that doesn't sum up what ballet does for me, I don't know what does. Ballet lets me be selfish and work on me in the studio. When I leave the studio, that better than myself attitude carries over and I can stem the desire to view life as a constant competition. Newsflash: it isn't. Or at least it doesn't have to be. I'm really glad I have ballet to remind me of that. Ballet really is  my balance. 

I cannot wait to get back in the studio tomorrow.