Free For Authentication Purposes by Amber L. Johnson Page B

smiled into the phone, glancing around at my coworkers in the break room, talking about shit I didn’t care about. “If you’re here in fifteen minutes I’ll be on break.”
    “Is there a reason you want me to come?” She sounded guarded but interested at the same time.  
    I couldn’t pass up the opportunity so I took it. “There are a million reasons why I want you to come, Bunny.”
    “Oh God, I meant is there a reason why you want me to meet you at the bookstore for coffee?”
    “Maybe I want to sit down and get to know you better. Maybe I want to know more about the girl I’m about to put my dick in.”
    She exhaled sharply, and it caused a pulse beneath my belly button. I did not want to get hard in the break room. I did not want to walk back out onto the floor to stock books with leaky pre-cum in my boxers. But that was something I’d been taught to control so I took a deep breath and willed it down.
    “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
    It took ten, but I only figured that out when I heard her voice behind me. I startled a bit, slammed the hardcover shut, and whirled around to see her staring at me with curiosity.
    “Good book?”
    I shook my head and dropped it back into the box behind the counter. “Biggest piece of literary shit on the planet. If they still did book burnings it would be top of the list.”
    “All righty, then. Maybe next time you can tell me your real feelings on it.” She gave a laugh, and I pretended that I found it funny, too, but it was just for her benefit.  
    I walked her over to the small café where they made the best coffee in the area and gestured for her to take a seat. She ordered an iced coffee that was so full of sugar I wondered if she would sleep at all that night. The barista behind the counter had always flirted with me, but she saw me walk in with Dawn and the ice-cold shoulder she presented me with almost made me smile.  
    But I hid it because sometimes they spat in the whipped cream.
    Dawn was staring at her phone when I approached, and she finally looked up once I slid her drink to her.  
    “Sorry. Sometimes doing this writing thing can feel like a full-time job. All these e-mails and messages flood my in-box. Plus my writing buddies are wondering why there hasn’t been an update. It can get exhausting sometimes.”
    I appraised her and blew on my coffee before speaking. “So you write this online for free?”
    “It’s great practice. Immediate feedback is my drug of choice.”
    “And where can I find these epic stories of yours that have a bunch of horny ladies reading them? You know, just in case I need confirmation that you’re as bad as I think you are.”
    “Oh, shut up. I’m not telling you my pen name, but I post in a lot of different places. Wattpad, Fiction Press, Fiction Pad, Pad Press, Journal Spot.”
    “Wow. That’s a lot of pad pressing.” I blinked and glanced at her from the other side of the table again. “I have one question for you.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You ever wonder, since you put this up for anyone to see—for free, no less—do you worry about people stealing your shit?”
    “Oh my God, I never even thought about that.”
    I couldn’t help myself. “You shouldn’t be too worried. Your book is pretty awful so I doubt it’s something another writer would consider steal-worthy.”
    “I hate you so much.”
    “If you hated me so much you wouldn’t be allowing me to give you multiple orgasms.”
    “You have not.” She shifted in her seat and puffed out her cheeks before exhaling in a huff.
    I grinned. “Not yet.”
    She narrowed her eyes over the top of her cup. “Now, I have a question for you. What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve done, Wardo? Tell me.”
    “So you can write it into one of your crappy books? I don’t think so.”
    “Come on.” She licked her lips and sat forward to lower her voice. “You know an awful lot about this stuff, and you still haven’t told me why you’re such an expert at this.