Wounded (In My Dreams) by Erin R Flynn Page A

moaning as I kissed him back. Fuck, he even kissed as great as he looked.
    Reality hit me seconds later when his hands moved down to my ass and I pushed away. “No, I can’t—we—no, Jasper. I—you—I—you can stay as long as you want.”
    He took a step back and turned his head as if I’d slapped him. “You think that’s why I kissed you? I’m whoring myself out for a place to stay?”
    “No,” I rasped, shaking my head. I hated I was handling this so badly and he was hurt, and I really didn’t want to see his angry side either. “No, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry.”
    “For what, Lily? Insulting me or rejecting me?”
    I walked away, picking up my smoke and putting it out before grabbing the pack. Time to go back to the porch and now I needed several. “I can’t risk it. I wouldn’t survive being used again. I’m not saying you are, but I also barely know you. I just—it’s not in me to risk. I can’t let anyone else use me.”
    And with that lame ass explanation, I booked it into the house, my eyes scratching with the need to cry. I was such an idiot, all my crap piled on so high that it was all I ever saw.
    I chain-smoked a few out on the deck before I went back to writing. Jasper didn’t come inside the whole time. Once I finished my word count for the day, I went to figure out dinner. I wanted to keep writing, get lost in the story instead of deal with the mess I made, but I found anything over nine thousand words a day and my hands were toast the next day.
    Everything in life was a balancing act.
    It wasn’t until I defrosted some burgers and started my nicely cleaned grill that Jasper came inside. He washed his hands at the kitchen sink, and I could practically feel his eyes on me. Then he came out on the deck and stole one of my cigarettes.
    “Lily, do you want me to go?”
    “No, no, Jasper,” I whispered, shaking my head. “ Please don’t think that. I like having you here. You’re a huge help already, you’re becoming a good friend, and it’s nice not to be alone. You give me space and—I like you here.”
    He didn’t say anything for a moment, the sizzling of the meat as I put it on the grill the only thing in the air. “Are we going to talk about what happened then?”
    “I owe you at least that,” I sighed as I turned down the flames and lowered the lid. I lit a smoke too and sat across the deck from him on the bench. “The last time I was seeing someone, it wasn’t for long and years ago. He called me, drunk off his ass, and asked me to hurry and get him published so he could get his ex-girlfriend back. That’s all I was to him. An in he saw to get what he wanted.”
    “Did you help him?” he hedged, studying me closely.
    “Fuck no ,” I growled as anger surged through me. “For one, he was a shit writer. I don’t care if he was my husband or family, I’d never sully myself professionally to recommend someone I would never even read. And he was in a different genre. I didn’t have any contacts in poetry. He was stupid and naïve about the whole thing.”
    “But he used you.”
    “Yeah.” I glanced away and stared out into the woods on the other side of my neighbor’s house. “I made some friends in Colorado who wanted to model. I agreed to take some pictures and maybe use them on my covers. They were horrible to me, demanding, bitchy, and telling me how to do everything like they knew shit. All they wanted was an in. One of them acted like he was a saint because he was hooking me up with his friend, but the guy bailed an hour before the date because he found out I was an author.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?” Jasper hedged. “You make it sound like he didn’t want to deal with backlash like if you were a prostitute or something.”
    “Maybe that would have been better,” I chuckled bitterly, still not able to look at him. “He didn’t want to date anyone who made more money than him. He just assumed I did, and maybe I did, but I