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[jynxgirl.livejournal.com]

POST YOUR NOVEL EXCERPT HERE!!!!

Please keep it relatively short, and only in this thread. Thanks!

No more than 4000 words, and please no multiple posts!

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[imaginepageant.livejournal.com]

She carefully sipped her tea, her eyes flashing impishly him from above the rim of her mug. They seemed to ask a question and offer and invitation all at once, and James couldn’t sit still for more than a moment before answering and accepting. As soon as the mug was safely on the table, he stretched across the distance between them and caught her face in his palms, lifting her mouth to his. Like wild animals let loose after a lifetime of being caged, his fingers ran through her hair, and hers beneath his shirt, burning him with the heat of the cup that was entirely forgotten as they rose from their chairs and dragged each other into the house.

They were half undressed by the time they reached her bedroom; the cool sheets warmed quickly as they tumbled down onto them. As always, their passion was frantic and frenzied, almost violent in its desperation, as if every moment spent was their first, and could potentially be their last. James buried himself in her, his mouth falling open at the shock of her heat, the sensation he would never get used to. It was a drug, this feeling, blazing a fiery path through body until every part of him was humming with bliss.

Afterward, they lay panting against each other, and the bliss slowly subsided, making way for the guilt he tried to hold back, but always crashed through his defenses.

“Do you know what today is?”

He froze. When Katherine asked that question, he usually had no idea what answer she was looking for, and she would sulk for a full five seconds before putting on her passive smile and claiming that she didn’t mind at all that he hadn’t remembered Valentine’s Day or Emily’s first day of school. But he knew she minded; he had disappointed her again.

When he didn’t respond, Elise laughed at the look of panic on his face. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing important, only the sort of thing a hopeless romantic like myself would remember,” she said with an easy laugh, her hand meandering through the spattering of hair across his chest. “It’s been exactly nine months since our first kiss.”

James felt himself soften. “That is important,” he insisted, “and I’m sorry I didn’t remember.”

“No, no, it’s all right,” she said, waving his concerns away with a soft shake of her head, her hair tickling his bare skin. “It’s not as though you can mark it in a calendar, after all.”

His smile disappeared, and though she held hers on her mouth, the happiness had gone from her eyes. He sighed heavily, but the weight he carried around like remorse chained to his ankle did not lift.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, raising a hand to stroke her face. She leaned into his caress, and his heart ached even more. “This isn’t fair to you.”

“We never meant for it to go this far—“

“No,” he interrupted, hating that she was trying to excuse him from blame, like Katherine always did. “We never meant to feel anything for each other, but we do. I never meant for you to be caught in the middle like this. I never meant to be married to one woman, and in love with another…”

For a long moment the only sound was the low, mournful whistle of the wind against the windows, the scrape of dying branches against the brick of the house. Finally, Elise spoke as quietly as the breeze itself.

“You could leave her.”