Page 1 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
Part One
THE VIRGIN ROMANCE NOVELIST
Chapter One
The Briar Patch
Her bosom heaved at an alarming rate as his rough hand found its way to her soft, yet wiry briar patch . . .
“Briar patch? What the hell are you writing?”
“Jesus,” I screamed as I slammed my computer screen of my laptop. “Henry, you can’t just walk up behind me and start reading my stories.”
“Stories?” His brow creased. “Bosom . . . briar patch? Are you writing a sex scene?”
“Why, yes. In fact I am,” I said, sticking my chin in the air.
He crossed his arms over his chest, question in his stance. “What the hell are you referring to as a briar patch?”
Feeling the heat of his question start to show on my face, I turned from him and stacked my notes so they were neatly put together - lined and perfect, just the way I like it. And as for Briar patch, it is a well-respected term to use to refer to a lady’s private area. At least, that’s what my mother taught me.
“Rosie, what were you referring to?”
Clearing my throat and with my chest puffed out, I looked him in the eyes and said, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was referring to a lady’s peaceful pleasure garden.”
I watched as Henry carefully studied me with his blue-green eyes that had spent the last six years studying me and my eccentricities. He was my first true friend, and he accepted me for who I was the first day we met—a homeschooled, sheltered, naïve girl thrown into her first day of college.
Finally, he threw his head back and laughed, causing me to tense. Even though we were best friends, I still felt conscious about my lack of “modern verbiage.”
“What’s so funny?” I asked, holding my notebook close to my chest.
“Rosie, please tell me you don’t call a lady’s vagina her pleasure garden.”
“Henry.”I can’t see why he’s giving me such a hard time.
That garnered another laugh from him, as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and walked me out of my room of the apartment we shared with our other roommate, Delaney.
“Rosie, if you can’t say vagina out loud then there is no way you’ll be able to write about throbbing penises and aroused nipples.”
A brandished heat washed through me from the mention of a throbbing penis, something I’d never experienced firsthand. The only penises I’d seen were courtesy of Tumblr and some careful googling. I would rather study one in person, because from what I’d seen on the Internet and read in other romance novels, they have a mind of their own—twitching and rising when aroused—I was fascinated and wanted to see an actual boner. What would happen if I touched it? That question was constantly on my mind.
Homeschooled, my parents totally sheltered me from the world, and I spent many days on the beach or in my room reading. Anything written by Jane Austen was my go-to book, until I found one of my mother’s dirty novels in her nightstand. Wenevertalked about sex, so it fascinated me to read a book about heaving breasts and thick bulges. I couldn’t help it. I was hooked.
When I was young, I only ever read in the library so my mom never caught me. During college, I focused on my schoolwork, so it wasn’t until I graduated that I started reading again, feeding the passion for romance inside me. I’d been reading romance novels ever since.
“Hey, are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Delaney, my best friend and roommate asked as she stood before me with her hand on her robe-covered hip and her hair tucked into a towel.
“Umm, no,” I said with an innocent smile. When did Delaney show up? “What were you saying?”
Rolling her eyes, Delaney asked, “Have you started writing your romance novel again?”
The way Delaney said romance novel in her haughty voice was a little frustrating. I’d known Henry and Delaney since freshman orientation in college, where we found out we were all majoring in English. For those four years, we had the same classes, same schedules, and same housing. We moved off campus to a small three-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn after our freshman year, where we still live.
Unlucky for me, the walls were thin, the space was tight, and I unfortunately got to knoweveryperson my roommates brought home on an intimate level. Given his tanned skin, mesmerizing eyes, and brown hair—that was styledjust right—Henry was a ladies’ man. Delaney, on the other hand, had a couple relationships throughout college but was now serious with her latest boyfriend, Derk. Yes, Derk. Hideous name, especially when screamed from the top of Delaney’s lungs as her headboard slammed against my wall.
Now graduated, we still lived together but had gone our separate ways job wise. Henry earned a job with one of the top marketing firms, Bentley Marketing, editing ads, and Delaney worked as a freelance writer forCosmopolitan. She wrote articles about anything from haircuts for the summer to how to maximize your orgasm count in a night. I had that article saved in my notebook, as research.
Me, well . . . I hadn’t been as lucky as my two friends and unfortunately landed a job atFriendly Felines,where I wrote about the new and upcoming clumping formulas in cat litter. Our offices were located in Manhattan but in the smallest of buildings, where my boss insisted on having a gaggle of unneutered and randy cats who seemed to be in heat every day.
