Only One Bed: A Steamy Romance Anthology Vol 1 (Romancing The Trope) Read online

  Only One Bed

  Volume 1

  Lucy Eden

  Rebel Carter

  Renee Dahlia

  Lauren Connolly

  Sarah E. Lily

  A.Z. Louise

  Torrance Sené

  Ali Williams

  Violet Gaze Press

  One Bed of a Pick Up Truck Copyright © 2020 by Lucy Eden

  Only One Flower Bed Copyright © 2020 by Rebel Carter

  The Bed Hierarchy Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Connolly

  Uplift Copyright © 2020 by Renee Dahlia

  In The Cards Copyright © 2020 by Sarah E. Lily

  Romantic Intent Copyright © 2020 by A.Z. Louise

  What You Need Copyright © 2020 by Torrance Sené

  Holding On Copyright © 2020 by Ali Williams

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editor: Ali Williams

  Book Cover Design: Under Cover Designs

  Proofreading: Jack Holloway

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  About One Bed of a Pick Up Truck

  One Bed of a Pick Up Truck

  Lucy Eden

  About The Author

  Lucy Eden

  About Only One Flower Bed

  Only One Flower Bed

  Rebel Carter

  About The Author

  Rebel Carter

  About The Bed Hierarchy

  The Bed Hierarchy

  Lauren Connolly

  About Lauren Connolly

  About Lauren Connolly

  About Uplift

  Uplift

  Renee Dahlia

  About The Author

  Renée Dahlia

  About In The Cards

  In The Cards

  Sarah E. Lily

  About The Author

  Sarah E. Lily

  About Romantic Intent

  Romantic Intent

  A.Z. Louise

  About The Author

  A.Z. Louise

  About What You Need

  What You Need

  Torrance Sené

  About The Author

  Torrance Sené

  About Holding On

  Holding On

  Ali Williams

  About The Author

  Ali Williams

  About Violet Gaze Press

  About One Bed of a Pick Up Truck

  Julian Harris-- yes, that Julian Harris-- is a world-famous photographer who wins awards and travels the globe photographing celebrities, history-making events and, things I could only dream about. He's also my older brother's best friend and the boy, excuse me, man I've had a crush on my entire life.

  A series of unfortunate events leave us stranded on the side of a mountain road in Upstate New York and something about the way he looks at me makes me wonder if Jules see me as something more than the awkward teenage girl he used to call Dee Dee.

  One Bed of a Pick-Up Truck is a funny, dramatic & steamy short story filled with an older brother's best friend, friends to lovers goodness and is safe with no cheating.

  One Bed of a Pick Up Truck

  Lucy Eden

  One

  “Hey big head, pass me my phone.” Julian slid his hand across the console, his large palm was outstretched, the backs of his fingertips grazing my thigh, making my breath catch in my throat.

  I held the phone out of his reach. “No. You shouldn’t be using your phone while you’re driving and don’t call me ‘big head’.” He didn’t grab for it, but his hand lingered on my thigh for a second before pulling away. I was glad I was wearing shorts and very glad that I shaved above the knee for a change.

  “My deepest apologies, Dee Dee,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all.

  I rolled my eyes and pursed my lips. No one called me Dee Dee anymore except family. Julian was my brother’s oldest friend and we all grew up together, sort of. They were three years older than me, but it might as well have been a decade separating us. We’d only been in high school for one year together. I’d been a freshman while they were seniors. Julian and Marcus were popular athletes and I was the nerdy little sister.

  I don’t mean to make it sound rude. Marcus is a great big brother and Julian was always nice to me, but we always had different interests.

  We grew up in the same small town in the mountains of upstate New York. By some chance we both ended up based in New York City. He was a “kind of a big deal” photographer and I was a grad student at NYU. My brother suggested we ride together to his wedding this weekend. I was planning to take the bus so this was a much better plan.

  “Hey, what are you over there daydreaming about?” Julian’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. “If you’re not going to let me use my phone, you at least have to talk to me.”

  I looked over to see him grinning at me with two rows of perfect teeth, glittering brown eyes and dimples carved into his perfect deep brown complexion.

  I cleared my throat when I’d just realized I was staring at him and dragged my eyes away from him to stare at his phone in my lap.

  “Were you really gonna scroll through Twitter while we’re on the highway?”

  “No, I was going to change the music, Dee Dee. Do you think I would endanger my life like that?” He shot me a sarcastic grin.

  “Nice, Jules.” I shook my head at him. “And would it kill you to call me Nadirah.”

  “No, it wouldn’t kill me, but it would be weird as hell.” He glanced at me again and huffed out a chuckle. “Is that what your friends call you in graduate school?” He put a weird emphasis on the word “graduate” pronouncing every syllable.

  “Well, it is my name.” I shrugged and narrowed my eyes at him playfully. Honestly, I didn’t mind him calling me by my childhood nickname but I also liked teasing him.

  “So, you ready for this wedding?” he asked. My brother was marrying his college sweetheart, Wendy. She was a Spelman grad and they waited for her to finish law school to set a date. Between Wendy, her mother and my mother, this was shaping up to be the wedding from hell and it wasn’t even mine.

  “I’ve been ready for this wedding for months.” I shook my head and chuckled. My soon to be sister in law was beautiful, funny, intelligent and usually one of my favorite people in the world. However, studying for the NYS bar exam while trying to plan a wedding might have pushed her over the edge.

  “Wendy’s been driving you up the wall too?” He chuckled.

  I snapped my head to look at him.

  “Yes! Has she been torturing the groomsmen too?”

  “Oh yes. You can’t tell anybody this, but your brother and Wendy have been fighting about Rob’s dreads.” Rob was one of Marcus’ fraternity brothers from Morehouse.

  “Rob’s dreads? Why?” I furrowed my brow.

  “She wants him to cut them for the ceremony. She wants everyone to look the same in the pictures.” He shrugged and shook his head.

  Wendy has been a bit of a bridezilla but I didn’t know it was that bad. Although, she did make one of her cousins cry at our last dress fitting.

  “So what did Rob say?”

  “Rob didn’t say nothing. He doesn’t know. You
know Marc is not going ask one of his brothers to cut his locs. He’s been growing them for five years.”

  “Wow, that is a lot. All we have to worry about is Wendy’s diet.”

  “Diet?”

  “Yes, she expects everyone to do this new keto style diet before the wedding. She signed us all up for an app where we have to log all of our meals and workouts and she checks it daily.”

  “So, those Krispy Kreme donuts you had at the last rest stop...Did you log those?” Julian turned to me with a smirk.

  I pursed my lips and cut my eyes at him.

  “Wendy is out of her damn mind. She’ll be fine when the wedding is over, I hope. But I’m too busy with school to pay her and her drama-filled wedding planning any mind.”

  “So how is school going?”

  “It’s good. I’m really lucky to have gotten accepted into the program but it’s so much work. How did you get through grad school.” I didn’t know much about Julian’s grad school experience, except for the tidbits I could get from my brother without drawing suspicion. But I knew it involved a lot studying abroad and photographing things I would probably only read about. I, on the other hand, lived in the research library, not remotely interesting.

  “Well, I think my grad school experience was a little different than yours.”

  “Yeah, I guess studying photography is a lot more glamorous than getting an MBA.”

  “It’s not always glamorous.”

  “But it must be so cool, traveling the world and photographing amazing locations.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded then he glanced at me. “You been checking up on me?” He hit me with a sly smile that made my cheeks heat.

  “No,” I stammered. “Well, yeah, a little.” More heat flooded my neck and cheeks. “Marcus talks about you all the time and I might have Googled you once or twice.”

  “Wow.” He grinned and nodded. “My very own stalker.”

  “I wasn’t stalking you.” I whispered and looked out of the window. I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly so embarrassed. It could have been because I was stalking Julian. For as long as I could remember I’d had a crush on him. I didn’t see him often—he and my brother didn’t hang out in the same circles as I did. Then he moved to Brooklyn right after graduation, but, when we were younger, I grabbed any excuse to see him and get close enough to smell the axe body spray he used to douse himself in. He was always really kind to me and asked me about school and things I was interested in, like he actually cared. I’d spent years convincing myself that he was just being nice to his friend’s little sister… until the night of my senior prom.

  “Hey, Dee D— Nadirah,” Julian covered the space just above my knee with the large warm hand that wasn’t holding the steering wheel. “I was just kidding.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at him.

  “If we’re being honest, I’ve done my share of digital sleuthing, checking up on you from time to time,” he said with a little smile. It’s possible that I imagined it but I could’ve sworn I’d seen Julian wearing his own look of embarrassment, but it was fleeting. He pulled his hand off my thigh and said, “But, hey, doesn’t everyone do that?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I forced a smile. “So, tell me about the unglamorous world of photojournalism.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I have an agency that tells me where to go and point the camera. I have a few clients I do side gigs for.” He shrugged. He was being modest, but his glittering eyes and smirk gave him away. Julian was an amazing photographer. He had a camera with him almost every time I saw him growing up. No one was surprised when he got accepted to The Pratt Institute to study photography. My mom, who was friends with his mom, and Marcus never neglected to mention Julian’s many awards and achievements. It was always “Did you know Julian flew to Camp David to photograph Barack and Michelle?” or “Julian won a Lucie award this year.” I Googled Lucie awards to discover they were a big deal in the photography world.

  He didn’t seem to be affected by his fame. Though I hadn’t seen him in almost two years, he still seemed like the same Julian I knew.

  “I think you’re leaving a lot out but I’m not gonna press you. I know you’re busy jet setting all around the world photographing snow leopards and taking selfies with the Dalai Lama.” I smiled at him and he snorted a laugh.

  “Not as busy as you, college girl.” His voice got a little lower and he looked away with a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to look at him. He fixed his eyes on the road refusing to meet my gaze and it made me a little nervous.

  Was I missing something?

  He paused for a moment before he said, “You never called me.” He took his eyes off the road for a second to glance at me and my face must have reflected the confusion I was feeling because he continued, “When we ran into each other at MoMA? We exchanged numbers and said we’d meet for lunch. I knew how nerve-wracking grad school is, so I asked to you call me…” He trailed off.

  I remembered that day like it was yesterday. It was an exhibit for a photographer I heard Julian talk about. I couldn’t get any of my friends to go with me, so I went by myself. I wasn’t expecting to see him there— okay, maybe I was hoping… a little. The main reason I went was because a small part of me wanted to go, to feel close to him: to see what he saw in this artist and feel what he felt when he looked at an amazing photo. I stood in a gallery on the second floor examining a black and white photo of a child holding an orange when I felt eyes on me, smelled the intoxicating scent of a man’s cologne mixed with soap and heard a familiar deep voice.

  “This is one of my favorites,” he whispered in my ear causing a wave of full body shivers that settled between my thighs. I inhaled another breath full of his delicious scent and exhaled slowly. “Benito spent the whole day shooting in this small South American village. Just before he was about to leave, this little girl comes up to him with a thank you gift.”

  “The orange,” I whispered back.

  “Mmhmm. It was one of her few possessions and she wanted to share it.” He nodded and rested his chin on my shoulder. He’d never done it before. It was such a welcome and intimate gesture. It flooded my body with warmth and feelings that I thought were long buried, but they were back and all grown up.

  “She was only four or five and already full of such kindness and generosity. People like that are rare. You can go your whole life without meeting someone like that. So, when one comes along you have to do whatever you can to hold on to them.” He paused for a moment, causing an unexplained belly flutter, before continuing.

  “Benito only had his camera. He snapped one quick photo of her, packed up and left. A year later, he won a Pulitzer…for this photo.” He straightened, ushering a cool breeze on my shoulder and I’d turned to face him.

  He was still handsome with an athletic build, an easy laugh and deep brown eyes with long lashes that should be illegal. We spent the next two hours wandering around the museum catching up on old times. I talked about papers I was working on and internships I was hoping to land. He talked about some of his cooler assignments and living in Brooklyn. We definitely exchanged numbers but I wasn’t sure if Julian really wanted to hang out again or if he was doing that thing that people do when they haven’t seen each other in a while: vague invitations with no real plans to meet. When weeks went by without him calling me, I thought I had my answer. But apparently, he’d been waiting for me to call and almost two years went by.

  “Hey,” he called to me with a laugh. “It’s not a big thing. Shit happens. People get busy.”

  I felt my face heat again and my heart was pounding. I was replaying every moment of the day in the museum.

  How many times had I caught Julian looking at me? How many times had he casually brushed my arm or went out of his way to touch me? Was he flirting with me and I was too oblivious to see it?

  “Hey, Dee Dee. You okay?” Julian was looking at me wit
h a concerned expression. I was still trying to make sense of this new information. My eyes drifted up towards the windshield. I saw a baby deer standing in the middle of the small mountain road we’d turned onto after we’d left the highway.

  I screamed Julian’s name. He looked up just in time to avoid the fawn but too late to avoid running off the road and down a small embankment.

  Two

  “Fuck. Fuck.” Julian smashed the steering wheel with his fist. “Dee Dee, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I panted. I was a little shocked from the accident but otherwise I was fine. “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m good. You sure you’re okay?” he asked again and I nodded.

  “Did we hit the deer?” I bit my bottom lip and raised my eyebrows. Julian hit me with a quizzical expression before he burst out laughing.

  “Are you for real?” he asked between chuckles. I narrowed my eyes, pursed my lips and nodded. We ran off the road and practically into a ditch; it would be nice to know we didn’t do it for nothing. Plus, I didn’t want a Bambi body count on my hands. “Nah, we didn’t hit the deer.”

  “Can you drive out of here?”

  “Let’s see.” Julian shifted into drive and hit the gas. The truck lurched but it didn’t move and we could hear the wheels spinning. He tried the same thing in reverse. No luck.

  “I’m gonna go check it out.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his door before turning around to look at me again. “You good, Dee?”

  I nodded and gave him a little smile. He returned my smile with a wink and closed the door.