WIPs | Emmie March Online

(W)orks (I)n (P)rogres(s)

the charade - 92k, complete

After Abbie loses her job as a production assistant, she signs up to a sugar app to cover rent and she must come to terms with the tricky start to their relationship when she starts falling for the hot-shot Hollywood publicist helping her career while she helps him keep his differently concerned parents from meddling with his.

“What are you afraid of?” he whispered, eyes flicking back and forth in search of an answer. He was asking about the water, but a much larger and more pointed question that had very little to do with the pool forced its way to the front of my mind.
“Drowning,” I said in a very small voice on the tail end of an even shorter exhale.
I was starting to tremble when he said, “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

first comes marriage - 87k, revising

When Cat needs surgery, she makes the proposal of a lifetime to her best friend Adam, forcing them to grapple with feelings undiscovered and undisclosed alike.

Adam snorted, but finally met my eyes, and his expression twisted my gut. He looked like a lost boy in search of a helper, scared at the prospect of what would happen if he didn’t find them.
“Okay.” I sat back. “Forget it. You’re right, and I’ll figure it out.”
Shaking his head, Adam slid out from his side of the booth and came to mine. “What are you doing?” I asked. “What are you doing?” I repeated when, gripping the edge of the table, he knelt.
“You can’t ask me,” he said through his groan, “and not expect me to do this the right way.”

the playbook - 50k, pending revisions

In order to help her oldest client and close friend, PR powerhouse Maxx arranges a publicity relationship with a former teen heartthrob, Nate Evanson, needing to mature his image, and she finds out all the smoke and mirrors can’t disguise the chemistry between the two of them instead. Part of The Charade universe with standalone potential.

He licked his lips. “We won,” he said. “But I….”
I bit my lip, but it wobbled under my teeth.
“You can’t just play with people’s lives,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t care if it’s your job,” he continued. “My choice—" He took a deep breath and I did, too. “My choice is you, Maxx. And if you don’t want me, that’s one thing.” He swallowed convulsively. “But I think you do.”
I did. I do, in a way I couldn’t explain, in a way I’d given up on, in a way I didn’t think existed in real life.
“So if you’re as good as you say you are,” he rasped, voice rising ever so slightly in his frustration, his jaw hard and square, “then you will figure out how to get us out of this. Because if it’s up to me, I really don’t fucking care.”

mick & rose - 50k, pending revisions

Seeking peace after her husband leaves her, Rose escapes to a small town in coastal Maine, but her fixer-upper comes with a quiet handyman who fixes more than houses and carries a few secrets in his heart, as well.

Sex with Theo had gotten robotic — an exercise that I thought came with practice versus loss of interest. This was liquid. Malleable, thermal, capable of heating up and cooling down and turning right back around again.

This, he, was simultaneously familiar and brand new. I knew what to do and how to do it, but the reactions, both his and mine, were deliciously unexpected.

The warm tip of his nose glided against mine and I opened my mouth reflexively before he covered it with his in a warm kiss, his teeth gliding over my lower lip before he tugged gently.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, because he seemed to need that assurance. “This is okay.”

mattie & holden - drafting

Following an acquisition by her parent company, Mattie moves to London where she finds out her counterpart is none other than her ex-boyfriend, Holden, and despite being up for the same promotion, they must find a way to work together and work out their past to do so.

“One sausage roll, please, and a long black. Thank you.”

So he took his coffee just the same. I wanted to slap myself as soon as I had the thought. What did it matter and what did I care if he took his coffee the way he used to? That meant his mouth still tasted rank — bitter, and sharp, and absolutely unkissable. When we were in college, he used to catch me by surprise by lying about when he’d last had a cup, only for me to discover he was lying when he kissed me and I squealed. He’d laugh when I hit his chest, but it was my fault because I kissed him after calling him any number of names anyway. I pitied whoever he was seeing now.

reggie & jack - drafting

Always a bridesmaid and never a bride, and that's exactly what Reggie has made peace with. In between decorating wedding cakes at a local bakery, she plays BFFs to brides who don't have one, but when the man of honor at her latest gig has her hearing bells, she risks winding up with more than cake on her face coming clean to him. Part of the First Comes Marriage universe with standalone potential.

There was a freckle on his lower lip, hidden in the dark pink lines of dehydration, lined with an even darker pink. I took a short breath and gulped, eyes flicking to his, and a jolt rocketed through me when I found his fastened on mine, each of his blinks slow and intent, unflinching as his gaze burned over the curves and dips of my face. I opened my mouth to say something, but my throat strangled any sound before it could get out. Heat burst through my cheeks and my exhale was as shaky as my fingertips when I finally broke eye contact, but his hands slid over my neck, impossibly warmer than me, and he used his thumbs to tip my chin up again.

Nose to nose, it felt like we stared into each other’s eyes, warm breath passing between our mouths, for simultaneously the longest and shortest time before Jack wet his lips with the tip of his tongue before he tightened his grip on the side of my face and pressed the same tongue to the crease of my mouth.