Who knows where Laurence Doyen was born, where he graduated high school or even where he currently resides? The man is more of a transient than a hobo on a press junket dodging a draft. That being said, the creature he carries within is intelligent, considerate, highly competitive and extraordinarily selective. A little pissy, too, in that just-wanna-fight-sometimes way.

Gorgeous, with a body that must take more work to maintain than he lets on, Laurence is an old-time romantic with a modern sexuality. He writes with a frankness and a flourish, giving and taking away, hiding and revealing, teasing and confronting. He will likely die on some foreign island, open bottle in hand, and a smart, albeit loose, woman beside him. If his wish is granted, she will resemble Dagny Taggart, his first literary love. What can I say? Helluva writer, helluva kisser.

~ Dickie Copeland

Warnings: This title contains graphic language and sex.

Word Count: 82,646

EXCERPT:

From ONLY IN DREAM:

They say the perfectly content shall wake no more. They’ve no need, no further responsibility to consciousness.

Mimi came once more, having found her way down the old railroad beneath the smoky sky, over the pedestrian bridge under which no stream flows. I recognize none of her surroundings, only her, as she continues on. She cuts through gardens and alleyways, through fences and past stone walkways, tender of foot and deeply afraid. Directly behind her, a shadow is in hasty pursuit.

I am sitting before her when she enters. She begins an elegant dance of disrobing, and time slows. The gown slips over her shoulders, first left, then right. Her eyes remain fixed, though with each blink I spy the magenta hue upon her lids. She clings to the gown where it hugs and covers her breasts, then with a magnificent shrug it folds like the dying petals of a tulip.

The delicate ridges of her ribs become exposed, the shallow magnolia canal of her stomach and her belly button, too. And then, sliding her hands down her sides, she pushes the gown over milky hips. No longer bound to her physique, it floats past her coral thighs and puddles at her feet. The gentle sloping curve down her abdomen is made more exotic by the utter baldness of her vulva and the contrasting pink of two lips just visible between her thighs.

She steps from the linen, draws close to the chair where I am seated, cups her breasts, and leans forward, presenting them to me, plump and full and crested by twin rosé points. I caress one nipple with the back of my hand. It stiffens and Mimi blinks shyly. She touches my hand and runs her own up my arm until reaching my shirt. Slowly, and with both hands now, she unfastens every button until it falls open and her hands find my chest.

Her hands are warm, but her fingertips are cold. They cause the hair on my arms to stand, the skin to pimple as she traces a line with her forefinger down my stomach then along the elastic band on my underwear. I grow hard as she reaches beneath the band and gathers my sex in her smallish grasp.

She gazes into my eyes, her lips soften and she wets them. It’s at this moment that I am certain we will kiss. The deep jade flash of her eyes beckons, but behind it there is fear.

“Find me,” says her voice. It comes from everywhere but her mouth. Then she’s gone.