Joaquim (Hidden Desires Book 2) by A.H. Cunningham

Author:A.H. Cunningham [Cunningham, A.H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

day three - morning

NEVAEH

Such long lashes. I wanted to reach out and caress his dark skin, then punch him on the smooth expanse of his sculpted shoulder. It had been like this with Jonathon since I met him years ago after he slid into my DMs and invited me to an in-person writing session at a bookstore by his apartment.

He and I were always exchanging ideas and jokes on social media, and we were both very outspoken about the lack of Black representation in the fantasy genre and the publishing community as a whole. Jon had a dry wit and sarcasm for days, and I won’t lie, I was smitten. When he DMed me, asking me to meet his friend Joaquim and sending me a photo of his ID as proof that he put security first, I texted my besties, and they all encouraged me to go. Of course, they posted up in the coffee shop across from the bookstore to be at hand if shit went down.

That was the first time I met Jonathon and Joaquim, and from their own admission, we became inseparable. We wrote together at least twice a week, attended book and Black nerd events together, and went on platonic dates. We were close, and the dynamic between us was balanced, even though Joaquim and Jon had known each other longer than they knew me.

I’d been protective of that relationship. So protective of our friendly little trio that I was oblivious to the feelings that started evolving between the three of us. Feelings that intensified during our write-ins. What used to be a gentle punch on the shoulder became caresses that lingered for too long. The silence between the three of us went from comfortable to charged with sexual tension. My wet dreams were filled with flashes of Joaquim and Jon, and it didn’t help that we started adding a romantic subplot to a manuscript they both had been working on for a year together.

I remember the morning Jon asked me to read the book, his usual cockiness nowhere to be found.

“Here, I think you have an amazing point of view that would make this manuscript better.” That’s all he had to say.

That was how Ahili was born, the girl that Ynacki and Tasgnu met in their quest to the Gleaming Tower to get their magic. The girl they were supposed to fall in love with. After our broken friendship, the romance with Ahili never had a chance, and she instead became the sidekick.

With that inescapable reminder and refusing to be the boys’ sidekick, I left Jon’s bed and tiptoed around until I found all my belongings and left his room cloaked in darkness. I did linger one last time by the door, watching him smile in his sleep, knowing that all the angst between us had probably fueled his batteries. Deep down, I hope he was having a good dream. A dream of me holding him tight, how he’d always needed to be held. I just couldn’t be the one to do that for him anymore.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.