Chapter 3
Maya
Long after Simone left her condo, Maya had poured herself a glass of white wine and walked several laps through her living room while re-reading Theo’s message. Even after two glasses, she stared at the email like it might change if she blinked hard enough.
I’m excited to read your words.
Her stomach dropped and fluttered at the same time.
Absolutely not.
She walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and stared into the void for a full thirty seconds before closing it again.
Her fingers hovered over her phone.
She still had his number. Nate had passed along his Portland contact ages ago. At the time, she couldn’t quite figure out why her brother felt the need to share it, but she saved it anyway. Their parents had practically adopted the kid; perhaps they wanted to keep an eye on him.
After that, she never thought to delete it. Never thought to use it, either.
She opened a new text thread and typed:
Hey. It’s Maya. Just read your email. Do you want to come by the house tomorrow and test the setup?
She paused before deleting the message.
Maya didn’t have any audio equipment. And she didn’t necessarily want this guy in her home.
She didn’t even know if he could cross genres on short notice like this. Sure, she’d heard his voice tell scary tales. For a moment. But what if he didn’t have the gravitas romance needed? Not every narrator was built for sex scenes. Oh, Lord, the sex scenes in Sweat were plentiful.
She deleted the whole message before trying again.
Hey, it’s Maya. Just read your email. Thank you for the quick reply. I can send some sample pages. Just to see if it’s something you’re comfortable reading.
She paused.
Then, because it felt strange not to add more…
Also, it’s been a while. Hope you’ve been well. No pressure either way. This one’s… a little high-heat.
Maya stared at the message.
The last time she’d seen him was at her brother’s wedding. Right after she broke up with Julian. He was only in his twenties, and the best man… They’d danced, but that was about it.
Now she was asking if he wanted to read a scene where her heroine orgasms against a mirror.
Goddamn.
She hit send.
Then immediately regretted it.
Not the message itself—it was fine. It was neutral and professional.
Okay, maybe “a little high-heat” was a bold choice, but she hadn’t dropped any mirror sex spoilers. She’d held back.
She checked the text thread a second later.
Read. 7:41 PM.
Oh, no.
She froze.
Then locked her phone like that would undo time.
She paced the living room once more. Then opened her laptop, stared at the blinking cursor in Scrivener like she desperately needed to edit something, and promptly forgot how the English language worked.
He saw it. He saw it and didn’t respond.
Not yet, anyway.
This was fine. Totally fine. He was probably busy. Or thinking. Or deciding whether he wanted to read romance written by his best friend’s older sister.
Maya decided to break up her wine-spiral with sparkling water, but she opened it too fast and sprayed half the can across the counter.
“Jesus,” she muttered, wiping it up with the sleeve of her hoodie. “Get it together.”
By the time she sat down again, her phone was still silent. Still staring at her.
It read 7:46.
Her phone buzzed.
She nearly dropped it.
It’s good to hear from you. I’m doing well… glad to be back home
Send the pages. My studio is already set up and I can get started ASAP
If it’s anything like your other stuff, I’ll survive
Theo continued typing…
And for the record? I’m not afraid of “a little high-heat.” Can’t wait
She blinked before going back to the first message.
If it’s anything like your other stuff, I’ll survive.
Her stomach did something strange.
How would he know about her “other stuff”? And what did he know about some “high-heat”?
She leaned back in her chair, heart racing in a completely new way.
It wasn’t just his slick tone. It was the possibility that Theo Ward had already been reading her books.
That thing her stomach was doing? It was a mix of nausea and excitement and danger. She hadn’t felt that potent energy in a long time.
Not since Julian Hampton.
Things had started out beautifully with her ex-boyfriend.
They were two lit nerds in graduate school, trading annotated copies of The Fire Next Time and arguing over craft beers about whether Zora or James had the sharper pen.
Maya had sworn she knew what love was when they moved in together.
He was magnetic, brilliant, and dreaming of tenure.
He zoomed through his PhD while she sputtered along, constantly chasing new literary fascinations.
Her advisers kept telling her to nail a subject down, to make her writing less floral, to stop straying from scholarly texts.
But after her comprehensive exams, Maya left the doctoral program.
No longer interested in dissertation work, she wanted to return to the writing that had once made her happy: short stories, poetry, romantic travelogues to Peoria, of all places…
She started reading outside her scholarly background, too. Romance paperbacks littered the floor on her side of the bed, their dog-eared, busted spines stacked nearby in case she needed inspiration.
Then she sat down to write one.
The first cracks in their relationship began soon after.
At first, Julian admired her discipline, even teased her gently when she stayed up late outlining scenes. But once she self-published her first romance novel, the cracks deepened.
He had called Embers a cute little side project.
He’d said it with a smile, but never once asked to read it or her second book.
By the time her third book, Miss Me?, started gaining traction with bigger sales and real buzz, his compliments turned clipped. He’d make jokes at dinner parties, wondering aloud when she’d return to “serious” work.
“You’re too smart for that stuff,” he once said. “All that… smut.”
Maya never forgot how his voice curled around that word, like it tasted bitter.
The more her stories resonated with readers, the more he recoiled. He claimed to love Black literature, but only a particular kind. Never joy. Never softness. Never sex.
Their fights had been loud, but eventually the silence between them got louder.
Luckily for Maya, their lease was about to end.
She took that time to quietly get her funds together and find a new place in another part of the city. Nate and his wife, Sammy, helped her move the heavier things, mean-mugging Julian the whole time. Maya had stopped fighting with him, stopped begging him to see her worth. She’d simply dipped.
It was a depressing few months when she’d barely wanted to eat, and leaned on Nate and Simone more than she should have… But she pulled herself out of a hole and kept writing.
She’d been single ever since.
Five dry-ass years…
But writing had kept her fed, kept her housed, and kept her driven. The only people she had to satisfy were her readers. They devoured her work like the starved, giving her hope that she’d made the right decision—that upturning her life and shedding a snob—had been for the best.
Her fingers shook when she attached the file for Sweat to an email. In the body of the message, she pasted the back cover copy for context:
SWEAT
Yvette swore she’d never come back to this town, or to the ghosts she left behind. But her late-uncle’s gym pulls her home, and suddenly she’s living above the ring where sweat, grit, and glory cling to the walls.
Paul was once its brightest star. A devastating injury stole his title shot, but not his drive. Now he trains the next generation of fighters, burying his own hunger until Yvette walks back into his life.
She remembers the boy who could make her pulse race with a single look. He remembers the girl who left him aching for more. Now the heat between them burns hotter than any fight night, impossible to ignore when they’re breathing the same charged air.
Every glance is a dare. Every touch is a round they can’t afford to lose.
And when the gloves come off…someone’s going down swinging.
Aided by a white wine buzz, and her best “I-don’t-give-a-fuck” attitude, she sent the email and followed it with another text:
I'm sending the manuscript now
A few minutes later, he replied…
Received
Hours later, Maya was on her couch, drifting between consciousness and sleep.
Her favorite comfort show murmured from the television, something British, culinary, and gently competitive.
The kind of show where no one raised their voice and even the judges apologized.
The wine bottle was mostly empty. Her blanket had half-slipped off her leg.
She was warm, drowsy, and finally not thinking about Theo Ward.
Until her phone buzzed.
A soft ping. Not a text, an email.
Subject: Sample
Her thumb hesitated over the screen. Theo hadn’t just read the sample pages. He’d sent her a recording.
Maya sat upright, the blanket falling to her waist. The wine buzz in her blood was replaced with sudden alertness. Her thumb trembled slightly as she tapped the file.
The waveform loaded. She hit play.
Silence.
Then—
“Chapter Seventeen,” Theo said, low and smooth, like a slow pour of something expensive. “Paul.”
Maya’s stomach flipped. Chapter Seventeen?
She had assumed he’d start with the opening chapter, something safe. The introduction to Yvette coming back to her hometown, moving into the apartment above her late-uncle’s old boxing gym.
But no.
This man had gone straight for the filth.
And not just any filth. The scene in the gym. With the rain. And the bench press. And Paul going down on a woman he thought he hated.
Her mouth went dry.
Theo’s voice was calmer than it had any right to be. Too measured and confident. Not performative like some overly breathy romance narrators. But still intimate. Like he meant every filthy word.
She gripped the arm of her couch as he read:
“‘I said don’t look at me like that,’ I rasped, pinning her wrists above her head with one hand.
‘Like what?’
‘Like you don’t know I’d burn this whole goddamn gym down just to taste you again.’”
Theo didn’t stumble. Didn’t flinch. He lingered on that last line. And somehow, it sounded even dirtier in his voice than it had on the page.
Maya pressed a hand to her chest. Her pulse was absolutely not normal. Her breath was shallow, and when Theo cursed under his breath in character, her toes curled like she’d touched a live wire.
She should have stopped listening.
She didn’t.
Instead, she pulled the blanket over her lap like that would protect her from the heat crawling up her thighs. She bit down on her thumbnail. She closed her eyes and just listened.
It was absurd.
It was dangerous.
It was the sexiest thing she’d heard in her life.
Not because it was technically perfect. Not because he had some polished narration voice, though his audio quality was clearly professional.
It was him. Teddy. The kid her mother said had stuttered when he asked for a second helping of spaghetti at her parents’ house. The man who now read sex scenes like he’d lived them.
Maya’s heart hammered.
This was a mistake.
This was absolutely going to end with her in shambles.
She listened to the sample again.
Then she turned her phone face down, got ready for bed, and tried very hard not to dream about the sound of his voice wrapped around her dirtiest words.