Lessons comes out in three days. You should pre-order it if you haven’t already done so.

I still don’t understand why Amazon doesn’t let you set up pre-orders for paperback books. With an e-book, all you have to do is set a release date, but with a paperback book you have to set it live and hope that the powers that be approve it so it comes out on the same day as your e-book. So I set the Lessons paperback live today, and hopefully its approval corresponds with the release date for the electronic version.

If you prefer having a paperback, you should be able to get your hands on one in advance of the July 4th holiday (in the US), so you can read it on the beach, or just lie in bed that night enjoying the fireworks. The ones in the book, that is; real fireworks are just loud and annoying, and they traumatize dogs (and some veterans). I’m lucky that my dog doesn’t mind them — she just looks up, disgruntled, and goes back to sleep.

While you wait, here’s a sex scene from a book that I abandoned a few years back, about a college professor/author (I know, right) who hooks up with a 19-year-old (I know, right — at least she wasn’t his student). He also has a relationship with an old flame from college, Libby:

I leaned down and kissed her as tenderly as possible. “I love you, Libby. You’re my best friend, and I’ll always love you.”

She started to cry again, and I covered her with my body, holding her head to my shoulder. Her legs went around my waist, and through her tears, she asked me to fuck her. “Please, Chris. I need…” An ugly, choked noise came from her mouth, worse than a sob, worse than anything I’d ever heard from her, but she fought it down. “Fuck me, Chris,” she whispered. “I need you. God, I need you.”

I didn’t feel fully comfortable with it, but the last thing Libby needed right now was to be rejected. I moved off her and went for the bedside table, for the condoms. Sniffing back tears, Libby followed me, helping me get my jeans off. She cupped my cock in both hands, then pressed it to her cheek. “I missed you, Chris,” she said. “You’re the sweetest lover I ever had.”

I smiled and opened the condom; she watched as I pinched the tip and rolled it down into place, then climbed on top of me. Her pussy was nearly scalding, wet and open from her previous orgasm, and she made a low-throated contented sound as she nestled her hips against mine. “Chris,” she moaned. “Oh, God, Chris…”

“It’s okay, Libby.”

“I know.” She smiled, only a little sadly, and leaned down to support herself with her hands on my shoulders. “I know.”

I moved my hands to Libby’s hips and slowly, quietly, we made love unlike we’d ever done in college. Back then, it had been quick and hard, or trying to be acrobatic and creative. But now we were adults, experienced, fully aware of what we both wanted. Libby rocked back and forth, pressing herself against the shaft of my cock, and I moved one hand to her breasts, swaying above my chest. She hissed and sighed, and I took them with both hands. If she’d been anyone else, I’d have tried to get her nipples to my mouth, but this was Libby, and that wasn’t what she needed.

I let her guide me, let her control me, in a way I hadn’t been controlled in years. When she climbed off, I thought she’d changed her mind, but instead she only knelt beside me on the bed, inviting me to continue from behind her.

To her surprise, once inside, I took her by the upper-arms and rocked back, until she was resting her ass on my lower stomach, rocking again. We’d never done it like this – I’d never been able to, not when I was three hundred pounds or more, but now Libby whimpered softly as I met her movements, short strokes, holding her back against my chest with one arm, the other hand digging into her thigh. “Chris,” she murmured. “Chris, I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing…” I gritted my teeth for a moment; I was getting close. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

“Yes I do.” I felt her fingers brush my cock and knew she was touching herself. “I’m sorry…” She hummed a little. “I’m sorry I left you.”

“Long time… ago…”

“I’d never have left.”

“Lib?”

Her voice dropped to an almost soundless whisper. “Not like she did.”

The unexpected thought of Sarah brought me back from the edge, and it was enough for Libby to catch up. In an instant she went from tight and slick to clenched and crying out, and I felt the orgasm from my lower back all the way up through my cock, which spurted hard inside the condom, flooding it with heat. “Oh, Lib… Lib Lib Lib…”

Libby reached back and found my head, pulling me down to the join of her neck and shoulder. I kissed her, trying not to pant too hard, trying not to drop her as she shuddered, still spasming around my cock in tiny, tight jerks.

We managed to lie down on the bed without separating, although I did pull out of her and remove the condom, dropping it over the side of the bed, onto my discarded jeans. I held her against me, our bodies slick and hot, but unwilling to let go.

“I love you, Libby,” I said, my breath against the back of her neck, ruffling the shortest part of her short blond hair. “Nothing any doctor does will make you any less of a woman for me to love.”

I knew she was smiling. Her hand covered mine, squeezed tightly. “I love you too.”