R. Lee Smith's Blog, page 34

Sunday Sneak Peek 6/9

Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

As I said in yesterday’s post, today’s sneak peek comes from Heat, which has the distinction of being the first book I self-published, way back in the yesteryear of 2006 (prior to that, I sold both Olivia and Heat through an online publishing house of the fly-by-night variety. The editor there chopped both books to hell and back, demanded twice as much sex and half as much plot, and the marketing that I paid two hundred dollars for consisted of one line in their spam-email “newsletter”. I sold maybe three books in two years and when I refused to renew my contract, the editor told me I was a pervert and a talentless hack. Seven years later, I can hold my head up with pride and say, “You’re only half-right, lady.”).

This excerpt focuses on the protagonist in Heat, Tagen, otherwise known as “the alien who is not as cool as Kane”. For that, I am entirely to blame. When I was chopping up Heat at the behest of the online publisher who first sold my book, I had to cut half the book out and then double up the sex scenes. Because Tagen was the hero and because he had invaded Daria’s home, I had to kind of let the two of them settle in and fall in love before I put them into bed, whereas Kane could just fuck his way across Earth from the get-go. When I got the rights to Heat back, I restored it as much as I could, but because I was young and exceedingly stupid, I had deleted the scenes I’d cut out before—scenes that were largely Tagen-and-Daria specific—as opposed to just moving them to another file and only had the scenes I had because I’d written them out in a notebook. I could have recreated them, but by then I’d had to rewrite the book twice: once at the evil editor’s behest, and once because my younger sister reformatted the hard drive without backing up my books. To be perfectly blunt, I wanted to live in Arcadia at the time and rewriting Heat was a hassle I didn’t need.

So I let it go. And for the most part, I am happy with Heat, but when I read it, I can’t help but see the empty places where there should be scenes, and while the book as a whole may not suffer for it, Tagen and Daria definitely do. Theirs was the very first great romance I ever tried to write and I can’t help but think I didn’t do right by them. The (slightly-edited to fit) excerpt I have for you today is, in my opinion, one of the best between them and I’m proud to share it today.

“I wanted you,” he breathed, and pushed her shirt up in pools over his hand to lick at the sweat between her breasts. “Did you think I did not want you? How could I tell you? When you have been so afraid that I would force myself upon you? I have seen that fear in you from the day that first we met. And then you did allow me to sex with you, because you did not wish to see me suffer, you said. On my world, we would not consider that a passionate invitation. Gods, can you know how cruel you were in your compliance? To permit me to come to you in Heat, when I wished only to come to you like this?”

He cupped the full curves of her bottom and pulled her hard against him, shaping her to his rampant desire, and thrusting his hips at hers. “You said if I were human, if you knew no fear, you would have taken me to your bed before this,” he growled, biting and sucking at her jaw, her neck, her breast. “You said you found me attractive. You could have drawn a knife and stabbed me with less pain!”

“Then why didn’t you—?”

“Because I am Jotan and I am male, and we do not go to females, they come to us!” Tagen forced his hands to release her and he stepped away, breathing fast and hard. “Tell me what to do,” he snarled. “Tell me how to win you. Tell me how to please you. Tell me anything, but tell me, Daria Cleavon! You expect me just to know these things!”

“I know.” She was flushed and would not meet his eyes. Her hands rose and rubbed at her arms as though she were cold. Her face was pinched with hurt and unhappiness, but more than anything else, it was a lost and child-like confusion that haunted her eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know what I want. I just know that you’re the first…the first man that I…”

Her hand found her cheek, covering that small part of her that she had allowed to become her whole self, her whole world, and suddenly Tagen was furious. Not at her, but at Earth, at this hot, miserable, poisonous planet that had first spoiled and then forsaken her.

He let go of her and grabbed at the shirt he wore, ripping it when he could not seem to pull it off fast enough. He caught her hand again and slapped it down over the keloided scars left by some years-past blaster fight, a starburst of raised flesh he had never bothered to have repaired. “Do you know what this is?” he demanded. He seized her head when she tried to wrench away and made her look at him. “It is skin, Daria. Skin. It keeps the life in our bodies and it keeps the weather from getting in. It does not define us. It does not command us. It is only skin.”

Weekend Writer Warrior 6/8

I’ve been doing a lot of snippets from Heat this month, because Kane fits so well in the Bad Boys of Romance and Hot and Deadly blog hops I’ve signed up for, so this weekend, I’ve decided that instead of giving you more of my villain, it’s time show my hero some love. Today’s WeWriWa Eight Lines excerpt (edited to fit) will introduce readers to Tagen, the alien officer who has followed Kane to Earth to bring him to justice, as viewed through the eyes of Daria, a borderline agoraphobic whose rural home Tagen has invaded. Sheesh, the more I try to sum up this book, the more I feel like I have to explain. Anyway, I hope you like it because tomorrow’s Sunday Sneak Peek will be more about Tagen.

* * *

Behind her, the bathroom door opened and Tagen emerged, frowning his ‘Can I help you?’ frown. He wore exactly one towel and nothing else and he was beaded liberally with moisture. ‘Wore’ was perhaps a generous word. He was holding it on with one hand, and it hung alarmingly low on his left hip.

“Never mind,” she said at once. “Look, I’ll come back when you have more clothes on.”

Tagen looked down at his towel and then glanced up through the black curtain of his hair. Something in his stoic expression—God knew what—made her blush.

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button above for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

Bad Boys of Romance Giveaway Blog Hop

 

 

 

Mark your calendars! From June 7th to June 17th, the fine folks at Herding Cats and Burning Soup is bringing us all the best of the baddest, so please check them out and tell your friends. There’s a rafflecopter full of fun prizes, one of which is a copy of Cottonwood! With almost one hundred participating authors of all genres and heat-levels, you are guaranteed to find someone bad to bring home!

I have to admit, when I was first made aware of the Bad Boys Blog Hop, I was eager enough about reading my way through it—who doesn’t love a bad boy?—but did not immediately think of adding my name to the linky list (which you can find by clicking on the Bad Boys Badge on the sidebar to the right). After all, I reasoned, my heroines’ love interests are all good guys. As is so often the case, it took my sister, Cris, to point out the obvious: “What do you call Kane?”

“I call him the villain,” I replied, in some surprise. “I’m not sure how I could call him more of a villain unless I gave him a cape and whip-thin mustache he could twirl.”

“Sure, he’s a villain. But he’s not unlikable.”

Why do we like the bad guys anyway? Because I won’t lie, I’ve been rooting for the wrong team in my favorite movies for as long as I’ve been buying my own tickets. In fact, if a movie is on my Favorites list, it’s almost always because of the villain.

Pitch Black was supposed to be a sci-fi monster flick with a strong Ripley-esque heroine, but who even thinks of her when someone mentions that movie? No, that movie is all about Riddick—cold, predatory, deadlier than the monsters the movie was ostensibly about, and smoking hot in a pair of black-tinted goggles. Is Silence of the Lambs about Clarice Starling pursuing Buffalo Bill? Or Hannibal Lecter preying on Clarice? Anyone who’s ever seen the 1980s fantasy Legend may have forgotten Tom Cruise was even in it, but nobody forgets Big Red stepping out of that mirror to kneel beside a fainted Lily and just loom over her. And in Jurassic Park, when the raptor’s breath fogs the glass and then he slowly opens the door…okay, that one’s probably just me.

Ladies.

But I know I’m not the only one who feels that little tug for the bad guy. See, the thing is, there’s a certain kind of villain who’s really just a darker version of the archetypical Alpha Male hero. Think about it. He’s successful. He’s either a leader or a lone wolf (always by choice). He’s ambitious and confident. There’s usually some emphasis on his virility—a bevy of evil concubines in the background or some scene where he smirkingly manhandles the hero’s love interest—but in any case, he’s always fit and attractive in a dark way. A feral way. His eyes are always the hungry eyes of an animal and that animal is always carnivorous. There is really only one way in which this kind of villain is different from the Alpha hero and that is that the hero ultimately bows to an authority greater than his own, whether it be law, love or God, and the villain bows to no one.

Now we come back to one of my bad boys, Kane in Heat. Yes, he’s still a villain, but he’s a hot villain and he didn’t get that way by accident. Somewhere in this house is a notebook with pages and pages of doodles showing Kane in various poses and I don’t believe he wears a shirt in even one of ‘em. I made him strong, broad-chested and lean-hipped. I made him intelligent and resourceful. I gave him a sense of humor. I dressed him in a long black leather coat and a snap-brim fedora, for God’s sake, I knew he was hot! And then I let him kill a hundred people while the reader watched, usually with his bare hands. He is a very bad man. But he’s really good at it and I should know. I built him that way.

The Bad Boys of Romance has given me the opportunity to sample dozens of different bad boy flavors. Now I want to hear from you. Tell me about your favorite bad boy—from books, movies, comics, or whatever!—and what makes him so appealing. Everyone who comments on a post on this blogsite with the Bad Boys tag between June 7th and June 17th will be entered in a drawing to receive one of my books (ebook format only) of the title of your choice (including an advance copy of The Last Hour of Gann, due to be released at the end of the summer). If you wish to enter the giveaway, make sure you leave your information in your comment. Only one comment will be counted per post, but commenting on multiple posts (with the Bad Boy tag!) will increase your chances of winning. Please be aware that all my books contain a certain element of sci-fi, fantasy or horror violence as well as strong sexual content! If you would like to comment but do not wish to enter the giveaway, simply omit your contact information from your comment. One winner will be drawn on June 18th. Until then, be sure to visit the Bad Boys of Romance by clicking the helpful link in the sidebar (second from the top). And if you liked what you read in today’s post, then don’t miss this weekend’s Sunday Sneak Peek, WeWriWa and Bad Boys of Romance special installments June 16th and 17th for a super-sized super-scene from my book, Heat!

The Sizzle Continues

June 1st officially kicked off the Sizzling Summer Reads Party, hosted by the good folks at theromancereviews.com and to help celebrate, every Monday and Thursday in June, I will be posting some sizzling samples from each of my books. I warn you right now: Some of them are weirder than others. Today’s sizzle comes from my book Olivia, which opens with the abduction of the heroine out of her apartment in the middle of the night by a group of winged, horned, clawed creatures and only gets stranger from there. Over the course of the book, Olivia ceases to be the creatures’ prisoner and must instead become their champion. In this excerpt, Olivia is confronted by Logarr, an outcast of sorts, who is himself a tool in the grip of forces beyond his control. If you like today’s sizzling snippet (and even if you don’t like it, I guess), this coming Sneak Peek Sunday and Weekend Writer Warriors snippets will tell more of Olivia’s story, so tune in again. And don’t forget to comment on this post for another chance to win one of my ebooks of the title of your choice, including the upcoming Last Hour of Gann (drawing to be held July 1st)!

 

Logarr emerged from the shadows. “It is time,” he said calmly.

“I’m not meeting with you.”

He gazed at her, neither surprised nor disturbed. “Then I will challenge your mate,” he said.

“I’ll tell him to concede to you and I’ll refuse you.” She lifted her chin, glared at him. “I’ll go the women’s tunnels and I won’t come out again until Vorgullum comes back and puts an end to all this.”

He smiled. It was not a threatening or unpleasant expression, much as she wanted it to be. It was just tired. “As you like it, Olivia,” he said.

“And you’ll leave me alone?” she asked suspiciously.

“No.”

“What are you going to do to me if I don’t come to you?”

“Something like this,” he answered, and before she could do more than flinch, he reached up and tapped her on the forehead with one claw.

Just a tap. Hardly worth noticing. If she’d been asleep, it wouldn’t have even woken her up. She started to ask him what on Earth that had been meant to do and didn’t. Couldn’t.

She couldn’t move, could only watch him approach her until she could feel the heat from his body. She made a conscious effort to do something, anything, even blink her eyes, but her body was not her own.

Logarr spoke, his eyes locked with hers and strangely sad, far removed from the things he promised her. “You will come to me, Olivia. Your thighs will open around me. Your body will ache and tremble where I touch it. I will taste your sweat and caress the secret places within and without. I will have you, Olivia, possess you, consume you. And I am sorry. I wish that it had been anyone else, anyone.”  His finger brushed at her slack palm. His eyes dropped to look at it and for the first time, his voice faltered. “I still remember the way you smiled at me…the way you reached out your hand…”

She tried to scream, but all she managed was a soft sigh as she pushed air uselessly between her open lips.

“Do not resist me,” Logarr whispered, kneeling before her. She couldn’t see him, but his voice invaded her completely, almost as though it originated in her mind. “Do not resist her. You can’t win. Believe me, I know.”

His hands caressed her ankles, slipped up her legs, over her thighs, her hips. Her skirt pooled over his wrists, tickling her where the hem lightly kissed her. She wanted to struggle and could not move, wanted to moan and could scarcely continue to breathe.

Hump Day Hook 6/5/13

Welcome to another Hump Day Hook! Each Wednesday, participating authors post a few paragraphs from a published work or work-in-progress for blog-hoppers to enjoy. Today’s hook is another snippet from the scene I’m currently editing in The Last Hour of Gann. If you like it, be sure to click the link and check out the other authors on the Hump Day List!

When the sun came up the next morning, Amber and Meoraq were awake and watching from the top of the next hill over to see sunrise over Gedai for the first time. Holy Gedai, as Meoraq called it. Birthplace of the Prophet. The land where, in just a few more days, they would find the temple where Meoraq thought he was going to talk to God. Her first impression was that it looked a lot like the same brown grass, the same windy sky, the same open plains as they’d left on the other side of the mountain. Maybe a little more wooded, a little less flat, but that was all.

“What do you think?” she asked, studying Meoraq’s inscrutable face in the thin morning light.

“Looks like your hair first thing in the morning,” he replied. “Only it’s everywhere instead of just in my face.”

Sizzling Summer Reads Party Begins!

June 1st officially kicked off the Sizzling Summer Reads Party, hosted by the good folks at theromancereviews.com. I’m very new to the blog thing, so I was eager to sign up, thinking I would be able to promote my books in a painless manner, and entirely unaware that my life as I knew it was about to come to a smashing halt while summer sizzled. See, there are hundreds of authors participating in Sizzling Summer and they are fabulous. Go to their site right now. Just click on the handy link to the right of these words and I dare you not to lose a few hours blog hopping. Every day, a handful of books will be spotlighted with a quick quiz. You can find the answers by clicking on the helpful hint links, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget the question once you start exploring those sites. There’s fun and prizes and cake and lots of authors you can’t wait to read yet. (The cake is a lie.) So tell your friends and be sure to check back with them every day to explore some fresh sizzle and share your favorites!

 

In the meantime, every Monday and Thursday in June, I will celebrate the summer of sizzle with some sizzling samples from each of my books. I warn you right now: Some of them are weirder than others. And to further celebrate Sizzling Summer, from now until June 30th, everyone who comments on a post tagged Sizzling Summer Reads will be entered in a drawing to win one of my books (ebook format only) of the title of your choice, including the upcoming The Last Hour of Gann, available at the end of the summer! Only one comment per person per individual post will be counted, but commenting on multiple posts that carry the Sizzling Summer Reads tag will increase your chances of winning! On July 1st, I will announce the lucky winner!

 

Today’s sizzle carries over a bit from last weekend’s Sneak Peek and WeWriWa with an excerpt from The Scholomance.

The open hive of that central cavern was just as empty and still as the ephebeum below her. Mara climbed the winding path past passageways filled with silent theaters, thinking, ‘Not Kazuul. Anyone but him,’ right up until the very top, and even into the ornate corridor that led to no one else but him. She told herself it wasn’t surrender as she walked past orgiastic carvings all the way to the last twinned pillars where his smiling/sneering face met her over his closed doors. ‘Not Kazuul,’ she thought, and opened them. ‘Or at least, not for Kazuul. It could even be a kind of torture for him, if I want it to be.’

And it was torture, every step. She climbed down the dusty risers and down the drafty stairs in distant agony, tugging at the neck and sleeves of her robe several times as she went, finally pulling the whole heavy thing off just as she came through the hanging curtains of his doorway. The sun was out—high noon, even earlier than she’d thought—and he was on his aerie, comfortably hunkered with half a loaf of dark bread in one hand, smeared with either blood or jam. He ate at leisure, watching the clouds pass over the lake below him, impervious to the bitter cold and howling wind, impervious to everything. She was halfway to him before he knew she was there, and he swung fast, surprise becoming anger becoming even greater surprise.

“Disrobe,” she said impatiently, walking even faster now that her goal was in sight.

He straightened at once, flinging his breakfast without looking at it out into the world, and battled his plated belt open.

“Disrobe,” she said again, angrily, grabbing at the complicated layers of leather and silk and chain, and yanking them away in a single piece as soon as he’d worked out the buckle. She threw it behind her, not caring where it landed or what it broke when it did. She reached up and snatched at the golden clasp that kept his hair back and pulled that away, too. His hair was too fine to catch in it, no matter how rough she was; it fanned out eagerly in the breeze, lapping at her wrist, swallowing her fingers. “Disrobe,” she whispered. He had nothing else to wear.

He bent. She turned her face away. He hesitated, then bit at the side of her throat, two short nips and then a long bite, his breath scorching her skin. She could feel in exquisite clarity the racing of her pulse as his sharp teeth pressed down, as she could feel his hidden thoughts churning behind his defenses.

He lifted his mouth, growled softly, then went to one knee. He bit at her belly, very gently, his teeth scraping at the jumping muscles just below her navel. His hands brushed over her thighs, gently opening her to him. He bit right at the crown of her cleft, his tongue snaking in to rub back and forth across her clit. He growled again. It wasn’t a sound of desire, not before and not now.

Mara fumbled behind her for the wall and found it just at the edge of her reach. Bracing herself awkwardly on one arm, she groped for a horn or a spike or something with the other, anchoring himself to him. She lifted one leg, let him help her find a way to bring it across his spiked shoulder, and rolled her hips forward against his mouth. He growled a third time; his back was tense under her bare foot, as hard as stone.

His tongue knew where to go, what to do. His claws dug at her buttocks now and then, flexing as with impatience or anger, as he pressed himself deeper. He explored all, returning again and again to the chapel of her clitoris to tease it from its silken sheath before plunging deep inside her to drink. He bit six times at her thighs, twice drawing blood, which he licked away. Mara didn’t mind. She came for him like the false tide that lapped at the lake’s shore, rolling in and out by her own will and not by any moon’s direction.

 

Sneak Peek Sunday 6/2

Today’s Sneak Peek is from The Scholomance. This book was very cathartic to write, allowing me to confront a recurring nightmare that has plagued me for more than thirty years and trap it in a medium I can control. I had hoped that writing this book would destroy the dream forever. Sadly, this was not the case, but it did allow me to exorcise some demons (heh). For those who have never heard of it (or worse, those who’ve only heard of it by way of Warcraft), the Scholomance is a hidden school where magic is taught by the demons who dwell there, but there is a price: Anyone who reaches the door of the Scholomance may enter, but the Devil claims one out of every ten of those who try to leave. After Mara, a young woman born with telepathy, receives a desperate letter from her only friend, she enters the Scholomance, determined to find Connie and save her, only to become trapped, first by the Scholomance itself and then by the darkly alluring lord who rules there.

Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!



Mara turned toward him, not fast. He rose from his lazy crouch in the shadows just as slowly, as deliberately. The carving on the door had been a very good likeness after all. His skin was grey and rough even to look at, like living stone, raised and thick where the ivory spikes pierced through. His hair was black and very fine, and waved out behind him in the same breeze that moved the curtains. His eyes glowed green, just a little.

“Shall I disrobe?” he asked, indicating the ornate buckle of his plated belt.

“Disrobe?” Mara echoed, frowning.

“So I must assume, as thou hast come to my bedchamber.” He motioned, and true enough, there was a bed, crafted in a wide oval, with a stone lip all around and great bat-wings looming at its head.

Mara raised her eyebrows. “Do you sleep?” she wondered.

“Nay, not often,” the demon replied affably. “Yet I do fuck, and one must have one’s comforts.” He cocked his head, spreading his mouth in a wide, humorless smile. “Thou dost not flee, nor rebuke, nor submit to me. How curious. I suppose thou hast some request to make. Speak it.”

Weekend Writer Warrior 6/1

Today’s Weekend Writer Warrior snippet is from The Scholomance, my book about that legendary school where dark magic is taught to all those who manage to enter, only to find that leaving is not so easy. My heroine, Mara, was born with telepathic power and has no interest in magic, but her only friend, Connie, has been obsessed with magic since childhood and disappeared in search of the Devil’s School years ago. When Mara suddenly receives a letter from Connie, she goes at once to save her friend, only to become trapped in the Scholomance herself. In the next eight sentences, we are introduced to Horuseps, the first demon that Mara encounters, as he oversees the welcoming of the new applicants.

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

From the hips down, he seemed to be covered in layers of black, plated armor of some alien design, with odd serrations and grooves over each snugly-fit seam and joint. On closer inspection, one could see those seams moving slightly, just slightly, with each minute movement of his body, and one realized it was skin. Those heavy, shiny, armored plates were him, his shell, from which his moon-white upper body grew like blown glass somehow affixed to obsidian. He had no nipples, no navel. His chest had all the sculpted look of muscles (in a slender, slightly effeminate way), but no hint of bones beneath—no ribs, no sternum, not even collarbones. His demon’s face was thin, beautiful, smiling welcome as he waited for them, and his eyes were the eyes of an insect—ovid and black, shining as with many facets, but these were in fact lights. Lights not reflected from somewhere else, but generated inside him and moving around. He had galaxies in his eyes.

Today’s Weekend Writer Warrior snippet is from The Scholo...

Today’s Weekend Writer Warrior snippet is from The Scholomance, my book about that legendary school where dark magic is taught to all those who manage to enter, only to find that leaving is not so easy. My heroine, Mara, was born with telepathic power and has no interest in magic, but her only friend, Connie, has been obsessed with magic since childhood and disappeared in search of the Devil’s School years ago. When Mara suddenly receives a letter from Connie, she goes at once to save her friend, only to become trapped in the Scholomance herself. In the next eight sentences, we are introduced to Horuseps, the first demon that Mara encounters, as he oversees the welcoming of the new applicants.

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

From the hips down, he seemed to be covered in layers of black, plated armor of some alien design, with odd serrations and grooves over each snugly-fit seam and joint. On closer inspection, one could see those seams moving slightly, just slightly, with each minute movement of his body, and one realized it was skin. Those heavy, shiny, armored plates were him, his shell, from which his moon-white upper body grew like blown glass somehow affixed to obsidian. He had no nipples, no navel. His chest had all the sculpted look of muscles (in a slender, slightly effeminate way), but no hint of bones beneath—no ribs, no sternum, not even collarbones. His demon’s face was thin, beautiful, smiling welcome as he waited for them, and his eyes were the eyes of an insect—ovid and black, shining as with many facets, but these were in fact lights. Lights not reflected from somewhere else, but generated inside him and moving around. He had galaxies in his eyes.

Hump Day Hook 5/29/13

 

Wow. I’ve been blogging for a whole week and it hasn’t killed me! So here I am again for the Hump Day Hook Hop, offering up a few paragraphs from the scene I’m editing in The Last Hour of Gann, in which Meoraq and Amber continue their journey to Xi’Matezh following a nasty winter storm…

* * *

“Why didn’t this place break apart too?” Amber asked in a small, shaky voice.

“Because we were in it.” He glanced behind him, only to see her still standing in the doorway. He sighed and reached out his hand. “We have never left His sight, Soft-Skin. We walk there still.”

She didn’t move.

“The under-levels are filled with dead people,” he reminded her.

She eased out half a step.

“And now the doors are broken open and they’re going to get wet.”

Her whole face puckered and she finished her approach in a clumsy leap. “I’m not scared of dead people!” she snapped, clutching at the back of his belt.

“I never said you were.”

“You implied it.”

“I did.”