I was in a bookstore, and a name leapt off the cover of a paperback at me.

Beth Randall. I stopped dead. I’d known a Beth Randall. She’d been in a creative writing class in college. I’d had a wild crush on her at the time but had never gotten up the courage to ask her out. Though beautiful, she’d also been quiet, even mousy.

I picked up the book and flipped to the back page. There was an author’s photo there. Sure enough, it was the Beth I knew, a couple years older but still a ravishing beauty.

I bought the book, of course. I hadn’t pursued writing, but Beth obviously had. I was happy for her success. That evening I eagerly started reading her novel.

Old memories plucked at me before I even finished the first pages. Beth’s quiet manner had always seemed to mask some deeper wildness in her. I’d thought that inside that girl had been a crouching jungle cat, waiting to spring.

Or maybe I’d just been imagining all that. Still, I wished I’d at least made a move on her back then. Nothing was worse than regret, after all.

But I read on into her book, still stunned that someone I knew was a bona fide published writer. Quickly I started to get into the story. It was a drama with more than a little romance in it.

The main character was a shy college student named Randi Bethel. She had big dreams of becoming a famous author.

She was also crushing hard on a fellow student in her writing class. He went by the name of Tim Johnson. Wait a minute —

Randi Bethel was obviously Beth Randall. But if you flipped the guy’s name, you could come up with Jim Thomson. Which was my name.

Had Beth had the hots for me back in school? Just how autobiographical was this book? I read on, needing to know.

The book was good. Beth had always seemed to have talent, but to see it fully realized was very exciting. I hoped she was making lots of money off this novel.

In the story the two protagonists, Randi and Tim, circled each other for a while, neither sure if the other liked them. About midway through they finally got together. They’d studied together, and that led to a date, and a few more dates led to sex.

And, whoa — Beth had not held back when she’d wrote the sex scene. It was blazing-hot and very explicit. But because it was about characters the reader would already care about, it still read like literature.

But in my mind it was me and Beth, rolling around on a bed, our naked bodies entangled. I touched her heaving breasts, she groped my ass. I put my mouth to her pussy, and she sucked my cock down to my balls.

When the two characters fucked, it was like I was reading a description of me pounding Beth’s pussy. The detail was fantastic. She went step by step through the torrid love scene. If she was trying to turn on her readers, she’d sure succeeded with me. I had a wicked hard-on by the end. I stopped just short of jerking myself off. I wanted to keep on reading, hoping for more erotic scenes but also needing to know how the story ended.

I read until one in the morning, finally finishing the book. The ending was very satisfying. There’d also been two more lovemaking scenes which had aroused the hell out of me.

The experience left me restless. I got on the internet and looked up Beth Randall, hoping she had an author’s website. She did. I gazed a long moment at her photo, studying that lovely face. Had she wanted me back in school? Had we each been crushing on the other and done nothing about it? Or maybe she’d just made the whole story up.

I could send her an email, like she encouraged any fans to do. I hesitated, then gave myself a mental kick. I’d been a coward once. I wasn’t going to be one now.

I wrote her a letter, congratulating her on her book and asking politely if she remembered me from college. Then I went and grabbed a beer. When I was halfway through it, my email pinged. It was a reply from Beth in the middle of the night.

I’d just been immersed in this woman’s words. Now here were more of them. She gushed with happiness to hear from me. She was on a book tour. I saw from her itinerary that she’d be within driving distance four days from now. I wrote back and said I’d come see her. She was overjoyed by the idea.

Over the intervening days I reread the hot parts of her novel and fantasized like crazy about her. On the day I drove up and sat with the crowd in a bookstore as she read excepts and answered questions.

Afterward, she yanked me aside and threw her arms around me.

“Jim! I spotted you in the audience. It was all I could do not to go running to you!”

“You look beautiful, Beth.” She did. I was dazzled — and totally turned on.

People were still trying to ask her questions. She smiled, then we ducked out together. Her publisher had put her up at a nearby motel. We went there.

“When I saw your letter and knew you’d read the book, I blushed like a schoolgirl,” she said in her room. “It’s not hard to figure out who I was writing about.” She seemed nervous.

I was, too. But I went and said it: “I had a crush on you the whole time. I wanted you so bad it hurt.”

With that she came to me. All the preliminaries melted away. She was in my arms, and our lips came together, the kiss easy and natural. I pulled her tighter. Her mouth opened and I slid my tongue inside, probing hers.

She pushed her body on mine, jamming her breasts against me. I ground my swelling crotch on hers. Excitement raised goose flesh on my arms, my thighs.

She broke the kiss and led me to the motel bed. We quickly stripped out of our clothes. Her tits were glorious and her pussy gleamed with eager wetness.

We lay down together and resumed kissing. My tongue delved, slow and searching. I felt her breath quickening. I touched her breast, playing with the swollen nipple. She moaned into my mouth.

I started kissing my way down her throat. I paused at her tits and nibbled those lush nips. Then I licked a path down her abdomen. She spread her legs, then closed them over my shoulders as I lay down between them. My face hovered over her pussy.

I breathed in her scent. Finally, I grazed her with my tongue, tracing her pussy lips. She groaned with pleasure. I parted her folds with two fingers and drilled my tongue tip into her. Licking her deeper and harder, her taste filled my mouth. I slipped my other hand under her ass, letting my fingertip brush her butthole. I didn’t know if she’d like it, so I did it tentatively. It was something the two characters did in the book.

“Yes!” she cried out. “Finger my ass while you eat my pussy!”

I did just that, sliding my finger in up to the first knuckle. Her dark passage gripped me sensually. I tongued her swollen clit until it was throbbing. She pumped her hips and with another high cry came in my mouth. I swallowed her juice.

When I came up for air, she got me on my back and scrambled down between my legs. I lifted my head to watch her mouth engulf my cock all in one epic lunge. She deep-throated me to my balls. I growled with pleasure.

Like someone starved for cock, she raised and dropped her mouth on me. I saw how her cheeks were caved in and felt the tight suction she was working. I even felt it when she took my fat cockhead into her throat.

When I was about halfway to coming, she pulled her mouth reluctantly away and climbed up my body. She straddled me and slotted my spit-shiny cock up into her streaming pussy. With a look of ecstasy on her gorgeous face, she lowered herself onto me.

“I’ve dreamed of this cock — ” she purred. She started rocking slowly on me.

I reached up to fondle her tits. As real as all this felt, there was still something dreamy about it, like I’d fallen into her novel and was living it. I could almost see her wicked words swirling around us.

She began bucking harder atop me. Her hips moved with forceful jerks. I met her movements, pumping up into her. The pleasure rose and rose. Her teeth bared. Her eyes rolled back into her head.

When she let out a yowling cry, I felt the orgasmic spasming of her pussy. She clenched me, then after hitting her peak released me.

She started to slide limply to the side. I caught her and eased her onto her back, never pulling out of her. When I was on top, I began with slow strokes, letting her come back from her climactic haze.

She grinned up at me, and in her eyes I saw the same wonder I felt. It was incredible that we were doing this after so long. I had regretted not asking her out back then. Now that regret was canceled. Because of the words she’d written, we now had this fantastic moment.

I sank my cock deep into her, wanting to touch her at her innermost places. Out there in the world her book was being read by countless strangers. She’d said sales were good. That meant thousands of people reading in explicit detail about the sex I was now having with this amazing woman.

The idea didn’t bother me. As the full realization landed, I kicked into a higher gear and fucked her all the harder.

She writhed beneath me now. She thrust her hips up at me. There was heat on her face as she reached up and dug her fingernails into my shoulders. I pounded her pussy, making the bed bounce underneath us.

I came in a spewing fury. She was right with me, wriggling with passion, thundering through her third come.

Afterward, we nuzzled. I had the chance to really tell her how much I’d enjoyed her novel and how proud I was of her.

She smiled. “Let me tell you about my idea for a sequel — ”