When Laura almost interrupted Josie and Alex from It's Complicated

It's excerpt time as the books get edited, tweaked, revised and edited once more. Here's a healthy dose of Dr. Perfect and Josie the morning after...well, read on:

Some strange man's rather muscular upper thigh trapped her to the bed, her arms swimming to reach shore. A ringing in her ears pierced through her fuzzy consciousness enough to realize that her phone was ringing and Alex, naked, was sound asleep, half on top of her.

The phone slipped out of her hands twice until she finally pressed the glass and shoved it in the general direction of her ear.

“'lo?”

“I'm living with a squid who eats my body fluids!”

Laura. What time was it? She pulled the phone away from her ear and squinted. 8:22 a.m. “I don't want to hear about your sex life with Dylan,” Josie hissed.

“I was talking about Jillian!”

Josie cleared her throat and said nothing.

“Besides, there is no sex life for me with anyone. You ever try to have sex with a screaming time bomb in the house that shits up its back at any moment?”

“No, but I did see an ad like that on the Craigslist personal section once.”

A slow turn from the large, manly body next to her gave her eye candy to last for months. “Who is it?” he mumbled. “Did my phone go off? Is there an emergency at the hospital?”

“Who's there!” Laura shrieked into the phone. “Where are you?”

Josie wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. “I'm at home.” The less said, the better, as Alex reached up to caress one bare breast. In the daylight, his body was even better than she'd imagined, all feline and protective and big. He buried his head in her hip, cuddling in a way that sent shoots of heat through her.

“Who said 'hospital'?” Laura asked.

“I did,” Alex replied, chuckling into Josie's belly.

“Oh, my God, is Dr. Perfect in bed with you?”

Time to give up. “Yes.”

Alex grabbed the phone and spoke into it. “No,” he said, kissing her hip bone, then sliding away, his receding warmth nearly making her cry. His muscled ass wandered into the hallway and she heard a door shut.

SQUEEEEE! Laura's scream could be heard five houses down by the deaf, ancient labradoodle that wore a diaper when its owner took her for walks every morning. “You're sleeping with Alex?”

“I am somethinging with Alex.”

“What's somethinging?”

“We're making it up as we go along.”

“You let him spend the night?”

Silence. This was not an easy conversation.

“Josie? You never let guys spend the night.”

“He watched Downton Abbey with me last night. We fell asleep in front of Netflix after four episodes.”

“Men don't watch Downton Abbey unless they're trying to get in your pants.”

“Well, it worked.”

Another squeee from Laura. “You never, ever let guys stay over,” she repeated, her tone of abject marveling making Josie's stomach flutter.

“I know, but he doesn't know that, and you're yelling as if I were your deaf great-grandma, so cut it out.”

“OK,” Laura whispered with great affect, like someone on stage.

“Why are you calling?” A gurgle in the distance told her Alex was making coffee.

“To complain about my sex life. But yours is much more interesting. Do tell!”

“Tell what?” Josie asked dryly. Alex sauntered back in, gloriously buff, carrying two mugs of coffee. He handed one to her.

Perfect. Dr. Fucking Perfect. No man had ever brought her coffee in bed. Then again, no man ever had the chance to...

“He just brought me coffee in bed,” she hissed into the phone.

“Did I interrupt sex?” Laura squealed.

“No, but you're about to,” Alex said in a cheerfully loud voice.