Ricochet (20 page)

Thank you first and foremost to E.L.
James, for starting the discussion about BDSM, and taking away some of the
taboo. You paved the way for stories like this one to be told. Lilly’s inner
goddess thanks you.

Thank you to my husband, for trying to
be supportive, even though I think you still haven’t and probably never will
read this in it’s entirety. And gave me shit for months about writing a sex
novel instead of my magnum opus. It’s okay. I still love you. Sometimes.

Thank you to Sandra Smith, for
re-igniting my passion for writing and inspiring me to put this on the page. Thanks
for reminding me that life happening around you isn’t an excuse to stop
creating.

Thank you to Taylor Jarvis, without
whom many of the scenes in this book would not exist. Thank you for staying up
late with me and letting me bounce ideas off of you, and for contributing
absolutely amazing ideas when I would get stuck.

Thank you to Sheila Allen, for sitting
in my kitchen and listening to me talk about this project for hours on end,
even though you would probably rather be talking about literally anything else.
Thank you for understanding when I would flake on social outings to stay home
and write, even if you thought it was lame as fuck.

Thank you to Jordan Cheek for your
honest and critical technical feedback, without it this would be a giant
product placement and contain at least 50 percent more fuck words. Could you
imagine this with MORE fuck words? No? Thank Jordan.

Thank you to the Vag Pack for keeping
me up until 3 am most nights and distracting me from working on this. Also for
your undying support and for making me feel like this is better than it
probably actually is. Maybe if it’s as good as you think it is I’ll make enough
money to buy us a commune because being states away from you all makes me so
sad.

Thank you to Shawn Haynes, Kathryn
Benz, Summer Mott, Chloe Weasley, Elsy Beath, Briana Jones, and Patience
Masters, and probably several others who are going to think I am a bitch for
forgetting to list them, who have been cheering me on since the beginning, and
anxiously awaiting the next chapter.

Thank you to Hannah Uhl, who began
reading this ironically, to laugh at the different euphemisms for penis, and
ended up being one of my biggest cheerleaders. Thank you for reading and
responding to the book length messages I sent you explaining my dilemmas with
how to format, or how to work in particular dialogue, or how to work a scene,
and never sending an eyeroll emoji telling me to shut the fuck up. Your
feedback has been incredibly valuable to this project. You’ll recognize Hannah
from her sexy ass plastered on my cover, to which I also owe her my deepest
gratitude.
 
Werk, bitch.

Thank you to Laundry, Love, and
Science. This is a multi-faceted acknowledgement. Thank you first for your
insight on how to deal with stains acquired while researching this project. For
the record: Blue dawn and Peroxide will take blood and semen right out of a
white, one hundred percent cotton duvet. Secondly, thank you for kicking me out
so I could go back to working on this project instead of spending hours upon
hours learning all the different off label uses for Windex and judging people’s
nasty ass bathrooms. I still don’t know the difference between stripping and
deep cleaning. JUST BUY NEW PILLOWS, SHARON.

Last, but certainly not least, thank
you to my dear, dear gutterlings. The support that you have shown has been
overwhelming, and without it, this project may have never come to fruition. Thank
you for the feedback, for sharing the excitement, for pushing me to make this
the best version of itself. This book is dedicated to The Gutter. If you don’t
know what that it, you can’t sit with us.