Sex Isn't Enough By Alicia D. Dervin

Carrie Ann Woods has had enough. Sick and tired of allowing men to come in and out her life without a real commitment, she has convinced herself that she is worth much more and that she deserves to find true love. While remaining hesitant to give her heart away, she will recall the pain from her past and use everything she’s learned about love and life to her advantage in the novel, Sex Isn’t Enough.

As the owner of a successful public relations firm in Miami, this sexy and fiery soon to be 30-year-old often finds herself surrounded by athletes, musicians and other public figures that all turn to her when they want to get into or stay out of the media.

Her relationship with a married man causes her to wonder if real love even exists and if she’ll ever find it. Like many women her age she starts to tell herself that her biological clock is ticking. She sets out to prove to herself that romance means more than good sex. Sex Isn’t Enough is packed with scandal, drama, passion, and pleasure as Carrie narrates readers through her journey of learning to believe in love.




I was born on the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on April 1, 1985. My parents were both members of the navy and readily welcomed a bouncing baby girl to their family of three. My older brother was thrilled. Unfortunately, my father died merely a year later. I have been blessed with a loving mother and a a supportive brother who have both played major roles in making me who I am today.

My writing sometimes feels as though it comes organically. I never want to feel as if I'm trying too hard. If that does happen, that's when I know it's time to momentarily walk away from a project. I have always loved the ability to create a world that no one else knows of. Fiction is one of the most amazing concepts a writer can indulge in. Writing fiction is a way for me to escape into a world where I dont exist. At times, it is therapeutic. I will forever admire the works of Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, and countless other literary greats. I have a B.A. in Mass Communication with a concentration in journalism from Winthrop University.

My only hope is to create characters and stories that my readers will love and enjoy for years to come.

EXCERPT:

When I got back upstairs to my office the phones were ringing like we were hosting some type of Feed the Children tell-a-thon. Joy knew how much I hated it if a phone rang more than three times. She was trying her hardest to answer them all and put this person on hold and tell that person she’d call them back with details in a few. She looked up and noticed I was back and almost dropped the receiver to the phone she was holding.
“What the hell is going on in here?” I tried to ask without sounding too disturbed. It was chaotic.
“We just got a call that Jonathan Price’s girlfriend just killed herself after attempting to shoot his wife! The lines have been ringing non-stop since you left. I tried calling your cell but it kept going straight to voicemail. I couldn’t reach you.” Joy was panicking. I hated it when people panicked.
I laughed a little on the inside because all I could think about was how many times I heard my phone buzzing as Christian was screwing my brains out. It felt so good I couldn’t dream of making him stop so I could answer the phone.
I rarely put anything before my business but this time my body won the battle that it and my brain had been fighting since I met Christian. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried I could never break the power he held over me.
I got back in work mode quickly and went into my office to contact Jonathan’s manager. Jonathan had played for the Dolphin’s for about three years and had become one of their best break-out players.
He was becoming one of the best defensive linemen in the league and was starting to gain the attention of a great deal of other NFL teams because of his size and his speed on the field.
As his career began to take off, he came to me to help keep his name in the media as a wholesome family man.
He wasn’t running any illegal dog fighting rings or anything but he just wanted to always appear to be a good guy.
From what I knew about him so far, it seemed as though he was.
The Price family had a seemingly picture perfect life. His wife was a former professional dancer who gave up her studio in Atlanta and moved to Miami with Jonathan when they met. She had given him two beautiful daughters and attended every game she could with the kids in tow.
When they decided they wanted to take their entire family to Disney World one summer, of course we sent out press releases to let newspapers, magazines and websites know that Jonathan and the family would be more than willing to take pictures and give interviews while they were there. Jonathan loved this idea. It wasn’t really their family vacation anyway.
Disney World was for regular folks. That same summer they spent three weeks in Aruba.
Dancing around with Mickey was merely a publicity stunt. He was well on his way to being dubbed the family man of the NFL. Almost everywhere he went locally the wife and kids were right behind him.
The one thing he told me in our initial meeting was to make sure he was always seen as a family man because he loved his wife and kids and would never do anything to jeopardize his family.
I’d be lying if I said I believed him then, but for the sake of his lovely wife sitting across from me with two bright-eyed young girls bouncing on her lap, I tried not to show it in my expressions.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number to Jonathan’s manager’s cell directly from my cell.
I knew his receptionist would take forever to get him on the office line.
“Hey Mark! It’s Carrie. What’s going on?” I jumped right in.
“Hi Carrie,” he said trying to sound as professional as he possibly could. “Can you hang on one second for me?” he asked. I didn’t have time to answer before he wasn’t there anymore. This usually meant there was someone in his office or in close proximity and he felt he couldn’t talk to me freely. Over the years and with various shared clients, Mark and I had developed a pretty solid working relationship. We knew a lot about the people who hired us. Things they often wouldn’t want their closest friends and family members to know about. For some reason they confided in us, trusted us. We always knew that if one knew something about a client the other would find out shortly.
“I’m here,” he said when he got back to the phone. “It’s a mad house over here. Some crazy chick decided she wanted to take the life of Andrea Price and her own as well. Andrea didn’t get hurt at all. The nut missed her completely and I guess didn’t take the time to realize it before she turned the gun on herself.”
“Wow,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. Mark must’ve sensed this so he kept going.
“This all happened in their home while the kids were taking a nap. The chick somehow got past security at the gate where they lived, climbed into a window, walked right upstairs to the master bedroom, obviously knowing where it was, and pulled the trigger when she saw Andrea. Andrea of course hit the floor when the bullet hit the mirror behind her and shattered glass everywhere. By the time Andrea looked up the girl was lying on the floor with a bullet in her head. This shit is crazy. These guys are never going to learn.”
I couldn’t help but think about Christian’s fiancé and if she could ever snap like that and try to kill me if she found out about us. I had seen one too many movies like that and watched way too much TV. I pushed the thought from my head quickly.
“Are you still there?” Mark asked trying to figure out if I was going to say anything else.
“I’m here. I just don’t understand it. I knew all of that family man bullshit was a lie the minute he said it. This could’ve been so much worse. Imagine what would’ve happened if she had hurt those girls! Well, is he talking? If we’re going to clean this up he has to give us all the details. Do we even know who the chick is at this point?”
I was officially ready to work now.
“I’ve been calling him since I found out. I think he’s at the police station with Andrea. The girls are with Andrea’s sister.”
Mark paused for a moment.
“I’ll try to get him to come and talk to you as soon as possible,” he said.
“Make it sooner than possible. I can’t answer any questions or talk to anyone until I’ve heard it directly from him.”
“Ok,” Mark said. I could tell he was irritated beyond belief.
“I’ll bring him by your office tomorrow afternoon and we’ll go from there. In the meantime let’s try to gather as much information as we can and release as little as we can.”
“Sounds good,” I said and hung up the phone. I needed a drink. A Cosmo would’ve been nice.
4That night Christian came over.
A part of me didn’t want him to. Especially since I couldn’t stop thinking about how terrified and angry Andrea Price must’ve been when she realized what had occurred in the bedroom of her home as her children slept soundly in another room.
I bet as soon as she saw psycho chick standing in her bedroom with a gun pointed in her direction, she knew exactly what was happening.
Jonathan had been unfaithful. While she had spent the last 6 years of her life, like many other wives of athletes, convincing her brain and her heart that her man only had eyes for her, she had been wrong; almost dead wrong.