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Another Visit to Vegas & a New WIP

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S6302679I’m taking you back to Vegas today. Not that you weren’t expecting it, right? I take you there every chance I get. I thought I’d take you there on a warm summer evening, and not to one of the better parts of town, but to someplace a lot more dangerous. My new Work In Progress, Buried Pleasures, follows the adventures of Samantha Black, a woman with a talent everyone is after. Samantha is not in Vegas for the glitz and the glam. Sam has come to get her friend, Evie Holt, out of a very bad situation, a task that could very well get her killed or worse. Enjoy the beginning of this paranormal romance!

Buried Pleasures

He was the biggest damn dog Sam had ever seen, and she’d nearly jumped out of her skin when he slipped out of the growing evening gloom and rubbed up against her hip nudging the remains of her peanut butter sandwich with a cold nose. ‘Hey you! That’s my lunch.’ And her breakfast too, she thought. In fact it would be her last meal until she made enough in tips tonight to buy something else. The dog plopped down on his enormous haunches in front of her, effectively blocking further progress unless she wanted to wrestle him out of the way, which she figured was a losing proposition. He offered a small whine, and what she could have sworn was a smile. Then he licked his chops with an enormous pink tongue, the large golden eyes locked on her sandwich. If this hadn’t been Las Vegas, if she’d been in the wilds of Wyoming of Montana, she would have sworn the beast was a wolf instead of a dog, and that he was about to call out the rest of his pack to help him bring down dinner that involved a whole lot more than a partially eaten peanut butter sandwich. Though she figured said dinner would be a bit on the under-fed side at the moment. But the dog made no threatening moves. She’d seen him before, seen him dozing in the sun next to a homeless man who often settled in the shade near the storm tunnel.

Come to think of it though, it was the man who’d always drawn her attention rather than the dog. He was big enough and looked dangerous, big enough to be a woodsman with a wolf dog. But though it was more than his size that always drew her eye when she walked past the entrances to the tunnel, it wasn’t anything she could really put her finger on. She never looked directly at him, because for some really stupid reason, to do so felt dangerous. Besides, she always felt like he was watching her. Though he never was. If anything he seemed to be watching everything, like he was taking it all in. And she was a part of what he took in. Somehow just being in the man’s vicinity made her feel, well exposed – not like he was a stalking her, but like he knew her, like he could see her secrets. Like he could see everybody’s secrets. She shivered. This whole nasty situation with Darian Fox and Evie had left her suspicious and feeling as though there were threats around every corner. But then there were, weren’t there? Why couldn’t she make Evie see that?

Her stomach growled. The dog whined and licked his chops, and she was brought back to the present moment. Frankly she found the dog’s company the most pleasant she’d experienced since her reluctant arrival in Vegas. Christ! Had it really been two months ago? ‘Time flies when you’re having fun,’ she growled under her breath. She reached out and scratched the animal’s ruff feeling strangely comforted by the feel of thick fir. She wondered how he handled the heat in July and August. It hadn’t entered her mind that he could practically bite her whole arm of in lieu of the peanut butter sandwich if he chose too, though he seemed fairly well mannered at the moment. He’d never shown any inclination to be friendly to her, or any interest in her at all when she’d walked by here before, but then again, she’d not been eating a peanut butter sandwich before. Golden eyes shifted from the sandwich to her face and back. He whined again and offered her an open-mouthed yawn sporting teeth like daggers, then his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth in a relaxed, but attentive pant, and he inched closer, eyes still locked on the sandwich.

She sighed and her stomach growled again. ‘God I’m so gullible! But only with animals,’ she added as he inched his way closer. ‘People, I know better than to trust. Especially in Vegas.’ The dog cocked his head, as though he understood every word, and he very well might, she thought. ‘Well, I suppose I could stand to lose another few pounds.’ She tore a corner off the sandwich, and stuffed it in her mouth savoring the last of her very scant meal. Then, as the dog inched forward again, she handed him the rest of the sandwich. He took it from her almost daintily before it disappeared down his gullet in a single gulp. He offered another whine and a little woof of a bark. ‘Sorry Bud. There isn’t anymore,’ she said, stroking an enormous soft ear. ‘But if tips are good tonight, I’ll bring you a Big Mac tomorrow. How would that be?’

‘Leave off the special sauce if you do. It makes him fart, and I have to sleep with the mutt.’

With a little yelp of her own, she turned to find the dog’s master towering over her. She stepped back, in danger of falling on the dog, who gave an indignant woof, which she wasn’t sure was from her nearly landing on him or from his owner’s lack of discretion in discussing his digestion. Either way if the man hadn’t caught her by the arm with a large hand she would have flattened the poor pooch.

The man was big and rugged like the dog, she thought, as he slid an arm around her waist and pulled her away from the beast, swiftly enough that she realized with a start that he didn’t trust the dog with her. For a second she tensed and her skin prickled. But it wasn’t the dog she feared at all. She trusted him almost instantly and she knew the feeling was mutual, peanut butter or not. She wasn’t keen on being touched by people she knew well, let alone strangers, and this man made her knees weak from a distance, let alone up close and personal. Before she could panic, she was engulfed in the scent of juniper and wood smoke and dry desert heat. Perhaps it was the desire to sniff again that relaxed her, that made her forget that she could be in real danger, but before she had time to really consider her safety, he settled her onto her feet and stepped back. ‘Excuse me. I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that Gus isn’t usually great with people.’ The dog scooted forward and sniffed her fingers with a cool nose, then looked up at the man as though he wondered what the hell the problem was.

‘It’s fine. I’m all right,’ she managed without sounding too disconcerted. ‘I just wasn’t expecting company for lunch.’P1010641

The man offered her a smile that made her stomach bottom and, for a tiny moment, made her feel like there was nothing solid beneath her feet. Then everything righted itself and settled around her again. ‘And Gus wasn’t expecting to be invited to lunch with such charming company,’ he said. ‘The mutt’s a bit of a mooch.’

The man wore faded fatigues –patched and threadbare in a couple of places – along with heavy-duty biker boots that were scuffed and well worn. But the clothes didn’t hang on him like clothes often did on the homeless people who sheltered here. He filled them out. In fact he filled them out way too nicely for a man with whom regular meals were not guaranteed.

‘I’m just glad he was happy with peanut butter and didn’t find it necessary to have a bit more protein with his meal.’ She wriggled her fingers, and the man chuckled, and held her gaze with startling eyes that were winter storm grey and not clouded by drugs – not that she would know much about that sort of thing. His hair was dark and mussed and the stubble on his face made him look tragic and romantic, if more than a little bit dangerous. She forced herself not to look away. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have anything else.’ She flushed in a wave of embarrassment. ‘Believe me, I really don’t.’ She suddenly found herself fighting back tears and lowered her gaze. He had no idea, she thought. There wasn’t even any change left in the bottom of her bag. She’d rounded up all of that and the few pennies she found down behind the cushions of the couch to buy a loaf of bread and the peanut butter. Even if he decided to steal her bag, fat lot of good it would do him. Even the phone was a worthless pay as you go job with barely enough time on it to call 911 in an emergency. Truth was he could easily take from her whatever he wanted. He could even take her if he wanted, and there would be nothing she could do, certainly no one would miss her. She should have been scared, she supposed, after all she knew very well that the storm tunnels could be dangerous places, but she was just too damn tired to care. She could feel his gaze move over her. It made her feel giddy and flushed and … strangely naked, but not like he was leering, more like he could … well just like he could see things.

‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘I know what you have.’ He curled a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head so their eyes met again, and the prickle of her skin returned, but this time she felt as though she were suddenly bathed in champagne bubbles, suddenly falling into the storm blizzard depths of his eyes, suddenly unable to catch enough breath. ‘I have something for you, though.’ He stepped back, sliding his hand down her arm to curl his fingers around her wrist. Then just before the strength of his grip, the power it transmitted could panic her, he took her hand and folded something into her palm. Then he whispered against her ear, ‘Gus’ll be looking forward to his Big Mac.’

She blinked and caught her breath. Did he say that, or did she just imagine it. But he had already turned, given a soft whistle, and the dog followed him into the maw of the tunnel. She watched them for as long as her eyes could see shape and movement before the blackness swallowed them up. Then she looked down in her clenched fist and opened her fingers. There was just enough light left in the evening sky that she could make out the words Buried Pleasures engraved on both sides of a poker chip. How the hell did a homeless man get a poker chip from a place like that, she wondered. She turned it over in her hand a couple of times squinting in the low light, but it seemed genuine enough. Then she shrugged, dropped it in her bag and headed for the casino, picking up her pace so she wouldn’t be late for her shift. It was a helluva walk from her apartment to the 6 Spot, and she always tried to make it before it got too dark. Not only was it a long walk, but it took her through areas that were not the safest places for a stroll. On top of that, she was in danger of being late, thanks to her encounter with Gus and his owner. She’d made enough money busking yesterday to pay the rent, but not enough to put gas in the car.

She didn’t feel good about the busking. Vegas was way too small. It would be too easy for her to draw attention, and she especially didn’t want to draw Darian Fox’s attention again. On the other hand, she didn’t feel good about joining the homeless man and his dog in the tunnels if she got kicked out of her apartment either. If the city were bigger, another day, maybe two of busking and she’d have made enough money to give her at least a bit of a cushion, but she couldn’t risk it. Word got round, even when she downplayed her abilities, which she always did. Not for the first time she resented the hell out of Evie’s little rich girl naiveté, and not for the first time she wondered why she didn’t just call Evie’s father and let him come and sort her out. How the hell did she get mixed up in this mess to begin with? But she was expendable, right? She was a nobody, not an heiress wanting to thumb her nose at daddy by trying out life on the wild side.

S6304352She heaved a sigh and picked up her pace again. She was just feeling sorry for herself. She was just tired. Evie was her friend, and she knew damn well that if the shoe were on the other foot and she were the one acting like an idiot with Darian Fox, Evie would move heaven and hell to get her out of a bad situation.

She picked up her pace yet again, telling herself dryly that she would be able to take up competitive race walking if she went a few more days with no gas money. That would beat the hell out of her job as a cocktail waitress. True, it was a shit job, but right now beggars couldn’t be choosers. While she could make good money busking, even maybe find a job at a piano bar someplace, she knew that wasn’t safe, but she had to have some money if she were going to survive until she could get Evie away from that bastard, Fox. And that meant stuffing herself into the tiny spandex excuse for a uniform and letting the half-drunk partiers at the Black Jack tables ogle her while she delivered their watered-down drinks because, what were friends for, right?

Writing Katie in Love by Chloe Thurlow

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tourbutton_katieinloveWhen I gave up my job describing interiors for a magazine, my Mother told me not to ‘burn my bridges,’ and I started to wonder if that is sound advice. Once burnt, there is no way back. You have crossed the Rubicon, the Styx, the Thames, for that matter. I had moved from West London to East London where the rents are cheaper and the cost is broken streets, a fall on the ice and a broken finger.

At that time, a friend of mine who paints abstracts lost all of her work in a fire. For months she walked around in a funk. Then she rented a new studio. She started again and her paintings were fresher, freer, more layered, more interesting.

It made me think. I have files of unfinished short stories, notebooks of ideas, character descriptions. I kept going back to them as if in the past we might find the future.

But I had a deeper instinct that, only when I found the courage to burn all these scribbled notes would the universe reach down and lift me like a fiery phoenix from the ashes. You get trapped into repeating yourself, you plagiarize yourself, you become all those things you condemn in others. Sometimes, I would pass a shop window and glimpse my mother in the reflection.

There was a book I wanted to write and I needed to steal time to write it. I had some savings, the chance to house sit, and a plan of action came to me one day in the park when a paragraph like a speck of space dust fell from the sky into my head. I raced home and wrote it down. I didn’t burn all my jottings, that would have been romantic, and in my flat I don’t have an open fireplace.

What I did was place all the notes and notebooks in black plastic bags and carried them down the stairs – the Romanian girl in  the flat below was singing, I could hear her voice faintly through the half-open door – and put the bags in the blue Paper and Cardboard recycle bin.

I felt lighter walking back upstairs, not just lighter from not carrying the bags, but lighter in my step, in my head. Katie from that first paragraph was now at my side and she would remain there night and day like a doppelganger, like changing images in a house of mirrors: me, but not me.

My previous books had been about girls coming of age, finding themselves and their sexuality. Katie was not a young girl. She was 28, my age, as it happens, and she had a lot of confusion about a lot of things: love, romance, passion erotica. But also art, contemporary life, nude-selfies, sexting, porn, internet dating, pulp and pop culture, tabloid TV – men, those shapeshifters and mysteries so hard to live with and impossible to live without.

These are the ingredients for what was given the working title: Strangers, then Stranger in the House of Mirrors, then House of Mirrors, then…well, lots of things, and became as if it were meant to be: Katie in Love.

A book is a journey; your characters your companions. You create them and they, in some ways, create you. Katie Boyd is a perfectionist, moody, she likes dancing, she is unsure what she should do in her life and, when she feels as if she is falling in love with Tom Bridge, the feeling is unexpected, shocking and terrifying.

Katie in Love was 13 months in the making, all writing is re-writing, every word is a chip in a mosaic, even that space gift first paragraph was edited, but the book became the book I wanted to write and I feel free now to start another book.

 

Katie in LoveBlurb

Katie Boyd has nothing in common with Tom Bridge, the volunteer doctor she meets at a party – except in bed she finds a passion to match her own. Tom is intense, puzzling, a man who cares about others and compels Katie to question her own life drifting through the hip clubs and London party scene.

When Tom returns to his post in a Sri Lanka orphanage, Katie isn’t sure if their passion was lit by its brevity, or if love, unexpected and not entirely wanted, has edged its way into her life. Should she go back to being who she always was? Or follow Tom into the unknown?

Katie in Love is a compelling erotic-romance that will grip readers as they follow Katie’s journey to an ending they may have expected – but not in the way they expected it.

Brilliantly written and coolly self-aware, Chloe Thurlow was described by KM Dylan on Amazon as “…the Anaïs Nin of our times.” With Katie in Love  – her sixth novel – Thurlow reveals a writer at the height of her powers.

Excerpt from Katie in Love — furnace hot 5*****

Katie has met a stranger at a New Years Eve dance and she takes him back to her East London flat –

My heart was a little boat that had broken its moorings. My breath was trapped in my throat. I rolled to one side and slid across his body. I took his cock back into my mouth, completing the circle, his tongue pushing back into my vagina, my tongue wrapped about his shaft. We rocked to and fro like sunflowers in a field, deeper and deeper, while the tree branch tapped like a metronome against the windowpane and we found perfect harmony.

My pussy continued to leak nectar into his mouth. Our bodies were slippery with perspiration. I could have remained in that position for the rest of my life, but the tempo changed, his body tensed and my throat filled with warm sperm that tasted like coconut milk. I gobbled it down, greedy for more. He kept pushing into me, I kept drawing at his cock and, as the last drips drained into my mouth, I grew rigid. I released his cock and gasped as his meaty tongue ignited an orgasm that made me scream. I cried out as if in pain but the pain was an intense, all-consuming pleasure.

My body was trembling as if in fever. I rolled to one side, arms wrapped around his legs, our bodies drenched, throbbing, electric. I was dizzy. He pulled me up and pushed his cock inside me as if it were a jewel being placed back in a velvet box. We rocked gently like waves on an outgoing tide and, on that tide, the ship would soon be sailing.

We slept for an hour. We made love again and he slept again, staying hard inside me while I lay awake enjoying the feel of his weight pinning me down. Sometimes you have to picture what you wish for. I had pictured the stranger and willed him into being.

I must have drifted into sleep. I remember my eyes blinking open, a smile on my lips. There was dull light around the unclosed blinds. Morning had come. It was the first day of a New Year – a new beginning. He was dressing. He leaned over, kissed my forehead, and I watched as he left my bedroom. I heard the click of the front door. Then there was silence.

Link for Amazon downloads – http://bookgoodies.com/a/B00S1SMMIG

Link for Amazon books –  http://bookgoodies.com/a/1503014908

Write to Chloe at – chloe.thurlow@yahoo.co.uk

Read Chloe’s extraordinary blogs at – www.chloethurlow.com

 

Chloe ThurlowBio

Chloe Thurlow lives in London and spends as much time as she can in Spain trying to improve her dire Spanish accent. The author of 5 previous novels, Katie in Love, is her first indy book – an experience she describes as walking blindfold on a highwire between two buildings without a safety net. Katie in Love is available as a beautifully-bound paperback and an ebook.

Website: http://www.chloethurlow.com/

 

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Voyeur, Body Thief and Beyond

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This post first appeared in the ERWA blog Nov 2012, but with the world of self-publishing wide open and with so manyBook stacks
 ‘books’ out there of questionable quality, I thought it a good time to revisit just what makes a really good read, and what a really good story will do for the reader.

One of the most intriguing parts of story for me has always been the way in which the reader interacts with it, more specifically the way in which the reader interacts with the characters in a story. I find that interaction especially intriguing in erotica and erotic romance.

 

To me, the power of story is that it’s many faceted and it’s never static. And, no matter how old the story is, it’s never finished as long as there’s someone new to read it and to bring their experience into it. Like most writers of fiction, I’m forever trying to analyse how a powerful story is internalised, and why what moves one reader deeply, what can be a life-changing experience for one may be nothing more exciting than window-shopping for another.

 

In my own experience as a reader, there are two extremes. I can approach a story as a voyeur, on the outside looking in http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-abstract-black-white-writing-pen-image20156020from a safe distance, or I can be a body thief at the other end of the spectrum and replace the main character in the story with myself.

 

One extreme allows the reader to watch without engaging and the other allows the reader to create sort of a sing-along-Sound of Music- ish experience for themselves. As a reader, I’ve done both and had decent experiences of novels doing both. As a writer, however, I don’t wish to create a story that allows my reader to be a voyeur or a body thief.

 

As a writer I want to create a story that’s a full-on, in-the-body, stay-present experience from beginning to end. I want
characters that readers can identify with and are drawn to but don’t necessarily want to be. I want a plot that feels more like abseiling with a questionable rope than watching the world go by from the window of a car. I want to create that tight-rope walk in the middle. I want to create that place in story where the imagination of the reader is fully engaged with the story the writer created. That place is the place where the story is a different experience for each reader. That’s the place where the story is a living thing that matters more than the words of which it’s made up. It matters more because the reader has connected with it, engaged with it, been changed by it, and the story continues to affect them long after they’ve finished reading it. In that place, the story and the reader are in relationship. Neither can embody the other, neither can watch from a distance. The end result may be a HEA, the end result may be disturbing and unsettling, but at the end of a really good read, the journey to get there is at least as important as the end result, and the result is on-going beyond the final words.

 

Erotica and erotic romance are by their nature a visceral experience. Though I think that’s probably true of any good story. I don’t think good erotica can be watched from a distance any more than it can be the tale of the body thief. While either will get you there, there’s no guarantee that the journey will be a quality one. And I want a quality journey. I want to come to the end of a good read wishing I hadn’t gotten there so quickly, wishing I’d had the will power to slow down and savour the experience just a little longer. I want to come to the end wondering just what layers, what subtleties, what nuances I missed because I got caught up in the runaway train ride and couldn’t quite take it all in.Sleeping woman reading181340322466666994_IswNAb85_b

 

A good read is the gift that keeps on giving. Long after I’ve finished the story, the experience lingers, and little tidbits that I raced through during the read bubble up from my unconscious to surprise me, intrigue me, make me think about the story on still other levels, from still other angles. When I can’t get it out of my head, when I find myself, long after I’ve come to the end, thinking about the journey, thinking about the characters, thinking about the plot twists and turns, then I know the story has gotten inside me and burrowed deep. There was no pane of glass in between; there was no body for me to inhabit because all bodies were fully occupied by characters with their own minds and their own agendas. The experience extends itself to something that stays with me long after the read is finished and makes me try all the harder to create that multi-layered experience in my own writing.

Out Now! Lisabet Sarai’s D&S Duos Book 4

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Young woman with shibariToday I’m welcoming Lisabet Sarai back to celebrate Book 4 of her D&S series.

Blurb

Lisabet Sarai’s D&S Duos Book 4 celebrates the thrill of sexual power and the ecstasy of surrender. In “Like Riding a Bicycle”, after years of vanilla marriage, a couple resumes the kinky games that first drew them together. The characters in “Limbo” experience the ultimate erotic connection thanks to dangerous and addictive out-of-body technology. D&S Duos Book 4 also includes bonus story “Blind Obedience” and a transgressive excerpt from Lisabet’s erotic thriller Bangkok Noir.

Excerpt: 

We make our choices, often blindly. Then we live with the consequences.

It’s your fiftieth birthday, I’m half a world away, and married to someone else. I honestly don’t know which is the bigger obstacle. No, scratch that. If today’s experiment is successful, the distance will mean nothing.

I want to help you celebrate. To give you something special. Romantic and cynic that you are, I want to prove to you my enduring devotion, across time and space. I want to give back to you some of the magic you’ve shared with me.

I climb out of the taxi at the entrance to an alley too narrow for the compact Toyota to navigate, hand the driver a hundred baht and head toward my destination on foot. I’m somewhere in the maze of venerable lanes of Cholon. I smell star anise and decaying fish. I pass racks of drying laundry and bins of preserved fruit.

The address you emailed me belongs to a surprisingly grand, if somewhat decrepit, building, three stories of balconies and shutters. No sign. When I ring the bell, I am ushered into the waiting room by a powdered and rouged crone wearing too-tight silk and ropes of jade beads. She gestures for me to sit on the velvet banquette and shuffles away. The walls are mirrors, framed by faded brocade draperies. I can’t help grinning to myself; clearly, this state-of-the-art Monroe parlor used to be a brothel.

This was my idea, but you did all the research. I know that you’re somewhere in the basement of a fancy hotel in San Francisco. Very exclusive, top security. For executives who want the ultimate in “teleconferencing”.

The madame returns with a sheaf of papers. Release forms. Of course it’s all illegal anyway, but no one wants to take any chances. There are documented cases of people going astral and never returning. The parlor doesn’t want to be stuck with my still breathing but non-sentient body.

Buy Links

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Excessica

Barnes and Noble

Kobo 

 

lisabetFace
About Lisabet:

LISABET SARAI occasionally tackles other genres, but BDSM will always be her first love. Every one of her nine novels
includes some element of power exchange, while her D/s short stories range from mildly kinky to intensely perverse. Learn more at http://www.lisabetsarai.com.

 

 

 

 

Find Lisabet here:

Website: http://www.lisabetsarai.com

Blog: http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/83387.Lisabet_Sarai

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/lisabetsarai

Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lisabets_list

Hollywood Royalty! New Release by TS McKinney

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Victoria thought that she would give anything for the role of Annabelle Hutchinson. She just didn’t realize what she would end up losing.
Victoria thought that she would give anything for the role of Annabelle Hutchinson. She just didn’t realize what she would end up losing.

 

Hollywood Royalty Book Blurb

Victoria Winstead: My parents are the reigning King and Queen of Hollywood and since I am their only child, that clearly means I am a pampered princess who is accustomed to getting everything I want, when I want it, and how I want it…and right now, I want the most coveted role in Hollywood. Only one thing stands in my way.

Grayson Leman: This bastard is the only son of the reigning Prince and Princess of Hollywood and I hate everything about him, always have and always will. Our families have a history and it isn’t pretty. It’s ugly, Hollywood style. Oh yeah, he’s the one thing standing in my way.

Annabelle Hutchinson: She’s the creation of a writing trio that has managed to rock the entire female population with their erotica novel, Dark Lovers. They have single-handedly brought mommy porn front and center and made it not only acceptable but sexy as hell. A movie deal was made and I am literally (this is embarrassing to say) having to actually fight for something for the first time in my life.

Not to worry, though…I am Hollywood Royalty.

Buy Link:

http://www.darkhollowspress.com/#!hollywood-royalty/c1kpr

 

Hollywood Royalty Excerpt:

“You leaving in the morning, Gabe? Or staying the day?” His band members got up and shook his hand as he started to leave. They didn’t tease him, but I could tell they wanted to. Badly.

“I’m staying. I’ll see you Sunday night.”

“Great. Okay. You guys have an…an exciting night.” He was stalling. I swear he was stalling.

Honestly folks, I didn’t want to say anything. It had been my vow to myself to give him the silent treatment all evening long. I had done so well. I should probably be nominated for an Oscar for my performance. Not one time did I lean in to sniff his intoxicating scent. Nope, I didn’t. Nor did I allow my gaze to stray toward that body that was made for nothing but pure undiluted sin. Nope, the only time I looked at him was to roll my eyes or glare. Ignoring him had been my only task for the evening. I had been an awesome bitch…up until now. For some reason, unknown to me, I couldn’t stop the word from slipping between my lips as he turned to walk away.

“Pussy.”

Memphis had to struggle to keep the full blown smile from covering her face. Gabe didn’t even try to hide his reaction. He slammed his fist on the table. The rest of the table just looked shocked and appalled by my outburst. I felt a blush start to stain my cheeks and I fought furiously to clamp down on the feeling. I didn’t need to feel bad for being mean to him or embarrassing him. He, my friends, is the enemy. Yet, I wasn’t really as proud of myself like I’d always imagined I would be in a situation like this.

He stopped walking and stood with his back to us for several long, intimidating seconds. From the way the muscles in his back quivered, I believe he was trying to control his temper. Oh, well. I wasn’t really worried. It isn’t like Mister Boy Scout would ever hit a girl, right? I felt myself start to fidget when he just stood there. We had also caught the attention of several of the patrons that were seated around us. In fact, I believe we were making quite the spectacle of ourselves.

“Just go, Grayson. Don’t do it,” Gabe pleaded. He glared at me in disgust. “You don’t have anything to prove, especially to her.”

Finally, Grayson slowly turned around and looked me dead in the face…hard. This time, I definitely started fidgeting in my seat. His intense stare was breathtaking with his bright blue eyes and girly lashes. God, did I mention how hot he was? “What did you say to me?” he asked quietly. When he’d been on stage singing, his voice had sounded like hot whiskey – now he sounded cold and furious. Well, he could just get over himself. I didn’t like him. I wasn’t trying to be his friend or suck up to him to get him to star in their movie. I, my dear friends, didn’t give a flying fuck what he thought about me.

“She called you a pussy, dude.” Gabe answered loudly when I failed to answer promptly enough to suit him. Of course, when Gabe said it, everyone within a ten mile radius heard him. I was seriously getting tired of dear ole Gabe, really fast.

Grayson’s jaw ticked and his mouth formed a frown that didn’t do a damned thing to make him unattractive. I guess this is why our families had always worked so hard to keep us apart from each other. He was hot enough that I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands to myself and I was bitchy enough that my very touch would soil his pure skin.

“Yep, I called you a pussy, Grayson. Got a problem with that?” I sounded a lot tougher on the outside than I was feeling on the inside. It actually bothered me to be mean to him and I had no clue why.

“Yea, I guess I do,” he answered with a lazy shrug of his perfectly shaped shoulders—you know, not too much muscle releaseblitzbutton_hollywoodroyaltybut just enough to make a girl swoon? “Actually, I have a problem with how you’ve treated me all night long,” he explained as he closed the distance between us with a determined stride. Once he was close enough, he grabbed his vacated chair, swirled it around, slammed it right up against my knee, and straddled it. When we were practically eye to eye, he continued, “I’m pretty sure I’ve never done anything to offend you personally, but you still act like a bitch. Why is that, Vic? Are you afraid of me?” His voice was low enough that I was the only one that could hear him unless people rudely moved in closer. I knew they wanted to, but they didn’t. Actually, Memphis wouldn’t let them. It was a good thing Memphis could multi task because she was having to keep other patrons away from us and keep Gabe in line at the same time. Gabe was even more furious than Grayson was and that made about as much sense as the way I felt with Grayson being so close to me.

“Afraid of you? Mister Boy Scout? I seriously doubt that,” I answered smugly. “I just don’t like you.”

“You don’t know me.”

Well, he had me there, but I didn’t intend to back down. “I don’t have to know you to not like you. Don’t let it hurt your feelings, sweetie. Are you going to cry like your mommy did?”

Yea, I went there. The minute I did, I wished I hadn’t. Too late. I watched many emotions cross through those blue eyes—hurt, anger, surprise, lust…

He tilted his head to the side and studied me like I was some kind of sideshow freak. I could tell he was pondering something. Maybe punching me in the face and seeing if he could make me cry? Right when I was about to cave and apologize, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “You want to make me scream, don’t you, Vic? You want to hurt me?” I could feel his hot breath tickling my neck and sending waves of desire rushing through me. Actually, those waves had started the minute he had gotten close to me. It was his hot breath or the way his tongue almost touched my ear when he spoke. “You wanna do it on stage? How brave are you?”

 

About TS McKinney:

TS McKinney lives in East Tennessee with her high school sweetheart/husband and all the countless dogs she picks up from deserted country roads. Her professional career has been in business but her heart has always belonged to the fantasy world found in books.

Creating wicked worlds where one can meet the perfect hero – and then do anything to him that you want – has been a hobby that has brought her plenty of hours of fun and naughty entertainment.

When not working, reading, or writing, she loves to spend her time with her family and forcing them (because they don’t really have another choice) to allow her to redecorate their house…and listen to her naughty…sometimes sadistic stories.

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