Kindle Edition
©Cellar Door
Copyright © 2013 Suzanne Steele
Published by Suzanne Steele
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of Fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales, are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All other characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. The author acknowledges the trademark status of various products and locales referenced within this fictional work, which have been used without permission. The use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. All rights reserved. No part of this book can be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover photo © Dollar Photo Club
Cover Copyright © Suzanne Steele
Edited by Eda Price Editing
Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations
Formatting by Suzanne Steele
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This e-book is Rated 17+
To the Reader
The men I write about are Alpha males in every sense of the word. They are the men society warns us about. They are dominant males with controlling tendencies. They are the men you know you should stay away from but are drawn to like a moth to a flame.
If you are looking for a sweet romance, you won't find it here. What you will find is dark passion. Many times my heroes carry what would be considered an obsession for the women they love. Each and every character I write about has demanded their voice be heard. I have been true to that calling and I have stayed true to their personalities, which at times the reader may not always agree with. They are dark, they are gritty, and many times their love is dysfunctional but, nonetheless, it is real.
Stalk me…
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost I want to thank God; without him none of this would be possible.
I want to thank my family who carry the weight of everything so I can write. I love you guys and I couldn’t do what I do without you.
I want to thank my editor, Eda Spivey Price, who came at a time I needed her most. Eda you are a Godsend and I will forever be grateful to you for believing in me when I wanted to give up. You were just what I needed to keep writing and pursuing my dream.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Chapter Forty Two
Chapter Forty Three
Chapter Forty Four
Chapter Forty Five
Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Seven
Chapter Forty Eight
Chapter Forty Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty One
Chapter Fifty Two
Chapter Fifty Three
Chapter Fifty Four
Chapter Fifty Five
Chapter Fifty Six
Chapter Fifty Seven
Chapter Fifty Eight
Chapter Fifty Nine
Chapter Sixty
Epilogue
Prologue
I rush down the hospital corridor, a stack of books balanced precariously in my arms. Books are pretty much my life, always have been. They are friends who have never let me down, no matter what.
I learned long ago that words would be a way of life for me—my lifeline. They sheltered me when I was the girl pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose in the school library. They comforted me when yet another meet-and-greet with prospective adoptive parents proved pointless. As I grew up, books became the motivation for all I endeavored to do, and now they are the foundation of all I have become. From the volunteer work I do in the hospital to the ghostwriting I do for a living, words shape every aspect of my life. Words make it possible for me to live the secluded life I crave, and that works for me. Where most people would go crazy in what I term my writing cave, it’s exactly where I want to be—always. My idea of heaven is to be utterly alone, writing. Completely unrealistic, I know; but, oh, if I could, I would.
One of the things I’ve chosen to do with my love of literature is to volunteer at a local hospital. I read to patients; story time for adults, I guess. Today I’m reading in the hospital’s psych ward. I used to read to the patients at Our Lady of Tranquility, where some of Louisville’s most severely mentally ill patients reside, but the medical director there abruptly decided that my services were “less than conducive” to the welfare of his patients. I’ve never figured that one out, but he was nice enough to make some phone calls on my behalf and now I volunteer at the city’s main hospital. Sometimes I read to children with cancer, sometimes to elderly patients with dementia, it varies.
Today I’m reading to patients on the hospital’s general psych unit. You won’t find any truly dangerous patients here. Those are housed in a special wing at Our Lady so I don’t have to worry about that now. This group is a lively mix of the hospital’s inpatient and outpatient population.
I pause as I enter the large living area where my usual group of patients has already gathered and an atmosphere of orderly chaos reigns. The energy in the room abruptly changes when I appear in the doorway. I make friendly eye contact with patients I recognize from previous visits as I pass by. A low murmur rolls through the group and I feel like the Pied Piper as several patients stand and follow me across the room.
Our reading corner is ready, the hospital staff having already placed folding chairs in a semi-circle. I’m about ten feet away from my destination when a man steps in front of me, stopping my progress and that of the patients following behind me like little ducklings. I look up, prepared to greet whoever it is, but the words freeze in my throat and I abruptly take a step back. Thi
s guy’s standing a little too close for comfort.
A gray hoodie obscures his features as he tucks his chin and stares down at the floor, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him before. Most patients here don’t stay long before they are either discharged for home or transferred to Our Lady of Tranquility. He’s not wearing the standard, hospital-issued patient wrist band, so he must be a visitor. I can’t imagine what he could want with me.
When he speaks, his voice is a low, raspy whisper that puts my nerves on edge. “Get out of my way, don’t look at me. There’s nothing here for you to see.”
Okay, my mistake, maybe he is a patient after all. I back up, more out of confusion than fear, baffled at this guy’s odd behavior. Who the fuck does that—practically singing some bizarre rhyme?
“Don’t ever look me in the eye, or I’ll make sure you’re the first to die.”
This guy’s juvenile syntax scares me more than his threat. During my volunteer stint here, I’ve run into plenty of people talking to themselves, but this? This is creepy as hell. I move out of his way and, with a deep breath, continue toward the group of chairs where patients are beginning to gather in anticipation of what they have come to term story time.
I take my seat and set my books on the small table next to my chair. I use a few precious seconds to gather my composure and present a calm façade to my enthusiastic audience. When I look up, prepared to make small talk before we get started, what I see sends a frisson of anxiety skittering through me.
The hooded man is still here, watching me intently from across the room. I still can’t see his face but the hostility that emanates from him is nearly palpable. What did I ever do to you, fella?
All thoughts of small talk fall away and I dive right in to tonight’s first selection, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. I wonder if the hooded stranger can hear Poe’s darkly poetic words from where he stands in the shadows. I hope so. Perhaps the tormented words of a kindred spirit will soothe his troubled soul.
Chapter One
Liam
I am a broken man, although at a glance you would never know it. If not broken, then certainly empty, certainly flawed. I appear to have all the usual pieces and parts that one would expect of a grown man. The void that plagues me isn’t visible to the naked eye, but I feel it, nonetheless, day in and day out; an emptiness that I could swear is in the vicinity of my heart.
If I were to seek medical advice for this…anomaly, the physician’s attention would be focused on my thoracic cavity. The cavitas thoracis, if you want to get technical about it and impress your friends. It houses the heart, the esophagus, the trachea, and other essentials. Now, if I were to consult a shaman instead, I would no doubt be told, quite reverently I’m sure, that it is the place where my soul should reside – emphasis on should.
How ironic that I have devoted my life to piecing people back together, only to find myself profoundly and irretrievably broken. I could find a way to endure the emptiness if it weren’t for the inky, black despair that threatens to consume me. Inch by inch, it is seeping into the bottomless chasm where my soul yearns to be. The remedies I usually employ to fend off the abyss that threatens my sanity no longer seem to work. I fear the darkness is winning.
Now, being a successful surgeon gives me easy access to a variety of beautiful women, any size, any shape, pretty much whenever and however I want. But I’ve never been tempted to have a true relationship with any of them. I use them for sex, pure and simple. I’m always honest about that with anyone I fuck.
Many of the women believe they can change my playboy ways, but that will never happen because I’m wired differently than other men. I have specific sexual needs, unique enough that they are rarely indulged and never truly satisfied. To put it simply, I get off on fantasies about kidnapping women and putting them through their paces on my own terms – a fetish, if you will.
Up until now, my fetish has been limited to staged scenes and carefully orchestrated role playing with women who share my sexual proclivities. In fact, it’s been nearly three years since I’ve indulged those baser needs. I haven’t trusted myself to attempt another scene after one particularly intense roleplay got out of hand. My playmate at the time – Claudia -- and I took things too far. The line between reality and fantasy began to blur and Stockholm syndrome became, not just a carefully scripted performance tool, but a very real and unwelcome dynamic in our arrangement.
Claudia is like me in that she becomes completely absorbed in a fetish scene, and completely aroused. She seemed like an ideal partner because she was hooked on the high she achieved through absolute surrender. We were a good fit; neither of us harbored expectations for a relationship beyond the requirements of the scene, and we were experienced enough to know what we were getting into. Or so we thought.
The final scene we created together was beyond anything either of us had tried before: the setting was authentic, with Claudia shackled in my basement for weeks after the initial kidnapping; the prolonged length of the scene was intended to enable her to become completely immersed in her role and, therefore, more fully explore the dynamics of submission. But things got out of hand.
My behavior took on a dark, sadistic quality. Claudia developed an authentic case of Stockholm syndrome, to the point that we cut the scene short and, more importantly, agreed it would be best to cease all contact from that point forward. Despite the trauma to Claudia’s psyche, there were no hard feelings or resentment afterward – in fact, there was no emotional investment at all, only an intense dynamic of dominance and surrender that had no place in the real world.
Needless to say, I was duly chastened by the experience and have yet to attempt another kidnapping scene. I miss it. I miss the anticipation, the risk of discovery, the progressively intense dynamics between the captor and the captive. I continue to hope that, somewhere out there, a woman exists who is given to the same depravity that resonates so deeply within me. A woman who can surrender her entire self and yet hold her own with a man intent on utter domination. Only time will tell. So I’m biding my time.
My coffee mug leaves a steamy circle on the tiny bistro table as I raise the mug to my lips for a long draw of joltingly strong brew. After carefully setting the mug down in its exact, dewy spot on the table, I lean back in my chair to take in the view from the window of the coffee shop. With my arms crossed over my chest and my legs stretched out in front of me, I tilt my head back and cross my ankles in the universal posture of leisurely indolence.
To the casual observer, I appear to be lifting my face toward the sun, much like a cat that’s found the perfect sunny spot for a nap. But, despite all appearances, I’m actually quite the busy boy.
There she sits, her delicate profile visible in the window of her third floor efficiency apartment in the Kentucky Towers building. Hour upon hour every evening, she sits at her desk. At first glance she appears to be motionless, but I know better. Her every move fascinates me as she types a few words here and there, pausing occasionally to scowl at the computer screen before resuming her endless typing. Rinse and repeat.
The soft curve of her arm reminds me of a ballerina as she gathers her brunette tresses to one side, letting them fan over her shoulder as they flow from her hand. As her fingers resume their staccato rhythm across the keyboard, I wonder which part of her soul bleeds out in the words pouring from her. And does it help? Is she plagued by her own encroaching darkness?
I became aware of her existence a year ago during a visit with my brother, Lance, at Our Lady of Tranquility. He was boasting about the beauty that had been his next intended murder victim. After several failed attempts he had simply run out of time. Fate seemed to intervene every time he planned her kidnapping, with his arrest putting his plans pretty much on permanent hold. May she never know how close she came to suffering a grisly death at his hands.
The police know nothing about my angel. He never told anyone but me her name. I was curious so I sought her out – discreetly, of course. It wasn�
��t difficult to find out where she lived and learn her routine. Even from a distance, I found her soft features and willowy curves enthralling. I told myself I would only check on her occasionally, but it quickly became my mission to watch over her. She belongs to me so I’ll be here, day after day, keeping silent vigil so my angel can write in peace.
My mind drifts back to the day I finally met her face to face. Well, I didn’t exactly meet her. I, quite literally, ran into her. Meeting her had not been in my immediate plans, and I didn’t know she had started volunteering at U of L Hospital, the hospital where I work. Perhaps it was fate intervening once again in the young woman’s life.
I was in a hurry that day as usual, as was she. We collided, the impact knocking her to ground. Her armload of books scattered. My first reaction was impatience with yet another distracted person who was probably texting and not paying attention to where they were going. I reached down to help her pick up the books, keeping my thoughts to myself. But when I grasped her elbow to steady her as she rose to her feet, I looked into those cobalt blue eyes and felt the pang of recognition sweep through me. My spine tingled as if a lightning bolt had struck deep inside me. A surge of heat flooded my chest, the warmth of her skin stole my breath. Though I’d been watching her from a distance for some time, being in her presence was profoundly moving.
“What on earth are you doing with all these books?” Shock at her burden caused my voice to sound harsh. She flinched at my stern tone before pursing her lips and scowling indignantly. My cock surged to rock-hard life as she glared up at me. Such a spunky little thing.
“It’s Tuesday. I’m reading to patients. I come here and read to patients on Tuesdays.” She repeated herself, as if doing so would summon the bravado she needed to stand up to the pompous, confrontational man who had so unceremoniously knocked her books – and her – to the floor.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just roll them around on one of the hospital carts the gift shop provides? Or to perhaps just use a tote of some kind, rather than carry them?” I arched a brow derisively as I continued, “Especially since you obviously pay no attention to where you’re going.”
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