Forbidden Pleasures (NSC Industries #11)

by D H Sidebottom

  I was struggling to keep sentient as I vibrated in his arms. But as I whispered the words he longed to hear, I slipped the gun under his chin and forced a bullet straight through his skull. His eyes widened in shock as his mouth opened and blood poured from him. He attempted to shake his head but slowly his eyes closed.

  “Shh,” I breathed. “Let go, Master. Let go.”

  And he did. In my arms as I softly rocked him to death.

  ***

  Mia and Leo burst into the room just as the nurse finished bandaging my ribs. “Jesus H Christ,” Mia flustered as she rushed over to me. “Are you okay?”

  Why did they always ask if you are okay when it’s pretty damn obvious you aren’t? “Not really, but I will be,” I answered as she pulled me into a hug causing me to yelp at the pain that strangled my body.

  Leo scowled at me as he appeared from the private bathroom attached to my room with a damp cloth and started to clean my face. “You’re still wearing his fucking brain. Tell me why they haven’t fucking washed you!” He was upset, Leo always coped with distress by becoming angry and my heart hurt for him.

  Closing my fingers around his hand as he gently wiped my face, I smiled at him. “I’m okay, Leo.”

  He shook his head, his eyes brimming with tears. “No you’re not, how can you be. You’ve just blown someone’s head off.”

  “There is a thing called tact, Leo,” Mia grumbled when she saw me flinch.

  “Have you heard how Elijah is?” I asked desperately changing the subject before my best friends started bickering.

  “He’s fine!” Elijah answered as he stood in my doorway, his fierce gaze secured on me. My heart leaped when he grinned at me and stumbled over. “Bloody hell,” he smirked, “You sure know how to go out with a bang, honey.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. His long blonde hair fell across his shoulders and I couldn’t help but reach out and draw my fingers through it. It was soft and for some reason that surprised me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, the bullet just nicked my flesh, a lot of blood but minimal damage,” he divulged giving me a reassuring smile. “How are you feeling?” He looked me up and down, the scrubs provided by the hospital burying me beneath them like a sack of potatoes.

  “I’m okay, sore but okay.”

  “You will be,” he whispered. For a moment I couldn’t look away, something in his gaze trapped me in his spell. He reached out, the air in the room stifling me when his fingers touched my cheek and I shivered under his touch.

  “What the fuck!”

  I stiffened with the sound of his voice, anger curling deep in my gut. Elijah growled under his breath and moved back before he slowly turned towards Jay who had stepped into the room and was watching us intently. I placed my hand on Elijah’s arm when he stepped forwards. “Can you give us a minute?”

  All eyes in the room turned to me, Mia and Leo staring in confusion when they sensed the rage bubbling through Elijah. “I’d rather not,” Elijah snapped.

  Jay narrowed his eyes and stepped forwards. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “Elijah!” I cut in quickly when his rage engulfed the room and his fingers bit around Jay’s throat until he slammed him back against the wall. “Please.” He grit his teeth and looked at me. I’d never seen anyone as furious and I spoke as softly as I could to calm him down, “I appreciate what you’re…”

  “What I’m doing or what I really want to do?” he asked.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jay hissed, his eyes fiercely glaring at Elijah.

  Elijah shook his head in disgust and threw Jay to the side. Turning to me, he grabbed hold of my hand. “I’ll be right outside.”

  “I’ll be fine!” I smiled, nodding gratefully at his concern.

  He looked concerned, his eyes flicking from Jay and back to me before he nodded and walked out behind Mia and Leo.

  “Are you fucking him?” Jay exploded.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Was he for real? He gawped at me when my hand shot out and my palm cracked across his face with so much strength he tumbled into the wall, his hands slapping loudly on the painted plaster.

  “What the hell Bea?”

  “Why are you here?”

  He blinked at me then realisation rolled over him and he closed his eyes. “Tom told you.”

  I scoffed, shaking my head in disappointment. “Oh no, that wasn’t enough for him, he sent me the FUCKING RECORDING OF YOU AND HER… AND MILES!” I screamed as tears engulfed me. His eyes widened in horror but as he reached for me I stepped back and held up my hands. “Did you think I wouldn’t ever find out? That we could just carry on…”

  “No!” he shook his head frantically. “No.” His voice was softer then, his eyes glazed with regret and guilt. “I’m so sorry, Bea. I was high and…”

  “So that makes it okay, you were high so you thought that would excuse what you did?”

  He scoffed then as anger poured from him. “And did you?”

  “What?”

  “You fucked Tom when he promised to give you what you needed, how is this different?”

  “So it was you who sent that video to all our friends!” I couldn’t believe his gall. The fucking prick!

  He shook his head and sighed. “No I didn’t, that was Tom as well, he stole my phone and logged into my Facebook.” He rubbed his hands over his face. “Look Bea…”

  “Don’t Jay. I’m not sure I can…”

  “I don’t expect you to,” he whispered, his tone tight with suffering. “I didn’t come here to beg for your forgiveness, or to hurt you more than I already have.”

  I froze, my brow puckering as I watched his face fill with remorse. “Only because you weren’t going to tell me.”

  “I came here to tell you. I know you don’t believe me and there’s nothing I can do to make it right.”

  “You’ve hurt me so much,” I whispered, giving in to the despair when it threatened to drown me.

  He stepped towards me and gently held my face as his forehead pressed to my own. Squeezing his eyes closed, a tear slipped from him and trickled between us, wetting my lips when it transferred from him to me and merged with my own. “I’m so sorry Bea,” he choked out. His chest was heaving as he struggled to contain his misery. “I don’t deserve you, I’m destroying you, slaughtering everything good in you. Everything is fucked up and I’m fucking you up with me.”

  My heart was pounding and I fought to breathe against the lump in my throat. “I love you,” I told him honestly. And I did. I understood everything that was him, everything that hurt him and made him the way he was. I knew I wouldn’t ever forget what he had done, but I knew with time that I’d learn to forgive him. Jay was damaged, he’d been damaged for so long that he couldn’t find a way to claw himself out of the darkness.

  His heartache was overwhelming when his lips brushed against mine so gently that I whimpered into his warmth. His grip on my face tightened as a choked sob tore from him and he pulled away.

  He swallowed and licked his lips, to taste me or recoat the dryness I wasn’t sure. His blazing blue eyes swam with tears but he pulled his shoulders back and dropped his hold on me.

  “I’m leaving you, Bea.”

  I stared at him, my heart clawing for freedom up my throat when the pain inside me burnt me with an intensity that made me shake. “W-What?”

  “I can’t do this with you. I can’t survive without the pain. I’m so sorry.”

  Every part of me crumbled inside and as I gulped back the need to cry I sank my teeth into my lower lip to stop it from escaping. “Are you going back to… her?”

  “Don’t!” he urged as he caught my hand.

  I shrugged away, the rage and agonising devastation making it difficult to keep standing upright in front of him. I didn’t want him to see my pain, he didn’t deserve to witness it. My mind wouldn’t work as grief thickened my blood and refused to stimulate any rationality. “Do you love her?”

  I did
n’t want to know the answer but when he pressed his eyes closed, hiding his feelings from me, the sob I had been desperately trying to hold back broke from me in an agonising wail.

  “Shit, Bea…”

  “ANSWER ME!” I screamed! “DO YOU LOVE HER?”

  Closing his eyes, he nodded. “Yes.”

  I stumbled back, vomit and agony shattering my very soul. Elijah flung open the door and taking one look at me he floored Jay in one fluid punch. “Get out!” he thundered as he grabbed Jay by the throat and threw him out of the room.

  “Come on, honey,” Elijah whispered as he scooped me up off the floor and wrapped me in his embrace. “It’s okay. Shh,” he breathed as he rocked me back and forth.

  My eyes lifted to the window of the room. Jay stood gazing at me with tears streaming down his face. His eyes locked onto mine as he mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”

  Then he turned and walked away.

  He took my heart, crushed it and then walked out of my life without a backwards glance.

  To be continued in

  Forbidden Pain

  Out Now

  I SEE YOU

  BY KER DUKEY & D H SIDEBOTTOM

  ***WARNING, THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY DARK AND MAY HAVE SCENES WHICH SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING***

  I watch you, I see you in ways no one else can, and through my lens I create a life of you for someone to dissect. I capture you in your vulnerability; that smile, your laugh, those tears. I document you and sell your secrets.

  When I watch you through my lens you’re mine until I pass you to the buyer. I, like most people, have a fetish for pretty things and in my job I get to be around a lot of pretty things. They pay me to watch them and capture them in a frame for many purposes, and sometimes I like my profession a little more than I should.

  I took a job to capture her… I wanted to capture and keep her in more than just the image. This time I will take myself away from the lens and become the client because I cannot resist her, she reminds me too much of my first, I need to have her.

  Traumatised from a vicious attack, Nina finds herself shut off from the world until her neighbour brings her out of more than just her nightmares. Even after moving and changing her name, she still can’t shake the feeling of being watched. The memories are so close.

  And so is the shadow of the creator of them all.

  Surrender

  DEVINE, Book 1

  By

  D H Sidebottom

  Love.

  Would we do anything for it? Really put our morals and beliefs, everything we thought right and honourable in front of us and stamp on them all in the name of love?

  And by wrong, I don’t mean something simple, like turning a blind eye to someone’s addiction, or the fact that the person we are in love with used to be the school bully or uses prostitutes to overcome some deep dark secret they’ve never coped with from their childhood.

  By wrong, I mean the lowest, most corrupt and ruthless things that someone could ever do. Murder, prostitution, drug dealing, cage fighting, all of the above and more. Could you allow all that just because your heart can’t live without the person that makes your soul dance on dark days, brings you laughter on the day when hell threatens to drag you under and looks at you like their world would end if you ever turned and walked away. Could you condone the actions of a merciless killer just because their touch makes the evil of the world disappear until all that is left is pleasure and ecstasy?

  Isla Cormack faces these choices. Her love for Jake Devine is untouchable, pure and undeniable but just when she comes to the conclusion that Jake isn’t a bad man deep down, that his life and even her life has shaped him into the cruel man he is today, both their pasts come back to haunt them, opening secrets that have been buried so deep they threaten to shred any hope of a future together and tearing them so far apart that the chasm between them is impossible to cross.

  Isla thought her life had been one long nightmare. She soon finds out that the hell life threw at her is nothing compared to the death and destruction Jake Devine brings with him.

  Drawn to You

  By

  Ker Dukey

  Antonia McNally has a great family, a great boyfriend, and a great future… until she finds herself interrupting a robbery and becoming the victim of a ruthless criminal. When she witnesses brutal murder, abuse and suffers her own traumatizing assault by his hand, her life changes forever. When love, loyalty, and strength are tested, the weak falter.

  Moving away to the States offers her a fresh start; however, confident, successful Finlay Hayes, her best friend’s Brother adds even more chaos to her already turbulent emotions. When she can’t decide between ripping him a new one or ripping his clothes off, one thing is for sure, they both have an unquenchable craving for each other. When life starts looking a little brighter it’s not long before the storm clouds roll in. All is never what it appears and under his good looks and in charge attitude, Finlay has a past of his own and secrets that can destroy the dynamics of the friendships she has built.

  Secrets are waiting to be spilled, but at what cost?

  Coming Soon

  Night Fires

  By

  D H Sidebottom

  Coming August 2015

  I would watch him watch the ocean. He would build fires and sit, all night waiting.

  For her. For his dead wife.

  She never came. I never expected her to. But he did. And he never let go.

  Even when I fell in love with him he never let go.

  Until the night of the storm. The night my worst nightmares came to life.

  And I lost everything to her when she finally returned.

  For us both.