by Jessie Lane
For those of you thinking, “WAIT! She didn’t resolve all of the issues!” You’re absolutely right – I didn’t. If you’ve read my books before, by now you should know that I usually don’t. Some issues will be solved in the next book, Sweet Recovery. This was merely the beginning of Lucas and Ginny’s story. To pick back up where they left off, make sure to grab the next two books: Sweet Recovery and Sweet Eternity.
I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, please consider leaving a review at your favorite online retailers, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, or review websites such as Goodreads. These are great ways to help spread the word about books to readers who have yet to discover them. Also, there are excerpts from four of my friends’ books, so make sure you keep turning those pages! Happy reading!
About the Author
Jessie Lane is a best-selling author of Paranormal and Contemporary Romance, as well as, Upper YA Paranormal Romance/Fantasy.
She lives in Kentucky with her two little Rock Chicks in-the-making and her over protective alpha husband that she’s pretty sure is a latent grizzly bear shifter. She has a passionate love for reading and writing naughty romance, cliff hanging suspense, and out-of-this-world characters that demand your attention, or threaten to slap you around until you do pay attention to them.
She’s also a proud member of the Romance Writer’s of America (RWA).
For more information on Jessie Lane:
http://jessielanebooks.com/
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Needing To Fall
By
Ryan Michele
Copyright ©2016 Ryan Michele
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
Have you ever sunk inside yourself to a place of darkness so deep you couldn’t see the light? Had no hope? Felt completely alone in a world filled with so many people?
I have. I’ve lived it, breathed it.
Why?
Because life hated me.
It disliked me from the moment of conception, despised me when I was born, loathed me when I bounced from each foster home, and kicked me in the gut when I watched the one thing that meant everything to me leave.
For years, I drifted, unable to find my footing, never knowing what the word stable meant. Then a single moment in time rocked me to my core, changing me and making that solid ground I so desperately craved crumble at my feet, causing me to fall farther than I’d ever imagined.
The darkness of the swirling tornado that is depression captured me, pulling me down to its depths, drowning me, suffocating me, owning me.
A depth so deep, I didn’t think I’d survive and didn’t care if I did. I only wanted peace. I wanted the pain to disappear. I wanted to be … free.
Needing to fall into the cyclone of darkness was the only way I could find the light.
Mature Content. 18+ only.
Excerpt:
Her hands tightened on mine. “Have you ever thought of going to his grave and telling him good-bye?”
I ripped my hands out of her grasp and pulled as far away from her on the couch as I could. If I could have made my legs work, I would have certainly gotten up and run as far away from her as I could. However, seeing as my legs were nothing but noodles, I simply sat there, staring at her, dumbfounded, my breath taking a vacation from my lungs.
She moved closer, my pulling away having zero effect on her. “Honey, I’m not saying this to hurt you. I just think it could help you. You never got to say good-bye.”
Tears streamed down my face. There was no point in trying to hold them back, because they would fall, regardless. Ugly sobs threatened to break from me. My chest was so tight it felt as if ropes were around me, squeezing the life out of me, the coarseness of it shredding my insides.
It was true. I had never said good-bye to Drew. The moment Mr. Peterson dragged Drew’s lifeless body out of my door then shut it was the last time I laid eyes on him. When I tried to follow, Mr. Peterson pointed his gun at me and threatened to shoot me, too. I wished he had. Then I could be with Drew and not rotting in a life that meant nothing to me. The pain would have melted in that moment, instead.
For the second time, I said, “I can’t.”
After Mr. Peterson came back, beat the shit out of me, and told me he was dead, I packed everything I owned, which was next to nothing, and ran away. I couldn’t look back; it hurt too much.
For almost a year of my life, I drifted. Each moment of those days, I wished Drew and I would have just run away, not caring where we would go or what we would encounter. Then he would at least be by my side, and I wouldn’t be so alone I couldn’t bear it.
Not once since his death had I ever thought of going to Drew’s gravesite. Some sick, twisted part of me didn’t want to let go of those last moments I saw him and replace them with him under the ground. I couldn’t help what rolled around in my head.
It was demented to think seeing him die before my eyes was more comforting than seeing him buried. It was almost like, if he was buried, all the memories I had of him would be gone, too. I would lose what little I had of him even more.
I shook my head. I couldn’t think of this.
“No,” I said on a choked sob.
“Honey.” She rubbed up and down my arm, trying to comfort me, but for the first time in a long time, her touch felt like sandpaper scraping my skin, so I pulled away.
“I think it’ll be good for you to say your good-byes. It will help you close this door of your life so you can go on living.”
My head snapped to her. “You think I want to be like this? You think this is fun? I hate my life. Hate it! I wish that asshole would have taken me instead of Drew or even with him, but he didn’t. Going to see Drew buried six-feet under isn’t going to make any of this go away. What if I don’t want to close the door on that part of my life? It’s like closing the door on Drew. I won’t do it!” If anything, I thought, it would bring back too much, and then the already deep pit I was in would open and suck me fully in. But maybe that’s what I needed. I needed to fall and just be done with everything.
“No. You were given a second chance.”
What?
“What!” The word came out full of rage and accusation. “You think this life is my second chance? You’ve got to be shitting me!” I jumped from the couch, my legs getting their function back due to my need for space from Andi. The room felt as if no oxygen was in it, and I was suffocating from lack of breath. The panic, the anguish, the emotions all consumed me in a rush. I felt as if I were under a powerful waterfall as the pounding flow crashed over me, pinning me down, keeping me helpless under the water. The weight of the emotions was drowning me.
She stood and followed me, obviously not getting the hint. “Reign, it is. You have a chance to live a life that you were meant to. Do you think Drew would want you to live in this hollow forever?”
As if the air in the room wasn’t strained enough, her words were a sucker punch to the gut. The room began to spin, and I gripped the chair in front of me to steady myself.
“Breathe,” Andi instructed.
It took everything in my power to make myself do that small task because what she said was true. Drew would hate what I had turned into. He would be disappointed in me, and that was one thing I never wanted. Ever.
As more tears spilled, Andi wrapped her arms around my body, and I went willingly, crying on her shoulder.
After what felt like forever and was probably an hour, I was all cried out. We moved to my bed where Andi easily climbed in beside me. She lay with me, the sounds of her even breathing lulling me into a restle
ss sleep that left me waking groggy and aching.
Would I ever know what real rest felt like?
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Stay
By
Chelsea Camaron
Copyright ©2015 Chelsea Camaron
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.
Fair Warning … This isn’t a sappy romance. It’s not sweet. It’s far from anything you would want to imagine. This is a story to leave you feeling dirty.
Nothing about us is normal.
Nothing about us is natural.
Can love ultimately be defined in such ways, truly?
This is our story.
He is a hit man, the very one who took my family the night that changed us both forever. Something in my eyes stopped him from killing me. Something in my eyes called out for him to take me.
At ten, he captured me. At fifteen, he consumed me. And at eighteen, he owned me.
Outsiders think he’s my father … That is so far from the truth.
Our twisted desires fuel the darkness that lies deep inside us both. My innocence never existed, and he takes me as I am.
Adult content not suitable for readers under the age of 18. This is a dark romance filled with graphic violence and is not to be mistaken as a light read. You have been warned!
Excerpt:
Chapter One
The house made of glass will surely crack one day, was what I thought at ten years old. The safety of the gates was nothing more than a façade. Behind those walls laid an unknown hell. Upper-class America was no safer than the poverty-stricken ghettos because danger lurked in the most unlikely places. At least in the streets I would have had some control and a chance to run. If I didn’t come from the family I came from, maybe I would have had help; maybe I wouldn’t have been all alone, even when the house was full of people. No, there I had nothing except time.
That night, the darkness came again as I lay and waited.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
He would be here tonight. I knew it. I felt it. The red rim of his bloodshot eyes at dinner was the sign I had learned. It was my warning. It was the evidence of his overindulgence in what my mother called the occasional adult beverage. Only, with my father, it wasn’t occasional, and it was always more than one.
At ten years old, I had survived one moment at a time, always waiting and counting. Funny how they taught you to count the seconds of time in school, while I used it to count the seconds passing by at home.
Things had gotten worse as time passed by. The harder Father worked, the more he indulged. The happy possibilities of a little girl’s daydreams were long gone, and in its place was a reality nightmares were made of.
I had been waiting for my escape, even if it wouldn’t come for years. I had been counting on the future being better than the present. I used to count the stars on my ceiling from the nightlight I once had. However, I got older, and Father felt it was silly for me to have them, so to the trash it went.
Once I had gotten beyond the preschool stage where visitors would expect my room to have a theme, I was stripped bare of any color or any extravagances tied to me personally. My walls were plain white with nothing hanging, for we couldn’t give in to the whims of a child for decorations. Therefore, I lived in a room with four white walls, white bed sheets on my bed, covered in a white down comforter. My dresser was white, my nightstand white, and my headboard was a built-in bookshelf, done also in white.
Not given any freedom of expression, I wasn’t permitted to actually store any books on the shelf. No, personal effects must go inside the toy box that sat inside my overly large walk-in closet. Our house was large with a very sterile feeling. My room wasn’t allowed to look out of place. Like everything else in that house, it had to have clean lines and a contemporary feel, my mother always said. Personally, I found it to be just as stuffy as the rest of the house.
Mama and Father always told me not to share the secrets of our home. The special secrets of our family were our own. I tried to tell once when it first started. The doctor at my check-up said no one should touch me … down there—well, except him when he checked me. I whispered my truths, and he patted my leg like everything would be all right. Only, it wasn’t.
No, he called my mother to the room, stopping to tell her all about my creative imagination in the hallway. The door was cracked, so I had heard every word he said to her. He made it very clear this was the silly nonsense of a child wanting attention. Of course, a man such as my father—her husband—wouldn’t do those things.
After that, I decided I would wait. My time would come … I prayed.
As the bed dipped, I closed my eyes tight. The bed in which I should drift safely to the land of dreams and fairytales had been nothing more than a prison of its own making.
Fingers moved through my hair as I concentrated on counting my breaths.
One Mississippi, exhale.
Two Mississippi, inhale.
Three Mississippi, exhale.
Rough, calloused fingers ran down the back of my neck then traced my shoulder before trailing down my arm, all the way down until the hand found the hem of my nightgown.
I tensed. He laughed.
“Fallyn, don’t tease me, baby girl.” His voice was gravely and not hushed.
He didn’t have to hide his presence in my room; my mother wouldn’t stop him, so I supposed there was no reason for him to be quiet. She was supposed to protect me; only, she didn’t. The staff always left promptly at seven nightly and didn’t arrive before eight in the morning. Privacy was what my mother said we needed. Really, it was another way to keep the darkness from being seen by any outsiders.
There were many secrets we hid from the world, but none amongst that house. If only the walls could speak for me back then...
Squeezing my eyelids, I forced them to remain closed.
Four Mississippi, I went back to mentally counting.
His hand moved to my butt, tracing the edges of my little girl, cotton panties. Why my cotton? Mama wore the silky, soft ones. I had seen them in the laundry. Why did he touch mine? To this day, I still questioned that.
Count, Fallyn, don’t think of the hands moving, just count. Five Mississippi … Six Mississippi … He will finish sooner rather than later.
His fingers edged closer to the spot, and knowing it would hurt, I braced myself. It would burn, so I would squeeze my eyelids more, trying to remain unmoving, unnerved, and unresponsive. If he was drunk enough, he would believe I was asleep … If I was asleep, I didn’t have to participate.
I exhaled deeply as if in dream.
Seven … Oh, it stung.
When his finger pushed between the curves of my girlie parts, I tried to think of the two walls they represented. Mama had bought me a book about little girls, explaining my parts. Why didn’t he understand they were to cover and protect the opening—my opening?
His thumb circled my middle, his finger pressing inside my tiny portal, and I gritted my teeth as I clinched my whole body tight.
“My baby girl, always so greedy.” He leaned over, licking my neck as bile rose up my throat.
By some miracle, I remained steadfast in my breathing and maintained control of my body. Inside, I wanted to jump out of my skin and hide my soul from the world. Then, just as the fire hurt and the burn built, something inside me twisted, and I became removed. Sick, screwed up, seriously drowning in disgust, I lay completely still, forcing myself not to throw up as he continued. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t even want to share the same space, the same air with him. He was there, though. He wasn’t going anywhere until he’d had his fun, and I was left covered in his filthy, sticky mess.
His breathi
ng came in pants, and I was certain, if he knew I was awake, my hand would be working or my mouth. At least that night, I was saved the humiliation of an audience. He was always rougher when he made Mama watch. To this day, I didn’t know if it was a power play or a sick game between them. Either way, I was thankful for the break that night, even if it was only once.
The shrill scream of my mother filled the air, yet the man over me didn’t move. Then there was silence. Unfazed, he continued to slide his finger in and out of me.
Removing his finger, I thought for a moment he might be done early because of the commotion outside my room. I was wrong.
Slowly, as if not to disturb me, he rolled me to my back then moved his hand down the front of my panties as he lay beside me.
Eighty five Mississippi, I tried to count silently, failing at reaching the next number when the burn hit me as he shoved his finger inside me harshly.
Thud, thud, thud. The pounding of someone walking sounded through the hallway.
My father tensed over me, his finger still inside as he moved my hand to his crotch. He was hard.
I blinked my eyes open as he slid my hand over his covered length. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light coming from the hallway and my bathroom. There was a shadow in the doorway, and it moved to my bed.
My father was so drunk he didn’t even realize there was a man behind him. A large, powerful man, covered from head to toe in black was standing behind him with a knife that was dripping with something as it was raised high in the air. In the darkness of my room with only my bathroom light giving some visibility, I wasn’t able to make out anything more.
The finger kept plundering in and out sloppily while I absently stroked his manhood out of habit. The stranger grabbed my dad by the hair, and his eyes grew wide. A gasp escaped his lips as I watched the knife come around in front of his neck. Like every other night he visited, I continued to stroke, knowing I couldn’t sleep again until he finished what he had come in here for. Until the big mess came, I wasn’t allowed to stop, and I couldn’t sleep, which meant I couldn’t escape into the land of my dreams.
