Wicked Little Games

by Dee Palmer

  Bloggers: Claire, Steph, Vicki and Vivienne at Romance Readers Retreat, Jo Booklover, Jesey at Schmexy Girl, Michelle, Yaya and Grace Afterdark Book lovers, Mel and Gayle Bloggers from Down Under, Tanya and Sharon from mom’s Secret Book Blog, Rachel and Jo from Hourglass…, Gitte and Jenny from Totally Booked, Ana Ives and Bri Partin( I know you’re not bloggers but you are a champion of the book world all the same), I am super grateful to you guys. Other authors…because this is a community in every sense and I have drawn inspiration and guidance from many many talented people but here’s a few and in no particular order…Jana Aston, T.M Frazier, Pam Godwin, Alice Raine, always Jodi Ellen Malpas, M Never, Stylo Fantome, JL Perry, Kitty French, Donna Alam, LP Lovell, Stevie Cole, Leslie Jones, Skye Warren, Mandi Beck, CJ Roberts, Audrey Carlan, Aleatha Romig, Jana Aston, and JA Huss…Don’t get me wrong most of these people wouldn’t know me if I sat on their face but they have affected me in a positive way and for that I am thankful.

  I would also like to thank my bestie..Kymme because in all honestly there would be no books if it wasn’t for her, for all the swag making for the signings…I’m gonna take you to Vegas if I ever get asked lol… I love you to the moon and back.

  My family…again are quietly supportive…proud I think and certainly happy about the money!

  But mostly, I’d like to thank you, for choosing to buy my book and taking the time to read it—a huge, I mean really huge, thank you, you will never know how incredibly grateful and honoured I am that you have and I would be even more so if you are kind enough to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.Please…please…oh and please :)

  The People who make it all happen.

  Dee Palmer—Author

  Website—www.deepalmerwriter.com

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  Editor—Ekatarina Sayanova—Red Quill Editing

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  Cover Design Judi Perkins at Concierge Literary Promotions

  The Choices Trilogy

  Never a Choice

  Always a Choice

  The Only Choice

  Never a Choice 1.5—A Choices Novella

  Ethan’s Fall

  Disgrace

  Disgraceful

  Grace

  Wanted

  Dee Palmer lives just outside of London with her husband and (slightly embarrassed) children. Her passion is writing sexy steamy romance stories that will scorch the pages right off your kindle and are guaranteed to make your heart pound. She loves an HEA but isn’t afraid to put her readers through the ringer before she delivers.

  When not at her desk she can be found either fannying around on Facebook or with her nose stuck in her Kindle. Once in a while when the lights are down she might be spotted about town searching for the best French martinis and throwing some dubious shapes on the dance floor.

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  Bethany’s story starts right here with Never a Choice

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  Four Years Ago

  “YOU’RE AN IDIOT!” John jerks me further up his back to get a bit more comfortable, and I grip a little tighter with my thighs to prevent me slipping back down before he repeats. “You’re an idiot for working with a busted ankle tonight.”

  “Says the idiot carrying me half a mile home at one in the morning.” I kiss the soft hairs on the back of his neck and smile against his warm skin. He smells of fresh cut wood and mint from a recent shower.

  “It’s bad enough you have to work on a school night, but you needed to rest. It looks like a freaking balloon now.” He lifts my leg, but the dim street lamp fails to highlight his argument as my ankle is covered by my jeans and hidden in the shadow of the dark night. He’s not really mad. he’s never really mad, and he sighs as I rest my chin on his shoulder and my arms hug him just a little tighter.

  “I need to work and it looks worse than it is.” He grumbles under his breath and continues to walk me home -- well, carry me home. He meets me each night I work late at the local pub. It’s a small village pub, and I do a little cooking in the evening, serve food, and help behind the bar. It’s not strictly legal, but I’m not likely to tell; I need the extra money and the late nights pay better. It’s the only thing John and I ever argue about, I won’t take his money and he thinks Kit, my sister, should contribute more. He gets no argument from me there, but he works just as hard. His money is going toward a place of his own because his Dad has given him notice to quit like some troublesome tenant. He needs every penny and at least I still have a home. He shifts again and I can feel the tension in his shoulders. This is the second time he has carried me today. The first was when the injury happened, when I decided to throw myself off the eight foot stone wall.

  For the last seven years when my mum was happy enough to let me wander a little further afield, John and I would do just that. Miles and miles of footpaths and bridleways, fields, riverbanks, and woodlands we explored together, and I only ever had the vaguest sense of where we were. I was always in a state of constant surprise that we had managed to find our way home. John would tell me I shouldn’t really leave the house without a ball of string tied to my front door, but I didn’t need the string. I had John, who always knew where we were and where we were going. He had given me a leg up so I could grab the top of the wall, and using his shoulders I just manage to pitch myself up and sit on the top. He told me to wait, not to jump, and that he still loved me even though I had hopped off and twisted my ankle so bad he had to carry me home. After nearly three miles across the fields he also told me I was a dumb-ass.

  For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, John carefully lowered me to my feet by the back door. The house is quiet but my mum has left the kitchen light on, which filters a warm glow across his soft dark features. He is frowning, and I know it has nothing to do with how much his back is probably hurting. “I hate that you have to work, Boo. I hate it might affect your studies.” He is holding my gaze, his eyes serious and pained.

  “I know, but it won’t, I won’t let it. I know how important-” I don’t finish because he huffs in frustration. I reach my hand to his cheek, his smooth skin hidden beneath his evening stubble. I try to ease his tension and get a smile from his lips by covering them with my own. I am bolder with him now and the tender touch is quickly consumed with pent up passion that is slowly destroying me and driving me insane. I turned sixteen at the end of the summer, it’s nearly Christmas and he is almost seventeen. I kind of thought he would be just as eager as me to experience each other in the way we had promised. I had the briefest meltdown when I thought that at best he had the patience of a saint, or at worst he just didn’t think of me that way. I was very wrong on both counts and he assured me he thought of me like that every second of every day, but he wanted to wait. He wanted to make sure I was ready and not just because I had reached a legal age, and I know he knew I was, but he also wanted it to be perfect. He had saved his wages over the months and had bought the raw materials to fashion a unique promise ring. A smooth band of silver looped in a heart, which was beautifully distorted to look like the symbol for infinity, and had two shiny blue stones set where the metal crossed. He gave this to me on my birthday, his promise to me, and I was ready t
o give myself to him as my promise to him. This weekend he was moving into his own place and had a special day planned. With no expense spared he promised, but said we would play the rest by ear, adding that he’d had enough self-restraint to last him a lifetime.

  He groans against my lips, and I can feel his smile against my mouth as he pushes my shoulder back trying to break away, but I stretch my neck to try and keep the sweet contact a little longer. I let out a heavy sigh and mourn the loss of warmth when he finally succeeds with the separation.

  “I’ll meet you after college tomorrow, now go get some sleep so you can study hard.” He kisses me once more, but with tight lips. It’s a definitive dismissal, and I pout, but he laughs and shakes his head at his own personal struggle to leave.

  “I can’t wait for the weekend,” I whisper and grin when I hear him draw in a sharp breath.

  He flashes his bright white smile, “Why? What’s happening…Ow!” He grips his ribs as I retrieve my finger from jabbing it in his side.

  “You’re an idiot!” I try to hold my narrowed eyed scowl but end up laughing with him. He steps back to me, his body all hard heat and muscle. He cups my face, and his mint fresh breath kisses my skin when he whispers back, “Me, too,” and with one last kiss he starts to walk backwards down the path.

  “I saved for this because although I know it’s just for one day, I want it to be special. I want to treat you like a princess.” His eyes are darker now because his face is in the shadow of moonlight, but I can feel his fire.

  “It better not be just for one day.” I choose to misinterpret his meaning and am rewarded with a deep laugh as he chooses to misinterpret me.

  “Well, in that case, I’m gonna need a second and third job, princess.” He quips.

  “Dumb-ass,” I call after him. It’s not about the money. He treats me like a princess every day, but I’ll wait for him, because as crazy as I might think it is, it’s important to him. It was the worst choice.

  Today

  “OH, GOOD GOD, Bets, what are you wearing?” Sofia practically screams at me as she bounds into my bedroom only to freeze with a look of complete horror on her face.

  “What?” I ask with genuine surprise as I look down at my ensemble.

  “I’m supposed to be a ‘mature student’ remember?”

  Sofia has been my best friend since college. She sat next to me at the induction meeting and within five minutes of break time I knew everything. She told me she had recently moved to the area, had four brothers, many, many more cousins, and worked in one of her family’s restaurants. She loved dancing, loved drinking more, though, and she had a small angel tattooed on her butt that would have her shipped to the mountains of Italy if her father was ever to find out. We were both aged sixteen starting college, and since John had decided not to go the college route, I was grateful she decided we would be friends. I had only known her four years, but the events of that time irrevocably changed my life, and Sofia, her brother, and her family were my lifeline, and I couldn’t repay their kindness if I had a thousand lifetimes. I immediately liked her openness and quickly fell in love with her energy for life, her confidence, but above all her honesty. This is why I had asked for her assistance in creating the ‘appropriate’ first impression for my first day at University.

  “Well, yes, but mature doesn’t mean dead. I’m pretty sure my Aunt was wearing the same outfit when she was buried, and that was eight years ago! You haven’t been digging, have you?” Sofia giggles, but abruptly stops when she sees my expression has quickly changed from confused to worried, and that really wasn’t what she had intended with her little joke.

  “Besides,” she gently adds, “‘technically’ a mature student is defined as aged twenty five and over, remember, and what age are you supposed to be?”

  “Twenty five, or so it says on my recently doctored and scanned birth certificate.” I smile as I wave the documents I have to take for registration today. I can’t think of a time when I thought I would be thankful to my sister. In fact, I can’t think of her at all without grinding my teeth to the point of inducing a mind-numbing headache, which is why I don’t think of her at all. I have not thought about her for years, not since the day she died. She didn’t die, but she was dead to me. She’d wanted a clean slate; hers was dirty, I was sure of it, not just her reputation, her juvenile record for theft and drug dealing, but I always just got the sense she was hiding more. I gave up caring what that was when she stole all the money from the sale of our home and left me to pick up the tab for our mother’s on-going health care. Our mum was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was fourteen, but she’d deteriorated rapidly,and when I was sixteen, Kit and I made the decision to sell the house. I had found a nice care facility, the sale would mostly pay for, and between us we could make up the rest. Kit had Power of Attorney and ultimately had access to the money. She’d talked about starting afresh, rewriting her life, and I didn’t understand why that was important at the time. I never believed she meant a fresh start away from me. I was staying with Sofia for a couple of months while Kit stayed at her boyfriend Dick’s flat. She said it would take a while to sort out her new life and find somewhere we could both live. She just disappeared one day, and shortly after that I got notification from the care-home that the next quarterly payment was due, which was when I knew, really knew, what she had done. Sofia’s family helped me with a full time job and sorting a payment plan with the nursing home. I couldn’t move my mum into state care after seeing that she was settled and happy. I could still do my A-levels at night school, it would just take a little longer. I wasn’t giving up on my education. The promise I made may haunt me because of what I’d lost, but it keeps me focused. “Ok, I may have overdone the age thing.”

  “Ya think?” mumbles Sofia.

  “Let me change, just wait a moment.” I try to spin quickly, only managing to jerk and squeak on my flat, square, crepe-heeled shoes. Really, what was I thinking? I return moments later.

  “Oooo, yes, that’s much better.” Sarcasm dripping from every slowly uttered word. “An amorphous blob is exactly the right way to go.” She raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows and I sigh. Damn those judgmental eyebrows! I slump on the edge and fall into the one and only armchair. I am actually feeling a little lost, and Sofia seems to know this, as she quickly has me in her tight embrace, squeezing the very uncertainty out of me.

  “Bets, you have always been ‘mature’, regardless of the clothes you wear, I’m afraid, ‘an Old Soul’. Remember that’s what Mama has always called you? So how about you forget this,” she says, waving her arms erratically around the array of clothes I’m wearing and have dropped in a heap. “Just wear something you are going to be happy in, comfortable, more confident, and more you?”

  The uncertainty I am feeling right now and the knots I have in my stomach aren’t me. I know I don’t reach the dizzying heights of super confident Sofia, but I have had to assert myself from time to time, and I’m not shy. I don’t have hang-ups and insecurities, because frankly, I don’t have the time to care. I don’t want a relationship other than my friends, and everything I have gained in my life is down to my own abilities and hard work. I’d like to say I wouldn’t want it any other way, but I’m not a masochist, and I’m not an idiot. But I am definitely floundering here. I am uncomfortable with the fact that I’m pretending to be an age I’m not in order to study for a degree I want. It has to be part-time because I can’t afford to not work full time. I’m uncomfortable with living illegally above the restaurant, a commercial property with no permission for residential use. Sofia’s family is so sweet to let me live here, but this is a risk for them. The benefit of additional security, which I afford, could easily be performed by a decent alarm system.

  “Bethany Edith Thorne!” Sofia scolds, interrupting me from my inner flagellation. I hate it when she uses my middle name, it means she’s losing her not-so-famous patience. I exhale despondently, and I bury my head in my hands.

  “Th
is just isn’t you, Bets. I’m your best friend and I don’t understand why you’re trying to hide who you are. You’re bright and confident, and you’ve got a cracking bod under all that shit! I mean killer curves. You know it’s not just your sparkling personality that has the boys lining up, right?” She’s sitting directly in front of me now, daring me to break eye contact. She knows I’m not happy with the direction this conversation is heading, but before I can challenge her, she interrupts. “Brothers, I know, they are all like brothers. This is me, sweetie. I know how you feel and I know why you feel like that. I understand, I do, and I can see you’re shutting down, so I won’t push, but you know I want to, right?” She nudges my leg, and I give a weak grin. “Just don’t hide.” She whispers.

  I smile with a bit more life and give a sharp nod of determination. “All right. All right, then!” I leap from the chair, lifting the gloom that had descended, forcing Sofia to fall on her butt.

  “Give me five minutes.” I call over my shoulder as I leave the room once more.

  “Your last chance, Miss, or I’ll dress you myself. I’ve got hot pants, boob tube, and high heels with your name on them!” she half threatens.

  Well, okay, so I shouldn’t want to hide, just stay under the radar, maybe, blend in, and I’m thinking six inch heals clip-clopping across the cobbles of the Quad would not aid this objective. So third time lucky, I emerge.

  I’ve settled on my soft and worn pale blue Levis rolled up with my favourite red lace-up pumps, a fitted plain white T and my dark green, short, leather jacket, and striped cotton scarf wrapped loosely several times around my neck. My wavy dark chestnut hair is scooped into a loosely manageable knot, and my make-up is barely there, with some mascara and a splash of nude lip gloss.