When You Only Need To Ask (The House of Sin: The Beginning)

by Hadleigh Stephens

  When You Only Need To Ask

  Kimberly

  The House of Sin

  The Beginning

  Hadleigh Stephens

  When You Only Need To Ask

  Kimberly

  The House of Sin

  Published by Hadleigh Stephens at Amazon

  Copyright © 2013 by Hadleigh Stephens

  Cover by Hadleigh Stephens

  Kindle Edition, License notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Kindle and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters and events portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real person, living or dead is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  A special thanks to my husband.

  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

  He knows why and that’s all that

  matters.

  xoxoxo

  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

  Epilogue

  Author bio

  Prologue

  A lady should always keep a tight rein on her temper

  Okay, so I’ll be the first to admit it. Albeit, perhaps a little hesitantly and perhaps with a little bit of coaxing from the right person, mind ya. That maybe, just maybe jumping into my jeep in the dark of night and speeding off with gravel flying as I race recklessly down the twisted road that hugs the side of the mountain isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

  And if forced, I might even add, especially when snow is beginning to fall heavily and I can barely make out the road in front of me because I’m still so fightin’ mad that red dots are floating around behind my eyes marring my vision.

  Now, it’s possible that I only exacerbated the situation by not giving my jeep the time it needed to defrost. But really, what girl has the time to let the heater run to clear the damn windshield when she’s fleeing from of the house of a crazy man?

  Not this girl.

  Once again, I’ll concede that this isn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done but I’ll add that little concession under duress.

  That’s what people say on all those cop shows, isn’t it?

  And to top it all off, the road obviously has no intention of cooperating either. It just keeps on growing slicker and slicker and slicker with each passing second. Crazy man, frosted over windshield, slippery roads, can it get any worse?

  And if I truly had control over myself, I’d be able to stop the clenching in my gut and command the tears that for some reason have this overwhelming desire to pool in my eyes to dry up because they’re making it that much harder for me to see where I’m going.

  I wish I could magically click the heels of my very own ruby slippers and find myself snuggled up on the couch in my living room in front of a fire.

  Boring.

  And boring sounds perfectly fine to me right now.

  Now keep in mind, I don’t live an ordinary life by any means. However, that isn’t to say I live an exciting one. Luckily I’ve been able to cover up much of my boring existence fairly well for years just because of the scandalous way my family happens to make its living and because my last name’s Sinclair.

  I do know one thing for a fact and that I can state with a fair amount of confidence. The Sinclair family history is full of resourceful visionaries undeniably responsible for a lot of firsts in this little town that make up for my staid, but intriguing existence. If one has any doubts, the town’s archives are bursting with the details.

  First mercantile. Check.

  First sawmill. Check.

  First bank. Check.

  First schoolhouse. Check.

  First church. Check and check.

  And finally one little well-known fact, which is by far the juiciest most scandalous first of all firsts, because stuff this deliciously scandalous can’t be kept quiet for very long kind of firsts.

  First saloon east of the Missouri river.

  And that was what led to the very reason for the first church. A convenient way for my family to atone for the alleged multitude of sins committed without having to ask for anyone else’s permission. Or so I’ve been told.

  To some, my family was the very catalysts that led folks in Edgeview, Tennessee to a life of sin and damnation in the first place. The most obvious of reasons of course was that our saloon was never just for quenching thirsts of the liquid kind. Come a little closer now. Ours was the kind of saloon that also sated other more carnal thirsts, or shall I say hungers.

  I would give anything to have been able to see it with my own two eyes.

  From the stories I’ve been told since I was knee high to a grasshopper, that’s what my granddaddy always said, it was chock-full of dancing girls that walked around with their breasts bared and even had rooms to let upstairs where weary travelers just passing through town and even local married men who weren’t gettin’ what they longed for at home could slake their lust with a shot of whiskey and a clean willing woman for as little as one dollar.

  I’ve heard it all.

  Some adamantly argued that my family had done a disservice to the community. I countered that we offered what folks were gonna search out and find anyway, so why not offer it in a clean and well-cared for establishment? That’s what we did way back then and that’s what we still do today. Well, without the dancing girls and the rooms to let upstairs.

  One thing I find rather humorous is that if you’d asked my grandmother how the family money had been acquired, she’d have waxed poetic about the bank. Gone on and on about the mercantile. Would’ve even brought up the saw mill, if forced, but heaven forbid you’d asked her about ‘that place’. Oh boy, was it a sight to see. Her face got all pinched like she’d just sucked on the sourest lemon you could get your hand on and boy her fan would’ve started a flutterin’ and a wavin’. She was never without that damn fan. Thought she was freakin’ Scarlet O’Hara or something, sittin’ on her wraparound porch with a mint julep clasped tightly between her delicate gloved fingers. Always said a good southern woman carried one, no matter the decade and she had plenty in reserve if one came up missin’ and I managed to misplace mine quite often.

  Well ‘that place’ has not only survived, but thri
ved throughout the generations. Transformed with the times, upgraded so forth and so on, but Grandmother had still pretended it didn’t exist. She would’ve denied its existence until her very last breath, and that she did.

  Thank goodness some things aren’t considered quite as taboo as they had been back in those days and the family business is no longer run from a false storefront on Main Street. My brothers and I now run it from the very home our grandmother had lived in from the day she married our grandfather until the day she died. Minus the bare breasted girls, of course.

  First of all, if our grandmother knew what we’d done with her beloved home she would turn over in her grave and wish us all to the very devil. Little does she know that we are already well-established on that road and assistin’ with the paving to make the trip a whole lot nicer. Bought and paid for by The House of Sin.

  But what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right? And I sure as hell-fire and damnation ain’t gonna be the one that brings it to her attention.

  Let her rest in peace is my philosophy.

  Chapter One

  A lady holds her head up at all times

  For some reason I got the bright idea that the perfect time to contemplate the horrible decisions I’ve made for my life would be during my race down the ice-covered mountain.

  I think back to all the times Nate and I were together, finding it weird that I’d never before noticed how his moods can change at the drop of a hat.

  Had I really been that desperate? That eager for a man’s affections that I hadn’t cared that he was a complete and utter bastard?

  Surely I’m not one of ‘those’ kinds of women.

  Everyone knows the kind I’m talking about. The kind who has to have a man in her life to feel complete so she chooses to ignore just how big of a dickhead he truly is? That thought alone makes me feel rather disheartened. I’ve never thought of myself like that before. I thought I was strong, confident, independent—strong…Did I say that already? Never needy and desperate, or stupid and weak.

  It’s not as if I’m too old and in dire straits of becoming an old maid that I need to sink my claws into the first man that comes along and offers me a scrap of attention no matter how good or how bad. I’m only twenty-seven for goodness sakes.

  Twenty-seven isn’t old. Is it?

  Isn’t forty the new thirty? Or something like that. Or is that only with women like Jennifer Anniston? Another thought to throw me in the doldrums. Even so, how can twenty-seven be beyond redemption?

  Boy, but it sure feels that way when I walk down the street and every little old lady within a twenty mile radius asks when I’m gonna settle down, get married, and have some babies. When am I gonna quit frittering my life away on stuff better left in the dark. Blah. Blah. Blah. Good Lord, you’d think these women have nothing else to occupy their time. My grandmother always said idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Boy she wasn’t kiddin’. You’d think with so many church going folks around here they’d mind their own damn business?

  I puff out a breath so heartbreakingly deep it actually makes me sigh again and heat suffices my face in a wave that starts in my chest and doesn’t stop until it reaches the top of my head where it decides to take up residence. Creating the worst headache in the history of mankind behind my eyes that only aggravates the tears I’ve tried desperately to hold at bay.

  At the same time, my heart feels as if it’s been trampled beyond repair. A big ball of pain fills my chest and a familiar sinking sensation takes over my belly as violent waves of hopelessness crash over me causing me to sink to such levels of despondency that I fear there’s no possibility of recovery.

  “Dang road.”

  I feel the tires skid over a patch of black ice and my heart jerks in my chest. For someone that works so hard to be demure, how do I manage to get myself mired in such ridiculous situations? Lord have mercy. Of course I have no choice but to roll my eyes at that. At The House I’m as far from demure as they come, but that’s basically a costume. As if I’m putting on a theatrical each time I step through the doors. Outside of work, modest, unassuming, boring as heck. Unfortunately, I keep getting myself derailed by my minds inability to control its wicked desires and my unfortunate need for just a tad more excitement. It’s such a vicious, vicious circle.

  Before Nate, I’d never participated in anything other than vanilla, as they say, but I’d felt a definite spark whenever I thought of more and then there goes that vicious circle once again spinning around and around and around...and I go getting myself into trouble again. Sinful. Now I can say that after Nate, I regretted every single minute that I rode his merry-go-round.

  My biggest mistake in choosing a man came about when I met Nate.

  He was a master of seduction and he’d seduced me lock, stock, and barrel. Boy he’d made me want more, but he was a liar. Blind-sided me and then beat me into submission. He’d made everything seem delicious and beautiful, at first. Giving the devil a run for his money and he tried most forcibly to do that very thing.

  At least I can say I took the first step. I left. No matter how ridiculously stupid it was for me to take it under the less than ideal circumstances I now find myself.

  And there they go. Those silly tears. I once again can’t help but roll my eyes in abject annoyance as they trail hotly down my cheeks and make little dark spots on my pristine white buttoned-down shirt.

  I can no longer control the shaking that’s taking over my body as I rehash the harsh words and the rage so evident that made the celestial blue color of his eyes, which was one of the first things that had originally captured my attention, turn to an arctic blue that frightened me. I’d never seen anything quite so terrifying in my life.

  God, how had I let things get that far? Get to the point where I no longer knew who I was without him. It makes me angry.

  “Nate—“ That’s all I’d gotten out when deep lines marred his forehead and his mouth twisted into an ugly mask, one that I no longer found mesmerizing or the least bit handsome.

  “What the fuck did you just call me, you fucking cunt?” Ice glittered in his shifty eyes matching what currently fell from the sky and my breath whooshed out of my lungs right before he’d backhanded me and shocked me to my very core.

  I’d nearly gagged as the metallic taste of blood coated my tongue and slid down my throat. I’d scrambled back against the bedroom door as far away from him as possible and surreptitiously swiped at the few tears that slipped from my frightened eyes because tears set him off even more and I’d figured that he was pissed enough.

  Enough that I feared for my safety so I’d bowed my head in a futile attempt to assuage his rage because that’s all I could think to do at that precise moment.

  “Master.” I’d forced the word past the bile that blocked my air passage causing a distinct quaver which I knew he liked even more. He got off on the fear and my body had radiated an over-abundance of it at that moment. I’d felt as if I had a fearful glow highlighting my body like a neon sign in a back alley with a flashing arrow pointed directly at me and no matter what I did it followed. Just like the moon. You know how as a child you always thought the moon followed you wherever you went? That’s exactly how I felt. I couldn’t get away from it no matter where I went.

  Uncontrollable shakes had taken over my body, my eyes widened in sheer-terror and unhappiness washed over my soul covering it in a dusting of alarm because I’d known he was hard behind his zipper because of it and would soon be asking me to alleviate his need.

  “I’m…”

  “I. Said. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

  I actually heard his teeth grinding as he gritted out the words past his tense lips.

  “You’re a fucking cunt. I knew it from the beginning. Should’ve left you high and dry after day one. Knew you were a fucking loser but no, all the guys were talking about what a coup it would be for some lucky bastard to land the Princess of Sinclair. What a bunch of shit.”

  I’d felt the blood drain f
rom my face with his words.

  Princess of Sinclair?

  I’d heard it all before, but never that. I wasn’t a snob. I’d never been an elitist. If anything I’d been the exact opposite. We all had. Maybe I could come across as a little reserved at times, but that was just my nature. All the rest was an act. My brothers and I had wanted to rebel against our grandmother, nothing more. And with the help of my brothers, my shell would crack just a little. We’d wanted to see how far we could push the envelope before she’d lost it, because when she did, it was actually quite entertaining. We found it hilarious.

  “If I want your fucking opinion or advice I’ll ask for it, bitch,” Nate had hissed. “I’m going to fuck that opinion right out of you,” he’d continued muttering to himself scaring me even more.

  “M-M-Master.”

  Thinking back, it seems ridiculous now, but at the time I couldn’t seem to shut my damn mouth.

  “I’m just trying to be helpful.” I couldn’t help it. The words just flowed out. I couldn’t stop them from escaping my lips even though I knew he didn’t want me to say anything. I couldn’t stop ‘em.