I stand and follow her slowly, scanning my eyes over the interior, desperate to see him walk around the corner and berate me for looking at his wife again. But she isn’t his wife, is she? Not this time. I chuckle a little at that and try to clean the old ring up, my thumb pushing against the dirt ground in. It comes loose easily enough, the engraved letters muddied but still legible. They make me smile as much as the day I stood by his side as his best man, handing the platinum over to him when the time came.
Love Eternal.
“I’ll have it,” she screams as I wander along the hall towards the ballroom, her voice filled with joy. I look up, wondering what the hell she’s talking about now. “Home, Toby. That’s what she meant all those times she said it. Home.”
She’s spinning around by the time I get to her, arms wide as she twirls in the middle of the room. I stare and back towards the sidewall of mirrors, a smile on my own face as I remember their wedding day in here.
“Whatever price,” she says. “I’ve got the money now he’s dead.” She twirls and glides again, barely a breath coming from her as she sweeps the circumference of the room in my coat, mud coating limbs that need bathing and caressing. My own throat tightens, my dick still struggling to contain inappropriate reactions to this insanity as I watch on. So beautiful. Insane, but beautiful nonetheless and dragging me onto whatever fucking planet she’s from. “I’m home.”
She suddenly pulls to a stop in front of me, a slight frown glancing her brow. “As long as he is dead. I’m very rich if he’s dead. You think he is? I shot him. I think I did anyway. With that gun under your suit jacket. Jack’s gun. Not that you can tell anyone that if I did. You won’t, will you?” She looks at the window then the door. “Selma?” I frown at that, unsure if talking to the dead makes this more plausible or less. She nods, then giggles, apparently happy with whatever answer she might or might not have got. “Do you dance, Toby?” What the actual fuck?
“No.”
“He said that, too.” She smirks. “He did, though. He was very good at it. Are you? Come on.” She holds her hands out, wafting them at me. “We have to dance. It’ll make it all real. Give it reason. I’m not wasting this house away not I’ve got it.” I tentatively step forward, scarcely sure any of this is real. Real would mean none of this came from her mouth, but then if it’s not real, how does she know? And she feels real as I take hold of her. Perhaps it’s the way she tilts her head, or maybe it’s the way her fingers lie softly in mine, hesitancy making me squeeze for more contact to make this as real as she wants it to be.
She smiles at me, and waits for me to lead her, her body swaying slightly to music that isn’t here. So I tighten my hold again and grab her into me until she’s up on her toes and a breath away from my lips. She’s prettier than Selma this close up, a softness in her face that Selma never held seeming to radiate in the glow between us. Even filthy and insane, she captivates every thought I’m having, tempting me towards her with every exhale for some goddamn reason.
My tongue licks over my lips in an attempt to keep them away from her, but then why fucking bother? As she said, strange things happen in this house, and if it’s all true then maybe this is meant to be somehow.
“You want to dance then you dance with me, Madeline,” I mutter out, barely able to form sentences with her features clouding rational judgement. “I’m not like my brother.”
She widens her smile, eyes flicking down to my lips and then back to me again, as she moves her hips onto mine. It’s enough that my dick forges me closer, too, my own hips beginning to sway to music that neither of us can hear.
“Prove it,” she says, tightening her hold on me, eyes locked. “To them as well as me.” She’s mad. Perhaps I am, too, but my feet are damn well moving before I know it, some rhythm coming from the way we move together creating sound. “Because they’re here, Toby,” she says, her head tipping backwards so she can stare at the ceiling as we turn. “Watching. Being part of us.” She smiles and leans further back, letting me take all of her weight to keep us spinning. “They always will be.”
The End
Acknowledgements
As always I’d like to send out love and thanks to:
My PA - Leanne Cook, without whom I wouldn’t survive this booky world. I always write that, but this time, and especially given this genre swap, I love her more than any of my words can say.
My beta Readers – Jodie Scott and Katie Matthews. Amazeballs. You helped remind that I should believe in myself.
My Editor – Heather at Heathers Red Pen Editing.
As usual, love you. Thanks for everything. You’re still a star.
My other half – Who is my world and gives me this chance. You don’t know how much you mean to me or my words. I love you.
Bloggers – You’re stunning. All of you. To offer the support you do for no other reason than the love of books, well, I’ve no words for how awesome that makes you.
And, of course, all of my readers.
You all amaze me with your kind words and encouragement. There will always be a story in me ready to come out, but it’s you lovely readers that help me believe the words are worth reading.
I can only hope that I continue to provoke thought with every novel and encourage your minds to search horizons new.
Also Available by the Author at Amazon
Innocent Eyes
A Cane Novel
(Hart De Lune)
*******
"If he's gross, I'm bailing."
That's what I said to my supposed best friend when she asked me to take her place. A blind date, she said. What harm could it do?
He was charming. Beautiful. God's finest creation. He wined me and dined me. Made me do things I'd never before dreamt of in the bedroom. It was perfect. Dangerous. Arousing.
But Jenny didn’t tell me the full story. She didn’t tell me about the debt she owed. And now Quinn Cane wants his money's worth, and he’s going to make me pay whatever way he can.
“A debt needs to be paid.”
The woman who came to meet me didn’t owe me money. I could tell by her innocent eyes. Still, the debt will be paid either way.
She was something to play with and use as I saw fit, but something about Emily Brooks made me want to keep her. So she became my dirty girl. Pure. Innocent. Mine.
Then she whispered my damned name and invaded my world, changing its reasoning.
She wasn’t meant to break the rules. But she rolled my dice and won.
Shame. Forgiveness. Dark. Erotic. Romance. Mafia.
This book is intended for mature audiences. 18+ only.
The Stained Duet
Once Upon A (Book 1)
Alana Williams is three published authors. She has been for years, but now she wants to add another voice to her whirlwind of deadlines and unachievable targets. Trouble is, she knows nothing of her latest literary undertaking.
*****
Alana
It began as research. Just research. The technical approach. One that delivers the content necessary for a hidden culture to seem plausible, even if it’s not. Readers expect perfection from me. They want the experience. They need to be taken on a journey. That’s my job as a writer.
Blaine Jacobs is his name. He’s my research. A man who seems as logical and focused as me. A man who agrees to help. A man who, regardless of his stature in the community, seems to offer a sense of realism to this strange section of society. And even if he does occasionally interrupt my data with dark brooding eyes and a questionably filthy mouth, what does it matter? It’s just research, isn’t it? It’s not real. None of this is. Nothing will come of it or change my mind.
So why am I confused?
I’m becoming lost.
Falling apart.
And Blaine Jacobs, no matter how calm he might have seemed at first, now appears to linger on the edges of sanity, pushing my boundaries with every whispered word.
18+ ONLY. Intended for mature audiences.
This book is followed by The End (Stained Duet Book 2)
********
The White Trilogy – Nominated for best BDSM Series of the Year
Seeing White (Book 1) - This book is Free on all platforms. Start the journey at your leisure.
Https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PPZZGCW
“OMG. Amazing writer, amazing books. Deliciously dark and …”
********
Alexander White, the wealthy business man with looks to die for. Just like the other colours you’d think.......but no.
He came from a very different place and made some of his money a very different way.
And he keeps it well hidden because the truth would destroy everything he has. All that he’s worked for would be gone in an instant if they ever found out what he’s capable of, or what he really did and who he did it for. So he keeps people far away with metaphorical games and walls to deceive and confuse.
He doesn’t do relationships, he doesn’t do emotions and he certainly doesn’t do love.
He does money. Making it, manipulating it and spending it whist he plays with women who know what they’re signing up for.
Three people shaped who he is today. One damaged him beyond repair, another taught him to control the rage, and a decent one helps him to consider his options more appropriately.
But be under no illusions ladies, Mr White has not been a nice man, and he will probably never be a decent man, but as long as he keeps up his image, and nothing gets through his barriers, no one will ever see the truth.
Life’s good for Elizabeth Scott, successful business, happy kitchen and a great sister who deals with all the expensive people so she doesn’t have to. She just cooks, bakes and smiles her way through each day......well most of the time, anyway, that is when her great sister isn’t pushing her to, “get out there a bit more,” or “sort her shit out.”
Then the biggest contract of their lives comes up..... And the ever useless London tube, with her sister in it, catastrophically breaks down. Unfortunately, that means only one thing. She’ll have to deal with some of that wealth herself, and that means the devastating Mr Alexander White in all his glory.
Life suddenly couldn’t get worse, regardless of his unfairly gorgeous backside.
She has no idea what the hell she’s doing.
******
This book is followed by:
Feeling White (Book 2)
Absorbing White (Book 3)
The VDB Trilogy
(Best read after The White Trilogy)
The VDB Trilogy begins a week after the end of The White Trilogy and is told from new POV’s. It is, in some ways, a continuation.
*******
The Parlour (Book 1)
Https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EFRN1JU
Above all else Pascal Van Der Braak is a gentleman. Devastatingly debonair and seductively charming. Always styled and perfected.
He is also a cad, scoundrel, rouge and kink empire founder.
Tutored in the highest of society, having been born of royalty only to deny it, he found his solace in a world where rules need not apply. Where he chooses to ensure rules and duty do not apply.
Some call him Sir, others call him master, and no one would dare risk his wrath unless they required the punishment he favourably delivers. Except one, who has just strapped a collar around his throat, one he asked for. So, now he needs to appropriate his businesses correctly for peace to ensue. He needs to find the correct path forward for everyone concerned, so he can relax, enjoy, and finally hand over the responsibility to someone else.
Simple.
But where comfort and a safety of sorts once dwelled, there is now uncertainty, and a feeling of longing he no longer understands. A need unfulfilled. And as problems arise, and allies scheme, he finds himself searching for answers in the most unlikely of places.
Lilah
It’s the same every day. I’d found it odd at first, but I’m used to it now. I was so tired and weak when I got here that it was helpful really. That small woman comes in to help me wash and get dressed. I don’t know where the clothes come from, but they’re nice enough, and at least they’re clean and dry. Not like the rags I arrived in. They were taken from me the moment I took them off to get into the shower, the first shower I’d had in god knows how long. Nearly a year I’d been running the streets, a year without a real bed or a home of any sort. There isn’t a long and awful story to tell about an abusive family member, or a broken home. I suppose I just slipped through the cracks and got lost at some point. I lost my job first, and then I couldn’t afford the bills on my apartment, so the landlord threw me out. I don’t blame him, he did the right thing by himself. And then it was just a long and never-ending road to nothingness.
So now I’m here, wherever here is.
And I don’t know why.
*********
This book is followed by:
Eden’s Gate (VDB 2)
Serenity’s Key (VDB 3)
The Spiral Page 26
