Baby, it’s my birthday!
My gift to all you amazing readers and fans and supporters
of my insanity…an excerpt from “Perfectly Normal”, The Beast 1.5…
And…
A bonus! Chapter one of my “grandma friendly” sweet romance,
“The Way Back”!!
These are both raw unedited first draft. So if you find
errors or hate my excessive use of commas…well, fuck you. :P
Perfectly Normal
Chapter One (excerpt)
“Harder, faster!” the concierge
barked at Columbia as she rushed him, raining blows upon him in her best effort
to knock him to the ground.
She failed. Her best effort failed
again.
“I’ll never get this,” she said
and threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know what I’m doing
wrong." She wasn’t used to wanting something so bad...to learn something
so fiercely. Until a couple of short months ago, Columbia had simply existed,
and this desire for more was entirely new to her.
“You have to get it, or one day
you will die,” the concierge told her and looked her up and down, finding her
lacking. She knew she was sweating and breathing heavy, but he didn’t even have
a sheen on his skin to indicate he was working hard.
“I know that,” she retorted, “and
I want to get it, I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe I should just
stick with my gun.”
“You aren’t putting your all into
it,” the concierge said and pursed his lips. “You don’t quite understand it
yet...this is a matter of life or death. You learn to defend yourself or you
die. A gun won’t help you unless you know how to kill a man with your bare
hands.”
Columbia sighed and looked out
over the city. They were living in another penthouse, this one in Hong Kong.
The rooftop was larger and built of concrete with lovely manicured garden
patches here and there. They were currently practicing in the open tiled area
next to the infinity pool. Columbia still didn’t feel comfortable swimming in
it, with the illusion that it continued over the side of the building. She felt
light headed every time her and Dimi used it, especially when he pinned her
against the edge and fucked her from behind, the lights of the city spreading
out beneath them.
“Daydreaming doesn’t help you
either, little girl. Now straighten your back and come at me again. Kill me
with your bare hands,” the concierge said, a sneer on his lips.
Columbia knew he didn’t quite like
her yet. She suppose he would eventually, but it would take time. It had been
years of just he and Dimitri and he was unused to sharing the bigger man’s
attention.
“Fine, let me catch my breath,”
she said, spun around and attacked, hoping to catch him guard.
“Nice try,” the concierge said as
a sardonic laugh tumbled from his lips. He grabbed her arm as she tried to
throat punch him, hooked his leg behind her knee and had her on her back in the
beat of her heart.
“Dammit!” Columbia exclaimed as
the concierge stood above her, sunk down, straddled her and pushed her hands
over her head.
He looked her right in the eyes
and said, “Bang, you’re dead for the hundredth time today. You need to feel how
important this is. You aren’t sitting at home sucking on your mother’s teat any
more, little girl. This is real life, and if you die, Dimitri dies and I won’t
lose him. Do you understand? I don’t do this for you, I do this for him.”
Columbia glared at him, her face
red hot with her embarrassment. She knew he was right though, if Dimi lost her
now surely he would crumble...and the thought of that happening destroyed her
on the spot. Causing her Dimi grief was simply not on her agenda, so she
gathered whatever strength she could find and moved her body to twist him off.
She almost succeeded. This time
her exertion almost surprised him and he was almost knocked off her body.
Almost. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades as they say, and
as much as she tried, he did not fall to the side.
She grunted her last effort, and
he landed on her instead, forcing the air from her lungs.
“Very good,” the concierge said
with the smallest hint of approval shining in his dark eyes. “We might just
make a fighter out of you yet.” He had his full weight on her body, her arms
still pinned over her head and he leaned over her. And yet Columbia did not
feel any sexuality from him. He was such a strange man.
“Are you sure you just want to
fight?” Columbia asked from under her thick lashes, then pointedly stared down
in the direction of his cock. She wasn’t flirting, but hoped to unsettle him
with her bold sexual advance. It did not work. So strange.
“Ha, nice try, but you belong to
him. I would rather cut my own cock off than suffer his wrath if I saw you as
anything but a slab of meat I need to sculpt into a fighter,” the concierge
said and laughed.
“You are a wise man, my friend,”
Dimitri said over his shoulder. Columbia immediately melted hearing his deep
timbre and accented voice. Since they’d opened up to one another, he no longer
worked as hard to keep the Russian accent from his words, and she loved it. The
way he said her name, spoke words of love to her, and the noises he made when
he drove his cock deep inside of her…she was beyond smitten, she was beyond
being in love, she was completely beholden to him, body, mind and spirit.
“She’s all yours, boss,” the
concierge said and dragged Columbia upwards as he stood up. He gave Dimitri her
wrists and Dimi encircled them with only one of his massive hands. The
concierge raised his eyebrow, looked at Columbia and gave a slight bow before
he left the patio.
“I see you’ve been struggling,
little dove,” Dimitri said and with a wide grin, but it was gone in an instant
as his lust took over. Columbia couldn’t get enough of his smile. As they
relaxed around one another, it came more frequently and with less coaxing on
her part. But lust was always good...very very good.
“You might call it that,” she
said, a little tension still present in her tone. She sure didn’t like being
beaten like that. “I think it was more of an ass whooping, as they say,” she
continued and leaned back as Dimi laid her down again. He replaced the
concierge, straddling her with her hands over her head, but this time there was
no need for faux flirting to notice the cock pressing against her thigh. Dimi
was read to fuck her, right then and there, and she almost vibrated with
anticipation, waiting for him to make his move.
“You do like your ass being
whipped,” he said and chuckled, reaching down with his other hand to give her a
squeeze. She lifted herself up to let him get a good grab. She parted her legs
and gave a little buck to give him a hint. She wanted him between them.
He leaned down and whispered in
her ear, “I know what you want. You want my cock inside of you, you want your
beautiful legs wrapped around me, pulling me deeper and harder. In good time,
little dove. For now I want to kiss you, to taste you...to keep you down like
this and explore you out here in the bright sunlight, for all the sky and
mountains to see and envy my place on your body.”
“Oh come on,” she moaned and
thrust herself up against him, “just fuck me now, we’ll discuss poetry later.”
He drew in a sharp breath and pressed her harder to the tile, the weight of him
holding her down unleashed a desperate need for him to take her like a beast.
She whimpered and sighed against his ear.
Slowly, deliberately, he licked
her neck. He released her hands and and ran them down her body. She shivered
and tensed up, waiting to see where he took this. He nibbled on her fleshy
lobe, she could feel his hot breath in her ear and the tiles beneath her back,
warmed by the afternoon sun. “I shouldn’t be interrupting your practice,” he
said as he nibbled back down to her collarbone, “but seeing you there, under him...it
drove me mad with desire,” he continued and slid his tongue along her jawline.
He hovered just over her lips and said, “I wanted to tear him off you and fuck
you senseless when I saw you flirt with him to throw him off his game…”
“I didn’t mean it,” Columbia said
hastily, her cheeks flaming red at the thought of Dimitri seeing her stupid
attempt to unsettle the concierge.
He kissed her lips lightly, and
told her, “I know you didn’t. And I know he would never act on it...but the
rage I felt…” his voice trailed off as he kissed her. She relaxed and felt her
face grow hot from lust rather than shame. He slid his arm under her and pulled
her against him. Their bodies pressed against each other as though they had
been doing it forever instead of the three short months they’d been here.
“Don’t ever feel rage over the
thought of me with another man,” she said as she managed to break away from his
kisses. “I could never be with another now that you have had me. You should
know that by now, I am yours and yours alone,” she continued, looking him the
eyes, searching for any signs of doubt. She found none.
“I know that,” he growled against
her neck, making her giggle with the vibrations from his deep voice, “but even
still, you should suffer for it. You see, I was going to rush over and fuck you
senseless, savage you like a fucking stallion mounting his mare…” his voice
trailed off and he set her back down. He looked at her as though he was about
to devour her and continued, “Instead I will make you suffer for it...I will
make you writhe with pleasure until you can barely stand it. I will make you
beg for me until you’re sobbing with your need. Only then will I slide my cock
into you and fuck you senseless, little dove. Only then will I bring you the
relief you already so desperately crave.”
With that he pulled her hands
above her head and forced her chin up. He nibbled and nipped her neck and slid
his tongue lower, licking her salty sweat as he reached the neckline of her t
shirt. He reached down and tore it off her in one move, exposing her breasts.
She gasped and moaned, and said, “I’m already begging, Dimi...please…I
need...you.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Way Back
Chapter One
She should have left the first
time he hit her. She knew this now, but, as they say, hindsight is twenty
twenty. Looking at her children asleep on the seat next to her made her glad
she didn't leave that first time Tom slammed his fist into her face, she never
would have had them.
Abbey hadn't been sure she wanted
children back then, but she often thought her first accidental pregnancy might
have been subconscious, an effort to tame her errant husband. It had worked,
almost. Tom hadn't touched a drink for two months after Zach’s birth, he had
stayed home and been the perfect, doting husband and father. Then he fell off
the wagon, hooked up with his girlfriend and came home drunk one night while
Abbey had been nursing Zach. He’d raged against her that night as she rocked
quietly in the nursery with Zach at her breast. He finally passed out in a pool
of his own vomit halfway down the hallway to their bedroom.
She knew then that nothing would
change him, but still she had stayed. She stayed after Sophie had been born,
with her perfect blonde curls and chocolate brown eyes. Tom had accused her of
cheating that time, so he moved into a hotel with some new girl he’d met at the
PBR Finals in Vegas, a barrel racer with lean long legs and an icy stare. That
lasted three months before he came crawling back declaring himself a changed
man. Against her better judgement, she’d given him yet another shot.
She’d given him another shot, and
another, and another. A seemingly unending supply of second chances that he’d
taken complete advantage of. Abbey had tucked in and decided to ride it out,
stiff upper lip, stand by your man and all that jazz. Until three months ago.
Zach was now a big, strong, eight
year old with a temper like his Daddy’s. Abbey had spent years brushing it off
with ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘he’s just going through a phase’. Not this time.
Zach had been playing video games in the family room while Abbey prepared
dinner, something meaty and rustic to keep Tom happy. Sophie was six, and a bit
of a loud mouth (like her namesake, Tom’s mother, the rich bitch with an
attitude that made country club wait staff run for the hills when they saw her
custom Cadillac pull up out front). Sophie had been bugging Zach, typical
little sister crap, when Abbey heard her scream and start sobbing. She wiped
her hands and ran to them to assess the situation. Zach was standing over his
little sister, she was curled on the thick carpet in front of him. His eyes had
been on fire, his hand clenched into a fist and Sophie had her eyes squeezed
shut with her hands defensively over her head.
“What the hell happened here?” she
had demanded of Zach.
He had turned to her and answered
in a slow and careful voice, “I hit her. Look what she made me do.” It was like
hearing Tom’s voice from the mouth of her sweet, funny and bright little boy.
“She didn’t make you do anything
Zach, you made the choice to react,” she’d replied, using her months of google
searches on domestic violence to deal with him.
“She pissed me off so she got what
she deserved,” he’d replied in the same voice. “I’ll tell Dad when he gets
home, he’ll get it. It’s a guy thing. You wouldn’t understand.” He had turned,
sat back down, calmly picked up his PSP controller and continued to play. The
contempt in his voice had made her blood run cold. That’s when it’d hit home,
her children were acting out the exact same scenario they had witnessed a
hundred times. They were on the path to become her and Tom in their marriages
in the future, and she was the only one who could stop it.
“No need to tell Dad, let’s just
all get along and everything will be ok,” she’d said in her bright, cheery,
fake voice. She’d walked to Sophie and helped her up, she wasn’t injured, just
upset. It still struck Abbey that her daughter was going to end up just like
her some day. Cowering at the end of a boot, or a fist. Keeping her grin wide
and plastic as she served dinner like a parody of a fifties housewife. Keeping
her opinion to herself and her mouth closed, unless her husband was demanding a
drunken 3AM blowjob, cramming his piss smelling, semi-hard dick in her face as
she was sleeping.
She had known then that it was the
end. She never had the guts to leave to protect herself, but somewhere a momma
bear was roaring with rage and making plans.
It took three months of stashing
money away, taking the cash Tom gave her for the gardeners and housekeeper and
driver and keeping it in her coat pocket in the closet. Telling the staff that
she would get the money to them, stringing them along until she started to see
them getting pissed and wanting to ask Tom about it. Except they were all
scared of Tom too. She sold some jewellery on the sly, fed him beers and
whiskey every night until he passed out drunk and she could go through his
pockets for loose cash.
In those three months she had
squirreled away roughly eight thousand dollars. She was damned proud of herself
and purchased her very first vehicle for a thousand of it, the old Dodge Ram
they were fleeing through the night in to escape him. The very same truck that
she was pushing to over a hundred kilometers an hour in spite of the groans of
protest from the engine.
She had driven from Calgary to
Goldfield in what seemed like the blink of an eye, leaving in the afternoon
when she knew Tom would go on a bender with some rodeo buddies. He probably
wouldn’t come home that night, so their absence wouldn’t be noted for a while.
Ten hours later she was coming into her hometown in the middle of the night.
The main street was deserted, even the Tim Horton's parking lot was almost
empty. It was Thursday, and she was going to wake her father up and see him for
the first time since she left ten years earlier. She had spoken to him on and
off over the years, and sent him photos of the kids dutifully, but Tom had
never liked her Dad, so Tom had made sure he wasn’t welcome in their fake
perfect lives.
She slowed down and felt like she
had driven back in time, to high school, the streets hadn’t changed. The kids
were still sleeping, the lights from the dash lighting them up, making their
faces seem so innocent and unscathed. Sophie was in the middle leaning on her
big brother. He had his arm around her protectively, like a big brother should.
She had told them they were going to see their grandpa Pete, whom they had
never met. Both kids had laughed their heads off at the ratty truck, she
laughed with them, not wanting to clue them in that this was something they’d
have to get used to. Gone were the days of them living high on the hog off
Tom’s family money. The new reality was that she was going to be a single mom
in an economically depressed town.
She passed through town, crossed
the bridge over the Fraser River and headed out West, towards her childhood
home. She knew that wouldn’t have changed in the years since her departure, her
father was a creature of habit after all.
About five miles out of town,
halfway to their destination, she heard a clunk, then the truck shuddered and
slowed down.
“Come on, come on,” she begged it
as she coasted to a stop. She was in a straight stretch of the wide gravel road,
not a light was in sight. Just their luck, five miles from their destination,
in the only uninhabited stretch of the way, the truck gave out. She spent a few
futile minutes trying to get it to turn over, but all it would do was whir,
then click and give out. She even considered opening the hood herself, but she
wouldn’t know what to look for. She had never paid much attention to anything
like that when she lived with her dad, she was Tom crazy from early on. She
grabbed her phone to google truck repairs, but she was out of range. There
wasn’t a single bar showing on the display.
“Fuck,” she said under her breath.
The kids stirred beside her and she shut the lights off to think. She didn’t
want to end their flight by waking them up to walk the rest of the way. It was
pretty chilly up here on the way to the ranch, the snow had probably only been
gone for a week or two.
She sat like that in the dark for
a few moments before the tears came. They squeezed out, big, fat, hot tears of
failure. She tried her best to make no noise beyond the sniffling and nose
blowing that came with all her crying jags. The kids slept, unaware that their
mother was having a mini breakdown on the seat beside them. Years with Tom had
taught her the fine art of crying your heart out without making a single sound
She didn’t know how much time had
gone by when she saw lights in the distance. She turned her hazards on to let
whoever was driving know that they were here. She did her best to clean up her
face and got ready to beg for a ride, she prayed she knew them and they didn’t
have bad intentions.
As luck would have it, it was an
RCMP cruiser, it pulled in front of her, its nose facing hers, and flashed the
lights. A single officer was inside, she saw him call something in on his radio
and they both got out at the same time.
The lights from the police car
backlit the scene, she could only see a silhouette until the imposing officer
was half a foot from her, towering over her with a wall of solid muscle and
tight uniform. She might be fleeing, and having a mini breakdown, but she could
still appreciate the outline of a ripped male body. She shivered in the cold
air, looked up and heard, “Abbey? Holy shit! Abbey!” just before she was swept
up in a pair of muscular arms and swung around like a child.
She struggled, then hugged back,
certain the officer must know her. He set her down, put his hands on her
shoulders and looked her up and down. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t
place him exactly. He took his hands off, held his arms out wide and said,
“Come on, you haven’t been gone that long.”
It clicked suddenly and she
recognized the face of her teenage best friend, David Edwards. He was not the
skinny, lanky boy she remembered though. He had filled out, his body
unrecognizable, but he still had the same gorgeous violet eyes. Elizabeth
Taylor eyes their eighth grade English teacher had called them, much to his
horror. He spent the rest of high school dodging the unfortunate nickname
“Lizzie”, and had gravitated to the other outsiders, like herself. They became
fast friends, almost inseparable, until the summer before ninth grade when she
had met Tom at the annual rodeo. Tom had taken over her life then, claiming her
heart, body and mind. She and David maintained their friendship as long as Tom
allowed it. She faked her way through to graduation until she could run away
back to Calgary, to Tom’s controlling isolation.
My god, he was different. The
scrawny boy had given way to a tall, well muscled man. He oozed confidence and
still had a killer smile. His teeth were white and bright and perfect, and most
importantly, his eyes were still kind and generous.
“David! I didn’t recognize you.
You’ve really changed,” she said, fatigue and stress masking her true
excitement. Once upon a time she would have jumped into his arms for a hug, but
years with Tom had given her an insecurity that was masked as snobbery to most
who met her now.
“You haven’t changed a bit, you
look exactly the same as the last time I saw you,” he said approvingly. “How
have you been? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been good, really good. And
I’m here to see Dad, well, if we can get there,” she answered.
“That’s funny, I just saw him
today at the Co-op and he didn’t mention it,” he said. The Co-op was the local
feed store, fuel station and gossip central for farm folk.
“It’s a surprise, he doesn’t
know,” she said with a small smile.
“Well, let’s get you home,” he
said with a knowing look in his eyes. She never could keep anything from him,
and she was grateful that he didn’t pry.
The truck was not repairable at
the moment. David told her they’d leave it there, load their things in the
police car and he’d take them the rest of the way. She woke the kids up, Zach
first, and let David lead him to the car while she carried Sophie. They let
Zach sit in the front and flick the lights on and off while she settled in the
back with her daughter. The trip took a short few minutes and David chatted
amicably with Zach as he drove. Zach had a million questions about what it was
like to be in the RCMP, but David fielded each one with good humour and
informative answers. She appreciated his kindness, keeping Zach calm and
distracted.
They pulled up the long driveway
of her father’s ranch...of home. It appeared that nothing much had changed, as
she suspected, except for the brand new pick up truck parked in front of the
modest two level farm house. As they came to a stop, her dad stepped out the
front door looking sleepy and confused. He was wearing jeans he had obviously
just pulled on, and a white undershirt. He looked old, older than she had
anticipated. Her heart thumped in her chest, terrified that he’d take one look
at them and send them on their way.
David got out first and she heard
her dad call out, “Why are you here David? A visit from the police in the
middle of the night is never a good thing, just get to the point and get there
fast.”
Same old Dad, she smiled and
stepped out, still holding Sophie. “It’s good news tonight Pete, I swear,”
David replied quickly.
Abbey walked around him and added,
“At least I hope it’s good news Dad, how are you?”
Her dad rubbed his eyes and slowly
the realization overtook him and his face split into a wide grin. “Abbey!” he
exclaimed and came down the steps. He stood in front her her and held his hands
out to take Sophie from her. “This must be little Sophie, but she’s not so
little now, is she?” he said and hugged Sophie close. Abbey though his eyes
looked more watery than usual, but knew he wouldn’t cry. “Where’s Zachary?”
“Hey Dad, Zach’s in the car. Hang on,”
she said and turned and gestured to her son. He stepped out of the car looking
unsure of the situation.
David walked over and put his hand
on Zach’s shoulder. “This here is your grandpa Pete,” he told him.
Zach smiled and walked towards
them. Sophie woke up, looked at her grandpa and said, “Hi!” Abbey laughed at
this, and was relieved that in spite of everything, her children were
resilient.
They got the kids settled into the
guest bedroom, Abbey and David loaded all their belongings into her old bedroom
next door and she sat on the bed exhausted. The walls of her room were still
pepto bismal pink, that had been an effort to prove to Tom that she wasn’t too
much of a tomboy for him. He liked his women to be girly, and at the time they
met, Abbey had been more interested in riding dirt bikes than wearing dresses.
“Wow, pink,” David remarked as he
brought the last box up from his police car. “I don’t remember it being this
pink, you know. Then again, it’s been what, almost fifteen years since I saw
the inside of this place?”
“Yeah, about that. Maybe longer,”
she smiled and suppressed a yawn. “I’m sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“You want to talk about it?” he
asked.
“Not yet, I will, I promise, but
not yet,” she assured him. “Right now I want to curl up on my single bed, under
my crocheted pink bedspread, and sleep until I can’t remember my name.”
He reached out and touched her
shoulder as a gesture of kindness, but he was standing, towering over her, and
she flinched. Really jerked back away from his touch. She looked up at him and
saw that knowing look back in his eyes.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he said
simply. “I’m here for you.” He turned to leave, pausing at the door to add,
“I’m really glad you’re back.” He flashed his killer smile, she had to smile
back, and he was gone.
