Empathy (28 page)
Blurb and prolgue
You meet someone. You date. You fall in love. You marry.
The four simple rules of love….
Wrong! I’m getting married but I’d never met him before now, never dated him, never fell in love. I have no access to the memories of the most magical time of anyone’s life.
My mind won’t allow me to evoke the past, I can’t remember those simple stages to lead me to the fourth.
I can’t comprehend why I would have ever wanted to marry someone like Dante. I should never have passed the first stage, although, I may have seen him through the eyes of the woman I once was, this me that lives, breathes here now, can’t understand how we made it to the next stage.
I’m not sure, without memories, how I know that this voice inside me, telling me I would never have chosen him, speaks some truth, I just know. He’s controlling, arrogant, callous and violent, and utterly hell bent on humiliating and degrading me – Like watching me falter, watching me struggle to comply and be the woman he asked to marry, powers him- as though he wants to break me piece by piece. Fiber by fiber. Until all that’s here is the shell he created from a soul that I once owned.
Now my memories are slowly returning. And they show me a completely different side to meeting him. Our dates, falling in love. The Dante haunting me in the shadows of my mind is loving, gentle and utterly enamored with me, nothing like the man with me now.
And this is what taunts me. My tender lover turned into a debauched, cruel sadist who is determined to consume my life, destroy my mind and murder my spirit.
I am, Star, and just like with some stars in the sky, the light you see is an echo, a façade, I am already gone
I am a no one.
Especially to him. To him I am the dark in his desires, the corrupt in his depravity.
The sin in his immorality.
The sun heated my skin, its rays licking over me, branding me in its golden glow and warming my already sensitive body. The smell of lotion was intoxicating as firm familiar hands I craved to have touch me rubbed over contours of my body, rough fingers sliding along every inch of me. White sand and clear blue ocean as far as the eye could see relaxed me further.
This is what we needed, we both worked too hard, we never indulged or took time for just us two.
We lived out one of his fantasies last night, him taking me in the open where anyone could be watching; although making love under the blue hue of the moonlight, on a secluded beach where he’d created a romantic bed of rose petals wasn’t exactly where we could be caught. But it was still the most memorial night of my life and hopefully his too.
I looked down to the twinkling diamond of my engagement ring and smiled contentedly. He had completely taken me off guard last night.
The memory played over, letting me relive the most magical proposal I could have asked for. Him pushing his body to join with mine before stilling when he was fully sheathed inside the warmth of my body. His soft gaze captured mine, his eyes glimmering with a thousand emotions before murmuring, “You were created to complete my soul and mine yours. When the sun sets and rises every day from this day forward we will be forever entwined. I promise I’ll give you everything, friendship…” He peppered my face in kisses, his soft lips burying me in his love. “…Passion…” he thrust deeply, his hips pressing against mine, making me moan out. “…Babies with my brains and your looks.” He smiled cheekily, rubbing one hand over my stomach.
I gasped slapping his shoulder which made him twitch deliciously inside me. I wanted to beg him to move, he was filling me up completely but not moving. Yet, his words made my heart thud and my mind race with the intensity I could feel seeping from him, their honesty drenching me in the truth of his promise.
“I’ll support your dreams and live to make them come true.” His eyes darkened, his gaze never leaving mine as his eyes hypnotised me. “I’ll make every fantasy fulfilled” His hand cupped my face, the softness of his palm both comforting and exciting. “I’ll protect you, honour you and God, love you more than anything.”
My eyes were glassy, I couldn’t stop the tears from forming. He continued as his voice dropped in tone, his brow furrowed like he was concentrating, reminiscing. “I always felt connected to you, as if a string from my soul was tethered to yours.”
His hand looped a thread around my ring finger. The tears spilled free when I noticed the other end was looped around his own finger, a platinum band with a huge diamond sat on the end of his chunky finger. He tilted his hand, making the ring flow free down the thread until it looped onto mine. I choked on a happy sob. “Promise never to leave me, to never love another man. Promise to be my wife, promise to complete us?”
I couldn’t speak I wrapped my arms around him tightly, bringing his head down to the crease of my neck as I nuzzled into his. My legs wrapped firmly around his waist as I dug the heels of my feet into his ass, urging and begging him to move.
His laugh resonating against my skin. “Is that a yes?” His head lifted to look into my eyes.
I swallowed and inhaled, catching the breath I needed to breathe out again. “I can’t promise I will never love another man.” I whispered against his ear. His body stilled, he wasn’t even breathing. I quickly continued before I ruined the moment and he passed out from lack of oxygen. “If he looks like you.” His eyes widened. “And calls me mommy, I will love him.”
His breath rushed out of him, warming my lips. “Promise me!” He demanded with a thrust of his hips. His full length glided against my inner walls, eliciting pleasure into my core. “Promise me,” he growled in frustration as his body covered every part of mine.
“I promise, I promise!” I cried out as he took me over the edge, onwards to make a start on the promises we both made…
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Blurb
The Devil visited me three times in my life; albeit, my short life. Not in the physical sense, you must understand, but very much literally.
He was persistent, resolute and tenacious. His ruthless greed to annihilate me was utterly disturbing. I am sure if he had hierarchy, the man at the top would have dragged his arse into Hell’s prison for his unscrupulous methods.
I was just fifteen when I first became aware of what he was capable of. This initial taste of him set the playing field for how my life was to be lived – for want of a better word.
He mocked me, showed me mercilessly how he played the game and how he liked to cheat at said game. He ridiculed and taunted me until, six months later, he won and took something of so much importance from me that I would never be the same again.
His second visit was, in my eyes, so much more cruel and heartless. I know we’re talking about the Devil here, and yes, you have a right to say he had no heart but even then, even when I was so utterly broken, I begged to differ and hoped – no, prayed – that somewhere deep in the caverns of his black, tortured soul there was something that beat and confused his emotions once in a while.
The third visit was somewhat different than the other two. He tried, and at first succeeded to bring me to my knees once and for all, but then something happened. God finally intervened and altered Satan’s intention; he sent hope and morphed the Devil’s minion into an Angel, hoping to break and shatter the anguish and suffering. He gave the ability for me to feel pleasure in pain, order in the chaos and light in the darkness.
But in giving me a reprieve, he also gave me something that would finally and ultimately obliterate me. He gave me the capability to love, therefore giving me the ability to be destroyed.
And Satan made sure that I was destroyed. Cruelly, viciously and sadistically.
I am Mae Swift, and this is the story of my decimation.
Buy links
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Amazon .Co.UK
Coming November 2014
Blurb
It's not easy being friends with rising rock stars - especially when you're the glue that holds them together.
Razes Hell has taken off in the charts, and Ellie can't believe her childhood friends, Drew and Jason Brooks, are on TV and drawing crowds after years spent playing in dodgy bars. From obscurity to overnight success, Ellie soon realises life in the public eye isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as dark secrets become headline news and old conflicts are re-ignited. When a fake feud meant to boost the band’s popularity threatens to rip the boys apart for real, Ellie finds herself torn – a position which only gets more uncomfortable when her loyalty to Jason collides with her blossoming relationship with Drew.
Nobody knows how deep their issues run; nobody but Ellie. With friendship, a music career and a new love on the line, can Ellie keep their tangled pasts from ruining their futures?