Forbidden Pleasures (NSC Industries Book 11) (19 page)

All eyes in the room turned to me, Mia and Leo staring in
confusion when they sensed the rage bubbling through Elijah. “I’d rather not,”
Elijah snapped.

Jay narrowed his eyes and stepped forwards. “Who the fuck
do you think you are?”

“Elijah!” I cut in quickly when his rage engulfed the
room and his fingers bit around Jay’s throat until he slammed him back against
the wall. “Please.” He grit his teeth and looked at me. I’d never seen anyone
as furious and I spoke as softly as I could to calm him down, “I appreciate
what you’re…”

“What I’m doing or what I really want to do?” he asked.

“What the hell is going on?” Jay hissed, his eyes
fiercely glaring at Elijah.

Elijah shook his head in disgust and threw Jay to the
side. Turning to me, he grabbed hold of my hand. “I’ll be right outside.”

“I’ll be fine!” I smiled, nodding gratefully at his
concern.

He looked concerned, his eyes flicking from Jay and back
to me before he nodded and walked out behind Mia and Leo.

“Are you fucking him?” Jay exploded.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Was he for real? He gawped at
me when my hand shot out and my palm cracked across his face with so much
strength he tumbled into the wall, his hands slapping loudly on the painted
plaster.

“What the hell Bea?”

“Why are you here?”

He blinked at me then realisation rolled over him and he
closed his eyes. “Tom told you.”

I scoffed, shaking my head in disappointment. “Oh no,
that wasn’t enough for him, he sent me the FUCKING RECORDING OF YOU AND HER…
AND MILES!” I screamed as tears engulfed me. His eyes widened in horror but as
he reached for me I stepped back and held up my hands. “Did you think I
wouldn’t ever find out? That we could just carry on…”

“No!” he shook his head frantically. “No.” His voice was
softer then, his eyes glazed with regret and guilt. “I’m so sorry, Bea. I was
high and…”

“So that makes it okay, you were high so you thought that
would excuse what you did?”

He scoffed then as anger poured from him. “And did you?”

“What?”

“You fucked Tom when he promised to give you what you
needed, how is this different?”

“So it was you who sent that video to all our friends!” I
couldn’t believe his gall. The fucking prick!

He shook his head and sighed. “No I didn’t, that was Tom
as well, he stole my phone and logged into my Facebook.” He rubbed his hands
over his face. “Look Bea…”

“Don’t Jay. I’m not sure I can…”

“I don’t expect you to,” he whispered, his tone tight
with suffering. “I didn’t come here to beg for your forgiveness, or to hurt you
more than I already have.”

I froze, my brow puckering as I watched his face fill
with remorse. “Only because you weren’t going to tell me.”

“I came here to tell you. I know you don’t believe me and
there’s nothing I can do to make it right.”

“You’ve hurt me so much,” I whispered, giving in to the
despair when it threatened to drown me.

He stepped towards me and gently held my face as his
forehead pressed to my own. Squeezing his eyes closed, a tear slipped from him
and trickled between us, wetting my lips when it transferred from him to me and
merged with my own. “I’m so sorry Bea,” he choked out. His chest was heaving as
he struggled to contain his misery. “I don’t deserve you, I’m destroying you,
slaughtering everything good in you. Everything is fucked up and I’m fucking
you up with me.”

My heart was pounding and I fought to breathe against the
lump in my throat. “I love you,” I told him honestly. And I did. I understood
everything that was him, everything that hurt him and made him the way he was.
I knew I wouldn’t ever forget what he had done, but I knew with time that I’d
learn to forgive him. Jay was damaged, he’d been damaged for so long that he
couldn’t find a way to claw himself out of the darkness.

His heartache was overwhelming when his lips brushed
against mine so gently that I whimpered into his warmth. His grip on my face
tightened as a choked sob tore from him and he pulled away.

He swallowed and licked his lips, to taste me or recoat
the dryness I wasn’t sure. His blazing blue eyes swam with tears but he pulled
his shoulders back and dropped his hold on me.

“I’m leaving you, Bea.”

I stared at him, my heart clawing for freedom up my
throat when the pain inside me burnt me with an intensity that made me shake. “W-What?”

“I can’t do this with you. I can’t survive without the
pain. I’m so sorry.”

Every part of me crumbled inside and as I gulped back the
need to cry I sank my teeth into my lower lip to stop it from escaping. “Are
you going back to…
her
?”

“Don’t!” he urged as he caught my hand.

I shrugged away, the rage and agonising devastation
making it difficult to keep standing upright in front of him. I didn’t want him
to see my pain, he didn’t deserve to witness it. My mind wouldn’t work as grief
thickened my blood and refused to stimulate any rationality. “Do you love her?”

I didn’t want to know the answer but when he pressed his
eyes closed, hiding his feelings from me, the sob I had been desperately trying
to hold back broke from me in an agonising wail.

“Shit, Bea…”

“ANSWER ME!” I screamed! “DO YOU LOVE HER?”

Closing his eyes, he nodded. “Yes.”

I stumbled back, vomit and agony shattering my very soul.
Elijah flung open the door and taking one look at me he floored Jay in one
fluid punch. “Get out!” he thundered as he grabbed Jay by the throat and threw
him out of the room.

“Come on, honey,” Elijah whispered as he scooped me up
off the floor and wrapped me in his embrace. “It’s okay. Shh,” he breathed as
he rocked me back and forth.

My eyes lifted to the window of the room. Jay stood gazing
at me with tears streaming down his face. His eyes locked onto mine as he
mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”

Then he turned and walked away.

He took my heart, crushed it and then walked out of my
life without a backwards glance.

To be continued in

Forbidden
Pain

I SEE YOU

BY KER DUKEY & D H SIDEBOTTOM

***WARNING, THIS BOOK IS EXTREMELY DARK AND MAY HAVE
SCENES WHICH SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING***

I watch you, I see you in ways no one else can, and
through my lens I create a life of you for someone to dissect. I capture you in
your vulnerability; that smile, your laugh, those tears. I document you and
sell your secrets.

When I watch you through my lens you’re mine until I pass
you to the buyer. I, like most people, have a fetish for pretty things and in
my job I get to be around a lot of pretty things. They pay me to watch them and
capture them in a frame for many purposes, and sometimes I like my profession a
little more than I should.

I took a job to capture her… I wanted to capture and keep
her in more than just the image. This time I will take myself away from the
lens and become the client because I cannot resist her, she reminds me too much
of my first, I need to have her.

Traumatised from a vicious attack, Nina finds herself
shut off from the world until her neighbour brings her out of more than just
her nightmares. Even after moving and changing her name, she still can’t shake
the feeling of being watched. The memories are so close.

And so is the shadow of the creator of them all.

Surrender

DEVINE,
Book 1

By

D H
Sidebottom

Love.

Would we do anything for it? Really put our morals and
beliefs, everything we thought right and honourable in front of us and stamp on
them all in the name of love?

And by wrong, I don’t mean something simple, like turning
a blind eye to someone’s addiction, or the fact that the person we are in love
with used to be the school bully or uses prostitutes to overcome some deep dark
secret they’ve never coped with from their childhood.

By wrong, I mean the lowest, most corrupt and ruthless
things that someone could ever do. Murder, prostitution, drug dealing, cage
fighting, all of the above and more. Could you allow all that just because your
heart can’t live without the person that makes your soul dance on dark days,
brings you laughter on the day when hell threatens to drag you under and looks
at you like their world would end if you ever turned and walked away. Could you
condone the actions of a merciless killer just because their touch makes the
evil of the world disappear until all that is left is pleasure and ecstasy?

Isla Cormack faces these choices. Her love for Jake
Devine is untouchable, pure and undeniable but just when she comes to the
conclusion that Jake isn’t a bad man deep down, that his life and even her life
has shaped him into the cruel man he is today, both their pasts come back to
haunt them, opening secrets that have been buried so deep they threaten to
shred any hope of a future together and tearing them so far apart that the
chasm between them is impossible to cross.

Isla thought her life had been one long nightmare. She
soon finds out that the hell life threw at her is nothing compared to the death
and destruction Jake Devine brings with him.

Drawn to You

By

Ker Dukey

Antonia McNally has a great family, a great boyfriend,
and a great future… until she finds herself interrupting a robbery and becoming
the victim of a ruthless criminal. When she witnesses brutal murder, abuse and
suffers her own traumatizing assault by his hand, her life changes forever.
When love, loyalty, and strength are tested, the weak falter.
 
Moving away to the States offers her a fresh start; however, confident,
successful Finlay Hayes, her best friend’s Brother adds even more chaos to her
already turbulent emotions. When she can’t decide between ripping him a new one
or ripping his clothes off, one thing is for sure, they both have an
unquenchable craving for each other. When life starts looking a little brighter
it’s not long before the storm clouds roll in. All is never what it appears and
under his good looks and in charge attitude, Finlay has a past of his own and
secrets that can destroy the dynamics of the friendships she has built.
 
Secrets are waiting to be spilled, but at what cost?

Night Fires

By

D H Sidebottom

Coming August 2015

I would watch him watch the ocean. He would build fires and sit, all
night waiting.

For her. For his dead wife.

She never came. I never expected her to. But he did. And he never let
go.

Even when I fell in love with him he never let go.

Until the night of the storm. The night my worst nightmares came to
life.

And I lost everything to her when she finally returned.

For us both.