Nikki Gemmell’s Threesome: The Bride Stripped Bare, With the Body, I Take You (90 page)
Read Nikki Gemmell’s Threesome: The Bride Stripped Bare, With the Body, I Take You Online
Authors: Nikki Gemmell
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Erotica
How strange and terrifying it must have been for those first British settlers, Connie thinks, as if an alien god had created this world to astound, to terrify: it sounds like it hurts to be in this place. She comes from a country of soft days, soft rain, soft light, where the morning quietly clears its throat. Australia’s not like that – it’s a full roar into the day and how she loves the exuberance of that. Through wide windows the garden greenery tosses in the sea breeze like the heads of wild ponies and nature presses close, she can feel the great thumb of it. She is as calm as an eiderdown, here, within it, an eiderdown lying snugly, quietly, in readiness for its bed. Connie sleeps deeply here, her nights unbroken, for her man strong beside her is like a cool trickle of water upon her soul and it is all bringing her into stillness, to rest, for the first time in her life; she is content, she is content. As she steps into a new life unbound, optimistic, freed, by the truth; as if a great corset has been unloosed.
The author acknowledges with gratitude the words of Virginia Woolf, which provide each chapter with its opening quotation.
Nikki Gemmell is the author of
The Bride Stripped Bare
, the original publication of which sparked tremendous media interest. Both
The Bride Stripped Bare
and its follow-up
With My Body
went on to become huge bestsellers. Nikki Gemmell has written eight novels and regular columns for the
Mail on Sunday
and the
Australian Weekend Magazine
.
FICTION
Shiver
Cleave
(published in the US as
Alice Springs
)
Lovesong
The Bride Stripped Bare
The Book of Rapture
With My Body
Pleasure: An Almanac for the Heart
Why You Are Australian
Honestly: Notes on Life
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith
London W6 8JB
This omnibus edition first published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2013
The Bride Stripped Bare
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2003
Copyright © Nikki Gemmell 2003
‘Hallelujah’ written by Leonard Cohen; lyrics reprinted with kind permission by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. ‘Laid’ written by Booth/Glennie/Gott; lyrics reprinted by kind permission of Blue Mountains Music Ltd. ‘Small Wire’ reprinted by kind permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
With My Body
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2011
Copyright © Nikki Gemmell 2011
‘The Son’ by Pablo Neruda, translated by Donald D. Walsh, from The Captain’s Verses, copyright © Pablo Neruda and Donald D. Walsh 1972; reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Group.
I Take You
First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2013
Copyright © Nikki Gemmell 2013
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2013 ISBN: 9780007530045
Version 1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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