It is with pleasure that Elise Harper is my guest today. A Marriage of Inconvenience cover is debuting today. Sounds like a good read. What say you? Let's give her a warm welcome!
Blurb:
Izzy Thorton’s
mother is dying.
Her best
friend, Sebastian Leery, made Izzy’s mother’s dying wish come true.
Now Izzy and
Sebastian are getting hitched in a quickie ceremony.
Among the
myriad of problems for Izzy including her new husband’s little black book, his
workaholic tendencies, and his hidden, although not so secret love of
BDSM—she’s actually in love with him. Caught with the task of proving to him
that his self-perceived sins hide a man only his secretly submissive best
friend could accept, can she convince Bash before he pushes her away for good?
Sebastian
Leery’s mother was murdered in front of him.
To spare his
best friend pain he’ll renounce his playboy ways.
Now he needs to
be a man he never thought he was capable of becoming—for his wife.
But his
difficulties have only begun when his demons rise to the surface and tap dance
all over his new marriage—with the potential to scare away the most important
woman in his life. When Izzy insists she’s in love with him, he yearns to rip
off the mask of normalcy, and bare it all so she knows the monster behind the
man. Torn between her vision of him and his reality, Sebastian must walk a thin
line. Can he convince Izzy that she’s in love with a mirage, without destroying
their relationship in the process?
Tied together
for life, will they choose to tighten the ropes, or break their bonds for good?
First Excerpt:
“Whoa,
easy there, buddy.” Bash
laughed. “You can’t kill me with a look,
no matter how much you try.”
She came close to clawing out his
trachea.
“Where in the hell are we going to find wedding
dresses? Where are we going to find a ring? A tux? Someone to marry us? Huh,
Einstein? Did you even think this through at all?” she spat out pushing him backward as he stumbled
into the wall with a laugh that only infuriated her even more. “It’s not even close to
funny!”
“It really, really is, Izzy. Why’d you agree to marry me
so soon, anyway? Kind of a strange agreement for someone who’s now pissed about it,
wouldn’t you say?”
“Just shut up.” Izobel thrust both hands through her hair and raked
her nails down her scalp.
With a huge huff she moved to brush
past him and head off to the parking lot before his hand shot out snatching
around her wrist. Izobel made a small, strangled noise of surprise.
“Come. Here.”
Two seconds later, she was locked in
his arms, surrounded by the inescapable warmth of his muscular, lean build. Her
fingers tingled where they pressed into his well-built chest, while she was
caught in the deep pools of his blueish-gray eyes. His smirk only intensified
as shadows from the overhead lighting played down the to-die-for angles of his
cheekbones. Her brain short-circuited as her pulse throbbed in her skull
blocking out all other sounds or thoughts.
“Wha—”
“No, you shut up,” Bash whispered and kneaded his fingers into her
lower back until she had two jelly doughnuts below where her knees used to be.
Her eyes must have been wide and epically confused, because he licked his lips
with the hint of a smile. “We’re going to do this
properly.”
There was a twinge in his voice, a
register she’d
never heard before that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and a
shudder rolled down her spine. Whatever was happening between them, she hadn’t gotten the memo.
“I—”
“What did I say?” The sudden authority to his tone brooked no
argument, and Izobel attempted to pull backward only for him to yank her
forward until the last inch between them was history. “Don’t
argue with me.”
Forced to confront the buildup of
muscular man fantasy she’d
been missing out on for years, she was in no way disappointed by the solid
warmth pressed up against her from knee to neck. But Sebastian didn’t need to know that.
Unfortunately, she was positive her face projected her feelings like the
Hubbell telescope on steroids. One of his hands trailed up her back, fingers
teasing her sensitive skin through her thin shirt, and she let out a small
noise. When he cupped the back of her neck in a show of absolute dominance she
stopped breathing.
“I’m
going to kiss you. You’re
going to kiss me back, do you understand?”
This was it. It was happening. Izobel
squeaked, and either Bash didn’t
notice or didn’t
care because his mouth crushed down on hers, and nothing else mattered.
His tongue swept over her lips
demanding entry, and despite her verbal jabs she went pliant in his arms.
Boneless beneath his greedy, take charge attitude, Izobel allowed him to ravage
her mouth while dizzying desire pooled low in her belly. He was a man used to
getting what he wanted—and
for a single second, Izzy really liked being what he wanted most of all.
Beneath the crushing, delicious torment she became swept up in him. When his
fingers tightened to bruising on the back of her neck she repaid him by biting
his lower lip until she tasted pennies. But he merely growled, intensifying the
kiss. She was drowning in him. Unsure what was real or fantasy as his free hand
roamed over her ass and back to her waist as she curled her hands into his
motorcycle jacket.
He took advantage of her mouth in every
way imaginable until she could only hope to keep up, and the rest of her body
screamed for release. She was at his mercy. Aware of every inch of him pressed
tight, eager, and ready. Each of his movements was a claim, almost angry in his
possession as he took her against him. But there was no part of her that she
tried to hold back, to keep safe. Despite her mind’s knowledge that it was a bad idea, her body was all
in, uncaring of what happened so long as they stayed locked together for one
more second.
She didn’t pull away. Not until she was resting back on her
feet and Bash’s
hand eased around her hip as if to steady her, still so close she could sense
his warm breath on the tip of her nose. The sharp sound of applause broke the
moment into a million pieces. They both swiveled around toward the nurses’ station where the
employees were clapping and wolf whistling behind the desk giving loud shouts
of encouragement.
“There’s
no need to stop on our account. That’s
the best thing we’ve
seen all day.” A
passing nurse remarked, tucking back a lock of red hair with a waggle of her
eyebrows.
“Shit,”
Bash muttered rubbing the back of his neck.
Was he actually embarrassed? Izobel
could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him embarrassed—of course, right now she couldn’t count at all until
her head stopped spinning. When she licked her lips, she tasted him.
Peppermint, vanilla, and something…masculine.
Spicy, maybe? His fingers dug into her hip. But when she looked back into his
face, she saw no consciousness of his action.
“Well, at least we know we won’t have one problem in our marriage,” he exhaled and dropped
his hand as if he’d
suddenly realized he was still touching her and shoved it in his pocket. “I guess you should go
back to your car, right? I’ll
be over soon. Quick.”
“Uh, sure.”
Izobel narrowed her eyes, still not processing much past the tingling of
her lips and the streak of pinkish red lighting up Bash's high cheekbones. “Are you…?”
Bash waved with one hand, turned on his
heel, and all but ran in the opposite direction. His long legs made quick work
of the never-ending hallway. Before she knew it, she was standing alone with
her mouth opening and closing like a fish seeing nothing of her surroundings.
“A word of advice?” A woman wearing scrubs elbowed her in the ribs. “Don’t let that man go, you
got it?”
“We’re
getting married in two days,”
she said in an eerie monotone, still processing the slow burn that was
working its way through her veins from his touch.
With that as the start of their new
relationship, whatever else she had to look forward to flashed across her brain
in a naughty tussle of limbs, lips, tongue, and teeth.
“What have I gotten myself into?” she breathed.
“Something you don’t want out of, trust me,” said the nurse.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Second Excerpt:
“You shouldn’t
have come. You know that, right?”
He stood off to the side slinging his arm around the huge carved
banister post.
“I think I grasp that concept more than you truly
realize. Thanks.”
He grunted at the sarcasm. The dominant
part of him wanted to spank her for her insolence, but she wasn’t one of his subs, so
he leaned harder on the banister until the wood indented his side, causing a
stab of pain. Much easier to think that way. Otherwise, he might throw her over
his shoulder and caveman her out of the club until they were back at the hotel
where he’d lock
her in bathroom for the night with a pillow.
“How can I have known you for so long, known
everything, and known nothing at all? I…I
love you…but…” She buried her head
in her hands and sighed with a sadness that made him flinch.
“You can’t.”
He hadn’t meant the words to come out so harsh, but they
were out.
“I can’t?” Her head didn’t move.
His fingers tightened until he sensed
the pain overwhelming his joints and traveling all the way up his arms into his
neck.
“You can’t
accept this for me. I wouldn’t
ask you to embrace a monster. Sure, you may have loved a part of me, a fragment
that you’d built
in your head, but when have I ever been someone to love to anyone? I’m dark, twisted, and
fucked up. No one should carry me as a burden around their neck, least of all
you.”
“How dare you tell me what I feel and don’t feel!” Within a matter of
seconds, she’d
vaulted up from the stairs and was advancing on him, pushing him back into the
wall behind them with the calculated steps of a lioness stalking her prey. He’d never thought to see
all that deliberate, fiery passion unleashed on his account.
A quick flash of what it would be like
to subdue it beneath his hands made him choke on a small moan. He was
disgusting. Her eyes blazed despite the low light. The time for diffusing the
situation was clearly long past, and so he hugged the wall to keep from
reaching out, slamming her back into the opposite wall, and taking advantage of
all the emotions that were pouring out of her and onto his skin. He wanted to
bathe in her anger until her screams turned to soft pliant whimpers—and it was wrong.
Everything inside him knew it.
When a growl leaked out from between
his lips and he fisted his hands through his hair to keep from reaching out for
her, the implied threat did nothing to stop her progress. Their bodies pressed
close enough that he could smell the thin sheen of sweat that beaded along her
body.
“You were someone for me to love this morning.
Yesterday. The morning before that, hell, Sebastian, when you offered to be my
husband to give my mother a small bit of peace, you were as good as I’d ever seen you. Why
can’t you
understand that?”
“Because I forced you into that too, didn’t I?” He glared at her for
all he was worth.
“Will you just shut up?”
He repressed the barest curve of a
smile. That wasn’t
a first, but it was nice to know she could still put him in his place while they
were practically in each other’s
faces. Shit, he needed to focus. She was pissed while all he could think about
was shimmying her out of her little skirt, bending her over the banister, and
sliding into her wet heat until she screamed for him. Yet, he’d pretty much killed
any chance of that happening earlier. God, he was a mess.
“You’re
selfish, snide, always late, and you can’t clean a dish to save your life. You hate paying
bills and you always forget my birthday. But damn it, liking what you like
sexually doesn’t
make you a monster. You never had to do what you did with my mother. It’s not your job to make
her life easier or happier, so why can’t
I love you for it?” She
threw her hands up in the air, before snatching the back of his head.
Before he could gather himself, Izzy’s soft, warm lips were
pressed to his, and he was kissing her until nothing else registered. His arms
crashed around her until somehow they’d
switched positions. Her small hands molded to his chest shifting a wash of
goose bumps across his upper body until he shuddered beneath her touch. He took
her mouth with careless possession, bruising and plundering with his tongue
until they were both breathless. As if he was no longer in control, his mouth
slid down her neck, biting her rocketing pulse until she made a small noise in
the back of her throat. He liked that noise. He liked it a lot.
“Make it for me again,” he moaned against her flesh, and she shuddered,
pressed back against the gold leaf wallpaper.
His teeth clamped onto her shoulder
pressing down against her sweet flesh and her fingers dug into his shoulder
blades, nails pressing in until he knew he’d be marked for at least a few hours. The idea of it
nearly drove him to madness. When he drew back from her pure skin it was a
shiny red as his hand reached to grasp her breast. She pulled him closer,
inviting his oblivion. God, he’d
never known he wanted her so badly. And now it seemed he could barely want
anything else again. Their eyes locked for the briefest of seconds as he dove
his left hand into the cup of her tank top dragging out one of her gorgeous,
plump breasts from where it was hidden.
The sight of her partially dressed made
him forgot how to breathe.
“Please don’t
stop, Bash. Please don’t
stop.”
He dropped his hands as if she’d held a gun to his
head.
Stop, please. Please, stop. Stop.
Stop. Stop.
He shook his head, pressing his fingers
into his temples until he thought they might go through this skull.
Her blood dripped onto the broken
tile floor, tiny plinks that made him gag while he huddled in the corner. The
monster of a man still loomed over them. His shadow seemed to crawl up
Sebastian’s
body like a living thing that would infect him, make him evil, too. Each choppy
breath through his nose brought the tang of copper. No matter how hard he
closed his eyes, it kept happening—always—with no breaks.
“Please,” she whispered, voice hoarse from screaming. “Please, no more.”
Sebastian peeked through his
fingers. A bruise curved her cheekbone, her nose was bleeding, and she was
cradling her wrist to her chest, her arm hanging at a funny angle. The nasty
gash on her head wouldn’t
stop bleeding. It was an old one. But it kept reopening every time…a wash of adrenaline
made him clutch his stomach, clenching his teeth. No matter what he couldn’t draw attention to
himself—he’d learned that lesson
well over the past ten years.
Never make a sound. Never say a
word. Be invisible.
He couldn’t stop shaking while
the monster advanced cracking his knuckles. When the monster knelt down he couldn’t see his mother
anymore. The sharp crack of his palm connected and Sebastian flinched into
himself. At least, it was open palm—when he used his fist the noise crunched, not went
flat.
“You deserve this, don’t you, Addy?”
“Yes, I deserve this.”
“You like it. Tell me you like it.”
“I like it. I need it, baby. I need discipline.”
“Good. I only do it for you. Only for you.”
She wasn’t bleeding from five
different places. He would only stop when she was bleeding from five different
places because that was how many times he’d offended her today. Every day, it was something
new. Lessons. Their special little lessons, because the monster loved her and
wanted her to be her best.
Soon she’d stop crying and
accept it. Soon he’d
start.
Until next time my pets...be safe and play nice... Gray
