Okay, I don't mean this to be maudlin, but just wanted you to know how very special this person we're here to honor is. That I was asked to participate in her birthday celebration makes me very happy indeed. Thanks for having me, Alannah (and Leagh!), and I hope and pray the new year brings only good things to you, Hubs, and your entire family. I hope we'll get to meet face-to-face this December while I'm in North Carolina!
Now, for those who don't know me (I've only been published for a year, so that's probably most of you), I write realistic Romances with BDSM themes. My debut books are in the Rescue me series, where the characters also go through a bit of hell in order to get to their happy endings. And then they may go through a little more hell in later books, because after 29 years of marriage, I know Happily Ever After is just the beginning—HEAs take maintenance. That's the realistic part. (But I assure you, the heroes are hot, the heroines are strong, and there are some fantasy elements going here, too!)
My series reads more like one long book with installments (happy endings, cliffhangers, recurring characters, etc.). The stories of the Doms at Denver's hot Masters at Arms Club are like a soap opera running in my head.
I also include realistic BDSM elements into my stories, because I got tired of hearing women say they couldn't find Doms like (name any of the Doms in a favorite fantasy BDSM series) at the clubs they went to. Clearly, they were looking for the fantasy Doms they were reading about in romance novels and those guys just don't exist (well, maybe with a few exceptions). Real-life Doms are human. They make mistakes. They screw up.
And so my imperfect Masters at Arms Club Doms were born. While heroic, protective, honorable Marines, these first three Doms each has issues they need to work on. But sometimes they need a strong heroine to help them get past their hurdles.
Readers first met them in the free introduction, Masters at Arms. As stated above, the books read like installments in one long book, so you have to read them in order to make sense of the stories and follow their progress. Even the romances of my couples can't be contained to a single book. For instance, Adam and Karla (Nobody's Hero #3) will actually begin their romance in Masters at Arms (Rescue Me #1) and continue their journey in Nobody's Angel (#2). Just forget what you know about how a Romance-novel series is supposed to work. I'm proudly self-published and don't have to answer to anyone's "tried-and-true" (but stale) rules about how a Romance novel should be written. I only have to answer to my characters and to tell their stories the way they want them told. (I do have content and line editors and many beta readers I listen to, though, who help me polish them, of course.) Based on the response I'm getting from my tens of thousands of fans, my readers find this approach to Romance writing very refreshing, too.
But first, you can download the entire first book for free, and also can find long excerpts of the beginnings of the next two at the various booksellers where my books are sold (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and All Romance eBooks). So I'd like to share the opening scene from the next book in the series, Nobody's Perfect (#4), due out Sept. 14 (and currently in final edits). This book has taken three times as long as the others to write, because Savi and I have a very strong connection and I often had to step away from the book to regroup. Nobody's Perfect touches on some very deep emotions and the incest and abuse from the past of Savannah Gentry (now Savi Baker), which was revealed in Section Two of Masters at Arms. Her story continued when she and Damian were reunited under tragic circumstances in Nobody's Hero. At last, I'm about to give readers the happy ending they've awaited for so long for this very wounded couple.
Warning, this story deals with a character surviving incest and sexual slavery.
Blurb:
Savannah Gentry, now Savi Baker, escaped the torture and degradation forced upon her by a sadistic father for eleven years and has made a safe life for herself and her daughter. When her father threatens her peace of mind—and her daughter's safety—Savi runs to Damián Orlando for protection. Their one day together eight years earlier changed both their lives and resulted in a secret she can no longer hide. But being with Damián reawakens feelings she wants buried—and stirs up an onslaught of disturbing flashbacks that leave her shaken to the core with little hope of ever being a sexual being again.
Damián has his own dragons to fight, but has never forgotten the one perfect day he spent with Savannah in a cave at the beach. He will go to the ends of the earth to protect Savi and her daughter, but can never be the whole man she deserves after a firefight in Iraq. Besides, the trauma of war and resulting PTSD has led him to find his place as the Masters at Arms Club's favorite sadist. Savi needs someone gentle and loving, not the broken man he has become. But he sees that the lifestyle he's come to embrace also can help Savi regain control of her life and sexuality. How can he not help redirect her negative thoughts and actions if she needs him?
Prologue: Nobody's Perfect
Savi Baker circled another job listing in the Classifieds as
Christmas carols played in the background. Office
clerk. After all her years of college and clinicals, she had finally
achieved her dream of working as a social worker with young abuse victims. Work
that had ended abruptly a week ago.
She still didn't know why she'd been fired. Her supervisor
seemed equally confused, so it couldn't have been because her daughter, Mari,
had been sick with the flu a couple weeks before that. Everyone at the clinic
was supportive of her being a single mother, and her friend, Anita, had stayed
with Mari during that time so Savi had only been off work two days.
Her supervisor had encouraged Savi to submit an appeal to
the state agency responsible for the termination, which she'd done immediately.
Was she fired because of the complaint the clinic had received from the mother
of one of Savi's new clients? The woman accused Savi of being indifferent to
her daughter, but Savi thought she and her supervisor had succeeded in
explaining to the mother that this wasn't the case at all. However, with the
highly charged emotions in situations like this, Savi had to remain
professional, objective, and somewhat aloof. In the end, the child's mother had
hugged her, sobbing. The mother had said she understood and Savi had thought
that was the end of it. Maybe not.
Oh, what difference did the reason for her firing make? It
could take months or even years to get reinstated; unraveling bureaucracy took
time. She didn't have a huge savings—or time. Her immediate concern was finding
a way to support her daughter and herself until she got another job in the
mental-health field—if that was even possible—or until she got her old job
back.
Savi opened her mini laptop to update her résumé and write a
cover letter before Mari got home from practicing for the children's pageant at
church. Two weeks till Christmas and no job. At least Savi had learned long ago
to budget her spending, so there were some special gifts tucked away on the
upper shelf in her closet that would help make this Christmas special. She just
wouldn't be able to do as much of the baking and gift-giving she liked to do.
Absorbed in rewriting her résumé, she jumped when the
doorbell interrupted her. She looked at the clock on her desk. Too early for
Mari to be dropped off—unless something had happened. Heart hammering, Savi
nearly ran to the front door and opened it, expecting to see one of the youth
leaders from the church group.
Lyle.
She gasped, nearly choking as bile rose in her throat. Stupid! Why hadn't she glanced through the
peephole first? She tried to close the door in his face, but he had wedged
his foot into the doorway, preventing her.
"What kind of greeting is that for an old friend,
Savannah?"
Not a friend. Enemy.
Savi placed her bare foot against the back of the door to keep him from opening
it any further. She tried to fill her lungs with much-needed air. Dangerous. She needed to get rid of him.
He could hurt Mari.
She fought to force the door closed, but gained no ground.
"What do you want?"
"Let me inside and we'll talk."
"You're not coming in. Leave before I call the
police!"
He narrowed his eyes into slits and fear crawled up Savi's
spine for the first time in eight years. Vile
man. Could she fight him off?
"Open this door, you dirty slut, or you and Marisol
will regret this pathetic show of bravery."
Marisol. He knew
her name. Did he know where she was? Oh,
God, she prayed. Don't let Mari come
home early. Where was Father? Had he gone after Mari while Lyle was here
with her?
"I'm not letting you inside my…"
Without warning, Lyle leaned back then rammed his body full
force into the door, sending the edge of the wood into Savi's cheek. She
hurtled backward until she lay sprawled on the floor, looking up at him. His
navy-blue dress pants and wingtip shoes made her shudder as a distant memory
tried to smother her efforts to regain her breath, but she tamped it back down.
The angry man towered over her.
"Ah, just where a slut like you belongs, Savannah—at my
feet." He reached for her. "Let me hear you scream, for old-times
sake, you filthy whore."
No! Memories of
the night he'd placed her father's brand on her could never be erased, no
matter how many times she'd tried. Neither could any of the degrading things he
and Lyle had subjected her to at her father's orders. She got onto all fours
and scrambled to get away, sliding on the waxed floor. Lyle's wingtip shoe
gouged into her left side. The air whooshed from her lungs and she gasped,
fighting for her next breath.
"Your father asked me to bring you and your brat to
him. But we're going to enjoy a little playtime first. What your father doesn't
know…"
Another blow struck her side near the same place and panic
set in as her breathing became labored.
Breathe!
Maman, help me. Give
me the strength to fight him off.
Savi pulled herself up using the hallway table and tried to
breathe again. She turned to find Lyle smirking at her. Bastard. Picking up a brass candlestick from the table, she swung
it at his head, striking a blow she hoped had left him more than just stunned.
Not waiting for him to recover, she followed up by kicking him in the groin. He
doubled over and fell to the floor. He lay moaning, holding his privates as
blood trickled onto her floor, when she remembered how to cut off the blood
flow to the brain. She'd learned the technique from a veteran female Marine who
had studied with her in college.
Savi cringed as her finger touched his neck, hating to place
her hands anywhere on him, but finally found the point she sought and
pressed—hard. She counted. By thirty seconds, Lyle's body grew even more limp.
Escape! Now!
Running to the kitchen, she grabbed her purse and keys and
stumbled out the back door. A black BMW sat parked behind her little blue
Nissan. She glanced back at her bungalow. Her home, but no longer her safe
place.
No sign of Lyle yet, but he wouldn't be unconscious forever.
Breathing had become a struggle, but she refused to escape inside her head to
that numb place where she could dull the pain. Mari needed her to stay in the
moment.
Mari needed her. Period.
She filled her lungs with as much air as she could stand and
held her breath. Oh dear lord. Why
couldn't she breathe? She pressed her hand to her chest and tucked her elbow
against her left side, near where Lyle had kicked her repeatedly. Was something
broken?
How had her father and his partner found her after all these
years? She'd changed her name, her looks, everything she could in order to keep
from being found. No way would she ever let them anywhere near her daughter to
do any of the things they'd done to her when she had been under her father's
control. In some ways, while Lyle had only been her handler, he was more
sadistic than her father. Lyle had been the one to place her father's shameful
mark on her. He'd enjoyed hearing her scream and often inflicted even more pain
than what her father had ordered.
She opened the car door, got behind the steering wheel, and
turned the key in the ignition. She couldn't zone out now. She needed to get to
San Miguel's…to Mari.
Then what?
The image of Damián Orlando in her office, comforting
Teresa, his niece and her former client, and of him later, standing over the
inert body of the girl's rapist father last month alternated before her eyes.
No. She could
never go to him. He was dangerous in a totally different way from Lyle and her
father—but still oh so dangerous.
Click HERE for the available Rescue Me Series books
