I click on the article:
Body of young man, now identified as Rick Matthews, washed up on the San Francisco bay. It is believed he jumped from the Golden Gate bridge without being noticed and drifted for days until washing ashore.
Family members say he had been acting erratically in the months before disappearing and left cryptic messages before heading to San Francisco.
That’s all Rick got, a few lines in the San Francisco Chronicle online.
I sit back and take in the news as a few tears trickle down my cheeks. He did it.
He. Who is he? Did Rick end his own life instead of leaving the country? Or did Taylor decide the risk was too great? I am sad, but it’s a dull sadness. I have already mourned Rick. He died to me in that cottage in the woods on my wedding day.
I find Taylor resting in the hot tub. I slip off my cotton robe, revealing my naked body as I slide into with him. He opens his eyes and notices immediately that I am upset.
“What’s wrong?”
“They found Rick’s body. They say he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Oh? That’s unfortunate,” Taylor says flatly. “I am sorry. I know he was important to you.”
“He was, but he wasn’t the person I knew. He became someone else.”
“Yes. Apparently, he couldn’t live with that either.”
“Taylor…”
“Yes?”
“You said if he didn’t leave or ever returned, he wouldn’t be safe.”
Taylor kisses me softly and brushes some hair out of my face. “Before you ask a question, make sure you are prepared to hear the answer.”
I climb on top of Taylor, straddling him as the steam rises from the tub and moistens our golden sun-kissed skin. “Then, I don’t even have to ask. Do I?”
“I’m not sorry.”
“I know you’re not. But I understand now in a way I didn’t then. There is one final loose end. And I want that one.”
Taylor smirks. “In due time. These things require patience sometimes.”
Taylor grabs my ass and stands, water cascades from our hot bodies as he carries me to the ledge of the hot tub, seating me on it. Then he grabs my wrists, lightly bruised from Nan clenching them as I choked her, and kisses each mark.
Taylor softly lays me back and peppers my stomach with light kisses as he works his way down. “Time for breakfast,” he says, with that fucking gorgeous crooked grin of his.
I once wondered if we could ever truly be happy with the burdens of our secrets. I naively thought that Taylor and I might be able to break the cycle, but secrets only beget more secrets. And unless we are willing to put them all out there, and in the process destroy ourselves for some sort of redemption, well then, those secrets will need to stay guarded. And yes, our children may have to carry them as well. But aren’t we all born with some sort of burden to carry? Besides, they’ll be Holdens, they can handle it. And I’m no martyr. I just want to live my life with Taylor.
Maybe having some secrets isn’t so bad, perhaps they are the glue that forms unbreakable bonds, the bricks that build character, the pain that makes happiness so much sweeter. It’s the secrets that lie in the spaces between what the world sees that builds a love like the love I share with Taylor. Without them, we wouldn’t be forced to confront and expose the deepest parts of our souls to each other. We wouldn’t have trials that are so challenging, they forge unbreakable bonds the way heat does to steel.
Someone who I care about very much once told me guilt is a wasted emotion, and I am now inclined to believe he was right.
I no longer live in fear, because I am on the winning team. And if you get in our path, we will plow over you like you were never even there.
Yes, our love is a tragic love—but not for us. Just for anyone who gets in our way.
Epilogue
“Come here, little Ruby,” I say, picking up the cherubic blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl from her playpen. “You are so special. Give me a kiss!” I say, pretending to munch on her cheek as she giggles. “Come on, let’s go say hi,” I say, slowly opening to the door to the bedroom, and plopping on the bed next to Taylor. “Wake up, Mr. Holden,” I whisper into his ear.
He rolls over and rubs his eyes, grabbing his phone from the nightstand. “Six in the morning. Tell me you have a perfectly good reason for waking me up this early on a Saturday.”
“Ruby wants to say hi to uncle Taylor,” I say with an mischievous smirk.
“Cover her ears.” I do. “Please explain to me why my two extremely wealthy friends, who I pay handsomely, who could easily afford a nanny, have us babysitting their freakishly doll-like daughter?”
“Because Lizzy is a bit neurotic about Ruby, and she and Henry need a break, but she won’t leave her overnight with anyone but us. This is what friends do for each other. Aaaaand, think of this as a trial run. If once the weekend is over, we are dying to punt her back into Lizzy’s arms, then maybe we just get a puppy.”
“A puppy is sounding really amazing right now. We are up to our eyeballs in nieces and nephews. Hope is about to pop another one out.”
“Yup, all the fun, none of the emergency room visits and shitty school plays.”
“You also can’t say words like shitty in front of babies, I am almost certain about that,” Taylor says.
I uncover Ruby’s ears. “That might just be the deciding factor. Give him kiss, Ruby!” I say in a baby voice. Ruby crawls over to Taylor.
“Okay, okay,” he says crunching up to meet her halfway. She lays a drunken baby kiss on his cheek. “I have to admit, that was kind of warm and fuzzy.”
“See? They are genetically engineered to get to even the blackest of hearts.” I say poking at Taylor’s chest. “Anyway, since I am up early, I was thinking of taking Ruby to visit the studio quick. All of Tallulah Weston-Troy’s stuff will be coming in today and be going up this week.”
“I am so excited for you. She’s a huge name. You are going to get some big buyers.”
“She’s fucking nuts, but her work is brilliant.”
“Baby ears.”
“Oh shit.”
“We are going to be returning a very tainted child to Lizzy and Henry.”
“Oops.”
“Oh, my father wanted to know if it was okay to bring his new girlfriend to the opening. I figured the answer was yes.”
“New girlfriend? Atta boy, Randall. Of course! He doesn’t even have to ask.”
Nan died a few months ago in a very tragic freak horse-riding accident. She was mangled. Shortly after her death, as we were helping clean out her things, I came upon a box of research about cadmium poisoning. Randall was pretty devastated, and he will always be sick, but he was able to get the proper treatment for his ailments. And it appears he is now back on the dating wagon. Good for him!
By the way, Taylor and I make a GREAT team. Wink.
“I’m going to feed this little potato bug,” I say, coming to my feet. “Speaking of your dad, we’re going boating at the lake in a couple of weeks, right?”
“Yup,” Taylor says, stretching out his limbs.
“You thinking what I’m thinking, Red?”
“I thought that was a given. There are about forty non-baby ear approved things I want to say to you right now. The things that are going to be going down in that mansion are probably illegal in forty states. You better strap on that raven mask tight.”
I bite my lip as a myriad of naughty thoughts enter my mind. “Maaaaybe Ruby can play in the play pen for a little longer while we conference about this important meeting?”
“Did you even have to ask?” He says.
I put Ruby back in the playpen and run back into the room, ripping off my nightshirt as I kneel on the bed in front of Taylor.
“Well, this is one thing we can put to the test,” he whispers; “will we have adequate fucking time with one of those things in the house?”
“Things?” I laugh. “Maybe we should stick to puppies.”
“Although, I have to admit, the thought of fucking you with a full round stomach, ass, and swollen tits is really making me hard right now.”
“I could just eat a lot of donuts.”
“Let’s not get carried away here,” he says, pressing the palm of his hand against my mound, rubbing as I hum with pleasure. “The more I think about it though,” he says, sliding his fingers inside of me as he grips my neck with his other hand, “the more I want you all to myself. I like having your undivided attention, getting to fuck you whenever I want, if it’s in the office, on the floor of your gallery, the dining room table…” He grazes his teeth down my collarbone, and over the flesh of my breast, biting my nipple and tugging on it intermittently. “That’s right baby, cream for me. I want to taste it when I eat your pussy.”
“Whatever you want,” I whisper.
“I know,” Taylor says.
The End
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Have you read Nina’s standalone contemporary romance, Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel?
"Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel is officially on my top romance list for this year." - Danielle of This Redhead LOVES Books
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"Gorgeous, Sassy, Witty, Flirty, Ballsy and Smoking hot.....grab me a washcloth I am ready to give a bed bath!" - All Booked Out
He was a pig, a jerk, selfish, callous, crude, tactless, prone to outbursts and gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous where you didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that you were staring. I knew the type: His entire life he has coasted on his good looks, artificial charm, and sex appeal. Everyone wanted to be him or be ON him. I had been hurt by jerks like him before. He was like those guys but far worse.
I was the unfortunate sucker to be offered a gig I desperately needed as his live-in chef for a Summer in the Hamptons. But I wasn’t like the other girls--the models and socialites who came through the revolving door of his bedroom. I would bite the bullet, take the job, deal with his sexist comments, his expectation that I would fawn over him, and have no problem letting the door hit my ass on the way out when I was done with the gig.
Then something unexpected happened that changed everything and I realized that there may be more to him than the labels I had affixed to his character. Maybe.
But if he really wanted me, it wasn’t going to be easy, not like everything else in his life. He was going to have to work, I was going to make him miserable. He was going to hate wanting me just as much as I hated myself for wanting him back.
Heath Hillabrand: International Supermodel. Womanizer. Gorgeous, Rotten, Scoundrel.
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Newsletter
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Message from the Author
Thank you for going on this journey with Taylor and Shyla! I like to think Taylor and Shyla finally catch a break and continue to grow with each other, have tons of really filthy, kinky sex, and occasionally fuck up anyone who tries to ruin that for them. Not that I condone those things in real life. Well, the kinky sex and growing together part, I do.
I will miss these characters so much. They will always be my first; my twisted, naughty creations.
Special thanks to those who helped from the very beginning with Strapped and helped me dissect the book and put it all back together again: Meg, Cassie, and Desirée.
Tiffany Torres, thanks for continuing to keep me sane and letting me spoil everything for you as I use you as a sounding board.
Thank you Shanyn Clark Doan, not only for beta-ing this installment, but for seeing something in Strapped and encouraging me to not just write, but get off my ass and get as many people reading it as possible.
BJ, thank you for tolerating the hours of writing, and facebooking (including all the dick pics on my feed), and other author stuff at all hours of the day.
Thank you to Holden’s Hussies, my street team, for encouragement and continuing to spread the word about Taylor.
Special thanks to these blogs for helping me, all in different ways (in no particular order): The Book Harlots, We Love Kink, Wicked Women Book Blog, Fiona’s Book Reviews, The Lightning Room, Red Cheeks Reads, A Risqué Affair, Sassy Moms Say Read Romance, Eye Candy Bookstore, Butterflies, Books and Dreams, Panty Dropping BB, All About Books, ebook Korner Kafe (Korner Kafe Xposed), WTRFSOG, Southern Belle BB, Book Boyfriend Reviews, Scandalicious Book Reviews, Summer’s BB, and many more!
Until the next book!
OXOX- Nina G.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Follow Nina
Message from Author
unStrapped Page 35