“You did all of that to wake me up?” I asked, indignation lacing my voice. Bending over, Eli gave me a swift kiss on the lips before saying, “It worked, didn’t it?”
I reached for the pillow next to me and threw it at Eli’s head. “You jerk!”
“C’mon, I’ll finish when we get back.” Eli winked at me. As I was about to throw another pillow at his stupid, teasing head, he leaned over and kissed me hard, his tongue diving into my mouth and claiming me. I gripped his shoulders as he pushed me deep into the mattress. I was breathless and gasping when Eli slowly released my lips. “I promise, Bug. I will finish you the way you deserve to be finished. You will be screaming my name when I’m done. You will beg me to stop. But right now I want to watch the sunrise. Have you ever watched the sunrise?”
“No-o,” I conceded, my breathing rocky from Eli’s dirty talk. “I’ve only seen the sunset.”
Eli clasped my hand and pulled me out of bed. “It can be another first for us.”
After throwing on another one of Eli’s shirts and a pair of shorts, we left the apartment while it was still dark out. All the usual sounds I associated with Santa Barbara and the beach were absent. The seagulls were sleeping, the children weren’t playing, and the cars were off. Only the crash of the waves could be heard as we approached the beach. It was peaceful, that is until Eli stopped suddenly.
“What?” I asked, feeling uneasy. Eli was staring at me with a look in his eye that I couldn’t quite place.
“I want us to sit here,” Eli explained.
“Okay…” I said, still not sure why he was looking at me the way he was. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Do you see where we are, Bug?” I looked around, expecting something to pop up and give me clarity. All I saw was the beach. Sure it was beautiful and serene, but it didn’t explain why Eli was looking at me so strangely. I shrugged at him, indicating I didn’t know what I was supposed to have noticed.
“Look up,” Eli said.
I did as I was told and upon seeing it asked, “A palm tree?” Eli had stopped our path directly beneath a palm tree. I was even more confused now than before.
Eli nodded, excited. “I know it’s not our sugar maple tree, but maybe it’s time we move on. The other day I went for a walk and I found this tree. It’s unique because it’s the only one for miles. It’s on the beach but not too close to the shore that we’ll get wet. And, it’s nearly halfway between our apartments. I know nothing can make up for our tree but—”
I lunged at Eli, cutting him off, and covered him in kisses. Just when I thought Eli couldn’t get any sweeter, he went and did something like this.
“So you like it?” Eli laughed, peeling me off his body.
“It’s one of the most amazing things you’ve ever done! Eli…” I broke off, tears of happiness clogging my throat. “I just…I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
“Gracie,” Eli whispered, stroking my cheek. “Gracie you deserve the world and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to give it to you. Starting with this tree. Come on, let’s sit.”
With our backs against the palm tree, Eli and I absorbed the morning. The beach was quiet with only the occasional early morning jogger sharing the sand. The sky faded from a deep indigo to a steel grey-blue as the sun rose from its depths. Though we were on the wrong side of the world to watch the sun rise over the ocean, there was something beautiful seeing the world spring to life slowly.
“What are you thinking?” Eli asked, pulling me closer to his warmth.
“I’m thinking about how much I love you,” I mused, digging my feet into the cool sand.
“Yeah?” Eli asked, hugging me closer to his body.
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“I love you too, Bug.”
Eli and I stayed under the palm tree even after the sun rose. We watched the beach go from deserted to teeming with families and surfers and girls laying out on their mats. The sun rose high in the clear blue sky, but we were shaded under our big palm tree. We hardly said a word to each other, both of us simply taking in the moment.
We stayed long after the families had packed up and the surfers had gone home. The sun started to drop into the ocean and stripes of orange and purple fell across the sky. Still our backs rested against the palm tree.
Eli pulled my palm into his own before looking into my eyes. “Sometimes, Gracie, I can’t believe my luck. This doesn’t feel real.”
“I know,” I said as the sun began its final descent into the darkening ocean. “I never thought we would end up here. I thought we would live and die beneath that sugar maple tree but this…this isn’t so bad.”
It was actually kind of perfect.
I know there are questions on many of your minds. Is there going to be more? Is that all we get to see of this world? As we end this second book of the Owned series, there are obviously some unanswered questions. For instance, what happened to Vera? Are Vic and Lenny going to get their happily ever after? Some of you want to know what happens to these couples.
Well, I have two more books planned for this series: a novella and a novel. Vera gets her own story, a novella. And Vic and Lenny are just too full to put into one story, or even two, so they get another book as well. The last book will be a novel written in Vic’s point of view.
Basically, I have much more planned for the people of Owned, so I hope you stick around!
As a thank you for hanging with me so far and reading about Lennox, Vic, Eli, Grace, Vera, Lissie, and Zoe, I’ve included the first chapter of the next book in the series, Tied. Bear in mind that this is unedited, pretty rough, and subject to change.
Tied is a novella told in the points of view of Vera and Charlie, the man Vic called to save her. You can find Tied in the charity anthology, Mouth Rocks the Heart, set to be released in February. Myself and 27 authors have written and compiled an anthology where all proceeds go to benefit research and awareness for women’s heart disease.
Chapter One
of Tied
Charlie
My fist collided with his jaw, the blood splattering like a Jackson Pollock painting across the wall. Six hours in and he still wasn’t talking.
“Is that the best you got?” He said, spitting out a blood covered tooth. I didn’t know the man’s name. I never asked for names, didn’t need them. They all bled the same regardless. What mattered was what the man said. He pissed off the wrong people and so he got to play with me.
Lucky guy.
I liked to warm them up; make them think that all I was gonna do was hit them. Crack a few ribs. Break a few bones. They got comfortable that way. They got cocky. They started to spit out insults and jibe, thinking that they could handle me and my blows. Because what’s a few broken bones?
Then they saw what I could really do and their smiles cracked. Their will broke, they sung like canaries.
I stepped around the chair he was tied to, hiding myself from view. The limp from my prosthetic was nearly invisible now. I’d worked hard to hide my weakness, but it still showed. It would probably always show, despite how hard I had worked to hide it. In my profession, any weakness could mean your death. I was missing a limb, that’s about as fucking weak as you could get.
“Too afraid to look me in the eye when you hit me?” The man gloated. “Just like your employer. Doesn’t even do his own dirty work, instead hires some cripple to do it.” I folded my arms, keeping silent at the slur. There was nothing he could do or say to rile me up. I’d heard it all.
Something about silence makes a person want to fill it. In some cases, silence is more effective than my fists. Keeping myself out of their eye line makes them uncomfortable. And people always talk when they’re uncomfortable. Case and point:
“Your boss is a fucking idiot. He thinks this is the only time I stole from him? I’ve been stealing for years!” The man laughed, a rough sound like dust caught in a chimney, which alerted me to the fact that he probably had fluid in hi
s lungs. Blood, maybe. “I’m not the only one neither. But does that matter? No. Fucker only cares about how he looks.”
Bingo.
I walked back around the chair, my face betraying nothing. He shimmied in his restraints. Maybe this guy would be easy. At first when I started working on him, I thought he’d be a tougher one to crack. They all crack, but some take longer than others. Now it appeared he might be easier than I’d thought. Tough, but stupid. I can work with stupid.
The thing about tough guys is that they’ll hold out until their last breath. It’s not about integrity, it’s about pride. Above all else, pride is my biggest enemy. Pride keeps tongues tied and mouths shut. Pride is the hardest thing to break.
People will trade their integrity for the slightest hope of freedom. They will sell their first born if it means life. But pride? That’ll keep the engine running long after the car has stopped.
I worried when I first started working on the guy that he wouldn’t crack easily; he’d shown himself to be tough and I didn’t want to spend the next couple of days in the damn warehouse. Was it so much to ask that my employer sprung for air conditioning?
Then the guy went and opened his yaw and out tumbled information. Maybe I’d get out of there at a reasonable hour. Stupidity was like striking gold. As I evaluated the best course of action to take with the idiot, my phone went off.
#
“What?” I barked in to the phone, not pleased with being interrupted. Only a few people had my number though, and even fewer that I actually gave a shit about.
“It’s Vic. I need a favor.” Vic Wall. I’d only worked with Vic Wall on a few assignments, but that was all it took for me to owe him big. It was my third—and last—assignment for GEM. We were in some bum fuck desert out in the Mid East doing some shit assery, when a bomb exploded and tore off my leg.
Vic is recon, meaning he isn’t in the shit. It was a three man job; me, Vic, and a green kid who didn’t know his ass from an AR-15. The intel was bad. At that time GEM was going through their own shit, some kinda hostile takeover or something, and us guys on the ground paid for it.
There’s not much you can do when the intel is bad, except pray to whatever god you believe in that there aren’t more bombs. Vic is the best recon man I know, and even he got fucked by GEM and their intel.
There aren’t many guys out there that would do what Vic did. Not in our business, anyway. To date, I’ve only met six others. Vic saw what happened, came running, and saved my life. Couldn’t save the leg, though, as that had been blown to bits. That green kid? He ran off to fuck knows where. Probably died. Would serve him right.
“You sure about that?” I said into the phone. “Last I checked you only got one favor, and you needed it bad.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Charlie.” Vic growled.
I laughed, the feeling like acid against my throat. “Who’s got your testicles in a vice grip?”
“There’s a girl. She’s gone missing.”
“And?” I thumbed the fabric of my shirt, stained with the man’s blood. “Girls go missing all the time.” The man I had tied up gave a small, whimpering sound. I kicked him in the leg. He yelped at the impact, but at least he shut up. Nothing like whimpering to distract you while you’re on the phone with an old…acquaintance.
“She’s important. Need her back.” Vic was never one for long conversations. Then again, neither was I.
“What’s her name?” I asked, curious as who was so important that Vic would cash in his one favor.
“I’ve sent you all relevant information to your burner email.”
“You sure you want to do this?” Vic hung up, not bothering to answer my question. I shrugged, sliding my phone back into my pocket. If he wanted to cash in his favor for some missing chick, be my guest. Makes no difference to me.
Blood crusted around my knuckles but I couldn’t tell you if it was mine or the man’s. The man was tough, but he would crack. A few more days with me and he would be singing songs louder than church boys. They always cracked. I didn’t have time to spend wailing on him anymore, though. Vic had cashed in his favor and that came first. I flicked off a piece of dried blood from my hand and smiled at him.
“It’s your lucky day.” He sagged at my words, relief visible in every muscle. I pulled out my .45 and it was over before he could register thought. The bullet flew through his eye, cut through his brain, and lodged in to the cement behind him.
I stuffed the gun back in to its holster and dialed for cleanup. As I left the warehouse, I glanced back at the limp body. A quick, clean death. Couldn’t get much luckier than that.
A book is rarely written by one person. For me, I had help and support from so many people I could probably write a separate book about them! First and foremost, thank you to my readers. I’m thankful to anyone who took time out of their day to read Grace and Eli’s story. I hope you enjoyed it.
Thank you to Caitlin Nelson with Editing by C. Marie for your wonderful and thorough job editing the book.
Thank you to Julie with JT Formatting for always making the book look as pretty as I hope the words are. I know I can be a royal pain in the ass so, from the bottom of my inky black heart, thank you!
Thank you to my betas, who read this before it was even remotely presentable, but gave me great feedback anyway: Phala with Aaly and the Books, Amanda Lee with Disheveled Book Blog, Caryn Renae, Eileen Robinson, and Dayna. You gals are great.
Liz Wiley, you’re more than my beta. You’re my friend you’re my personal assistant, and you’re my cheerleader. You read You Own Me when it was riddled with typos and errors, and you saw it for what it could be! You push me to be better. You made me see The Owned series. I love you and am so grateful I met you in Las Vegas.
I am also so grateful for everyone in the book world who has helped me! From blogs to authors to readers, unfortunately there are way too many to name. Too many authors who have lent me a hand and showed me the ropes and too many bloggers who have shared my stuff. I am forever grateful to you. It’s so easy to see a new author and to shrug her off, but you didn’t. So thank you.
I’m especially grateful that I met Dayna, Kristen, and Joy in Vegas. You’ve proven to be wonderful friends and allies. I love your faces and I wish we didn’t live so far from each other. You are the best three people in the world.
Thank you Kristen Hope Mazzola, for being so friendly and so forthcoming with advice! You opened the door to a wonderful community and I am so grateful for that. Plus I love your face. Did I say that already?
Thank you also Staci Hart for letting me show you design after design of my book cover, even if the only thing I changed was a slight shadow in the corner. You are a rock stars and the reason the indie world is so great.
Thank you to all of the wonderful members in Get Hard! I’m so grateful to have you guys.
Thank you to my family. I have a wonderful family and extended family, but for now I’m only going to name those immediate to me: Mom, Dad, Garry, Peter, Megan, Sean, and Michelle. You all support me and make it easy for me to grow as a writer. I’m blessed every day to have you as a family.
Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you to my partner and best friend, Eric. You keep me grounded while still allowing me to soar. I love you and am so grateful to have you in my life.
Thanks for reading Let Me Go! This book was very near and dear to my heart. Though it’s maybe a bit lighter than the rest of the Owned canon, I felt Grace and Eli’s bittersweet love had to be told.
If you’re interested in more of my books, the next in the series, Tied, will be released February 14th, 2016 in the charity anthology, Mouth Rocks the Heart. All proceeds will go to benefit awareness and research for women’s heart disease! Not only will you get the Tied, but you will get 27 more novellas by 27 amazing authors for only 99 pennies. That’s 28 books all for a good cause for less than a cup of coffee!
I also have a standalone dark romance, Elastic Heart, set to be released in the
same month, February of 2016.
Owned Series
You Own Me: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QEJ5V46/
Let Me Go
Tied Coming February 2016 in Mouth Rocks the Heart
Untitled, Last Book Coming April 2016
To stay up to date on all of my books to connect with me, you can find me here:
Official Website: www.MaryGebhard.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marycgebhard
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaryCGebhard
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/marycgebhard/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/marycatherinegebhard
I have a serious addiction to social media, so you’re bound to catch me somewhere.
Thanks again!
Mary Catherine <3
Let Me Go (Owned Book 2) Page 25