Stay (Dunham series #2)
Page 39
Eric shook his head, completely exasperated. “They had this all figured out, didn’t they?”
“They think they’re very clever.”
Vanessa stared at him for quite a while, studying him. She reached out, laid her palm gently on his face, caressed his cheek with her thumb.
“What?”
She flashed him a smile of unabashed joy, her turquoise eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You’re going to come home with me tonight and you aren’t going to leave me.”
He watched her and remembered far back in the past when a little girl had looked at him with hope and pleading. Then, she had wanted a kiss on the cheek, maybe on the lips. Now, tonight, she wanted—
“I’ll never walk away from you again, Vanessa,” he whispered, vowed, there in the middle of their church. “I’m here.” He pressed a soft kiss of promise against her lips. “To stay.”
* * * * *
More?
theproviso.com
&
theproviso.com/stay
for vignettes, outtakes, faqs, stats, and more
on all the characters from The Proviso and Stay.
* * * * *
THE PROVISO
Book 1 in the Tales of Dunham
Giselle Cox & Bryce Kenard
Sebastian Taight & Eilis Logan
Knox Hilliard & Justice McKinley
Knox Hilliard’s uncle murdered his father to marry his mother
and take control of the family company.
Now, he and his cousins Sebastian and Giselle
are on a quest for justice and to restore Knox’s inheritance to him.
None of them expect to find love along the way.
Available in print and digital at b10mediaworx.com.
* * * * *
MAGDALENE
Book 3 in the Tales of Dunham
Mitch Hollander & Cassie St. James
A MORMON BISHOP
AN EX-PROSTITUTE
A MAN WITH A VENDETTA
Coming April 24, 2011
MAY 2007
I didn’t go into prostitution because I was desperate; I did it because I was bored: Bored of my hausfrau existence, bored of my husband both in bed and out, bored of my ingrate daughters who don’t (yet) understand what it means to be the sacrificial lamb in the nuclear family setup and that being a wife and mother can be its own category of prostitution. They will. And I’ll laugh.
I was never the stereotypical whore with a heart of gold, which seems to be used as point and counterpoint: If you’re pure in heart, being a whore is tolerable, forgivable even; if you’re just a mercenary bitch who likes sex and, moreover, getting paid for it, it’s the unforgivable sin. Ultimately, however, I had to choose my clients on their ability to pay my exorbitant prices and leave the good sex to my carefully selected lovers.
I didn’t quit prostitution for some sort of wish fulfillment of born-again virginity; I quit because I was bored. Fucking for money involves a certain amount of acting ability and while I’m a very good actress (thus, a very good whore), it takes some amount of concentration that is not usually conducive to having a real orgasm.
With a healthy bank account, one ex-husband whose current partner sports genitalia similar to his, four grown daughters, and my forty-third birthday on the horizon with professional ennui setting in, I had to find something else to do . . .
* * * * *
About the Author
Since before Moriah can remember, she wrote stories in her head to put herself to sleep at night. Unfortunately, they grew like kudzu and took over her neural path-ways until, around age fourteen, she had to start putting them on paper before they choked out everything else. She’s been writing ever since, with the exception of a five-year sagging middle—er, uh, hiatus—during which a lot of stuff happened. The trouble started when she woke up one morning in 2007 with the solution to a plot problem that had plagued her since 1995 . . .
moriah@moriahjovan.com
www.moriahjovan.com
www.twitter.com/MoriahJovan