Hey everyone! Hope you’re all excited for Valentine’s Day, when I release this short story/novella And With Madness Comes the Light (Experiment in Terror #6.5). To refresh you, the novella takes place after Lying Season and before Into the Hollow. It’s basically Dex’s POV of the events before he brought Perry to Roman.
You ready? Here we go:
There hadn’t been anyone in the bar who remotely caught my eye until I went to the ATM to get more money out. The damn machine was taking forever and had the nerve to charge me a four dollar transaction fee. I was ready to throttle the thing until I turned around and saw an interesting face looking back at me.
She was tall, maybe my height (damn my height!), with long, wavy red hair and matching lipstick. Her eyes were glazed like she’d just been fucked and fucked good, and her lips were held in a half snarl, as if she was about to blow cigarette smoke in my face.
“Sorry,” I apologized. I didn’t know why I apologized since I hadn’t run into her or anything, but then I found my eyes focusing on her amazing rack that pulled her thin white tank top tight across her chest. Her nipples had made themselves known, speaking to me, whispering “bite me.”
I rarely got caught with my eyes where they shouldn’t be so I quickly averted my eyes back to hers. It was hard to tell in the bar, but they could have been a dark blue. They were nasty looking, like she was going to eat me alive and enjoy every crunch. I liked that.
I liked it a lot. I had a boner in two second flat and was hard as fuck, straining against my pants. Part of me wanted to feel embarrassed, the other part wanted to rub it up and down on her while I rejoiced that I had finally gotten a hard-on over someone other than Perry. I finally found a woman’s proverbial dick to suck.
I needed a better saying.
“Are you with the band?” the woman asked in a low, husky voice. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. She had a nice pink tongue that probably matched the rest of her nice pink bits.
I smirked at her. “These fucks? No.”
She smiled back, totally bitchy, totally hot. “Well, I am. I guess I’m one of these fucks, too.”
Oh mama. I loved the way her lips looked when she said fuck. I loved the way her eyes looked when she said it, too. She wanted some of this, and judging by the heat I was packing in my pants, I couldn’t blame her.
“What were you saying about fucking?” I asked, taking a step toward her. I wasn’t normally so forward, but I obviously didn’t have any blood left in my head.
She grinned and touched my shirt. “I asked because you have an eyebrow ring and a shirt that looks like it used to fit you in the ‘90s. I didn’t say anything about fucking, but now that the card is on the table, maybe you can prove to be more manly than you look.”
I grinned right back at her, my eyes drifting over her shoulder and toward the bathroom door. Nailing someone in the bathroom of a grungy metal bar was probably one of the grossest, dirtiest things you could do. But I felt like bathing in dirt after being so clean for the last month.
“Can I buy you a drink?” I asked her, remembering my manners before I got carried away.
She put her hand on my chest and slid it down until it reached the waistband of my boxer briefs. I don’t know why I was worried about being dirty when I’d only last a couple of minutes tops.
“I’m good,” she said slowly. “But you go get yourself one. I’ll just be in the women’s washroom, right over there.”
Message was received loud and clear. I watched her sashay her tight little jean-clad ass over to the washroom and disappear inside. I had maybe two minutes before I would join her and suddenly I was nervous as fuck.
I went over to the bar and got Clarissa’s attention long enough to order a shot of bourbon. After I put it back and tried to gather up my courage, which had somehow disappeared along with the blood in my brain, Dean appeared beside me.
“Saw you talking to that hot piece of ass,” he commented, leaning forward on his elbows.
“I guess you could call it talking,” I said, wishing I had another shot. I raised my hand for Clarissa and waited. “It was more like ‘let’s fuck,’ but not said as vaguely as that.”
“You know, I always thought you had a type,” he mused.
“What do you mean?” I asked as Clarissa filled up my shot glass again and down the hatch it went. What the hell was wrong with me? Even my erection was deflating, like I was losing all my nerve, like I was all talk and no show.
“Oh, the bitchy look. Like Jenn, like the redhead. Gorgeous and all that, but mean. You know, you can tell when a girl ain’t got no heart. And you like that. That’s why I was so surprised that you fell in love with Perry.”
I fell in love with Perry. I was in love with Perry.
“She was so sweet and cute and somewhat innocent. Not the girl who would screw you in a shithole. Not a girl who would ever hurt you on purpose. You know, she was nice. And well, you don’t like nice, Dex. You like bitches. You like to be treated like shit for some god damn reason, and I don’t know why. You don’t deserve it. But maybe you think you do.”
“Dean,” I said slowly, pushing my shot glass away from me. “Have you been listening to a lot of self-help tapes lately?”
“I’m just saying, man. It’s interesting. I feel like I’m finally cracking the Foray code.”
Time was ticking away. The redhead was still in the bathroom, probably waiting for the last chick to leave so she could barricade the door, avoiding the puddles of vomit and piss in her platform shoes. Was that really what I wanted? Now that I was called to act upon it, my dick argued against it. It didn’t give a fuck and I meant that literally. I wanted the easy bitch because it was safe and familiar. And let’s face it, I was horny as hell.
But that wasn’t me anymore. I’d seen the light. I wanted the girl who embodied it. I wanted to deserve her, to be the man she needed. And I’d do whatever I could to be that man.
I sighed and slapped a few bills on the table. I smacked Dean on the arm. “I’m going home, buddy.”
There’s a blog tour kick-off on the 16th at Reading Books Like a Boss and The Book Asylum. There’s also that Dex Book Boyfriend Prize Pack contest that YES is still going on (running it till V-Day).
Oh and here’s a nice press release about ME.