And now, without further ado......
Hiding the effects of his emotionally stunted youth behind a gritty persona, and keeping his fractured soul buried deep while seeking out his baser instincts, Asher is convinced he is man enough to leave the past in the past. The only clue to his broken soul is his deep-seated need to provide safety and a good life for emotionally damaged women within the glamorous walls of his strip club.
Fooling himself that he deserves little in life, Asher keeps his big heart tightly guarded with everyone but Sienna Flower, his friend, business partner, and headliner. Until, that is, the night he runs into his childhood friend, Natalie Parker. While trolling a rival strip club, perusing their offerings for his own personal pleasure, he collides with his past. Coming face-to-face with a woman he only knew as a girl, he’s shaken when he finds the dark-haired beauty in a precarious position. Now all grown up, she’s a hardened soul who reminds him of where he came from, and stirs within him the need to protect yet another woman.Known as Nat to most everyone, Natalie is a single mom to Quinn. But when she’s under the bright spotlights in a thong, she’s known as Natasha or Nataleigh Dallas. A girl who once had everything going for her, she’s now a jaded stripper with only room for her son in her life, and has erected impenetrable barriers around her heart. The strength of those walls is challenged the night a man she has known since childhood steamrolls his way back into her life, flashing those smoky-gray eyes that have always melted her. A man she has loved from afar since she was a young girl, one who lights fire to her walls, burning deeper, setting everything ablaze––smoldering her.
Asher and Natalie, two people who are equally tormented by their own demons, set out to rescue each other as part-time lovers in a torrid, desperate workplace affair. Thinking they can remain friends while keeping their hearts at a safe distance, they find themselves at odds when their situation morphs into a messy, tangled mess.
Ripping free of each other proves impossible as they learn that the very web that connects them goes much deeper than they ever expected.
EXCERPT:
Asher was nothing less than mouthwatering as he prowled toward me across the mostly empty floor of the club. I’d changed out of my evening’s attire and was wearing worn-in skinny jeans with a hole in the knee and a nondescript black halter covered with a gray wraparound sweater, so I felt underdressed compared to the man coming my way.
My boss was still wearing the precisely creased slacks he’d worn for work, his dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing a light smattering of blond chest hair and the very edge of his tattoo, a navy blue bolt of electricity inked over his chest for his one and only baby, the Electric Tunnel. But it was a sight to see, and I did enjoy licking it from top to bottom.
In the privacy of his office, that is.
His hair and goatee were equally mussed from his running his hands through them. Sadly, it was a behavior I knew all too well, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than dive in and make it even messier.
As usual, he was wearing motorcycle boots with his suit pants. He was a hot mess of a man––there was no one else remotely like him. Despite the layer of expensive designer clothing, he was pure bad boy underneath. He’d never ditch his boots, they were as ingrained in him as his past, which was why I should have been hightailing it right out of the place. Instead, I stood planted like a palm tree blowing in the wind, waiting for the storm to arrive, stuck in the ground as if there were nothing I could do to stop the blustery weather heading my way, threatening to topple me over.
The guy was a god, and I was nothing more than a stripper who was smitten with him.
As I ran my hands through my own long hair, my fingers sifted through the big waves running through it. I’d set it in hot rollers on my break for a bachelor party I ran earlier, yet now it didn’t seem like enough for Asher. He should get more than the leftovers of my evening at work. He deserved fresh curls and nice clothing, and perfume not mixed with another man’s cologne.
I wanted to be more in his eyes. Hadn’t I always?
My boss was still wearing the precisely creased slacks he’d worn for work, his dress shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, revealing a light smattering of blond chest hair and the very edge of his tattoo, a navy blue bolt of electricity inked over his chest for his one and only baby, the Electric Tunnel. But it was a sight to see, and I did enjoy licking it from top to bottom.
In the privacy of his office, that is.
His hair and goatee were equally mussed from his running his hands through them. Sadly, it was a behavior I knew all too well, and there was nothing I wanted to do more than dive in and make it even messier.
As usual, he was wearing motorcycle boots with his suit pants. He was a hot mess of a man––there was no one else remotely like him. Despite the layer of expensive designer clothing, he was pure bad boy underneath. He’d never ditch his boots, they were as ingrained in him as his past, which was why I should have been hightailing it right out of the place. Instead, I stood planted like a palm tree blowing in the wind, waiting for the storm to arrive, stuck in the ground as if there were nothing I could do to stop the blustery weather heading my way, threatening to topple me over.
The guy was a god, and I was nothing more than a stripper who was smitten with him.
As I ran my hands through my own long hair, my fingers sifted through the big waves running through it. I’d set it in hot rollers on my break for a bachelor party I ran earlier, yet now it didn’t seem like enough for Asher. He should get more than the leftovers of my evening at work. He deserved fresh curls and nice clothing, and perfume not mixed with another man’s cologne.
I wanted to be more in his eyes. Hadn’t I always?
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Rachel Blaufeld is a social worker/entrepreneur/blogger turned author. Fearless about sharing her opinion, Rachel captured the ear of stay-at-home and working moms on her blog, BacknGrooveMom, chronicling her adventures in parenting tweens and inventing a product, often at the same time. She has also blogged for The Huffington Post, Modern Mom, and StartupNation.
Turning her focus on her sometimes wild-and-crazy creative side, it only took Rachel two decades to do exactly what she wanted to do—write a fiction novel. Now she spends way too many hours in local coffee shops plotting her ideas. Her tales may all come with a side of angst and naughtiness, but end lusciously.
Rachel lives around the corner from her childhood home in Pennsylvania with her family and two dogs. Her obsessions include running, coffee, icing-filled doughnuts, antiheroes, and mighty fine epilogues.
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