Before We Fall releases on 12/3. But...Courtney Cole is giving you the opportunity to meet that book's hero, Dominic in her free novella, Until We Burn. And I have Chapter Two for you today.
Dominic Kinkaide does bad, bad things.As a 24-year old actor with the world on a string, not many women tell Dominic no.
In a life where no doesn’t exist, he stretches the boundaries between what is right, what is wrong and what is downright depraved.
Dark and damaged, Dom wants no commitments. He wants no attachments. He only wants to disappear into the taboo, into a place where he feels something.
Anything.
But when the aching need to disappear into the darkness is the only thing he has left, Dominic flounders. In a world that is hollow and sexual, without a guiding light or a reason to breathe, Dominic is lost and broken.
He knows he’ll never be fixed.
So he makes a decision.
If he’s going to hell, he might as well make it worth it.
Chapter Two
I duck in the
back of my favorite restaurant, Providence, and make my way to my regular
table. It’s in the back, in the shadows,
and that’s just the way I like it.
I’m different
from most of the people I know who eat here. Most celebrities like to make an
entrance through the front because they enjoy how the fans rush up to them,
surrounding them with pleas for autographs or pictures.
Not me.
That’s never
been me.
I’ve barely
slid into my booth before a waitress slinks over to me, her bright green eyes
lighting up as she sees me.
“Dominic,” she
exclaims, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and squeezing. I grin up at her, genuinely pleased to see
her. Since she’s one of the only women
who have ever turned me down, I shouldn’t be so partial to her.
But that’s not
the case. I actually like her.
“Hey
Alex.”
She glances
around me. “Where’s Miss Ashby? Should I watch for her?”
I shake my
head, remembering how I spent most of the night tied up in silk cords and
getting my ass beat by her. She’d
slipped out of my house before nine a.m.
“Nope. She’s at work today. I’m here on my own.”
“Just the way
I like it,” Alex announces smirking. She
sits across the table from me, comfortable now that she knows Amy isn’t
coming. “How are things? I haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks.”
I shrug. “I’ve been busy. Just wrapped production, and I have a couple
of weeks before the next film starts.
I’m thinking about going to my brother’s for a weekend or so. It’d be nice to go home for a few days.”
Alex shakes
her head. “You know that your family has
been blessed by the Gods, right? I mean,
you’re gorgeous, sexy as hell and you’ve got the freaking world on a string,
Dominic. Your brothers are in the most
famous band in the world and so you’ve got a built-in soundtrack to your life
if you want it.”
I have to
laugh at that. “Oh really? You think that the Devil’s Own will just stop
what they’re doing and write some songs for me?
Not hardly. I love my brothers,
but Sin and Duncan aren’t going to interrupt a tour schedule just for me. But you’re right. I’ve been blessed and I
need to remember that.”
I pick up my
menu, even though I know exactly what it says.
As I peruse the food offering, Alex stares at me, her brow
furrowed.
“What’s going
on with you, dude? You don’t seem like
yourself. You seem…off.”
I laugh again.
“I am off. I’ve been off for a long time, but nothing’s
wrong. I’m just feeling a bit
tired. I think going home to Chicago
will be good for me. It’ll recharge my batteries, so to speak.”
Alex continues
to examine me, her head cocked. “Okay.
If you say so. But if you want anyone to
talk to someone who won’t just tell you what you want to hear, you know you can
talk to me. I’m not concerned with
sleeping with you, so I’ll always be honest with you.”
“You’ve got
that right,” I tell her wryly. “You’ve never been concerned with sleeping with
me.”
She taps her
wedding ring. “Sorry, dude. You’re hot and all, but I’m one of the few
out there who believes that marriage is sacred.
Well, there are only a few here in LA. I’m sure that there are plenty
more like me out in the real world. But
us Angelinos are a different breed.”
“True story,”
I agree. “I’ll have the fish tacos.” I
fold up the menu and hand it to her.
“Thanks, Alex.”
And by thanks, I mean for offering to listen
to me. I do appreciate it. She’s one of the few decent people I’ve met
out here.
“Sure thing.”
She trots off
to the kitchen and I’m left alone once again.
But only for a
few minutes.
The hostess, a
bleached blonde Barbie-type makes her way over to me a short time later, trying
to act casual but I feel sure that she’d bee-lined her way to me as soon as she
saw that I was here. She always does.
“Dominic,” she
purrs, snaking her skinny arm around my shoulders. Unlike when Alex did it, I’m not enjoying
this girl’s touch. I shrug out of her
grasp.
“Hi,” I answer
coolly.
I’m not trying
to be rude, but she’s always annoyed me. She’s an opportunist. She’s trying to make it in the acting world
and I know she’d probably take down her own grandmother to get a leg up. Given how poor her acting skills are when
she pretends to be casual around me, I don’t think she should quit her day
job.
“So, are you
alone?” she asks bluntly, her lips almost grazing my ear. “Because I’ve got something important to
discuss with you.”
I arch an
eyebrow. “Oh, really? And that is?”
She whispers
into my ear. “I’m not supposed to
discuss this kind of thing here, but I have a question about the industry.”
And by industry, she of course means the
acting world.
I sigh.
“Okay, shoot,”
I tell her.
“How can I go
about getting your agent?” she asks
seriously, her eyes burning into mine with intensity.
“Tally?” I ask
in surprise. “He’s got a waiting list
ten miles long. He was a friend of my
father’s and that’s the only reason why he took me on a few years back.”
She stares at
me dubiously. “So there’s no way whatsoever that I could get you to put a good
word in for me?”
There’s a
light in her eyes now, a particular sexual light that I’ve seen in a thousand
women’s eyes. I stare back, unfazed.
“Probably
not.”
“Nothing I can
do?” she asks again, her hands trailing from my shoulders down my back and
wrapping around to my lap, lightly tracing my crotch. “Can I try?”
I roll my eyes. “Go for it.”
The hostess
glances around, sees that no one is near, and immediately drops to her knees
and crawls under the table. I’m startled
for a mere second, then as her deft hands unfasten my pants and stroke at me, I
allow all cognitive thought to leave my mind.
When her mouth replaces her hands, logical thought disappears and I
close my eyes.
Her hands are
cold as she cups my balls, but her lips are warm.
Her breath is
hot.
And her tongue
teases the tip of my dick.
I fight back
the urge to moan. She’s hidden by the
tablecloth, so it would look odd if anyone happened to notice me moaning to
myself in the middle of a restaurant.
Christ. I despise women like this, but at the same
time, I can’t dismiss their merit. It’s
nice to get blown in the middle of the day, in the middle of Providence.
Sometimes, it
pays to be Dominic Kinkaide.
“Hey, Melanie
hasn’t bothered you yet, has she?” Alex demands, appearing out of nowhere. My eyes snap open and I fight to act normal,
which is hard since a very key part of me is buried in Melanie’s throat at this
very minute.
Melanie
tightens her grasp on my balls, as she’s perfectly able to hear every word that
Alex says.
“Yeah. Stupid chick keeps wanting to assault you…
get you to help her out. Just ignore
her, Dominic. She’s ridiculous. I have
better acting skills than she does. And I’m not an actor.”
Melanie’s
claws grip me tighter and I grimace.
“No, I haven’t
seen her,” I lie to Alex, praying that Alex doesn’t decide to sit down and chat
again.
“Good,” she
says in satisfaction. “I told her to leave you alone. I guess she listened to me for once. If she bothers you, let me know.”
“She’s not a
bother,” I assure Alex. Because she’s
not…right now. Alex nods.
“Your food
will be up in a second,” she tells me before walking away.
After she
leaves, Melanie finishes sucking me off in record time and climbs back out from
under the table, wiping her mouth daintily.
“That chick is
a bitch,” Melanie growls to me. “She has
no idea what kind of talent I have. But
you do. Now. Can you please put in a word with Tally for
me?”
She stares at
me, her hard eyes turning soft for just a brief minute, long enough to give me
a glimpse into her life. She’s
vulnerable and insecure beneath her hard surface. Just another reason why she shouldn’t be in
my world.
Girls like her
get eaten up and spit out.
“Sure,” I tell
her. “I’ll say something to him.”
Lie.
But Melanie
takes me at my word and bends to squeeze my shoulders once again. She walks away and I watch her hips swish as
she goes.
She’s barely
out of my sight when Alex returns with my lunch, switching one service
(Melanie’s blow job) for another: my lunch.
It’s how my
life works.
Everything is
easy. Everyone strives to please
me. Everything is just so fucking
smooth. Now.
It wasn’t always that way, of course, but the past is the past. I don’t dwell on it. In fact, I do everything I can to forget it.
For a second,
I wrap my fingers around the necklace in my pocket, the one thing I allow
myself to have from my previous life. It
serves as a constant reminder for me.
To never trust
anyone again.
I release the
pendant and grip my fork instead, chewing each bite of food efficiently and
quickly, returning to the Dominic Kinkaide that the world knows and loves.
Mysterious,
detached, sexy.
Those are
words that have often been used to describe me.
But the one word that suits me most of all has never been uttered, never
even been hinted at… because no one knows.
That word is
broken.
The Serialization Schedule
November 5-Natasha is a Book
Junkie
November 7-The Bookish Babe
November 12-Vilma's Book Blog
November 14-Scandalicious Book
Reviews
November 19-Three Chicks & Their
Books
November 21-Romance Addict
November 26-I Love Indie Books
November 28-Maryse's Book Blog
(click on cover for GoodReads page)
About the author:
Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. She loves chocolate and roller coasters and hates waiting and rude people.
Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo.
