To
celebrate the fact that All or Nothing is now available on
Amazon and in KU I’m sharing a second excerpt from the book. It only seems fair
to introduce you to Amber this time. (If you missed the post introducing
Hector, you can find him here.)
Blurb
If she’s not good enough
for all of him, she’d rather have none.
Forty-one-year-old Hector Kelly has lived the BDSM
lifestyle all his adult life, but the recent influx of inexperienced and
starry-eyed young women has killed its luster for him. When he reluctantly accompanies his best
friend to The Dark Cellar during an open night, he is not surprised when he has
to rescue a clueless young woman from a predatory Dom. Against his better
judgment, he spends the rest of the night showing the gorgeous Amber around the
club.
Until she entered The Dark Cellar,
twenty-one-year-old Amber Sommerville was convinced BDSM only existed between
the covers of her favorite romance novels. As Hector introduces her to this
unknown world, everything she sees awakens desires she’s never experienced
before.
The
attraction between Hector and Amber is as instant as it is undeniable. But with
an almost twenty-year age difference between them and Hector’s conviction that
Amber is too young both for him and to know whether or not she wants to submit,
their developing relationship remains purely vanilla—for the most part. When
Amber witnesses Hector in full Dom mode, she recognizes that he’s been holding
back and sets him an ultimatum: either he fully commits all of himself to their
relationship or she’ll leave. If Hector wants to hang on to the woman who has
captured his heart, he’ll have to reassess his preconceived notions.
Excerpt
“You’re
serious?” Amber knew her laugh sounded
nervous, but she couldn’t stop it from escaping her mouth. When the masked man
had first walked up to her and told her to kneel, she’d thought it was a joke,
orchestrated by her sister. It would have been just like Sinead and her mates
to do something like that. Now, she wasn’t so
sure. Whoever this was, he clearly expected her to kneel before him. He
was in for one hell of a disappointment.
“Very
serious. Did you really think you could walk into a BDSM club and not obey the
rules?” Anger or something very close to it vibrated off the man, and for the
first time since he’d approached her, Amber felt a stab of fear. Not that she’d
show him her feelings. She lifted her chin and relished the surprise she
thought she recognized on what she could see of his face when she looked him
straight in the eye.
“I’ve
no intention of kneeling for anyone, least of all you.” It took all her
strength not to flinch when he raised his hand. She’d no idea if he planned on
striking her or just wanted to force her to her knees.
“That’s
enough, Carlos.”
The
deep, calm voice coming from behind her
startled Amber. She wanted to turn around and discover who it belonged to, but knew she couldn’t afford to take her
eyes off the man in front of her.
Said
man in front of her—Carlos apparently—frowned for a moment, as if confused, as
he glanced over her shoulder. “Hector, this has nothing to do with you. Leave
us alone to sort this out.” The masked man returned his steely-eyed attention
to Amber.
“It
does when you’re determined to give all of us a bad name.” The warm voice
touched something deep in Amber. She was no damsel in distress and hated
relying on others, but she couldn’t help being grateful for the help. She’d no
idea what sort of trouble she’d gotten herself into. Which meant she didn’t
know how to get herself out of it either.
The
anger Amber’d thought she recognized in Carlos’s eyes transformed into fury,
and for the first time since he’d addressed her, he fully focused on somebody
other than her.
“Stay
out of this. I won’t tell you again. Who do you think you are? You disappear
for years, and then you presume you can tell me how to behave. Go back to
wherever you’ve been hiding and leave this to us real men.”
“Look
at her wrist, Carlos. You’re right. You shouldn’t need me to explain how this
works.”
Amber
glanced at her wrist and the white armband they’d told her to wear when she’d
entered the club with the other girls. Apparently, it wasn’t just proof of
admission.
“A
white armband. I know. I saw that immediately. Doesn’t mean the girl shouldn’t
know how to behave.”
Amber’s
temper rose. She didn’t enjoy being the subject of a conversation she didn’t
appear to have a role in. She opened her mouth, although she’d no idea what she
wanted to say, when the sonorous voice
behind her beat her to it.
“That’s
exactly what it means, Carlos. I don’t
like these open nights either, but that’s what this is, and as a result, most
people here right now don’t even know there are rules, never mind what they
might be. Leave the girl alone and find yourself an experienced submissive.”
Suddenly,
it all came together for Amber. Now, she understood why her sister—the bride to
be—and her friends had giggled as much as they had when they’d entered the
club. She’d read about submissives. She almost smiled but remembered the dicey
situation she found herself in just in time. She enjoyed reading about Doms and
those who submitted to them. She’d somehow failed to translate those works of
fiction into real possibilities. And she’d been slow on the uptake. After all
the books she’d read, she should have recognized this club for what it was—far
more than “just” a sexy nightclub.
Lost
in her thoughts, it took Amber a moment before she became aware of the staring
contest taking place between Carlos and the man behind her. The urge to turn
around and find out who he was had grown stronger, but she still didn’t want to
turn her back on the Dom in front of her. When Carlos gave a small nod before
stalking away, Amber relaxed, her body releasing the tension she hadn’t known
she’d been holding.
“Thank
you.” Amber turned around as she spoke. Everything else she’d wanted to say
disappeared from her mind as she looked straight into the dark brown eyes of
the man who’d come to her rescue. She tried to figure out what she saw there.
She would have called it kindness except she also detected a note of anger in
his gaze.
“What
were you thinking, girl? Why didn’t you stay with your friends? There’s safety
in numbers.” The anger she’d seen in his eyes didn’t translate to his voice. If
anything, he sounded resigned, exasperated.
“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.” Amber thought for a moment. It was true;
she hadn’t meant to create a problem, hadn’t known she might when she allowed
the rest of their party to move on while she’d studied her surroundings. “I
didn’t know I shouldn’t be on my own. I mean, they never said anything when we
came in.”
“How
did you end up here anyway?”
Something
bristled inside Amber before subsiding again. She didn’t mind answering his
questions, just as she hadn’t been upset when she picked up on his anger. It
didn’t make sense, because she wasn’t in the habit of letting others tell her what
to do or allowing them to interrogate her, but she didn’t question her
instinct.
“It’s
my sister’s hen party. One of her friends suggested this club.” As she spoke,
she remembered the looks Maeve—the friend
in question—had exchanged with Mary, another friend. She hadn’t thought
anything about it at the time, but now, she realized they’d known exactly what they would be leading the rest of
them into. “Sinead, my sister, was already very drunk by then and appeared to
be eager to visit a club...any club. I just tagged along.”
She’d
resented that. Sure, she was a few years younger than the rest of the party,
but she wasn’t a child anymore. She’d bitten her tongue all through the evening
as Maeve and some of the others had belittled her. Sinead had defended her
earlier on in the evening, but as people kept on pouring drinks into her, she’d
soon lost contact with reality.
“But
you didn’t stay with them when they moved to the other side of the club?”
His
question took her by surprise. How did he know where the others had gone? She
looked around until she spotted them on the far side of the dance floor and
nearly groaned out loud. It was impossible to miss her sister. Sinead stood on
a table in only her underwear and the veil she’d put on earlier. A blush crept
up Amber’s neck and cheeks as she wondered what this man might think of her and
her sister.
“Ah,
I think I understand.” The man’s low chuckle took her by surprise and allowed
her to relax again.
“Yes,
well. What can I say? I don’t like getting drunk, and I’m not overly fond of
some of my sister’s friends. Letting them go on without me for a while seemed
like a good idea. If I’d known I’d cause trouble in the process...” She thought
for a moment before deciding she had nothing to lose. “Besides, there’s so much
to look at here. I had to stop and take it all in.”
She
allowed her gaze to roam the club again and only barely repressed the shiver of
excitement threatening to run down her spine as she observed more people
kneeling on the floor at the feet of others. A girl she’d noticed getting down
to her knees earlier was now on her feet, following the man who, Amber assumed,
had to be her Dom toward closed double doors on the far side of the room, her
head slightly bowed.
She
felt her rescuer’s gaze on her and tore her attention back to him.
“By
the way, I’m Amber Sommerville. Thank you for stepping in just now. I had no
idea how to deal with that man.” Again, she noticed something in his eyes she
couldn’t name.
“Hector
Kelly.” He took the hand she offered and held it slightly longer than she’d
expected. “You should either join your sister or go home, Amber. This is no
place for young women on their own.”
“Oh
no.” She laughed. “I’ve no intention of going yet. I want to see more. I’ve
only read about places like this. I never believed they really existed, never mind could be found in Dublin. Now that I’m
here, I want to discover how much of what I considered fiction is in fact real.
And I want to know what’s on the other side of those doors.”
She’d
no idea how she knew, but she’d no doubt Hector disapproved of her plans. His
expression hadn’t changed, and yet she
could almost feel his frustration. Tough.
She was grateful he’d helped her out of a tricky situation, but it didn’t give
him the right to tell her how to spend the rest of her evening. It was a shame
though. She would have loved to get to know him better but not if it meant
allowing him to make her decisions for her.
“Thank
you again, Hector. I’m just going to have a look around before I join the
others again.” She took a few moments to really
look at him. The slight stutter in her heartbeat took her by surprise,
and she dismissed it. Hector was very attractive—not far removed from her image
of the ideal man in fact—and he was bossy, which should have been off-putting but, strangely enough, didn’t
actually bother her. It was a shame she’d probably never see him again.
The
moment she saw him take a deep breath, she turned and walked toward the half-hidden
doors at the back of the club. She didn’t want to hear why he thought she
should leave.
Book Details
Release Date:
September 26, 2018
Pairing: MF
Length 61k words
approx.
All or Nothing is available
in KU and as a paperback.
