Do you want to build a snowman?

lol – I get that song stuck in my head all the time! But, what I really meant to say/sing is do you want to write a Holiday novella with me?

I’ve always wanted to do a holiday novella but somehow have never fit it into my writing schedule. I thought this year my readers and fans might help me get one done. I’m writing the book one chapter at a time and then posting them in my Amazeballs Facebook reader group and street team and in my newsletter. So if you’d like to get in on the action, like helping to decide what happens next in the story join me!

Click here to join the Amazeballs

Click here to sign up for my Curvy Connection newsletter (Psst – you’ll also get a Curvy Love novella as my thank you gift for joining me!)

The Amazeballs have already chosen a few tidbits to get the story going.
From the brains to my fingers – lol

Take a look at the rough draft of Chapter One of the as of yet unnamed Curvy Love Holiday novella.

 

Copyright © 2018 by Aidy Award

CHAPTER ONE

Snow Falling on Kinksters

I smacked the steering wheel of this stupid, stupid POS car because if I didn’t, I was going to cry. Yeah, the gas gauge was on empty, and no I didn’t have any money to fill it up again. It wasn’t even worth trying to navigate through the snow to find a gas station unless they could also replace the engine, for free.

At least the final death knell on this car had rolled us into the well-lit parking lot of…I glanced up at the warehouse looking building and its purple door with the sign that said Devils & Angels. A bar maybe. If I was lucky it would be a biker bar with lots of large burly men who would kick the ass of any creep with a weapon.

No motorcycles in the parking lot though. Regardless, I couldn’t sit out here like a hunted duck in the snow. It was really coming down now and there was already a layer of white on my windshield.

I had to go in no matter what was behind that purple door because this was the only place open in miles. God knew why people were spending Christmas Eve at a bar, but I wasn’t going to ask. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t ask me either.

I didn’t have any answers anyway.

I yanked on my dollar store stretchy gloves and my slightly too tight thrift store jacket and prepared for the sprint to the door. Yeah, who was I kidding. I couldn’t run more than a few dozen yards. A fact that had been proven to me too many times in the past month.

You’d think being on the run, I’d have lost a few pounds, but no. My jeans barely fit. Turns out fast food really is cheaper than home cooking. If I never ate off the dollar menu again I would die happy.

I didn’t want to die at all.

No.

Now was not the time to think about her lying in a pool of blood on our kitchen floor.

No.

I shut down those movies in my head that make a slasher film feel rated G.

Survive. That’s all I had to do today.  To do that I needed to go inside and ask for help. Not something I was good at.

I took a deep breath and blew it out. The air in the car was already cooling down to the point that I could see my breath again.

I shoved the car door open and the keys shook in my hands as I fiddled with the lock. No thief in their right mind would want to steal the car, but everything I had in the whole world was in the passenger seat.

What I wouldn’t give for a hot bubble bath and a good book to read like in the good old days. That wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

There wasn’t enough snow on the ground to make it slippery yet, but I fell on my butt two feet from the door anyway. Great. Not only did I look like a pudgy drowned rat, I was going to have a serious bruise in the morning.

Whatever. It’s not like anyone was likely to see my rear-end anytime soon. I hadn’t had a date in more than a year. That was before my life got flipped turned upside-down.

I finally made it to the purple door and pushed it. It didn’t open. Oh, God. Please don’t tell me they aren’t open.

I threw my shoulder against the door and it swung in. Warm air, the scent of exotic flowers and sex, and the hard chest of the doorman hit me square in the face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you alright, sweet thing?” He wrapped his arms around me as I tumbled into the small foyer area.

I know I should have pulled myself together, jumped up, told him I was fine. But, the truth was… I was far from okay. I didn’t move and simply let those big strong arms hold me for a second or two, or forty-two.

It’s not like I was kidding myself that this dude was my savior or anything like that. I was just so damn tired. And lonely. And alone.

“Are you okay? Come on in here and let’s get you warmed up.” His voice was like my favorite holiday adult beverage. Hot buttered rum. Smooth, sweet, with something naughty hiding in it.

I was already heating up.

I extracted myself from him and brushed at the snow I’d gotten on his shirt. Sweet baby Jesus, the muscles. “Uh, thanks. Sorry. I couldn’t get the door open.”

He looked down at my hand resting on his pec and gave me a tilted smile. “Probably because it was locked. Not a lot of members coming down in this kind of weather.”

I super awkwardly pulled my hand away. “No, I suppose not.”

Wait, members? This must be some kind of exclusive club. Shit. Maybe I could give this bouncer my best puppy dog eyes and he would take pity on me. I certainly didn’t have any money to pay a membership fee.

“If you’re looking to do orientation, I’m afraid Mistress Addiction is on the trip too. She won’t be holding anymore until after the new year.”

Mistress.

Addiction.

I glanced past bouncer dude’s great big shoulders and through the short hallway caught site of a stage. With a large wooden St. Andrews cross on it.

That was not the kind of cross one used to perform a nativity play.

This was no ordinary bar, or even a club. Either I’d stumbled into a weird throwback opium den, or…

This was a kink club.

I glanced back up at the bouncer and boy did he have a twinkle in his eye.

“Just figured out where you were, didn’t you? Don’t worry. I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to.” The flirty tone of his voice matched the gleam in his eye.

All be damned. He was flirting with me.

Never my best skill in the first place.

I really wanted to play this all nonchalant, like I totally knew where I was and why I was here. But I was simply too damn tired to care. My flirter was rusty anyway.

“Look, hot guy.” Uh, yeah. That’s the way to seduce a man. Whatever. “My car broke down and I gotta be honest, I have no place else to go. I don’t really care what people in your club do with themselves or anyone else. I just want a warm place to wait for a while and maybe a fruity flavored drink to relax with and pass the time.”

That last bit about the drink sort of slipped out. This was probably not the kind of place one could sip on a mai tai topped with an umbrella and extra cherries. For sure it was a shot of hard liquor lit on fire place.

“Your luck may have turned, sweet thing. Fruity flavored drinks for ladies in distress happens to be my specialty. Come on. We’ll get you warmed right up and then I’ll take a look at your car.”

He moved to wrap his arm around my shoulders and I hated that I flinched. “Sorry.”

He raised his hands and took a healthy step back. “Don’t be. Everyone has their boundaries. I didn’t mean to cross yours, I was going to take your coat.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Gah. He’d told me not to be sorry like a second ago. I was severely out of practice talking to someone who was trying to be nice to me, much less a man as good looking as this guy.

I shimmied out of the coat and held it out to him. I wished I kept it on though. I was still chilled through and that coat had seen better days. He probably wouldn’t want it even touching the other jackets in their coat room. Not in a private swanky club like this.

I didn’t even qualify to be a janitor here. No way I had enough cash in my pocket to pay for said fruity-flavored drink either.

Water it would be for me. If I was lucky I could snack on their condiments while no one was looking.

Hot guy threw my jacket over his shoulder and waved me down the hall. It only took me a few more steps to realize there was no one else here.

Not a single soul.

It was just me and hot guy.

Alone.

In a BDSM club.

Did I mention the hot guy part already?

Gulp.

“Uh. So, where is everyone? Playing a kinky game of hide and seek?”

Hot guy led me toward a bar on the nearest wall, which he slid behind and hung my jacket on a hook. “You’re lucky I was here. The club is closed for the holiday. I only stopped by to grab a present I left behind.”

My brain got straight onto the dirty town train imagining exactly what kind of present one could acquire from here and who it might be for.

Glasses clinked and hot guy chuckled. “I take it this is your first time to a place like Angels.”

I straightened up. “Why would you think that? Because I’m…fluffy?” Regardless if he was right, it irritated me when someone like him thought plus-sized women like me didn’t belong anywhere near BDSM.

“No, chickadee. I’m already at half-mast thinking about the curves your hiding under those jeans and flannel shirt. I know a first timer’s blush when I see one. Yours crept up your neck and cheeks while you’ve been thinking about the present I mentioned.”

“I wasn’t—” I totally was.

He slid a hot drink that smelled like Christmas in a cup over to me. “Sure, you were. I could practically see the visions of sugar plum flavored lube dancing in your head.”

Okay. Totally busted. I wasn’t going to admit it. Instead I grabbed the mug and took a long-hot swig.

The heat of fancy liqueur, something harder, and spiced chai melted my insides like a snowman in Dubai. Ahh.

“There she is.”

I glanced behind me but didn’t see anyone else in the room. “Who?”

“You. For a second you relaxed. Whoever or whatever your running from melted away and the I got to see the real woman sitting across from me.”

I…

This man was too perceptive by half. By a million and half. I’d been ready to open my mouth and deny it, but somehow he already saw through me, saw me. Instead I took another sip of his magic drink.

He tipped his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at me, studying me even more. “You’re not going to deny that?”

I shrugged. “I told you I was tired. Lying all the time is fucking exhausting.”

That’s all I’d done for the last seventeen days, four hours, and fourty-two minutes. Hide and lie. Lie and hide.

It had kept me safe. Barely.

But even if it was for the next hour while hot guy let me sit here at his bar, I didn’t want to live like that. Just for a second, I wanted to be me again. The me before they’d killed my mother and tried to kidnap me.

For no good reason I trusted hot guy.

I knew I shouldn’t.

It was just him and me. He could do anything he wanted to me and no one would ever know.

There was something about him that made me feel warm and protected. Which was ridiculous and the alcohol talking.

Or wishful thinking.

 

Oooh – mystery and intrigue on Christmas Eve!

Remember, if you want to help come up with the ideas for the continuing story – come join me, either on Facebook or on the Curvy Connection.

I’ll be doing some prizes and cool giveaways including signed copies of the books when they come out in November.