My Passion Project

Dolls!

I'm so sorry it's been so long since I last checked in with you. I have a video coming with some general updates but I talk about a passion project in that video, too, and I wanted to share the first chapter with you all.

Here are the need to know deets:

• This is a spin-off series of the Dollhouse
• I'll be working on it when I can (more details about that in the video)
• I won't be setting a release date as I'd love to get all the books written and ready to go for a rapid-style release in the future
• It's working title is Kneel but this will more than likely change
• Grumpy step-brother trope/forbidden romance (yum!)
• "Teach Me"

So, without further ado, here's the first chapter of Kneel. 

🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️~🧎🏻‍♀️

Chapter One 

 

Astin Vance was an asshole.

A motherfucking, cheating asshole…

An asshole who was breaking my fragile heart.

Not that I would let him in on that fact.

Nope, I was not letting that bastard know that every simpering apology that fell out of his mouth, that every single “It’s not you, babe, it’s me,” was making me want to punch him in the fucking mouth. In his dirty lying mouth.

“I-I don’t understand.” Jesus, my stammered words made me want to curl in on myself. I’d fought long and hard to grow my backbone, and I hated that he was the one who was making it falter now.

I hadn’t grown up with money—not initially at least. Me and Mom had lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the top of the Chinese restaurant until I was eleven. Living paycheck to paycheck. Scrimping and saving for the basics. Never being able to plan vacations because there was no way we could save “that kind of money”. We were dirt poor, but all that changed when my estranged father reappeared, reinserting himself back into the frame of my life.

I hadn’t known him before that, and any questions I’d asked about him when I was growing up, my mom had shut down quickly. Any attempts to get her to talk about him were met with a stonewall of her abhorrence. For years, he kept trying to get her to open up, but she remained tight-lipped over the man who I could thank for half of my genetic make-up.

At first, she’d rebuffed his offers of help. She would’ve kept fighting him on it, too, until I was admitted to an elite school. This was my chance to escape the poverty cycle we’d found ourselves in. This had been my chance to do better than my mother, and she’d known it. She’d known it down to her core.

And that was the only reason I’d been able to attend.

My father had agreed to foot the bill in exchange for regular access to me. That little catch came with me and Mom being moved into a Brownstone on Central Park West in the Upper East Side to be closer to him, and the change from a small one-bedroom apartment in New Jersey to a three-bed, two-bath apartment in Manhattan was jarring to say the least. He’d taken care of the fees for all four years at the prestigious Benediction College, and I was the owner of a brand new, straight off the guilt shelf father who lavished me with gifts every time he saw me.  

“Babe?” Astin said, dipping his head to put his face in my line of sight. “Did you hear what I said?”

I blinked at him, staring into his sunlight and bourbon eyes. “What?”

“I said don’t blame yourself for this. I just have… things I want to explore.”

Oblivious to my inability to follow the conversation, I watched his mouth form words I couldn’t hear. Watched the way his brows dipped when he starts to really get down to the business of placating me—trying to soften the fucking blow.

I put my hands up abruptly, bringing him to a confused stop. Drawing in a deep breath through my nose, I let it out and said in a pitchy voice, “You’re cheating on me?”

His mouth twisted to the side as he thought about my question. “I wouldn’t call it cheating, babe.”

“You wouldn’t?” I hitched my hands onto my hips. “What would you call it then?”

He had the fucking nerve to laugh at that. “I’d say we’ve been careening down this hill to Breakupville for a while now, but you’ve been trying to slam on the breaks.”

Was he actually fucking listening to himself right now? “So, you’re saying I’m the one who’s been hanging on? Been trying to keep our relationship afloat?”

He flashed me a self-deprecating smile that was fake as fuck. I’d always hated it. “What we had was good, but…”

“But what?”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re too…” He gestured to my body, and I wrapped a hand around my midsection, suddenly feeling stupid for wearing my wiener dog pajamas to bed. “…wholesome.”

“Too wholesome for who?” I asked in a quiet voice, unable to stop the tide of rejection that washed over me at his statement.

“For me, Sparrow.” He ran a hand through his model-worthy honey-blond hair and let out a deep breath. When he fixed his golden-brown eyes on me once more, he added, “I need some excitement in the bedroom.”

Glancing down at my pajamas again, I said, “I can wear lingerie to bed.”

“It’s not about what you wear, Sparrow.” He said my name like he was exhausted. “I want to be seduced. I want to feel like you can’t live another second unless you touch me.”

It sounded to me like, somehow, our roles had been reversed. I’m not saying a man doesn’t have the right to feel wanted, but all these things he was saying usually came from a woman.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s over. We just want different things in the bedroom. We want different things in life.”

I frowned. What more could there be to have in the bedroom? I didn’t ask him this, but it was something I was going to ask Beaux the next time I saw her.

“So, this is it?” I asked his back as he packed his shit into a duffel bag. “It’s over because I wore wiener dog pajamas to bed?”

His movements were angry—jerky—as he shoved his clothes inside. He hadn’t moved into my apartment officially, but he had enough personal belongings here that he might as well have. He cast me a regretful look over his narrow shoulder. “It’s over because I need more and Celine is just the woman to help me explore that.”

Celine? His yoga instructor, Celine? That Celine?

It would’ve hurt less to be shot in the gut.

Yanking on the zipper, he closed the bag and slung it over his shoulder. He brushed past me on the way out the door, and I let him go because I didn’t need this shit in my life. I was a successful, college-educated—thanks to Daddy’s guilt—woman. I’d landed my dream journalist job straight after graduating New York University three years ago. I had no mortgage, and more money from my father than I knew what to do with.

I was a fucking catch.

The slamming door let me know Astin had finished his retreat.

Wandering into the kitchen, I pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge, unscrewed the top and chugged some. Red wine dribbled from the corner of my mouth, dripping onto my wiener dog pajamas like blood.

Scooping up my phone from the kitchen counter, I called my best friend.

She picked up after the third ring, sounding breathless. “Girl, you better be bleeding to death right now.”

Shit. “You entertaining, Beaux?” I asked, taking another swig from the bottle.

“Being entertained is more like it.” She let out a throaty laugh, and I could just picture my brunette bombshell best friend running her hand through the hair of the man settled between her thighs. Having her pussy eaten was a prerequisite for her.

“Is he any good?”

She hummed into the phone. “Not bad technique. Could use some pointers in refinement. His tongue should be weaponized.”

I snorted into the phone and let out a sigh.

“Do I need to cut tonight’s entertainment short?” she asked, her tone terse like she was slipping on the armor to start fighting my battles. “All you need to do is say the word.”

“Beaux, no. I don’t—” She’d always been this way. When I started at Benediction College, she’d immediately taken me under her wing and claimed me as her own.

Now it was her turn to snort. “Sparrow, please. You’re my girls. I can get dick any time I want… Oh, don’t give me that look, Steve. It’s true.”

“My name’s Peter,” a man replied sullenly.

There was the rustling of clothes and murmured words I couldn’t hear then a door slammed.

When Beaux got back onto the line, she let out a disbelieving snort. “I swear, some men are so sensitive. Call him by the wrong name once, and he storms out of the door like a belligerent child.”

“Go figure,” I replied, taking another swig of my wine. Wallowing was so fucking beneath me. I hadn’t wallowed in so long because my mother had been brought me up to be have a backbone of steel, yet here I was… crying over the cruel words of a man I thought loved me.

“So, what’s up?”

I took another chug from the wine bottle, hoping the liquid courage would let me get the story out in one go rather than dragging it out. “Astin ended things.”

“Good. That guy was a sociopath and a classic explorer archetype. He wasn’t right for you.”

My mouth fell open. “We were dating for seven years.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised he lasted that long. He’s the type of man who wants to sow his wild oats.”

“Yeah, well, that’s exactly what he’s doing now. Told me he was leaving me for Celine.”

“Who the fuck is that and what’s her address.”

“What do you need her address for?”

“Because I’m going to fuck this bitch up.”

I snorted, wine coming out of my nostrils. “Oww,” I moaned, wiping the discarded nose wine from my chin. “Celine isn’t the issue. Astin is the one who cheated. If anything, he’s the one you should be fucking up.”

“Oh, Astin will get his,” she assured me with a nefarious chuckle. “What reason did he give? I mean besides wanting a fresh pussy.”

I took two more swallows of wine, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth. “He said I wasn’t exciting enough in the bedroom. He wanted to explore. That he wanted different things. That I was too wholesome.”

“Ouch.”

Heaving a sigh, I asked the question I was too scared to ask, knowing that Beaux would give it to me straight. “Am I too boring, Beaux?”

“Oh, honey,” she started, her tone changing from defending best friend to therapist. “Sexual exploration looks different to everyone. Some people have blinders on when it comes to intimacy and think there’s only missionary. Others have a more liberal point of view and are open to different things.”

“And where do I fall? You know me, Beaux. You’ve known me for years. I tell you everything.”

I could practically hear her chewing her bottom lip as she stalled. Yes, she knew me, but I also knew her.

“Beaux?”

She sighed. “In a word? You’re vanilla, babe.”

“I’m boring.”

“You’re not boring. You’re just not adventurous. A lot of men nowadays want the whole porn star fantasy. The woman who begs to take one dick up the ass, another in her pussy and then sucks on another two while looking like she isn’t being filled up with so much dick that she’s practically turned into a walking cum dumpster.”

“Wow,” I murmured. “That’s… so graphic.”

“Men always want the fantasy, but here’s the thing. Are you ready for this, babe? They’re fantasies. Women are too busy ruling the world to be bothered with making a delusional man’s kinks a reality.”

Nibbling on my bottom lip, I asked, “If Astin broke up with me because I was too vanilla, what’s the say the next guy won’t do the same?”

She was silent on the other end of the phone. “Look, I would never normally suggest this to a patient, but you’re my best friend and I think this is something you should try.”

“What?”

“There’s a club.”

I held in my groan. “A vanilla sex club?” Seriously, what was she thinking?

“No, Sparrow. I’m anything but vanilla,” she preened.

My interest piqued. “What kind of club is it?”

“It’s a kink club, babe, and I think if you’re interested in trying some other things in the bedroom, that this might be a good way to do it.”

My immediate reaction was to baulk, but I let Beaux’s words wash over me—let them permeate a little bit. I didn’t consider myself to be vanilla, but my best friend was right. She was a sex therapist for Christ’s sake. She had to know something about it, right?

She continued, “Think of it as one-on-one coaching session with me.”

Beaux was the US’s most respected and renowned sex therapists. The fact that she was my best friend was a bonus, because I knew for a fact that her consulting fees were astronomical. She was the therapist to the stars, and her client list—which she never confirmed—was extensive.

“Is it safe?”

“Hundred percent. It’s a highly vetted, highly elite club, and since I’m a member, I can get you in for one night. Come with me, see what you think. You never know, babe. It might unlock something for you.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip again, considering her offer. This was my chance to prove to Astin that I was more than he assumed.

Before I could lose my nerve, I blurted, “When can we go?”