Monday, August 22, 2016

The Found




Title: The Found
Series: Crow City #2
Author: Cole McCade
Genre: Dark Erotica/Contemporary Romance  
 Release Date: August 22, 2016



Blurb

Witness to a murder. Kidnapped by a monster. Life hanging on a whim. Willow Armitage’s world was already falling apart; between getting fired and caring for her chronically ill father, she’s had little room for anything but survival. But that survival hangs in the balance the night she stumbles into a back alley – and watches a stranger die at the hands of the most beautiful man she’s ever seen.

Lethal. Powerful. Unstable. Terrifying. The contract killer known only as Priest is a dangerous unknown, and when Willow wakes tied to a chair in his hideout, the only thing she sees in his fox-gold eyes is death. Yet for Priest, Willow is a dilemma: an innocent, a saint among the sinners he cuts down in the streets of Crow City. His code of honor forbids shedding innocent blood. Releasing her will send her straight to the police. The only answer is a warped game, and his promise: that he will find the darkness inside her, expose it, and prove that deep down, everyone is just as monstrous as he…and just as worthy of death.

Yet he unearths not a monster, but a smoldering and secret desire – one that has always terrified Willow, and may be her undoing. His touch sets her alight. His strength burns through her like flame. And his control melts her each time he binds her virgin body, possesses her, teaches her the strength in weakness and the passion in submission. But that passion may be her damnation, and in the end Willow must choose: Priest’s love, or her own life.

When his every kiss is pure sin…can she resist damnation long enough for Priest to find his way to redemption?

TRIGGER WARNING 18+: This story contains content centered around non-consent, bodily autonomy, sexual assault, bodily functions, and violence. Please focus on self-care above all, and don't be afraid to put the book down if you need to in order to protect yourself. You come first, always.

Review

An incredible wordsmith, a talented author.

After witnessing a brutal murder, Willow flees to her safe haven, her home. Only it’s no longer safe. Before she can dial 911, she’s kidnapped and removed to a warehouse and tied to a chair.
Vin, aka Priest, is damaged, broken, and on a mission. When one of his jobs leaves a witness, he’s left with an impossible dilemma, an innocent he can neither kill nor release.
I found this book intriguing on many levels. I think this author is one of the best wordsmith’s I’ve read. His characters are dark, gritty, and complicated, always more than the sum of their parts. He takes his time in peeling back the layers to reveal their depth, motivations, pain with absolute insight into what makes them who and what they are.
Though this book skated the line of consent, it was vivid and extraordinary, transcending  what we think we know of right and wrong. Definitely one to keep on your shelf and an author to follow.
I was given an ARC for a fair and honest review.  Five Stars
 




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Excerpt

His fingers grazed the curve of her waist. With a gasp, she snapped her eyes open. He met her gaze, fox-gold turned hot as melting amber, fierce and animal and stripping her more bare than that exposed, naked flesh. She felt like a butterfly pinned to a board, held by his gaze, her limbs going slack and her struggles stopping against her will. She hardly felt it, when he hooked a fingertip under the bunched edge of her tank top—then ripped with such effortless strength, the threads of the side seam snapping apart one after the other, until there was nothing left of her tank top but rags of cloth. No, she hardly felt that…but she felt it when he teased those rags from underneath the ropes, as every scrap of cloth stroked and washed against her skin until she was nothing but a trembling tangle of sensitivity and frozen breaths building tighter and tighter in her chest.

And she felt it when that taunting, teasing fingertip hooked in her panties, slipping into the opening just above her thigh, and she realized just what he intended to do.

“Don’t touch me.”

Suddenly she could move again—and she writhed against the ropes, fighting to squirm away. But she had barely an inch of slack, nowhere to go but against the ropes, hanging in midair and so fucking helpless she would scream with sheer rage if she didn’t want to cry with sheer hopelessness. Was he enjoying this? Enjoying watching her struggle? Enjoying how her skin tightened and pulled and her nipples swelled and her breaths came shallow with every touch, her fucking disobedient body whispering dirty thing, dirty thing, give me more of that dirty thing while her mind and heart screamed no, no, not like that, never like that?

Was he enjoying having her at his mercy, unable to escape his every touch?

His fingers dug into the fabric of her panties. Clenched it against his fist. Pulled. Cloth creased, bit, burrowed into her dirty, dirty thing, her wet dirty thing, her pulsing dirty thing, and she was a fucking dirty thing when she arched off the seat and cried out and whimpered and mewled, as he dragged the cloth against her and all she felt was sweet-rough friction and that slickness, sickness, wet and running like a licking tongue.

“D-don’t,” she cried again, and yet he only pulled harder, the panties so much worse than the rope when every fold and crease molded to her flesh like liquid fire and left nothing untouched. “Don’t!”

He paused, held that steady pressure, keeping her on the end of a taut-stretched wire. “Are you a virgin, firefly?” he growled.

She spat in his face.

Panting, body heaving, she drew back and spat in his face, and watched with a sort of foggy, dazed satisfaction as it landed in a wet streak on his cheek, dripping down his bronzed skin like a tear. He remained unmoved, watching her steadily, waiting, holding her dangling from the one hand as if he hardly felt her weight and those damnable fingers pulling her panties against her flesh.

“My body is not your business,” she hissed.

“Right now, your body is my property.” He slid a fingertip down into the crease between her hip and thigh, the place where the seam of her panties normally cut in whenever she sat, moved, shifted; there was something too personal about that touch, so close and yet so far, a threat that made her shrink back even as that feeling inside her nearly exploded, that hollow feeling that seemed like a rapacious beast, a dragon with an open maw and empty gullet that was hungry, so hungry to be full. “I want an answer.”

He bunched her panties into his hand again, curling the fabric in stretched wrinkles against his palm—and this time when he pulled he gave no quarter, a single sharp rip and a sound of cloth tearing like tape pulling off the spool, high and shrill. There was a moment’s painful bite, a muted cry welling in her throat, and then the pressure eased as the tatters of her panties fell, forgotten, to the floor.

Still he watched her. And she, naked with nowhere to hide, curled into herself; she felt her nudity like a presence, like a thing touching her and twisting over her flesh to force her to feel every moment of her exposure, every moment of her vulnerability and helplessness. Priest said nothing. He didn’t need to. He never needed to. When he wanted an answer, he got one, and would wait her out as he had before, implacable and unmoving and relentless. She had always imagined men like him to be all force, all bluster, all violence and snarling and threats.

She was quickly learning that silence—silence and careful, metered application of just enough strength to drive his point home—was just as effective as force.

And just as frightening.

Dangling from his grip like a puppy, she hung her head. Anything not to meet those piercing eyes; anything not to feel the shame of giving in to the quiet demand in his gaze; anything to make this end, so he would stop tormenting her and leave her alone.

“…yes,” she mumbled. Still he didn’t speak, or put her down. Defeat sparked into frustration, and she glared at him from under the fall of her hair. “Yes, all right? Are you happy? Is that what you fucking wanted to know?”

“Yes,” he said simply, and lowered her to the floor.



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Author Bio

Cole McCade is a New Orleans-born Southern boy without the Southern accent, currently residing somewhere in Seattle. He spends his days as a suit-and-tie corporate consultant and business writer, and his nights writing contemporary romance and erotica that flirt with the edge of taboo—when he’s not being tackled by two hyperactive cats.

He also writes genre-bending science fiction and fantasy tinged with a touch of horror and flavored by the influences of his multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual background as Xen Sanders. He wavers between calling himself bisexual and calling himself queer, but no matter what word he uses he’s a staunch advocate of LGBTQIA representation and visibility in genre fiction. And while he spends more time than is healthy hiding in his writing cave instead of hanging around social media, you can generally find him in these usual haunts:







He’s recently launched the Speak Project, an online open-access platform where anyone can anonymously or openly share or read stories of abuse – a way for survivors to overcome the silencing tactics of abusers to speak out against what was done to them, and let other survivors know they’re not alone.


He also runs an advice column called Dammit, Cole, where he occasionally answers questions about everything from romance and dating to the culture of hypermasculinity, from the perspective of a male romance author:



Looking for more? You can get early access to cover reveals, blurbs, contests, and other exclusives by joining the McCade’s Marauders street team at:


Monday, August 15, 2016

Celery, Sex, and Other Good Things For The Heart


CELERY, SEX AND OTHER GOOD THINGS FOR THE HEART

Sometimes the most ordinary things in life are best for the heart.
 
Co-workers and best friends Miranda Harder and Dan Blake have two things in common: a penchant for telling dirty stories, and a fierce mutual attraction. Unwilling to risk ruining their friendship, they have slammed a lid on their simmering desire. On the ride home from her sister’s surprise birthday party, they reach the boiling point and decide to blow the lid sky-high.
Miranda has kinky tastes and worries that Dan may be all talk and no action. Her attempt to make an ordinary vegetable sexy is test number one. Unbeknownst to her, Dan understands Miranda’s need for control, and he’s willing to do what it takes to show her that surrendering to him is what she really needs.
Count on her interfering family and a surprise visit from her brother and his pet primate to throw a monkey wrench into the works. But in the midst of chaos, sometimes love is the most ordinary thing that is best for the heart.


Excerpt


“A bet?” His eyebrows rose on his forehead.
A pained look crossed her face, and she waved her hands about, wiggling her fingers. “Not really a bet per se... ” Her body slumped in exasperation, and she blew her bangs upward. “I told Missy to get it on with Sam earlier today, and they probably are as we speak, and that makes me kind of... jealous. I want sex, too. And if she isn’t getting any, then I want to be able to rub it in her face that I did and she didn’t.” She gave a wry laugh and raised a hand. “Evil sister here.” Then she headed into the kitchen, raking a hand through her hair as she did.
He shook his head in disbelief, his eyes following the sway of her ass. “That is the most fucked up sibling rivalry shit I’ve ever heard.” He stopped and leaned one shoulder against the doorframe.
“Well, I never said I didn’t have my own issues to work through.” She opened the refrigerator and rummaged around inside. “We’re a weird bunch in my family. You saw that tonight.”
“No shit. Okay, let me get this straight—you’re willing to blow me to—A—make your sister jealous, or—B—brag to her?”
She glanced at him over the top of the fridge door, her expression as though he’d sprouted two heads. “Blowing you? Presumptuous.” Ducking down again, she opened a drawer. “Damn—I need to get groceries. All I have is celery.” She straightened, waving a stalk of celery, the leaves bobbing from side to side.
“Rabbit food?” he questioned.
“Celery is good for the heart, the digestion, and it helps you feel full so you don’t want to snack.” She closed the fridge and took a bite, the crunch echoing in the kitchen. She made a face. “And it tastes like cardboard.”
He chuckled. “Then why do you eat it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you I’ve been trying to lose weight, remember? I’ve added more veggies to my diet.”
He grabbed the piece of celery from her hand and tapped her nose with the leaves. “You don’t need to diet. You’re perfect just the way you are.” His gaze roved her curvaceous form, his loins tightening in response. Brushing the celery leaves against her cheek, he stared back into her eyes. “Every sexy inch of you.”
She snatched the vegetable out of his hand. “Celery isn’t sexy. It’s necessary.” A mischievous light sparkled in her eyes. “Or is it?”
His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion. “Come again?”
“Oh, I’d love to come at least once,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes.
“Oh, I want to make you come. More than once.” Cock twitching against the zipper of his pants, he made a grab for the celery, but she waved it out of his reach.
“Promises, promises.”
“I can deliver. But first, I want you to know that this means more to me than a one-time roll between the sheets.”
“Who says we’ll be between the sheets?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Stop it. Your self-defense mechanism is showing again.”
She frowned, then sighed. “I haven’t had very good experiences with sex.”
“Or men.” He walked toward her and took hold of her shoulders. “Sometimes it’s because we believe we don’t deserve something that we don’t get it.”
She glared at him. “As a social worker, I hope you’re not suggesting I deserved to be used. Besides, it wasn’t entirely their fault. I didn’t know how to make myself heard.” She pushed him away. “Since when did you become such an expert on my issues?”
“I’m not, and for the record I wasn’t trying to be. But I do happen to know that when you want something different, you have to change the way you do something in order to get it.”
“Oh yeah?” She took up a saucy stance with one hand on hip. “Then share with me one thing you’ve wanted that you had to do something different with yourself in order to get.”
“You.”

 Stalk Kellie