Leon’s Way by Sunniva Dee
Publication date: December 19th 2014Genres: New Adult, Romance
Publication date: December 19th 2014Genres: New Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
Since I was sixteen, the world has been mine. I do everything—
My way.
Every co-ed in town clenches her thighs over me, but most don’t fit the bill. See, I like my girls broken . Once I detect my shade of don’t-give-a-fuck damaged, I fight hard, I fight dirty, and I don’t give up until—
I conquer.
Drunk fathers and frequent beatings don’t merit attention, but when my despicable dad starts the process of croaking, I’m forced to remember. Thus, the downward spiral begins: my latest broken-girl turns the tables on me and splits. My hot-as-hell employee, Arriane, throws me the curve ball of a lifetime. And suddenly—
I’m out of control.
But at the center of my chaos, she exists. Always close, always sweet, and so beautifully fucking… wholesome. She represents everything I’ve shied from in a woman. Still—
I crave her.
I’m Leon, and I don’t deny my cravings. Just—this girl is not surrendering. So here I am, fighting harder. Fighting dirtier. And goddammit all, I will—
Conquer.
LEON’S WAY — Excerpts
1) This is my bar. My party.And she’s mine.
My girlfriend’s eyes shine with happiness and relief. Only she isn’t
beaming at me. She brushes my hand off her thigh and stands up on her barstool,
waving. Smiling a beautiful smile she has never graced me with.
I look past the partiers on my club’s terrace, following her focus. I ignore
the colors of the sky, the explosions from the New-Year’s fireworks, and detect
him as easily as she did.
Dominic stands at the top of the stairs like some chick-flick hero.
He wrestles to get past Jason, one of my bouncers. Dominic’s eyes are
trained on my—my—Pandora with so much fucking emotion I want to jab them
out.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I grind to Pandora when she hops down to meet him.
I’ve fought too hard to let this happen. In a few minutes, a new year starts, and
she’s in it, goddammit, with me; she’s not taking off with another man.
How the hell did he get into Smother in the first place? My bouncers are
useless! One simple task I laid on them tonight: don’t let Dominic in.
Pandora started out as a challenge to me. I knew I’d snagged her late, that
she had a history with the pretty-boy. But he’s labeled “Perfect Dominic” on her
cell, which is the very reason why she’s with me and not him.
Yeah, Pandora and I, we are the same. We’re each other’s brand of
screwed-up, and guess fucking what? I’m not about to let her forget. I never lose,
and I control my world with the precision of a puppeteer, but—
The strings are fraying.
My dolls aren’t obeying.
Behind me, my second-in-charge, Christian, calls my name. He doesn’t
recognize me, not now that I shove my girlfriend past the counter and use her
body to crash through the door to the storage room.
I barely register Pandora’s eyes going huge with terror. Her fear…. it’s
beyond the kind I get off on. She’s panicking—but so am I.
Because she can’t. Fucking. Choose. Him.
My mind blurs. Then, it checks out. The glittering rainbow of colors in the
sky means squat when a sole shade of red tinges my vision.
“Leon! What the hell are you doing?” Pandora shrieks.
I am primal. A warrior. A caveman. I thrust her hard against the shelves. I
am a wolf biting down on her neck, silencing her.
“I’ll fix this, Pandora—I’ll be right back,” I growl. Then I close the door
behind me. Lock, lock her in and pocket the key. She’s going crazy in there,
wailing for me to open—pleading—
Soon, I can’t hear her because I have charged past Jason, and I’m at
Dominic’s throat. “You!” I shout. “You little shit. I will destroy you!”
2) The man I’ve loved for years is going ballistic. Books, glasses, and
candles ricochet off the walls and crash to the floor. The low growl contained in
his throat unleashes as he hurls his stereo at the window, making the glass panes
shatter on impact.
“She fucking left me for him!”
He spins and locks on me. When Leon stares at you, he consumes you. He
traps you in a small, flustered vacuum where he’s all that matters. “Leon… you’ll
be okay,” I begin, but my voice trembles.
I can’t wrap my mind around this meltdown. Nothing ruffles him, nothing
surprises him; in all my years at the club, I’ve never seen fissures in the marble of
my boss’ beautiful façade. With the exception of his girlfriends, everything he
touches remains orderly, and yet he’s losing it so completely right now.
This state he’s in… It doesn’t rock my need to be there for him. I—
Am always close.
He’s my love. My unreciprocated love, because I am just Arriane, his left
hand, the favorite bartender. Not one of the dolls he breaks.
Leon’s chest lifts and sinks with his turmoil. “I’ve never worked to keep
someone the way I did with her. Fuck, I did everything I could while all he needed
to do was barge into Smother. He fucking stole her from under my nose!” Angry
tears glitter, drifting over surreally blue irises.
“Stole?” He’s delusional.
3) I am the devil. What did she ever do to deserve this? She’s my
employee and an innocent bystander who’s nothing like my usual contenders.
Still, I prowl up over Arriane on the mattress, the way I’ve done with
countless women before. Straddling her, I’m on all fours, dipping down just
enough to blow lightly on her mouth, making her gasp.
I have no excuse for acting like this. I can’t claim to be drunk on this
aftermath of a New Year’s Eve. No, I just can’t deal with what happened earlier
tonight. I want to forget how I lost my shit, the way I rebuffed Pandora’s lack of
commitment to me.
Arriane’s hair is midnight-black like mine. It’s long and so silky it shines
even in the dim lighting of my bedroom. First, I slide the simple black hairband
out of her ponytail. Next, I fan her mane out over my pillow.
“You should wear your hair down more,” I tell her, and the small hump on
her throat lifts in an anxious swallow. I draw back for an instant, studying her.
“You like it?” she murmurs. She seems surprised.
I slide a glossy lock between two fingers and watch it spill back to the
pillow. “Of course I do. It’s fucking beautiful.”
Three years ago, I was running low on employees, and in walked this girl,
this sweet twenty-year-old who needed money. Like most people in the college
town of Deepsilver, Arriane came here for her degree. Only she doesn’t come
from an affluent family, and tuition is expensive. Since then, she’s worked more
at Smother than she has studied. Whenever I need someone, I turn, and Arriane
is there, ready to pick up the slack. Beautiful, loyal Arriane.
“Your eyes are violet,” I state, because I hadn’t noticed before; she works
for me, and I don’t get involved with my employees.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “No one else in my family—” she starts, but then I
lick her lips and she gives off a quiet moan. I like that sound.
4) Curiosity kills cats I hear, and I’ve died a million deaths over the years.
Now, I’m ready for the slaughterhouse—for a new sort of death, a tougher, harder
death.
I should not have come upstairs.
Should not have been with him.
Should not have insisted on going all the way.
My heart skips. I dress quickly and slink into the living room. Leon has
cleaned everything up. The room is as tidy as it was before his breakdown hours
ago. A blanket covers the broken window, and I’m sure he’s already called the
installers.
In the kitchen, fresh coffee steams from the coffeemaker. A plate covered
with cling wrap waits on the table. It has my name on it.
“I’m sorry,” the note begins.
“I’m sorry I took advantage of you, Arriane.” I blink over treacherous,
stupid tears, because the words hurt and I’m the one who should apologize. I took
advantage of him—his desperation. I start reading again.
“I’m sorry I took advantage of you, Arriane. It will never happen again.”
I finish the breakfast spread he’s made for me. Pour coffee into a mug. My
heart’s still alive when I walk down the stairs and into the bar with my cup in
hand. I don’t consider the damage the New Year’s crowd did to my decorations.
Spilled beer and half-dried cocktails glue me to the floor, trying to keep me from
his office. My shoes stick and rip free from the floor, alerting Leon of my
proximity. I lose courage. I want to go home and postpone this.
“Arriane?” Leon’s voice sieves out so softly. Like we’re different now.
I inhale. Riip to the office slowly. Hurry with the last steps before I can
change my mind. Then I peek in through the half-open door.
“You called?” I say, swallowing. I haven’t showered yet and smell of us. I
have the early shift at work today, and I forgot to tie my hair back into a ponytail.
Lord knows where the hairband is—I don’t. Slowly, I edge my face behind the
thick sheet of my hair. His scent on me teases, causing a jab to my heart. Woodsy
cologne, sex, and wrongness.
5) No one yells as loudly as Ingela. No one. I puff out a breath and start
getting dressed. A single wall divides the kitchen from my bathroom, and
seriously, if she whispered my name, I’d hear her.
“Still here,” I breathe out as a test.
“Well, you’re taking forever, and Cam has a question for you! Come out!”
she screams.
Whatever question our fellow bartending colleague has, we both know it
has to do with hairy triangles and that the answer is, and should always be, “no.”
I’m also pretty sure he doesn’t want her to ask me because they all think I’m the
runner-up boss at the bar. Even Ingela, only she has no respect for authority. The
staff as a whole has decided it must be a cultural thing. We’re starting to believe
everyone in Northern Europe has this as a birth defect.
I’m impressed with how well Leon handles Ingela. A month ago, she
appeared at Smother with blue eyes shining and a wide smile lighting her face.
“I’m Ingela, I’m an international exchange student, and I like your bar, so I shall
work here,” she had explained. “I need a job because I’m totally, totally broke.”
I don’t ask, but my guess is she’s in the country on a student visa. Leon
must be taking his chances with the IRS by paying her under the table.
Thankfully, Ingela’s little phone chat is over by the time I’m out of the
bathroom.
“You missed out.” She nods, her signature broad grin in place. Short
honey-blond bangs hop over her perfect eyebrows as she speaks. “Cameron is…”
she frowns, thinking. “Heell—hellar—” Then, she cops out and goes, “Funny.”
“Hilarious?” I suggest, and she smacks her hands together.
“Yeah! Hilarious.”
“So, not ‘rude as hell’ or ‘gross?’”
Ingela cups her mouth with a palm, laughing. “Oh yes, uh-huh! He called
just to be gross with me.”
I’m not surprised—at either of them. Ingela grabs the last piece of whole-
wheat toast with liver pate and shoves it into her mouth. With the other hand, she
ruffles the short layers of hair brushing her neck. “I have class first, but I’ll be at
work in…” she checks her watch, “bah, when I get bored. Or soon anyway. I’ll take
the campus bus—the Silver Line. It drops me off by Smother.”
“Okay, so you won’t be late?” I ask.
Ingela dons washed-out jeans peppered with holes. Tall and skinny, the
stereotype of a Scandinavian girl hikes her odd little backpack up on a shoulder
and strides to the door. “Never.” She bats her lashes.
6) Leon is a private man, and I shouldn’t pry. Still, sometimes when you
don’t think, you jump in. And I?
I can’t let him hurt alone.
I take the steps over to the tall table he sits at with his accounting. I don’t
stop until my hand touches his cheek.
“Leon?” I ask, my heart slowing with worry.
He sucks in a breath at my touch, thick lashes dropping. Lightly, he bends
into my palm and I feel it, the stubble I dream of. It pricks like kitten-paw-soft
cacti against my skin.
“What’s wrong?”
I expect him to brush me off, get up. Become his business-self. Give me a
low, clear order I can carry out for him.
But Leon’s knees slide apart, making room for my body. His hands scoot
around me, pulling me into him, and something shifts in my womb even though
it’s probably too early.
His sigh is so heavy. Arms spread over my back, fingers pressing into flesh,
fanning upward until a fist curls around my neck. The pinch is painful as he
nudges me closer, bending so he can delve in against my throat.
“Just family stuff scrambling my brain,” he whispers. Can he hear my
heartbeat? It’s fast, insistent. Hopeful. When I dare to move my arms from their
frozen, low-slung sides, it’s to link them into his embrace. He turns my face to
him and kisses me, first chastely on the mouth, until I open and he deepens the
kiss.
He finds bare skin under my shirt, and as we make out, he forces a hand
into the crack at the top of my jeans.
I let him.
I want him happy.
Not thinking, I lift a foot up on the railing of his barstool as he scoots out
on his seat enough to leave only fabric between us. He puffs a grunt into my ear.
“Wait, let me…” he begins but trails off in favor of action. Deft fingers undo my
jeans button and unzip my fly. “Much better. I couldn’t get to you.”
I gasp when his fingers find my entrance from behind, easing in, showing
both of us how quickly I heat for him.
“Sweetie, the guys will be down any minute—”
Leon cuts me off with a stinging slap on my ass, ending his violent caress
with a firm grasp on the butt cheek he spanked. “Trust me.”
I do. I—
He holds me while he fingers me.
The boys laugh at the top of the stairs. “Nah, I’m good,” Christian rumbles.
“Got my Shannon—she keeps me busy. But go for it. They say once you go
threesome, you’ll never want to go back.”
Cameron howls with laughter, their high-five ringing down to us. “Damn,
that’d be awesome. Gotta find me some chicks who’ll be into it more than once. I
mean how ’bout forever, am I right?”
If I hadn’t been drowning in Leon’s world, I’d roll my eyes again at
Cameron.
“Sure, and marry both of them. In different states before you all move to a
third one,” Christian helps.
“You. Are. A. Genius,” Funny-Cam bursts out. “Or in a different country!
Sweden.”
“Ingela, huh?” Christian asks.
“Yeah, I might’ve suggested it to her. She said I was, and I quote, ‘gross.’”
Christian’s reply is dry. “Go figure.”
7) Jason is being particularly dense tonight. I’ve shown him three times
how I want the new ropes to work outside the entrance to Smother, but he keeps
opening them so the line becomes shorter and less organized. I show him again.
I move on to Tom, Jason’s gym rat friend, whom I hired as a bouncer over
a month ago. The man still hasn’t gotten the part where my exes need to stay
clear of the club. I cross my arms and tip my chin up so I can stare down at him
despite his hulk-sized stature.
“Tom. I realize there are a few to remember, but when they ask for
me—and in particular when they claim to be my girlfriend—there’s no way in hell
it’s not one of them, okay? Even if Jason isn’t nearby and can verify your
suspicion, just send them off.”
Tom crinkles a freckled brow, thinking. “But what if they’re not lying? I
wouldn’t want to send the lady off if she really is your girlfriend, Boss.” His worry
lines smoothen, indicating that he’s satisfied with his reply, and I remind myself
that I didn’t hire him for his ability to flex brain muscle.
One of the new bartenders, Jen, waves from the dance floor. Once she has
my attention, she points at two guys shoving at each other while dancing couples
give room around them. I nod once. “Jason. Fight inside.”
“On it, sir.” He plods off, on a mission.
I pull in a breath, getting ready to explain the self-explanatory in regard to
girlfriends. “Tom, did any of the girls you let in last night look like Arriane?”
“Boss? No…”
“Here’s the deal. Unless I tell you otherwise, Arria is my only girlfriend.
Anyone else is fucking lying. Understood?”
Tom blinks. “Yes sir.”
“Good. Now, assist Jason with the jerk-offs inside, and I’ll keep an eye out
here in the meantime.”
Tonight’s sad as hell. Don’t get me wrong—I’m glad Arria obeyed and
stayed at her apartment with Ingela after yesterday’s scare with the ER visit, but
I’m not digging her absence. There’s no happy hips wiggling and tempting me
behind the bar counter, no sweet smile whenever I zoom in and catch her
attention, and no stolen squeezes.
8) I change immediately, even bind my hands. At the moment, gloves
defeat the purpose for me, but a little tape never hurts. I’ve got my system. I know
what works. Besides having kinky-ass sex, this and my bike are the only things
that calm me down. Bare-chested and in black dojo pants, I rage into the heavy
bag.
The music from the club thunders through the floor, but I need more, so I
shove in a CD before I continue. The collision between the tunes downstairs and
my own death metal make me want to break into a crazy laugh.
I don’t, though, because I’m spending my energy on this. For every punch,
I visualize my father’s face when I took him down at sixteen. The shock, the
bruises, the blood I left him with. The fucking cracked collarbone.
Something surges in me at the thought—I force everything else away.
I tear into the medium bag. Tear at it, tear at it—killing the damn thing like
I wish I’d done to him. The mirror tosses back my glistening shape.
What evil god let him survive the stroke?
I snarl out my disappointment, joining the chorus of ugly roars from the
stereo, and I don’t stop, don’t stop killing him until a hand touches my shoulder. I
freeze, because not even here, in my sanctuary, am I less than one step from
control.
My chest rasps with need for oxygen. I realize I have none left, and my
lungs can’t pull it in fast enough. In the mirror, I see her, small, scared, watching
me gulp down air. She’s smothered in this music that’s straight from hell, the
opposite of anything she represents, and the baby—
Shit, the baby can’t be hearing this!
I bound to the stereo and power it off. From below, a ballad slinks into our
bubble, and I stare at her, wordless.
Enormous eyes flicker with compassion. With slow, tentative steps, she
narrows in cautiously, like I’m the frightened one. I cover my face with my hands.
Shut her out. Move back into the corner I’m in.
“Sweetie,” she whispers.
AUTHOR BIO:
Originally from Norway, I moved to the United States twelve years ago. I hold a Master’s degree in languages and taught Spanish at college level before settling in at the Savannah College of Art and Design as an adviser.
I write New Adult fiction, sometimes with a paranormal twist—like in “Shattering Halos,” published by The Wild Rose Press in February 24th 2014 and in “Stargazer,” released November 2014. The first book I’ve self-published was the New Adult Contemporary novel “Pandora Wild Child,” which made me a proud indie author in October 28th 2014.
I specialize in impulsive heroines, bad-boys, and good-boys running amok. Then, there’s the intense love, physical and emotional attraction beyond reason—sensory overload for the reader as well as for the characters. Like in real life, I hope you’re unable to predict what comes next in my stories.
Yes, so I write what I love to read, and depending on the reader, you’ll find my books to be a fast-paced emotional rollercoaster—or disturbing because the struggles of love aren’t your thing. Here’s to hoping you have the same reading vice as me!
Website : http://www.sunnivadee.com/
Facebook: https://www.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/
Goodreads: https://www.
Pinterest: http://www.
Instagram: http://instagram.
I write New Adult fiction, sometimes with a paranormal twist—like in “Shattering Halos,” published by The Wild Rose Press in February 24th 2014 and in “Stargazer,” released November 2014. The first book I’ve self-published was the New Adult Contemporary novel “Pandora Wild Child,” which made me a proud indie author in October 28th 2014.
I specialize in impulsive heroines, bad-boys, and good-boys running amok. Then, there’s the intense love, physical and emotional attraction beyond reason—sensory overload for the reader as well as for the characters. Like in real life, I hope you’re unable to predict what comes next in my stories.
Yes, so I write what I love to read, and depending on the reader, you’ll find my books to be a fast-paced emotional rollercoaster—or disturbing because the struggles of love aren’t your thing. Here’s to hoping you have the same reading vice as me!
Website : http://www.sunnivadee.com/
Facebook: https://www.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/
Goodreads: https://www.
Pinterest: http://www.
Instagram: http://instagram.
Thank you for hosting Leon, Danielle!!!
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