Sample 60 Saturday: High Risk

Cover art by Trace Edward Zaber

Every Saturday, until I run out of books--or decide to go to page 70--I will present an excerpt, page 60, from one of my books. No matter what it says--funny, filthy, scary, dumb, or tantalizing--you'll get it here.

And I'd love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below and let me know if this made you want to read more.

Let's continue the chronological tour and delve into my gruesome thriller about an unfaithful wife and what happens when she meets a devastatingly handsome man whose alluring facade conceals a monster, High Risk.

Synopsis
Her secret life...
Beth Walsh seems like such a demure housewife. Taking care of her attorney husband and doing volunteer work, the young woman is someone you'd meet at a church social. But Beth has a secret life. While her husband works, Beth slides into what she calls her "slut clothes" and goes on the prowl. She becomes a completely different woman, wanton and uninhibited, with dozens of handsome strangers. Until she meets the one blindingly gorgeous stranger who will make her more than sorry for her secrets and lies. 

Abbott Lowery is every woman's dream: handsome, muscular, with intense blue eyes that contrast with his thick black hair. Women want him. Men want him. But Abbott is deeply damaged, and inside lurks a monster just waiting to be released. When Beth Walsh pursues him, it pushes a deeply buried rage to the fore and he becomes determined to punish her. Beth meeting Abbott lights the fuse on a bomb. Its explosion leads to a tale of terror and desperation so intense it will sear everyone who knows them. 

High Risk is a story of secrets, tainted histories, murder, kidnapping, and an ending so brutal and shocking readers will be left breathless.
 
Page 60
Abbott leaned back in the recliner in which he had fallen asleep, trying to calm himself. His perspiration had damped the chair’s corduroy. He knew he’d feel better if he could just lower his pulse rate, stop his heart from pounding, take his breathing down a notch…and cool off. His face burned hot; it and his back and armpits ran slick with sweat.

After a few moments, Abbott felt well enough to cross the room to the refrigerator, crack open an Old Style and down half of it in a single gulp. He glanced at the clock. Almost 7 p.m. He was due at Bennie’s in an hour. One more hour before facing the hordes, being forced to bear witness to their empty lives, their preening, their egos.

He wasn’t sure he could make it through another night there. Watching them made him want to puke.

He drank the rest of the beer, leaning against the windowsill and peering into the darkness.

***

Beth sat in the living room, alone. A pillar candle on the coffee table provided the only light, flickering and casting shadows. Philip Glass tinkled softly, just above audible, from the stereo speakers. Outside, darkness pressed in at the windows, an almost palpable force.

She had sat in this same spot for hours, watching the sky go from pewter to a mix of magenta, pink, and violet, until dark, and tried not to think. Tried not to wonder how long it would be before her infidelity was exposed and Mark would throw her out, and she’d no longer be able to watch the afternoon wind down into dusk and finally evening through leaded glass. Tried not to wonder just how much longer it would be until Mark confronted her, with the evidence he already had, or with more that Abbott would probably pile on top.

She would be found out. Beth couldn’t be sure if her exposure would come from the intervention of a crazy man, a careless slip, or her bringing home a sexually transmitted disease.

“Honey, what’s the sore on my dick?”

Beth shivered.

Mark would know one day. She couldn’t keep going as she had without something giving way.

She leaned forward and lifted the glass of white burgundy to her lips. She swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment. Irony. Was that what her thoughts were right now? Because in spite of all this, thoughts of sex had interlaced themselves. She couldn’t deny that sex would take away the pain and the fear for a little while. Couldn’t deny that out there, somewhere, perhaps a little tipsy in some corner bar after staying for one-too-many after work, would be a handsome man who would throw her up against a door and fuck her until she could think of nothing else save the pleasure and the pain she got from him pounding her, from the slick intermingling of their juices running down her thighs…

Buy High Risk.