Coda (Songs of Submission #9) (21 page)

I have so many people I want to acknowledge. I hate doing this, not because I think I’m some kind of lone gun, but I’m in terror of forgetting someone. Please forgive me if you feel you belong here and you’re not. You’re probably right.

I’d like to thank every blog who ever posted a cover reveal, did a giveaway, shouted my name, or reviewed me. I work with some of you closely, and with others I work less closely. Please know that I’m not mentioning any names to protect myself from pissing people off.

I do have to thank TRSOR for organizing my publicity. Wow. Could never have asked for better.

My fellow writers have been instrumental in my improvement as a writer, a marketer, and a business owner. Thanks especially to the girls of BGP, EC, and FYW. Special shouts to Lauren Blakely, whose genius strategies deserve their own kind of award, and Laurelin Paige, whose heart is so fucking big I can’t even imagine how she drags it around.

Cassie Cox edited the entire Submission Series, except Submit (which she proofread like a badass). Thank you. You never disappoint me.

Then there are the individual fans. I’m just going to call out their names. They know what they do for me (everything) and how I feel about them (very very warmly) ERIK GEVERS (original heart intact) KAYLEE MARIE (not a pawn shop owner) DIANE AND TONY (Goodreads King and Queen) CHRISTY, JEAN, EVA, ANGIE, MS. BROMBERG (Race you, woman), XE, (I am now starting to panic that I’m forgetting someone) GLORYA, ANTHONY (eyes on the rear view), SUEBEE, every Starbucks in Hollywood and environs and yes, the pains in the ass I live with.

If I forgot you, forgive me.

 If you love hot Mafia men, check out my 
Corruption Series
. 
Spin
 and 
Ruin
 are full length and ready.

Theresa Drazen wants to know one thing.

Is there something wrong with her?

Because from what she can see, she has money, brains, a body that does the job. Yet, she keeps getting shelved. Most recently, by her fiancé who happens to be the DA.

And she'll get over it, really. No problem. She'll just have a nice, short encounter with a mysterious Italian named Antonio who may or may not be involved with some kind of alleged criminal activity...blah blah...

Let's call a spade a spade.

He's a mobster.

Let's face a few more facts.

He's hot. He's smart. And if anyone breathes on her the wrong way, he's got no problem beating their head against a Porsche until they're willing to lick up their own vomit to make it stop.

Just about everything about that turns her on.

Yeah. There's something wrong with her.

**MATURE AUDIENCES--Rough sex. Dirty talk. Criminal activity. Cursing. Fisticuffs. Closed course. Professional driver. Do not try this at home.**

Spin
 and 
Ruin
 are full length and ready.

------------------

Fiona Drazen's life as a celebutante and submissive slave in 
The Perdition Series
 starts with 
KICK,
 and continues with book two, 
USE.

You know what a celebutante is. It's a Paris Hilton. A Kim Kardashian. Someone who's famous for existing. That's me, and in case you were wondering what it's like...trust me, it's the best shit ever.

I like coke and I like sex. I have the money to buy the first and the looks to get the second. No one needs to know where I am for days at a time and no one gives a fuck. That's just the way I like it.

You got issue with that?

Good.

Because you think I have problems, and I don't. A problem would be defined as some situation in my life I didn't arrange. Like having no money. That's a problem, and I don't have it. Like having a ton of sex I don't totally enjoy. Also not my problem.

Now that we understand each other, you and me, and we understand that my life is exactly how I want it, you have to know that you don't have the right to hold me here.

Right?

Right.

The Perdition Series
 starts with 
KICK,
 and continues with book two, 
USE.

------------------

My Goodreads fan group is called CD Canaries: 
join the group!

Facebook fan-run group, go 
here
. Most fun, guaranteed.

Facebook fan page is 
here
. I run this, and it's for official news and announcements.

I’m on 
Pinterest
, 
Tumblr
, 
Twitter
 and Instagram with varying degrees of frequency.

------------------

To keep up with what I think is sexy today, see 
CD Reiss on Facebook

Email me at 
[email protected]

And, of course, if you have any feelings about this book you’d like to share, kindly leave a review.

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The following short was released as a Valentine’s Day special for the SubClub.

The story takes place about six weeks after Jonathan’s transplant. I tried to stick it in the beginning of the book, and it didn’t work. Then I tried to stick it in as a memory, and that didn’t work either, so here it is…

JONATHAN

I’d taken just about everything in my life for granted. Money, intelligence, women, family, but mostly my health. I protected it easily, worked through the bumps in the road, and exercised when I felt like it. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted. I saw a doctor in whatever country I was traveling in, or not at all.

Mostly not at all.

“You have a heart biopsy today,” my wife mumbled, her face buried in her pillow.

I brushed her hair behind her ear. I was sitting up in bed, and I had been for a few hours. I didn’t inherit my heart from a sleeper apparently, so I still stayed up half the night. I was used to that. What I wasn’t used to was being so weak I couldn’t be out of bed for more than a few hours at a time.

I hated spicy food I’d loved before. I had a strange urge to run, as if the road called to me. I couldn’t drink enough juice. All that was supposedly normal, as a rogue group of cells were peeling off the heart and sticking to my organs, but I felt way past the age when I should be discovering things about myself.

“I’m not going,” I said.

“Like hell.”

“I feel fine. I’m only supposed to get the biopsies if they think I’m rejecting.”

She got up on her elbows. “Jonathan, let’s not do this again.”

I could see the tops of her breasts as they fell into her white tank. We hadn’t made love since I’d gotten out of the hospital. We were afraid, both of us. I didn’t even know who we were sometimes.

“Let’s not then,” I said.

She rolled onto her back. The February chill always managed to get through the old windows, and the result was hard nipples pushing through her tank. She was still, as always, magnificent, and I felt a forgotten stirring.

“I’ll go with you,” she said. “Then we can get something to eat, and you’ll be back for a nap.”

“You’re in the studio today.”

“I’ll cut out. Eddie can reschedule.”

My hand, as if it had a mind of its own, brushed her nipple with the backs of my fingers. It bent under my fingers four times, then my thumb stayed, rolling it. Her eyes closed, and her mouth opened. She was the same, sensitive as a raw nerve ending, but she wouldn’t let me touch her until recently. I’d satisfied her twice since then, but we couldn’t do more together because of the nagging, overwhelming fear.

“You are not to reschedule again or ever,” I said, pinching the nipple.

“You have to go for the biopsy.” She groaned.

I was hard. Very hard. “No, I don’t.” I yanked at her panties. “Take these off.”

She looked at me for a second, her brown eyes big as coffee cups. She grabbed at the sides of her underwear and wiggled out of them. She’d started gaining weight back, and though the sickly gauntness was gone, her hip bones still jutted out too far under her skin, and the space between her thighs was too apparent. Getting something to eat probably wasn’t a bad idea, except I wasn’t getting another fucking biopsy.

She was still on her back, all hard nipples and hidden cunt. I didn’t know if I could. Physically, I had been cleared for fucking, but I still didn’t feel right. “Legs spread, knees up. Come on. Let me see.”

She did as she was told, as always, and I slid my hand down her belly, past her triangle, to her waiting lips. She gasped.

“You’re fucking soaked. I never met a woman who needed to fuck so bad.”

“Get the biopsy. God, please.” Her head was thrown back. “I’ll suck your cock right now.”

“You’re not using sex to bribe me are you?”

“I am, I am.”

Good, great God she needed a spanking. Six months ago, I would have welted her for doing what she was doing, but I didn’t think I could take any kind of intensity. I knew my heart wouldn’t pound since the vagus nerve had been cut, but having her clit under my fingers without feeling a racing heart as accompaniment to my desire was disconcerting. I felt dead at the same time as I felt on the precipice of life.

I took my fingers from her and placed them on her lips, glossing her lips with her juice. She opened her mouth and sucked on my fingers. I was about to spontaneously combust, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I was still not myself, still afraid, like a child. I was ashamed of my fear but not ashamed enough to conquer it.

I put my hand between her legs again, sliding inside her, up to her clit, and back. Her hand stroked between my thighs. I squeezed her clit, and she arched her back, then I touched the tip of it.

She gasped. “Let me suck you. Please. I’ll go slow.”

“No.” I flattened my fingers against her, pushed two into her cunt, and moved her clit with my palm. I pulled my fingers out again and back. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes, and I leaned down to kiss her. Her mouth tasted like cunt, and her tongue tasted like morning.

“Say my name.”

“Jonathan.”

I put three fingers in her and drew them out. She squeaked.

“Jonathan.”

“Come.” I moved faster, harder.

“Jonathan. Oh. Jonathan.” She arched her back, pushing her arms over her, crying out my name. Music, but with half an orchestra.

***

The technician breezed in wearing scrubs and a full suit of medical detachment. She was young and attractive, with no makeup and straight brown hair pulled back in an efficient ponytail. I had the best team in the world, and they treated me like any other patient. I guessed that was what I was paying them for.

“We’re going in through the arm today,” she said through her mask.

“That’s what the doctor said.”

“Are we doing the nitrous?”

Jesus fucking Christ, save me from the habitual pluralization of experience. “Nope.”

“It’s going to be uncomfortable.” Her tag said Fran. A bland name. It suited her.

“We’ll manage.” God, I was cranky.

Fran moved her tray of sharp things in front of her, and I laid out my arm. My first biopsy had been through the jugular vein. I suspected this would feel less invasive, more like a walk in the park while a tube snaked through my body. The swab was cold on my skin, and I went into meat mode, where I went someplace else in my mind while I was treated like a side of beef.

“So,” she said, beginning the small talk that preceded painful invasions, “we’re married, I see.” She pointed at my ring. “What are we doing for Valentine’s Day?”

I didn’t answer.

“Mister Drazen? Are you okay?”

I think the word “you,” as opposed to “we,” woke me faster than the real concern in her voice. “Today’s the fourteenth?”

“Yup,” she said, dicking around with her plastic and metal tinker toys.

“Shit.”

“We’re going to the Getty Center. They have this romantic dinner prix fix on the patio. They put candles on the fountain, and they have a really nice string quartet.”

“Shit,” I repeated. “I forgot.”

“Oh. Well. Maybe we can still get it together in time? Going in now. We’ll just feel a little pinch.” She got the stent in with barely a nip. Pluralization or no, she was good. She snapped the gloves off. “All done. Doctors will be back in a minute. Do you want the info for the Getty? I don’t think there will be space, but maybe someone cancelled?”

“Thanks, Fran. I’m good.”

***

Doctor Solis knew better than to kill me with “we” and “our” or small talk. He wanted me in and out of there as much as I wanted to go, and the two other doctors in the room seemed equally sensitive to Solis’s dominance.

“Any changes?” he asked, eyes on the monitor, fingers on keys as Doctor Nu slipped the thin tube through the stent. “Still off spicy food?”

“Hate it.”

“Too bad. How’s the wind been on your allergies?”

“I don’t have allergies.” I felt the tube slipping across my shoulder through a vein. It was truly uncomfortable. Not painful, but I had to think hard to keep from clawing through my skin to get the invading thing out.

“Chart says different.” Dr. Solis checked Dr. Nu’s work and looked at me. “You need to pay attention. Denial is your enemy. Your silly new allergies can turn into an infection you won’t be able to fight. With the drought and the wind, my wife is eating Claritin like candy, even in the middle of February.”

“Valentine’s Day,” I said more to myself than him.

“Any plans?” Dr. Solis asked, eyes on the tube, then the screen, then back.

“We’re in,” Dr. Nu called, one hand on the tube, and I felt it.

“Indeed,” Solis said. “Breathe, Mister Drazen. Breathe.”

***

How fast could I pull something together? Something huge. Something the size of my love, my respect, my devotion. It was our first Valentine’s together, and Christmas had been such a disaster that I felt as if I needed to make it up to Monica tenfold. But when I got home from the biopsy, Lil had to help me to the door.

“Where’s the missus today?” she asked. “Do you need me to get her?”

“Leave her alone. She’s in the studio.” Lil put me on the couch, and my body wanted to stay there forever.