Lust (The Stripped Bare Series Book 1) (26 page)
Read Lust (The Stripped Bare Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Elle McKenzie
Keep reading to get a sneak peek at Max and Jasmin
e’
s next chapter.
Firstly I have to thank my husband. Without you I wouldn’t be here today. You’re my rock, my life, my love, and I’m so grateful to you for allowing me to make my dream a reality. Without your love and support this book wouldn’t have happened.
To my children, I love you more than air. You are my constant. You drive me crazy at times but I wouldn’t have you any other way. I’m so sorry that I have neglected you whilst trying to finish this novel but I promise that Mum will make it up to you.
To my parents, thank you for your love and support. It means the world to me.
To Marian, Sian, Michele, Vicki, and Dawn. Thank you for helping me on this journey. Thanks for your guidance and support. I know I can be a mithering bitch at times but I love you all.
Thank you to my best friend, Belinda. Yo
u’
ve always been here for me to support me,and keep me grounded. Yo
u’
re always here for me when I need you. I love you lots like Jelly Tots. My bestie forever.
Lastly, to my readers, thank you to each and every one of you. Thank you for your support, your reviews, your messages of support and your pimping. You mean the world to me, each and every one of you.
Please leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. I really do appreciate all my reviews and they help an indie like me immensely.
Extreme and violent anger that is accompanied by a person doing something to satisfy that anger.
Max
When we were kids, Dex and I would go to this park near to where we lived. It wasn’t really much of a park; it was more of a massive garden with a few swings and a slide in it. But it wasn’t the swings and slides that we were bothered about, it was the trees and bushes.
We spent hours making our own secret hideout inside those bushes. John, Dex’s dad, would provide us with wood, a hammer and some nails so we could make a proper fort. It took us months to get it perfect and when it was done we were so proud of ourselves. It was our secret escape, a place to chill in peace and then later, it was a place to take the girls.
One day, when we were fourteen, we arrived at the fort after school to find it had been burned to the ground. Dex was devastated. I was pissed off. It wasn’t just the fact that we’d spent so long building it; it was the fact that it was ours, the fact that we had somewhere to call our own. We had somewhere to go to escape the reality of life, to escape all of the crap that was happening in our families.
That was the first real time that I felt wrath. The first time that this red-hot heat flamed inside my body. The first time that my heart pumped so hard inside my chest that I felt like if I didn’t punch something I’d die. The first time that I wanted to provide physical bodily harm to someone.
That summer, we spent days trying to find out who burned down our den. Eventually we found out that it was this older dude called Jimmy Hitchin. Jimmy was sixteen, almost seventeen and it turned out that he came across our den by accident and thought it would be funny to burn it to the ground. Well, we didn’t think it was funny, and neither did he when we finished with him. I won’t go into the details of what we did to Jimmy, but let’s say, when we finished with him he didn’t burn down anything else ever again.
Yes, that was the time that I learned what wrath was. Wrath is an intense anger that bubbles away inside of you until you can no longer control it. It consumes you, it takes over your life and eats away at your mind. Until you release it.
Anger is like a pressure cooker - you can apply pressure against your anger for so long before it explodes. And when it does finally explode you want to make sure you’re as far away from that cooker as possible, or you’ll get hurt in the process.
Now, let me tell you a bit about what happens to remove that anger. It’s called REVENGE.
Revenge, in the dictionary,
is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Revenge to me is about gaining control of a situation. It’s about letting out this anger inside of me so that I can continue with my life knowing that I have made the instigator of my wrath pay for what they’ve done.
The wrath that I have inside of me right now is directed at one person, and one person only. That person is Blake O’Reilly. The problem I have right now is that he’s in custody, in a police cell. I can’t get to him; I can’t act out my revenge. So, this anger is stuck inside, it’s building on a daily basis and I have no way of letting it out.
The only time that I don’t feel this anger is when I’m buried deep inside her. My light. My mermaid. Jasmine. Some people would probably blame her for the situation, I know some people do. Jasmine herself is one of those people, but I’m not. I don’t blame her because I love her. I love her more than life itself. My best friend died trying to protect her, which means that I can never turn my back on her. If I did, his death would have been for nothing.
And I’ll be damned if I’ll ever let his death be for nothing!
