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  SHIVER

  A Novella

  Featuring the Foster Family

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Deborah Bladon

  FIRST ORIGINAL KINDLE EDITION, JANUARY 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Deborah Bladon

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any resemblance to actual person’s, living or dead, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-926440-34-7

  Book & cover design by Wolf & Eagle Media

  www.deborahbladon.com

  Also by Deborah Bladon

  THE OBSESSED SERIES

  THE EXPOSED SERIES

  THE PULSE SERIES

  THE VAIN SERIES

  THE RUIN SERIES

  IMPULSE

  SOLO

  THE GONE SERIES

  FUSE

  THE TRACE SERIES

  CHANCE

  THE EMBER SERIES

  THE RISE SERIES

  HAZE

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Preview of TORN

  Preview of TENSE

  Deborah’s Mailing List

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  My mother, may her beautiful soul rest in peace forever, told me that my sins would come back to haunt me. It was wrapped in a warning about the dangers of smoking cigarettes and drinking a beer with my dad and my twin brother on our fourteenth birthday.

  I didn't need the advice. I smoked one cigarette. It was a habit never formed although she believed I'd get hooked. The same was true of the beer. When I was fourteen it tasted like swamp water laced with drain cleaner. I'd raced my brother, Ben, to the washroom to see who would vomit first. I won that contest and poor Ben spent the last hour of our birthday mopping up the vile combination of alcohol and pizza that his body had expelled all over the hardwood floors in the hallway.

  That was more than half my lifetime ago and since then everything in my world has changed. I'm a photographer now. The transition from taking nude photographs of women to capturing the smiling faces of children, newly married couples and the occasional celebrity was easy. Even though I work twice as hard now for a tenth of the money, I don’t regret a thing. I'm proud of each picture I've taken since changing the course of my career.

  I'm most proud of the family portrait I'm touching up now. I asked my former assistant, Falon Shaw, to take it on New Year's Eve. Judging by this, I could be working for her. She's got natural talent. The kind I wished I would have had at her age.

  "Is it almost done, Noah? How much longer am I going to have to wait to see it?"

  Her voice is my solace. Alexa Foster is my angel. She rescued me from the pit of desperation I'd buried myself in after I was stabbed. She saw something in me that I still don't fucking understand. I stopped trying to make sense of any of it the day she married me.

  "Why weren’t you this eager when I wanted to fuck you this morning?" I ask under my breath. "Your ass is my weakness, Alexa."

  "My ass is your weakness?" She turns to the side to rub her hand over her jean covered ass. "Last week you said it was my breasts."

  "Your tits would drive any sane man to the brink."

  "The brink of what?" She winks at me. "I had to grade papers this morning. It's hard to balance the pen in my hand when you're pounding your dick into me."

  I laugh loudly as I pull her into my lap. Moments like this are fleeting and rare now. After we adopted our twins, our lives took on a path of their own. I'd fallen even more in love with Alexa as I watched her help our son and our daughter adapt to a new home. Max and Chloe are happy, carefree and right now, both of my six-year-old children are on their way home with their sitter, Diana.

  "I wish we had time now." I squeeze her thigh. "You don't know how badly I want you."

  "I can tell." She rubs her ass over my covered erection. "I wish we had time too but the kids are almost home. When Diana called they were less than two blocks away."

  There's no time for me to take her to our bed. I need it. I need to feel myself connected to her on that level before I confess to her. My wife is the only person who knows every secret I've carried with me; almost every secret, that is.

  "You're on dinner duty." She taps my shoulder. "The kids are going to be starving when they get here. You should be in the kitchen."

  I cling tightly to her when I feel her pull away. "Can't Diana take them out for dinner? I want to be alone with my wife."

  For the first time since she's walked into our home office she looks directly at my face. Her expression shifts immediately. I can sense when realization washes over her. "What's wrong? Noah, tell me what's going on."

  It would take only a few words for me to push the burden of what I've been carrying with me off my shoulders. Logically, I only need to say one sentence to explain what I've been hiding from Alexa, but I can't do it knowing our time alone is limited right now. I curse silently when I hear the sitter's key in the lock of our apartment's door. "The kids are here. I need to cook."

  I kiss her softly, brushing my fingertips across her chin. The first time I saw her standing in the doorway of my penthouse back in Boston, I knew my future was with her. She's even more beautiful now than she was that day.

  I've watched her cry over the scribbled words that filled the Mother's Day cards our kids gave to her and I've seen her worry over our son's mild fever one night and our daughter's bloody knee when she tripped running through Central Park. Her deep love for our family has only strengthened how much I worship her.

  There was a time when I believed that my life stopped the night my body and face were scarred. Now I know that it began the day I met Alexa. I've tried to be the man she needs and wants. I've tried to give her everything, but I'm not perfect.

  As I stare into her deep blue eyes, I know that once I share my news with her, she's going to question if I'm happy. She's going to wonder if the life we've built together is enough for me.

  I'm Alexa's motherfucking knight in shining armor. I never want that to change. I'll do everything in my power to always be that to her, but I need to look out for me too. I can't give everything I want to her if I'm not the best man I can possibly be.

  "Noah, dinner can wait." She nudges her lips against mine as her hands cup my cheek. The simple band I gave her at our wedding presses into my skin. "Something is wrong. Please tell me what it is."

  I kiss her again, harder this time, wanting to feel the pressure of her lips and the taste of her mouth long after I've pulled away from her. "It can wait, Alexa. Let's go take care of our kids."

  Her face brightens with the genuine smile that overtakes her. "I'll help with dinner and maybe afterwards we can go for a walk."

  "It's fucking freezing outside."

  "You own a jacket." Her gaze falls to my lap. "By the way, I'll take you up on that offer once the kids are asleep."

  "What offer is that?" I ask through a grin.

  She turns away from me as she stands, her ass wiggling in the air in front of me. "You know exactly what I'm talking ab
out."

  I resist the urge to reach out to touch her when first my son, and then my daughter, come racing into the room and into my wife's arms.

  ***

  "Breathe, Alexa," I whisper the words into the slick skin of her neck as I pump my cock into her. "You have to slow down and catch your breath."

  She nods. It's the only response other than the briefest circle of her hips against the cold tiles of the shower stall and the clawing of her nails into my shoulders.

  After we'd taken a walk in the freezing cold, we'd shared a mug of hot milk with each other while the kids enjoyed the same. We'd tucked them in. Alexa reading a story about parakeets to Chloe while I told Max about the time my father took me to meet a race car driver in Los Angeles.

  An hour after they'd finally fallen asleep, I'd walked away from my laptop and the dozens of family portraits I was editing from a job I had before Christmas. I wanted to give Alexa the time she needed to grade her students' schoolwork so she wasn't rushing to finish it in the morning, the way she typically does. Time management is a foreign concept to her.

  It only took me a minute to realize that she was in the shower. I locked our bathroom door, shed my clothes and was on my knees in front of her in record time. I brought her to orgasm quickly, her hands woven into my hair as she stifled her desperate desire to scream as the pleasure surged through her.

  My beautiful wife has learned to quiet her cries when we fuck. The only time she completely lets loose is when the kids are with her mom in Boston for a weekend or the infrequent times we meet for an hour in our bed right after she's done work for the day. I crave time alone with her. I yearn for moments just like this.

  I cradle her ass in my hands, relishing the way it feels to have her legs wrapped around me. I push her back into the wall, harder with each thrust of my cock.

  She tries to up the tempo again, desperate for another release. I want it to last. I want to savor each stroke of my dick inside of her.

  "Slow," I whisper against her shoulder before I pull her skin between my teeth. There was a time when that slight burst of pain would result in a few harsh, heated words from her lips, but it's changed. Now, her pussy clenches around my dick as the pain races through her. The accompanying moan is soft but filled with need.

  "I'm so close," she breathes.

  I'm right there too. I can feel the heat pulsing through me with each grind of my cock into her. I want this to last. I want to fuck her for hours; not mere minutes but the drive to be inside of her has been haunting me all day.

  Seeing her like this, barely able to control herself with her wet blonde hair framing her delicate face, and her breath restrained to muted gasps pushes me into my own release.

  I cling tightly to her body as I pump every drop into her quivering pussy before I kiss her, knowing I'll capture the sounds of her climax.

  CHAPTER 2

  "We didn't have a chance to talk last night, Noah." Alexa adjusts the collar of Chloe's navy blue dress before she taps the edge of her still untouched plate of eggs and toast. "You need to eat this, princess, before you go to school."

  Chloe pushes her dark hair back over her shoulders. It's a slight gesture but one that both Alexa and I have gotten used to. Our daughter has a stubborn streak that mirrors my own. We may have adopted them a year and a half ago, but I've never felt as though they weren't my own children. I know that we didn’t conceive them, yet they are as much a part of Alexa and me as we are of each other. I can't imagine loving a child, any child, more than I love these two.

  "I hate eggs." Chloe rests her fork next to the plate. "I want cereal today."

  Alexa's gaze settles on Max who has already finished every bite of food that was on his plate. The kid has an appetite that never quits. I hand him another piece of toast, which he hungrily accepts.

  "Your brother is eating his breakfast." Alexa smooths her hand over Chloe's hair. "If you take a few bites, I'll cut up an apple for you."

  It's a negotiating tactic we've both come to rely on. It's part of the give and take of caring for Chloe. Her dark eyes dart up to her mother's face before she picks up the fork to slowly eat the now cold scrambled eggs.

  "I'm sorry I fell asleep so fast after my shower." Alexa squeezes my shoulder before she walks to the counter to scoop a bright red apple into her hand. "Can we talk about it now? Is it about your work?"

  I finish the rest of the coffee I poured for myself thirty minutes ago. "I'd rather talk about it when it's just the two of us."

  I look up to see her staring at me. She has ten minutes before she needs to be out the door and on her way to work. If we begin this conversation now, there's no way in hell she's going to make it to class on time.

  "What's your schedule like this afternoon?" She drops her gaze to the cutting board as she asks the question. "I can come right home after work."

  "I've got a late afternoon shoot." I stare down at the schedule I've saved on my smartphone. "I doubt I'll make it back here before these two go to bed."

  "Daddy." Chloe's on her feet, her small hands shooting to her waist. "It's your turn to read to me tonight."

  "I'll do my best." I lean forward to pull her tiny frame into my arms. "Daddy will do his best to be here."

  I will. I'll do everything I can to be here and to finally tell my wife what I've been neglecting to mention for the past few weeks.

  ***

  "Do you remember taking that?" Nicholas Wolf gestures towards a framed photo hung on the wall to the left of us.

  I don't need to look up from my camera to know exactly what he's talking about. I saw it the moment I walked into his loft. It's hard to miss. It's a portrait I took of a woman four or five years ago back in my penthouse in Boston. She's completely nude although the only hint of that to anyone studying the photograph is the side view of her left breast. The curve of her stomach and her hip pulls the eye in. It's a piece I'm proud of.

  "The details are sketchy," I admit. "It was a long time ago."

  He walks towards the large picture frame. It measures at least a few feet square. "What I love most about it is that you can't see her face. You can only imagine her beauty based on her body. What did she look like? What color was her hair?"

  I finally pull my eyes to the portrait before I stare at him. He's my height but that's where our similarities end. His hair is black. His eyes a light shade of blue. I'm not surprised that he's garnering the interest he is in the literary world right now. He may be winning awards for his detective novel series, but it's his appearance that has women flocking to his book signings and television appearances. I'm not the man crush type, but I see the appeal.

  "I don't remember," I answer honestly. "All their faces blurred together."

  "How many women did you photograph?" He turns towards me, his arms crossing over his chest. "I once read it was hundreds."

  I read that same article a little more than a month ago when I perusing the Internet one night. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find when I typed my name into the search bar. The articles and images I spent the next two hours looking at only widened the void I feel inside of me.

  I don't want to go back to being Noah Foster, photographer of naked women. I don't miss the endless stream of prostitutes I invited into my home. I'd pay them a few thousand dollars in exchange for free rein to capture their nude bodies with my camera.

  It filled my time and my drive to be successful. Looking back at that life now, I can see how bleak and hollow it actually was.

  "I can't tell you how many." I trace my fingers along the scar on my cheek. "I didn't keep a running tally."

  "Do you miss it?"

  "Nope," I toss back quickly, almost too quickly.

  I do miss the freedom to express myself through my art. I can't do that when I'm taking family portraits or shooting a professional head shot, like I am right now. My camera has turned into a tool I use to earn a living. It's not an extension of my creativity the way it used to be.

  "You're
sure?" he chuckles. "You made quite a name for yourself, Noah."

  I don't answer mainly because I've got fuck all to say in response.

  "That was my first purchase after I hit it big." He tilts his head back slightly towards the portrait. "I bought it last year at an auction."

  I'm tempted to ask the price he paid but I know how the value of my work has skyrocketed since I retired from that aspect of my career. "It's a wise investment."

  "You're telling me that?" he jokes. "Every time I look at it I'm reminded of how far I've come. I first saw your work in a gallery five, or six years ago. I didn't have two pennies to rub together back then."

  I'd guess he's twenty-seven or twenty-eight which are only a few years younger than me but right now I feel like the wiser, older brother to this kid. He's living in a loft in SoHo that's either a truckload of money to rent each month or cost him a bloody small fortune to buy.

  He bought one of my portraits along with a few pieces from some current all-stars in the art world. He's got an eye for beauty and a penchant for expensive things. It's obvious he's got the world by the balls right now. He reminds me of myself before the stabbing.

  "Don’t lose sight of what's important, Nick," I offer even though I know I have no place giving him advice on anything. "I did that for a time. It fucked me up."

  "My family won't let me." He eyes shoot to mine. "I'm keeping it all in perspective, Noah. I know what matters."

  I do too. What matters more than anything is my family and regardless of what I may think I need out of life, nothing can compare to what my wife and my children give to me. I need to heed my own advice and keep that in perspective.

  CHAPTER 3

  "Sit on my lap." I tap my fingers on my thigh.

  "You sound like that Santa Claus we saw last month at the mall." She yanks the hem of her skirt up so I can see the top of her stockings. "Remember how he wanted me to sit on his lap after the kids had their picture taken with him?"

  "He was a fucking pervert, Alexa." I run my hand over the smooth skin of her thigh. "You gave him a raging hard-on. You were wearing this exact outfit."