Come Undone - A Standalone Bad Boy Romance Novel Read online

  © Copyright 2016 by Gabi Moore - All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

  COME UNDONE

  By: Gabi Moore

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 - Mark

  Chapter 2 - Kat

  Chapter 3 - Kat

  Chapter 4 - Mark

  Chapter 5 - Kat

  Chapter 6 - Kat

  Chapter 7 - Mark

  Chapter 8 - Kat

  Chapter 9 - Mark

  Chapter 10 - Kat

  Chapter 11 - Mark

  Chapter 12 - Kat

  Chapter 13 - Kat

  Chapter 14 - Mark

  Chapter 15 - Kat

  Chapter 16 - Mark

  Chapter 17 - Kat

  Chapter 18 - Mark

  Chapter 19 - Kat

  Chapter 20 - Mark

  Chapter 21 - Kat

  Chapter 22 - Mark

  Chapter 23 - Kat

  FANTASY/SCI-FI:

  Manipulator Of Elements – A Young Adult Urban Fantasy

  Wicked Legacy – An Urban Fantasy

  Chosen – A Sci-Fi

  Faerie Rift – An Adult Urban Fantasy

  A New Dawn – A Young Adult Urban Fantasy

  STEAMY CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE:

  HEART OF DARKNESS

  RESISTING THE BAD BOY

  MANHANDLED

  BARE HANDS

  ABSOLUTION

  BREAK

  BLOOD AND GUTS

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  COME UNDONE

  By Gabi Moore

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  Chapter One - Mark

  I stared long and hard at the wood and leather instrument in front of me.

  It was slowly getting there, but it wasn’t right just yet. Wood and leather was all it was. Dark wood, even darker leather, and the gleaming metal buckles of the attached straps. That’s all.

  But if I looked at it just right, it stopped being just wood and leather to me. It became flesh and blood. It came alive under my gaze. It breathed. I saw soft, human shapes twisted in pleasure. Stretched limbs, clenched fists, the lower arc of a breast on a ribcage spread wide... a kind of carnal yoga.

  I narrowed my eyes and thought about this thing I had made, with my own two hands.

  Her hips would balance there, just so, across the main A-frame. Here she would hinge, hipbones pressing into the padded leather mound so that she effortlessly folded in the middle, a sort of sexual down-dog, ass lifted up high and exposed.

  On this instrument her legs would be separated and held apart by the strong wooden legs that matched hers, and belted tightly so that no matter what happened to her, she would not be able to squirm free and would have no choice but to endure everything.

  I could also see how her arms would be spread and held apart, just like her legs, out in front of her and to either side of her head, which would hang down low and limp.

  This was a piece of furniture. A piece of art. A unique and marvelous object. And something to fuck on. Something beautiful, but cruel. An instrument of perfect torture. A device that would only make sense when melded with the hot limbs of the humans using it. It was a tool of restraint. And a tool of liberation.

  I paced around the contraption and viewed it from another angle.

  Bound in such a device, a woman could be well and truly fucked, utterly opened up to complete domination and ravaged deeper than ever, penetrated so thoroughly she’d see nearly the face of God himself…

  But something was wrong.

  It just didn’t look right.

  Not yet.

  I frowned and took the measurements for the rear legs again.

  For a custom piece like this, the balance of weight on the different joints, the predictable fold of the flesh, the length of the wooden legs and the skill of getting the restraining cuffs to hit just the right part of the human leg …these things were incredibly precise. To get them just right without compromising the beauty of the lines of the device itself …well, on days like this it felt nearly impossible.

  I frowned and rubbed my face, then tossed the measuring tape aside. I’d look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. I had another massive commercial order come through this morning and would need to get stuck into that soon.

  Being an artisan purveyor of custom-made sex furniture may have been my life’s true calling, but it certainly didn’t pay the bills. Pumping out thirty identical faux-Balinese TV cabinets for a Thai resort did pay those bills, though, and so that’s what I did.

  For now.

  Until I made a bigger name for myself, or until the world developed a taste for fancy BDSM flavored erotic furniture, I would have to take on jobs like that to stay afloat.

  I put on a shirt, stretched hard till I had squeezed out all the cracks in my back, then switched off the light and headed to the den. I had to remind myself, of course, of the real irony here: it really was just wood and leather, after all. Things which were painstakingly made in solitude in my workshop were sent off to be used as tools of love, by couples who were so into screwing one another they decided to blow a few grand on a fancy chair to do so.

  I kicked off my shoes.

  It didn’t matter. Quality was worth it for me. That’s what I told my clients, and I meant it.

  If I didn’t meet a single woman in this lifetime who fit the bill, then so be it. I’m not a spontaneous fuck-on-the-uncomfortable-kitchen-table kind of guy. No, I’d rather plan carefully. Boy scout sex, if you like – be prepared. Craft that supremely perfect moment, that apex of pleasure where everything is so thoroughly in sync and choreographed that it falls away completely, leaving only bliss. Take all the measurements, set the stage, carve out a moment …and let that glorious something unfold.

  Until I found that moment – and the woman to make that moment real – I wasn’t interested in cheap, hollow sex.

  The pool of women who want a divine, ecstatic sexual experience but also to be fucked so hard they’d almost panic I’d tear them in half …well, it’s not a very big pool of women.

  But I don’t care. That’s what I want.

  Each of my custom pieces can take anywhere from two weeks to six months to create. I’m willing to wait far, far longer for the right woman.

  I strolled into the kitchen, rummaged a beer from the fridge and took a cool sip. I sat at the desk and scrolled through some invoices, particularly one for a new piece of bocote wood for a restored antique cupboard. It had cost me a fortune but the owner wanted that specific oily, interlocked grain and I was happy with this supplier’s shipments so far. Just a few days before, I had sourced a magnificent piece of zebrawood for a dining room table and planned to create a parquet effect on the top with diamonds of ebony. It cost me more to make than I would ever sell it for, but the secret is that with things that beautiful, I didn’t altogether mind about the profit.

  My eye caught a message on my phone.

  Valerie.

  Shit.

  Women are a lot like wood, if you think about it as much as I’ve thought about it. Some are plain grained but tough as nai
ls and simply melt under the saw like they were born for it. Others are all ornamental swirls and stripes, pretty right up until you try to work them, then you see how porous and prone to tearing they are, how brittle. Some are born to be worked into trinkets, others were destined for heirloom war chests big and deep enough to carry any damn thing.

  Valerie was a flimsy softwood with a dark gloss to hide the dents.

  If you know what you’re looking for, you can tell what kind of life a tree has lived just by looking at the knots and pattern of its grain. You can tell if it suffered drought, or got a parasitic infection or got partially burnt.

  It’s the same with women.

  Most of the girls who found their way into my workshop all had characteristic scars and scratches in them, one way or another. They either met me at some BDSM event and coyly invited themselves round for a “consult”, or they claimed to be commissioning a piece for their boyfriend, who would magically disappear right when the piece was finished.

  Sometimes I’d get excited, though. I’d think, this is it. This is my girl. In my mind, I’d start measuring up the different lengths and angles of her personality to see if it would line up with mine. I’d start cautiously setting the stage.

  But I would always be disappointed.

  The women I met weren’t fearless explorers of far out sexual territories; they were most often scared little girls who couldn’t tell the difference between a Dom and an asshole, between ecstasy and disassociation.

  I stretched back in my chair, slammed the laptop shut and exhaled loudly. Nevermind about any of that, though. I was an artisan, and my medium was the kinky trifecta of wood, metal and leather. My eyes fell closed and I took another swig. I knew how to build things. And I knew how to wait. I would build the perfect instrument, in the meantime. The right woman would just have to come later.

  And come she would.

  Chapter Two – Kat

  “Wait, wait, wait!” she said. “Just how long have you known this guy for?”

  I trailed my fingers up and down the cold stem of my wine glass.

  “Uh… maybe a month? A little less? I don’t know.”

  Everyone at the table erupted into surprised laughter.

  “A month? And he’s already asked you to marry him? That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

  I took a sip and smiled, trying to pretend that the story I was telling wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounded. But, well …it was. It was the most ridiculous thing that had happened in my entire life.

  I had met Anthony at a speed dating event. We had chatted about nothing for exactly two minutes, shook hands and then I had promptly forgotten all about him. He then messaged me a week later, and we chatted and walked in the park near my house. He sent me cute texts and wished me goodnight for a week. The second time I ever met up with him, it was for an overpriced dinner date at a family steakhouse. That night, he proposed.

  No, really. I didn’t believe it either.

  “Look,” I said, “it’s not like it was an actual proposal.”

  My three best friends from way back, seated around the patio table, all raised their eyebrows simultaneously.

  I refilled my glass with white wine.

  “Like, he didn’t get down on one knee and give me a ring or anything. It was more like …more like a business proposal.”

  We were four middle-aged women sitting around drinking wine on a late Sunday afternoon. What else would we be talking about except men and all the millions of ways they could make life ridiculous?

  Kara had been divorced, twice. Annie, once. Lily married straight out of school and had been casually resenting her husband for the last ten years. And then there was me, divorced from a cheating scumbag just two months ago and smack bang into a new marriage proposal.

  I drank my wine.

  “Sounds romantic,” said Lily.

  I shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” Kara said. “I think I kind of like it. It just cuts to the chase, you know? None of us are getting any younger here, so why beat around the bush?”

  “Because maybe he’s a serial killer or something?” I said, smiling.

  “Serial killer? Now just wait a second. Didn’t you say he has a kid, too?”

  “Yup, he’s a widower. I think his little girl is four or five.”

  “And didn’t you say he was well off?”

  “Yeah. A hotel owner or something.”

  “And he wants to build a stable family life with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kara whistled low under her breath and took a sip of her own wine.

  “Sounds like you won the jackpot to me.”

  I sighed. She had a point. At this stage of my life, an employed, stable adult type who knew what he wanted and had the maturity to ask for it seemed like …a miracle. A suspicious miracle.

  “I guess it’s just kind of depressing. There’s no romance in it, you know? He seems good on paper, it’s just that…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a bit older than me, too. Early forties? Maybe forty-two? I’m not saying he’s unattractive or anything but…”

  “But what?” Annie insisted. “God, I say just go for it. Honestly. Dating is overrated anyway.”

  I leaned back in my chair.

  Dating wasn’t overrated. It was downright terrifying. I didn’t consider myself old, not by a long shot, and I wasn’t that out of the loop, but already just a casual dabble in the world of online dating had left a nasty taste in my mouth and I was already feeling like I’d scream at the next man who told me he ‘wasn’t looking for a relationship right now’.

  My ex, Jeff, had been everything to me. I had been one of those smug marrieds. I had cheerfully ticked off ‘pair bonding’ from life’s great to do list and assumed that I would never again have to brave the indignity of going out into the dating market.

  And now I had no idea what I was doing.

  Men seemed so different from when I was single in my early twenties. Or maybe it was me who was different. At any rate, the idea of having something fall in my lap and being spared the rigors of dating did have a certain appeal.

  “My therapist says that often women run away from precisely the men that would treat them the best,” Kara said. “You know, we’re all attracted to the assholes, the cheaters. And then when a guy who actually wants to have a relationship, who actually wants to build a life comes along, you don’t even know what to do with him.”

  “Well, she’s right about the being attracted to assholes part,” I said, a little too bitterly.

  “I don’t know, I think it’s refreshing that he’s so upfront about his intentions. It’s honest.”

  The word ‘honest’ stung me. The wound my ex had left was still fresh. I had had it all. The prettiest picture perfect life you could imagine. And there was a tiny thread in it, and like an idiot I had pulled on that thread, and the whole thing had come undone. Just tugging on one of his lies unraveled all the others, one after the other, until I was sure even I would be unpicked at the seams.

  One morning I woke up, Kat Lilith, a successful woman with a coveted job, a beautiful four-year-old and a devoted husband of more than a decade. And the next morning, I woke feeling like a punchline. Like the cheesiest, most predictable soap opera.

  “Well,” I said, “he did say I could have some time to think it all through.”

  “How kind of him” Lily scoffed, and I laughed.

  “I know, I know, it’s crazy. Speed dating. Speed marrying…”

  “So, what are you going to tell him?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Come on,” Lily said, “what do you really think? Just answer now, from the heart. Just be honest.”

  I winced.

  That word again. Honest? I didn’t know anymore what it meant to be honest.

  He wanted a wife; I wanted a man who wouldn’t lie to me anymore. He had a child, I had a child, and we both had bills. He had laid it all out
for me over that overcooked steak dinner while the couple behind us tried to get their kids to stop fighting. He had said it’s the smart choice. He had said we share values, we’re both principled, and a partnership between us would be of mutual benefit. He admired my work, and he needed the companionship.

  Sure, he had said nothing about my eyes or how they took his breath away. This wasn’t about sex. About love. But it was practical. It made sense.

  Wasn’t that the honest truth anyway? I was 35 years old, I had responsibilities, a daughter to think of and a mortgage to pay. I had already had my whirlwind romance and it had ended badly. What I wanted now was something I could rely on. Did it really matter that he smelled vaguely of something burnt or that it bugged me how slightly crooked his teeth were?

  “I don’t know what my heart says,” I said, “but my head says it’s a pretty logical next step. He’s a nice guy.”

  That part wasn’t lying either. He was nice. He had worn a fancy shirt and didn’t swear. He had paid for my meal and held the door for me. But still…

  “He says he’ll give me a month to mull it over” I said finally. This made Lily laugh cynically. I shot her a dry look.

  “Anyway, I intend to give his proposal all the consideration it deserves. There’s nothing wrong with just considering it, right?”

  “Exactly. Don’t listen to her, she’s just jealous” said Kara and squeezed my arm.

  I stroked my fingers up and down the wine glass stem again, gathering cold drops on my fingertips.

  “I’m seeing him on Thursday again. We’re going to play mini golf.”

  “Mini golf?” said Lily, the naughty smile still on her lips.

  “Well what do you expect? It’s a school night. Why go to a noisy bar or whatever? I’m not a kid. I never do that kind of thing anyway,” I said, feeling a little defensive.

  Lily shrugged.

  “Fine,” she said, “I just don’t understand what the rush is though.”

  To be ‘honest’, I didn’t understand either. But it was the smart thing to do. And that’s what life is about. Making smart decisions. Cheap infatuation is just for kids anyway – what I needed now was something serious. My work was doing better than ever. Nicky needed a father figure in her life and I needed to move on from the burning wreckage that I used to call my marriage.