Beg Me

By Shiloh Walker

Once, Tania Sinclair’s life was almost
perfect, happily married to a guy who adored her, one who had no
problem indulging every kinky fantasy she ever had. But a couple of
tragedies later, she’s barely holding it together. A car accident
has taken away her husband, and an attack from somebody she should
have been able to trust has shaken not only her confidence, but
it’s also stripped away her fantasies and even made it painful to
look back on her memories of her husband without fear.

Two years after her attack, Tania is
determined to take her life back, and the first step is taking back
herself—her fantasies, her dreams, her memories. There’s only one
person she can trust to do it, too. One person she wants
enough—Drake Bennett, her husband’s best friend. She needs him.
She’s asked him for a favor…one that just about blows his
mind…
Warning: This book involves light bondage play, rape fantasy &
role-playing. The acts between the hero & heroine are
consensual, but they may not be ideal for all readers…

Other Smashwords Titles by Shiloh Walker

Hunter’s
Choice

A Present for
Christmas

Published by Shiloh Walker at Smashwords

Cover Art by Angela Waters

Edited by Jennifer Barker, with additional
editorial work by Elle Chase

Copyright 2010 Shiloh Walker

Excerpt from Love Me Tender-Copyrighted to
Alison Kent

This ebook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person,
please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it
with. If you did not legally obtain a copy of this book, then you
should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard
work of this author—your support is what makes it possible for
authors to continue to provide the stories you enjoy.

This book is a work of fiction. The names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s
imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,
actual events, locale or organizations is entirely
coincidental.

Chapter One

C
all her
.

Drake Bennett stared at the phone, drumming
his fingers on his thigh. Black hair fell into his eyes as he
glared at the phone, uncertain. What did he do? Did he call her?
Did he leave her alone? Would she want to talk to anybody? Maybe
she was trying not to think about it. Him calling and saying
something, anything, would be rubbing salt in raw, open wounds.

January 4.

The four was a glaring red on the calendar
and as he stared at it, it seemed to pulse, breathe, bleed.

Call her. Call her…

“
Shit,” he muttered, shoving back from
his desk and pacing the narrow confines of his office.

Hell, he hadn’t even gone through it. Yeah,
he suffered because she did, but would he want to be alone
today?

And that decided him.

No
.

There were certain times when he just needed
a friend with him. This would be one of them, he thought.

It was only five. Early. He could see if she
wanted to grab a meal. Nice. Easy.

They were friends, after all. Right?

T
he ringing
of the phone was unwelcome until Tania Sinclair saw the caller ID.
There had been seven other calls that day—three from other friends,
four from her mother-in-law. The call from Drake Bennett was the
only one she’d answered.

“
Hello?”

“
Hey.”

The sound of his familiar voice, low and
easy, made her smile, made the knots in her belly unclench, and
somehow the tension in her neck and shoulders dissolved. “Hey,
yourself. How are you?”

“
Hungry. Bored. Why don’t you save me
from myself and get some dinner with me?”

Tania closed her eyes. She wasn’t fooled by
the easy, casual invitation. Drake might have been her late
husband’s best friend, but he was her friend as well. Ever since
Kyle’s death, he’d taken it onto his shoulders to watch over her,
take care of her…and sometimes she glimpsed the guilt and anger
that slipped into his eyes for the time that he hadn’t been
there.

Not that she blamed him.

She licked her lips, staring at the
calendar. Not that she needed the damn calendar to know what day it
was. It hung over her like a black shadow, had for weeks.

Now it was finally here—

“
Dinner, huh?”

“
Yeah.” Her voice cracked. “I can do
dinner. I’m starving.”

Liar
. She
wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. But it would get her out of the
house. She could occupy her mind for a few more hours, delay that
inevitable creep of the clock.

As she hung up the phone, the memory
of a low, insidious whisper echoed through her mind,
Beg me…

S
he hadn’t
eaten more than five bites.

Drake didn’t point that out to her.

And when she ordered a third margarita, he
didn’t say anything. She kept up a nonstop stream of chatter, and
if it hurt his heart to see that overbright glitter in her eyes,
nobody but him needed to know.

Two years. It had been two years. He wished
he knew if it was getting easier for her. Sometimes, he thought it
was. There were days when he could look at her, and she was almost
the way she used to be, happy and laughing…but then as the days got
shorter, colder, as December bled to January, all that laughter
died and the shadows haunted her eyes.

He wished there was something he could
do.

“
So. What have you been up the past
few weeks?” she asked, winding down. “I haven’t seen you since
before Christmas.”

Drake shrugged. “Not much. Spent
Christmas with my folks. Went skiing with some friends the day
after.”
Spent New Year’s Eve on the couch
and thinking about you…
He forced himself to smile.
“Nothing too exciting. What about you?”

She grimaced. “Oh, the excitement of my life
never stops.” She swiped a finger through the salt on the rim of
her glass, popped it in her mouth. “I’ve picked up three new
clients, had two clients drop me, I signed up for three conferences
this summer and ignored every phone call that came today…except
yours.”

Then she frowned and glanced up at him. “I
didn’t mean to mention that part.”

Drake lifted a brow. “About the clients, the
conferences or the phone calls?”

“
The phone calls.” She wrinkled her
nose. “Like the clients or the phone calls make much difference to
you.”

Well, he couldn’t say they made much
sense—he knew she did graphic-design stuff. She’d handled the
website he set up for his garage, although mostly she handled
business for writers and that sort of thing, so that would likely
be the sort of conferences she had scheduled to attend. “How come
you answered my call if you aren’t in the mood to talk on the
phone?”

“
Because I felt like talking to you?”
She smiled and took a drink of her margarita. “And I didn’t want to
talk to the other people. My girlfriends are either going to pat me
on the back and try to get me to talk about things I don’t want to
talk about, or just sit there and wait patiently, thinking that
will get me to talk.” She put the glass down with so much force,
the drink splashed onto her hand. “I don’t
want
to talk—I talk about it enough. And the
other calls…”

She fell abruptly silent, grabbing her
drink.

When she set her drink down, he reached out
and caught her hand. “I’m glad you answered the phone for me.”

“
I’m glad too.” She smiled. Then she
giggled. “I’m a little drunk, Drake. You know that?”

“
Is that a problem?”

“
No.” She closed her eyes and rested
her head against the back of her chair. “Drunk is good. Unconscious
and unable to dream, unable to remember, that would be even better.
Drake?”

“
Yeah?”

“
Can you make it so I can’t
remember?”

His throat went tight. He could barely
manage to breathe. Slipping out of his booth, he moved to sit next
to her. She leaned against him with a sigh. “No, baby. I can’t. I
would if I could, though. I’d take it all away if I could.”

She sniffled. Then she sighed and
reached down, touching his inner forearm, tracing a fingernail over
the skin there, along the lines of his tattoo. The stylized
S
. “You would, wouldn’t you,
Superman?”

“
Yeah.” He kissed her brow. “I’d undo
the past three years for you if I could figure out a
way.”

“
How about you just keep holding me
for a little while instead?”

“
Yeah.” He breathed in the scent of
her hair, felt the crack in his heart widen. “I can do
that.”

Chapter Two

H
ours later,
the effects of tequila long since faded, Tania lay alone in her bed
and wished she’d found the courage to ask Drake to stay with her.
He would have, too. He would have sat by her bed, like he had in
the hospital, holding her hand, his blue eyes gentle while he kept
nightmares at bay.

But she hadn’t asked and she would greet
this day alone.

Damn it, she hated January.

It had been three years since she’d buried
her husband.

Two years since his brother had torn her
life apart after she’d slowly started to try to live all over again
without the other half of her heart.

January 5.

Three in the morning. Exactly two years
after it had happened. Two years since that night. Kent—damn him.
Damn him straight to hell.

Tania shuddered, a sob rising in her throat.
She swallowed, trying to fight it back.

Beg me, bitch…

There had been a time in her life when words
like that had made her burn with desire.

Not now, though. Now the memory of those
words filled her with dread, despair…and right now, it was pissing
her off.

Her life was in limbo and she couldn’t move
on until she got over this. Couldn’t move on until she took her
life back.

How much longer would it take, she wondered?
After two years, shouldn’t it get better?

Two
years
.

Two years to the day since somebody she’d
known, had trusted, had cared for had broken into her house and
twisted her fantasies, turned them into nightmares.

Two years since she’d killed a man. The days
and months and years fell away, and just like it was that night all
over again, she could see it happening again—feel that first brutal
shock, then the pain. The horror.

She could remember the way his eyes had
widened when she pulled the trigger, and she remembered seeing him
fall. She’d squeezed the trigger a second time, but he’d already
been the floor, bleeding out, and the bullets had buried themselves
in the wall in her hallway.

Drake and some of his friends had repaired
that damage before she’d even come home from the hospital—home to
sleep in the same house where her husband’s twin had attacked
her.

For months, she’d slept in the living
room. Then the guest bedroom. It was only in the past year that
she’d managed to courage to come back into this bedroom, and that
was after she’d redecorated
everything
, after she’d bought a new bed, new
mattress… There was nothing here that Kent could have
tainted.