Sultry Sensations

Book 3: Acorn Hills Series

by Grace Augustine

Synopsis

Denise Berrie was the overweight teen no one befriended. Her father left when she was two years old and her mother was an alcoholic who seemed to always need a man in her bed. The countless adversities in her growing up years took their toll, including some difficult life-changing decisions. Now an adult, Denise flourishes in her position with a local title and abstract office.

David Turner, an ex-Vietnam Vet, floated from job to job after returning home. After being strung out on drugs and alcohol, he sobered up, and bought half of a local tavern, bartending at night.

When the corporate bigwigs are in town, Denise accompanies them for drinks at David's bar. After a few cocktails, Denise finds herself in a sticky situation and David comes to her rescue. What a beginning to a new friendship!

As David and Denise grow through their circumstances, they become each other's rock, discovering the importance of having someone to lean on.

Sultry Sensations, Book 3 of the Acorn Hills series, is filled with life issues, situations that find you on the edge of your chair, and a love that runs so deep nothing can destroy it.

Release date: November 20, 2014

Print pages: 389

Content advisory: For Mature Readers over 18 yrs of age

Sample

Chapter 1

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. The words were such a vital part of who Denise was and they shaped her very foundation at this stage of her young life. She was only sixteen, but she had a deep faith. It seemed to be the only thing that was static, steady, a sure thing. God knows there was nothing else stable about her life. Denise Berrie barely remembered her father. He walked out on her and her mother thirteen years ago. She hadn’t seen him since, hadn’t heard a single word from him. In fact, no one had. It was the ultimate disappearing act. Now that she was a teenager she began piecing things together of her past, trying to figure out what happened, where she came from, what it all meant for her. The only conclusion that came to her was that her dad couldn’t take the constant drinking and yelling from her mom, nor could he take the fact that there were other men…several men. It didn’t matter who…the landlord, the mailman, hell even at one point she remembered being told to “go outside and play” when the social security guy was there to do a “welfare” visit. Denise remembered him as a very nice man, a very handsome man, and he was always tucking his shirt in his pants when he left the house. Denise clutched her book of prayers and rosary. This was what gave her comfort. It certainly wasn’t her mother. She couldn’t remember when the last time was she had a hug or a kind word from her only parent. When Denise was in the 6th grade, her mom re-established a friendship with a former lover/boyfriend and introduced him to her. This man was a “farmer,” well one who worked for a farmer anyway. She just remembered that he had talked her mom into moving to the next town over from where they lived because that was where he lived…his family too. She remembered his words as if they were spoken last night. “It will be a good thing for her” his head motioned in her direction. “She needs to be with other girls and my nieces will be good friends to her. They are popular and have a lot of friends. They’ll welcome her right in. She’ll be fine.” Denise cringed at the thought of that louse! He came into her mom’s home, her home, and took over. Things would have been okay if he would have just stayed away, but noooo. Because her mom needed to have a piece of ass in order to feel wanted and loved…and it didn’t matter who, Denise was saddled with the backlash of a violent alcoholic. Every time Denise heard the sound of the door opening and closing she cowered on her knees by her bed, praying God would deliver her from this horrible craziness that she didn’t even totally understand. Denise could remember right after they had moved she didn’t have a bedroom because it was more important her mom did. Denise was relegated to sleeping on the sleeper-sofa in the living room. It was the middle of the night and looming over her was Al, her mom’s boyfriend….naked…and he had grabbed her hand and put it on his hard erection and was whispering to her how much she turned him on and how this throbbing hardness was caused by her. Oh Holy Father in Heaven, bless me for I have sinned. Whatever has made him think I have been coming on to him or making him be this way, forgive me. I don’t understand what I am supposed to do. Just keep me safe, God. Please keep me safe, Mother Mary… The only thing that kept Denise’s sanity was her grounding in the Catholic rituals she was learning. Miss Arlington had invited her to church and Denise became intriguingly infatuated with the mysticism of this ancient religion, so much so she’d even thought of becoming a nun. Denise loved living in Thornton Creek. She liked the town. The move to Acorn Hills was tough. It was a major city, yet still had some small town mentality. Regardless of where she lived, she was always going to be the girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Denise was filled with hope, though, hope of the possibility of an education after high school, a good job that would allow her to make a lot of money, finding a guy who loved her for who she was not what she could do. They were all only dreams. Like anyone was really going to help her….yeah right. She was the fat kid that no one wanted to hang out with, the quiet girl no one wanted. Those thoughts were exacerbated when she and her mom moved from the security of Thornton Creek to Acorn Hills. The screen door slammed shut and her heart pounded. “Cokie? Cokie, where the hell are you?” the slurring of words alerted Denise immediately that Al had been drinking. “Denise, get your ass out here. Where the hell is your mother?” Denise didn’t move from the floor by her bed. Her bedroom door was flung open and there he stood, drunker than drunk, the smell causing her stomach to roll nauseously despite the fact she was all the way across the room. “I asked you a question, you ungrateful little slut. Where is your mom?” Al grabbed her by the hair and yanked her roughly to a standing position. Denise knew if she protested it would be worse so she swallowed the tears and just stood there looking at him. “Are you deaf?” he screamed, the stench of his breath hitting her nostrils. “Al, I don’t know where she is,” Denise hurriedly explained, trying to stop her voice from cracking or showing her pain from the pulled hair. “I didn’t even know she was gone.” “No matter, get your ass out in the kitchen and fix food,” he demanded, shoving her toward the door. Denise’s shoulder slammed into the frame and she could feel the throbbing immediately, but she didn’t dare even make a single peep about how much it hurt. Denise did as she was told. She also knew what this meant. If it wasn’t done to his impossible perfection, she would wind up eating it….and there were some things that she had fixed and eaten that weren’t fit for human consumption. The penalties for retching any of it up would still be worse than that. He wanted liver and onions….oh my God….really? Just the smell of that made her sick. She cooked it as best she knew how, which was pure guessing. The kitchen took on the “unique” aroma associated only with that food combination. She grilled the onions perfectly until they just began to caramelize, and the liver, well, she would just have to guess on what to do with it. She served it up and put it in front of him. Al took one bite and totally went ballistic, spitting the half chewed liver across the table. “Jesus Christ! This crap isn’t even fit to feed a goddamn dog. Sit your ass down here.” He took the pepper shaker and covered it with pepper and put a fork in her hand and said “You eat this shit, and, I mean you eat it all.” Again, Denise knew there was no protesting, no matter how unappealing the new task at hand. She began eating and he forced her to eat the entire plate full of food and stood over her while she cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes. Denise tried to escape after that by heading toward the bathroom. She felt so ill all she wanted to do was throw up. Al had different ideas. Al grabbed another beer from the refrigerator and headed for the living room. “Denise, come sit with me on the couch. Wrestling is on, honey. We can have some father-daughter time.” Al maintained this crazy notion that she was his daughter. Her mom confirmed those ideas, encouraged the thought that there was a real possibility she could have been. Denise chose to deny those thoughts. Even in the early years of being married to Denise’s dad, her mom still was screwing around on him. She went to the couch and sat on the opposite end as the stupid pro wrestlers did their thing in the ring and Al cheered them on. He moved closer to where she sat. “Great” she thought. “Here we go again.” Al seemed to enjoy fondling her breasts every chance he got, and Denise was so afraid of being thrown against a wall and having the shit slapped out of her that she let him do it. The sensations were strange, that was for sure, kind of pleasant on some primal level, but weird at the same time. This time his hands also roamed inside her shorts and under her underwear until he got his fingers inside her. Always whispering “feels good, feels so good, doesn’t it?” Denise sat there as rigid as a stone, not knowing whether to get up and leave or cry, trying to mentally push her mind somewhere far away. Her mom was always conveniently gone or in the other room working on alterations for a client or ironing for someone else. Denise allowed her mind to wander to that safe place where she could plan what she would do when she grew up, where she would live, who she would be with. She would be successful and she would write her own way. She wouldn’t have to put up with the Al’s of the world any more. Denise finally broke the silence by telling Al she had homework that needed to be done and it was getting late so she needed to go to her room and get it done. Surprisingly, this time, he let her leave without a hassle. Once inside the sanctuary of her room she dropped to her knees yet again, trying to hold back the tears that were running down her cheeks like two burning paths. She just felt so dirty, so violated! Grabbing her rosary again she prayed. Mary, my Mother, you were the first to live the Way of the Cross. You felt every pain and every humiliation. You were unafraid of the ridicule heaped upon you by the crowds. Your eyes were ever on Jesus and His Pain. Is that the secret of your miraculous strength? How did your loving heart bear such a burden and such a weight? As you watched Him stumble and fall, were you tortured by the memory of all the yesterdays-His birth, His hidden life and His ministry? You were so desirous of everyone loving Him. What a heartache it was to see so many hate Him - hate with a diabolical fury. Take my hand as I make this Way of the Cross. Inspire me with those thoughts that will make me realize how much He loves me. Give me light to apply each station to my daily life and to remember my neighbor's needs in this Way of the Pain. Obtain for me the grace to understand the mystery, the wisdom and the Divine love as I go from scene to scene. Please grant that my heart, like yours, may be pierced through by the sight of His sorrow and the misery and that I may determine never to offend Him again. What a price He paid to cover my sins, to open the gates of heaven for me and to fill my soul with His own Spirit. Sweet Mother, let us travel this way together and grant that the love in my poor heart may give you some slight consolation. This was the prayer for the First Station of the Cross. It was Denise’s favorite, the one that gave her the most courage and peace. She held onto the need of knowing that prayer was true when nothing else made sense, her faith always did. She remembered how heartbroken the Blessed Virgin must have been to see her own Son die. What she was going through was nothing compared to that. Denise finished her science homework, turned on her small stereo and adjusted the volume so only she could hear the music then got ready for bed. Thankfully they had moved into a two bedroom house last summer that had an upstairs and the upstairs was hers…her escape from the first floor world down below. Denise climbed into bed and remembered to pray for people at school and that God would just take care of things so she didn’t need to worry about it. She drifted off in a peaceful sleep. Two hours later the door to her room flung open, again with Al yelling that she had stolen money from his wallet. The sudden noises startled her awake. Denise was as confused as she was terrified. She hadn’t stolen money from anyone! She had her little piggy bank on her dresser and that is where she kept her babysitting money. He knew it. There was almost a hundred dollars in there that she had been saving to buy some new summer clothes. Al burst into the room, her mother on his heels. “I thought I told you never to touch my wallet!” the anger in his eyes pierced her like fiery daggers. His hand fell against her face with such force she just knew her jaw was broken. He went right to the piggy bank. “No, no don’t take my money!” Denise screamed, tears falling down her face, her mother started saying something to her and Al backhanded her as well. He took the money from the glass piggy bank and threw the bank against the wall, shattering it and Denise’s dreams. She truly did hate this man. God forgive her, but she hated him! More than that she hated her mom for making her go through this. Al walked back over to Denise’s bed. He grabbed her left arm with a strong hand and with his right one smacked her across the face again. “You prissy little shit! Don’t you ever touch my money or rob from me again, do you hear me? Just remember you can wear as much make up as you want to and you can clean your skin as many times as you can, nothing is going to change who you are, you are still the fat, ugly daughter of a common whore who will wind up being a fat, ugly whore as well.” Al laughed as he walked out of the room, looking like a strutting rooster who had just had his way with the brood hens. The sting of his words was even worse than the bruises on her face. Denise sank down into the comfort of her blankets and sobbed until daylight. She got up and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were red, swollen as was her jaw. There were bruises on her cheekbone that were not going to be able to be explained at school to her first period English teacher. Denise sighed and headed to the bathroom to clean up and get ready for school. Maybe if she applied make up just the right way it wouldn’t show so much. If she was lucky the bastard would drink himself to death or be run over by some piece of farm machinery so she wouldn’t have to deal with him when she got home from school.