This is how she saves my life. She doesn’t even know it. We’ve never even seen each other. But I need a reason. Just one reason to continue. She becomes mine.
The anonymity is good. She doesn’t need to know me, but I need her kindness. We both live our lives: a letter here, a post card there. For three years, I escape my demons. And then one day I’m pulled back in.
I’ve resigned myself to what I know is coming. Until the girl I’m spanking gives her safe word: Sloth.
And then the lie I’m living starts to unravel.
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I’m so excited to feature the first chapter from Flawlessly Broken, a contemporary romance standalone from the very talented new author Anna Paige. Flawlessly Broken is free if you have Kindle Unlimited. Trust me—it’s well worth your time.
FLAWLESSLY BROKEN
SPENCE
ONE
Two weeks.
What the hell was I going to do with two solid weeks?
I sat behind my sleek, cherry desk, looking over the neatly-stacked files in my outbox. My inbox stood empty on the other side. Mocking me. How was it possible that only a few months ago I had more on my proverbial plate than I could handle, and now I had nothing? Absolutely nothing.
Brant — one of my business partners and a close friend for many years — strolled in with a smile on his face, not a care in the world. He took a handful of chocolates from the bowl on my desk before plopping himself into the soft leather chair across from me. "It's just about quitting time isn't it, Spence? You ready to start your vacation?"
I tapped a pen on my blotter and glanced at the clock, not feeling nearly as chipper as my friend. "I wouldn't call it a vacation. A delay, yes. An inconvenience? Absolutely. This 'vacation' is throwing off the entire build schedule."
He let out a soft chuckle and shook his head, crunching on the last of the candy-coated chocolates before leaning forward. "Come on, man. It's not your fault the owner didn't have his shit together in time. It's only two weeks, Spence, and the build will still finish on time despite the delays. We've never missed a deadline." His brows rose a bit as he nodded toward the pen in my hand. "You're too wound up. You need to let loose for a while, enjoy the time away from the office. Go out and do something that would make Clay proud."
Clay — my best friend since I was ten and our other partner — was away working on a solo project for the next couple of months. Well, not entirely solo. His fiancé, Ali, was working on the project with him. They had until the end of spring to get everything done, as the amusement park that had contracted their artistic skills would be opening at the beginning of June.
Before Clay's transformation into a one-woman man, he was quite the party boy and manwhore. Now, he only had eyes for Ali. I was glad that he'd finally found some happiness. He deserved it after all he'd been through.
I shook my head at Brant, laughing for the first time all day. "I don't think it's a good idea for me to assume the recently-vacated role of manwhore. Look what happened to Clay. He had crazies coming out of the woodwork."
"Yeah, but he had a lot of damn fun for a while there and still found Ali despite all that."
"So, you think I'll find the love of my life by first nailing anything in a four-inch heel? I don't think it usually works that way."
The leather creaked as Brant shifted in the chair, placing his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them. "I'm not saying to sleep around. I'm saying go out and have some damn fun. Have a few drinks, dance with a beautiful stranger, whatever gets your heart pumping. You spend too much time behind this desk." He slapped the desktop for emphasis. "It's like you're chained to it or something. There's more to life than what goes on behind these walls."
I narrowed my gaze, looking him in the eye. "Where the hell did that come from? You just said more in five minutes than you usually do in a week. I thought you were the quiet one around here, so what gives?" His sheepish look confirmed my suspicions. "Fucking Clay put you up to this, didn't he?"
His silence was all the answer I needed.
Tap tap tap. The pen was hitting the blotter in rapid succession now. "So, he asked you to what? Babysit me?"