For those that are not on CD Reiss's mailing list, today we are revealing the first chapter of her upcoming book, Spin. Spin is scheduled to be released February 2014 and is the first book in her new Songs of Corruption Series.
Title: Spin (Songs of Corruption, #1)
Author: CD Reiss
Series: Songs of Corruption
Release Date: February 24, 2014
Songs of Corruption is Theresa
Drazen's story. She's a nice girl. Polished and refined. Somewhere around
chapters two, three, four, her life is shattered, and she meets a super hot mob
lawyer named Antonio Spinelli.
From there, all bets are off, and we find
out what this woman of grace is really made of.
CD revealed the first chapter to those on her mailing list. Are you on it???? If not, get on it so you don't miss out on Chapter Two!!!!
~~~Click HERE to sign up for CD Reiss's mailing list.~~~
CHAPTER 1.
h, Jonathan.
I
mentally rolled my eyes, if such a thing were possible, and kept my physical
eyes focused on the woman singing. She had a lovely voice, not quite like a
bird, more like a sky full of them, layered one on top of the other, canaries,
crows, sparrows, harmonizing and reveling in their differences. The effect
was hypnotic.
I
glanced at my brother again.
“Excuse
me,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“You
just agreed to wear pink at my wedding.”
He tore
his gaze from her, and I felt the air between them rip. I hadn’t felt anything
but annoyance until he looked at me again, and his entire face changed from
voracious and single-minded to the usual; bemused and arrogant.
“I
agreed to let Leanne make my suit in the downtown factory on the twenty-fifth
of January.”
“I’d
never know you were paying attention.”
“I was.”
He was,
but the pull of the woman standing by the piano was too much for him, and he
looked back at her, sipping his drink. I felt a sudden yarn ball of tension
wrap up in my chest. I couldn’t exactly place it, but it irritated me.
“Do you
know her?” I asked.
“We have
a thing later tonight.”
“Good,
because I was going to say, you might want to introduce yourself before you
slobber on her. Maybe dinner and a show.”
He
smiled a big, wide Jonathan grin. We all knew he was a womanizing prick, but he
rarely let us see that side of him. He was always a gentleman on the face of
it, until I saw him look at that singer. It made me uncomfortable not just
because he was my brother, which should have been enough, but because of
something else, an uneasy, empty feeling I chased away.
“You’ve
planned this wedding to within an inch of its life,” he said. “Go to Tahoe or
something for a few months. Slap some skis on. You’re giving yourself an
ulcer.”
“Mister
Control, calling me too controlling?”
The
singer stopped and people clapped. She was good. The ovation was fully
deserved, but my brother just applauded with his eyes and tipped his glass to
her. When she saw him, her jaw tightened with anger. Apparently, he knew her
well enough to piss her off.
He
leaned over and whispered in my ear, “It’s the control that makes the
challenges worthwhile. Otherwise, it’s just luck.”
I didn’t
know if he was implying that I should just let my wedding plans make
themselves. It stopped mattering when the singer made a beeline for our table.
“Hi,
Jonathan,” she said, a big, fake smile draped across her face.
“Monica,” he said. “This is Theresa.”
“That
was beautiful,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“You
were incredible,” Jonathan said. “I’ve never heard anything like that.”
“I’ve
never heard of a man trying to sandwich another woman between fingering me and
fucking me in the same day.”
I almost
spit out my Cosmo. Jonathan laughed. I felt sorry for the girl. She looked like
she was going to cry. I hated my brother, just then. Hated him with a dogged
vehemence, because not only was he messing around with her feelings, he still
looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive. When I saw how she looked at
him, I knew he was going to win. He was going to have her and a dozen others,
and she wouldn’t even know what was happening, until he let her go. I couldn’t
watch.
“I’m
going to the ladies’,” I said, and slid out of the booth, not looking back at
my brother and that poor girl.
I leaned
against the back of the stall, staring at the single strip of toilet paper
dangling off the roll. I had a few squares in my bag, just in case my brother
brought me to yet another dump. But I didn’t want to use them. I wanted to dig
into that feeling of emptiness and find the bottom of it.
You
always have a few squares in your bag. And two advil. And a tampon.
Daniel’s
voice in a recent memory, listing the stuff I carried for emergencies; his
face, smiling as we were out the door for some charity thing; him in a tux, me
in something or other, with a satin clutch into which a normal woman couldn’t
fit more than a tube of lipstick and a raisin.
“You got
your whole kit in there?” he’d asked.
“Of
course.”
“Space
and time are your slaves.”
I’d been
pleased at the way he looked at me, as if he couldn’t be more impressed and
proud, as if I ruled the world and his servitude was the natural order. Pleased
as a king opening a pie and finding the miracle of four and twenty blackbirds.
But though
I’d been with him seven years, he’d never looked at me the way Jonathan looked
at that singer. Never.
And
there, in Daniel’s look of reverence, was why I wasn’t like that singer. That
look from a man was temporary, lasting only as long as the length of his sexual
curiosity. My fiancé’s love was forever, and it comforted me.
***
Cinderella didn’t turn into a pumpkin at midnight, her carriage did, but
Daniel looked at his watch every time I came home late and said, “I was just
heating the oven to make a pie out of you.”
It was
our joke, and I enjoyed the familiarity of it. Once, the oven had actually been
turned on when I arrived at 12:11. He’d been leaning over the counter in his
pajamas, reading the paper. I came in from a night chasing Deirdre across a
bar. He looked at the oven clock and said it.
“I was
just heating the oven to make a pie out of you.” He’d smirked, and I heard a
hiss from the oven. I hit him in the arm and he gathered me in his arms as if
he never wanted to let me go.
But even
if he’d baked me into a pie, he wouldn’t eat it. He’d revere it. He’d honor it,
leave it untouched on the counter with candles burning. It would be safe,
undamaged, an altar to his idea of perfection.
At
least, that was what he told me.
“You
leaving?” Jonathan said when I met him back at the bar.
“What
gave you that idea?”
“You’re
holding your keys.”
“I saw
her on the way back from the bathroom. The singer. She apologized. For what, I
don’t know.”
He laughed. “We had an encounter a few hours ago
at her job. She thought you were my date. Cute, wasn’t it? The way she just
came right up and laid it down? Bold. I like that.”
“I told
her you were an asshole.”
He
laughed again. The guy was unflappable.
“You
know what you need?” I said, “A stalker. You need to push a woman just an inch
too far until she goes off the deep end.”
“I’m
honest with—“ He started his usual, but I cut him off.
“It
doesn’t matter if you’re not honest with yourself. It taints everything.”
“Are you
all right?”
“I wish
you’d stop messing around. It’s unbecoming. And honestly, I don’t think you can
be happy in the end like this. All these women. Maybe you feel a little
satisfaction in the moment, but it eats away at a person.”
He
pushed his elbows back and leaned on the bar, whiskey at his waist. “How would
you know?”
“I know
you. What you’re doing now, it’s making you dissolute.”
“Big
fucking word, Theresa.”
I’d gone
too far. I’d done the high horse thing again, or I was about to. Because the
words on the tip of my tongue sounded like, the last time you looked happy you
were married. After that came comparisons to Daniel and me, the happiest couple
in Los Angeles. We told each other everything, paired like perfect puzzle
pieces, affectionate and strong, even through two power careers. After his wife
leaving for another man, letting the words on the tip of my tongue free would
have been cruel. His happiness was with her, and his misery was her fault.
“I have
to go or Daniel’s going to—“
Bake me
in a pie.
I didn’t
finish, just waved the end of the sentence off. Jonathan put his arm around me.
“Come on, then. I’ll walk you out before he worries you were out with a
womanizing asshole.”
It was
my turn to laugh.
***
We lived
in an old corset and girdle factory downtown. It had been abandoned in the
sixties, used as a warehouse for a stonecutter and cabinet maker, then expanded
and converted into lofts just before the Great Recession. The units had gone at
firesale prices, which didn’t matter to me. I could afford whatever I needed,
but Daniel insisted on paying half, and the recession had hit him hard. So a
fire sale downtown loft at a million and change it was.
In the
intervening years, the blocks surrounding had turned around. The city cut off
traffic to the streets at night, and restaurants servicing the three buildings
in walking distance had popped up; nice restaurants with thick wooden tables
and recessed lighting and brushed chrome fixtures. The place Daniel and I
usually met was in the first floor of our building. Town & Country served
the basics, made to gourmet standards. Macaroni and cheese with gruyere and
Roquefort. Hamburger with truffle oil and sourdough. Chicken salad with wasabi
mayo and dandelion greens, which was a combination so hot and bitter they
served it with a side of dried fruit.
Ten
years ago, you couldn’t get a donut three blocks away without getting jacked;
the story of Los Angeles at the turn of the second millennia was the story of
the wealthy moving from the city’s perimeter, back to the center. And if anyone
was “the wealthy,” it was me.
This was
todays campaign angle. Our beloved district attorney bought in a distressed
neighborhood, and because of his efforts, look at it now. Daniel Brower,
youngest mayoral candidate in the history of Los Angeles. And he was going to
win.
The
place was usually crowded with late diners, mostly our age, early to mid 30s,
no kids, dressed from work in some creative field or another. He was typically
at the bar watching the Padres lose, fingers stroking the condensation off a
bottle of something foreign. But not today. Today, the place was wall to wall
reporters and hangers on.
I said
my hellos to reporters and staff I knew, stopping at Clarice, the twenty-five
year old Stanford PhD who had worked her way up to speechwriter in four short
months.
“How’s
he doing?” I whispered, getting jostled.
“Taking
it up the ass over Donna Maria Carloni.”
I’d
asked her to not speak like that, anyone could hear and it wasn’t her
reputation she’d hurt with her filterless mouth. She didn’t listen.
I pushed
my way through to Daniel. The lights washed out his face, and the pace and
clarity with which he made his point made him look more like a white hot laser
than a man. He saw me and smiled, holding his hand out for me. I melted the
same as I had the day we met. I slipped my hand into his, and he touched my
engagement ring with his thumb before tightening his grip. He kissed my hair
and looked back at the cameras.
“You
haven’t prosecuted a major case in eighteen months,” Max Brecker of WPSN
shouted. “How can you take credit for turning this neighborhood around?”
“It
takes more than eighteen months to turn a neighborhood around. It takes
commitment. And that’s what I have. A commitment to Los Angeles and its people.
Every neighborhood, every block, every house.” He spoke to Max as if they were
friends, which they weren’t, unless you consider two people who needed their
conflict to maintain their careers friends.
I
managed well under the lights. I stood straight and still when he spoke. When
he put his hand on my lower back I let him guide me to wherever his handlers
had signaled. My role felt real, as if I’d trained for it my whole life.
“Manny
Guevarra was shot down in East Hollywood two years ago,” Brecker shouted, thick
black frames slipping down his nose. “You haven’t brought a single charge
against anyone.”
“Who
should I bring to trial, Max?” Daniel’s game was to look so angry, he used the
first name. We’d worked on that and his execution was flawless. “You want me to
put an innocent citizen in jail? Or should I drum up some charges and disrupt a
man’s family? What would make you happy?”
“The
killer in jail, Dan.”
“Me
too,” Daniel said, dripping integrity and sincerity. “Me too. And throwing
charges up against El Gato Blanco or whatever Italian organizations look
convenient at the moment, well, that’s not justice, and it won’t make our city
safe.”
He
looked down at me. “Time to go.”
I
squeezed his hand and let myself get pulled away.
***
“Brecker’s a hack,” Clarice said as she walked us over the concrete
floors of the building’s hall, under the warm, recessed lighting, black and
white archival photos of the old city, the dark woods imported from an Asian
island.
“Shh,” I
said. The concierge was right there.
“It’s
all right Tink.” His name for me was short for Tinkerbell, the magician who
whispered in a boy’s ear.
“No it’s
not—“
Clarice
interrupted, “You have a five a.m. at Dome Diner. I have some phrasing for—“
“I can’t,” he said, frustration all over his
tone. She looked petulant over it. “I need to sleep in. That’s the final word.”
He stared her down. “We can use the phrasing some other time. I need sleep.”
In
addition to her filterless mouth, she didn’t have the poise or grace to hide
her expressions, and this one said she was very annoyed that he couldn’t make
an appearance with truckers and early-morning laborers. She took it all a
little too personally for me, but Daniel liked the way she strung sentences
together.
“He’ll
see you at seven tomorrow,” I said, pulling him away. We left her in the lobby
and exited into the courtyard where our loft opened.
The
eight foot-high door opened with a whoosh, pushing the mustard curtains aside.
The whole front of the loft facing the courtyard had tempered glass windows,
two stories high, in metal framing, exactly like the loft next door, and the
five to the left of that. We had a little front yard with a table, and
container flowers, and we had Daniel, who was finally going to bed with me at
the same time.
“Come
on, honey.” I said. “Let’s just go upstairs.”
I cut
myself an apple while Daniel brushed his teeth. I hadn’t eaten nearly enough
during my dinner with my brother. He’d put me off my meal with his feral look
and his philandering ways. And that woman, the way she’d looked. Lonely,
somehow. Bereft.
I heard
the water run for a spit, then stop, then start again. Way back when, we would
have brushed our teeth together, entangling our arms and switching brushes,
doing each other’s teeth, swapping spit without touching, and laughing at the
distastefulness of it. But the campaign had taken a lot out of him, and he
usually slipped into bed with me in the wee hours.
Daniel
padded down the stairs in his tee and boxers. He was beautiful, even slumped
over from a bad day. Broad in his chest and shoulders, flat in the stomach,
with lovely soulful blue/grey eyes.
“You
coming?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
I put the last apple slice in my mouth and hopped onto the counter, putting my
palms out. He paused, as if I’d done something wholly unexpected and stepped
toward me, sliding his hands over mine, up my arms and around me, resting his
head on my chest.
“How’s
your brother?” he asked.
“Still
philandering until Jessica comes back.” I said it around the apple, and put it
to his lips. He took it with his fingers, and I bit my half off.
“She was
perfect for him.”
“I
know.”
“What
are you doing?” he asked, chewing as the tip of my nose explored his jawline.
“Kissing
your neck.” I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“You
have apple in your mouth.”
I
swallowed. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s
late.”
“So?” I
put my lips on his and pressed his stomach against me. He opened his mouth,
which tasted of the same apple, and beer, and minty fresh toothpaste. My tongue
tested for his, waiting for it to awaken and invade my mouth. It did, and he
pushed his body against mine, hitching himself up so I could feel his erection
between my legs. I pulled my skirt up so I could spread my legs farther apart,
and feel all of him, that beautiful, comforting dick. He slipped me off the
counter and carried me to the couch. I wiggled out of my underpants and he
released himself from his shorts.
When he
leaned down to kiss me, I felt his erection on my clit, just a touch, and I
groaned.
“Do we
need the lube?” he asked.
“I don’t
think so.”
“Good.”
He held the head against me, and I braced against him as he pushed forward,
finding the opening. Halfway in, he took a deep breath. “You’re right about the
lube.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
He
thrust forward, gently, until he was all the way in.
“Oh,
Tink.” He whispered in my ear. I clutched his t-shirt and he moved over me, his
breathing steady, then less so. I felt the tinglings of something at the outer
edges of my awareness, a sparkle of sensation, a general pleasantness. He sped
his thrusts, and I made my hips rigid to meet him. He placed his forearms on
either side of me and in three hard jerks, he groaned into my neck.
He felt
good sliding in and out of me. The pulse at the base of his dick was a sweet
finale with his shortened breaths. When he kissed my cheek with a heavy breath
I knew he was done.
“How are
you doing?” he asked.
“Little
help.”
He got
up onto his knees and looked down at me for a second before gently spreading my
legs. He kissed inside my knee, up my thigh, to my center. He never complained
about having just had his dick there, instead loving pleasing me after sex, or
before, sometimes he’d stop making love to me just to put his lips to me.
I put my
hand on his head and stroked his hair. He kissed my clit gently, then flicked
his tongue over it, spreading me apart with his thumbs, exposing me to his
eyes, the air, his mouth, which surrounded it in a warm embrace, a funnel of
dampness and light suction.
His
tongue was made of magic and fire, teasing and taunting me. When the air dried
the exposed skin, he used it to reawaken the surface, bringing every millimeter
of me to life, my throbbing full opening got the benefit of his fingers, gently
coursing around it, keeping it aroused, needing more, while his tongue ran
slowly up and down my clit, punctuating his ministrations with a little suck, a
flick, then moving slowly again.
His
tongue was sweet and gentle, coaxing pleasure out of me like a kitten in a
crawlspace. His fingers worked the outside of my opening, never entering me. He
knew I couldn’t come with something inside me, not since I was thirteen had
that miracle happened, but the teasing threat of it brought me close. He was so
good, so skilled, knowing my body better than I did.
He
seemed to know when I was about to burst, and slowed down, pulling his mouth
away while keeping his fingers working. He kissed my clit sweetly, once, twice,
until a squeak came from my throat, and he sucked on me again, tenderly at
first, then with increasing vigor, until the whole of the world became the
movement of his tongue, the heat of his mouth, the burst of dimensions and
space between my legs. My back stiffened and my hips levitated from the
cushions he held himself firm on me, still sucking to the point of glorious
release and I twisted. He let me go.
I
reached for him and he crawled into my arms and wrapped myself around him.
“Tell
me,” I whispered in his ear, his smooth cheek against mine. “What’s bothering
you?”
“There’s
nothing. I need a big takedown before the election and there’s nothing there.
The Donna’s clean.”
“You’re
not looking hard enough.”
“It’s
complicated, but all up front. Brecker’s pushing me to open a case on someone
clean, and if I don’t I look like the wrong guy for mayor.”
“How complicated are the books?”
“A
spider web.” He let his lips brush my neck. “You smell nice.”
“Let me
look at them. The books.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?
You think I can’t find something?”
“If
anyone can unravel it, you can.” He kissed my earlobe. “But these guys? I’m not
exposing you to them. If they knew my fiancée found something—”
“You’re
being silly. No one has to know. I don’t have to tell anyone at work. I’m a
superstar. Remember?”
He
pulled away and looked me in the eye. “No. But thanks. Come on, let’s get some
sleep.”
The next
morning, he was so rested he found the energy to make his 5am. When he kissed
me on the cheek before he left, he smelled of after shave and a dry cleaned
suit. I pulled his pillow under me and buried my face in it, catching another
hour of blissful sleep.
------------------------------
A note from the Author:
In the
next section, we meet Antonio Spinelli, we learn some ugly truths about Daniel,
and start Theresa's adventure. There's a good chance I'll distribute this part
the same way, mailing list and bloggers, but no promises.
Why am I
doing this?
Spin is
probably maybe going to be late.
Maybe
not...but......
(hides
under couch)
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