• Complain

Lauren Blakely - The Thrill of It

Here you can read online Lauren Blakely - The Thrill of It full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 0101, publisher: Lauren Blakely Books, genre: Romance novel. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

No cover
  • Book:
    The Thrill of It
  • Author:
  • Publisher:
    Lauren Blakely Books
  • Genre:
  • Year:
    0101
  • Rating:
    5 / 5
  • Favourites:
    Add to favourites
  • Your mark:
    • 100
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

The Thrill of It: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "The Thrill of It" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

A new adult story of Love. Sex. Addiction. Blackmail. And Power... Some say love can be an addiction. Others say its the thing that makes life worth living. Let me tell you everything I know about love...Love isnt patient, love isnt kind. Love is a game, a chase. A thrill. Love is wild and war-like, and every man and woman must fight for themselves. At least thats how it was for me. A high-priced virgin call girl by the time I started college, I was addicted to love and to sex. Even though Ive never had either. I controlled love, played it, and held the world in the palm of my hands. Then I fell down from those highs, and Im being blackmailed for all my mistakes, forced to keep secrets from everyone, except the only guy I dont regret. Trey... With all the other women, I knew what they were. They were temporary. They were pills, they were bottles, they took away all the pain, and numbed the awful memories that wore down my ragged, wasted heart. Until I met Harley. Shes the only girl I ever missed when she walked away. But now shes back in my life, every day, and there are no guarantees for us, especially since I dont know how to tell her my secrets. What happened to my family. All I know is shes the closest Ive ever come to something real, and I want to feel every second of it. How can you love with no regrets when regret is all you know?

Lauren Blakely: author's other books


Who wrote The Thrill of It? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

The Thrill of It — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The Thrill of It" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

The Thrill of It

No Regrets - 1

by

Lauren Blakely

This book is dedicated to Monica Murphy.

She is the bomb. I love her like a pimp.

Prologue

Six Months Ago

Harley

Im a sex addict and a virgin.

I know everything about sex and Ive never done it, though I came close last night.

I know nothing about love.

I know men.

I can size up a guy in seconds. If he wants my sweet and innocent side, or my sophisticated persona, or if he just wants me to shut up and nod while he talks about his day, because some just want to talk. I know how hell like it, how hell want it, and I know by the end of the hour or two if hell request me again.

But those days are behind me.

The past is the past.

This is now.

Thats what I have to believe as I walk into a church in Chelsea off Ninth Avenue to repent. Its a fading white church, rather plain looking, unmarked by flying buttresses or soaring angels. The white brick is streaked with gray from soot and dirt and New York itself breezing by over the years. Theres a requisite steeple on top, unassuming, but still there pointing to the sky, and a small plaque outside the doors that declares its non-denominational-ness. Every flavor of fucked-up is welcome.

On Mondays, you can find the alcoholics. On Tuesdays the former drug abusers. On Wednesdays this place is home to those trying to kick the gambling habit. And tonight? I will spend the next hour with people like me, who are addicted to love and sex, sex and love.

Some to both. Some to only one.

I know both in ways I never wanted to. But in ways I still long for too.

Thats the problem.

I am nineteen years old and I have kissed twenty-four guys, which amounts to four guys per year since my first kiss at age thirteen. I kept a running list of their first names and how they rated. They were all ones or zeroes. Those names on the list are all the reasons why Im pushing open these wooden doors, the brown paint cracked and peeling.

Fitting. I am cracked and brittle too, hardened by all the things I saw, and mostly all the things I heard over the years.

I spot the first sign and I stop in my tracks. The blocky letters wallop me with the reality that I now belong to a club I never wanted to be in.

On a sheet of white paper the words SLAA-College have been written in all caps with a big blue marker.

How embarrassing. As if anyone cant figure out what the acronym means. But still, I follow the arrows on the sign pointing to the stairwell, then down the musty wooden steps that creak at every footfall as they announce my descent to the basement. More signs are plastered to the flimsy brown plywall, more arrows directing me through the dark hallway, around the corner, then past another bend, deep into the bowels of the church.

My insides are comprised of knots tightening in and wrenching around themselves, pinching all my internal organs.

I wish, I wish, I wish that I werent going here.

But yet, I have to.

I took the fall and that brought me here.

I run my fingers across the fabric of my red shirt thats touching my shoulder, tender today after my new tattoo. My reminder of who I was. But even so, the reminder on my skin is not enough to quell the nerves. They snake through me, setting up camp in every cell of my body, as I enter a standard-issue Sunday School room with thinning brown industrial carpet. Earlier in the week this room was probably crammed with cutesy blue wooden chairs adorned with drawn angels, clouds and fluffy bunnies. Now its filled with cold, hard, folding metal chairs for addicts. The walls are bare, except for a few inspirational posters Hang in There with the kitten dangling from a branch, Perseverance with a man climbing a snow-capped mountain, and Patience with a lone woman standing at the edge of a cold beach in the winter.

Im five minutes early and theres one other person in the room. A thin woman with pink hair cut in a stick-straight bob rises and greets me.

Hi. Im Joanne. Welcome to the SLAA meeting, she says, pronouncing the name of the group like slaw.

Layla, I mumble, not sure how words are even coming out of my mouth as I give her a fake name. There is no way Id use my real name here. Besides, Layla is the name that brought me here. Layla is my other name. Layla is the other me.

I shake Joannes hand. It feels smooth and she smells like lavender. Maybe she just put on lotion.

Coffee? She smiles brightly at me, as if coffee is the answer to every addicts deepest desires. Because its the only acceptable drug.

I am a junkie. I take what I can get.

I nod, barely able to speak. I sit in one of the chairs as Joanne pours coffee from a pot into a chipped ceramic mug with the slogan When in Doubt, Dont.

Great. If only Id had a collection of mugs emblazoned with Keep it Simple and Just for Today, maybe Id never have slid down that slippery slope into Layla.

Im so glad youre here, Layla, Joanne says, flashing me another happy grin. Do you knit?

Crap.

Do I have to make small talk with her?

She gestures to her canvas bag, spilling over with yarn, steely blue knitting needles and what looks to be the start of a maroon scarf.

Im not very crafty, I say and leave it at that as she talks about the scarf she is working on, and how shes going to pair it with a matching sweater, and I simply smile at her without showing any teeth.

There. Im keeping it simple.

Id rather go mute for this meeting because my mouth feels like cotton and my head is a pinball machine and the last thing I want to do right now is talk about how my life has spun out of control.

Except for last night. Because there is one guy who didnt make it on my list. One guy who never felt like a list. The guy from last night who inked my shoulder, and kissed my body, and who gave me something Ive never felt before touch without agenda. A true and real want. He didnt want anything more from me than me. It was such a foreign feeling, but such a wondrous one.

Ill never see him again.

Soon the room starts to fill and I keep my head down, doing everything I can not to meet their eyes. I dont want to know what other addicts look like. I dont want to know if they look like me. I stare at my shoes, my Mary Janes, the black buckle shiny because its always shiny because thats what made me top of the line. I was the whole package the shoes, the plaid skirt, the white blouse, the beyond-innocent look on my face.

I hate that I miss that me.

I miss her terribly.

Even after last night, and all that it could have become, all the ways it was different from the past, I still miss me when I was Layla.

The circle of chairs has been filled in with guys and girls. I scan their faces and all I see are their secrets.

Then my blood goes both hot and cold when he walks in. The guy from last night with the scar across his right cheek.

Trey

This is the last place I want to be even though its the only place I should be.

Seeing as how I have a permanent reminder on my face of what happens when you go too far.

Id be able to handle this better if I could extradite the memory of last night from my stupid head. But I cant because shes staked a home in my skull, and the images arent going away anytime soon. That girl who walked into No Regrets, the West Village tattoo shop where I work, was the hottest girl Id ever seen, and so damn innocent looking a combination that killed my self-resolve to start over. She had a sweet smile, a sexy t-shirt and a skirt that left just enough to the imagination at first. She wasnt like the women I was used to. She was the total opposite. She wasnt like my regular customers at the shop either. Shed never been inked and she didnt look like the type whod want to mark up her body. She was the kind of girl whod wear pearl earrings, blow dry her hair, and apply pink lip gloss. She was all Manhattan preppy, gorgeous blond hair, and brown eyes, and so not the type for a tat.

Next page
Light

Font size:

Reset

Interval:

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The Thrill of It»

Look at similar books to The Thrill of It. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.


Reviews about «The Thrill of It»

Discussion, reviews of the book The Thrill of It and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.