Elvis and the Beauty! (Chapter Two)

I’m not alone in my office today! Elvis has arrived! Yes, he’s taking a nap as I type this out. LOL, not the real Mr. Presley. It’s Elvis, my sister’s puppy. He’s 7 months old now, and I’m doggy sitting for a week. View, he gave me a run for my money this morning on our 3.5 mile walk! Ain’t he the cutest! Just like a kid, he loves his little poodle paddle pool.

Enough of the funny business. We’re on to a new chapter! Last week, Dexter King was on his way to interview Shelby Stewart in her mountain home, but he got stranded in a snowstorm. He even thought he might die out there! Beauty or the Bitch is already available, so if you want to read the full e-book all at once, here’s where you can get it Kindle Nook Smashwords. Or the whole Ain't Your Mama's Bedtime Stories anthology with some wonderful writers. Thanks to Rosemary Gunn for the fabulously perfect cover. And it is a naughty story, so please be 18 so I don’t have to feel guilty about corrupting the youth.

Beauty or the Bitch
Copyright Jasmine Haynes 2011

Reporter Dexter King is about to get the story of a lifetime. Shelby Stewart was the hottest rising star in Hollywood until suddenly, she was cursed. Retreating to her mountain hideaway, far from that fairy tale life, she hasn’t been seen in ten years. Now Dex will ferret out the truth behind her fall from Hollywood grace. But will he find a beauty? Or a bitch?

Chapter Two

Shelby Stewart stared at the dead body on her front stoop.

A grimace froze the once handsome face. A dusting of snow covered his brown hair and frost stiffened the locks falling across his forehead. Black gloves hadn’t protected fingers that curled into fists.

The body moved. Just a twitch of one gloved hand. Maybe it was only a muscle settling. But then he moaned. Or was that the wind groaning in the evergreens?

Shelby set the lamp down on the slate floor and stepped outside. Slushy snow seeped into her slippers, and icy wind ripped through her thick terry bathrobe. She knelt beside him and put her fingertips to his throat. Cold, moist skin, but beneath that, a hint of warmth. And there, a pulse. Faint, barely there, but definitely a flutter beneath her fingers.

My God, he was alive.

How was she supposed to get him inside? She tugged at his arms, but the man was a dead weight. She stepped over him, hunkered down at his back and pushed.

“Come on,” she urged. “You’re going to have to help me.”

His eyelids trembled with effort. Then fell still.

She couldn’t just leave him out here to die. The phones were down, and the power was out. The man had only her. She didn’t want anyone depending on her. That’s why she lived alone and ordered everything she needed off the Internet. The UPS man was her closest friend. But she had a lot of sins on her head already, and letting a human being die on her front stoop wasn’t one she wanted to add to the list. Shelby pushed and shoved, hoping to rock him closer to the doorstep. At least inside, she might be able to drag him across the slate.

He moaned again.

“Get. Up.” She’d beg, plead, anything. She’d even pray. “Dear God, please help me get him inside.” Short, simple, to the point.

He fell forward onto his face. God wasn’t listening. There was only one choice left. Get mad.

“All right, asshole. It’s three o’clock in the morning, I haven’t been to bed, and you’re lucky I even heard you out here with all that wind. Don’t push your luck. I didn’t invite you. I don’t want you here. And if you die on my stoop, I’m going to curse you into hell. Do you hear me? If you don’t get up right this minute, I’m going to kick you all the way inside. Now. Get. Up.”

With a groan, he put one hand on the wet pavers and pushed. Shelby stuck her hands under his armpits, and together they crawled through the open door. She collapsed on top of him in the front hall. The bottom half of his legs still lay outside. Rising, she hunkered in front of him, grabbed his upper arms and pulled. Her feet slipped, and her butt slammed down on the hard slate. But she rose, and did it again. And again. Until he was far enough in that she could close the door.

She stood over him, hands on her hips. The light from the lamp fell across his pale, immobile face. Now what? Since the power was out, the house was cold. If she could get him into the living room, she could dump him by the fire. Which she hadn’t lit yet. He’d be better off upstairs in a bed, covered by mountains of blankets. She didn’t know a thing about frost bite or hypothermia, except that she had to warm him up quick.

Looking from him to the stairs and back again, she decided getting mad was good. It had worked on the porch.

“If you think I’m carrying you up those stairs, think again. I’ll let you die down here.” She poked his hip with her foot. “I don’t care if you die, you hear. I can just crawl into my nice, warm bed upstairs and sleep like a baby.” She squatted beside him and lifted one of his eyelids. All she saw was white. She wanted to cry. Instead she jabbed his shoulder. “The rats will eat you. There are lots of them around here. They don’t bother me because I move quickly, but you, they’ll enjoy eating. And I better not have to clean up the mess, either. Yuk. Get up.”

She hadn’t said this much aloud in ten years. Her voice sounded hollow, her throat felt scratchy. “Do it or die, bub. I don’t really care either way.”

He heaved himself onto his side, his eyelids fluttered, then he reached one hand out to her, fingers grasping.

Good boy. She put one arm across his back, tucking her fingers in his opposite armpit, and pulled. This time he helped, rising to his knees. She looked up at the stairs. When had they become so long and steep? She grabbed the newel post and hauled him to his feet. He stumbled four times going up. She cussed at him the whole way, her bones creaking, her arms and legs shaking with the effort.

On the landing, he almost fell, but she threw her body in front of him. If he went down, she’d never get him up again. The house had several bedrooms, all of them unused except one. Her own. It was the closest, only a few steps along the hall. Plus it had a fireplace. She headed toward the glow of the lamp she’d left burning on her bedside table.

When she finally got him on the bed, her knees gave out and she tumbled to the floor beside him, resting her head on the coverlet next to his legs. Maybe God had answered, giving her the strength to get him all the way up here.

Cold, wet jeans against her cheek forced her to rise to her feet. He wasn’t out of danger yet. The frost on his hair had thawed, leaving it in wet tangles that dampened the pillow. Minus the grimace, he was actually quite beautiful. With sinfully long, dark lashes, an aristocratic nose, and full lips, he could have graced the cover of GQ.

He shivered in his soggy black leather jacket. She started with that, rolling him over to remove first one arm, then the other. Underneath, he wore a beige Pendleton sweater. Though not soggy, it was still damp. Disposing of that, she undid his button-down shirt, revealing an impressive chest. Hairless, muscles well-defined. His breathing, she noted, was far too shallow. Next she removed his shoes, then stood back to study the belt and jeans. Jeans that were molded to hard thighs. Wet jeans stuck to skin like glue.

She hadn’t undressed a man in ten long, lonely years.

The buckle was easy. The button fly popped open when she pulled. Once again, she rolled him from side to side, heaving with effort, but managing to shimmy the material off his hips. His briefs came with them. Oh my. The family jewel nestled in dark hair. Now that was worth a fortune, even in its dormant state. Shelby licked dry lips.

Concentrate. She huffed and puffed, tugged and yanked, and finally the jeans slid off his feet, tumbling her off balance to the floor. Hard male flesh lay the length of her bed, his legs hanging over the edge.

On the other side of the bed, she threw the covers back, then, returning to him, proceeded to push, and roll him into the space. He landed on his side. God, if she had to move the man one more time, she’d break down. Her strength had rapidly dwindled, but at least the hard part was done.

After easing him to his back and covering him with her usual three blankets and down comforter, she threw two more logs on the fire. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, then held her palms to the fresh blaze for a moment. In the bathroom, she grabbed one of her fluffy white towels and returned to rub his hair. He didn’t move, his head flopping as she dried his luxurious abundance of silky brown hair.

Then she noticed the blood all over her towel. God. His forehead was oozing. All the rubbing she’d done had broken open a cut. Rushing back into the bathroom, she dampened a washcloth with cold water, then returned to press it to his forehead. With a hand supporting the back of his head, she held the cloth, removed it, turned it inside out and repeated the procedure. The bleeding stopped shortly. She opened the butterfly bandage she’d brought with her and tapped it to his skin.

Done with that, she pulled the comforter to his chin.

“There now, you’ll be warm in no time.”

She threw his jeans over the back of the desk chair and pulled it in front of the fire, then laid his socks on the fireplace mantle, anchoring them with two small figurines. She put his shirt, which was almost dry, on a hanger and hung it on the bathroom doorjamb. She did the same with his damp sweater. The jacket was another story. The leather would likely crack as it dried. Then again, it might have that very expensive, beaten-to-death look that had been popular when she was out and about in the world. She shoved a sturdy hanger into the armholes, molded the shoulders to it, and attached it to the same chair on which she’d put his jeans.

Did people get dehydrated in the severe cold? She couldn’t remember, but a hot cup of soup to soothe his throat and warm his belly certainly couldn’t hurt. She closed the door behind her, hoping the heat of the fire would permeate the room.

Picking up the lamp she’d left in the downstairs hall, she followed the maze of corridors to her kitchen. At one time, her home had supported an extended family of eight and housed an army of servants. But that had been long ago. One of these days, it was going to fall down around her ears since she’d never completed any of the repairs that needed to be done. For ten years, no one but she had crossed its threshold.

Until tonight.

She lit the old gas stove with a match, then rummaged in the cupboard for a package of chicken soup. Just a broth, nothing that would inflame his innards. She boiled bottled water, then poured it over the mix, making a mug for herself as well. She’d lost more weight and had taken to tying her sweats up with a piece of rope these days. A nice cup of soup would soothe them both and fill her empty stomach.

The room had warmed considerably by the time she got back upstairs. But the man’s face was deathly pale, and beneath the covers, his body quaked.

She sat on the bed beside him, lifting his head enough so that he could drink the soup. She’d put a little cold water in it to bring the temperature to tepid. Without opening his eyes, he took the liquid until it dribbled out the sides of his mouth. She patted his chapped lips with the wet washcloth. When she laid him back down, he still shook. She peeked beneath the comforter to find the shivers traveled throughout his body.

Dammit, without the power, she didn’t have any heat. And she didn’t think more blankets were going to help. The cold had burrowed into his bones. If she’d had her Internet connection she could have looked up hypothermia and researched what to do for him. Gee, she might even have used the phone to call a doctor.

The man needed warmth, that much she knew. She didn’t have the means to give it to him, unless...well, unless she gave him body heat. Her own.

No, she couldn’t.

He’d never know. It wasn’t as if he was aware of anything. Once he was warm again, she could leave without him even realizing she’d been there. He’d never have to see her.

But she couldn’t do that.

She hadn’t been in bed with a man since...well, since the “incident.” She’d never wanted to be in bed with a man again. It was one of the reasons she was here, far away from men, far away from temptation, from guilt, far away from anything that could touch her. Or hurt her.

But if she didn’t, this man might die.

Dammit, dammit. She really didn’t have a choice.

So Shelby Stewart dropped her terry robe and her flannel nightgown, and, for the first time in ten years, climbed in bed beside a man.


And there we go, Chapter Two of Beauty or the Bitch. Well, we definitely know Dex is the beauty, LOL. And Shelby hasn’t been seen in 10 years. Wonder what she looks like now!

Don’t forget Baby, I'll Find You, Jennifer Skully’s new release is available at Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, and in the Apple iBookstore. The book has been getting some fabulous reviews! I'm sure that's due to Rosemary Gunn's fantastic cover!