The novel you are about to read is a work in progress. What I am posting here is the raw, unedited draft – complete with typos and mistakes… The finished project will be vastly different. I started this project in 2011 and I stopped working on it abruptly to let it cook for a while…
While I’m writing a much better version, you can read the old draft while the new one is being completed. Essentially, you get to read a version free, and if you liked what you read, you can purchase the complete polished version from book retailers everywhere.
I began writing this before I wrote and published my first book. The writing is far from my best… but there’s a story here, kids. The title is a working title. And again, I stress this is a very rough draft, cringeworthy (at least to me) to read in some places, but I thought this would be a fun way for you to read a developing work, and then read a finished product.
Enjoy...
Chapter Ten
The wind ripped across the beach and created tiny tornadoes of sand and flurries.
Mason threw an arm around her. “Aren’t you freezing?”
Chloe had forgotten she was coatless and produced a voluntary shiver. She clasped her hands in front of her chest and tucked her elbows against her ribs.
“Come here, Chlo-ball.” He pulled her in close with his left arm and tucked her head against his chest with his right hand.
Her face was nuzzled securely between his coat and his sleeve. Through the howling wind and pounding surf, she could hear his heart. And she could smell his blood. And it made her hungry. She felt a strange sensation: a tingling around the crown of her head that she had not felt since she was a human girl. She sensed a mysterious awakening in her chest: a rhythm, a palpitation, a syncopated series of flutters signifying the excitement that only comes with being alive.
Chloe clutched his waist and he pulled her in tighter. And he processed an emotion he hadn’t felt since he first met Claire. He rested his chin on the top of her head and didn’t realize that his fingers were making light circles on the back of her neck. He almost planted a kiss on her crown, but he overcame the urge and focused on the task at hand, which was to lead her safely down to the private beach where his small house sat in the shadow of larger houses with pristine white decks and grey wooden siding.
Mason’s house was a prefab designed by Subissatie. The open interior allowed for a loft which contained a full bath and bedroom accessed by a spiral staircase. The back of the house, which faced the ocean on a slight southward angle, contained the large single-paned window that offered a view of the ocean and beach. A great deal of the down payment came from his parents, which he used to hold over Claire’s head when she first demanded her share.
Mason led her inside and lit the hanging lights.
