Torched... a novel by Chloe Stowe
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Synopsis...
A house burns on the stark Kansas horizon...
Its flames make a New York businessman abandon the back road in hopes of helping, in hopes of being the hero instead of the villain for once...
His nerve is immediately tested as he witnesses a man run into the inferno. As the New Yorker risks all to save the stranger, his life becomes forever embroiled in both a madman's deadly game of fire and revenge, and a soldier's fight not only to save his family but to save his own soul...
The New Yorker is thirty-two-year-old Matthew Archer. He is a hard man to like, a harder man still to love. Few in the world make an effort at either.
The soldier is twenty-six-year-old Cane Summerfield. He is a hero, a man who gave up his independence to defend his country.
The men are two strong, fierce personalities, from backgrounds as different as heaven and hell. They should never have met, let alone fallen in love... but theirs is a story of Fate riding in on the coattails of sin.
Theirs is a story borne of fire...
Excerpt:
Chapter One: Single Malt Scotch, Cask Strength
It always began with a single-malt scotch. Cask-strength, aged not a day less than
fifteen years. The hints of peat and granite would have run smoothly down the man’s
gullet, murmuring proudly its Speyside roots . . . if only the whiskey had been to drink.
Slowly, with a reverence reserved only for gods and the very best of liquors, the
man dipped his thumb into the thick, nearly oily liquid. As he swirled his finger gently
around the glass, he almost purred as the one hundred and ten proof scotch clung hungrily
to every weathered turn of his thumb.
Reluctantly, he pulled his hand free and brought it slowly up to his lips. His
tongue slipped silently out of his mouth and met the intoxicating skin with an eager
relish. He allowed himself only one lick, just enough to ignite those precious buds of
taste with sweet promise.
“Soon,” he vowed in a graveled rendition of a prayer, “I will drink while he
burns.”
In one final and careful sweep of his hand, the man, who lay naked and prone on
the faded oriental rug, dragged his wet thumb across his right nipple and down to his
navel. The line of scotch joined scores of other lines that ran and glistened across his skin
in intricate designs of swirls and damning words.
The flickering of a lone candle lit the room and the man’s body. The candlestick
sat on the floor at his hip.
Easing his head back down to the rug, he stretched his legs as far apart as they
would go. His clean-shaven groin was wide open and wet with lines of hard drink. At his
feet lay a large, carefully stacked bundle of old newspapers, their dates all of the same
long ago year: 1984. Sodden in the cheapest booze he could find, they set awaiting one
kiss of a flame to fulfill their last purpose.
A line of alcohol ran from the pile back up to the man’s dick and balls.
With a steady hand, he reached for the lit candle and brought the flame down to
his right nipple.
Whoosh!
The scotch immediately caught fire.
The man flinched and then moaned.
As the fire quickly devoured the first drops of the liquor, the flame moved down
his body like a playful tongue of some sexual dragon. He writhed under its deadly touch.
In its tracks, the fire left not burns but only warm pain and heated tingles in its wake.
Fire play was a dangerous game. It took skill, patience and mastery. To do it alone
took both bravery and cowardice. The man who played with fire alone was a man who
did not trust another.
Sweeping across the swirls and damning words that so carefully painted the brave
coward’s body, the torch of fire grew.
Finally, those lines of single malt scotch that had tasted of peat and granite drew
the mounting flame to his half-risen cock and his balls. Giving the man’s sex only a
cursory, though deep, kiss of its heat, the fire quickly jumped from his groin and leapt to
the trail of cheap booze on the floor.
Whoosh!
The papers went up in a fireball.
The faded oriental rug soon followed.
The curtains and covered up sofa were next.
Soon the only thing not on fire in the old house was the man who had started it,
the man who sat naked on the floor and grinned into the flames.
A house burns on the stark Kansas horizon...
Its flames make a New York businessman abandon the back road in hopes of helping, in hopes of being the hero instead of the villain for once...
His nerve is immediately tested as he witnesses a man run into the inferno. As the New Yorker risks all to save the stranger, his life becomes forever embroiled in both a madman's deadly game of fire and revenge, and a soldier's fight not only to save his family but to save his own soul...
The New Yorker is thirty-two-year-old Matthew Archer. He is a hard man to like, a harder man still to love. Few in the world make an effort at either.
The soldier is twenty-six-year-old Cane Summerfield. He is a hero, a man who gave up his independence to defend his country.
The men are two strong, fierce personalities, from backgrounds as different as heaven and hell. They should never have met, let alone fallen in love... but theirs is a story of Fate riding in on the coattails of sin.
Theirs is a story borne of fire...
Excerpt:
Chapter One: Single Malt Scotch, Cask Strength
It always began with a single-malt scotch. Cask-strength, aged not a day less than
fifteen years. The hints of peat and granite would have run smoothly down the man’s
gullet, murmuring proudly its Speyside roots . . . if only the whiskey had been to drink.
Slowly, with a reverence reserved only for gods and the very best of liquors, the
man dipped his thumb into the thick, nearly oily liquid. As he swirled his finger gently
around the glass, he almost purred as the one hundred and ten proof scotch clung hungrily
to every weathered turn of his thumb.
Reluctantly, he pulled his hand free and brought it slowly up to his lips. His
tongue slipped silently out of his mouth and met the intoxicating skin with an eager
relish. He allowed himself only one lick, just enough to ignite those precious buds of
taste with sweet promise.
“Soon,” he vowed in a graveled rendition of a prayer, “I will drink while he
burns.”
In one final and careful sweep of his hand, the man, who lay naked and prone on
the faded oriental rug, dragged his wet thumb across his right nipple and down to his
navel. The line of scotch joined scores of other lines that ran and glistened across his skin
in intricate designs of swirls and damning words.
The flickering of a lone candle lit the room and the man’s body. The candlestick
sat on the floor at his hip.
Easing his head back down to the rug, he stretched his legs as far apart as they
would go. His clean-shaven groin was wide open and wet with lines of hard drink. At his
feet lay a large, carefully stacked bundle of old newspapers, their dates all of the same
long ago year: 1984. Sodden in the cheapest booze he could find, they set awaiting one
kiss of a flame to fulfill their last purpose.
A line of alcohol ran from the pile back up to the man’s dick and balls.
With a steady hand, he reached for the lit candle and brought the flame down to
his right nipple.
Whoosh!
The scotch immediately caught fire.
The man flinched and then moaned.
As the fire quickly devoured the first drops of the liquor, the flame moved down
his body like a playful tongue of some sexual dragon. He writhed under its deadly touch.
In its tracks, the fire left not burns but only warm pain and heated tingles in its wake.
Fire play was a dangerous game. It took skill, patience and mastery. To do it alone
took both bravery and cowardice. The man who played with fire alone was a man who
did not trust another.
Sweeping across the swirls and damning words that so carefully painted the brave
coward’s body, the torch of fire grew.
Finally, those lines of single malt scotch that had tasted of peat and granite drew
the mounting flame to his half-risen cock and his balls. Giving the man’s sex only a
cursory, though deep, kiss of its heat, the fire quickly jumped from his groin and leapt to
the trail of cheap booze on the floor.
Whoosh!
The papers went up in a fireball.
The faded oriental rug soon followed.
The curtains and covered up sofa were next.
Soon the only thing not on fire in the old house was the man who had started it,
the man who sat naked on the floor and grinned into the flames.