It. Goes. On
Lexie Todd knew these 3 simple words. They were her mantra. So, after dealing with years of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend and the father of her son, she knows what needs to be done. With help from her best friend Mollie, they go on the run.
After months of being on the run they finally find the perfect town to settle in. Unable to trust and always having her guard up, the last thing Lexie wants is to get involved with Lukas Gunn.
Persistent, annoying, bossy, over protective and extremely hot, Detective Lukas Gunn.
After an incident leaves her vulnerable, Lukas knows there’s something haunting her. He’s determined to find out, wanting to protect her and make her his. But Lexie is determined also. Not wanting to give up her past, she pushes him away. Repeatedly.
But when history repeats itself, will Lexie finally be able to trust those around her to keep her safe? Will Lukas be able to save her? Or will Lexie succumb to only knowing what it’s like to be Unbeautifully Loved?
PROLOGUE
Meeting him changed my life. I never thought I’d meet someone who’d finally complete me like he did. Someone who finally made me feel whole and loved as much as he did. There’s always been a void in my heart, a void I thought I’d never have. I was in love, deeply in love, the kind of love that only comes around once in a life time, the kind you don’t want to live without and he didn’t even know how I felt. I’d waited too long and I didn’t know if I’d ever get to tell him. The thought of him fizzled from my mind as my body shook from the cold under the thin sheet of a blanket that was wrapped around me. I was in shock, I could tell. I knew the signs. I winced as I moved; shooting pain licked my body in every direction. I knew a couple of my ribs along with my wrist were broken, and possibly something on my face, as pain swept over it and into my head. I raised my free arm up slowly, painfully, feeling my damp face as my hand found its way to the laceration on the side of my head, the source of only some of the pain. Unable to hold my arm up for much longer, it fell to the side throbbing and dangling off the edge of the bed. My body, it was beaten and bruised possibly more than ever before and I could feel myself slipping away, wanting nothing but to close my eyes and sleep, but it was the last thing I’d allow myself to do.
My mind was disoriented; I had no idea what day it was or how long I had been locked in this cold, dark place. Time was frozen, becoming nonexistent, and I was sure the days were just bleeding together. I thought about Finn and Mollie, hoping and praying they were safe because I didn’t know if I was going to see them again. The thought of that was unbearable. My eyes watered, nose burned and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
Pull it together.
Think.
I didn’t know where I was, why I was even here or what caused him to do what he did to me. I felt like my life, my being, was being sucked right out of me. The abuse had taken its toll on my body and I had no fight left in me. All hope that I had earlier was beginning to fade away.
The door creaking open brought me back from my thoughts, my eyes snapped closed at the light that followed him in. I wanted to pull my blanket up to hide myself and hope it would make me disappear but I couldn’t and there was no point in trying.
Looking at him you wouldn’t think any kind of malicious evil would consume him, but it did. It was written all over his face, in the grin he wore and the burning in his cold, dead blue eyes. A shiver ran through me as I thought of his eyes looking back at me, blank, filled with nothing but coldness and the brightness of those eyes forever gone. I’d never seen a pair of eyes so cold, or so hollow and dark, not even the pair I looked into years before compared to what I was seeing now.
He walked over to the side of the bed, no words said. His rough cold hands roamed over my hair down the side of my face and my body stilled as I wished him away. My eyes snapped shut not knowing what was about to come.
His hand slipped under the covers, gliding over my naked arm, stopping above my elbow, lingering there a moment before moving away and then my cuffed hand was free. His hand went back, gripping my arm tightly as he pulled me to a sitting position. Pain radiated through me as I let out a whimper. He pulled me to my frozen feet, my knees shook, feeling like they were going to give out, unable to support me. I felt myself sway to the side but his grip held me upright, tightly; his fingers dug into my arm, pinching my skin.
What’s one more bruise?
He started to pull me towards the open door, my eyes squinting, trying to adjust to the light. I didn’t know where we were going and I was sure it wasn’t going to be good and for the first time I was wishing to stay in the hole. I didn’t have any strength to fight him so I let him pull me, taking me wherever he was going.
Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe it was meant to end here and meeting him, falling in love, having this emptiness I carried around finally filled, maybe it was only supposed to be... temporary.
Life had a way of playing cruel tricks on you.
This I knew.
Boy did I know.
I no longer saw the future with him as bright, happy and full of love; it was suddenly now empty, numb and full of complete and utter darkness.
Emma Grayson shares with us today what it was like coming up with and creating her characters in Unbeautifully Loved.
I knew right off the bat what I wanted my male character to be like and that would be an alpha. I’m an alpha male fan, that’s how I like my book boyfriends. So I created, in Lukas, my ‘dream alpha.’ When I had that and his name everything else came together, he just appeared to me, in my head. Though during rewrites and edits I changed his eye color from chocolate brown to grey because every time I saw him in my head his eyes were light except when he was upset, they were like a thunderstorm then. Lukas isn’t based off anyone I know – I WISH! He was created by my in the depths of my head, heart and soul.
Lexie... Lexie... Lexie. She’s stubborn and at times not liked too much. She’s kinda all over the place sometimes. She doesn’t want Lukas or to believe he could want her yet she wants him. There’s a huge part of her that was broken by Dex and the other part of her just wants to heal and move on from it. I think deep down she knows about Lukas but there’s still that part of her that of course is afraid. I think Lexie is strong, strong for finally taking a stand and getting her boy out and away from Dex. Some people couldn’t do that, especially after being told no one would want you. Towards the end of the book I think Lexie changed, the old Lexie would have wanted to give up and not fight but she fought to get back to her son and man. She’s really a 50/50 character... I never planned for it to be that way but that’s where she took me. But I have to admit she is a mix of me and someone I created because some of her actions are things I can see myself doing...
Finn is based off my six year old, pretty much everything about him I took from who my son is and put it in him, so that was pretty easy.
I knew Lexie was going to have a friend with her and I knew exactly the type of friend she was going to have. Mollie was one of the easiest characters to get inside of, she was easy to write and I knew just what she’d say when the time came. It was easy because Mollie is a mix between me and my best friend, Teri, while the rest of her is someone anyone would be damn lucky to have as a friend.
All my other characters came together once I had their names picked. Once that happened it was as if everything fell into place - how they looked, talked and acted. They came naturally, as if it was my life and these were the type of people I’d want in my life – minus a couple.
GOOD LUCK!
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