Learning Curves

By Georgia Stockholm

Asher hits the reset button after her tempestuous relationship with Dylan goes so far, so fast, that she finds herself questioning her sanity.

Coming to grips with her emerging sexuality while she navigates the intricacies of her first, serious long term relationship proves almost impossible. But Dylan is willing to take a step back, and so the pair takes a month’s break from sex—but not each other.

The friendship that grows between them is as deep and real as the passion which almost drove Asher over the edge. As the month-with-no-sex draws to a close Dylan invites Asher to meet his family, inviting her deeper into his troubled past.

A question emerges which she’s has avoided since the beginning. Gabriel and Asher’s younger sister Jade have no answer, so Asher must finally pose the question herself. Did Dylan have a relationship with her older sister Sabrina, back in the days of the Nameless Band? And what would that mean for the two of them if he had?

Dark sexual fantasies haunt Asher as the month without sex draws to a close leaving the pair so sexually charged that a single errant spark is all it takes to set them both ablaze.

BBW BDSM Romance: 19,000 word novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gulliver Noir
• Release date: Oct 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310904011

Georgia Stockholm

I was a tomboy until I was 12.I hated pink, anything girly. I refused to wear skirts and dresses, and I played exclusively with boys. The day I talked my mother into letting me get a crew cut was the happiest day of my young life. At puberty, though, something shifted inside. I still liked boys, but I knew I wasn’t one.As I grew, I fell in love with fashion, costume, things pretty, and things dangerous. I’m still more comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt than heels and makeup, but there is a time and a place for everything.I’ve always loved to read. I devoured literary classics during the day, while at night, I curled up in my bed under the covers with a flash light devouring every genre imaginable, ending up bleary eyed and unable to focus in class. I was a crummy student.Writing has been my lifelong dream, and great good fortune has afforded me the opportunity to devote myself to it full time, at least for awhile. I really hope you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy writing it.

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BOOK 5: INFINITE CURVES

Learning Curves

By Georgia Stockholm

Learning Curves

Copyright © 2014 by Georgia Stockholm

Published by Georgia Stockholm at Smashwords.

Copyright © 2014 by Georgia Stockholm.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Author's Note: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

BODILY FLUIDS

I WIPED SWEAT FROM MY FOREHEAD with the back of my hand as I neared my goal. I tapped the treadmill down to four miles an hour, a fast if very uncomfortable walk, holding my heart rate at 140 beats per minute. After three weeks of daily gym visits I could slowly jog for a solid mile before having to slow down, which I considered an accomplishment.

I’d never done the gym thing before in my life.

Gabriel loped along easily on the humming machine to my left devouring distance in long graceful strides, his control panel set to six miles an hour. Our conversations were lopsided, during these workouts because Gabriel, with his superhero physique, could actually speak and think coherently while running while I fought to keep from passing out or vomiting.

Explain it to me again, Sweetie, not having sex with Dylan for a month. Whose idea was that?

Mine! I gasped.

My sky blue spandex exercise suit (picked out by Gabriel at a local big box store) did its best to shore me up, pack me in, keep me from jiggling, and was more successful that I would have imagined possible. The sports bra I wore could have been used to contain the blasts of twin hand grenades. That said, my chest was sore after every gym visit.

I was not built for running.

The sun was setting outside the floor to ceiling windows of the university health center’s cardio floor. I’d paid the ten dollars a pop to have Gabriel accompany me a half dozen times over the last month.

My treadmill flashed GOAL ACHIEVED, 3.00 miles and went into cool down mode. I walked slower and slower, leaning on the metal blood pressure sensor handles. I dripped sweat on the control panel in a ladylike fashion.

I was reminded horribly of a line my father had nearly busted a gut laughing at from an old black and white TV show we’d watched together, ‘you know, for a fat girl, you don’t sweat much!’

Gabriel shifted into cool down, the pitch of his treadmill falling as it slowed. You finally find the perfect guy, a guy who wants you just the way you are… and you try to change?

I’m not trying to lose weight. I want to be stronger, I said.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. For a second I saw him clearly, as you would someone you’d just met, and I was struck by his beauty. He wasn’t handsome; he was beautiful. His powerful arms and torso, sculpted thighs and calfs didn’t diminish one iota from the delicateness of his facial features. Did he pluck his eyebrows, I wondered?

Down, girl, Gabriel noticed my lingering stare. I know you’re hard up, but seriously.

I flushed. What? A girl can’t look? I’m in a relationship. I’m not dead.

And it hit me then, the words, ‘I’m in a relationship,' and I felt that warm flutter inside, something loosening and releasing, and with that good feeling a tiny whisper of fear. I didn’t want to mess things up with Dylan. Again.

I want to do the muscle machines, I said.

It’s called Nautilus. Gabriel sighed. OK.

I couldn’t resist stepping on the giant, carnival style scale on our way to the weight room. The needle swung around too quickly, and went too far. I’d been working out three times a week, for three weeks, skipping dessert and….

Muscle is heavier than fat, you know. Gabriel said, pointedly not looking at the scale’s display. You can lose inches and stay the same weight.

It’s not about losing weight, I said sharply.

Oh honey, he said. You have no idea what this is about.

Some part of me agreed. Another part was moved to instant, uncontrollable rage. I smacked him hard on the ass with my open palm. Not something I could ever recall doing before.

Gabriel’s slender eyebrows arched in amazement, his jaw dropping. What have you been doing with that boy? Seriously, honey, I need details or I can’t help.

I made a grim little smile and shook my head. I’d talked about my, um, unusual sex with Dylan with Cassandra, my therapist, but with nobody else. The spanking. The flogging. His hands on my throat. But for the first time in my life I’d held back the nitty-gritty details from Gabriel, my best friend.

I wasn’t sure exactly why. Was I ashamed of myself, for the things I’d done? Was it that simple?

The weight room was almost full, each station occupied by a sweat-sheened, self-absorbed twenty-something fixedly staring