BLOG TOUR: Dirty Nights by A.M. Hargrove

If you like your romances light and sweet, this is NOT for you. This is a tough and gritty story of heartbreak, rejection, and hard love. You’ve been warned.

Life isn’t easy.
Nor is it fair.
And you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with.
Sometimes love chooses you.

Skylina...Her story is not pretty. Discarded like trash by her father. Forced into prostitution by her mother. Used and abused, she learns to cope. And survives. Because she has to. What other choice is there?

Ryder...His story is every bit as ugly. Beaten and left for dead. A star whose light was extinguished long before it should have been. Now a he’s drug addict who wrestles with the demons that try to destroy him.

Two broken people...
Extraordinary circumstances...
Pasts that could tear them apart.

Attention: This book is also published as the Dirty Nights Novella Series under A.M. Hargrove’s pen name of Emerson St. Clair.

**Content Warning: Due to the explicit sexual content this is not intended for younger readers.

 Skylina

Six Years Ago

“Skylina, I swear to God I will whip your fucking ass if you don’t do what I say. Now get your skinny ass out there if you know what’s good for you. He’s been waiting and he doesn’t like to be late.”

“Mom, please.” It’s my last ditch attempt at begging. This isn’t the first time she’s dressed me up like a whore and forced me to meet her pimp.

Her voice suddenly turns whiny. “Sweetie, you know how much I need my medicine. I get sick if I don’t have it. And this is the only way. Do it for me, baby. You will, won’t you?”

When I look at her, I know I have no choice. She’s skin and bones, nothing like she was when my dad still lived here. She used to be real pretty then. But now, she takes no pride in herself. None. She rarely bathes unless she gets so hard up that she turns tricks on her own. And now that I’m old enough, she’s all but sold me off to her pimp and bullies me to do her dirty work. She has ulterior motives. I bring in more money than she ever would. Oh, if she’d get cleaned up, she would be okay, I guess. But she won’t do it. So I hook for her and support her drug habit. Me, a sixteen year old. Fun times.

“Yeah, Mom.”

Any other mother would die before they’d put their daughter in danger like this. Not my mom. Oh no. She stands there and smiles. Then claps her hands. Like we’re getting ready to go on a picnic or something. Some twisted picnic.

“I knew you’d see it my way. Always knowing how to help your poor old mom.”

Turning around I walk out the door. Her pimp, Mikey, stands there waiting.

“Hurry your ass up, Lena. I don’t have time for your shit!” His fingers tighten around my neck. “Now you better act right tonight or you know what’s coming your way, right?” He presses himself against me and his fetid breath would make me gag, but I don’t because his grip on me is so tight it restricts any motion in my throat.

“Yeah,” I croak as I squeeze back the tears. What he means is he’ll beat the shiz out of me. He’s done it before and he won’t hesitate to do it again. The last time, the beating was accompanied by a rape. Bile rises up from my gut again, but I force it back into its proper place. What other choice do I have? We get in his car and he drives me to some guy’s place. It’s in a seedy part of town, and I climb three long flights of steps to get to apartment 4D. The guy answers the door and I want to turn and run. But I don’t. Instead, I walk inside, where the room is foggy with smoke. An open bottle of whiskey sits on a round table and he asks, “Want some?”

“No thanks.”

The place is a mess, clothes strewn everywhere and dirty dishes all over the place. But that’s not what bothers me the most. It’s what I’m going to have to do next.

The guy is old, like my mom. Maybe in his forties or something. He’s pudgy with a belly that hangs over his pants.

“Take off your shirt. I wanna look at your tits.”

My hands shake as I undo the buttons. One thing I’ve learned is not to look at their faces. But I make the mistake of doing that now and see him lick his lips. Watching his fat slimy tongue slide over his thick ugly lips almost makes me lose my lunch. My face must show this because he laughs.

“Not into this, are you?”

“Er, uh, yeah, I am.” I can’t keep the stammer out of my reply.

“Good.” His beady eyes darken as his hands move to his zipper. “Get over here. You know the drill.”

My feet don’t want to move, but I somehow move over to him.

“On your knees little girl.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and shoves me hard to the floor.

My knees burn from the rough carpet. I reach into his pants for his thingy, and put my mouth on him. His pecker tastes like sour milk and this is when my daydreams begin.

My mind takes me away from this horrid place, into my fantasy world where I can dance away all the dreadful things I’m going to have to do to him tonight.

By the time I leave, it feels like my insides have been stripped raw. Mikey is outside waiting and I give him the cash the man handed me. He snatches it out of my hand and counts it. Then he tosses me fifty bucks. That’s all I get. For a night of horror. When I get back home, Mom’s waiting with her hand extended. After I hand over the money I climb in the hot shower and scrub the filth off of me until my skin is chafed. Then I brush my teeth and Listerine my mouth raw. But I never get the taste of those nasty men out. They linger with me for a long, long time.

The cheap sheets scratch my skin as I slide into bed. A tear escapes from my eye, though I do my best not to let it. This is the time I dread the most, because I’m alone with my thoughts and reminded of how ferked up my life is. My dad doesn’t want me. My mom is a drug addict. I’m a high school drop out. My dream of becoming a professional dancer is moving further and further out of my reach.

When I quit school earlier this year, it became apparent that going to any professional school was no longer attainable. Mom made sure of that. Whoring for her nights made keeping up with my school work impossible. And then there were those rumors flying around. I’d hang my head in shame everyday as the girls whispered about me and treated me like I was diseased. But not the boys. Oh no, they flocked to me like ants on honey. They even cornered me in the stairwell several times and if someone hadn’t come by, I’m sure it would have ended up in rape. So I decided it was time to bow out gracefully and withdraw from high school.

It would be nice if I had someone to talk to about all of this, but that’s never going to happen. Not with my current situation anyway. I burrow down into my hard nest of a bed and do my best to try and sleep. But all I can think of is a set of big beefy paws as they painfully pinch and squeeze me, and the tears finally gush out, while my aching body is wracked with sobs.

 A.M. Hargrove resides in the south, dividing her time between the upstate of South Carolina and the mountains of North Carolina. She truly believes that chocolate, coffee and ice cream should be added to the USDA food groups. 

Her books include Adult, New Adult and Young Adult Romances, including, The Guardians of Vesturon (Survival, Resurrection, Determinant, reEmergent and the novella Beginnings); Dark Waltz (A Praestani Novel) Edge of Disaster, Shattered Edge, Kissing Fire, Tragically Flawed, Exquisite Betrayal and Tragic Desires.

Please find her at http://www.amhargrove.com

A.M. also writes under the name of Emerson St. Clair. Emerson's books include the Dirty Nights novella series

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 WOW!! I was totally blown away with this book. A tasty treat, drawing you in with its steamy seductive cover...and also the scorching sex...but this novel provided so much more; while it may have some dirty nights in it...it is surrounded by a beautiful tale of two broken people being pieced together again....

Skylina and Ryder are two characters that will crawl in to your heart...I was amazed at the lives these two had and continue to lead.
My heart ached for them both and all I could do was keep reading to find out more...Ryder and Skylina both have a tumultuous past that seems to plague their present. Even though one of them seems to be taking more control, the other accepts the here and now and stifles themselves for better...
It is when these two meet and find that kindred spirit together that they search themselves and decide to overcome the chains that have been keeping them down.
GAH....Brilliantly written with an intriguingly suspenseful storyline all the while heating you up from the flaming erotic sex...
A definite must read..