The Manhattanites
Sobriety is in vogue this season when Debauchery magazine founder Vive Farnworth trades in her Park Avenue mansion for a halfway house. Enjoying “therapy” on a tomato farm, she relearns how to live. Her focus on fruit soon ripens when a new roommate moves in. He’s dominant and challenging, and she swears his orgasm-inducing body looks familiar. Then again, her memory is one gin martini blur.
Stripped of his Olympic gold medal, Roddick “The Grunt” Beckstrong was the #1 professional tennis player in the world until a certain news outlet exposed him for doping to enhance his performance. After losing custody of his son to his ex-wife, along with sixty-five million dollars, he’s out for revenge against the owner of the tabloid that ruined his life—Debauchery.
To destroy his nemesis, he’ll entice her mind, seduce her soul, and satiate her body’s lust. Then he’ll publicly humiliate her! Falling in all-consuming love along the way wasn’t part of his plan, but it happens. When Vive learns of Roddick’s motives, she ups the ante with the one thing he hasn’t obliterated, her heart. It’s a vengeance that he never saw coming. Whoever stays sober the longest may win something their fame and fortunes never gave them before—a chance at happiness.
Often while reading Avery Aster’s books, readers have been known to experience hot flashes, orgasms, and laughter to the point of peeing in their pants.
It’s suggested that you have a bucket of ice nearby, along with a chilled glass of champagne and your favorite sex toy—fully charged—before reading this story.
Please note that Avery’s writing is not suitable for prudes, slut-shamers, or uptight readers who don’t have a sense of humor about money, sex, or fame. Avery’s books are not intended for anyone under the age of 18.
Have fun!
Swag and reader contests can be found on Avery’s blog at: AveryAster.com
Interact with Avery while reading The Manhattanites on Instagram and Twitter @AveryAster using the hashtags #TheManhattanites #EroticRomance
The Manhattanites
by Avery Aster
“If you enjoy witty erotic romances by such authors as Alice Clayton and Tara Sivec then you’ll most likely devour Avery Aster!”
—The Kindle Reader
“Never did I think I could love an author as much as Avery Aster. The Manhattanites are obscenely fabulous.”
—Book Boyfriend
“The most original series I've ever read. The Manhattanites is expertly crafted like diving into a soap opera.”
—Miss Construed
“A throwback to Judith Krantz, Avery’s writing is salacious glitz, drama and glamour.”
—Talk Supe
“I took a cold shower after reading Unscrupulous.”
—Books Are Love
“Avery's voice is fresh and witty. Something not found in the market.”
—Same Book, Different Review
“Plotted like Jackie Collins, the bitches are super-bitches but underneath their tough exterior is a good heart.”
—I Love Romantic Fiction
“Sex and the City on steroids but younger and sexier, Avery Aster equates to fun erotic romance.”
—Ever After Romance
“The Manhattanites live an extravagant lifestyle. I want to be a part of it.”
—Blissful Books
“The shock value is high and hot flash-inducing. Trust me, I've suffered a few.”
—Ripe For Reader
To Edward:
Here’s to Fire Island, our love for bad boys, elicit substances, blueprints to palaces we’ll hopefully live in one day, childhood friends that we can’t get rid of—no matter how hard we try—dancing on the beach, smashing the social ladder of society, Gogan, Toby, rehab, divorce, second chances, jewelry shopping in Soho, champagne on Monday nights, Real Housewives, all things in the Sunshine State, and of course our friendship.
Love, Avery
Uncensored
Copyright 2017 Avery Aster
Cover Design by Croco Designs
Formatted by Mark's Ebook Formatting
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
New York, New York 10021
First edition: August 2015
www.AveryAster.com
Author's Note
Prologue: Fuck You, Vive Farnworth
Chapter One: Green Acres Is The Place To Be
Chapter Two: Make Her Squirt, Then Eat It Again
Chapter Three: Group Therapy From Hell
Chapter Four: You Say Tomato, I Say Tomorrow
Chapter Five: Freaky-Deaky
Chapter Six: Pretty As Fuck
Chapter Seven: Poppy White, At Your Service
Chapter Eight: Redemption
Epilogue: Back to Manhattan
About Avery Aster
Connect With Avery
Also By Avery Aster
Bonus Novel - Undressed
Gorgeous Readers!
OMFG! I have a free book for you when you join my newsletter. http://www.eepurl.com/CQ665
I’ve always had a crush on tennis players. It’s their muscular legs in those white shorts, darting back and forth on the court, and the sweat beading down their face while they grunt at one another. WTF is not to love when it comes to Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Fabio Fognini, and Novak Djokovic? Seriously. If you agree, you’ll crush hard on Roddick “the Grunt” Beckstrong in this novel. He’s hawt as hell, dominating and has a big… heart. *wink*
Vive is one of the original Manhattanites first introduced as a supporting character in Undressed, which I’ve enclosed as a bonus book for you in the back. She’s rich, cray-cray, and will make you laugh. Uncensored is a short, hot, fun work of erotica. I hope you enjoy Rod and Vive’s romance.
Once you’ve finished Uncensored, be sure to catch up with Poppy White as she’s on the run from the CIA in Undercover. You’ll never believe whose arms she runs into.
Love, Avery
[email protected] Fuck You, Vive Farnworth
Tribeca, New York
Rod
A Few Months Ago
In bed I lie, hearing my cell phone chime. From the “Imperial March” ringtone, I can tell it’s my agent, Boras Jorge.
Fuck ’em! I don’t answer.
Instead I roll over, press my sleepy face into the pillow, and close my sore eyes. Stretching my long legs out, I love the way my feet don’t hang off the edge of the mattress like they did when I was married. Back then we had a queen bed. Now I sleep in a California King, although usually alone.
Damn, my head hurts. Too many tequila shots last night at the club.
/> I must’ve fallen asleep because the next thing I know there’s a thunderous pounding on my front door.
Rolling my eyes, I slide a pillow over my ears, inhale the faint scent of bleach and lemon on the fabric, and ignore the loud thunderous voice shouting from the other side.
“Rod! Open the damn door.” It’s my agent again.
One would think with the two billion dollars in active contracts Jorge has on his tennis players, he’d have better things to do this morning than get on my nerves. After all, I am his top client. With endorsement deals with Adidas, McDonald’s, Wheaties, Omega Watches, and Cadillac, I’ve made Boras a rich man. A very rich, powerful, full-of-himself, egotistical, entitled man.
Besides, he has a key to my place. No need in getting up.
In my head I count back from ten, knowing he’ll be in my bedroom in just a few.
With eight seconds to go, I’m thinking about breakfast. I’m craving eggs benedict, crispy bacon, black coffee, and a grapefruit.
The pounding stops. My cell rings again only a few times, and then that also stops.
I chuckle to myself.
The door clinks against the insertion and twist of the keys.
“Rod!” he shouts from the foyer.
“In here.” I sit up, expecting to see his face beaming with news of some new deal he’s struck for me to shovel more products down my fans’ throats. “Aren’t I entitled to a day off every once in a while?”
Cheeks flushed, veins bulging, he enters the room in one wide step. Rage fills the air.
“Jesus. You look like I feel. What’s the matter?”
He throws some magazine at me.
I flip it over, reading the title: Debauchery. My face is splattered all over the cover.
“What’s the big deal? This stuff is trash.”
“Usually, I’d agree with you.” Hands on his hips, his right leg jutting out a bit, he instructs, “Turn to page forty-six,” before groaning in frustration.
Swallowing hard, I wonder what malarkey my ex-wife, La La Beckstrong, has spread about me now. Last month she told reporters that I was into bestiality and had sex with her pet pig, Binney.
Before we split—which happened after I found out that La La had spread her legs for my brother, Colton—I had threatened to cook Binney for Sunday breakfast. See, I love bacon. Although it’s often been said that I fuck like an animal, I’d never screw a pig in the literal sense. My friends might argue that La La was a farm animal. I think she’s just desperate for attention and loves that the tabloids have made her their main focus. Move over Kardashians; La La is vying for your spot.
“Is this true?” Boras asks with a thread of hysteria in his voice, a bead of sweat dripping from his forehead.
The title of the article reads “Roddick ‘The Grunt’ Beckstrong Doped.’
“Gimme a minute here.” I go on to read that founding editor in chief, Vive Farnworth, of Debauchery magazine hired a private investigator who got his hands on my medical records. Reports which show I’d used steroids around the same time that I’d played the men’s single Summer Olympics two years ago—where I took the gold. And again last year at the US Open, where I scored three Grand Slams.
“If this was true, don’t you think the judges would’ve barred me from entering? You know the rules.” I play dumb. What else am I supposed to do? Admit to being a junkie? Hell no.
“Turn to page fifty-four.”
Fuuuck! There it is, in plain sight. How I paid off the doctors. How I drank special teas and tonics to flush my system, and worse, how I paid to use someone else’s urine samples. They’d all come forward, my cheat team.
With no defense, I glare up at Boris, the man I built an empire with, the agent who had his career on the line for me, and mutter, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Eyes filling with tears, he wipes his clammy-looking face on his forearm and replies, “We’re going to lose everything. Your tennis days are over. Brands won’t want a damn thing to do with you. And let’s not forget La La.”
“What about her?”
“She’s going to get full custody of your son and clean your bank account. You’ll never recover from this. Never.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a bad guy; I just did a bad thing.
It all started so innocently a few years ago. I needed a competitive edge. I did it just once, thinking that would be it.
It wasn’t. I couldn’t stop. Once turned into twice, then a season, and a year, then two years, and so on. I was no different than road cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Glaring down at the last page of the article, I notice a picture of the editor, Vive. Her byline reads that she’s a liquor heiress to Farnworth Firewater, graduated with an MA in journalism from Columbia University, lives on the Upper East Side, and has a Lhasa Apso named Hedda Hopper.
Was it Vive’s fault I’d doped? No. But I should’ve gotten a phone call alerting me that this shit train was pulling into my station. Or at least a chance to respond, tell my side of the story. Isn’t that what good journalism is supposed to do—tell both sides of the story?
This is a smear campaign drudged up by La La to ruin me. But unlike the Binney story though, this one is largely true. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry for eggs benedict anymore. Instead I felt sick. Like I was going to throw up.
Fuck You, Vive Farnworth.
Green Acres Is The Place To Be
Montauk, New York
Vive
Present Day
“I can’t believe I’m going to live in a halfway house,” I say to Lex as she gets out of Taddy’s candy apple red SUV at the detox center where I’ve spent the last year getting sober.
Yes, you heard that right. I’m s-o-b-e-r. Dry as a cracker.
Lex Easton, fashion designer to the stars, hugs me so tightly I feel like I might break. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you?”
“I just saw you last week.”
“We’ve been the best of friends since we were kids. I’m not used to going this many days without seeing your pretty face.” She tugs a piece of my blonde hair behind my ear and then squeezes my hand.
That’s pretty much true. We’ve been inseparable for two decades now.
“Let’s go, girls. We don’t have all day,” Blake Morgan, my #1 gay friend in the whole world, shouts from the back while opening the trunk. He throws my luggage into the rear in one fell swoop.
“Thank you, Blake.” I give him a kiss on the cheek. “How’s your new baby?”
“She didn’t sleep much last night. Hence why I’m a little bitchy today.” Blake grins at me. He and his hubby Miguel just adopted their first child.
“You’re always a little bitchy,” I sass back at him.
“Taddy has a special present for you in the SUV. Get in.”
I open the door to see a mound of red hair filling the driver’s seat.
“Brill!” I screech in Taddy’s direction as she turns around with a glossy smile on her lips.
“Sweet Jesus. This humidity out here in the Hamptons is wreaking havoc on my hair. I mean, look at me. It’s a frickin’ fro. I might as well be living in the seventies.” Taddy reaches for something from the front seat, wrapped in a blanket.
“Is this my present?” I know exactly what it is. I can smell her honey scent from here.
“Yes. Hedda Hopper is all yours.” Taddy reaches back and hands me my fur baby.
Immediately my eyes fill up with happy tears. I haven’t seen her since I went into rehab a little over a year ago. I know, folks usually go for twenty-eight days. And that’s probably a good plan for most, but according to the doctors, I needed to stay a bit longer. Not to mention the fact that I did escape twice. The first time, back in February, was for Fashion Week in the city. I just couldn’t miss it. But those front row seats at Marc Jacobs eventually landed me behind the scenes, sniffing blow, drinking champagne, and popping mood-enhancing pills.
Back to rehab I went.
The second time
was for Memorial Day weekend. I just couldn’t miss the chance to go out on my brother Valtar’s yacht. I wanted to meet his new girlfriend and boyfriend. He’s in one of those poly things. Hey, it works for him. So I’m happy for Val.
We sailed for days. I drank and drank and drank… and drank.
Annnd back to rehab.
But this last stint stuck. I wanted sobriety more than I’d ever wanted it in my entire life.
Hedda Hopper licks my hand. I lean down and kiss her on the forehead. She’s blind. Can’t hear very well either. Taddy, Lex, and Blake gave her to me when we were in the tenth grade at Avon Porter together. I’d gotten pregnant and had given my late boyfriend’s baby up for adoption. Hence why over the years I’d been numbing the pain.
That’s a story for another time and place. Today is a happy day.
I’m being transferred from Hampton Horizons rehab facility to Shull Tomato Farm. It’s a glorified halfway house where I’m supposed to live for a while. It’s supposed to help get me integrated back into civilization as a sober person.
Only one teensy problem: I hate tomatoes. I don’t mind them in a pasta sauce, or on pizza, but raw, uncooked tomatoes just make me yack.
We pile into Taddy’s SUV and head east, going from Southampton to Montauk.
“Guys, thank you again for coming out all this way just to get me,” I say to my friends.
“We’re so proud of you, Vive. This is the longest you’ve been sober in all the years I’ve known you.” Taddy’s perfect smile glares at me from the rearview mirror.
“I feel like I’ve missed so much in your lives. Lex’s third pregnancy. Blake’s wedding.” My eyes sting with tears. “I’m such a shitty friend.”
“No, you’re not. You’re motivation for all of us that life goes on and we must kick some serious ass.” Blake rubs my shoulders from the bench seat behind me.
“Did they tell you much about Shull?” Taddy asks.
“Just a little. They’re the largest supplier of tomatoes in the Northeast. They have a house out by the fields that they’ll put us in. Used to be slave quarters back in the day. I’ll get my own bedroom with a shared bath.” I press my back into the seat, trying to get comfortable.