About Me
- Katie Ashley
- Atlanta, GA, United States
- I am the New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon Best Selling author of The Proposition, Proposal, Music of the Heart, and Nets and Lies. I am represented by Jane Dystel of Dystel and Goderich for all books except for Proposition and Proposal.
The Proposition
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Teaser Tuesday: Excerpt from NETS & LIES & Chance to Win the Book
Yesterday, I released a New Adult book called Nets and Lies. AMAZON & BARNES & NOBLE.
Well, it's new to you guys, but it's been a part of my heart and soul for three years now. After a rape scandal broke out at a school I had formerly taught at, I was inspired to write the story. The basketball coach accused of rape was one I had worked with closely through coaching basketball cheerleading and the after-school program. While along my career other teachers I have known have been accused, I have never, ever doubted this man's innocence. Mainly because I saw the integrity he had with the students he taught and the girls he coached.
So the story took a far different turn than I ever imagined. Here's the final blurb:
Always awkward in her 5’10 frame, Melanie Reeves finds her saving grace through basketball. Not only is she the varsity team captain, she’s the pride of Coach Thompson, who holds the keys to a college scholarship. Melanie has also found 'courtly' love with Will, Coach T's handsome, ball-playing son. When Melanie is on the court, everything is perfect....until she is forced to face an opponent who doesn't play by the rules.
Jordan Solano's power lies in her beauty and sex appeal. Never afraid of breaking the rules, she engages in a scandalous flirtation with the school's married basketball coach. But the flirtation quickly turns into accusation, and Coach T's job and reputation are placed in jeopardy after Jordan charges him with rape. Jordan's own reputation has the school administration unwilling to believe her. That is, until she makes a startling claim - she's not the only victim.
Suddenly, all eyes are on Melanie, and it isn't for her amazing free-throws. A man's job, a girl's reputation, and her boyfriend's entire world now rest in Melanie's hands. She has to decide: keep her secrets and protect her future, or put an end to the lies...and lose everything.
Over the eleven and half years of my teaching career, I taught many girls who had been victims of sexual abuse and some even of rape. Their experiences, their pain, their silent cries for help touched me deeply. I encourage any woman--young or old--who has been the victim of sexual abuse, rape, or incest to speak out. It is also why 10% of all ongoing proceeds from Nets and Lies will go to www.rainn.org to help victims of abuse.
At the end of the teaser, there's a Rafflecopter Giveaway for 10 ebooks for Kindle or Nook of Nets and Lies. Don't forget to enter!
And here's the teaser for today *warning triggers for victims of abuse or rape*
I didn’t bother looking
in the mirror. After all, I would’ve had to fight the urge to scream at my
appearance. And I wasn’t just being dramatic.
No,
there was so much more.
Slowly, I peeled my clothes off. And then one stolen
glance at the inside of my practice shorts sent me over the edge. I tried
reasoning that it wasn’t just the shorts. I mean, I’d been teetering on the
brink for an hour now. It might have been the sheer force of trying to keep my
sanity in check—to block what had happened out of my mind—or to swear on my
life that I would never admit it had happened.
But deep down I knew it was the shorts that sent me truly
over the edge. The ones marked blood red with evidence of what had transpired
on the futon in Coach T’s office.
I snatched the towel off the rack and buried my face in
it. Muffled sobs reverberated against the terry cloth fabric. Defeated, I slunk
into the shower. With the water pounding in the stall, my screams and sobs were
drowned out. I slid down the side of shower tile, letting the water scald me.
Even as splotches of red blotted my skin, I never turned away. It soothed
something deeply troubled within me.
Biting into the towel, I choked off my cries. I fought to
find anything or anyone else to blame for what happened. I cursed the stupid
rack because it had messed up my entire night. Without it, I would have never
been left alone in the gym with him. He would have never had the opportunity.
Everything I’d fought to suppress in the last hour came
flashing back into my mind—as electric and dangerous as the heat storms we had
in the summer. Suddenly, I was no longer in my bathroom.
I was in Coach T’s office.
My head throbbed, and I reclined on the futon in the
corner. A long eternity seemed to have stretched by since Coach T had ushered
all my teammates out the door. They’d been hanging around to make sure I was
okay. He reassured them I was fine, and they should get on home.
Something
cold pressed against my forehead and caused me to jump. When my eyes met Coach
T’s, he laughed. “Easy Mel, it’s just an ice pack.”
“Oh, thanks.” I took it from him.
“That was quite a bump on the head,” he said, as he sat
down beside me.
“Must’ve been. I don’t even remember coming to your
office.”
“You didn’t. After you got hit by the shelf and pump, I
found you sprawled out in the floor and brought you in here.”
It was then that I wanted to crawl under the futon and
die of embarrassment. The thoughts of him picking me up were completely
mortifying. My face flushed. “Oh God, that’s right. I remember you carrying me
now.”
He laughed at my expression. “It’s okay, Mel. It’s not
like you gave me a hernia or something!”
“No, it’s not okay,” I moaned. “It’s totally
humiliating!”
“Just to you it is,” he replied, turning back to his
desk.
“Ugh, I bet the team is going to give me crap tomorrow
about being such a spaz.”
“You aren’t a
spaz. I’ve been asking the Booster Club to repair that shelf for years. It
could have happened to anyone.”
“But it happened to me,” I countered.
Spinning around in his seat, Coach T said, “We’re lucky that
Coach Murray was still here to check you over. I was just thankful you weren’t
going to need an ambulance.”
It was then I remembered the burly face of Coach Murray,
one of the trainers for the football team who had once been an EMT, bending
over me while I was still lying on the floor of the athletic closet.
I sighed with relief. The last thing I would have wanted
was the big production of the ambulance being called with all the sirens and
flashing lights. That would have been a nightmare!
I leaned forward. Even though there was no window on his
office door, I knew it had to be late, so I started to stand up. “I guess I
better get going.”
Coach T rose from his chair to place a hand on my
shoulder. “I don’t know about that. I think you’re still too woozy to be
driving.”
“Um, I guess so,” I murmured. Slowly, I eased back down.
As he joined me on the futon, his hand lingered on me, his fingertips
feathering back and forth on my bare arm.
I shifted the ice pack. When I did, I found Coach T
staring at me. “W-what?” I stammered, embarrassed by the intensity of his
stare. “Oh God, is my head already swelling?”
He laughed. “Nope. But it should because you’re just so
damn beautiful.”
“No, I’m not.”
He shook his head. “That’s what I love about you, Mel.
You’re so unaware of how beautiful and alluring you are.”
“You must be thinking of my sister, Natalie. She’s
the alluring one, not me.”
He brought his hand to my cheek. His thumb traced a line
from my cheekbone to my ear. “Trust me, Mel, I’ve been with a hell of a lot of
women, so I know beautiful when I see it.”
Heat once again rose in my cheeks at the reference to his sex life. Coach T mistook my reaction. “You don’t have to blush when you’re given an honest to goodness compliment. You are beautiful, Melanie. I mean, you were this brace-faced, awkward little mouse of a thing when you first walked in my gym four years ago. Talent out the ass, but so unsure of yourself.” He laughed. “Well, maybe you still are unsure of yourself. But, four years later you’ve grown to be one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen.”
Heat once again rose in my cheeks at the reference to his sex life. Coach T mistook my reaction. “You don’t have to blush when you’re given an honest to goodness compliment. You are beautiful, Melanie. I mean, you were this brace-faced, awkward little mouse of a thing when you first walked in my gym four years ago. Talent out the ass, but so unsure of yourself.” He laughed. “Well, maybe you still are unsure of yourself. But, four years later you’ve grown to be one of the most beautiful young women I’ve ever seen.”
Coach T’s flattery made me uncomfortable and caused my
heart to flutter uneasily. The room closed in around me, and I felt like I
wasn’t getting any air. His presence loomed over me, and I didn’t like his
closeness—the way his leg brushed against mine or the feel of his hand on my
shoulder.
It wasn’t like I’d never been alone with him before. But
there was something different about this time. My instincts told me something
was wrong. And more than anything, I wanted to be out of there.
“Um, it’s late. I better get home now,” I said.
Before I could raise myself off the futon, Coach T’s mouth
crushed against mine. I felt the moisture of his tongue as it pushed against my
lips, forcing them open. When his tongue darted into my mouth, I jerked away
like I’d been stunned by a taser. I trembled and tried to get my bearings.
“Coach T, you shouldn’t have done that!” I protested.
His arm snaked around me, nudging me against him. As his
breath burned on my cheek, it was like there was no escaping him. “Oh, but I
should have. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that. I’ve had my eye on
you for so long, and I’ve waited patiently.”
As the magnitude of his words crashed over me, I
shuddered. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening. I had to be wrong. Coach T
would never do this to me. He’d never kiss me when he shouldn’t or tell me he’d
had his eye on me for a long time. No, it couldn’t be true. I’d been hit on the
head and was hallucinating
“It isn’t right!” You shouldn’t be arguing with him.
You should be getting the hell out of here! my mind reasoned.
“What’s wrong with kissing a beautiful girl?”
I
don’t feel beautiful right now. I feel cheap and dirty. “But I-I belong to
Will!” I argued, as I swatted his hand away and tried to get up, but he eased
me back down.
Coach T shook his head and smiled. “You don’t belong to
anyone, Mel. You’re your own person.” His hand swept up my leg to rest on my
thigh. “And I love you.”
“N-No…you can’t. You’re married.”
“So?
It doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
“But
I love Will.”
He snorted. “Will’s just a boy. What does he know? You
deserve a man to teach you about love not some fumbling kid.” I continued
trying to push his hand away, as his breath hovered over my ear, “Better yet, you
need me to teach you about love.”
I stared into his eyes. My voice became a small whisper.
“Please, don’t say that.”
“Melanie, surely you realized how much I’ve wanted you?”
Slowly, I shook my head.
“What about at Christmas when I kissed you under the
mistletoe?”
I cringed as I thought back to that night. Will had
invited me to his house when his parents were having a party. We stayed
upstairs most of the night, watching movies and talking, fooling around a
little. When I’d gone downstairs to get something to drink, Coach T had pinned
me against the kitchen door and kissed me under the mistletoe. His reeking
breath told me how drunk he was, so I’d tried to brush it off as nothing.
Somehow it had stayed in the back of my mind.
“But you were drunk,” I argued feebly.
“Maybe I was, but I wasn’t too drunk to want you.”
Like in a movie, the world crawled by in nightmarish slow
motion. Coach T’s weight smothered me, pressing me down on the futon. A voice
began screaming inside of me as I clawed against him. “NO! No, please. Please
don’t do this!”
His breath scorched down my neck, hot with desire—the
same desire that pushed against my thigh.
“Just let me love you—let me love you like I’ve wanted to for so long,
Melanie.”
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I shook my head. Like a
captured fish on a hook, I flailed beneath him. Then as bits and pieces of my
clothing were stripped away, I slowly stopped fighting. Fear gripped me like I
had never experienced before in my life.
It
stunned and paralyzed me.
In
just a matter of seconds, I became a quadriplegic. Even though my brain
screamed at my arms and legs to fight, the only thing I could move was my
eyelids. But I clamped them shut, deluding myself that if I couldn’t see what
was going on, then it wasn’t really happening.
Then I detached. I floated above myself, spiriting away
from the pain that ripped through me. I was no longer in the room with Coach T
moving frantically inside me. Faintly, I could hear the roar of the crowd in my
ears, and the rubber smell of the basketball filled my nostrils. Happiness
engulfed me.
I was on the court, and I was a star. I made basket after
basket. Even three pointers flew gracefully through the air to swoosh almost
effortlessly through the goal. Elation filled me as points for my team racked
up on the red glow of the scoreboard. As I sprinted up and down the court, I
never grew tired, nor did I ever grow faint of breath. Gazing into the stands,
I saw my parents as they clapped, screamed out my name, and waved their
pom-poms. The crowd rose to their feet and applauded me while my teammates
patted my back and hugged me.
But more than the adulation of the fans, the love of my
family, and the support of my team, it was Heaven.
And
I was safe.
But that moment was fleeting, and I was sucked back into
reality. It was over, and Coach T was pulling away from me. I still didn’t open
my eyes, even as the silent tears dripped off my cheeks.
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If this book is as good as the last 2 i read.. you should have 3 #1 hits, Katie keep up the great work.. i was hesatant about reading a new author, but you taught me well.. I loved every minute of reasing the Proposition and the Proposal.. Love Love Love them
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