Unfurl

UNFURL: A HOT AGE-GAP ROMANCE ELODIE HART Copyright © 2023 by Elodie Hart All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Created with Vellum For my beautiful Nerds THANK YOU for having my back, shining your light, and making me smile every day. xx CONTENTS CONTENT ADVISORY1. Belle2. Rafe3. Belle4. Belle5. Belle6. Belle7. Rafe8. Belle9. Belle10. Rafe11. Rafe12. Belle13. Belle14. Belle15. Rafe16. Belle17. Rafe18. Belle19. Belle20. Belle21. Belle22. Rafe23. Belle24. Belle25. Rafe26. Rafe27. Rafe28. Belle29. Belle30. Belle31. Belle32. Belle33. Belle34. Belle35. Rafe36. Belle37. Belle38. Belle39. Rafe40. Belle41. Belle42. Rafe43. The Very Girthy EPIC-logue: AdieuA NOTE FROM SARA (ELODIE)AcknowledgmentsMY SARA MADDERSON BOOKS: CONTENT ADVISORY This book is spicy! It’s intended for mature audiences only. My FMC, Belle, gets taken care of by more than one guy at a time (though she and my MMC, Rafe, do have a monogamous HEA). Rafe has sex with other women, one on the page, before he and Belle get together. If this isn’t your bag, feel free to skip this one. It also contains overt criticism of the Catholic church, characters exhibiting religious extremism, sexual role plays that are highly blasphemous, and emotionally controlling parental behaviour. 1BELLE When you’ve spent your entire life being told something is wrong—and by wrong, I mean bad, wicked, sinful—there are two obvious ways to respond. You can abstain from said wicked path. Avoid it, fear it, like it’s the plague itself. Like it has the power to tear you apart. To destroy all you know to be good and pure. Even to kill you. Or you can become fixated on it. For wasn’t it the apple’s forbidden nature that tormented Eve so cruelly, rather than any inherent qualities concealed beneath that rosy skin? In short, you can grow so fixated that the desire to experience this evil path, to know it, consumes you until you fall headlong into a life of sin. I, personally, have been known to choose both responses. Not something I’d recommend. The push-pull of temptation and terror, of obsession and mortal fear, is exhausting. When you fear something as much as you long to live it, it tears you apart. It’s torn me apart. And I’m done with the torment. Now I just want the ecstasy. I want a bite of the apple. Not just a bite. I want to sink my teeth in. I want to pierce rosy skin until it yields juicy flesh that cascades down my chin. I want to devour it. I want to know all the ways I will never be the same after I’ve tasted it. I want the apple’s sweet, sweet nectar to undo me. Transform me. And by apple I mean sex. Obviously. My hair is straight. Groomed. Glossy. My dress, a classic white fit-and-flare laser-cut shift by Alaia, is exquisitely tasteful. My makeup is dewy. Radiant. Flawless. No wonder Mummy wants to show me off like a doll. A prize. She and Daddy love people to look. Admire. But not to touch. Not that I ever challenge them on that front. There’s no point. I run a fingertip, its perfectly oval nail painted a low-key nude, over the immaculate surface of the dresser at my parents’ flat, although to call it a flat is like calling da Vinci’s Last Supper a painting. Their suite of rooms overlooking Hyde Park was a serious chunk of London real estate even before its recent seven-figure makeover (eight-figure, if you include their latest art purchases). Now it’s spectacular. And that’s the only reason I’m prepared to endure Mummy’s little soirée tonight. I can stomach being introduced to the antiquated inhabitants of this mansion block if it means I get the whole place to myself for three glorious months this summer. Mummy and Daddy are going on a European tour, and I’ll be free to luxuriate in their insane pad. Not that my own flat isn’t stunning. It’s a beautiful maisonette in South Ken. It’s just not… this. It doesn’t have the outrageous terrace facing Hyde Park, nor the marble kitchen, nor the impressive ceiling height, nor the ornate white mouldings, nor the exquisite new all-white paintings Daddy bought Mummy for her birthday, whose extraordinary textures look like creamy scoops of ice cream straight out of an authentic Italian gelateria. So yes. A couple of hours of small talk is a palatable enough price to pay for three months of being unleashed in my parents’ home. I’m already swooning over the dinner parties I can throw in their light-filled dining room, with drinks on the terrace overlooking the park. Other twenty-two-year-olds may be tempted to hold a rave. Not me. I’d rather pretend to be a grownup, a fabulous host entertaining her close friends in her to-die-for flat. ‘Walk me through who’s coming again?’ I ask Mummy, making sure to inject into my tone a measure of enthusiasm I don’t feel. I always give my parents what they want to hear. To see. It’s far easier to let them think I’m exactly who they want me to be. Raised me to be. She gives me a wide smile, one that says that’s my baby and sends a cold wave of guilt washing over me. Don’t get me wrong. My mother is a total sweetie. She’s delightful. It’s just that she lives life in a bubble, with far too much of that bubble being of my father’s creation. And because I can’t change her, I placate her. No point upsetting the carefully honed equilibrium of our household. As I said before, it’s not worth it. Besides, I can’t blame her. When you live with a person whose emotional state dominates everything, who’s never got the memo that opinions aren’t facts or that he doesn’t get to tell other adults (or children) what to think, then you