By Aimee L. Salter
Young Adult, Dark Romance / Magical Realism
Tully isn’t alone in her skin. Whenever she touches someone, they feel everything she feels. All her ugliness. All her darkness. All her pain. The only thing she wants is to be left alone--and to finally get out of her small Oregon town.
But then she meets Chris. He’s everything she’s not: Light. Trusting. Innocent. And he wants Tully.
Tully knows she should spare him the heartache of being with her. But when he touches her, she’s not sure she’ll have the strength to push him away—until he learns about her dark past, and what really goes on in her ever decaying home.
From the author of Every Ugly Word
comes a poignant, emotionally raw story about the violence that plays out behind closed doors and the all-consuming passion of first love
DARK TOUCH
By Aimee L. Salter
Excerpt 1 - Opening Pages / What’s at stake
I think it’s because the first time Chris saw me, I wasn’t me. He saw someone who didn’t exist. And by the time he figured that out, he didn’t care anymore.
He should have cared.
He cares now.
In the half-light of my pitiful bulb, everything looks gray. Dust motes hang in the air. My narrow bed is unmade, sheets tangled. The quilt my mom stitched when I was two hangs half-way off the mattress, stretched toward the door like it too would flee this room if it could. The rest is bare—the drawers, the closet door, the walls. Even the clothes strewn across the chair and rug are plain and dirty.
Somehow it’s never bothered me before. But with Chris here it does.
His eyes are closed, his burnished lashes quivering because he’s screwed so tight. Everything’s shaking under the pressure. The muscles in his jaw twitch. His hand is white-knuckled. His shoulders . . . oh, Lord, help me, those shoulders that have lifted things I can’t carry and swept me along too . . . they’re hunched. Knotted. Pressed in on themselves. On him. There’s so much of him that I feel small, yet he’s the place where I can breathe.
At least, he was.
My insides are in freefall because I did this to him. I shouldn’t have that power over him. I shouldn’t have that power over
anyone. But he gave it to me and refused to take it back.
“Chris?” I barely whisper, but he flinches like I screamed. “It wasn’t about—”
“Don’t.” It’s a hard syllable. A word bitten off. He doesn’t even open his eyes. “I swear, Tully, if you say one word . . .” His fist becomes a hammer.
I am ugly. I am black inside, rotting and putrid. I have told him this. Many times. But tonight, finally, he believes me. As he turns on his heel and stumbles out the door, I can’t even call after him. Because when he gave me the power to turn him inside out, I gave him mine. And even though I knew this day would come, knew he was wrong about me, somehow he gave me hope.
As I watch him stagger into the hallway and disappear, that hope begins its death throes. It doesn’t die quietly. It screams and curses and shoves at me. And for the first time ever, I am grateful for my life, for my father, and for this house.
Because if it’s taught me anything, it’s how to take a blow.
My Own Worst Enemy- Guest Post
By Tully Harden (main character in Dark Touch, by Aimee L. Salter)
People think my story before Chris walked into my life was sad because I was hurt. A lot.
It’s true, I carry scars—both those you can see, and those you can’t. But the truly sad part of my past is that I spent years hurting
myself. I was pissed off, and frightened, and so freaking tired I had given up and accepted what happened to me. So whenever hate rose like bile in my throat (which was most of the time), I turned it on myself.
I am my own worst enemy.
My self-destruction might look different to yours, but we’re driven by the same loathing. I hurt myself because I hated what I was. What I became. I turned the anger in, because until I met Chris, I didn’t think I deserved forgiveness. Hell, I didn’t even think forgiveness existed. I threw myself under the bus because when the pain came, it fit. It felt
right.
Chris didn’t save me from that—he couldn’t. But he showed me my own truth. Let me see where I believed lies. Assured me my life could be different. I will never love anyone more than him because what he showed me set me free.
So now it’s my turn to speak up. If you remember nothing else I’ve said, remember this:
Whatever you’ve been through, wherever you’re coming from, you don’t have to hurt to earn a smile.
Love is out there. Joy is possible. And there’s no penance to pay when you find it.
I hope you’ll read my story and see how I discovered this. I know my story can give you hope. Just be aware: I know how hot my boyfriend is. If you so much as look at him sideways, I’m still capable of slapping your teeth out of your face.
Just sayin’.
Aimee L. Salter is the author of the gut-wrenching
Every Ugly Word, a gripping and emotional story about the devastating consequences of bullying, and
Dark Touch, an equally raw story about the violence that plays out behind closed doors and the all-consuming passion of first love.
Aimee lives in Southern Oregon with her husband and son where she writes made-up stories that tell the truth about life. She never stopped appreciating those moments in the dark when you say what you're really thinking. And she'll always ask you about the things you wish she wouldn't.
She blogs for both writers and readers, and you can also find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook:
"With an endearingly awkward female protagonist, a swoon-worthy male love interest, and Siskind's superb storytelling, this is one of the best New Adult contemporary romances I've read to date." – USA Today bestselling author K.A. Tucker Dear Mom & Dad, I dropped out of school. I'm going backpacking. Sorry. Love you both. At nineteen, Nina has endured two lifetime's worth of humiliation. Tired of waiting for it to get better, she decides to get going – across the globe to New Zealand. There she soon faces what she most fears: a super sexy guy ready to be Nina's next mistake. Once Sam's life was all about having fun. That was before the accident. Now his friends have bailed and his world is broken. But when a gorgeous girl on his flight looks at him with passion instead of pity, Sam feels his old self coming back to life. Now traveling together, Nina and Sam know this isn't just a fling. They're falling fast, hard, and deep. More than anything, Sam wants Nina to forget her fears. But to help her do that he must reveal his own painful secret-and risk Nina never seeing him the same way again.
About WOLF BITE (Wolf Cove Series #2):
He's the hottest MMA fighter in the game, but one woman is ready to try out a few steamy moves of her own in an unforgettable new novel from New York Times bestselling author Lori Foster 
