All Chapters of Her Strength, Her Bane : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

|| Three Years Prior To The Present ||Being an air stewardess was very thrilling and exhilarating for someone as adventurous as Joslyn Patel, but unfortunately, as exciting as it was, it also bagged a lot of stress, lots of legwork, i.e. standing and walking around, lots of sweet smiles (whether faux or genuine, but mostly, faux) and lastly, lots and lots of jet lags.The belief that if you continued to do something perpetually, you would eventually grow accustomed to it, was a lie. A big one at that and Joslyn was a living witness. No one ever grows accustomed to jet lags. So, imagine the magnitude of irritation she truly felt when her best friend, Sigourney Lapointe, had tenaciously dragged her jaded and jet-lagged body down to the clubhouse, two hours after she had landed from a 50hr+ flight to and from Kathmandu, Nepal.Joslyn groaned loudly when the words, The Airliner, illuminated in neon lights at the entrance of the club blared in her line of sight. She had had enough of air

|| One Year Prior To The Present || Feeling the uncomfortable and seemingly neverending strain in his pants, Gabriel Nicholas Reid stood stiffly in front of the bulletproof, two-way floor to ceiling mirror glass doors standing between him and his personal office balcony, which overlooked the entire city of Vancouver, British Columbia. Trying awfully hard, but to no avail, he struggled to divert his attention from his carnal thoughts and on to the beautiful and vast view of the city displaying right before his very eyes. With the mountains to the North, the Pacific Oceans to the West and the huge Stanley Park right downtown, Vancouver was well known for its jaw-droppingly beauteous landscapes. And from where Gabriel currently stood, he could see the boundless space of the blue ocean lined with different sizes of ferryboats and yachts mooring by the docks. He could also see the lines and lines of smaller buildings stretching across the city as well as the bridge that connected his si

The sound of balls hitting balls—or occasionally, wood—filled the otherwise dull room. A ways from where they were, music boomed loudly, making even the walls and floors of the VIP section of the club pulsate with each beat, regardless of the stark contrasting quietude settling in the room. The room was dark, save for the dim illumination from the pendant lights hanging from the ceiling of the bar and the faux LED flames licking up the walls of the room, casting the space in an intimate orange glow. Music rocked the rest of the club, swarming the building with liveliness, however, only occasional pong noises emanated from the pool table in the VIP room, filling the otherwise light silence.Gabriel sat, hunched over the bar counter, his hands holding the sides of his head, fingers lost in a forest of dark unruly strands, as he stared unblinkingly at his drink. Minutes idled by with absolutely no movement from Gabriel (not even the blink of an eye) but when the ice cubes in his amber c

“Fuck!”That, alongside a slew of other cusswords, seemed to have become Gabriel's favorite word or one-worded tagline in the past week since his unplanned visit to Joslyn's home.Gabriel admitted that that action of his had been stupid and risky of him to take, especially since his girlfriend, Sigourney, could have decided to visit her best friend that morning, not minding the fact that they'd already surprised her the day before.What reason would he have mustered to justify his presence there? What would he have said he was there for? And how would Sigourney have reacted, knowing her boyfriend came to visit her best friend behind her back?But luck had shone on Gabriel—a rare one, considering the fact that when it came to matters pertaining to Jos (whom he now knew the full name of: Joslyn), all he seemed to garner was bad luck because how else would he explain the happenings of the last two years revolving around her?How else would he explain developing a near addiction for the w

Joslyn trudged up the stairs leading to her apartment complex, having stepped out of the elevator a floor below hers so she could round up her morning exercises with a stair climb.Panting lightly, she stomped her way up the last few steps, groaning in relief when she finally reached the top and made her way into the corridor where her room was located. Uncapping her water bottle, she tilted her head backward and brought it to her mouth to take large gulps of the water rather quickly in order to quench her thirst, thereby allowing a few drops to escape the corners of her lips, trail down her exposed neck, mixing with the accumulated sweat there and continuing their paths into the sports bra she was wearing. Still gulping down the water, Joslyn pinched the fabric of her sports bra between her index finger and thumb, lifting the now wet material off the skin of her chest. Her action brought a bit of her cleavage into view and the man who, at that exact time, walked out of his own apartm