Cat Porter - Lock & Key @catporter103

Title: Lock & Key

Author: Cat Porter

  About Lock & Key: Love not only stings when you lose it, when it’s ripped away, but when it first sinks its teeth into you, it can cut just as raw and sting just as deep. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that. I was allegedly South Dakota's most famous Old Lady. Fifteen years ago I had survived my Old Man’s murder and swore to myself never again. Never again surrender my heart. Never again sacrifice to the Club. But that all changed in one night. I came home and crashed into him, and my past and present blew up in my face. Both of us lonely, running on empty, and unwilling to admit it. Until now. I feel things I'd forgotten about, want things I had cut out of my insides. Who holds the keys to betrayal? To suspicion? To trust? To brotherhood? To family? To a bleeding heart? Right now, I just might. I suppose some of us have to get really dirty before we can become truly clean.  

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  Q&A with Cat Porter:
  When and why did you begin writing? I’ve been writing short stories and poems since I was ten. I was an obsessive reader as a child, and being an only child I had an intense imagination. Journal writing has been essential to my sanity throughout my life as well. It was and is the only way I could make sense of things and feel centered. About three years ago I started writing full time again. We live in Greece now and when the political and economic situation began to crumble here I had an extremely emotional, gut wrenching reaction, and I realized I had to keep centered for my children and myself. Focusing on writing again and writing love redemption stories and continuing my children’s stories kept me sane and engaged in the positive and also helps keep me full of hope for a better day. I do it every day without fail. Like working out and taking my vitamins. No question. Ever.

When you start a book, do you already have the whole story in your head or is it built progressively? I have the beginning and I have the end. Those two are always very clear. But then I have no bloody idea how to get from A to Z. That’s where the fun and the madness begins. Both L&K and Wolfsgate were written without formal outlines, I just kept thinking, what do I need to see here...what will bring me there...how can I connect this and that....My work in progress, the new One- Eyed Jacks book has an outline.

Can you share a little of your current work with us? After having abandoned her hometown fifteen years ago upon the murder of her husband a club officer, former old lady Grace Quillen returns and immediately becomes ensnared in betrayals, suspicion and ancient club rivalries along with club member Miller or “Lock”, a man intertwined with her past. Both Grace and Lock struggle with their shared emotional past, unexpected desires of their demanding present, and an overwhelming yearning for redemption and a better future. Risky schemes, explosive secrets, and flawed decisions force past and present into an inevitable, volatile confrontation for Grace and Lock within a bike club that is fighting for its own survival.

  Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? I want to thank my readers for their support and all their good wishes, they mean so very much to me! I very much appreciate that they took a chance on “Lock & Key”, and I hope they take a chance on my historical. I really enjoy hearing from them and being in touch. Social media never ceases to amaze me as an immediate gratification outlet for our enthusiasm. xxoxx !!

  Deleted Scene: Lock & Key © Cat Porter “Aunt Grace, look what Lock drew for me! Isn’t that the bestest tiger you’ve ever seen?” Jake jumped up and down shoving a lined yellow page in my face. A strapping purple tiger, fangs bared and ready to pounce glowered at me. “Wow, purple?” “You don’t like purple?” came the deep voice I knew so well. My head shot up. All my senses were drawn towards that sound like the tide under the magnetic force of a full moon. Lock stood in the kitchen doorway, one hand slung low on his hips, the other stretched out against the frame of the door. His white T-shirt was smeared with black grease and smudged with dirt. My breath stalled. He held my gaze, his head cocked to the side as he waited for my answer. I shifted my weight. “I like purple. Majestic color.” “Majestic,” he murmured, his lips twitching. Jakey brandished his drawing in the air. “Isn’t he scary, huh? Ready to attack!” He let out a great big howl. “Yeah, attack.” I mumbled, my gaze still stuck on Lock’s eyes. Lock’s eyes… Mesmerizing pools of lava that sucked me in and swallowed me whole. “I’m gonna go show it to Wes!” “Jakey, wa—” Jakey sped out of the room, and Lock and I were suddenly alone. We hadn’t seen each other since that ugly explosion in the hallway three nights ago. Since my stupidity with Butler. Since Iris. Since my evil deal with Jump. Since my little world blew up in my face. He stared at me. I stared back, the silence deafening. Roaring. His teeth grazed his bottom lip. My heart hammered in my chest. “How are you holding up under lockdown?” “I’ve been keeping busy with the Bone Marrow Drive. Writing thank you notes, that sort of thing.” I sucked in a breath. “Oh, did you want some?” His eyebrows lifted and a grin stole over his lips. I rolled my eyes, my face heating. “The cake?” I gestured to the chocolate sheet cake next to me on the counter. The amusement lingered on the taut lines of his face. “Did you make that?” “Yeah, I did. I thought the kids would . . .” A sharp prickle raced up my spine as he stalked over to me. Like a fucking tiger. I turned around quickly and began cutting him a thick slice. The heat of his body brushed up against me, pressing into my back and my side, his warm, breath fanning the back of my neck. The scent of motor oil, metal and sweat swept past me as his arm reached out, a long finger swiping through a dollop of velvety chocolate ganache. On some primal instinct I was powerless to control, I tilted my head to watch his full lips suck on the tip of that finger. The finger that only days ago had swiped at me, thrusted inside my body, inside my most intimate, vulnerable place. The finger that had made me surrender to him. It had tormented me, bruised me, angered me. And left me hungry for more of what only he could give me. “This is what I do to you. Remember that.” I dropped the knife on the counter with a clang. His lips released that now wet finger, and his thumb stroked over a chocolate smudge on the corner of his mouth then dragged lazily across his generous lower lip, his eyes on me. My tongue darted over my lip, a pathetic attempt to satisfy my sudden need to lick his. His eyes blazed. It was only a second, but I recognized it—a flash of want, of hungry, potent need, a wild, irrepressible, insatiable urge. The tremor of it pulsed deep in my center and simmered in my blood. I should hate him, despise him for making me feel it, especially now, now that things were broken, mangled, dirty. But I didn’t. His wet finger trailed gently up the back of my neck like a drizzle of liquid fire, and a shiver snaked through me. “That’s really good,” he rasped. I stopped breathing, and my body melted into his magnificent towering wall of sinewy muscle. Into the impulse to throw everything away and dive into a warm, swirling sea of chocolate and cream and hot blinding mess. His hand swept around my throat, the other around my waist. “Goddammit.” His rough whisper vibrated across the suddenly sensitive skin of my neck. But I couldn’t afford to indulge in impulses anymore. “Stop,” I whispered, my hands clasping his wrist. His body stiffened around mine. “I know you hate me now, and I deserve it. I hate myself more for the things I said to you the other night, for the way I treated you. I had no right. No right to take from you, to be so cruel.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the humility laced in his words, against the intimate timbre of his voice. I didn’t want to forgive him. That would mean letting him in again, and I wasn’t going to do that. No way. I was done with hopes and wishing and believing. I was going to do what I had to do then get myself the hell out of here. Again. He lowered his head further, his face against mine. “Grace? You won’t even speak to me?” His lips brushed mine, and I gasped. That mad jolt of electricity, our electricity, coursed through me. His hold on me tightened as his mouth lingered over mine. Teeth tugged, warm lips nuzzled, teased, and coaxed that unwinding hot coil of disaster within me. The luxurious taste of dark chocolate, sugar and Lock beckoned me to dive in and bathe in its lushness. His tongue nudged my lips open further and delved inside my waiting mouth. My tongue slid against his, stroking, eagerly exploring. The air around us was sucked away. Who needed oxygen? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered when I had this kiss, his kiss. His tongue dipped through the ache that swelled inside me, dipping through the havoc, the riot of warring factions on the battlefield of me. A fucking civil war. And silencing everything. Everything but Us. The Us that was precious. The Us that had turned ugly. The Us that was never meant to be. I tore myself away from his mouth, slamming into the sharp edge of the counter. A muffled growl caught in his throat. Lock’s hooded eyes were dark, unreadable, his breathing as ragged as mine. His hands gripped my arms, then suddenly let go as if they’d realized their transgression. The craving still drummed between us, but now it snagged and clawed at my insides. “That cake any good?” Jump’s taunting voice spiked from the doorway. It was the voice of cold, hard fucking reality, a bucket of icy water toppling over us, drenching everything. Lock’s cold gaze leveled at mine. His jaw clenched, the lines of his face hard. I braced for the burn sure to come. “Chocolate’s not my thing,” he bit out and strode out of the kitchen.    #


About the Author:


Cat Porter was born and raised in New York City, but also spent a few years in Europe and Texas along the way. As an introverted, only child, she had very big, but very secret dreams for herself. She graduated from Vassar College, was a struggling actress, an art gallery girl, special events planner, freelance writer and had all sorts of other crazy jobs all hours of the day and night to help make her dreams come true. She has two children’s books traditionally published under her maiden name. She now lives in Athens, Greece with her husband and three children, and freaks out regularly and still daydreams way too much. She is addicted to the History Channel, her iPad, her husband’s homemade red wine, really dark chocolate, and her Nespresso coffee machine. Writing keeps her somewhat sane, extremely happy, and a productive member of society.


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