Anne Malcom's Blog

Three Kinds of Trouble

Are you ready for more of our favorite MC? I had so much fun writing this one and I’m beyond excited to share this story with you. Release date is July 15th and you can preorder here.

Should I tell you a story?

Not a fairytale, mind you.

There’s not a princess to be seen. Nor a prince. Not even a hero.

This is about the stripper and the outlaw.

Our story begins with the Sons of Templar MC, with a man even the outlaws fear.

He was trouble. More than trouble.

A scoundrel.
A sinner.
A villain.

To everyone but me.

Our story begins with blood, violence and pain.

I have a feeling it will end that way too. But it’s too late for escape.

I’ve fallen for the scoundrel. The sinner. The outlaw.

 

 

Truths That Saints Believe – Chapter One Teaser

It’s that time again.

Almost release day.

I left you hanging with this duet. I know. Please don’t hate me. I promise it’s worth it. Here’s a little something to sate your hunger for more Jay & Stella. Make sure you preorder here.

 

Chapter OneJay

 

“Black dress, black hair, fake tits, drinking a cosmo by the bar.”

Jay leaned back and watched his security guard walk through the throngs on the dance floor, toward the woman he’d described.

He hated the ghost that haunted him in this moment. The déjà vu. He had spent far too much time ruminating over what he’d lost. What’d he’d thrown away. Even though he’d never had her. Not really. She’d loved an idea of him, not his true self. He’d shown her glimpses of who he truly was, the wickedness inside of him. And she’d loved those parts. Because she could love wicked things. Or at least, she’d thought she could. Jay was an intelligent man … he was smart enough to know that Stella would never be able to love the core of him.

He’d been reckless, selfish and dangerous even thinking that he could’ve made it happen. That he could have merged the cold, calculated, powerful and deadly life he’d created with the warmth and light Stella brought.

She would have hated him.

Eventually.

He would have hated himself for not letting her go. For tearing apart all of the dreams she’d had, for treading on all of the futures she may have had with another man.

Jay’s fist clenched. The mere thought of another man touching skin he’d marked, skin he owned, turned his blood hot. The need to hurt—to end—any man who thought he had the right to what was his was overwhelming.

The entire point of him letting her go was for her to find someone capable of giving her what she deserved, but Jay could not be sure if she found someone else that he wouldn’t kill the man. He sought control in every facet of his life, but he could not control himself when it came to Stella.

He could control himself even less in her absence.

He knew that people were talking. That his employees from both his legitimate and illegitimate businesses feared him even more than they had before.

Jay wasn’t sleeping. As soon as he left his offices downtown, he came here until closing. Then, when night held the deepest shadows, he went to do things that could only be done in the dark. Things that he’d hid from Stella. Things that would’ve eaten away at her love for him like erosion on rock.

The soft whirr of the elevator doors opening and the click of heels on the floor interrupted Jay’s thoughts. Well, not completely. He was always thinking of Stella. Her absence was a black hole in his mind. Left him distracted. Which was dangerous, especially with the stirrings in his territories. This was not the time to be distracted.

Which was why the knockout with the fake tits was sauntering into his office. He hadn’t touched another woman in months. The only woman he wanted to touch was across the fucking world and out of his reach.

“Mr. Helmick,” the woman in front of him purred.

And it was a purr. She was like a cat. Eyes sharp. Cunning. Knowing.

This woman was not ignorant to what he was. What this was. She knew the score. Had heard the rumors. She likely wore the dress that molded over her tits like a second skin precisely to try and lure in a big fish tonight. If not him precisely, then someone with a lofty bank account who was either deluded enough to think she liked him for his personality or smart enough to know that he was getting laid no matter her true feelings.

Those were the kind of women he had gravitated toward before Stella. The predictable, hungry and shallow ones. The ones after money and willing to do whatever and whoever it took to get there. Jay did not judge or blame those women; he appreciated them and enjoyed them. Because their motives were clear and simple, they were easy. They were willing to submit to his every whim, ready to mold themselves in to whatever shape they thought he’d like most.

“Take off your clothes,” he demanded, still sitting in the chair, still seeing Stella standing there, talking about her cat and forgetting people’s birthdays.

The woman did not hesitate. She smiled in a practiced way that made most men’s cocks twitch and shimmied out of her dress.

She wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

There was no fight in her. No battle. No anger. No outrage. Only hunger. And not for him. For what she could get from him.

Stella had obeyed him when he’d uttered this command at his home office. But she’d done it with fury. She’d done it despite all of her best instincts, and she’d done it because she’d had no choice. Like him, she was trapped in the connection between the two of them

The red string of fate.

“It will twist and tangle through the course of time, of life, circumstances. But it will never break. The red string will always keep them connected.”

The memory caused physical agony, and Jay had to clench his fists on top of his desk so he didn’t throw his glass of whiskey at the wall just so he could watch something shatter. Break.

Jay’s eyes flickered upward at the movement in front of him. He’d forgotten the naked woman was even there. She was walking toward him. Sauntering with a practiced sway of her hips.

“Did I tell you to move?”

She stopped immediately, a sly grin teasing the corners of her artificially plumped mouth.

No fear.

Jay ached to create it. To use this woman and her body to sate the hunger that had been burning inside of him for months.

He wanted to break something.

He wanted to break her.

Just because he could. Because if he did that, then there would be no way back.

No way back to her.

“Leave,” Jay bit out, barely able to move his mouth.

She blinked, the smile still frozen on her face. What she didn’t do was move.

Jay remained still. “Get out. Now.”

She flinched at his tone, and he was glad.

He didn’t watch her redress, didn’t watch her give him one last look, didn’t revel in the shame on her face. No, he pretended to work. Pretended he wasn’t longing for the one thing he couldn’t have.

Then, once the lights had been turned on, the club emptied, he stalked in to the night to sate the one need he could sate: the need to create pain.

 

****

 

“You’ve been skimming, Jacob,” Jay said, voice flat. He was staring at his accountant in his bespoke suit with his Rolex and diamond cufflinks, all bought with Jay’s money.

Jacob blinked rapidly. He was already afraid. The man knew a meeting at three in the morning in a warehouse in a desolate part of the city did not mean good things. Especially when you were guilty.

Which Jacob was.

Jay had his accounts audited by a totally separate accountant once every six months. He usually did it himself every three as well. But he’d been … distracted, so Jacob had managed to embezzle from under his nose. Three million fucking dollars.

Jay fingered the knife on the tray in front of him.

“It’s impressive,” Jay continued, already bored of this. “That you’re brave enough to steal.” He looked up at the man who was sweating through his shirt even though it was a cold night. “From me.”

“Mr. Helmick—”

Jay held up his hand. “I did not tell you to speak. And right now, Jacob, you really want to listen to me.”

Jacob’s eyes squeezed shut, and he began crying. It disgusted Jay, this show of weakness, the lack of spine. This man knew he had broken the rules. Jacob knew what kind of man Jay was when he started this job two years ago. Jay had made sure of that. He had also made sure that he hired the best. Men without wives, children, without anyone who would miss them, could possibly become complications. If his accountants did fall in love, got married, Jay dismissed them with severance pay and assurances that their mouths would stay shut about the nature of their work for him.

Each and every one of them knew that they would die if they crossed him. So Jay felt no sympathy or remorse for what he was about to do to this man. He’d had a choice. Jay paid him a fuck of a lot of money, and he could’ve quit at any time if he’d so wished.

He hadn’t.

Instead, he’d gambled with his life for a fucking watch and a nice car.

“You’re greedy, Jacob,” Jay announced, assessing the scalpel he held up.

It was at that point when Jacob tried to flee. They all did at some point. A survival instinct that didn’t know logic kicking in. Karson, who was standing behind him, grabbed him by the shoulders and put him back down on the chair. Not gently.

“Please—”

“I told you not to speak,” Jay clipped, feeling frustrated. He put down the scalpel, suddenly feeling tired, exhausted. He took the gun from his shoulder holster and shot Jacob point blank. The body slumped and slipped down from the seat. Jay wiped the blood from his face before sliding the gun back into his jacket.

He barely glanced at the corpse. “We need a new accountant,” he said to Karson.

Karson nodded. “I’ve already vetted three.”

“Make sure they’re not cowards,” Jay instructed. “I can deal with criminals, but I cannot deal with men pathetic enough not to accept the fate they choose.”

Jay walked away, wondering if he was talking about himself.

 

 

Stella

 

“It’s knock off time, so I’m gonna ask you the same thing I ask you every night … come to the pub for a drink?”

I smiled at Brent, grasping the keys to my rental from my purse.

The creases around his ocean blue eyes deepened with his cheeky grin, one that was entirely white and straight except for one crooked tooth which made the grin and his rugged face all the more handsome.

His voice was smooth, light, teasing, and made infinitely more sexy by his accent, one that I was surrounded by daily and one that never got old.

Brent was the stuntman for the show we were working on. A local from ‘down South’ and the epitome of a rugged mountain man. I didn’t know if he was actually from the mountains, but he was the guy who came to mind when I thought of such men. He was criminally attractive with dirty blond hair, a permanent tan and muscles bulging from the sleeves of his tee that was so faded there was no logo on it anymore. He smiled easily and had an air about him that he could fix anything that broke down in the vicinity. Which he had done many times on set. His hands were callused, tanned and always stained with oil or dirt.

They couldn’t have been further from the hands that were neatly manicured, smooth, tanned and were more likely to be stained with blood than any kind of oil or dirt.

So theoretically, Brent was the healthiest and safest option for a rebound. Shit, Brent was husband material. The me before the arrangement, before him, wouldn’t have let Brent ask me out more than once. This was a man who you moved across oceans for.

In another life, at least.

“Raincheck,” I replied with a smile. The expression was forced, stretched and painful.

His brows furrowed ever so slightly. “You’re not gonna be able to say no to me forever, darlin.’” His tone was still teasing, but there was a roughness to it. A sexual undertone that had grown these past months. It started subtle, a glint in his eye when he spoke to me, the casual touches, the way he looked at me. It had gotten more intense lately, with the wrap of the show looming.

It wasn’t uncomfortable, his attention. Wasn’t lecherous or sleazy. It would’ve been comforting if it hadn’t reminded me of everything I’d lost. Of what I’d never have again. That my ability to love a decent and kind man was fucked.

I smiled sadly. “Maybe not,” I agreed. “But tonight, I still can.” I winked at him and walked to my car.

His eyes burned into my back as I did so.

 

****

I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the small space under the shade of a eucalyptus tree with lush green bushes to my left and a garden complete with a fountain and various stone statues on my right. I considered the limestone fairy I parked beside, with greenery crawling up her wings, as my friend. My guardian. Maybe I was going a bit insane? Then again, she hadn’t started talking to me or anything, so it wasn’t full-fledged lunacy. Not yet at least.

After the slam of my car door, there were no sounds aside from the low rumble of the waves. No roar of cars, no sirens, no neighbors. Sure, I was thirty minutes from town—town being the small metropolis of Killsmore that consisted of three great coffee shops, one supermarket and three pubs—and where most of the crew was staying, but I was right on the ocean. The small ‘bach’ I’d found online had somehow been vacant for the exact amount of time I needed it for. The closest neighbor was ten minutes down the dirt road I drove in on. When I’d first followed my GPS here, I’d frowned at the dust rising from the tires of my car, at the farmland around me, thinking I’d really fucked up and that I’d been catfished.

But then I’d pulled past the gates, ornate iron gates with plants curling around them. Drove down the winding drive edged with trees, carefully planted to hide the cottage away from the world, feeling like my private sanctuary.

Then the small house came into view. With a red corrugated roof and a porch that had grapevines climbing up it, making it look as if nature was taking over the house. Roses of every color were planted along the front with a porch swing to the right of the red front door. Large windows everywhere.

The front door opened right onto the ocean. Or that’s what it seemed like. The windows along the living room were floor to ceiling, barely any walls to obstruct the view of the beach and water beyond. Sapphire and aquamarine … a different ocean than the one I’d looked upon on another continent. In another lifetime.

A different ocean that carried the same memories.

If I was a smart woman, one who wanted to heal, to forget, I would’ve left this beautiful paradise that reminded me of my wretched, painful past and found something else. Something that looked upon the hills, the landscape of New Zealand, something closer to town, closer to distraction. But I hadn’t. I’d closed the front door, walked across the tastefully decorated living room and opened the sliding doors, stepping onto the balcony and breathing in the salty sea air.

It was somewhat of a ritual now. After saying hello to my resident fairy. After making sure that there were no flowers I’d forgotten to water, no packages that I’d ordered at two in the morning after a bottle of wine.

Then I’d step inside, inhale the smells of this new place that was becoming home to me, opening those doors, inhaling the air that was all too familiar. That reminded me of a man who was a stranger yet knew me better than anyone.

Then, I’d make something for dinner, depending on my mood, my energy levels or whether I’d remembered to go to the store that day. Janet, the woman who rented the cottage for me, would sometimes ‘pop by’ with a basket of muffins, a lasagna, homemade granola, cherries, her favorite wine. Pretty much anything and everything. She had wild, bright red curls, creased tanned skin and had a penchant for the color purple. Her voice was thick, husky and evidence of a smoking habit she’d kicked five years ago. Her husband died six years ago, and she swore she would never marry again, but she’d surely have a lot of boyfriends. I knew all of this because she told me. On my second night here, she’d arrived with two bottles of red, dinner and an evening’s worth of stories about her life.

She had no children, and I thought that a waste since there were plenty of women who would’ve benefitted from having a mother like her. Warm, confident, unapologetic about who she was. It was ugly and cruel of me to wish she had been my own mother. To wish my biological mother out of my life and out of existence for my own selfish reasons, so that I didn’t have a darkness inside of me. So I didn’t fear my own mind. Wasn’t terrified of my own memories.

But wishing wouldn’t do me any good. And if my mother hadn’t been my mother, I probably wouldn’t have been fucked up enough to find myself in Jay’s office that night, or in his bed all the nights after.

And despite how much pain those nights had caused me, despite how much he’d ruined me, I didn’t want anything or anyone to be the reason I didn’t have the memory of him. The ghost of him.

I allowed myself to enjoy having dinner with Janet one night a week. A Sunday afternoon with her in the garden. Opening up the fridge to an eggplant dish she’d cooked for me along with more wine because she was starting to know me too well.

The air was colder now. Summer was creeping away, giving way to fall, even up here up at the top of the North Island where the weather was warmer than the rest of the country. My arms prickled from the chill. Not just because of the bite to the air but from the impending wrap of the show. It had been months. An uncommonly warm summer which meant I’d never felt a chill, leaving my skin as tan as it had ever been despite how religious I was with my SPF. There was a hole in the ozone layer here, apparently. Made the sun harsher. Causing me to burn that much quicker.

I’d already been burned, so the fire of a different kind felt nice. It was turning me in to something else. Or at least someone who looked different. My skin was no longer peaches and cream but a milky caramel. My hair was longer, bleached by that harsh sun, barely any strawberry left in my blonde. I’d put on weight where I’d needed it. If it was up to me, I would’ve forgone food except for when it was absolutely necessary and existed off coffee and wine. But there was Janet. And there was Brent on lunch breaks, bringing me a plate piled high with his crooked smile and easy conversation. I’d eat the whole plate without even realizing it, just so I could listen to him talk while making sure my mouth was full so I never had to offer any information about myself.

The food was fresher here. Purer. I could taste it. But I couldn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t enjoy much, really. Even the company of a good man, a strong, comforting woman, some of the most beautiful landscape in the world, the kindness of the people of this country.

Oh, yes, I was the definition of a cliché. Living and working in paradise, eating excellent food, being asked out by ruggedly handsome men yet not enjoying a single bit of it.

I looked good, though. With my permanent tan, with my long hair, with my new curves. But I was all sharp angles on the inside. Even breathing cut me open all over again. The pain hadn’t dulled. Not one single bit.

I grabbed a glass from where it had been drying on the rack beside the sink. My eyes focused on the single plate, the mug—I was a tea drinker now—the single set of cutlery.

It was the ordinary things that hurt me now. The evidence of me living my life alone. Spinsterhood.

“Jesus Christ, I sound like Bridget fucking Jones,” I muttered to myself, opening a bottle of red and filling the glass up, right to the top. I didn’t fuck around with the half empty bullshit.

The native birds sang as I walked out the sliding doors off the living room, breathing in the salty air that rubbed in all of my open wounds. It was cold, cold enough that I should’ve gone back in to grab a sweater, but I kept walking down the sun-bleached wooden steps that travelled down to a sandy path which led to the beach beyond.

My beach.

My ocean, it seemed.

This little cottage—bach as it was fondly called in New Zealand—was nestled between acres of farmland that the owner refused to sell despite lucrative offers. This meant that the only resident of this beach for many miles was me. It was rather breathtaking, looking at the way the land bent in front of me, mountains looming in the distance, seeming to plunge into the turquoise sea. The last of the sun pressed down on me just as hard as the ocean breeze.

I sipped my wine, walking slowly, looking at nothing and trying very hard to think about nothing.

“I’m a sinner, pet. You know this. My job is lies. My very existence, inhaling and exhaling, are a series of mistruths, secrets and betrayals. There was no way I could admit to you, or myself, that I was capable of loving. Because I knew I was, and I knew that my love would be your curse. Knew that it was an inevitability to fall for you. Knew I’d ruin your life loving you. So I lied. Like only a sinner can.”

The memory burned hot, even as the air chilled my exposed skin.

He was right. His love was a curse.

“Nice night for it.”

I jumped, twisting around in the direction of the voice that just spoke.

Standing in front of me was a man. A man holding a gun.

 

Lies That Sinners Tell – Chapter One Teaser

Darkness asked her to dance.

It started with a cold stare.
An arrangement.
A deal with a devil in a bespoke suit.
He was wicked. Cruel. No sane person would fall in love with him.
But sanity abandoned her the second she agreed to be his.

She chose to take his hand.

It started with a white dress.
With ocean eyes.
With a woman he had to have, even though he had no business touching her porcelain skin.
She was never meant to enter his world.
He dragged her in anyway.
It was meant to be about his twisted, selfish desires.
She gave him a glimpse of the man he could’ve been had the world not turned him into a monster.

He led her into the abyss.

There, in the darkness, she learned wicked things.
He knew he’d ruin her life, loving her. So he lied. Like the sinner he was, he broke her gentle, precious heart.
Like only a devil could.

But the dance had to end.

 

Are you ready for something completely new from me? Something dark? Spicy? Something that will break your damn heart? Well here you go. This duet is all of that and more. I’m warning you now, Jay is a total anti-hero. It’s going to take you a while to love his cold, cruel heart. But you will. I promise. If you want to preorder, you can do it here. If you want to take a look at the first chapter, then keep reading below…

 

Chapter One

 

Jay

 

“Karson, she’s in a white dress, strawberry blonde, no tits. Nice ass.”

“Got her, sir.”

Jay sat back on his chair, watching the sea of bodies part for Karson. Even in a nightclub where ninety percent of the clientele were drunk off their asses—in addition to being high on coke, E, or whatever they could get their hands on—the throng moved for him.

A latent survival instinct, Jay supposed.

The man wasn’t overly tall. Not hugely muscled either. He was wearing a sleek black suit and a barely visible earpiece. Handsome in a traditional way. Dark hair. Sharp features. Ice blue eyes.

All of this shouldn’t have been threatening. But the man himself was. An air of pure menace cut through even the highest of highs and the thickest of inebriations. Karson had a history that Uncle Sam had either erased or had never written down in the first place. A history that made him one of the most valuable members of Jay’s staff.

This errand was above his pay grade, but Jay paid him more than enough to complete the task without comment. Beyond that, he didn’t want to fuck around with the club security, who spent far too much time checking out the ass that Jay already considered his.

Despite the fact that the club was absolute packed with beautiful women, women with technically better asses, tits and faces, this woman in the white dress was something else. Which was the entire reason why Jay had interrupted his plans for the night to send one of his best men on an errand for pussy.

Such things weren’t unusual; he had needs and owned a club that attracted beautiful women. Women who were eager to get into bed with him, who obeyed commands and who he could dispose of without incident.

They were easy. No complications.

Jay had enough complications in his life.

But something about the way his eyes caught the woman’s hair, her ass and how he wanted to beat the shit out his bouncer for just looking at her made Jay realize that things were already complicated.

 

 

Stella

I just wanted to dance.

Sometimes I did this.

Got all dressed up in a vintage Alaïa dress I found on eBay or a Halston Heritage jumpsuit I’d been given at a shoot, heels, hair, makeup—all of it. No friends, and definitely no man of any kind.

I had plenty of friends who I went out with. Got dressed to the nines and attended fabulous parties, drank fabulous drinks and had a fabulous time.

There were men too. Maybe not as plentiful as the friends, but a good amount. Though I wasn’t vain, I knew I was pretty. Could pass for beautiful with makeup, hair and a kickass outfit. Which was what I was always wearing.

Part of the job.

Part of who I was.

And part of who I was was someone who needed to dance at an obnoxious club with insane cover charges and exorbitant drink prices. I didn’t care much about the club itself or the status people hoped to gain by getting into the exclusive VIP section. I didn’t even take notice of the people. I certainly didn’t care about the rumors swirling about the mob owning the club or some shady, millionaire businessman who was king of the underworld. That was just talk. People in L.A. liked to talk. Make stories, blockbusters out of things.

The club itself was my choice only because I liked the music, and it was close enough to my apartment that I didn’t need to eat up too much of my shoe money—or rent or grocery money—by taking an Uber back and forth.

Plus, walking was not an option in the area between the club and my place.

Sure, if I wanted to save my money—which I was never good at anyway—I could’ve forgone my pilgrimages and stayed at home. Or, at the very least, gone to a party with friends, gone on a date, doing something less expensive while still being somewhat social.

But I needed these nights.

Nights where it was just me, the thump of the music and bodies moving around me. It was calming. Some people took baths, put on face masks—I had three hours of straight dancing.

I had no goals of attracting a man, or attracting anything for that matter. This wasn’t for anyone but me. I was single, I was living paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes I got lonely. Sure, I was a romantic. A romantic realist. So I knew that any man I encountered at a club a criminal may or may not own, was not a man I would have any kind of romance with.

Not that this was about men.

It was about me.

I’d tried to tell that to my girlfriends, and they tried to understand. But though they were good friends, they couldn’t quite understand it.

So I stopped trying to explain.

And they stopped trying to understand.

Other than hurting my bank balance, which was used to taking a battering, I didn’t think my form of self-care was going to harm me in any way.

Until tonight.

When a very serious and scary looking man grabbed my upper arm and murmured in my ear to come with him. The murmur was not sexual. Not at all. It was authoritative. Dangerous.

The music was too loud for me to reply to him, and he was too strong for me to struggle against. Even if I’d screamed, I doubt anyone would’ve heard me, doubt anyone would’ve even noticed. This was not a place where some hero would swoop in to save me from … from whatever was happening.

I had no choice but to let myself be led out of the main room of the club then through a side door to a hallway. A door closed behind us, and the lack of noise was deafening. The floor was covered in sleek black carpet, the walls the same. There were lights overhead and on walls close to the floor, dim and soft. Everything was luxurious but not comforting.

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” I said to the man leading me down the hall.

He didn’t reply.

“I’m not on drugs. I didn’t buy drinks here because the prices are nothing short of insane,” I continued, my heart rate increasing with every step I was forced to take.

Still no response.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded. That should’ve been my first question. I shouldn’t have let myself get ferreted away behind some door in a club by a man with such a strong grip. That was how people got raped and murdered.

I’d always considered myself smarter than that.

Yet here I was.

“To see Mr. Helmick.” His voice was flat. Deep. Emotionless. He didn’t look at me when we spoke, nor did he let go of my arm. He was handsome, this man. In a sharp, muscled and dangerous kind of way. His piercing blue eyes were flat and cold just like his voice.

We were walking toward the end of the hallway. Toward an elevator. Something told me I really, really did not want to get in that elevator.

“Who is Mr. Helmick?” I asked, voice shaking. That embarrassed me. I was crumbling already. That wasn’t how I was supposed to act in such a situation. I needed agency, an authoritative voice.

“He’s the owner of this club,” the man answered as we approached the elevator. He leaned forward to press the button, and the doors opened immediately.

He nodded forward, as if to urge me inside, but I stayed rooted to the spot. The space was small yet tastefully and expensively appointed, if such a thing were possible for an elevator. Nonetheless, the thought of stepping inside was terrifying.

“You can’t force me to go in there,” I informed him, tilting my chin upward.

Now he looked at me. The full power of his attention was nothing more than suffocating, like he’d landed a weight on my shoulders that was going to dislodge my kneecaps if he didn’t take it off me.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. He was communicating with his eyes how easy it would be to force me in there. How humiliating it would be for me.

“What does Mr. Helmick want from me?” I demanded.

No answer.

Just the look.

Fuck.

It was stupid, but I moved into the elevator, if only to get a respite from this man’s gaze. The doors closed quickly, leaving me alone.

“What in the ever-loving fuck have you gotten yourself into, Stella?” I muttered to myself.

The ride was quick but long enough to have me wondering about Mr. Helmick. Who apparently was the owner of this club. I thought about the stories I’d heard that I’d been certain were rumors. That the club owner was involved in the mafia. That he was a crime boss with ties to all sorts of nefarious things.

A man with ties to the mafia—potentially, at least—had for whatever reason summoned me with the help of some goon that was seriously scary.

None of those things were good.

Like at all.

By the time the elevator doors opened, I’d convinced myself that I was being sent up here to be killed. Even though I hadn’t witnessed a murder, stumbled upon a drug deal or gotten myself involved in anything even remotely illegal. The most illegal thing I’d done was snort some lines of coke at parties. And in L.A., in my circles, coke was considered a fucking vitamin.

Not to mention that I’d gotten nervous and convinced myself I was having a heart attack the last few times I did it. Maybe I was getting too old to be doing cocaine in bathrooms at parties.

I was definitely not too old to die.

No, I had a life to live.

There were many, many things I had left to do.

Fuck.

There was no running since scary guy was downstairs, likely waiting for me to try and come back down.

The elevator doors opened right into an office. It was large. Open plan. It smelled like a three hundred-dollar tobacco scented candle I once got in a goodie bag after some PR event.

In front of me was a set of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on to the entire club. Impressive art on the walls, black sofas beneath. A large desk right in the middle with a man sitting behind it.

A man.

One who matched the room. Expensive. Clad in all black. Tasteful.

He was watching me intently.

With cold eyes. They were sharp green, almost glowing against the rest of the room.

My feet moved even though everything in my body told me to stay in place. That somehow the elevator was my safe place, and if I stayed here, nothing bad would happen. But people could die in elevators just the same as anywhere else.

The man watched me approach.

He did not stand, did not speak, just watched.

I watched him right back. He was handsome. It was a weird thing to notice, considering how terrified I was. But there was no way not to notice. This man was … something else. His hair was jet black, just long enough to curl around his neck. That was the only messy thing about him. Everything else was smooth, perfect. His skin. Jawline. Neck, visible because he was wearing a black shirt under his black blazer, open at the collar.

He was tan. Not fake, something all too common here in L.A. and something I was trained to notice in my line of work. It was something in his genes. Italian. Cuban, maybe.

I couldn’t determine his height because he was sitting, but I got the feeling he was tall. That he’d tower over me. Not overly muscular, but something about him was big. Foreboding.

His jaw was sharp, as if it were cut from stone but his lips were full, soft looking, complete with a cupid’s bow. Eyes that were carved from emeralds. He looked like the devil, since I imagined the devil appeared to everyone as their own version of utter dark perfection.

I stopped in front of his desk with no clue how I’d gotten there, my legs had a mind of their own, enchanted by his dark beauty. I was dressed in my favorite dress, second favorite shoes and sassy but not slutty makeup. And I was going to die. My intuition told me this. That I was in grave fucking danger. There were hundreds of people visible below me, but I was beyond help. I’d gone without a fight, and now I was here. Staring at death’s sharp green eyes.

There was nothing in the immediate vicinity for me to use as any kind of weapon, not that I really rated my skills in defending myself against this man. My best friend, Wren, and I had signed up for a self-defense class two years ago, but then we discovered a really great cocktail place that had remained undiscovered from the Instagram masses, so we’d gone there every Tuesday at six instead.

Not that some shitty, Groupon self-defense class would’ve helped me here anyway. I needed something else. Anything else.

“I’m terrible at remembering people’s birthdays,” I blurted. “Though I expect everyone to remember mine. It’s a double standard I hate about myself, but I can’t seem to change.”

I pressed my clammy hands against my bare thighs, forcing myself to keep the gaze of this man. “I keep buying houseplants because I want to be a person who has houseplants, but I keep killing them,” I said. “I do have a cat called Voldemort who I’ve managed to keep alive, but that’s more him than me, really,” I continued. “My dad is my best friend. It’s lame maybe, but he raised me on his own since I was six years old. My teenage years were not kind to him, yet he was always kind to me. We talk every day.”

I sucked in a breath, tears prickling the backs of my eyes at the thought of my father getting some call that my body had been found in a shallow grave.

No. Keep talking. Keep breathing.

“I’m terrible with money,” I rasped, my voice scratchy with fear. “Ditto with credit cards. Not because my father didn’t teach me well, he really, really did. He’s responsible. Sensible. He’s tried his best to raise a sensible girl, but unfortunately, he didn’t take in to account men like Jimmy Choo or Christian Louboutin and his daughter’s affinity for such men.”

I bit my lip hard enough for the metallic twang of blood to wash onto my tongue. “I haven’t done everything I thought I was going to do. No, I haven’t done half of the things I planned on. Except moving here and making a life for myself. I still have to see a sunset in Bali. Drink tea in Morocco. Climb a mountain in New Zealand. Do something for humanity that isn’t just helping keep ateliers in Paris in business.”

I thought about more, scrambling for tidbits about my life that might make some kind of impact, make me seem less vapid and shallow. “I’ve never fallen in love. I’ve been in a handful of relationships where I said the words.  I meant them at the time, but I’ve never been so in love with a human that I can’t breathe without knowing they love me back. Where my heart only beats for them. And I want that.”

I ended the last part on a whisper, close to tears but refusing to cry.

The man in front of me tilted his head ever so slightly, regarding me as if he were trying to open me up with his penetrating green eyes. “As enlightening as all of this information is, can you tell me why you’re choosing to share it with me?”

I blinked at him. He sounded so even. Businesslike. Plus, he hadn’t pulled a gun from underneath his desk and shot me in the face the way I had imagined this might go. Despite the fact that I hadn’t actually done anything that should result in me being shot in the face. But I reasoned that many people—most people, even—who were shot in the face weren’t expecting it.

Plus, I tended to be dramatic.

“I read that you should personalize yourself to your killer,” I explained, unable to break eye contact. “Make them understand that you’re a person. A unique one with friends and family and a life. Give them information about you. So that’s what I’m doing.”

I was pretty sure the article hadn’t said that you should actually clarify what you were doing to your would-be killer since it might lose some of its effect.

“You think I’m going to kill you?” he asked, his mossy green eyes fixated on me. The way he looked at me sent my heart into a frenzy and my blood turned hot. His attention was rapt, he was leaning forward on his desk ever so slightly.

I blinked at him. He spoke in a flat tone but in a way that said he thought I was absolutely batshit crazy to think he was going to kill me.

I was not crazy. Dramatic as mentioned, sure. Emotional? Definitely. Romantic? Also yes. But not crazy. My ultimate goal in life was to avoid crazy. And considering crazy was somewhat of a trigger word for me, it sparked fury within me. This man insinuating that I was unhinged when he was the one who’d had me dragged up here.

So I tilted my head and cocked my hip in the classic female battle stance. “Um, your goon, who is like mobster hitman material from any movie, snatched me off the dance floor, took me down the murder hallway, and now I’m up here,” I waved around the office, “which is definitely a secret villain lair of some kind. And there’re all sorts of stories about you being a hitman or crime lord, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have bruises on my arm tomorrow to prove that. That is, of course, if I’m alive tomorrow, which all of these aforementioned details have put in to question.”

His eyes narrowed as I spoke, and he was out of his chair before I finished speaking. I didn’t retreat as I should’ve as he stalked toward me. I was too busy staring at the way he moved. Predatory. Like a man in charge of not only his whole body but the entire room. And everyone in it. It terrified me, but there was also something else that … enchanted me. Nothing about this man should’ve enchanted me. Or interested me. Certainly shouldn’t have aroused me.

His fingers were on my bare skin before I could fathom what was going on. His grip was firm. Not painful though. His fingers were long, manicured, hands large and powerful looking. He could circle my entire upper arm in his grip. I didn’t jerk away, didn’t even try to.

He inspected the area where the skin had started to bloom with the telltale signs of a bruise. Which wasn’t really saying much since I bruised easily. Bumping my leg on a coffee table would end up looking like I’d hit it with a hammer.  It was saying much, a lot actually, that I was going to be marked by a man who had touched me without my permission and who’d used his grip to manhandle me and drag me in to this situation.  Yes, that was saying a whole fucking lot.

“He marked you,” the man observed, his voice quiet yet it boomed somehow. The deep masculinity of his voice penetrated my skin, brushed at my bones.

Something about his hushed tone sent goosebumps moving up my arms. That and the fact that he was touching me. Technically against my will too.  I should’ve been totally fucking terrified that the man who I was convinced was going to murder me a handful of seconds ago was now touching me. I was not scared. Well, I was a little scared. Maybe a lot. But I felt something else too. Something completely opposite of fear. Something I’d likely have to pay a lot of money for a therapist to unpack after this was all over. If I survived this.

“I bruise easily,” I offered, though I had no idea why I was trying to make an excuse for the man who’d done this. Maybe it was the menace in the air that told me the punishment would not fit the crime.

“He marked you,” the man repeated, his low baritone full of menace.

I swallowed hard.

The way his eyes focused on my discolored skin did something to me. There was an intensity there that shouldn’t have been present in a stranger. The way I responded to his touch, his gaze made no sense. It scared me. Terrified me.

He stepped back, hand no longer on my arm. I missed his grip, even though that made no sense. At all.

“Karson will be disciplined for that,” he announced, nodding toward my arm. “It was not my intention for you to be harmed or feel that your life was threatened.”

I raised my brow and folded my arms across my chest. “Well, what was your intention then? Because having me dragged off the dance floor and forced up here without an explanation, without giving me a choice in the matter, is pretty much communicating to me that I am definitely threatened,” I snapped, remembering that I was meant to be indignant right now, not turned on. “I’m sure you have no experience in that because you’re a man. A rich and powerful one, by the looks of it. Rich and powerful men have no clue that women feel threatened by all kinds of things because they have the luxury of never having to feel that. Better still, they get to do all the threatening stuff because it makes them feel powerful. Do you feel powerful now, buddy?” I glared at him.

He blinked at me, his face blank, cold. His features could’ve been carved from granite.

“We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he clasped his hands together, his expression remaining stoic.

“You think?” I muttered.

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asked, nodding toward a lavish looking bar cart to our left.

“I’m a single woman who lives in L.A.. No way am I taking a drink from you,” I replied, bite to my tone.

His jaw twitched ever so slightly. I only caught it because I was watching him so closely. I didn’t know whether that meant he was amused or pissed off, but I felt myself wanting to find out. This seemed to be a man who didn’t show his emotions on his face or in his voice. Everything about him was cold, except when he touched me. My arm still burned at the memory.

“Very well,” he responded after a long silence. “Will you sit down?” he nodded to a plush looking chair in front of his desk.

“I’m not going to be here long enough to sit,” I stated firmly. Finally, I was finding my voice. My backbone. A little late to be sure. But at least it didn’t seem like I was going to be killed in the immediate future.

“As you wish,” he said as he moved over to the bar cart. His steps were unhurried, he seemed to glide across the floor.

Bottles clanged delicately, and liquid sloshed into a glass. He turned with a whisky glass in his hand then walked back to his desk, sitting behind it.

“Why do you come here?” he asked.

I stared at him. He was sitting in the chair casually, leaning back, inspecting me with those green eyes of his. “I beg your pardon?”

“Here,” he repeated, turning back to gesture to the dance floor below. “You come at least once a month. Sometimes more. Dressed to attract attention. Done up in a way that a practiced eye can tell is for you but nobody else. You don’t drink. You don’t accept offers from any of the men who approach you. You always come alone. Always leave alone. That means you do not come for sex. For connections. Which is why everyone else is here. So why do you come here?”

“You’ve been watching me?” I whispered, he words touching every bone in my spine.

He leaned back in his chair. “I watch everyone,” he countered. “I own this club. It’s my job to notice things. And you, pet, are begging to be noticed.”

“I’m not begging to be noticed,” I snapped back. “And I most certainly am not your pet.”

“Not yet,” he muttered in a way that chilled my blood. His eyes were filled with a promise. A threat. “You don’t want to answer my question?” he pressed. He wasn’t ordering me to answer, like he was probably used to doing. This man, sitting up here with his one finger of whisky, watching throngs of inebriated people below, he liked control. I could tell that.

I didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to give him anything more than I already had, which was a lot since I’d blurted out intimate details about my life, my father and my cat. But then again, maybe that was the whole reason I was up here. He’d gotten suspicious that I came so often without an obvious reason. Maybe he thought I was some kind of spy, or cop, if he really was a criminal.

Which he was. This man breathed danger. His very gaze was a threat. It definitely should’ve been criminal to have this kind of reaction to a man I barely knew.

The reason I didn’t want to tell him was based largely on principal. I didn’t want to tell him anything because I shouldn’t have to. I should be able to go to a club, dressed however I wanted, dance for as long as I wanted and leave without being pulled off the dance floor and dragged up here, in front of a man used to getting what he wants.

But that was the way the world worked As much as I really wanted to change it, I also understood this moment was not the time for me to start making those kinds of changes.

I just needed to get the fuck out of here.

“I like to dance,” I said finally. “Sure, I could do it in my living room. But I like the bodies. The energy. The smells. I like getting dressed up and getting out of my apartment. I like when the music is so loud I can’t think. It’s a weird form of meditation.” I narrowed me eyes. “I don’t dress to attract attention. Don’t dress for anyone but myself. But, of course, a man sees a woman who’s taken care of her appearance and he thinks it’s all for him because that’s the way men think.”

I said all of the words sharply, with as much inflection as possible to communicate how pissed off I was that I even had to explain myself. I tried not to show even the smallest bit of shame that I was explaining something that nobody closes to me understood to a stranger. A very attractive, possible criminal stranger. But that was neither here nor there.

His trenchant eyes assessed me for a few long beats after I’d finished speaking. Nothing moved on his face. I couldn’t get a read on him.  Something I used to think I was good at doing. Reading people. I worked with a lot of them. But then again, a lot of people I worked with were simple and weren’t exactly focused on creating any kind of mystery.

This man was anything but simple. That I could deduce.

“Makes sense,” he replied finally. There was no edge to his voice, nothing to communicate that he thought I was weird or crazy. He just accepted what I said. It would’ve been an attractive quality on an immensely attractive man had the situation been different. But the situation was not different.

“Now that I’ve explained myself when I shouldn’t have to, are you going to tell me why I’m here? Or better yet, let me leave?” I wrung my hands together. Leaving was the goal, wasn’t it? Yes. I very badly wanted to leave, to get back to the safety of my apartment and forget this ever happened.

But another part of me wanted to stay. Soak up the presence of this man.

He continued to stare at me, taking a sip of his drink before setting the tumbler down. “You’ll be free to leave in a moment, Stella.”

“How do you know my name?” I demanded, blood chilling with the knowledge that murder might still be on the table. Or something else. Something darker and just as terrifying as murder.

Rape.

A whisper that resounded through my skull. The word every woman thought of many times in their lives because there was such a high possibility of it happening. I’d read somewhere that one in five women reported rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. And due to the fact that a huge majority of sexual assaults are not reported that number was likely much, much higher. That meant that it was likely that out of me and my three best friends—women I adored—one of us was going to experience at least one sexual assault in our lifetime. We had to think of the word daily, yet men only had to think about it if they were the ones doing it, investigating it, or experiencing it secondhand.

“You show your ID at the door,” he explained evenly as I envisioned him moving across the room and forcing himself on me. He didn’t make to move, just sat there staring. “As I said, you made an impression, so I told my men at the door to relay your information.”

That did not help quell a single fear. In fact, it only intensified them tenfold. My driver’s license had my address on it. To my apartment where I lived alone.

Seventy percent of the Criminal Minds episodes were about women who lived alone. Which is why I’d banned myself from watching that show. My imagination was already vivid enough, and I was a light sleeper, jerking awake at every noise, hand on the pepper spray I kept by my bed, as if it would make a difference.

“The information was obtained by my most trusted of employees and stays between only him and myself,” he assured me.

“Oh, that makes me feel so much better,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Rest assured, no harm will come to you, Stella. No matter what,” he conveyed the words so forcefully, they came out as an oath.

I shouldn’t have believed him. Not at all. But for some unknown reason, I did.

“If you know my name, then it’s only fair I know yours. Actually, you should’ve introduced yourself right after your goon dragged me in here,” I quipped.

“You’re quite right,” he agreed, nodding. “My name is Jay Helmick.”

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m afraid I’d be lying,” I said with a slight sneer to my words.

“I completely understand,” Jay replied. “I have a proposition for you,” he continued.

Although I’d made the choice to stand out of principle, I kind of wished I’d sat down. All the adrenaline that I’d been feeling was depleting, and my muscles were burning. Suddenly, the chair looked plush and inviting. Also, it seemed vulnerable to be standing now. At first, I’d thought it made me seem stronger, with more agency, but now it was just awkward.

“I’m a busy man,” Jay continued. “I detest the circus of dating. As I mentioned, you’ve caught my eye. I’m interested in arranging with you. To spend time with you. Eventually, sooner rather than later—if you are agreeable, of course—I would want to fuck you.”

My stomach dipped at that last part. Like all the way to the basement of this place.  He said it in exactly the same tone he’d used this entire time. Nothing changed on his face. But everything changed in the air.

It should’ve been insulting, right? A man using his power to get me here, to make me feel vulnerable and scared, and then he proposes sex … that was sexual harassment. I should’ve felt enraged.

Not violently turned on.

Which I was.

It didn’t make sense. He was just a man. A very attractive and powerful man, but those were a dime a dozen in this city. Handsome men didn’t impress me. Didn’t evoke feelings beyond detached appreciation at best, since I knew that most attractive powerful men in this city were arrogant, self-absorbed assholes. Powerful men weren’t impressive since the entire system worked in their favor.

Based on all of the facts of this situation, Jay should’ve been no different. He should’ve been worse, considering what he was doing.

I couldn’t explain it. The way his muscles moved at the column of his neck. How he towered over me, made me fall small, vulnerable, powerless to his will. The way his eyes pierced through me in a way that electrified my bones. The sharpness of his features, the sex in his words, the promise in his gaze … it enchanted me. He controlled the room. The air I breathed. It smelled of him. Tasted of him. And I wanted more.

I swallowed roughly, doing my best to keep my face blank even as I felt a blush creep up my neck and settle on my cheeks.

He saw this, Jay. Of course he did. His eyes were intent on me, assessing me, dissecting me.

“You had me pulled off the dance floor because you want to date me?” I questioned, voice far breathier than I liked.

“I don’t want to date you, I want to fuck you,” he clarified.

My stomach did that thing again. My thighs clenched together, and I was pretty sure my panties were getter wetter by the moment. I was a feminist. A strong one. A feminist shouldn’t be having this type of response in this situation. I was an embarrassment to women everywhere.

“I understand that not a lot of people are comfortable with engaging in such things with strangers,” he continued, something about the way he moved his mouth upward ever so slightly told me he knew I was turned on. “Well, people in this bar, for example, are usually more than comfortable engaging in such things. But you’re not like them.”

I wasn’t sure he meant this as a compliment, but I was treating it as one. Not that I had anything against women or men who were sexually free and wanted to engage in safe, anonymous sex. Hell, I’d done it a couple of times, but that wasn’t my style. I needed an emotional connection. Which spelled trouble for me, since I was dramatic with high standards. I didn’t have any daddy issues, it was just that no man ever measured up. It was a good thing that vibrators existed. Well, it was a bad thing they existed, too, since no man measured up to them either.

Something deep, dark and ravenous inside of me—inside of my ovaries—suspected that Jay would measure up to even my best vibrator. Though I was never going to find out. Nope. I couldn’t. This was all too fucked up.

“For the sake of your comfort, I’m prepared to offer a few interactions where you can get to know me,” Jay continued.

Okay, now I was pissed off. I mean, I had been since the start, but self-preservation had stopped me from unleashing the worse of it.

“You’re prepared to offer me?” I repeated scornfully. “How generous of you.”

Even if he was deaf, he would’ve heard the sarcasm in my voice, he’d feel it in the air. “I do not offer this kind of arrangement lightly,” he declared, his voice still infuriatingly even.

“Well, color me flattered that you had me dragged up here without my consent in order to proposition me then insinuated I was somehow lucky to be the one chosen to give you sex without any kind of relationship. Not only that, but you’re willing to do me a favor by wooing me first,” I snapped.

He hadn’t moved his gaze while I spoke. Hadn’t lightened his gaze. If anything, it got heavier and heavier as I spoke, his eyes searing me like a hot knife through butter, making it even harder to continue standing.

A thick silence hung between us after I finished my tirade. My palms started to sweat, and I desperately wanted to look away, but I also didn’t want to show any weakness. This man was a predator, and I way his prey.

“It’s not wooing you need, Stella,” he said, speaking slowly, hypnotizing me with the way his Adam’s apple moved as he spoke. “I don’t do that. I’m not that man. I’m never going to do that. So you can realize what you want and accept my offer, or you can walk away.”

I responded to his words by turning on my heel and leaving the office. Luckily I didn’t have to awkwardly wait for the elevator which opened immediately.

Walking away from this man, this stranger and his offer, was much harder than I’d ever admit.

Scars of Yesterday is HERE…Chapters 1 & 2 Preview

The Sons are back, baby.

With a book that is so close to my heart. I think all of my readers who have been with me from the beginning will notice how different this book is. I know this book is written rather unconventionally. I was extremely scared to write it, but I had no choice in the matter. The characters were calling to me and I had to answer. There is so much pain in this book. A lot of my own. But there is hope, love and a HEA too. I will reccomend wine, chocolate and tissues to get you through. I’m so happy I was strong enough to write this book. To publish it. I hope you all love it.

I’ve decided to give you a little taste of what you’re going to get with this book by posting the prologue and first two chapters below. This book is set up in two parts, ‘before’ and ‘after’. It follows one of the lesser known secondary characters, Lizzie. You met her in Making the Cut and a lot of people have wondered about her. The good news is, you don’t have to wonder anymore. The bad news is, her story might break your heart.

You can buy it here.

To the moon.

Anne

xxx

Prologue

This story doesn’t have a happy ending.

It’s better I tell you that now.

I’m a sucker for happy endings, there’s a romantic inside of me that has refused to die, even after all these years. Even after being married to a man who was patched in to one of the deadliest MCs in the country. There was nothing romantic about it, despite what popular culture likes to tell you.

Especially during those bloody years. Before the club steered in a more legitimate direction.

There were losses. Deep cuts that left me with my scars of my own. Wounds I helped my husband tend to. The husband who wore a Sons of Templar MC cut.

He was buried in that cut.

But that’s jumping to the end of the story before hearing about the beginning. Which is good. Because now you know what’s waiting for you at the end of this story.

You can make the choice to escape all of this pain, loss and grief. The choice I couldn’t make.

Chapter One

“Can I carry your books for you?”

I looked up and lost my breath.

He was standing there staring at me like such a request was commonplace. Like it was normal for Cody flipping Derrick to ask me, Lizzie Kirkpatrick, to carry her books.

And he didn’t even give me time to answer—like my answer would be anything but a dreamy yes once I regained the ability to speak. He just leaned forward, smelling like body spray and hair gel, and took them out of my arms.

Took my books out of my arms.

Our bare skin brushed for half a second, and my whole face warmed as I blushed. My whole body seemed to blush.

He grinned, flashing teeth that were white and almost straight if not for one crooked tooth making that smile something other than perfect.

Something beautiful.

“English next, right?” he asked.

Again, he didn’t give me time to answer, he just turned and walked in the direction of my English classroom. I was so shocked I just stood there, like an idiot, watching him walk away with an armful—and he had more than capable arms—of my books. He didn’t look back, of course. He was Cody flipping Derrick. He didn’t need to look back. Not with those burnt caramel eyes, those muscled arms, broad shoulders, and five o’clock shadow that he’d had for the past year. Though we were only a couple of months into his last year of school, he’d already turned eighteen.

I slammed my locker shut and jogged to catch up with him. Because of my slow reaction, we were already halfway to my English class which meant I’d wasted precious time.

Cody grinned at me as I fell into step with him. That grin. It was cheeky, genuine and hot as balls. Everything about him was hot as balls. He had really freaking good genes. He hadn’t gone through that awkward, teenage phase, all gangly limbs and acne. I knew that because I’d known Cody all my life, and I’d crushed on him since I could remember.

We were friends, even though he was one grade above me. Amber was a small town, and there were few kids our age, so most parties were a mishmash of about three different grades. There wasn’t exactly a hierarchy at our high school either. No ‘popular’ kids, jocks or nerds. No cliques. People were raised different here, maybe.

“You look pretty today,” Cody said as I walked beside him mutely, trying to figure out something to say.

His words hit me almost as hard as the sideways glance he sent me. The one that made my insides all melty. A good quarter of the girl’s hearts at this school were his because of that melty look. The other three quarters were spread amongst Cade Fletcher, Brock and Zane—despite the fact that Zane and Laurie had been going steady since forever.

They were all in my grade, and Laurie was one of my closest friends, which meant I was around Zane, Brock and Cade a lot. Zane only had eyes for Laurie, but Brock and Cade had eyes for everyone.

They did not seem like they had any interest in going steady with anyone, working their way through the beautiful girls in our school.

I’d never really considered myself beautiful. Cute? Sure. But my boobs hadn’t seemed to have gotten the memo that I was a young woman, I had too many freckles, and my hair was a dirty kind of blonde that couldn’t be described as anything but plain.

I was good with makeup. Skilled at adding a light touch that emphasized my eyes and lips, my two best features. I loved fashion, and I’d gone through all sorts of phases in high school, usually inspired by movies or books I was reading at the time. I was currently in my Edie Sedgwick phase, so today I was wearing a  swing dress and over the knee boots. My earrings almost touched my shoulders.

Suffice it to say, my father had raised his brows at breakfast this morning, but as was his way, he left it to my mother to say something. Luckily, she had long given up on trying to make me into a little pastel wearing daughter.

She had just sighed, handed me coffee and complimented my earrings.

I looked kick-ass.

And I knew it. Sure, I might not have been the prettiest girl in the school, but I had the best style. The kind other girls complimented but guys definitely didn’t understand.

But here was Cody Derrick, calling me pretty. Which, in my opinion, was much better than calling someone ‘hot’.

A flush crawled to my forehead. “Ah, thank you,” I said awkwardly.

He grinned wider, his eyes flickering up and down my body. “Like the boots.”

Something about the way he said that electrified me. His words travelled all the way up my legs and… right there. Most of my girlfriends had already lost their virginity. I wanted to. Had no illusions about the first time being special or romantic. I was well aware that it was going to be sloppy, painful and awkward, no matter who I was doing with it. And there had been plenty of chances. Parties where I was drunk enough to make out with some guy who would’ve jumped at the chance to get laid.

But I was never drunk enough to let stuff go past second base.

Because I was waiting. Like an idiot. I was waiting for Cody Derrick to notice me, really notice me. I was waiting even though I knew I’d never get what I wanted but wasn’t ready to give up the fantasy just yet. It happened in the romance novels I’d been devouring since I was fourteen. Yes, they were just books—trash if you listened to my mother, which I didn’t since she considered Good Housekeeping to be fine literature—but they had to be based on something, right?

“Why are you walking me to class?” I asked instead of addressing the comment about my boots and the fact that his eyes had caressed my legs as he did so.

He stopped just shy of my English classroom, not making a move to give me my books back. I glanced toward the classroom where Laurie and Zane were making out right in front of the doorway, not seeming to notice that there was anyone else in their vicinity, or anyone else in the world, maybe. That was typical of those two. They belonged in a romance novel. It was hard to believe what they had—that kind of love wasn’t meant for teenagers. It felt adult, forever. And that was just based on what I saw from the sidelines.

My gaze moved from them because my head moved. Cody’s thumb and finger were gently touching my chin, moving it so I was looking at him again.

Every inch of my skin flamed with that single, gentle touch. He was doing it casually, like he touched me every day, like it was natural.

“Because in those boots, someone else is gonna to try and do a lot more than just walk you to class,” he said, voice rough. “And then I’ll have to do something like pick a fight with a guy who I have no problem with beyond the fact that he’s stupid enough to think he can walk you to class.”

I blinked. Cody wasn’t exactly a man of few words like Cade was. He was boisterous, funny, loud and conversational. Confident. But he had never spoken to me like that before.

“Okay, that is not an answer. Nor does it make sense. Like, not even for a second,” I said. “My boots are cute, for sure. But not that cute.” I waved my hands between us then glanced at the class that was slowly filling up, not wanting to be late. I wasn’t exactly the ‘good girl’, but I didn’t like getting in trouble either. I’d tried to balance out going to parties and getting drunk while telling my mother that I was at a sleepover by keeping my grades up and not getting in trouble at school. I still wanted to go to college, after all. I had to go to college. My parents never let me forget that they’d worked hard and sacrificed many things in order to get my college fund to its current balance. And as much as my mom pissed me off, I didn’t want to disappoint her. Or my father. Especially my father.

Cody grinned. “That cute?” he repeated, waving his free hand between us, still holding my books hostage. And he was holding me hostage with that smile.

I bit my lip. I would definitely be the last one in class now. It bothered me. Slightly. But not enough to move. Not enough to actually do anything about it. No, I would stay right here, feeling awkward, excited, happy and aroused for as long as Cody was grinning at me.

I scowled, or at least tried to. Wasn’t I meant to play hard to get? Willow, my best friend, had assured me that such things were vital in getting a guy interested, and most importantly, to get a guy to stay interested. She should know. She was never single for longer than twenty-four-hours, and in a town as small as ours, that was impressive.

“You know what I mean,” I replied, folding my arms.

To my annoyance, he smiled even wider at my tone which was meant to sound snotty and superior. Then again, I didn’t exactly have much experience being snotty or superior. I was—I liked to believe—a nice person.

“I do know what you mean,” he agreed.

He didn’t say anything else.

Maybe this was some kind of game of emotional chicken. Whoever spoke first would lose the upper hand. Willow always talked about the upper hand.

So I waited. It was uncomfortable. Cody was just standing there, staring at me, acting like the situation wasn’t weird at all. I tried not to fidget, but it was hard when the guy you’ve been crushing on since forever stares at you like that.

The halls were empty now, no stragglers, no giggling, laughing, shoving or hurrying to class. Even Zane and Laurie had detached. Aside from the slight murmur coming from my soft-spoken English teacher, nothing could be heard. Other than that, dead silence. Although Cody’s presence had a sound. His smile echoed through the halls of my mind.

I swallowed roughly, my palms starting to get clammy. That was not cute. No matter how important it was to play hard to get, to win at emotional chicken—or whatever the heck this was—I wasn’t going to get a tardy slip and turn into a sweating mess in front of Cody.

“Are you going to give me back my books?” I asked, unable to stand the silence any longer.

His smile went away. He looked more serious now, as serious as I’d ever seen Cody Derrick look, at least. “Only if you promise I’m gonna carry them from now on.”

I blinked. Slowly. Just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But no, Cody was still here. “Why would you want to carry my books around?”

“Because, babe, I want you. And in this high school, me carrying your books is just one of the ways I can communicate that you’re mine. I’ll be doing that in other ways too. Especially if you’ve got more of those boots.”

Holy. Crap.

He just said all of that. No one talked like that in real life, did they? Sure, they did in books, but most of those books were written by women putting their wishes of how they wanted men to talk to them down on paper.

Before I could figure how to get my breath back, how to reply to such a statement, my books were back in my arms, my arms grasping them on reflex more than anything. Cody got close enough to smell, proving that he wore the same body spray that most of the boys in his grade wore, but mixed with something that smelled different and uniquely him.

“I’ll be waiting for you outside class,” he said. “We’ll go get shakes. Then I’ll take you home. Talk to your dad if he’s home. If not, I can do that tomorrow night. But for now, I don’t want you getting in trouble for being late.”

“Why do you want to talk to my dad?” I asked, grasping on to one thread of what he’d just said because I didn’t think I was capable of handling the rest in one sitting.

“Plan on doin’ this the right way, Lizzie,” he replied. “Your dad will likely respect his daughter’s first boyfriend more if I come up, shake his hand and promise him I’ll take care of his daughter. Your dad gotta shotgun?”

I slowly shook my head. My dad was large, gruff man of few words. He was also a pacifist who did not believe in violence. My mother, on the other hand, owned a gun. I wasn’t about to tell him that, though.

“Good, wouldn’t wanna get shot before I can even take you on a date,” he smirked, guiding me toward the door to the class I was incredibly late to.

I followed, on instinct maybe or because I already couldn’t stand to be away from him.

“I’ll see you, babe,” he said with a wink followed by a lingering glance to my boots before he walked away. I watched him for too long, making me even later to class. But the disapproving look from my teacher nor the curious ones from my classmates didn’t affect me.

I was too busy reliving that entire interaction in my head. The one where Cody said the word boyfriend.

* * *

It wasn’t complicated.

Not at first.

It was almost like my romance books. Cody treated me with respect, like I was the most precious thing in his world. Like Zane treated Laurie.

Cody was true to his word. He came to my house and spoke to my father with no visible nerves. Then again, it wasn’t my mild mannered, quiet and kind father he had to worry about. It was my constantly disapproving, not at all quiet, judgmental mother.

Somehow, he handled both with ease. My father looked to me when they started speaking, as if searching for my silent happiness. Which there was a lot of, it was just buried underneath the pile of nerves that I had been living with the entire afternoon.

After seeing whatever he saw on my face, my father nodded, shook Cody’s hand, and that was that.

Things with my mother were not as simple. She drilled him about his parents—the only part of the interaction where he seemed even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Everyone knew that he was raised by a single mother who worked as a nurse at the hospital in the next town over. I’d seen her in the grocery store a couple of times, and she had a kind smile, sad eyes and always looked tired. She was pretty, though, kind of ageless. I hadn’t heard of her having a boyfriend since she’d moved here with Cody. And if there was one, my mother would’ve pounced on gossip like that. In our small town, , a woman moving with her son without a father was gossip worthy. At least to my mom it was.

She already knew everything there was to know about his mother, and there was nothing to know about his father. As far I as I knew, Cody never talked about him, and he wasn’t in the picture.

Cody handled it well, though, with manners that my mother—in my opinion—didn’t deserve.

“It’s just me and my mom, ma’am. She works hard and is the only parent I need.” He said this with such firmness that it moved even my mother off the subject, which earned a look of approval from my father who had been trying to master that art their entire marriage.

Of course, it didn’t mean he was completely off the hook. Mom continued to drill him about his grades—good but nothing special—about his college prospects—none as of yet—his part time job working at the Sons of Templar MC garage—yeah, my mom got a real kick out of that—and her demand that he get me home by curfew.

Pretty mild for my mom.

Cody made all the promises, and he kept them all.

He took me for a picnic on the beach for our first date. Yeah, he organized a picnic on the beach. The eighteen-year-old, mini badass organized something so romantic I cried inside.

He kissed me at sunset.

It wasn’t my first kiss, but it felt like it was. Everything with Cody felt like a first.

I think I fell in love with him during that kiss. Or maybe it was when he complimented my boots in the hallway. Or when he handled my mother so well. Or when he brushed my hair from my face and whispered to me how beautiful I was.

Yeah, it was probably all of those.

And he was acting like he felt the same way. Like this was something natural, like he’d been feeling this way for as long as I had, but Willow warned me not to be fooled.

“If there’s one thing men are good at, it’s pretending they feel the same way about you until they get into your pants. That shit should be an Olympic sport for them.”

She was too young to be such a cynic about men and love in general, but then again, she had divorced parents and a rotating door of stepfathers, the latest of whom had tried to sneak into her room while she was sleeping. Willow had woken up and, of course, punched him in the face. Her mother had immediately kicked him out. She might’ve had bad taste in men, but she loved her daughter.

I, on the other hand, had two parents who at least pretended to love each other and  a stable home life where I didn’t have to wake up with my right fist ready in case some creep is trying to touch me in my sleep.

I read romance novels and had a quiet, caring father, a brash, casserole making mother, and no real traumas in my life. So I found it hard to believe that Cody was just putting this on in order to get into my pants. If he wanted to get into a girl’s pants, there would be a line around the block of girls volunteering for that.

Nonetheless, I heeded Willow’s words. Or tried to. It was hard to be a cynic when the guy I’d crushed on my entire high school life was carrying my books for me, holding my hand and making out with me in my bedroom with the music turned all the way up.

He’d had plenty of dinners at my place, having won my mother over, plus she knew that his own mother was working nights and was absolutely aghast at the idea of a teenage boy having to fend for himself.

She’d never admit it, of course, but she was really starting to like my first boyfriend.

I’d officially met his mom as his girlfriend. She was soft spoken with a slight rasp to her voice, had Cody’s eyes and loved her son. They didn’t have a lot of money. Not something I had ever had to think about, but it was apparent in their small, one story, two-bedroom home on the outskirts of town. She’d put a lot of effort and love into it, though. Flowers in the front yard, a greenhouse full of vegetables and herbs in the backyard, bright, vintage sofas with cozy looking throws. It was definitely a feminine home.

With the exception of Cody’s room, of course. A room I’d spent a lot of time in. Since his mother worked nights, that meant we had an entire house to ourselves. There were many nights I lied and said I was studying at Willow’s, because no matter how much she liked Cody, no way was my mom going to approve of me being there without an adult present.

But I was.

We’d been boyfriend and girlfriend for four months.

It felt like forever and a brief moment at the same time.

Up until now, there had been heavy make out sessions. Over and under the bra action. His hand resting comfortably and possessively on my butt at parties we attended as a couple. He never left my side at those, and if he did, his eyes were always on me.

But tonight was different.

Not because he was pressuring me. He was so respectful it was almost getting annoying.

I was under no illusion that he was a virgin. He must have wanted more, second base at least. In fact, the hardness I’d felt against my leg during a few of our heavy make out sessions was evidence of that. And the tight way he held himself when he decided he had to stop… Yes, he wanted more, but he didn’t pressure me.

The problem was, I wanted more. I was terrified and worried I’d do it wrong, wouldn’t know how to be sexy and embarrass myself.

But it was getting out of control. That need. For him. For more than just making out and heavy petting.

Willow had already informed me that the guy usually lasted a minute. Tops. But I didn’t care about that. However it would be, I wanted it with Cody. Wanted everything.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered when things had started to get hotter than normal. My shirt was on the floor, and I was wearing a plain, pink cotton bra. Not sexy. Cody was also shirtless. He had a lean, muscled body that was most definitely sexy.

Cody had tried to pull that muscled, sexy torso away from me when the telltale hardness between his legs brushed against the thin fabric of my shorts. The mere friction of it caused me to gasp in pleasure. Cody, always attuned to my body and sounds, obviously mistook this for pain or fear, so he tried to stop.

I was quicker, for once. Need was hot in my blood, making me grip the back of his neck with both of my hands so he couldn’t move, his body still pressed against mine.

“Lizzie,” he gritted out.

“I want this,” I begged. “I want you. Please.”

His eyes searched mine then lowered down to my bra that suddenly felt like the sexiest thing in the world. He let out a harsh hiss of air.

Then the pressure against my hands released as he moved to press his lips against mine.

I kissed him back hungrily, desperately.

He stopped it as if he was trying to torture me. “I’m gonna give you something,” he murmured against my lips. “I’m gonna make today all about you. Because you may think you’re ready now, but I don’t want you to have any regrets. I don’t want it to be in my bedroom on a night my mom is gone. I want it to be… more special for you.” He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “But I’m going to be your first, Lizzie. I want to be your last, but I’m not stupid enough to think you’ll be with me forever, no matter how much I want that.” His hand moved quickly, unlatching my bra and pulling it free. No matter how naïve some might say it was to think it, I knew he was my forever.

“But I’m gonna make the most of every moment I have with you,” he continued, lips firm and hard against mine once more.

Then he moved.

Downward.

First to my exposed breasts.

Then to my bellybutton.

His tongue teased me with what was going to happen, moving across my stomach.

Then much lower.

Suffice it to say, the need I was feeling was sated. Twice.

Chapter Two
Five Months Later

“Well,” I said, closing the door to Cody’s room. “You’re officially no longer shackled to the institution known as high school.”

There was a low thump coming from the living room, we’d left the music on. Everyone had left the graduation party that Cody’s mom, Olive, had given permission for him to throw as long as they stuck to beer and everyone was out by midnight.

My mother would never leave me alone in a house to have a party; she’d never trust a bunch of teenagers to abide by such rules. But Cody adored and respected Olive, so it was five after midnight and we were the only ones here.

My mother was out of town, and I’d told my father I was sleeping over at Willow’s. He was far too smart and observant to believe me, but he also trusted me.

So he’d told me to, “be careful” and kissed me on the head.

This wasn’t the first night I’d be sleeping curled up with my boyfriend. We didn’t get many of these since there were only so many sleepovers my mother would believe I was having, and Olive rotated night shifts. Although she never said anything when I was sitting at her breakfast table when she came home from work. She’d just smile, kiss me on the cheek and sit with me and Cody while we ate.

She was the mother I wished I had. I knew it was a nasty and a cruel thing for me to think considering my mother didn’t beat me or verbally abuse me and bought me whatever clothes I’d decided fit my vision at the time. I was into more rock chick, Bridget Bardot these days, growing my hair longer, wearing winged eyeliner, tight black jeans and band tees. My mother hated it, but she still bought me the clothes.

She was a good mother.

But she didn’t kiss my cheek in the morning. Didn’t sit at the table with me and just talk about life. Her version of talking was gossiping, pressuring me about college, grades, the future. Lecturing my dad about whatever he’d done wrong that week.

Olive asked me what my dreams were. What was my favorite book? Movie. Who inspired me? What countries I wanted to visit.

She’d taken me in as the daughter she’d never had, and it made me feel warm and accepted.

My mother didn’t have that in her.

Which was fine, because I had Olive. I had her for as long as I had Cody in my life, and I planned on having him in my life forever. I knew it was a stupid, naïve thought to have about my very first boyfriend—my very first everything—especially when he had just graduated high school and I had another year.

But it didn’t matter.

We were different.

Cody was different.

He loved me.

Beyond that, he didn’t have big dreams of leaving Amber, going to fancy colleges. He’d told me what he wanted to the night I gave him my virginity.

* * *

Prom night…

“It’s cliché, but I wanted to give you that.”

We had rented a hotel room the next town over. Mom thought we were all staying together for a girl’s sleepover, and each of us had carefully coordinated this ‘sleepover’ since out of the three of us involved, we all had boyfriends who booked hotel rooms.

I was afraid.

Tipsy, because I’d wanted to loosen up and not act like some virgin. I was only a virgin in the most technical of terms. Cody and I had done everything but. And sure, I might’ve been nervous or awkward at first, but my need, my desire had always clouded such feelings. Everything thus far had been awesome. Had made me feel different. Like a woman. More loved. Worshipped. Confident.

So sex was going to be good. After the first painful part.

And it was painful. Despite the nice hotel room that Cody had put overtime in to pay for. The candles, the lingerie that I’d bought on a shopping trip with Willow and had hidden in the back of my closet.

He’d been gentle, reverent and loving, but it didn’t make a difference. It hurt like a bitch. Unlike every heroine in the romance books I read, I didn’t enjoy it. I gritted my teeth through it and counted it as a victory that I didn’t cry.

Cody felt bad.

Terrible. Tortured even. It was written all over his face, hatred for himself because he’d caused me pain. He’d taken me to the shower and cleaned me meticulously, with such tenderness that I fell even more in love with him in that moment.

He’d then taken me to bed, taking his time to cover every inch of my body with his mouth, then moved to the important and tender parts, coaxing me back to the edge.

Suffice it to say, the second time was much better.

And the third.

We spent every moment we could naked after that. Willow joked about Cody turning me into a nympho, but it was really just that we were obsessed with each other. To an unhealthy extent, some would say. Some being my mother.

Despite her reservations about the time I spent with him, mom was still enamored by Cody. In fact, she thought it was my fault for becoming a lovestruck girl, letting my grades and therefore losing college prospects because of a guy of all things.

She wasn’t wrong. I was lovestruck by Cody. I was obsessed with him. With what our lives would be.

Which was what we talked about that night, the first night. And again after the second time, when I felt sated, satisfied and sore. Above all, happy.

I’d let him know that sure, I’d like to go to college maybe major in English lit with a business minor just so my mom would be happy. Find a job doing something I loved after graduating. Something to do with books maybe. That wasn’t really the goal, though. My real goal, the one I didn’t say out loud, was to marry Cody, have lots of babies and live an extraordinary but peaceful life.

Cody had listened intently, as he did with anything I had to say. He’d even watched Factory Girl with me despite the fact it was a chick flick and that I’d already seen it about five times. He sat at vintage stores with me while I found faded Levi’s to cut into jean shorts. That he probably didn’t mind so much since he loved those shorts and enjoyed watching me change.

“I want to patch into the Sons of Templar MC,” he said quietly, arms tight around me.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, considering he’d been working at the garage since he was sixteen and talked about each of the members with reverence.

I didn’t have any experience with the MC. Or I had about the same experience as the average citizen of Amber. They were a large presence, casting a shadow over the town, but they were also respected. Almost a landmark. They did charity rides, they volunteered around town. But they were also criminals, and everyone knew that.

I’d always thought they were kind of interesting, exciting even. The lifestyle fascinated me. Not enough to be brave the parties at the clubhouse  Willow had begged me to sneak into with her that she got kicked out of—they were well known for not letting in underage girls.

“You’ve been quiet for a long time,” Cody said, unease in his voice. When I looked to him, his face looked different than it did at school, parties, even with his mom. He’d let his walls down. He was vulnerable with me and only me. It was a kind of treasure I’d never imagined getting.

“I was just thinking,” I shrugged.

“You wouldn’t stay with me if I patched in?” he asked, a slight tremor to his voice.

The insecurity in his voice had me moving. Pushed him flat on the bed and moved to straddle him,  his cock pressed against my beautifully tender parts.

I moved so my hands clasped his neck, his gaze held in mine. “I will be with you no matter what, Cody. Nothing will change the way I feel about you.” I laid my lips gently on his. “And the fact that this news will mean you’re going to stay in Amber makes me even happier.”

He frowned. “But you’re going to go to college. You have to go to college.”

I rolled my eyes. “You sound like my mother.”

He didn’t smile. In fact, he moved us again, so I was now on my back and his naked body was pressed against mine. “I’m serious, Lizzie,” he continued. “You’re smart. All you know is this town, you deserve to see something more. You need to go to college. I’m not going to let you jeopardize your future for me.”

I didn’t like his tone. The way his eyes looked when he said this scared me. “You’re my future, Cody. Losing you is the only thing that could jeopardize my future. I’ve never wanted to leave Amber. You’re just giving me another reason to stay.”

The look stayed on his face, but he didn’t say anything.

“What does your mom say about your plan to patch in?” I asked, deciding to change the subject because it scared me in ways I didn’t want to admit.

As progressive and laid back as Olive was, I couldn’t see her wanting her only son to patch in to the town’s resident motorcycle gang. Especially if it put him in any kind of danger. Now and then there were funerals for members and they’d all died violently. The mere thought of something happening to Cody made my stomach clench and my heart climb up to my throat.

He winced ever so slightly. “Yeah, I told her,” he replied. “She took it about as well as I thought she would. At first, she thought I’d change my mind, that it was a phase. Then she got pissed. Now she’s just accepted it. I’ve let her down. But I just can’t… see anything else for me. I’m not worth anything else.”

My blood turned cold. He really meant what he’d said. I’d caught things like this every now and then, a self-deprecating remark about himself peppered into our conversations. It had been enough to bother me, but he glossed over them so quickly that I’d never had a chance to address them.

“Cody,” I whispered. “You’re worth everything. You are the kindest person I know. You are the most special person I know. What makes you even think such things?”

He paled ever so slightly, his eyes darkening.

I got the feeling that he was going to tell me something. Something that explained those comments, that undercurrent of darkness that I sensed in him from time to time.

But then it went away. He put on a mask, and the Cody I recognized returned. “I don’t know, guess it’s shit from not havin’ my Old Man in my life. But I don’t wanna talk about that.” He pressed his lips against my neck. “Actually, I don’t want to talk at all. I want to make love to my Old Lady.”

Something moved inside me. Grew. Something good. “Old Lady?” I repeated.

“Yes,” he growled, his lips moving down my neck. “If I’m going to patch in to the Sons of Templar, then you’re gonna be my Old Lady. You okay with that

I didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah, I’m more than okay with that,” I murmured.

So our future was laid out in front of us. Just like a romance novel.

Too bad romance novels were fiction.

* * *

“So what happens now?” I asked after closing the door to Cody’s room on graduation night, starting to unbutton my shirt. The act of undressing in front of Cody was still novel to me. It was so intimate, so grown up, so precious. Mostly, we’d been ripping each other’s clothes off with desperate need. Though I liked that a lot, this was special too. I couldn’t wait until I could undress for him every night. He was going to save up to get a rental, move in before I graduated then I’d move in with him. My mother would have a cow, but I’d legally be an adult so she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Plus, I’d be going to a college forty minutes’ drive away, commuting daily, so she couldn’t complain.

I was anxious to get my senior year started. An entire year of school ahead of me seemed like torture, especially knowing that Cody would be living on his own and prospecting with the Sons of Templar MC, likely being exposed to all kinds of very attractive, very experienced women.

Not that I didn’t trust Cody, but my obsession made my thoughts ugly.

“Do you like drive your motorcycle into their compound and then they test you for worthiness or macho-ness? Or do you have to like rob a bank or something to show you’re willing to do anything for the MC?” I continued. “As much as I support you doing this, I really don’t think you should rob a bank. I know that movies make it seem like bank robberies have a high success rate, but they really don’t. It’s not a feasible way to steal money.”

Cody didn’t laugh or even crack a smile, which really didn’t reassure me about the whole bank robbery thing. In addition to the silence, there was the look. That look. The cold, tortured one from our first night together.

“Cody?” I asked, getting worried.

“I was your first,” Cody said, his voice dead.

I was scared. No, terrified. Because I didn’t recognize his voice. I didn’t recognize the way he looked at me. I suddenly felt too exposed with my shirt half unbuttoned. Like I needed a barrier because I had the feeling something was going to cut up my bare skin.

“I was your first,” he repeated.

The way he said those words to me gave me pause. There was something in his eyes. Something detached from us.

So I didn’t speak, just nodded.

“You weren’t mine.”

I flinched at his tone, though, the truth stung a little too. “I’m aware that you weren’t living in a convent prior to us getting together,” I teased, trying to joke but not succeeding.

“No, I didn’t have my first sexual experience with some fuckin’ cheerleader,” he scowled. There was violence in voice. In every cell of his body. My relaxed and charming boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. This was the dark side of him that I’d  sometimes seen snippets of. Flashes. Things that had told me I hadn’t yet seen all of him. Didn’t know all of him.

“Without going into detail that neither of us need, my first sexual experience was not consensual, happened when I was too fuckin’ young to understand what was going on, and the fact that my uncle was the one doing the… shit, I wasn’t brave enough to stand up to him. To say no.” He ran his hand through his hair, looking anywhere but me.

My heart thumped between my ears, a dull roar. The beer I drank earlier tonight curdled in my stomach, and it took effort to keep from throwing up. Hearing the pain and shame in Cody’s voice was sickening.

“He did it more than once,” he continued. “Told me it was a secret, that I’d get in trouble if I told anyone.” He laughed, but it was a bitter, ugly sound. “Stupid kid that I was, I believed him.”

I stepped forward, intending on touching him, comforting him, doing anything to take the suffering, pain and self-hatred from his body. He was coated with it.

Cody stepped back from my touch. Recoiled. His rejection hit me in the chest, but I got it.

“You weren’t stupid,” I said. “You were a child. And he was a monster.” Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to force them from falling. I couldn’t be weak in the face of this. Couldn’t show him an emotion he might construe as pity.

“Ah, no, he was just a man,” he said. “One that has to die.”

My blood went cold. “What?”

“He ruined me, Lizzie,” Cody hissed, finally looking at me. “He ruined what I might’ve had with you. Stole it from me. Ripped me up inside so self-hatred is all I know. When I told my dad, you know what he did? He smacked me around and called me a faggot.” Another one of those cold laughs spilled from him. “My mom would’ve believed me. But it also would’ve broken her heart, I knew that even then. Was protecting her even then. My dad beat me so bad that it made her leave him. When she saw what he did to me, she ran. With me. As far away as she could get.” He looked away. “Here,” he murmured. “She wanted Amber to be a fresh start. Clean slate. Something good. I didn’t want to tarnish our good thing with the rancid truth, so I buried it. With the promise to myself that when I was older, stronger, I’d go back there. I’d find him, and I’d kill him.”

A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t stop it. “Cody…” I stepped forward, but the way his body tensed made me pause. It wasn’t even tensing, it was a recoil. An emotional slap to the face and knife to the soul.

“You need to leave,” he said in that cold, disembodied voice.

“Leave?” I repeated, my voice shaking. “No. I’m not going anywhere.” Something told me if I left right then, I’d never see Cody again. It would be over in a scary, permanent way. “I can’t lose you.”

“You never really had me, Lizzie,” he countered. “Not all of me. I can’t give you that.  fuck, you’re in fucking high school. This is not the kind of shit we should be dealing with. That you should be dealing with. We need to grow up. Both of us.” He stared at me. Like I was a stranger. “You need to leave.”

I knew him, so in that moment I knew nothing was going to change his mind. And he was right. We were too young for this intensity. He’d just told me something that he’d been hiding, his greatest shame. The secret had obviously been cutting him up from the inside out. And I didn’t know how to handle something like this. Even if I did, Cody was telling me he didn’t want my help. Even though I wanted to be there for him, maybe Cody could tackle his demons alone. Maybe he needed to focus on himself, because when we were together, all his thoughts, effort and love went to me. And how was he meant to repair what had been broken without time for himself?

But the selfish part of me didn’t care. I didn’t care about all of that. About all the possible repercussions. I just wanted my boyfriend. I wanted to undress and go to bed with him. Sleep with his arms around me. I wanted to find a way to fix his pain, show him that it didn’t make me love him any less. That it didn’t make him any less. But he wouldn’t believe me. It wouldn’t sink in. I didn’t have any experience with this kind of horror, and I had no idea how to help him. Worse, I was terrified I’d hurt him.

“I’m going to leave,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face, “even though I know this decision is going to be painful for the two of us. I hate that you’re forcing me to go. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be without you. I don’t want you to think horrible things about yourself that aren’t true. But I can’t control that. Just please, carry this with you.” I undid the heart necklace he’d bought me for Christmas. The one that caused him to take a month longer to finish his motorcycle than it should’ve.

I didn’t trust myself to move closer and physically hand it to him, so I laid it gently on his nightstand.

“Carry me with you,” I pleaded, looking at him, another tear rolling down my cheek. “Just remember, there’s nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you. No matter what you think. However long it takes, I’ll be waiting for you. No matter what.”

I turned and walked out.

Part of me thought he’d chase after me, kiss me and promise everything was going to be okay.

But he didn’t.

Because everything wasn’t going to be okay.

Unfortunately, that’s not the way this story goes.

Scars of Yesterday – Sons of Templar MC #5

Okay, babes.

It’s that time again.

Sons of Templar time.

Did you really think I’d end 2020 without giving you some bikers? I feel like we all need something to look forward to right now. I can tell you, Scars of Yesterday is something to look forward to. It’s a story I’ve been afraid to write for months now. What I can tell you about writing is that the story you’re most afraid of, that’s the one you should write. That’s the one that will capture the hearts, minds and souls of readers.

I’m hoping that’s what Scars of Yesterday is going to do to you. I don’t have a preorder for this one. I’m actually going to release it as soon as I’ve got the proofs back. So I’ll be updating everyone on social media and in my reader group as to when I’m uploading. I’m aiming for mid/late November, if that helps. I’ve got the blurb below, and make sure to add it to your TBR.

Thank you for continuing to read my books. You’ve made my dreams come true.

 

The Sons of Templar MC.

I’m sure you’ve heard of them.

They’re infamous.

Murderers.

Criminals.

Outlaws.

But to me, they’re family.

My husband wore the cut for well over a decade. For almost as long as he wore a wedding ring. Our marriage survived wars. Deaths. Blood. The cuts were deep. And they never healed quite right. But we survived.

Until we didn’t.

He promised me forever. And he gave it to me. His version of it, at least. Mine was longer, though. Much longer.

I wanted to blame the Sons for killing my husband, wanted to hate the club. The cut. But that was impossible. Especially when I found myself falling in love with another man wearing the same cut.

Just when I thought there was nothing left in me to wound, he cut me the deepest. 

Resonance of Stars is live!

Release day is finally here.

Actually, it was here about three days ago but you get what I mean.

I’m so very proud of this story. These characters. We get to catch up with some of our old favourites and meet some new characters to fall in love with.

I’m not going to go on too much about this, because I want you to read it, find out for yourself. I just wanted to thank all of my loyal readers who continue to support me on this journey.

You can buy Resonance of Stars here.

Read free in Kindle Unlimited.

To the moon, my queens.

The Unquiet Mind Box Set

“We’re Unquiet Mind, and we’re here to rock your world.”

Calling all rockstar lovers! I have exciting news. My Unquiet Mind series is now complete, which means I can turn it into a box set. I know some of you might not have met our favourite band, so if you haven’t, it’s a great time to get acquainted.

All five books in the series are included in the box set and it’s half the price of buying the books individually. Plus, it’s free if you’re in KU. Although the series is technically finished, it doesn’t mean we’re saying goodbye to Unquiet Mind. They will make their appearances in future books. In fact, we get to hang out with Killian just a little in Resonance of Stars. My characters are my family, and we never say goodbye to family.

Buy it here.

Thank you all so much for your constant love and support.

You continue to make my dreams come true.

To the moon.

Anne

xxx

Hush is Live! Giveaway Details…

We. Are. Live.

Babes. I got so damn emotional with this release day. Sending a book I wrote with the love of my life out into the world is something beyond special.

We are so very proud of this book. It’s a story unlike anything I’ve ever written. It’s about monsters. About suffering. Stolen innocence. But it’s also about strength. Vengeance. And love. Although I wouldn’t call it a romance, I would say that the love between Orion and Maddox is the unbreakable thread woven through this book.

I can’t wait for you to read it. You can get it on Amazon, iBooks, Nook & Kobo.

We’ve also got an awesome giveaway going on. A signed copy of Hush plus a bunch of other books and swag. All you need to do is watch our YouTube video and check out the description for details. Plus, the video tells you all about our writing process and what you can expect from the book. Watch it here.

Hush – Prologue & Chapter One

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

– William Shakespeare

 

Prologue

Missouri summers are never easy, but this was a summer day for the record book in Grandview, a small farming community three hours southwest of St. Louis. The sweltering heat was worsened by the humidity that stuck to you like a second skin and kept most of the locals indoors—but not the children. Some spent the day running wildly through sprinklers in their front yards, others splashed around in the many brooks and creeks that surrounded the town. The older kids were looking for trouble . . . fireworks, alcohol, pot—anything that would give them a rush, a grounding, and some cool points.

But for Orion Darby, it was not the heat she was concerned with, nor any childish games or teenage rebellion. No, it was the blue-eyed boy standing across from her on the back deck of his parents’ home. It was her first kiss on a broiling evening in June.

It would be the last little breath of happiness before her world went dark, and a cell became her home. Before she would wonder whether it was cruel of the universe to give her that little taste of happiness, Maddox’s soft, hesitant mouth tasting faintly like Juicy Fruit. Or a blessing to give her that singular memory to hold on to when the pain felt like it could kill her. Much later than that, she’d realize that the universe was not concerned with her, that there were no greater powers at work other than monsters masquerading as men and she was just a pawn in their world. Surely, if there was a god, he would’ve saved girls like her.

But that was later.

This was still that perfect summer day . . . that perfect first kiss.

Maddox Hampton Novak—or Maddie as loved ones called him—wasn’t supposed to like someone like Orion. He was the epitome of a teenage heartthrob. He played lead guitar in a punk band, started every varsity game as wide receiver for the football team, and he was even the lead in all the school plays. A true Renaissance man. Had he not been the older brother of her best friend, April, Orion knew he wouldn’t have thought twice about looking at her, let alone kissing her. At least, that’s what she told herself. Besides, he was sixteen, two years her senior, and he had plenty of girls his own age to chase after. Some older ones too.

Orion had never planned on kissing him, even after she noticed her lingering glances were being returned. She didn’t want to piss off her best friend, didn’t want to destroy the only real thing she had in her life then. But when the town stud starts noticing the girl from the poor family, with Walmart clothes two sizes too small and a face dotted with countless freckles, what exactly was she to do?

That was the most peculiar aspect of it all really. She was a Darby, and Darbys were poverty-stricken nobodies. Always had been. Always would be. They lived in squalor at Sunnyside Trailer Park, the scourge of Grandview, in a trailer passed down from one dirtbag to the next. Darbys drank away their paychecks and fed their kids scraps, perpetuating a cycle of addiction and abuse that lasted generations.

The Novaks—Maddox and April—lived in a two-story house situated on three acres, in a community where each home was more impressive than the next. Their father was the only dentist in town, their mother a paralegal for the only law firm. Lights were always on, the water always ran, and life was good. Maddox and April had two parents who cared about them, who didn’t have rap sheets, who didn’t lay a hand on them in anger, and bought them whatever they desired. In other words, they were the exact opposite of everything Orion had ever known.

When she first befriended April in the second grade, she had yet to realize just how different her existence was compared to everybody else’s. It wasn’t until she saw the Novak’s house for the first time, full of all their things, and all their happiness and familial love, that she realized just how bad things were.

That was why Ri never expected the heartthrob she’d secretly loved for years to finally see her . . . to want her.

The week before, he’d pulled her aside at Jessie Knowles’s party, and told her how he felt, told her he wanted to kiss her, and his words made her come alive.

She had dreamed of it happening but never expected it, that smile he flashed as he held her hands on the back porch, the sun setting behind them and casting beautiful reds and oranges like fire across the sky. Slightly crooked, that smile of his. But not his teeth. Being the son of the town dentist had more benefits than just a nice home. For a moment, it reminded her of her own teeth, crooked as they were, though white from habitual cleaning, so she flashed him a tight-lipped smile back.

The way he looked at her then, a stupid grin on his face as his eyes traced her lips, made her both nervous and excited. When he finally kissed her, she forgot all about the fact that he had just broken up with Sharlene Evans, the most beautiful girl in school. She forgot about the long line of beautiful girls who had come before Sharlene. Forgot about her crooked smile, her Walmart clothes, and her shitty parents. None of it mattered because right then, in his embrace, he saw only her and she saw only him—the world was theirs for the taking.

He kissed her passionately, like she was the only girl in the world. It was the kind of first kiss that girls with straight teeth and more reputable last names deserved.

But Ri didn’t think about that.

She just thought about how perfect he tasted, how freeing it felt to be wanted by the boy she had loved for so long. The boy all the other girls wanted.

Maddox pulled back, staring at her with a smile in his eyes, but not on his lips. He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip in a practiced move that was so very adult and manly.

“You’re so beautiful,” he muttered through a grin.

“Thank you,” Ri said, voice meek and raspy, her nervous eyes jutting to the wooden deck beneath their feet.

Maddox’s fingers went to her chin, forcing her gaze upward.

“I mean it,” he said. Louder this time. More forceful. “I’ve always thought about what it’d be like to kiss you.”

Ri’s stomach dropped much like she imagined it would’ve had she been on a roller coaster—which of course, she wasn’t. Her family could never afford Six Flags. But she figured it’d feel like thrill, fear, and excitement mixed up in her insides.

“Really?” she asked, unable to keep the shock from her voice. “I mean, it felt like lately, maybe you were feeling some kind of way about me. Flirting, I guess, but I didn’t know, I couldn’t ever imagine you actually liking me. And then with everything else . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shouldn’t have talked so much. Shouldn’t have made her doubt so prominent, right on the surface. She should’ve buried it deep down, much like the shame her last name brought with it.

Maddox shrugged. “You mean my sister.”

Ri nodded. April had not been blind to the way Ri looked at her brother, and she’d given Ri a bunch of crap about it, making it clear she didn’t approve. Orion tried denying her feelings, but unlike her parents, she was no good at lying. She’d made a promise to her best friend that she would stop liking Maddox. The promise wasn’t a lie, per se. She really did try.

Then came this moment, on this perfect summer evening, with this perfect boy, and it all had gotten the best of her. A first kiss was important to a girl, especially a kiss like this. And though she had defied her best friend’s request, she was certain that no first kiss had ever been better.

It was in the midst of this perfect kiss when Orion heard a familiar voice, thick with agitation.

“Ew, Orion . . . I did not just catch you making out with my brother.”

Orion glanced up and found April with a hand on her hip and annoyance in her eyes.

Maddox moved slightly but purposefully in front of Ri, like he was going to protect her. Not only from his pissed-off and overly dramatic sister, but from the world. “Give it a rest, April,” he said. “It’s none of your business.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, buttface,” April snapped, her piercing gaze focusing on Ri. “Orion, are you aware that it’s almost dark?” She pointed to the sky. “Um, hellooo . . . your mom’s gonna kill you.”

Ri, who had been feeling delightfully soft and carefree, snapped her eyes up at the sky. Panic crawled into her throat. Reality hit.

“As mad as I am at you right now, I’d prefer my best friend remain alive. Who else am I gonna watch Charmed with?” April continued, and she let out a huff.

“I’m so screwed,” Ri said, hating her best friend a little in that moment for ripping her out of this dream. She eyed Maddox, a pout forming. “I don’t want to leave,” she admitted. “Today, all of this was just . . . perfect.”

A gagging noise came from the direction of the back door as April slid it open. “Okay, I’m going back inside now. I can’t witness this nonsense or I might puke.” April shook her head. “Get home, so you don’t get grounded, Ri. I wanna hang out tomorrow, but don’t think I’m not still pissed!” April said with a little scowl, before storming inside and sliding the door closed hard behind her.

Maddox put his arms around Ri, the gesture already natural, right. He wasn’t hesitant, nervous. No, he touched her like he had been doing it for months. “Don’t worry about her. You know she’ll forget why she’s angry by the time you get home.” He kissed her forehead. “It’ll all work out.” He said it with such assurance that Orion wanted to believe it, wanted to pretend things worked out for girls like her. To pretend that bad things weren’t waiting in the wings to tear it all down.

She almost fell for it. She wanted to. But she didn’t have a perfect life, and she had plenty of real worries. She did not have experience in everything ‘working out.’

Maddox saw her worry, her confusion, maybe not the depth of it, because he didn’t have the ability to read people too far beyond the surface—not yet anyway—but he saw enough to know her mind was running, her thoughts a storm.

So he kissed her again.

“Trust me?” he asked, cocking his head.

It was a big question to a girl like Ri. She didn’t know how to trust because she always had to be on guard, on the defensive. Really, she didn’t even know what trust meant, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She wasn’t about to let him in on how messed up her thoughts were sometimes, how self-degrading.

“I trust you,” she muttered, her chest tightening, the hurt of having to leave feeling all too real.

He took her in for one last hug, kissed the top of her head, and whispered, “I won’t break that trust, Ri.”

They were the last words she’d hear him say for ten years.

* * *

She thought about him the whole ride home. She was happy. Hopeful, even. Energized enough not to worry about a grounding or a beating. Enamored enough not to notice the van following her.

How could she have noticed it? She was imagining a future with the man of her dreams. The wedding. The house on the rich side of town. The cars, the babies. No thoughts of jobs, bills, or practicalities. Girls weren’t plagued with the details of reality, not after their first kiss anyway.

The bike ride home from the Novaks wasn’t too far for Orion—a fifteen-minute trip at best—and she had done it so many times before that she could do it in her sleep. But along the way, as she got closer to home, the area grew more derelict—smashed streetlights, long abandoned industrial buildings, and very few homes, which were rundown and unsightly themselves. Orion had always ridden extra fast through these parts, but this time she was too distracted, too lost in her thoughts, too immersed in a world where she lived life as Mrs. Orion Novak.

By the time she noticed the van behind her, it was too late. Its bumper clipped the rear tire of her bike and sent her flying over the handlebars, hurtling her onto the front of a rusty Civic that was parked on the street. She bounced off the windshield and landed with a jarring thump on the road, the breath heaving from her lungs. Her whole body stung, muscles seized, hot blood dripped from her nose.

It wasn’t a pretty crash.

It was ugly.

Just like the rest of her life was about to become.

Chapter One

As a child, Orion was a force to be reckoned with. She talked back. Complained. Refused to cry. Did just about everything an overdisciplined child of abuse shouldn’t do. It was her way of taking back control. Of fighting back against the beatings, the despicable words, the ugliness of life itself.

When she didn’t give her father the tears he desired, he’d zip-tie her hands, duct-tape her mouth, and make her sit in a closet in complete darkness, sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours. The length of time depended on her father’s anger, state of inebriation, or if her little brother was able to sneak in and let her out himself with their father none the wiser. Adam was always looking out for her in that way, trying to help her when he could, even if it risked abuse of his own. Perhaps it was his loving nature, or maybe he felt guilt over his sister’s much tougher treatment at the hands of their father.

Ri had been so sure that she’d escape it all as soon as she was old enough and had earned enough money. On that fateful bike ride home, she had entertained the thought of Maddox potentially being involved in that escape. Not as a savior, because she was going to save herself regardless, but as a partner-in-crime of sorts.

It didn’t take her long to realize she wasn’t going to be saved. Wasn’t going to escape. Her life was only going to get worse and worse and worse, until she was eventually snuffed out like a candle in the wind and the world forgot all about her.

She eventually discovered that all the pain she felt as a child—her father’s temper and cruelty, her mother’s apathy and complete disregard—was all practice, training for the years she’d spend in a twenty square foot concrete cell, in the basement of an unassuming house, twenty miles from her home.

* * *

The first night was little more than a blur. Being thrown into the van, her head throbbing, her vision blurry, the pain immense. Voices gruff and cruel. She remembered begging, pleading. And the smell. Like body odor, cheap booze . . . like her father. But worse than that. Like something was decaying from the inside out. She’d smelled it on their breath. Hot on her face. Terrifying.

Her bladder let go at some point, she remembered that. The smell of her own urine mixed in with the filth of the van, a smell that would stay with her forever.

She didn’t remember the specifics of the van ride, apart from the wetness between her legs, the shame, terror, and pain mixed in. She remembered them speaking, threatening . . . the Things. She’d learn that all the girls called them Thing One and Two. They didn’t have names, didn’t deserve them. They were monsters. That’s all.

She didn’t consider them monsters at first because she was too afraid. Disorientated. Confused. There wasn’t enough clarity to understand what was going on. Maybe she didn’t want to understand. If she didn’t understand, didn’t force herself to face the facts, then she could pretend this wasn’t happening. That somehow she’d strayed into a nightmare like The Twilight Zone. She’d wake up soon.

But she didn’t.

The nightmare wasn’t in her head.

The nightmares had become reality.

She didn’t hear much of what they said, but one sentence stuck out to her, carved itself into her soul.

“Hush now, girl. You belong to us now . . .”

Reality became stark, lucid and inescapable with the first rape in the back of the van that first night.

A girl always remembers her first time.

She was kissed tenderly, lovingly, and amazingly on a perfect summer day by the boy of her dreams. On that nightmare summer night, her virginity was torn from her, painfully, violently, and terrifyingly in the back of that smelly van. Their sweat-soaked hands kept her screams bottled up inside and her arms clamped down at her sides. She fought until she could fight no longer. Her tired muscles gave out, she closed her eyes, and she used Maddox then for the first time as a sort of trance, a meditation . . . his beautiful smile, his tender kiss, his loving touch.

The other times, they weren’t as stark. Weren’t as memorable. Was it because the horror became monotonous? Or because her brain could only handle so much trauma? Maybe the drugs. She’d gotten used to the drugs.

They gave them to her that first night when they dragged her into the house. She was fighting again at that point, screaming, clawing at them. After the injection, they dragged her down the basement steps. Her vision was hazy, her body going limp, but she did see the cockroaches scuttling across the floor as one of them flipped the lights on. She saw the stained mattress, chains, and a large door in front of her, like the gateway to hell.

At some point she passed out, her eyelids too heavy to fight. She thought she saw other girls, thought she smelled blood, but she no longer could distinguish what was real and what was a dream.

The smell caught her a few hours later, like the roadkill she and April had found once when they were younger, poked and prodded the thing until the smell became too much to bear, the iron-y scent of dried blood, the musk of decay. Its pungency yanked her from unconsciousness, or maybe it was the pain. She felt it then in her side. Her ribs screamed with every small movement, every breath. It brought visions of the van, and the car she collided into, the fists that rained down on her and the clunk of her thin body against the basement steps.

It wasn’t dark. She thought that was cruel, on top of it all. To show her where she was, to light the bloodstains on the floor. Harsh fluorescent lights illuminated the concrete walls aged with filth. The floor—which served as her mattress—was cold, the concrete dirty. She observed the stains again, all various shades of crimson. She didn’t want to think about what they were.

She did anyway.

Wants didn’t mean anything in a place like this.

Ri tried to sit up, out of habit more than anything. She didn’t know why she should want to sit upright, be conscious, move from the stained, smelly floor. She wanted to try and lapse back into unconsciousness.  She should just close her eyes and drift back to sleep . . . perhaps she would wake back up in her own bed. She’d never thought of home as home before, never wanted to spend any time there, dreamed of escaping and never returning. But now, now she begged God to be taken back, to be told this was all some horrible nightmare. She’d never spoken to that being, that thing people worshipped at the small church in town. Orion had thought it was all bullshit. But she was desperate right now, so she pleaded God for this to be a nightmare.

It wasn’t. And as she took in the metal clasp around her ankle and the chain that connected her to the concrete wall, she began to weep, wincing from the pain it brought her.

“Don’t try to move too fast, sweetheart.”

Ri jerked, the voice catching her off guard, even though it was soft and kind. She didn’t understand soft and kind anymore.

Ri searched the room for the owner of the voice, but the lights were too bright, searing her eyes, the back of her head, spots clouding her vision.

“Help me, please,” Ri rasped, sobbing through the words.

Someone scoffed. “There’s no helping you now, baby.” This voice was different. Sarcastic.

“Shut up, Jaclyn!” the first voice snapped.

A hand settled on Ri’s shoulders, gently helping her upright. She didn’t have it in her to flinch. The hand on her, no matter how gentle, all but peeled the skin from her flesh. Someone strange touching her, it caused the memories to rush back in. The van, the loss of her innocence at the hands of two vile pigs. She was dirty. Defiled.

That only made her sob more.

Through her tears, Ri took in the girl she’d come to know as Mary Lou. Her strawberry blonde hair was tangled, messy, but not dirty. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, which made the dark circles under her eyes all the more prominent, even in the dull light. She looked older, maybe in her early twenties, and the thought of their age difference sent a shudder down Orion’s spine.

How long has she been in here? she thought, her stomach turning.

Mary Lou smiled warmly, as if she could sense Orion’s turmoil. The smile—more importantly, how genuine it was—surprised Orion. Such a smile seemed foreign in a place like this.

Mary Lou placed her hand on Ri’s cheek. The gesture was meant to comfort, so Ri didn’t flinch away from the touch because of the girl’s kind smile. She didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Are you okay?” Mary Lou asked, a concerned wrinkle in her brow. “I mean, considering.”

She asked it like the answer could be anything. Like somehow, in this basement, this cell, with the rancid smell of monsters all over her, the rancid presence of them inside her wasn’t real.

Ri couldn’t fake it, couldn’t pretend to be strong. Before this, she’d always thought she was tough. She weathered abuse from her parents. Poverty. The ridicule from those at school who considered her to be trash. She had none of that strength now. It was stolen, scooped out of her like everything else had been.

“I hurt so bad,” Ri sobbed, all semblance of strength crumbling away from her like the weak shield it had been. “I’m so tired.”

She was. Exhausted. She wished she could sink into the concrete, the ground, and sleep forever. She didn’t just want to sleep, she wanted to die. It was the first time she’d wished such a thing, and it would certainly not be the last.

Mary Lou wiped the tears from Ri’s face. Ri regarded what the girl was wearing. A white hospital gown with tiny blue flowers covering it. She expected it to be dirty—they were surrounded by filth after all. But it was spotless. Ri looked down to see she was wearing the same thing. She was clean. How could she be clean? The dirt and grime clung to her, was embedded in her bones.

“Where am I?”

“That’s a good question,” Mary Lou said. “We call it The Cell. Not very original, I know.” She fumbled with a chain wrapped around her ankle. It was attached to the wall just like the one around Orion’s ankle. “Truth be told, we don’t know where we are.”

“We?”

She motioned to her right, and Ri’s eyes found the girl at the other end of the room—The Cell—leaning against the wall. She wore the same gown as the other two girls, ankle chained to a D-ring on the far wall.

“That’s Jaclyn,” the girl explained. There was an edge to her soft voice. “She’s a delight, if you can’t already tell.” She pointed a few feet beside Jaclyn. “The one pretending to be asleep is Patricia.”

Ri focused on a girl, curled up in a ball on the floor, facing away from everyone. She found herself jealous of the girl, pretending or not, wishing she was doing the same. It hurt to talk, hurt even more to take in her new reality.

“We don’t all live in denial like Mary Lou here,” Jaclyn said, her words sharp. Everything else about the girl was sharp too. Latina; emerald eyes; long, dark, wild hair; all of her features strong, jarring, and beautiful, even in here. She was also clean.

Ri was struck with pure jealousy in that moment, despite everything. Despite the pain between her legs, inside her soul, the fear gnawing at her nerves, telling her that nothing would ever be the same again, her girlish envy somehow remained unharmed.

Ri would come to learn that Jaclyn’s beauty, her presence, was not something to be envied, coveted. It meant she was the prize possession. Their favorite.

In The Cell, you didn’t want to be the favorite.

Mary Lou straightened, jutting her chin upward in a gesture that Ri recognized. April did it now and again, not really knowing she was doing it. Almost a tic for girls from families that spoiled them, pampered them, and gave them the tools to be spoiled, to look down on people whether they knew they were doing it or not.

“You will never bring me down to your level, Jaclyn,” Mary Lou said, her grip tightening ever so slightly on Ri. She found she preferred that pain as opposed to the tenderness of before. “I will always have hope.”

Jaclyn narrowed her eyes, focusing on Ri. “You want to know what happened to the last person who wore those chains, little girl?” she asked Ri, and Orion didn’t much like where she was going with it.

It hit Ri then, quickly, without mercy. The truth. The ugliness of it. These girls were familiar with their surroundings. Resigned. They’d been here long enough to figure out ways to cope.

She wasn’t stupid. She’d read stories, watched the news. Missing girls. Children. Rarely found. What was it, the first twenty-four hours? Forty-eight? They were important. Critical. You didn’t find many after that. You wouldn’t want to find many after that.

“Do you really wanna know?” Jaclyn followed up, her tone condescending.

“You shut up right now, Jaclyn,” Mary Lou snapped, voice bordering on shrill. Similar to the tone April’s mother used with her when she was being a brat.

Then again, she also shouldn’t have been sitting in a basement with a chain on her ankle.

Ri started to tremble. She didn’t want to. She wanted to lean against the wall with her arms folded, accepting of her fate like Jaclyn was. Or maybe even blindly hopeful and kind like Mary Lou.

Not shaking, with tears and snot running down her face.

But she wasn’t in control of that. She felt powerless to the realization.

So she trembled and sobbed. “Wh-where are we? What is this?” The words came out on their own, panicked.

“This is hell on earth,” Jaclyn said, not the least bit gently. “And you’re the newest resident.”

Mary Lou stood, crossing the small space between them with a purpose, right up until the chain at her ankle went rigid and stopped her a few feet shy of the girl.

Jaclyn remained leaning lazily against the wall, a sly, taunting smile on her face. Ri suspected such a face-off happened often by the look of it. How could tension not be high? Orion had shared a trailer long enough to know, close quarters with anyone will lead to conflict.

Mary Lou jabbed a finger in Jaclyn’s direction, fire in her eyes. “I swear, Jaclyn, if you don’t leave this poor girl alone—”

“You’ll what?” Jaclyn snarled, pushing off the wall and standing, the chain jangling at her feet. She tensed her shoulder, hands fisted at her sides. “She’s not the only ‘poor girl’ in this fucking place. She’s no more damned than the rest of us. Stop fucking babying her.”

Mary Lou shook her head in disappointment or anger. Orion couldn’t decipher. Maybe both. “And who was here to comfort you when you first got here? Would you rather I just fed you to the wolves?”

Jaclyn scoffed. “Newsflash, Mary Lou. The wolves have been feasting since I got here. You can’t protect me from that. Just like you can’t protect her. When the beasts are hungry, they come prowling for their hapless prey.” She rattled the chain on her ankle purposefully.

Ri saw the fire, the fury in Jaclyn’s eyes from across the dimly lit space, and she felt something that surprised her . . . pity. She imagined then, Jaclyn’s first day in The Cell, and what she must have been like. She imagined an innocent girl just like herself, slowly turned jaded over—years? Weeks? Months?—of abuse.

“And comfort?” Jaclyn asked, her eyes piercing. “Comfort? You lied to me, Mary Lou. You don’t make it any better when you pretend we’re not all going to fucking die in here. And that before we die, we’re gonna experience shit that’ll make us wish we were dead. When you spew your toxic optimism all over the place like we’re going to see our families again. Our friends. Like we’re ever gonna walk out of this fucking hellhole. Like we’re gonna ever see freedom again.” Jaclyn’s face was red, spittle flying from her lips as the words tore from them. “Get a fucking clue, girl. We’re not! This is it, Mother Mary. I’m not going to live in fucking La La Land and I’m not going to let you give this poor girl false hope.”

Jaclyn backed up to the wall and slid back down so she was sitting on the concrete again. She rested her arms on the top of her knees, and just like that, the anger in her features dissipated. The smug grin Orion would get more than used to returned. “Now leave me the fuck alone,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall and letting out a long breath. “And good luck with your new project. Hopefully she fares better than the last one did.” She nodded her head to the freshest of the crimson stains on the floor, nearest Orion’s feet.

Orion cowered away from the stain, back against the cold, hard wall, tears welling in her eyes.

Mary Lou turned from Jaclyn sharply, disgust written on her features. “Shame on you, Jaclyn,” she said quietly. “Shame on you for bringing Sarah into this.”

Jaclyn ignored her.

Mary Lou focused on Ri once more, chain clanging as she walked back toward her, as close as she could get. She sat down, cross-legged, and rested her hands in her lap. “Ignore her, dear. She’s got a bad attitude.”

“What happened to the last girl?” Orion asked, not even hearing her last statement.

Mary Lou didn’t answer.

“What do you think?” Jaclyn snapped from across the room. She was glaring at Ri now, coldly, like she hated her for speaking, for breathing.

Ri hated herself a little for breathing too.

Mary Lou’s hand reached out to Orion. “Ignore her,” she repeated.

Ri wouldn’t, of course. She was fascinated with the details of the last girl who wore her chains. She searched for words, but couldn’t find any, couldn’t figure out what she wanted to know.

“What is this place?” she finally asked, her eyes flitting from Mary Lou, to Jaclyn, and finally, to Patricia, who now trembled uncontrollably as the tears came.

“Put two and two together, sweetheart,” Jaclyn said, laughing coldly.

Mary Lou’s lips pursed. She took a visible breath. “We were all . . . taken.” She paused, eyes going far away. She was remembering something, Ri could see that. Maybe the van. The things. The smells.

“We’re being held captive by the two who brought you in here. We call them Thing One and Thing Two.” Mary Lou continued, “One is the fat one. Two is the one who looks like Skeletor.” She chuckled. “Not that it matters. They’re both disgusting pigs.”

“Why did they take us?” Ri asked the question, even though the pain between her legs told her everything she needed to know. They were there for one thing, and one thing only.

Mary Lou’s eyes flitted to her lap. “It’s best we don’t discuss that right now. You need to rest. There are a lot of drugs still in your system.”

Tears trailed down Ri’s cheeks. Why did she have to be so nice? Calm. It made everything worse. “I don’t understand,” she said through a sob.

Chains rattled. Jaclyn was standing again. “It seems you need someone to spell it out for you. You’ve been taken by two pedophiles. You belong to them and their buddies now. You don’t belong to yourself. You don’t control anything. It’s something you need to get right with fast, because fighting fate ain’t gonna do you any good. And fighting them is only gonna get you beat up worse.” She paused. “And one last thing. You are never getting out of here. That’s the truth. It’s ugly. But I’m thinking as soon as you opened your eyes, you realized ain’t nothing beautiful waiting for you in the future, no matter what this bitch tells you.” She jerked her head to Mary Lou. “Your fate is sealed, just like ours. And the sooner you get used to that, the better off you’ll be.”

Mary Lou’s face had been getting redder and redder during Jaclyn’s tirade, her mouth twisted into a scowl that Ri would only see a handful of times throughout their years of captivity. For the most part, Mary Lou stayed positive, energetic. She rarely let reality bring her down. “I hate you, Jaclyn,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. The chains clanged again as she stood. “I hate you!” she screamed. “I wish it were you and not Sarah, you know that?”  Mary Lou clapped her hands over her mouth in a vain attempt to hold the words in.

Jaclyn raised her middle finger, sitting down again. “I wish it were me instead, too, bitch . . . trust me.” Her voice was a growl, her elbows resting atop her knees once more, and then her head dropped between them. “Trust me,” she murmured, and Orion thought she heard a sniffle.

The silence that followed was long and stifling.

It was something that would get to Ri, throughout the years. The absolute quiet. No far-off sounds of cars, sirens, civilization. No music, no TV, no books. Nothing but empty air to taunt them and show them no one would hear them scream, that no one would ever find them.

“How long have you guys been here?” Ri asked finally, the quiet starting to burrow under her skin, to make her think crazy thoughts, unwelcome thoughts.

She regretted the question upon seeing Mary Lou’s face. As kind as her eyes were, the rest of her face dropped, that hope falling off it like water on a windshield.

“You really should rest,” she said, avoiding Ri’s gaze.

“Please,” Ri said. She should’ve felt bad, pressing Mary Lou like this. Not giving her respite, but she didn’t. Mary Lou was in a position above her. Didn’t Ri hear that knowledge was power? Chains at her ankle and bruises on her thighs were the sign of how little power she had. She’d get the knowledge. Even if it were just shreds. She needed something.

Mary Lou took a deep breath. “How long I’ve been here really depends on what year it is.” She was weary. Words and tone decades older than this girl in her early twenties was.

“It’s 2006,” Ri replied.

Mary Lou’s sharp intake of breath told Ri something. As did Jaclyn’s slightly maniacal cackle from the other end of the room.

“What?” Ri asked, even though she knew this was bad for her. For all of them.

A tear ran down Mary Lou’s cheek. “It’s been far too long,” she rasped.

“How long?” Ri probed. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.

Mary Lou took another sharp breath. “I was taken in 1997,” she whispered.

“2001,” Jaclyn called out. She shook her head, clicking her teeth. “Five years,” she muttered, then laughed coldly again. “Five fucking years.”

Sobs echoed from the corner where Patricia was still curled in a ball. Her body twitched with each one.

“Patricia was brought here a few months ago,” Mary Lou said.

Words and numbers were ricocheting in Ri’s mind. She couldn’t process the fact that these girls had been here, in this dank, dark place for years. That couldn’t be right.

“How is this even possible?” she said. “How could you have been here for so long?”

Ri had been wrong. Knowledge was not power. Now, she knew, her mind was falling apart, unraveling as the chain around her ankle tightened.

“Look around you,” Jaclyn said. “That’s how years could go by.”

“The walls are thick,” Mary Lou said. “We can’t hear when they’re coming down the stairs. We can’t hear them unlocking the chains on the other side of the door. Nothing travels.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I stopped trying to figure it out years ago. Years,” she repeated, blinking rapidly.

Ri could see it now, where her threads were showing. At first, she seemed kind, as normal as a girl could given the situation. But she was lost too. Broken. Parts of her mind. Sanity. It wasn’t there anymore.

“What door?” Ri demanded. A door meant escape no matter what they said. They’d been here for too long. They’d given up. Ri had more fight in her. She’d get back to that perfect summer day. To that perfect kiss. This would all be a nightmare.

Mary Lou pointed at the wall Patricia was curled in front of. “Do you see the separation in the concrete? It opens there.”

Ri squinted, her head pounding and gaze unfocused, but she did manage to make out a definite crack.

“And you haven’t tried to attack them when they open it, when they come in?” Orion asked, and it sounded almost judgmental, though she hadn’t meant it to. “Fight back or something?”

Jaclyn scoffed. “Stupid little girl.”

“There are cameras in every corner of the room,” Mary Lou explained. “Microphones too. The door is heavy. They can barely open it themselves. They’re heavily armed at all times. There is a lot to this. They’re not your average kid diddlers. They’re organized.”

Ri followed Mary Lou’s gaze to the corners of the ceiling. Red lights glowed in dark corners, and Ri could make out the shape of a small camera.

“Fighting back does nothing but make things worse.” Mary Lou’s eyes darted in Jaclyn’s direction.

Ri didn’t know it then, but she would discover later that Jaclyn fought back often in the beginning, when her will was still strong. It wasn’t a surprise, considering how feisty she was. But when Ri found out how she was punished, she would understand why someone like Jaclyn would stop fighting.

Orion sat in silence for a long while. She looked around the room and took it all in. She thought of the John Sanford and Patricia Cornwell novels her mother loved so much, and the true crime books she devoured like her Pall Malls. Ri ended up reading those same books, because she needed an escape, and she didn’t have the money or resources to choose who authored her escape. She’d read all about men like this, who treated people as objects and life as disposable.

She had learned to love those books, and she wasn’t quite sure why. She knew it was weird to be so interested in the horrific murders of another, but the books exhilarated her nonetheless. And it was the only thing she shared with her mother, their only commonality. She became addicted to reading about lives that were much worse than hers. No magic carpets, handsome princes, or mythical creatures. She had loved the reminder that things could always be worse. A perverse way of not letting her miserable existence seem so bad.

Until now. Now she was living that worst-case scenario. Now she had become the victim in those tragic stories she devoured and obsessed over. She had been plunged right inside one of those crime books because she’d kissed Maddox for too long, lingered in a dream for too long, ridden home late. She was the pawn, controlled by sick needs, and it was all her fault. It’s all she could tell herself.

Ri would later conclude—because she had nothing but time to think—that it made sense. She was cursed from birth by way of genetics and fate.

Some people were put on earth to be shat on. Divine comedy for those pulling the strings. Ri was one of those people. Maybe she deserved it. Maybe, in some past life, she’d sentenced herself to this. Maybe her parents carried it in their DNA, passing it over to her like cancer or mental illness. A Darby through and through. A life of depravity and despair.

“Do you have any good stories?” Mary Lou asked again, seeming to sense the storm raging inside Orion’s head. “We’re fresh out. I think I’ve told all mine at least three times over.”

“And they’re thrilling, lemme tell ya,” Jaclyn added, scoffing.

Ri’s eyes trailed to Jaclyn and she scrunched her brows. “Has she always been like that?” she asked, leaning toward Mary Lou and lowering her voice.

Mary Lou shrugged. “She’s grown worse, but she’s never been a people person.” Her eyes darkened. “Which I guess I understand—people can be pretty horrible.”

“And her?” Ri nodded toward Patricia.

Mary Lou’s lips turned down, her eyes softening. “She hasn’t adapted well. Not many of them do.” There was resignation, knowledge there.

“How many have there been?” Ri asked. The questions served nothing but her sick addiction. To dreary lives. Misery.

Mary Lou’s eyes went to the floor. Lines of distress wrinkled her forehead. “We shouldn’t talk about it,” she said, giving her head a slight shake. She forced a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Orion,” Ri responded, though her thoughts belonged to the girls who came before her, and whether they went quick or not. “But everyone calls me Ri.”

“Nice to meet you, Ri,” Mary Lou said, extending a petite hand.

Ri scooted closer, avoiding the crimson stain, and she shook Mary Lou’s hand gingerly before returning her hand quickly to her lap.

“Tell me something about you,” Mary Lou said. She was trying to distract her. Ri could see that.

“Are you telling me that this is my life now?” she asked, the words spilling out on their own. She couldn’t help the panic and confusion that set in often, hitting her in waves for much of her first year in The Cell. “I’m stuck here until the day they decide to kill me? Is that what you’re saying?”

Mary Lou put a hand on her shoulder, meant to comfort. Her other cupped her cheek. Ri bit her lip again. “We’ll find a way out,” she whispered softly. “It just takes time.”

 

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Resonance of Stars – Greenstone Security

I was a movie star.

I’d let the world convince me I was nothing more than that.

Until him…

Duke is employed to protect me. To make me disappear before I testify. Nothing more.

There aren’t many places in the world that someone like me can disappear to. Not when billions of people know my name. I’d worked hard to make it that way. To hide underneath layers of fame, beauty and wealth.

A ranch in Montana offers escape. Safety. But those Montana skies don’t let me hide. Not from myself.

Not from the truth.

I’m no longer a movie star.

I’m a witness. I’m a job. I’m a woman slowly falling in love with a man that despises me.

He’s tasked to protect my life, instead he ruins my soul.

 

Are you ready for some more Greenstone Security? I’ve really missed these guys and I LOVED writing this book. I’m so freaking excited to share this story with you. Release day is September 14th. Pre-order now.