Renee Rose's Blog, page 3
February 10, 2020
Alpha Knight – New Release
Title: Alpha Knight
Series: Wolf Ridge High #2
Author: Renee Rose
Genre: High School Bully Romance
with a PNR twist
Release Date: February 9, 2020
Blurb
SHE’S GETTING A FAKE BOYFRIEND–ME.
WHETHER SHE LIKES IT OR NOT.
The leggy car thief is trouble with a capital T.
My brother went down because of her
I need to find him before the cops do.
Which means I’m not letting her out of my sight.
Anywhere the human goes, I go.
I’ll play her fake boyfriend.
Sleep in her bedroom.
Go to her prep school classes.
Take her to the homecoming dance.
I will learn all her secrets, find out all her games.
By the time I’m done with her, she’ll be sorry.
Sorry she ever set foot in our shop.
Sorry we met.
Sorry she made me fall for her.
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Excerpt
I carry the plate upstairs and check over my shoulder before I open the
door.
What I find makes me sorry I had any consideration for the asshole
sitting at my desk.
He’s holding my freaking
vibrator!
“Look what I found.” He smirks, holding it up between his thumb and
forefinger and waggling it back and forth.
“You asshole. Put that away,” I
grit out between clenched teeth, dropping the plate of mac ‘n cheese onto the
bedside table.
Damn him. Where does he get off?
“Does Tyler know about this?” He keeps waving it.
I stalk over and try to grab it, but he’s too quick, moving it to the
side, then up high.
“Does he use it on you, Legs?”
My pussy clenches, even as flames fly out of my ears. I lunge for the
vibe, not caring that I plunked my knee right on his thigh to reach up high and
grab it.
The perv clamps an arm around the backs of my thighs, his forearm lifting
my ass like he’s trying to help.
It has the extremely unfortunate effect of getting me horny as hell. Or
maybe that’s the sight of my B.O.B.
I don’t back down, though. If he wants to get up close and personal, I’ll
go all the way in. I shove my tits in his face and pry the vibrator out of his
fingers. I’m pretty sure he only let me because I caught him off guard. The
second I have it, I slam it down on the top of his head.
And then I scramble back.
Oops.
I didn’t mean to hit him.
That hard.
Or maybe at all.
We both stare at each other in shock. I’m slightly horrified at my own
violence–I’ve never hit anyone in my life.
He looks just as surprised to find I’m capable of it. Or maybe he’s
really hurt.
“Ouch,” he confirms.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you with–”
“No you shouldn’t have.” In a flash, he’s up off the chair, divesting me
of the vibrator. He tackles me to the bed. “You’re in big trouble now, Legs.”
Somehow, that sounds more sexy than threatening.
And my body responds with a full on pleasure rush. Heat floods my lady
parts. Peaks my nipples.
Somewhere near my right ear, my vibrator roars to life.
Also Available
$2.99 for a limited time!
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU
Free in Kindle Unlimited
Author Bio
USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR RENEE ROSE loves a dominant,
dirty-talking alpha hero! She’s sold over a half million copies of steamy
romance with varying levels of kink. Her books have been featured in USA
Today’s Happily Ever After and Popsugar. Named Eroticon USA’s Next Top Erotic
Author in 2013, she has also won Spunky and Sassy’s Favorite Sci-Fi and
Anthology author, The Romance Reviews Best Historical Romance, and Spanking
Romance Reviews’ Best Sci-fi, Paranormal, Historical, Erotic, Ageplay and favorite
couple and author. She’s hit the USA Today list five times with various
anthologies.
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February 4, 2020
Alpha Knight
Alpha Knight (Wolf Ridge High, Book 2)
SHE’S GETTING A FAKE BOYFRIEND— ME.
WHETHER SHE LIKES IT OR NOT .
The leggy car thief is trouble with a capital T.
My brother went down because of her.
I need to find him before the cops do,
which means I’m not letting her out of my sight.
Anywhere the human goes, I go.
I’ll play her fake boyfriend.
Sleep in her bedroom.
Go to her prep school classes.
Take her to the homecoming dance.
I will learn all her secrets, find out all her games.
By the time I’m done with her, she’ll be sorry.
Sorry she ever set foot in our shop.
Sorry she made me fall for her.
Sorry she ever met me.
NOTE: This stand-alone romance is a new adult romance with characters over eighteen.
Prologue
Bo
On the day everything goes to shit, you don’t wake up thinking, Today my whole life changes.
It wasn’t like that the day the two service members showed up at our door when I was eight to give my mom the news Dad’s helicopter got shot down in Yemen. And it wasn’t like that today.
Today was like any day. I woke up, showered, went to school, stayed after for football practice, same as ever.
I never expected the screech of tires as Sheriff Gleason skids to a stop in the parking lot by the field. Didn’t foresee him marching out with his hands on his hips like he’s about to arrest one of us.
Coach Jamison jogs over to meet him on the edge, his body rigid with alert.
And then they both turn their heads and look at me.
“Fenton!” Coach’s voice booms. His alpha wolf authority ripples through me, all the way to my shoes.
Fuck.
What did I do?
I whip off my helmet and stalk over like I’m pissed about the interruption, but it’s just my wolf rearing up to face perceived danger. There’s no flight in the fight or flight for an alpha male—especially not in a teen wolf who doesn’t always have aggression under control.
“Get it the car,” Sheriff Gleason snarls.
“Why?” I demand.
Coach’s hand drops on my nape, above the shoulder pads. His fingers tighten in warning. If it were anyone else, I’d already have him on his fucking back, but Coach is like a god to us. A better father figure than most of us have and always, always in our corner.
I turn to look at him searchingly.
“It’s Winslow,” he says because he’s not a dick like the sheriff, keeping me in the dark.
Winslow—my older brother.
“Fuck.”
Coach doesn’t call me on the language violation, which tells me this is as bad as I’m thinking.
And then I know exactly what it’s about.
Or at least I think I do.
Because I saw this shit coming way back when it started.
The only question is, what do they want from me?
Chapter One
Six Weeks Earlier
Sloane
Stealing the 2016 Porsche 911 is the easy part. At least it’s the fun part. This is only my second car theft, but I think I have a real gift for it.
I’m dressed as daddy’s spoiled princess in a pair of Rag & Bone skinny jeans with wedge heels and a Balmain cropped tee. All remnants of my past life, when I really was daddy’s spoiled princess. When stealing a car meant lifting a pair of keys out of my dad’s lock box and choosing one of the twelve sports cars in his garage.
My hair is pulled up in a twist, and I have a khaki rhinestone ball cap pulled over my eyes to hide my face. Anyone who glances over in this crowded parking lot will see someone who matches the car.
It’s just a matter of finding the right make and model in a location without camera surveillance. I’ve been walking around the Scottsdale mall parking lot for days now, dodging cameras and mall cops.
Finally, I spot one. A blue Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS, and it looks to be full leather interior. MSRP can range from 100k to 200k depending on the engine and gadgets inside. I know because my father had one just like it sitting in our garage before… before the fall. Before everything went to shit. Before I had to learn how to poach pretty cars out of mall parking lots.
In theory, ordinary cars are best—the kind that blend in. But I don’t have the luxury of time or lower risk. I’m on a payment schedule with dangerous people, and the Porsche will bring in big bucks.
So the Porsche it is. I already bought a totalled version at the salvage yard, so I have a salvage title. Now all I have to do is swap some parts out, including the VIN, and retitle this baby to sell.
Unfortunately, that means trusting a chop shop to do the swapping and cutting them in on half the proceeds because I don’t have the skills.
Yet.
I plan to learn. In fact, I think I’ll see if the guy can teach me on this one, so the next car I can do on my own.
I walk up to the car like I own the place. Like I own the Porsche, I mean.
Like I own the house and job or father or husband that match this car. It’s a role I know intimately. Lived my whole life. Entitled. Cosited. Spoiled.
Daddy’s little girl has fallen far from grace.
My device does its work, and the locks pop. Another few seconds and the car revs, and then I’m driving wild and free.
Out of the parking lot. Onto the highway.
Up to Wolf Ridge, the weird-ass community just past Cave Hills.
Right where I landed when my dad went to jail.
#
Bo
I ride my 1984 Triumph to the shop after football practice because we’ve been slammed, and my brother and uncle need me around more than just on the weekends.
Plus, my best friend Cole’s been no-showing for work lately. I don’t know what the fuck his problem is, but I’m not gonna bust his balls considering the shit he’s been dealing with at home this semester.
I’m starving, which makes me cranky as hell.
But I forget all about the hunger because… hot damn.
The first thing I see is her ass. Fuck-hot-amazing ass in tight jeans that show every curve of her muscular cheeks. And looooong fucking legs punctated by platform heels that lift everything.
I give a silent hooty-hoo whistle in my head in appreciation.
She’s leaning over the engine of an electric blue 2016 Porsche. My brother Winslow is beside her, pointing something out.
At first, I assume she’s a shifter, like most everyone in Wolf Ridge and try to figure out who she can be.
Then I catch her scent.
Human.
Human who should’ve been a shifter. Because she’s built like a she-wolf. Tall. Big-boned. Sturdy, athletic. She didn’t get those lean muscular legs lying around on her bed playing on her phone.
No, she works for them.
And—holy hell—when she lifts her torso and turns, my dick gets hard. Because she’s young. Maybe my age. And beautiful. Caramel-colored hair with reddish highlights, copper eyes that match, and a beauty mark that makes her look like an old-fashioned movie star.
I want to fuck her right up against that 911. Then I see the logo stretching across the front of her tits. Cave Hills Cross Country.
That explains the legs. And the expensive car. Looks like someone wrecked Daddy’s ride and brought it up here to get it fixed before he finds out.
Maybe because I’m hangry or maybe because she got my dick hard and I know I can’t have her, but I take an instant dislike to her. Fucking Cave Hills spoiled little rich bitch. Cave Hills kids only come to Wolf Ridge when they’re looking for trouble. And this girl is definitely trouble.
Winslow catches sight of me. He stops what he’s saying to level me a what-the-fuck-do-you-want? look.
And that’s when I know something’s off.
Because he wouldn’t use that expression because I interrupted him with this chick. He wouldn’t be hot for a human girl—Winslow hates humans.
Which means he wants me to stay away for some other reason.
“Don’t you have a door to replace on that VW?” he jerks his thumb toward the other bay. We were waiting for the new part to be delivered, and the VW was his project, not mine. Now I’m certain he’s trying to get rid of me.
“Yeah. Okay.” I still don’t move.
Prickles raise on the back of my neck. I look at the Porsche again. Maybe it’s not her daddy’s ride. What were they looking at under the hood?
Unease washes over me. It’s a familiar warning—the kind I get every time my big brother is about to do something really stupid. Or dangerous. Something I’m gonna have to try to talk him out of or stop.
Fuck.
Please tell me it’s not a stolen vehicle, and he’s about to help this girl fence it.
When I don’t move, Winslow’s lip curls, and his eyes flash yellow. The wolf in me experiences the threat viscerally.
I have no choice but to drop my gaze and lift my chin, showing my throat. My brother has a mean streak, and he’s dangerous as hell, even though we’re family. I toss my backpack down and head to the bay with the VW Beetle in it.
Winslow turns the radio up on his side.
#
Sloane
“Is that your brother?”
“That’s Bo.”
Not really an answer to my question, but I’m taking it as a yes. This Wolf Ridge Body Shop guy is scary as hell. I was given his name as a possible fence for stolen cars, and he panned out. But I don’t trust him for a second.
Seeing his younger brother, on the other hand, calms me a bit. He looks as all-American as his older brother looks thug. Yeah, his jeans are ripped and greasy, but a Wolf Ridge High football t-shirt stretches across his bulging muscles, and the rest of him is clean-cut. Good-looking, even.
I’m not used to being treated with the disgust Winslow Fenton has been throwing my way, but I feel better just having his brother here. Like he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.
And of course, that’s probably one of those really stupid assumptions one of those psychology studies would prove shows bias based on good looks. Or clothing. Or general hotness. Just because he’s my age and gorgeous doesn’t mean he’s going to play knight in shining armor if his brother crosses me.
“He’s not a part of this,” Winslow says, the threat evident in his lowered voice. “Understand?”
“Yeah, definitely. I understand.” We’re both leaning under the hood of the Porsche, like we’re conferring about her horsepower. I have to resist peering into the other bay at Bo’s broad back and muscular ass. Focus, Sloane—jeez. “So how soon do you think you can get the new title on this?”
“You leave that to me. I’ll get it sold. Then I’ll give you your cut.”
Fuck no.
“That wasn’t the deal. You get the title. I’ll sell it.”
He snorts. “You’re gonna sell it.”
“Yeah, that’s what we discussed.”
He sneers. “Sorry, honey. No one’s gonna buy a six figure Porsche from a sixteen-year-old.”
“Seventeen,” I correct, although that’s not the point.
“If I can steal a car in broad daylight from the Scottsdale Mall, I can pull off the car sale.” Turns out, I’m a pretty good hustler. I had to pick up a lot of new skills these last six months.
He gives me a mock apologetic shake of his head. “Sorry, sister. If I get the title, it’s mine.” He waits a beat. “Right?”
My heart starts pounding harder. This guy is slimy, but I knew that from the beginning. That’s the risk associated with stealing cars.
He rubs his nose with a greasy finger, leaving a smear of black on his face. We’re nose to nose under the hood. He smells like metal and stale sweat and faintly of the sour alcohol scent people get when they over-indulged the night before.
Now that I’ve seen his brother, I can see where he might be attractive in a different situation. If he took care of himself and had a decent haircut. And didn’t look so damn mean.
I clench my jaw. “We split it fifty-fifty.”
“Sixty-forty.”
I don’t have to guess which one of us gets the sixty.
This guy’s going to keep pushing me around. It’s going to change to seventy-thirty next time I see him, if I even see him again. I need to get leverage back, and fast.
I draw a deep breath and try to channel my dad. He could talk a guy into anything. And he never used fear to get through to them, the way some salespeople do. Because that’s essentially what any con is—a sales job. No, he made them feel good about doing what he wanted. Made them think that’s what they wanted too.
“Listen, Winslow.” I lean a hip against the bumper of the Porsche. “Like I told you before, I’m looking for a business partner. I already scoped out a Mercedes-Benz S Class at the salvage yard for the next car jack. But if you’re the kind of guy who makes a deal and doesn’t honor his word, this isn’t going to gel going forward. We have to have enough trust between us to make this work.”
I throw in words like honor and trust hoping it might bring out some whisper of those qualities in him, but I doubt he ever had them to begin with.
If I hadn’t seen his all-American brother, I wouldn’t have even thought of it. But unbelievably, it seems to work.
Winslow draws his chest up and nods. “Fifty-fifty,” he concedes. “But I’m selling it.”
“We both go,” I counter.
He sneers again. “I’m not taking you. You’d fuck it all up. But I’ll give you your cut, fair and square.”
“You stand to lose more than I do. I’m not eighteen yet. If I get caught, it would be a slap on the wrist. If you get caught, it’s a felony.”
He pinches his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, considering me. His gaze darts to his brother, like he’s thinking about having Bo sell the car instead. But then he shakes his head. “I’ll take the risk.”
“I’m coming along,” I insist again.
“You’re not. Go back to your prep school in Cave Hills and wait until I text you.”
My stomach churns. I try not to show my misgivings, though. We’re partners, who honor and trust each other. That was the bullshit I was throwing out. I have to walk the talk.
“I need a ride back.”
Winslow rolls his eyes and pulls his head out from under the hood of the Porsche. “Fuck.” He considers me, then looks over at his brother.
“Bo!”
The younger, far hotter version of him walks over, wiping his hands on a clean white rag. “Yeah?”
“You gotta take this one down to Cave Hills.”
He narrows his eyes. “In what?” He throws his arms wide and looks around the place.
“On your bike. Hurry the fuck up. I need you back here to finish that job tonight.”
A muscle in Bo’s jaw flexes, and he appears to be drawing in a measured breath. “Right. Okay.”
He flicks his brows at me and extends his arm like a butler. “This way, ma’am.”
Okay, maybe he’s as big a dick as his brother.
All that hotness wasted on a cocky asshole. Too bad. Not that I was hoping for anything. I just… liked to look.
I follow him to the front of the shop where he picks up a helmet on a motorcycle and hands it to me. “Your limo awaits.”
I’m not a total chicken, but I haven’t ridden on the back of a motorcycle before. And when I pictured it in the past, it was always riding behind some very trustworthy boyfriend type. Someone hot, but not dick-ish and surly like Bo.
Basically, I’m putting my life in this total stranger’s hands.
I take the helmet and swallow.
“Scared, princess?” he sneers. He’s wearing a set of dog tags around his neck. Up close, he’s even more beautiful than I initially absorbed. He has ice blue eyes that pop against his tanned skin and rumpled brown hair. His lips have a sensuousness to them, but that’s the only part. All the rest of him is one hundred percent hard muscle. He probably plays defense, and he probably makes the Cave Hills players cry when he hits them.
I snatch the helmet and toss my hair before I pull it on. It’s too big, and I ruin the haughty effect by fumbling with the straps to try to keep the thing on.
To complete the humiliation, Bo steps closer to help me, adjusting the straps until they fit snugly against my chin. His movements are sure and deft, and he completes the action by patting the top of the helmet like I’m a child.
“Aren’t you going to wear one?”
“Nah, then I’d have two for the ride home,” he says, like that minor inconvenience is much worse than getting his skull smashed in. He produces a pair of sunglasses from the side bag and puts them on. He looks right off the set of a movie. Like a bad boy younger version of Chris Hemsworth. Only way dickier.
I know. That’s not a word.
“All set?” He swings a long, thick leg over the seat and looks back. When I gingerly climb on behind him, he gives my wedge sandals a skeptical look. “Normally I wouldn’t allow that kind of footwear on the bike, but I guess you don’t have much of a choice, do you?”
“Nope.”
Uber would’ve been a good choice.
Why in the hell didn’t I Uber this? I was trying to establish this stupid partnership with Winslow. Show some trust to make him trustworthy.
Now look where I am.
About to risk my life on the back of a motorcycle.
He starts the Harley, and the only warning the asshole gives me that he’s going to take off is a look over his shoulder before we lurch.
I bite down a scream and grab his waist in sheer panic. It takes a mile or two before I realize I’m digging my fingers into his skin through the thin t-shirt, but no matter how firmly I tell myself to ease up, I can’t.
So much for playing it cool.
Bo stops at stoplight and turns his head sideways. “You freaking?”
“Nah-o.” The one-syllable word becomes two as I lie through my teeth.
He covers one of my clawing hands. His palm is large and rough. Calloused from hard work or maybe playing football—I don’t know. He tugs my hand around the front of his body, until it reaches his washboard abs.
“Oh—sorry! Was I hurting you?” I don’t normally get flustered by guys. I’m usually the one doing the flustering—especially if we’re talking about high school boys. Being five foot nine by seventh grade made it impossible for me to ignore the effect I have on the opposite sex. But I’m a total disaster in this moment.
I blame it all on the motorcycle. It’s not from the blue eyes or washboard abs.
His chuckle is low and soft. It shouldn’t unexpectedly warm me the way it does. “No chance of that, Legs.”
“Legs? Is that what you’re calling me?”
The light changes, and he takes off again without warning.
I wrap my other arm around his waist, too, so now I’m hugging his back like a freaking koala. Or do they ride on the front? A chimpanzee, then, who has to hold on for dear life while her mama swings from tree to tree.
And then we’re zipping onto the highway that leads to Cave Hills. I don’t know how many miles it takes for my fear to morph into something different. Something warmer and more alive. By the time we’re down the hill, I’m all tingles and awareness, my breath coming in short pants inside the helmet, my hands molded to Bo’s abs. The heat from his body radiating into mine. The motorcycle like a giant vibrator between my legs.
I hate that I even find this scenario a turn-on. Motorcycles aren’t cool. Boys who ride them are redneck and basic.
Except my body doesn’t seem to agree. Or maybe it’s not about the motorcycle. Maybe it’s about the giant baller whose back I’m glued to.
#
Bo
I purposely scare her because I’m a dick.
I’m a dick, and I fucking love making her scream and cling to me for dear life every time I take off too fast.
I also don’t mind the way it feels having her snug against my back, her slender arms squeezing in on my ribs every time I lean into a turn.
I’m pretty sure I just heard her mutter, you suck, the last time I wove through the lanes of traffic to get ahead.
Serves her right. She’s trouble, this one, and she’s dragging my brother into it with her.
“Where to?” I ask when we get down to Cave Hills.
“5th and Davidson.” She attempts to pry her own hands from me, but I gun the bike, and she seizes me again.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” she accuses, balling her fists up in the front of my shirt.
She knows what’s up. I guess to be a car thief, you’d have to be pretty smart. Or else pretty dumb. But she doesn’t strike me as dumb. I saw enough wariness on her face when she was talking to Winslow to know she understands the risks.
I take her to 5th and Davidson. “Now where?”
I half expect her to just get off and not show me where she lives, but she gives me directions to her house. Turns out she doesn’t live in one of the many million-dollar homes that make up the wealthy community north of Scottsdale. She’s in a townhouse—a nice one—but not that big.
“Right here,” she says, pointing. She swings her long leg off the bike and tries to unbuckle the helmet with shaking fingers.
“What’s the story with the Porsche?” I ask her point-blank, watching her fumble and not offering my help this time.
I know Winslow isn’t going to tell me, and I’m looking for confirmation.
“It’s my dad’s,” she says. “He’s out of town, and I put a dent in it. Your brother said he’d help me fix it without him finding out.”
“I didn’t see a dent.”
“He already fixed it. Now it just needs a little paint.” She tears at the straps of the helmet, like I’m holding her hostage with them. “Your brother said he’d get fixed by tomorrow.”
Yeah, right. Total bullshit, of course.
She manages to get it unclasped and yanks the helmet off, tossing out her long thick hair.
I don’t want to be stunned by how gorgeous she is up close. I’m looking for some flaw. Some irregularity that can make me dismiss her. But even the large mole on her cheek looks like it was put there just to make her more tempting to guys. Or girls who like girls. Or yeah, pretty much anyone with a pulse.
She doesn’t look like she belongs in high school. This girl has probably been frequenting college parties since the day she hit puberty. She’s all that.
And I can’t fucking stand her for it.
“Thanks for the ride, Bo.” She thrusts the helmet at me.
“I didn’t catch your name.” I ignore the helmet. She seems to be in a huge hurry to get away, and I’m not going to make it easy for her.
“I didn’t throw it.” She nudges my belly with the helmet, and when I still ignore it, she lets it go and turns on her heel.
I stoop to catch it before it hits the ground. “You don’t have to be cunt,” I call out after her. Not because I think she is one—although I’m not ruling it out—I say it more to see if it gets a rise out of her.
It does.
She whirls, her face flushing. “Nice,” she nods, walking backward. “Real nice.”
I grin because seeing her mad gets my dick hard. “I don’t do nice. See you tomorrow, I guess? Will her highness require a pick up?”
I’m watching for a flush or proof of her lie, but she’s too good for that. She just flips me the bird as she turns around and unlocks the front door.
Definitely trouble, that one.
And there won’t be any talking to Winslow about it. Or stopping him.
I commit her house number to memory. If anything happens to Winslow as a result of this bullshit, I will come down here and rip that entitled Cave Hills bitch apart.
Right after I put her on her knees in front of my open fly.
Chapter One
Bo
“The moon is almost full, gents,” Coach Jamison preaches in the locker room after practice. We get this lecture every month, and after four years, I can pretty much recite it.
But still—I know it’s important shit—especially for the freshmen who are still in the throes of puberty.
“Lock yourselves in your rooms before the game and after the pack run. Do not go anywhere near a female, or” —he holds his hands up— “a male, if that’s your interest. I’m not judging.”
He paces through the locker room as we filter out of the showers wrapped in towels to stand at our lockers and get dressed. “You boys have raging hormones. You are not safe for the community at large. The moon amplifies your need. It makes you too aggressive. Jack off before the game—I don’t want that much testosterone running through you when we play Lakeside. I can’t risk one of you breaking a human’s neck.
“And other than jacking your own cocks, you will keep it zippered. I’m not going to warn you to use condoms because you will not be getting your dicks wet this weekend.
“Even if you have a girlfriend—especially if you have a girlfriend—stay the hell away from her tomorrow night. And I don’t subscribe to the sow your wild oats with humans philosophy. Boys, you are even less safe to human females right now. They can’t defend themselves. If I ever hear one of you forced a girl—human or she-wolf—you are permanently off this team, and I will personally kick your ass. Understood?”
“Yes, Coach Jamison,” we all reply.
“Louder.”
“Yes, Coach Jamison,” we shout, our voices echoing off the metal lockers.
“Wilde, you keep an eye out for every boy on this team during pack run,” Coach tells my buddy, who is team captain.
“Yes, sir.” He pulls a t-shirt over his head.
Coach lays a lot of pack-alpha responsibility on Wilde, which is one of the reasons I’m glad I wasn’t named captain. Yeah, I’m alpha. There’s a reason me and my buddies are called the alpha-holes of Wolf Ridge High. But ruling the school and leading a pack are two different things. One comes from a place of rebellion. We flip the bird to everyone but our coach and do whatever the hell we want. We make the social rules at Wolf Ridge High—who is popular. Who gets invited to the mesa. Who’s worthy to date.
But Wilde has to uphold rules now. Although Jamison’s list of rules is short: No fighting with humans. No impregnating females—human or wolf. No taking a female against her will. No mating bites, even if we think we’re in love.
We head out, but our meanest alpha-hole, Cole, hangs back. “Austin, can you take Casey home tonight?”
Abe, Austin’s younger brother walks over to catch a ride home, too. He’s a sophomore but already playing varsity with us, which says a lot because every guy on this team is an athlete of magnitude.
Austin narrows his eyes at Cole. “Yeah, why?”
We all know why.
Cole showed up to practice with the scent of that human all over him. His next door neighbor—the one he hates because her mom took his dad’s job.
Only everyone knows hate is pretty fucking close to something else. Something bordering on obsession, if you ask me. I’ve seen the way he crowds her up against her locker. The way he’s always looking for her.
Cole shrugs. “I have to see a teacher about homework.”
Uh huh.
But whatever. My dick’s hard for a human, too.
I went straight home after dropping the Cave Hills bitch off and yanked it all night. I had her scent all up in my nose. It had rubbed off on the back of my t-shirt where she pressed those luscious breasts against me while we rode, so I took the shirt off and wrapped it around my cock. Pretended she was giving me the handjob to show her gratitude for the ride.
I fell asleep to the image of her tossing that mane of hair over her shoulder with her flippant I didn’t throw it line as she walked away. Every time I replayed it, I had a different comeback. All of them physical. All of them ending with her on her knees in front of my cock, saying please may I suck it?
Yeah, as if that ever happens in real life.
The trouble with porn is that it makes regular high school sex about as exciting as sitting through American History class on a half day.
#
Sloane
I unlock my bike after cross country practice and fling my leg over the seat. My legs are still shaking from the long run, but I don’t mind the ride home. I think getting in a car and driving would just make my body tighten up. My muscles may be shaky and weak, but pushing them just a little more—in a different way—actually feels good.
Or maybe I’m just a masochist.
My car—or the one my dad let me use—was one of the many assets seized by the government when he went to jail. So maybe I have a little bit of deserve wrapped up in riding the bike.
I definitely don’t deserve the luxury of a car, and I ought to feel ashamed I ever had one, considering where the money came from. I shake my head to remove the flashes of the days after my dad’s arrest. The faces of people who had been my friends, known me my whole life, sneering and turning away from me in scorn as I walked the halls of my old high school to class.
Turns out the sins of the father aren’t just visited upon the sons. Daughters inherit that shit too.
I check my phone one more time before I take off to see if there’s any message from Winslow.
If I don’t get the money by tonight, I’m fucked.
No message.
Dammit.
I lean into the right pedal and take off, riding hard like I can outrun all my father’s past transgressions.
I just can’t seem to go fast enough today to chase away the shadows around me.
Inside me.
The breeze blows in my face, and I suddenly remember the whip of the wind around me yesterday on the back of Bo’s bike. The feel of his hard muscles beneath the slide of his cotton t-shirt. The sound of that deep, growly voice.
My panties get damp, and I rock against the hard lip of the bike seat to alleviate the ache between my legs. I don’t know why I find such a cocky asshole so hot, but I do.
It’s the bad-boy vibe, I guess. The motorcycle and Rebel Without a Cause attitude.
The ice blue of those eyes judging me for some crime. Whether it’s the one I actually committed or a different one, I can’t be sure.
All I know is that he doesn’t like me.
Neither does his brother, although that bothers me far less.
There’s some kind of long-standing rivalry between Cave Hills and Wolf Ridge high. Maybe the animosity stems from that. I don’t know—I’m just the new kid here, but I guess Cave Hills’ kids are the haves; Wolf Ridge, the have-nots.
I was once one of the haves. I lived in a three-quarter million dollar house in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, the wealthiest suburb of Detroit. My dad was a stock broker.
But if they only knew how far this princess has fallen, they might not hold it against me. The crown has been firmly knocked off my head and crushed underfoot.
My dad went to jail for embezzlement last year, and last month the guards found him hanging in his cell, his bed sheet around his throat. Suicide… allegedly. With everyone my father screwed over, who knows.
I’m living with my mom’s sister and my eleven-year-old cousin without a penny to my name. Have been since a little after my father was picked up by the feds.
I turn onto my aunt’s street, and my stomach drops out onto the pavement.
The black Lincoln Navigator that I’m becoming all too familiar with is parked in the lot in front of the townhouses.
The sweat on my skin turns cold and clammy.
I don’t make them chase me. I’m not that stupid. I ride my bike right up to the driver’s side window.
“Hi guys,” I call out brightly, waving my hand beside my face as I peer in.
The window rolls down, and I’m facing two assholes in sunglasses and first class frowns.
They are Vinny and Tom, or as I like to call them, Goon One and Goon Two, even though they look more like middle-aged divorced dads with thinning hair lines and bellies that hang out a little past their belt buckles.
“Where is it?” Vinny demands. He’s in a god-awful peach colored polo, khakis and Ray Bans, like he just came off the golf course.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the screen just to see if Winslow messaged yet. Still nothing.
Fucker.
“How’d the greens treat you today, gentlemen? Hit under par?” I try for levity and false confidence.
Tom, in his gray-striped Adidas polo and Titleist hat, opens his mouth like he’s about to legit answer, but Vinnny’s not having it. “Don’t be smart, kid.” His hand shifts to the console between the seats and rests on a black handgun.
I swallow, my throat suddenly very dry. “I’ll have it. There’s a lot to go through. But I’m looking. Every day.” There’s nothing to go through. The few boxes I have of my father’s belongings are full of clothes and pictures. My mother’s wedding ring…
Tom picks his teeth with a toothpick. “Clock’s ticking. Boss’ll be back soon.”
Sweat trickles down my back. I lean my elbows on the doorframe, enjoying the cool breeze of the A/C, then straighten when both their gazes drift down and lock on my tits. I’m not above using my sexuality whenever necessary, but with these guys, I’m trying to play more of the poor, scared teenage kid role.
I decide to go with the God’s honest truth. “Even if I don’t find his stuff, I can raise cash to cover it. I stole a Porsche and got a new title for it, but I still have to fence it. When it’s sold, I hope to have at least ten grand for you, maybe fifteen. Maybe I could make payments—like until I find it.”
I see grudging appreciation on Vinny’s face. “That right? You stole a Porsche?”
“Yeah. It’d be easier if you’d take payments in the form of cars. Is that a possibility?”
“No,” Vinny says. “We ain’t a used car dealership.”
“Maybe with a clean title,” Tom says at the same time.
But that doesn’t work for me. I need Winslow to get the clean title, and that means splitting the profits with him.
I scuff my sneaker in the gravel at my feet. “You sure you can’t handle a hot car? I could feed them to you every day, no problem.”
Vinny shakes his head. “Nice try, kid. Anyone can steal a car. Moving it is the hard part.”
Don’t I know it.
“Besides,” Tom says. “I doubt boss’d go for it. He’s against stealing.” Tom’s dead serious. I snort a laugh that carjacking is where their boss draws the line. Not kidnapping. Not murder. Fencing cars.
They both pull ugly faces at me. I don’t like the way Tom’s still leering at my breasts. “Boss told you before, he can get a shit ton selling you on the black market. And I just noticed today you have a little cousin.”
Ice cold and lava flush through at the same time.
No he fucking didn’t.
I sense the blood drain from my face, and they both smile at my terror.
“She looks ripe, that one,” Vinny says with a sick smirk. “Perfect age. These pedophiles love the tweens. They go for the most money.”
“You stay away from my cousin,” I grit through clenched teeth.
“You get the boss his money. All his money. He’s already pissed it’s taking so long.”
My stomach is a solid rock of tension. “I’ll get it. Stay the hell away from her.” I point at them like I’m the mobster doing the shake down. The fact that my finger’s shaking probably ruins the whole effect.
It takes me two tries, but I manage to get back on my bike and ride it into the garage of my aunt’s townhouse.
I hit the garage door button, and they watch me disappear behind the closed door. I don’t cry until I hear the Lincoln drive away and all goes silent. Alone in the dark, the smell of gas and dust filling my nostrils, I gasp for breath between sobs.
Sophie, their golden retriever, woofs and scratches at the door, eager to greet me.
“Just a minute, Soph,” I say thickly, wiping my face with both hands.
The door flies open a moment later, and my cousin Rikki regards me as Sophie dashes over to dance around my feet and lick my hands. “Who were those guys?”
Oh shit.
“What guys?” I keep my head ducked, petting the dog as I walk through the door.
“The guys in the black car. They looked like bad news.”
“No, they were just asking for directions. But they probably are bad news. Don’t stop and talk to strangers like I just did. It’s not safe.”
“I know,” she says impatiently. “That’s why I was asking.”
Inside, the kitchen smells delicious, but I duck past my Aunt Jen quickly. “I’m going to shower,” I call out as I dash up the stairs.
“Okay, dinner’s almost ready,” she calls back.
“Yep. Give me five.” I go straight to the en suite bathroom between my room and Nikki’s and lock both doors.
Only then do I let myself really cry.
#
Six weeks before
I don’t know how I’m going to explain the fat lip and bruises to my aunt. I know it’s a ridiculous concern considering two men just wrestled me into the back of a black Escalade. They flank me now and a third calmly sits across from us, studying me.
He looks a bit like a cross between Andy Garcia and De Niro. He’s in a full tailored black suit, despite the fact that Arizona is literally located on the sun, and it’s blistering hot outside. The gaudiest gold and diamond ring I’ve ever seen is on his left pinky finger.
He raises a salt and pepper brow. “Sloane McCormick?”
“Who’s asking?” Adrenaline and fear give my words bite.
His lips twitch, but his eyes remain impassive. Cold. “I’m an associate of your father’s.”
A stone sinks down, down, down and lodges in my stomach. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but my dad isn’t around anymore. He… died recently.” My throat works. I haven’t seen him in over a year. Haven’t been close to him in much longer. I’ve cried all the tears that could be cried, but saying it outloud somehow makes it fresh.
“His passing is why I’m here.” He snaps his fingers and flicks his hand this way and that, and the two goons holding me in place let me go. He leans in, elbows on knee, hands folded in prayer. “Your father had something of mine—my cut, if you will—and he hid it for safekeeping. His cellmate told my guy you know where it is.”
I shake my head, confused. “All his assets were frozen—”
“This wasn’t something the Feds knew about. Think real hard, bella mia. Did he send you any letters, maybe something in code, maybe had a location on it? A number sequence?”
Ice trickles down my spine. My father sent me letters. Letters I never opened. Letters I crumpled up and sent out in the trash because I was pissed that he ruined my life.
I shake my head again, this time not looking at him.
“That’s too bad.” He sits back and cocks his head. “Such a pretty girl, you are. It will be such a travesty when you go missing.” He flicks his wrists again and a black cloth sack covers my head.
Panic surges through my veins, my vision going spotty. “Wait! Wait!” I fight the men at my sides. “I have his papers. From his office. Boxes that are in storage.” The sack is whipped off, and I suck in air like I’d been strangled. “Just tell me what you’re looking for. I’ll find it.”
He gives me a soft smile as if I’ve performed as he hoped I would. “There are six gold bars the size of your iPhone and a little oil painting of birds. It’s a rare piece done by Camille Pissarro early in his career. It’s all worth more than your life, but if you can’t find it, I’ll be happy to see what I can get for you on the black market. I know a fewer buyers who would love a pretty toy like you.”
Gold bars? A painting? Like a treasure hunt? My mind spins and pings like a pin ball bouncing back and forth, up and down. Finally, it hits and sinks in at I know a few buyers who would love a pretty toy like you.
“It’s just your luck I have to go out of the country on unexpected business. You have a few months before I’m back in the states. More than enough time, no? And while I’m gone, Tom and Vinny here will stay back and keep an eye on you. I wouldn’t want you to think of running off or contacting any agents of the law before we can reunite.”
Without another word, I’m shoved out of the SUV and land on hands and knees, the asphalt ripping open skin. I barely feel it. I’m numb. Shaking.
“And bella mia,” he calls out the open door. “I almost forgot. My condolences on your father’s untimely death.”
[image error]
December 27, 2019
Black Light Roulette War
November 14, 2019
Wild Card - the last Tacone brother gets his book
Paolo is unapologetically the bad guy. He'
s big. Macho. Alpha. A hitman. And he has a hard time expressing feelings, as you might imagine. He's sent to shake down Caitlin, the hacker who stole 150K from the casino. She's a crazy, kinky wild girl with a wound big enough to drown in (think Harley Quin licking the bars of her jail cell.) Somehow... it works.
Here's a little snippet:
“I thought I told you not to move.” His voice is even. Deep. Seductive, but I don’t think that’s what he’s aiming for.
I’ve never been into breathplay--it seems too risky to me--but suddenly I’m pretending this is sex, not suicide. And just by flipping the scenario into sex-land-- same as I did at my place earlier--my fear ebbs away. The blank panic fades. My body comes alive.
I let my head fall back on his shoulder and rub my bound hands between my legs.
His chuckle is soft. His lips are right at my ear.
“You like to get choked out while you’re getting it hard, Caitlin?”
Oh gawd. The man picks up what I’m putting down without even missing a beat.
“Maybe,” I admit. But there’s no maybe about it. I’m already wet.
And the tactic totally worked, because he forgets about pulling the tie taut around my neck, instead sliding one hand down my belly and into my pants. When he slowly swipes one finger over my slit, I’m shockingly slick and wet.
Wild Card (last Vegas Underground book --sob!)
“YOU’RE IN BIG TROUBLE, DOLL”
The little hacker stole from the Family--hundred fifty grand.
We Tacones don’t take kindly to thieves.
Not even when they come in a package as cute as hers.
Not even after she shows me how high her freak flag flies.
Now there will be hell to pay for my hot geek.
And I’m the one coming to collect.
But when she ends up in jail for the transaction I ordered her to make
I decide to bail her out. Because she’s a wildfire.
A force of nature too bright to be put out.
And I don’t need the money.
I’d rather have her.
October 22, 2019
Dead Man’s Hand – Chapter One
Chapter One
Gio
First the burning. Then the blood seeping through my fingers. Always the sound of Paolo croaking my name over the crack of more gunfire.
Gio, no!
Gio’s hit!
It’s the horror of loss ringing in his voice that makes my heart pound. Not the pain. Not my own fear of death. I don’t think about my demise in the moment. I didn’t when it actually went down, and I don’t in the nightmares that plague me every night.
And always the girl.
She’s in every nightly replay. Sometimes she gets shot, too. Those are the worst. My inability to rescue her, to protect her from damage makes me want to die right there. Other times she runs to me, after I’ve been shot. She wraps her arms around me and we both fall down.
Always her wide blue-green eyes lock onto mine the moment the first gun fires. I watch the terror fill them as the bullet tears through my middle.
That’s the moment that keeps her in my dreams. In that split second, in the window where I’m sure I’m going to die, hers is the face I see. My fears are for her safety, and my anguish over being shot is that I can’t protect her.
In her gaze, I swear I see it all mirrored back at me. She, too, thinks I’m going to die, and her anguish is in not warning me in time.
Because she tried. I remember every millisecond of that part. The five breaths before I got shot. I remember the way she tried to signal with her eyes. The way she refused to leave and get to safety, even though she had to know her cafe was about to explode in glass and wood and bullets and blood.
She’s like an angel in the dreams—her pale face the beacon I use to understand my own death.
Only I don’t die.
I didn’t die.
And you’d think that would make everything crystal clear. The whole near-death experience thing. It’s supposed to make you realize what you regret. What you desire. And then you get a second chance to make good on life.
Instead, I’m trapped in a nightmare-induced fog. Trying to untangle the meaning while I go through the motions of living.
The Caffè Milano girl doesn’t have the answers—I don’t know why or how my subconscious assigned so much meaning to her. She was just caught in the middle of a bad scene between the Russian bratva and our outfit.
And yet I can’t get her out of my mind.
The angel of my death.
Near-death.
Marissa. An innocent girl I have no business sullying.
A girl who already saw too much.
A liability.
#
Marissa
Some things you can’t forget. You can’t unsee. Can’t unhear.
Blood all over these floors. The sound of gunshots. The way my heart stopped when Junior Tacone pointed that gun at me, deciding whether to let me live or die.
I hate this time of day when the customers thin out, business gets slow, and I only have time to remember.
It’s been six months since the battle between the Russian and Sicilian mafia went down in Caffè Milano, and I’m still jumpy as hell. Still examining every customer who comes in, praying he’s not Russian mafia come for revenge. Or to shake me down for information on how to find the Tacones.
But they haven’t come. No one ever came except the Tacones with their window repair guys and a large enough amount of money to upgrade our whole kitchen. Which was good because our walk-in cooler was inches away from dying and this place hasn’t had a remodel since my grandparents opened it in the 1960s.
I pull a bowl of pasta salad from the deli case to put in the walk-in overnight. When I come back, I freeze, a gasp hitting the back of my throat.
At first, I think it’s Junior Tacone standing at my deli counter.
The guy who went gangster on my place and gunned down six guys. The one who is supposedly the protector of this neighborhood.
It’s not Junior, though. It’s his brother, Gio Tacone, the one who took a bullet out on the sidewalk. The man I thought was dead.
“Mr. Tacone!” I curse myself for sounding breathless.
“Gio,” he corrects. “Marissa, how are you?”
He knows my name!
That’s more than I can say for Junior, the current head of the family. And I wish it didn’t do fluttery things to my insides, but it does. Gio rests a forearm on the counter and pins me with a dark-lashed hazel gaze.
He is pure man-candy. With those chiseled good looks, he could easily have been an actor or model, and he has the charm to match.
“You’re alive,” I blurt. I hadn’t heard that he survived. I checked the newspapers and Googled his name after the shooting, and there weren’t any reports of his death, but I saw him take a bullet with my own eyes. “I mean, you made it. I’m so glad.” Then I blush, because, yeah. I’m probably not supposed to talk about what happened, even though it’s just the two of us here.
Gio catches my wrist, stilling my hand. His thumb strokes over my pulse as my fingers tremble in the space between us. “Why are you shaking, doll? You scared of me?”
Scared of him? Yes. Definitely. But also excited. He’s the one Tacone brother I look forward to seeing. Always have, even when I was just ten years old, wiping tables down while the mafia men met.
“No!” I pull my hand away. “I’m just jumpy. You know—since… what happened. And you startled me.”
His gaze penetrates, like he knows there’s more to it than that, and he wants to know it all. A curious shifting happens in my chest.
I tuck an errant strand of hair behind my ear to cover my mounting discomfort.
“You have nightmares?” he guesses, like he’s read my mind.
I give a single nod. Then it occurs to me how he knows. “Do you?”
I don’t expect him to confess it if he does. I come from an Italian family. I know the men don’t admit weakness.
So, I’m surprised when he says, “All the fucking time.” He touches the place where the bullet must’ve gone in.
“Wow.”
The corners of his lips quirk into a devastating grin. The man really should have gone into show business. “What? You think real men don’t have nightmares?”
“Maybe not the men in your line of work.”
The smile fades and he arches a brow. Oops. I crossed some line. I guess you don’t mention a mobster’s line of work.
I ignore the increased thumping of my heart. “Sorry. Is that something we don’t talk about?”
He makes me sweat for two beats then gives a half-shrug, like he decided to let it go. “I didn’t come here to ride your ass; I came to check on you. Make sure you’re okay.” He blinks those dark curly lashes that would be feminine except for the manly square jaw and aquiline nose. “Sounds like you’re having a hard time.”
The danger bell starts tolling in my head.
Never accept a favor from the Tacones. You’ll pay for it for the rest of your life.
That’s what my grandfather used to always lament. He borrowed from Arturo Tacone to start his business, and it took him forty years to pay off. But pay it off he did, and he was damn proud of it, too.
“I’m fine. We’re fine.” I straighten and lift my chin. “But we’d appreciate it if you’d hold your business meetings somewhere else in the future.” I don’t know what makes me say it. You don’t piss off a mob boss by insulting him or making demands. I definitely could’ve found a nicer way to make my request.
Again, he considers me for a moment before answering. My palms get clammy but I keep my head high and meet his gaze.
“Agreed,” he concedes. “We didn’t expect trouble. Junior regretted what happened to this place.”
“Junior pointed a gun at my head.” The words tumble out and crash between us. Too late to take them back.
“Junior would never hurt you.” He says it so immediately I know he believes it’s true. But he didn’t see what I saw. That moment of hesitation. The murmuring of his man beside him that I’m a witness.
He thought about killing me.
And then decided not to.
Gio catches my hand again and holds it, stroking the back of it this time. His fingers are large and powerful, making mine appear small and delicate in comparison. “That’s why you’re jumpy, huh? I’m sorry you got scared, but I promise you, you’re safe. This place is under our protection.”
I swallow, trying to ignore how pleasant his touch is. How nice it is to be soothed by this beautiful, dangerous man. I summon more bluster. “Maybe it would be better if it wasn’t.” My voice doesn’t come out steady. There’s a wobble to it that betrays my nerves. I clear my throat. “You know, if you just left us alone.”
I hold my breath, tensing for his reaction.
Huh.
If I didn’t know better, I would say my words hurt Gio rather than pissed him off. But he just shrugs. “Sorry, doll. You can’t get rid of us. And you’re on my watch now. Which means you’re perfectly safe.”
I want to tell him I’m not his doll and he can take his protection and fuck off, but I’m not insane. Also, some traitorous part of me wants him to keep stroking my hand, keep studying me like I’m the most interesting person he’s seen all day.
But I know all that’s a lie.
Gio’s a player. And my body’s response to his presence is dangerous.
Gio abandons my hand in favor of cupping my chin. “You’re mad. I get it. I’ll let you show me a little claw today. But we paid restitution to your family and will honor our commitments to this neighborhood and to Caffè Milano.”
His touch is commanding and firm, but still gentle. It makes the flutters in my belly grow more wild.
“Gio,” I murmur, turning my face away from him and out of his hand. My nipples are hard, rubbing against the inside of my bra.
He pulls a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and drops in on the counter. “Give me two of those cannoli.” He points to the case.
I obey wordlessly and tuck the hundred in my apron pocket, not bothering to offer him change. I figure if he used a hundred, it was because he wanted to throw his money around, and I’m going to let him do it.
He smirks a little as he takes the plate with the cannoli and sits down at a table in the cafe to eat them.
Fuck. I am so screwed.
Gio Tacone just decided to make me his pet project. Which means the chances of him ending up owning me just shot sky high.
#
Gio
I can’t believe I just told the Milano girl I have nightmares.
It’s not something I’ve said aloud before. Who the fuck would I tell, anyway? Junior would tell me to man up and get over it. Paolo would probably punch me where the bullet went in and then say, “See? You’re fine.”
And my ma? She doesn’t even know I got shot. We keep the women out of our shit show.
But no, I haven’t been the same since. And it’s not that I didn’t heal—although even that was touch and go for a while there. But I can’t stop thinking about dying now.
Everywhere I look, I see people who could die today without being prepared. A guy crosses the street without looking and boom! He gets hit by a cab. Or some poor sot has an aneurism and croaks while out getting the mail.
No chance to say goodbye. To wrap up loose ends.
That could’ve been me.
And everywhere I go, I also see potential shooters. I’m looking over my shoulder for the bratva assholes, even though I know the saga’s over. They kidnapped my sister, but she married the bastard, and we’ve made an easy truce.
That doesn’t stop me from thinking every hand in a pocket is reaching for a gun. Seeing shadows jump off the walls at me.
I came here today to check on the girl. That part was true. But I also wanted to come back to the place. Face my demons. Make sure I didn’t break out in a cold sweat when I was outside the door where I got shot. Didn’t act like a fucking pussy just because I took a piece of lead for my family.
Good news: I didn’t.
Bad news: I’m not sure what I’m living for.
I mean, I have this second chance.
I didn’t die. I’m a dead man walking. So why does my life suddenly feel so fucking empty?
I sit and watch Marissa bustle around, closing the place up. She’s young—whole life ahead of her. She’s still living for something.
Rather fervently, too.
I suddenly want to know what it is. I want to know all her deep, hidden secrets. Her desires. She darts a few looks at me. I make her nervous. A little self-conscious. But I also make her blush, which makes my dick twitch.
She’s beautiful but hasn’t figured it out yet. Or downplays it because she doesn’t want the attention from men. She’s young, smart, and extremely capable. She can’t be over twenty-five, and she’s been running this place for several years. I seem to recall her grandmother bragging that she went to culinary school.
Lotta good it did her. She’s still stuck in her family business, doing the thing that’s expected of her.
Just like me.
I get up and leave my plate on the table for her to pick up. If she’d been nicer, I would’ve brought it up to the counter, especially considering she’s trying to close the place, and I’m the asshole still here. But she kept my hundred and played bitch.
So, she can pick up after me.
I stroll to the door, forgetting my swagger for a moment when the scene on the sidewalk replays for me. The smell of my own blood fills my nostrils. I see the face of Ivan, the bratva asshole who set us up. The murder in Junior’s eyes when he pulled his gun. I hear Paolo’s panic when he catches me.
A touch on my arm brings me back. I look down into wide sea-blue eyes.
Just like in the nightmares, only this time her face is soft.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment. There’s compassion in her gaze. She understands me. “I tried to warn you.” Tears pop into her eyes. I wonder if her nightmares are like mine only the other way. Does she see me getting shot over and over again, night after night?
I loop an arm around her waist and pull her in for an embrace. “I know you did.”
Fuck, she’s enchanting.
“Thank you, Marissa.” I will her to receive my sincerity.
She hesitates, then brings her arms up around my neck, like one of the dreams. She smells like coffee and sweet cream. I want to lick her skin to see if she tastes as good as she smells.
“I’m glad you made it, Gio. I thought you were dead.” Her voice is low and husky. I’ve been telling myself she’s too young for me, and she is, but everything about her registers as a woman who knows what she’s about.
“Yeah. Me, too, doll.” I drop a kiss on the top of her head and try to ignore the softness of her breasts pressed up against my ribs.
How much I want to kiss her—which isn’t like me at all. I’m more into fuck ‘em hard and smack their asses when they walk out the door.
Kissing isn’t really my gig.
But she saw my death. My near death. The moment that changed everything. She was part of it. So, I’m imagining some kind of connection.
But that’s stupid.
I shouldn’t go assigning meaning to things just to try to understand them.
I got shot.
Period.
It’s over.
Time to start living again.
#
Marissa
“Watch out, Henry’s on a rampage,” I warn my fellow line chef, Lilah, as I stir the marinara sauce. The temperamental chef’s been ripping everyone a new one right and left.
She rolls her caramel-colored eyes. “When is he not?”
“Well, I guess if I were head chef, I might be a temperamental bitch, too,” I murmur in an undertone as I pull two stuffed chicken breasts from the oven and plate them. “At least we know what to expect. But you know what I really can’t handle anymore?”
Lilah chops asparagus on the diagonal making them all the same exact length. “Arnie?” she whispers back.
“Yeah.” Arnie, the figlio di puttana sous chef is a leering, groping dickwad who somehow thinks all the women in the kitchen are dying to suck him off. “He patted my ass in the walk-in tonight. Patted. It was gross on top of inappropriate.”
“Yeah, if you’re going to grab-ass, at least make it firm, right?” Lilah grins, dimples creasing her chocolate-brown skin.
I snort. Lilah always makes me laugh. She’s the only other young person who works in the kitchen. She started here as a dishwasher when she was sixteen and worked her way up over the last five years. She is definitely one of my favorite people at Michelangelo’s.
“Right? It’s like creepy molestation versus outright sexual harassment. I don’t know—all I know is how violated I feel right now.”
“What did you do when it happened?”
“I told him to keep his hands off my ass.”
“And let me guess, he laughed like you said something cute.”
“Yep. Awesome.”
“You should tell Henry.”
“Right. Because that will end well. Henry’s the one who doesn’t seem to think women can do this job. Arnie hired me. I feel like his solution would be to tell me to quit.”
I plate a steak and spoon some of peppercorn demi-glace over the top.
“Dude, it’s illegal. Michelangelo’s could have a lawsuit on its hands if we report it and they don’t do anything.”
“Yeah…” And my bosses would also know neither of us have the money to sue. “Maybe I’ll just keep a fork in my pocket and next time he comes near me, I’ll shove it in his thigh.”
Lilah smothers a laugh. “That’ll teach him.”
Arnie bustles by and she picks up a fork and looks over at him meaningfully.
I duck my head to hide my laugh.
Sadly, I don’t get a chance to make use of a fork the rest of the night. By the time we finish cleaning and putting everything away, my feet are killing me and I’m about ready to drop dead, but I’m happy.
I love this job, even with all the bullshit. I like joking with Lilah; I like the excitement of putting plate after plate out with the pressure of perfection. I like working with expensive, gourmet ingredients, making the works of art that Henry dreamed up. I’m always on an adrenaline rush that keeps me going long after closing.
I almost wish the shooting had put Caffè Milano out of business so this was my only job. Maybe it’s snobby of me, but I feel like creating fine cuisine in a top-rated restaurant is where I really belong.
But that’s selfish. My grandparents raised me and I owe them everything. Caffè Milano is their entire world and they’re getting old. My aunt and I are the ones who keep the place going. Even with Aunt Lori working there full-time, I have to fill in more and more the older my grandparents get. Which means until they die, or until my little cousin Mia is old enough to help—providing she can with her hip situation, it has to be my entire world, too.
#
I don’t expect to find anyone up at my grandparents’ when I get home, but all the lights are on.
“Hey, guys,” I say when I push the door open.
Both my grandparents and Aunt Lori are awake, sitting around the dining room table, looking like someone just died. My aunt’s eyes are red-rimmed and my nonna’s mouth is pinched into a tight line, defeat written all over her crumpled face.
“What’s going on?” I ask when they just look at me. “What happened?”
“This hospital called this afternoon.” My aunt sniffs. “Since we don’t have insurance, they refused the surgery for Mia. They said the only way they’re going to go through with it as scheduled is if we show up by close of business tomorrow with a check for thirty thousand dollars.”
“What?” Thirty thousand dollars. That’s the going rate for a hip surgery these days. Insane. “Well, that’s bullsh… crap.”
Aunt Lori tears up again. Her daughter, my eight-year-old cousin, fell on the playground a few months ago and somehow fractured her hip. They did surgery at the time, but the poor kid is still in constant pain and her new surgeon says the screws have come out and are poking her and the whole joint needs to be reconstructed. Again. It’s freaking tragic for an eight-year-old to have to go through this shit.
“I know. And I just don’t even know what I’m going to tell Mia. We’ve been trying to get her out of pain for so long.”
Now I tear up. It’s not right for a kid to be in constant pain. To not be able to play with her friends, or even walk around her school. All because our health care system in this country is so broken.
Working at Caffè Milano, my aunt and I both make too much to qualify for Medicaid but we can’t afford health insurance. At least my grandparents can get Medicare.
I sink into a chair and kick off my shoes. “We’ll figure this out,” I promise.
I don’t know how or when I became the person this family looks to for answers, but at some point, I did. My mom abandoned me as a kid, so this is my nuclear family: my elderly grandparents, my aunt—who, like my mom, got pregnant young and out of wedlock—her daughter Mia and me. We stick together and look after one another. We’re family, and we figure things out.
“How?” Aunt Lori wails. “How are we going to come up with thirty thousand dollars by tomorrow?”
Sometimes it just takes the right phrasing of a question to discover the answer.
It suddenly becomes clear as day. Inevitable, even.
The Tacones have cash. Stacks of it. All there for the asking.
All I have to do is sell my soul.
Fuck.
I don’t say anything in front of my grandparents because I know it would kill them.
“Tomorrow I’ll see if I can get a loan. I’m sure the bank will give us something with the cafe as collateral.”
Aunt Lori’s too distraught to notice my lie. Too desperate to grasp on to any answer. “You think so?”
“Definitely. I’ll get it figured out tomorrow. I promise.”
Mia needs help. Time to put on my big girl panties and do what has to be done.
#
Gio
I wake to the sound of my own shout, the, No! echoing off my bedroom walls, Marissa’s horror-stricken face burnt into my retinas, those bluish green-colored eyes bright with tears.
Fuck.
I throw the sheet off my sweat-drenched body and get up, my side pulling with a dull ache. The scar tissue is getting stiffer every day.
Desiree—Junior’s bride, the nurse who saved my life— says I need to get the fascia worked out. She wants me to see a physical therapist or some other shit, but that bullet hole is evidence to the crime Junior committed, killing those bratva bastards who shot me. So yeah, not happening. I stick to my morning run and lifting weights in my home gym.
I stand shirtless in the window of my apartment and look out at Lake Michigan. Sailboats cut through the water, picturesque as a fucking painting. Maybe I should learn to sail.
The thought falls like a brick, like all thoughts for my life. For my future.
Meh.
I’m living the goddamn dream here. Penthouse apartment right on Lake Shore Drive, lavish furnishings, the black Mercedes G-wagon in the garage.
I was already pimping it before got a second chance at life. So why am I the least grateful fuck in Chicago? I should be waking up every day thanking my lucky stars for all I have to live for.
Except that’s just it.
There’s nothing to live for.
Not even the glory of business anymore.
I’m not saying I miss it. The violence, the danger. The intrigue. But there was a certain adrenaline rush that came with every interaction. The thrill of taking care of business. Watching money multiply. Loaning it. Collecting it.
Junior shut down a lot of the business after I got shot. Although that may be more about becoming a husband and daddy again than about almost losing me. Not that I think he didn’t suffer over what happened. I know he did. Does.
His job was always to protect me, from the time I was born. And he has. Even when that meant shielding me from the judgment of our own father. He and Paolo were the badasses, and I was the finesse. I did the smooth talking when it was needed. Played good cop, not that we ever played cops.
I wander into the living room, still in my boxer briefs and sit down at the baby grand in the corner. My fingers move over the keys automatically, the muscle memory there without thought. I still have my music. Too bad it’s not enough.
My phone rings beside me, and I stop playing and pick it up. It’s the phone number I use for women, only I haven’t been with a woman since the accident.
Marissa. I gave her the number before I left the other day.
Never expected her to use it.
I pick up. “This is Gio.”
“Gio, hi. It’s Marissa. From Caffè Milano?” She sounds nervous.
“Everything okay, doll?”
“Um, yeah. Well, I need to talk to you. Can I meet you somewhere? Not at the cafe.”
I don’t know what I hoped. That she had the nerve to ask me out. Or was calling to tell me again that she’s glad I’m alive.
That she knows I dream about her every night.
Of course not. There’s only one reason I get a call like this.
And I fucking hate the way it makes me feel.
“Sure, Marissa. Why don’t you come to my home office?” My dick gets hard as I give her the address to my apartment, even though I know that’s not how things are going to go down.
Just the idea of having her here gets me chubby, though.
I hang up and give my cock a rough squeeze. Down, boy. This is business, not pleasure.
Too fucking bad.
Dead Man’s Hand (Vegas Underground)
“I OWN YOU NOW”
She made a big mistake. You don’t blackmail a Tacone.
Coming to me with a threat? Unacceptable.
If she needs money, she’ll have to ask nicely.
But once I give it to her, we both know what it means:
She belongs to me.
I do my best to hold back. Give her respect.
Because she was there when I got shot.
She’s the girl from my nightmares—the one I have to protect.
And now that I’m back from the dead, I’m trying to do things right.
Trouble is, I can’t keep my hands off her.
And now that she’s under my thumb,
I don’t plan to let her go…
Note: This steamy stand-alone romance is the seventh in USA Today bestselling author Renee Rose’s Vegas Underground series. No cheating, no cliffhangers
READ NOW
September 4, 2019
Alpha Bully – Chapter One
Bailey
There’s a reason I don’t drive any more. A very good reason.
But moments like these make me wish I didn’t turn into a hyperventilating spaz every time I even think about getting behind the wheel. Not driving means I attend the local Wolf Ridge High instead of Cave Hills.
Cave Hills, the top-rated college prep dream school.
Cave Hills the school I should be going to.
The school I deserve to go to.
The school fifteen miles away.
Without a car, it might as well be a hundred.
And at this particular moment, no car means I’m screwed.
Because the bus just passed by my house.
I hear the ktshh of it stopping on my street. Ten minutes early! Snatching my bookbag off the sofa, I dash out my front door with my teeth unbrushed and my Mexican skull Chucks untied, but it’s way too late.
“Wait!” I wave and chase after it. “Hold up!” I jog a half a block, tripping and hopping in my loose sneakers.
The driver has to see me even if he can’t hear. The students in the bus definitely see me. They stare through the windows at me. Not laughing. Not pointing.
I’m a fish in a bowl. Mildly amusing to them, but they won’t feel bad if they have to flush me down a toilet in a week. Racist fucks. You’d think in Arizona being Hispanic wouldn’t get me shunned.
Dammit.
I stoop to tie my shoes and sling my backpack over my shoulder. It slides forward and whacks me in the back of the head. I huff and stand.
Next door, the dynamic brother and sister duo, Cole and Casey Muchmore climb into Cole’s mostly-restored 1950s classic Ford truck. If they witnessed my early morning sprint, they’re not letting on.
Their dad on the other hand sits in the window with a beer in his hand, not even trying to hide the fact he’s watching me. The front window is where he always is, except when he’s stomping around yelling at his kids loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.
Right now, I swear he’s smiling. Like he just had a good laugh over watching me run after the stupid bus. What an ass. Like father, like son, I guess.
Cole is as cool as his truck and even better looking. And he definitely knows it. Revels in it. He rules Wolf Ridge High like his shit comes out rosy and he doesn’t have wrong-side-of-the-track stank all over him. Like the worn out, ripped jeans he practically lives in aren’t covered in grease and grime from repairing cars.
No, Cole Muchmore doesn’t need nice clothes, a fancy car, or anything else money can buy. He has something seen as much more valuable. He’s got the status of worshipped star quarterback. And at Wolf Ridge High, that puts him somewhere in the vicinity of a god.
I eye my last chance at getting to school on time and weigh the chance of catching a ride with them.
Unlike the rest of the kids at Wolf Ridge High, the Muchmores don’t just pretend they don’t see me. They throw scowls in my direction. Hateful glares, even. I met them the day I moved in—went over and introduced myself because they came out to gawk.
They barely answered, looking at me like I had two heads. Tay Swift has had friendlier interactions with Kanye than I had with the Muchmores that day.
But right now I need a lift to school. Even if I walk, I’ll be late for my Spanish exam, and calling my mom is out. If she has to leave work to drive me, I’ll definitely get an earful about how I need to start driving again.
Besides, she has way too much on her plate with the new job.
Forcing my social anxiety to the background, I jog down the sidewalk to the curb and flag down Cole. He slows but doesn’t stop. His sister Casey, a sophomore with resting bitch-face, rolls down the window.
Cole leans across her. His dark hair is tousled, his full lips twisted in a lopsided smirk. “What’s wrong, Pink, miss the bus?”
Pink.
He’s referring to the streak of pale pink that cuts through the front of my dark hair of course. The nickname and my unfortunate physical reaction to Cole Muchmore’s nearness throws me off for a sec. Ride. I need a ride.
I stand on tiptoes to see into the truck and meet Cole’s eye. “Yeah, any chance I could catch a ride?” I curse myself for sounding like a timid mouse.
He shrugs his shoulders with a mock-rueful expression. “Sorry, Pink. I would offer, but there’s no room.”
Bullshit. There’s clearly plenty of room between the two siblings, and he’s just being a dick. I hear his deep chuckle as his sister rolls up her window.
My face flushes hot as they drive away, and a thick knot forms in my throat, heat burning the back of my eyes.
Don’t cry. Not over this.
Save your tears for the things that matter.
Like Catrina. Like the other friends I left behind in Golden.
The pep talk doesn’t work. Two hot trails make their way down my face as I take off, speed walking toward school.
I hate Wolf Ridge. I really do.
I make it to the first major intersection and check the time on my phone as I wait for the light.
Gah. I’m definitely going to be late.
“Hey!” An old Subaru wagon pulls over to the curb and the back door opens. “Did you miss the bus, too?” A scrawny girl with bleach-blonde hair punked out in all directions calls out. I’ve seen her on my bus and around school. She’s an underclassman, so we don’t have classes together, but she’s familiar.
“Yeah.” I tense, prepared for another insult.
“Get in. My mom will take us.”
Her mom beckons impatiently. She has bleached stringy hair and prematurely aged skin of someone who drinks and smokes too much. The car reeks of cigarettes.
Relief and gratitude still slam into me like a tidal wave as I slide in the back seat. “Thanks. I was afraid I’d be late.”
“I already called the school to complain about that damn bus driver,” her mom rants from the front seat. “It’s bullshit. They can’t just show up when they feel like it. They’re supposed to stick to a schedule!”
I murmur my agreement.
“I’m Rayne.” The girl turns in the seat to study me. Her blue eyes are huge in her small, heart-shaped face and her nose is pierced.
I decide instantly that I like her. “Bailey.”
“I know,” she says, reinforcing my impression that I’m not actually invisible at Wolf Ridge High. I’m being actively shunned.
My gut clenches.
“Thanks for stopping,” I say. “Cole Muchmore outright refused to take me.” I don’t know why I say it. I’m not one to complain and I usually keep my thoughts to myself, but I’m getting freaking desperate for someone to talk to.
Rayne rolls her eyes. “Cole is an alpha-hole, like all the other ballers.”
I let out a puff of laughter. “I can’t argue with that.”
Alpha-hole. It’s a perfect description for him.
Well, he can go fuck himself. I won’t be crying over his lack of courtesy.
Guys like him do absolutely nothing for me.
We get to school on time and climb out of the Subaru. The kids getting off the bus stop to stare at us.
“What?” I demand out loud.
I swear, you’d think I was some sort of green-skinned alien from outer space.
Rayne flips them off and grabs my elbow. “Ignore them. They all do whatever the alpha-holes say like freaking minions.”
“Wait… What do the alpha-holes say?”
Rayne looks away, pink staining her pale cheeks. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. This is our school, too.”
Huh.
Whatever that means. I let it drop. I don’t need to alienate the only person who’s willing to be nice to me.
“Thanks for stopping. And for talking to me. I’ve been seriously losing my mind here. I thought maybe all the kids were robots like in this old movie my mom made me watch where the men had all killed their wives and exchanged them with robot replacements.”
Rayne’s impish face breaks into a huge smile. She holds up her palm like she’s swearing an oath. “Not a robot.” She lifts her chin at all the kids streaming into the school who are craning their necks to ogle us. “They might be though.”
#
Cole
I slide into my chair in journalism a few seconds after the bell rings. Of course the human—the bitch who moved next door—already sits at her desk beside me, chit-chatting with the teacher like a suck-up. I catch a whiff of her cinnamon and honey scent as I sit and my balls tighten.
“Nerd patrol,” I mutter as Mr. Brumgard walks away from her desk. I heard she’s taking Advanced Placement English online, and she’s using this class as an elective. Double English credits. Fucking whack-job.
She fumbles her pen—probably because I rattled her—and it clatters to the ground. My buddy Austin automatically reaches to pick it up, then catches my glare and realizes who it belongs to. He straightens without retrieving it.
Good. The king of Wolf Ridge High still rules. No one will talk to Bailey, much less help her, unless I lift my ban on it. I give it another month and she’ll transfer to a school where her kind belong.
She leans into the aisle to get it, but I kick it away, forcing her to lose her balance and fall halfway out of her seat, balanced on one hand. I get a flash of bare thigh as her mini-dress rides up and a low growl rises in my throat.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t get hot for her kind.
Miss Perfect in those little dresses and skull Chucks. I glare in her direction, willing my attraction for her to die. Unfortunately, the way her breasts stretch the front of her polka dot mini-dress today gets me hard. Which makes me hate her even more.
Even if it weren’t for the situation with our parents, I would say she doesn’t belong here. She’s too fucking smart. Too nerd-hot. Too self-possessed for someone getting actively shunned every day at school.
And it’s somehow a thousand times worse that her brains and attitude are wrapped up in that juicy little package.
Mr. Brumgard finishes taking roll, then calls out, “Pop quiz on the reading I assigned yesterday!”
The class groans. Everyone except for Bailey, who obviously can’t wait to show she did her homework. Brumgard stands and starts placing a sheet of paper face down on each desk.
My eyes roll back in my head with frustration, and I fall back against my seat back. This fucking sucks. There’s no chance I’ll get a passing grade, and the homecoming game is Friday. Which means I’m gonna get benched. Which means the entire team and Coach Jamison are going to kill me.
My teammates look over at me with that sort of desperate question in their eyes. I shake my head and a collective underbreath groan ripples through the room. It’s not just my teammates, it’s the rest of the class, too.
Sports are huge at Wolf Ridge High. Way bigger than academics.
Even though we have to play our skills down around humans, every student wants to see us win. And I always put on a good show toying with the other team and dishing out cocky attitude on the field.
“You have seven minutes to complete the quiz over last night’s reading,” Brumgard says, looking at his phone. “You may begin.”
The rustle of paper fills the room as everyone flips their quizzes over. I pick up my pencil and stare at the words, not even comprehending what I’m reading.
My mind spins over the possible outcomes of this situation. They pretty much all end in me getting benched for not maintaining a C average and facing the wrath of the entire school.
But none of that compares to the shitstorm I’ll catch at home when my dad hears.
Which is ironic, since the reason I haven’t done homework all week is because I’ve been working late at Bo’s uncle’s garage to pay for groceries since my dad’s too fucking drunk and depressed to get off his ass and find a new job.
My gaze slides over to Bailey. The girl I can’t stand.
She’s already three-quarters of the way through her quiz. And, most importantly, she hasn’t taken the time to write her name on the top yet.
In one of my best asshole moves, I snap my hand out and grab her quiz while the teacher’s back is turned. I slide my blank quiz on her desk.
Her cheeks color pink and her mouth drops open, but before she can make a sound, every student around us turns and stares her down, unified pack style.
She may be human, but our biology is similar enough that she must feel the pressure. Conform or die. This is wolf domination and pack dynamics at their best. And I’m their alpha.
Her lips snap closed. Jaw sets. Shooting a murderous glare in my direction, she hunches over the paper and starts furiously writing the answers down.
The victory that explodes in my chest has more to do with breaking Bailey than it does with solving my grade problems. I’ve been dying to bring her to her knees since the moment she had the fucking audacity to move in next door.
I smirk as I write my name at the top of her paper and guess at the answers she left blank. Even if I get every one of them wrong, I’ll pass.
Pink is an A plus student. Possibly semi-genius level. She doesn’t belong at Wolf Ridge any more than her mom belongs at the brewery.
Anyway, the point is, her answers will be right. And all I need is a C.
I watch her finish her quiz—the one that used to be mine—brows furrowed, lips locked in a tight line.
“Time,” Mr. Brumgard calls. “Pencils down. Pass your quizzes up, please.”
She sends me another furious glare before passing hers up, and I flick my brows in challenge, daring her to do something about it.
She won’t, and we both know it.
Score one for the alpha bully. Loser human: zero.
USA Today bestselling author Renee Rose delivers on this intense bully romance with a paranormal twist.
Alpha Bully (Wolf Ridge High, Book 1)
SHE RUINED EVERYTHING… I WILL MAKE HER PAY.
Her mom robbed my dad of his job. Destroyed his life.
Now I have to look at her every day.
The girl next door. A human. A hot little nerd.
She doesn’t belong here—not in Wolf Ridge,
not at our high school, definitely not in my life.
She doesn’t know what I am.
Which makes it all the easier to take revenge.
I will bring her to her knees. Pierce her heart.
Make her bleed. For me.
All for me.
NOTE: This New Adult book features steamy scenes with characters over eighteen and is for an audience that is also over eighteen.
GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47817883-alpha-bully
PURCHASE LINKS – $2.99 for a limited time!
Free in Kindle Unlimited
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New release, new series! Alpha Bully, Book 1 of Wolf Ridge High
USA Today bestselling author Renee Rose delivers on this intense bully romance with a paranormal twist.
Alpha Bully (Wolf Ridge High, Book 1)
[image error]
SHE RUINED EVERYTHING… I WILL MAKE HER PAY.
Her mom robbed my dad of his job. Destroyed his life.
Now I have to look at her every day.
The girl next door. A human. A hot little nerd.
She doesn’t belong here—not in Wolf Ridge,
not at our high school, definitely not in my life.
She doesn’t know what I am.
Which makes it all the easier to take revenge.
I will bring her to her knees. Pierce her heart.
Make her bleed. For me.
All for me.
NOTE: This New Adult book features steamy scenes with characters over eighteen and is for an audience that is also over eighteen.
GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47817883-alpha-bully
PURCHASE LINKS – $2.99 for a limited time!
Free in Kindle Unlimited
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
Teasers:
Even when we crash and burn, Cole Muchmore will have been worth it.
“No one writes a bad boy hero like Renee Rose”
– Cara Bristol, USA Today bestselling author.
January 31, 2019
Deleted Prologue from Joker’s Wild
Prologue
Desiree
Holy hell. I’m in front of Don Tacone’s house, miles from the neighborhood where I live, and I’ve got a dead battery or something.
I stop trying to start the engine and pull the key out.
Dammit.
I’ll have to walk a few miles and take the L home. And I don’t know what to do about the car. With the private investigator bills, I can’t even afford a tow, much less a repair.
I push the door open and climb out, only to find myself nose to chest with Junior Tacone.
Son of the imprisoned mafia don. Acting head of the notorious Chicago crime family and a beautiful, terrifying man. He must’ve just arrived for his daily visit to his mother while I was trying to start the car. I do my best to leave before he gets here because the man scares the shit out of me.
I grew up in Cicero. I’m not oblivious to who the Tacones are. Still, it didn’t stop me from taking this job as a home healthcare nurse looking in on the Don’s wife as she convalesces from surgery.
“Car trouble?” Junior rumbles in his deep, commanding voice. He’s over six foot tall, broad chest and even bigger presence.
I start sweating, like I always do when he’s around. I wipe my palms on my pink scrubs and drag my eyes from his chest to his face. “Uh, yeah. It won’t start. I’m going to have to leave it here for the night, if you don’t mind.”
I pulled my hair into two low pigtails this morning and he eyes them wolfishly, like they make me a Playboy Bunny or something. “Sounds like your starter’s gone bad.” He flips his keyring around his finger. “I’ll get it fixed for you.”
“Oh no,” I say quickly. “No, I can take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”
But I already know Junior Tacone isn’t the kinda guy who takes no for an answer. He holds out his palm. “Gimme the keys. I’ll have it fixed for you by tomorrow.”
My stomach clenches. “I, uh, really can’t afford—”
He cocks a brow at me. “Did I say what it would cost?” He’s pretty much always an ass like this. Runs in the family if his mom’s any indication.
I stick my chin out. Bravado has always been my default mechanism, and it’s worked well with his mother. She’s a crotchety bitch, but after three months, I have the woman wrapped around my little finger just by giving shit back to her and making sure I do a high quality job. “No, but whatever it is, I can’t pay anything until my next paycheck.”
He plucks my keys—which I didn’t hand over—out of my hand. “Enough backtalk. Get in my car. I’m taking you home. I’ll have your car fixed by tomorrow. My treat. You’ve taken good care of my ma and I appreciate it.”
My mouth falls open and for some stupid reason, my nipples get hard. I have this weird thing about money—it turns me on when a guy has it. And it especially turns me on when he spends it on me.
Who knows, maybe it’s because I never had any growing up, or because my ex-husband always pissed his away. Or it’s some twisted form of good provider instinct for mating. All I know is half of Junior Tacone’s appeal is the wealth and power he exudes. The other half is his good looks. The broad shoulders, square jaw, dark, penetrating eyes. The patrician nose that’s been broken more than once.
Since I started working here, I’ve had numerous fantasies about him forcing me onto my back and taking what he wants from me. Yeah, forcing me. I know—it’s another weird quirk of mine. I wouldn’t actually want to be manhandled, but it makes for a good fantasy. And Junior Tacone definitely seems like the kinda guy who takes what he wants and doesn’t ask nicely.
Junior’s already walked back to his shiny white Maserati where he casts me an impatient look.
Heat swirls in my low belly as I grab my purse, lock the doors and jog to the passenger’s side of his sports car. I dive in and swing the door shut. I’m slightly breathless, but it’s not from jogging ten feet, it’s from the intimidating man beside me.
He starts the car. “Where to?”
“Humboldt Park.” I give him my address, which I admit is in a pretty sketchy neighborhood, even for a woman who grew up in Cicero. He casts me a sidelong glance.
“What?” I snap. “Not everyone can afford to live in the ‘burbs.”
His brows jump, but he doesn’t comment as the car zips onto the road.
“So how come you’re so broke?” I watch his huge hand work the gear shift. “You make a decent wage as a nurse. I gave you a bonus this week. Where does all your money go?”
If I wasn’t already on edge, this line of questioning throws me way over. My throat constricts as the root cause of my financial problem overtakes me. I’m sure as hell not going to tell him about it, though. Even after six months, I can barely talk about it with my close friends without crying.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” I don’t mean to sound so bitchy. Well, yeah, I do. I need to do whatever it takes to get him off this line of questioning. Ms. Bravado’s making her appearance.
His nostrils flare and lips close into a thin line. The mafia kingpin definitely isn’t used to being spoken to that way.
Yeah, probably not my brightest move.
Still, I’m not going to back down now. “I doubt you’d want me asking questions about where you get your money or how you spend it,” I challenge.
“You think you know something about my money?” His charm is gone; I hear only danger in his voice now.
I definitely pissed him off.
“I grew up in Cicero. I know who you are.” Cold sweat dampens my ribs, but fear and good sense don’t seem to reach my brain.
His eyes slide over to me slowly, like he’s tempering his reaction. “Considering what you think you know, it’s funny how you keep sassing me.”
Definitely a threat.
My stomach jumps and quivers. I pushed this way too far. I’m nearly peeing myself now, but I don’t let it show. “You telling me to stop?”
He takes his time answering, like he’s really considering it. “No,” he says finally. “I don’t think I am.” He takes a turn too fast and I have to grab the door handle. “It kinda turns me on.” When he straightens out the car, his gaze drops to my nipples, which stand out through my thin scrubs and bra like freaking bullets.
Apparently sassing him turns me on, too.
And just like that, my fear flips into arousal. He’s turned on by me giving him shit.
Like his mom, he appreciates someone with the balls—or ovaries in my case—to stand up to him.
The rest of the drive is charged with sexual tension. I half expect him to pull over somewhere, yank me out of the car and bend me over the hood for a hard fucking.
Well, my fantasies are running that way, but I guess it’s not a real expectation. Who knows what the hell is running through his head, but whatever it is, it’s got to be as heated as my thoughts, because I swear the windows steam up.
It’s a good thing tomorrow is my last day working for his mom. Next week I return to my previous job working in the ER trauma unit at Cook County Hospital. It’s much harder work than home healthcare, but with overtime, I’ll make more money at it. And I sure as hell need the money right now.
When we finally get to my place, he glances up at my building with distaste. “Tell me you have decent locks on your doors.”
I push the door open quickly, eager to jump out. “I do.”
“Can you get yourself to my ma’s place in the morning?”
“Definitely. Thanks for the ride. And for having my car looked at.”
“I’ll have it fixed. The keys will be on my ma’s kitchen counter, capiche?”
I grin because the Italian word sounds so wonderfully mafioso coming from his lips.
“Capiche. Yeah.”
He smiles back, revealing a row of perfect white teeth. It completely transforms his face and I realize I haven’t seen the guy smile until now. I wasn’t sure he knew how. It’s a sight to behold. Breathtaking, really. “You say capito—I understand.”
“Capito,” I repeat back. I’m still grinning like a fool. Fuck, are we flirting? This is nuts. You don’t flirt with the most dangerous man in Chicago. I must be out of my ever-loving mind.
I rear back and slam the door, desperate to get away from Junior’s magnetic pull. Out of the sphere of his mighty existence.
One more day and I won’t have to see him again.
And yeah, I will owe him for the car, but hopefully it’s not a debt he’ll come collect on…
December 31, 2018
Sondra’s Christmas Surprise
(Bonus Story from King of Diamonds)
Nico
Stockings.
My wife hung up Christmas stockings in our suite and she’s practically sparkling with anticipation, waiting for everyone to check them.
Everyone meaning me, Corey and Stefano. The family that matters to us.
I’m a little grouchy about not having her all to myself this morning, but I managed to fuck her in the shower before my brother and Corey showed up, so at least I’m not blue-balled.
And really, if I have to share her, I don’t mind it being with Stefano and Corey. They are definitely the two people, apart from Sondra, who I trust most. Corey would do anything for Sondra and Stefano would take a bullet for me.
A knock sounds at the door and Sondra runs for it, throwing it open. “Merry Christmas!” She kisses Corey and Stefano, whose arms are too full of presents to hug her. “Ooh, come in. Put those under the tree. Who wants a latte?”
“I do.”
“Yes, please.”
I can’t take my eyes off my beautiful wife–the glow around her. The way she lights up the room. It’s not just her pretty blond hair and girl-next-door sweetness. It’s who she is.
Sondra’s transformed this luxurious but impersonal penthouse suite in the Bellissimo into a home. There’s a Christmas tree in the corner against the wall-to-wall windows with presents stacked underneath it.
Original artwork hangs on the walls now–stuff she picked from local artists and from the vault where I had a bunch of random pieces stored. Her excellent taste is reflected in everything from the table settings on the breakfast bar to the artsy knick-knacks on the mantle.
Stefano and Corey drop their gifts under the tree and head back to the breakfast bar, where they help themselves to the homemade caramel pecan sticky buns Sondra just took out of the oven.
“Mmm, even better than your mom’s,” Corey raves, popping one a bite of the gooey confection in her mouth.
“Delicious,” Stefano agrees.
“Check your stockings!” Sondra sings out as she froths the milk for their lattes.
I saunter over to the mantel and unhook the four stockings where they hang. “Did you check yours?”
I filled it up last night after I panicked and realized that job fell on my shoulders. I had to go downstairs and raid the gift shop and spa for jewelry, chocolates and skin products to stuff in it. Even so, I feel like I should’ve done better.
I want to spoil Sondra with diamonds and rubies, or a shiny new Mercedes–things my mom loved to get from my dad. But she doesn’t care about those things. I had to put a little more thought into my gift this year, and I’m really fucking nervous about what I ended up getting her.
We all gather in seats around the tree and dump our stockings, picking through the goodies. Mine has an expensive new pen, a gold money clip, men’s shaving lotion. I meet Sondra’s eye. “Thank you, bambi.”
She blushes and shrugs. “You’re hard to shop for.”
I reach for her and pull her up on my lap. “Don’t ever worry about me, piccolina. All I need is you.”
She softens into me, tucking her face into my neck.
Stefano and Corey are having some private exchange of their own.
“Is it time for presents?” Sondra asks.
“Definitely. You first.” I nudge her up off my lap and slide a big box over to her.
She rips the wrapping paper off eagerly, then pulls the tape off the box. It’s a much larger box than needed–I tried to throw her off so she wouldn’t guess my gift by the shape.
She opens it, pulls out the wrapping and just stares.
I clear my throat. “If you don’t like this one, we can put it in the gallery.”
She turns to me, eyes bright with tears. “Are you kidding me? I freaking love it. It’s perfect.” She pulls the Picasso drawing out of the box and holds it up to show Corey and Stefano.
“I’ve been assured it’s real by two separate art experts.” The thing cost me $200 grand, which I was happy to spend. I’m just worried it won’t be from her favorite period, or the right colors or something.
“Oh, it’s real,” Sondra breathes. “It’s real and I love it. Thank you.” She won’t stop looking at it. That’s a good sign.
I lean over and kiss her neck. “If you don’t–”
“I love it,” she says firmly. When she turns to me, the tears are in her eyes again. “It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me. I can’t even believe it.”
Warmth fills my chest. Satisfied, I sit back and pull her against me. “Good.”
We watch Corey and Stefano open a couple presents, then Sondra hands a box to me. It’s small and rectangular. I pull the end of the ribbon and untie the bow. “What is it?” I pry open the taped lid and look in.
My entire body flushes with ice and heat at what I see.
“What… not really… is this–?”
I meet my wife’s eyes. She nods, her smile blinding.
I pick up the silver rattle, my eyes smarting. “You’re pregnant?”
“Just a few weeks. I decided to wait until Christmas to tell you.” She fidgets with her hands like she’s uncertain of my reaction.
I reach for her, holding her head as I lay kisses all over her face–her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks. “Madonna, this is wonderful. I’m so fucking happy.”
“You are?”
“Of course I am.”
“Whoo hoo,” Corey cheers.
“Congratulations,” Stefano pipes in, but I can’t spare them any attention. I have to love on my wife. “Ma is going to be so thrilled.”
For some reason, my eyes smart again thinking of my mom’s joy at this news.
“Yeah, she is,” I say. “But not as thrilled as I am. This is the best gift ever, angel.”
“Don’t think you have to give him this gift every year, though,” Corey says drily.
We all laugh.
I pull her back to my lap, needing to have her closer, needing to caress her everywhere. “I’m going to spoil you rotten, baby,” I promise, my lips on her shoulder. “You’ll be fucking principessa around here.”
She laughs, tears finally escaping her eyes and glittering on her lashes. “I already am.”
I palm her abdomen protectively, saying hello to my baby. “I love you, piccolina,” I whisper in her ear. “Both of you.”
She turns and wraps her arms around my neck. “Merry Christmas, Nico. We love you, too.”
November 16, 2018
Ace of Hearts – Chapter One
(c) Renee Rose Romance 2018[image error]
Pepper
You know your career’s reached a new low when you’re booked for eight weeks in Vegas.
I stare at the giant neon marquis with my name in lights as the limo pulls up to the Bellissimo Casino and Hotel. I don’t care if the Bellissimo is the swankiest, hippest place in Sin City, it’s still Vegas. The shithole performers go to for low stress, easy money. Usually after they’re burned out.
So why the hell am I here twenty months after the release of an album and less than fourteen hours after the last performance of a grueling tour?
Because Hugh, my asshole manager, sold me out.
And now my parents, Hugh and I are in a world of trouble only I can fix.
Anton, my bodyguard, gets out first, then offers a hand to help me. I ignore it, because, yeah–I’m twenty-three, so fully capable of getting out of a car on my own, and not prissy enough to want help, although I appreciate the gesture. I climb out and shake down the skirt of my strappy, babydoll dress, which I paired with a beat up pair of brick red Doc Martens, and pop my earbuds out, the RadioHead album still playing.
A forty-something woman in a blue dress and heels clips out of the door, making a beeline for Hugh. Behind her, a huge, broad-shouldered man stands just outside the gold-trimmed door watching.
Watching me.
That’s not unusual. I’m the popstar, after all, but it’s the way he watches that sends rockets of warning shooting through my veins. His unimpressed, quiet observation and fine Italian suit give him away.
He’s Tony Brando, the man who now owns me.
I recognize him. He showed up to my concert in Vancouver, and again in Denver.
He’s the reason we’re here, despite the fact that I’m three hours from a total collapse, about to lose my voice and in desperate need of some alone time.
Of course, even if the mob wasn’t after me for millions of dollars, Hugh probably would still have me booked until the next century. My well-being never factored into his or my parents’ plans for my career.
I told Hugh two years ago I needed a break. Time to find my muse again and make the music that catapulted me into stardom in the first place. I wanted to hole up in a studio to record my next album, which would fix the cash flow problem my parents were in after some bad investments last year.
But Hugh had a sure-fire scheme.
An idiotic, dangerous plan that my parents and I blindly trusted him to execute.
“Welcome, Ms. Heart. I’m Angela Torrino, director of events. The Bellissimo is so thrilled to have you, as you can see.” She gestures to the hundred foot neon sign out on the strip with my name in lights.
I shake her hand and try to force a smile. Try not to glance at the pinstriped suit lurking behind her.
Hugh trots around and takes over, as always. “Thanks for making the arrangements, Ms. Torrino.” He pumps her hand. “Now, if you can get us access to the stage, we’ll start loading in so Pepper can rehearse before her performance tonight.”
Right. Rehearse–now. Because lord knows it’s a sacrilege to actually have one day of rest after traveling before I perform. Or even an hour.
I follow Hugh and Ms. Torrino toward the hotel/casino doors, Anton right behind me and slightly to my left.
Ms. Torrino stops to introduce Hugh to the large man in the doorway. Brando ignores her and steps forward. His movements are graceful for a man at least six and a half feet tall and over 250 pounds. His gaze is clearly on my face, and not in the wow-I’m-meeting-the-famous-young-rockstar-Pepper-Heart way. No, it’s more a big bad wolf surveying his prey.
His gaze skims on my mouth, then lower, to my braless breasts and on down my bare legs. Then back up again and a more leisurely pace, finally resting on my eyes.
I’m pretty sure he likes what he sees, but he doesn’t leer. The smirk on his mouth is more one of satisfaction, like I’m a fine wine that’s just been delivered to him and he’s savoring my scent.
My stomach knots.
“Ms. Heart, this is Antonio Brando, one of the Directors of Operations here at the Bellisimo,” Ms. Torrino chirps from behind him. I’d like to say his big scary visage makes him ugly, but it would be a lie. Even with the light lines of scars marring his rugged jaw, forehead, and left cheek, he’s beautiful. Like some sort of Roman demi-god sent to Earth to rip apart men and conquer women until the lowly humans have all been tamed.
He doesn’t offer his hand. I don’t either. In fact, I give him my best fuck you stare–the one I usually reserve for Hugh.
“I’m looking forward to your show tonight.” His baritone moves through me, vibrating right between my thighs.
I really wish my body didn’t have this reaction to his closeness, because I’d much rather hate the man than be turned on by him. But he’s massive masculine power; he radiates quiet confidence and control.
And menace.
Yes, there’s an undercurrent of violence to him that sends shivers running down my spine.
I clamp my lips together because I can’t think of anything to say that won’t get my kneecaps broken. And I’m pretty sure that happens here–the Bellissimo is owned and run by the Tacone crime family. Besides, and more importantly, I don’t want him to hear the state of my voice. It’s almost gone. I’ve been sick for weeks now and I honestly don’t know if I can make it through this last stint in Vegas.
Hugh bustles to my side and grabs my elbow in that controlling way of his. “Come on, let’s get you to that stage so you can rehearse. I want no flub-ups tonight.”
I put my head down and follow, not because I agree that I need the rehearsal time, but because I need to get away from Brando’s searing regard.
As fast as possible.
Hugh’s grip tightens on my elbow as we move through the casino. “Do you want to get us all killed?” he hisses in my ear, his breath stinking of sour coffee.
“I thought you already took care of that,” I rasp in my most dry, bored tone–the one that sets him off on a rampage. Then I tune out the lecture as Bellissimo guests call out my name and start snapping photos. I grin and flash them the peace sign as we walk through casino on a long parade from the front door to the concert hall where my tour bus is parked in the way back. Of course we could’ve just pulled around there to begin with, but this is Hugh’s strategy of making sure everyone knows there’s someone famous in the building–hyping the show. My band members and roadies have the luxury of slipping in the back in peace.
I honestly don’t mind, though. I love my fans. They’re the reason I write music. The reason I sing.
A group of rowdy frat boys jostle too close, getting into my space to snag selfies with me. Anton barks for them to back up, shielding my body with his, but suddenly casino security swarm around us, forming a protective bubble.
“I don’t know, she only has one bodyguard,” one of them speaks into a comms unit, then, “You got it, Tony. We’ll stay with her at all times.”
Tony.
I twist around to see my huge keeper. He’s walking casually behind us, his lips moving as he gives orders to his staff. Our gazes meet and lock, his dark, promising.
My heart picks up speed.
I want to march back and say all the things I bit back when we met outside, but it’s like the Earth is rumbling beneath my feet. The Tetonic plates shifting and moving, rearranging.
I may have thought I could handle Vegas. Handle my obligations at the Bellissimo. Get in, get out; hold my breakdown until it’s over. But now that I’ve met Tony Brando, I know I’m in way over my head.
It’s hard to imagine I’ll survive this gig with my soul intact.
#
Tony
Merda. Pepper Heart is nothing like what I expected. I figured her for a party girl–a spoiled young rock star who’d pissed her money away like water. Either that, or a child in need of growing up, maybe whose parents or manager had grossly mismanaged her career and finances. And the latter may still be true, but Pepper is neither a child, nor a vapid starlet.
She’s every bit a woman.
A beautiful woman with slender, muscular legs like a ballerina. Youthful, braless–fuck yes, braless--tits that shift under her sweet little babydoll dress like they’re begging to be licked. She has a fluffy, platinum bob over a pink underlayer and heavy black eyeliner around those eyes. Those eyes were what stripped me of my judgment about her. Big, deep, the color of warm caramel: they are full of pain.
And if I see that asshole manager of hers grab her by the elbow like that again, I’m going to yank his tie so tight his eyes pop out.
I swear to la madonna.
I order my guys to keep an eye on her at all times, because I don’t like the fact that she only has one bodyguard, and fans who want to get up close to that ripe little body of hers.
I trail behind her entourage at a distance, telling myself I’m just making sure they’re fulfilling their obligations to me. To Nico. And Junior.
Pepper Heart owes a shit ton of money to the Tacones and it’s my job to make sure she pays it off. I’d say she’s lucky she has the talent and following for me to squeeze, but it’s not luck. Junior Tacone knew what he was doing when he let her borrow 900K to produce and release her last album and world wide tour–which sold sluggishly. He knew we could put her to work at the Bellissimo. Forever, if we need to.
The sweet little songbird’s in my cage now.
And fuck if I don’t wish she was the spoiled brat starlet drinking and partying her way through her tour. Because I don’t like to squeeze a woman.
I have a big fucking problem with it, actually.
It’s always been my sore spot.
The don warned his son Nico about me when he sent us off to Vegas together, years ago. When Nico decided to make a name for himself away from Chicago. Don Tacone said, “Trust Tony. He’ll be your most loyal soldier. Just don’t ever ask him to hurt a woman. And don’t you ever hurt a woman. Or else all bets will be off.”
The don knew. He turned a blind eye as I worked to right the wrongs of my childhood. Bloodied my hands and my soul vigilante style.
So I hope to God Pepper’s shows sell out, we get her debt paid and send her out of here unscathed.
Because I don’t want her to know the kind of violence I’m capable of. What I’ve done since I sold my soul to the devil Don Tacone.
I stop one of the cocktail waitresses. “Deliver a bottle of our finest champagne to Ms. Heart’s dressing room with my compliments.”
It’s not because I feel guilty.
It’s just to smooth things over between us. A gesture of welcome, to show her she’ll be treated with respect, so long as she does as she’s told.
Definitely not because I give a shit what she thinks about me. Or because that sexy little glare she gave me when we were introduced got me harder than a rock.
I shouldn’t celebrate the fact that she’s not afraid.
Putting her at ease is definitely not part of this job.
Ace of Hearts by Renee Rose
(Las Vegas Underground, Book 3
“I savor Renee Rose’s books as if they were the finest of champagnes” ~USA Today Bestselling Author Sierra Cartwright
THE SWEET LITTLE SONGBIRD’S IN MY CAGE NOW.
She owes the Family money. Big money. And I’m the guy
they sent to put the squeeze on her. So now she’s playing at my casino.
Strutting around on my stage in her tight little shorts. Killing me softly.
I promised she’ll be treated with respect, so long as she does as she’s told.
But I didn’t count on her barging in my office and tempting me,
begging for a taste of my authority.
I didn’t count on her getting under my skin.
And now the last thing I want is to see her debt paid.
Because then I’d have to set her free…
Note: This steamy stand-alone romance is the third in USA Today bestselling author Renee Rose’s Vegas Underground series. No cheating, no cliffhangers.
