I couldn’t think about that now. Not when my heart was beating so fast already.
I looked up into Hannah’s face as she said, “You wanna drink? Should calm you down a little. Promise I won’t card you, though I’m pretty happy with the way those IDs came out, if you know what I mean.” And she winked.
I knew roughly two-thirds of what that meant. But “carding”? What was that? I stared blankly at her, and she rolled her eyes and snapped at a man on the other side of the bar. “Hey, Jake, can you grab my sister a…” Hannah turned her attention back to me, looking me up and down. “You know what? Just get her some wine. We’ll start slow.” Jake nodded and I watched him uncork a bottle, filling up a glass halfway.
When he set it down in front of me, my stomach turned. This was too much, too fast. We didn’t drink in the community. We were New Order, which means we didn’t drink or smoke. Those were gateways to ruin, our father often said. And here Hannah was, serving it up, not just to me, but to a whole room full of people. Too many people…
“This is too much,” I whispered to Beth. But she wasn’t paying attention to me. Only Hannah seemed to hear.
“Look,” she said, “you two are out in the real world now. You’ve gotta do some real world things. Live a little! Isn’t that what Rumspringa’s supposed to be about—exploring, getting your hands dirty?”
“You seem to have done quite a bit of both,” I muttered, then winced immediately. I hadn’t meant it like that—not really. It wasn’t my place to judge Hannah, after all. But a little bit of my mother had shown through just then, and I could see the hurt in Hannah’s eyes. I swallowed hard and reached over to take her hand. “I’m sorry, sister. My tongue got away from me…”
For as long as I could remember, Hannah had been the “strong one” of our trio. She was passionate, headstrong, and seemingly invulnerable—in many ways, she reminded me of our late grandmother, who’d been referred to as a “hard woman” by almost every man in our village. She was quite skilled at putting up barriers and walls. So when I saw even the briefest flicker of shame cross my sister’s face, it pulled at the strings of my heart with such regret my cheeks burned.
But then Hannah shrugged, put a mask of placidity back on, and said, “Well, if you’re looking for someone to catch it for you…” She nodded at the rest of the room behind my shoulder.
I turned, and instantly my cheeks bloomed brighter. There, toward the back of the bar, three men were staring in our direction. Not just any men, either. These men were… well, objectively speaking, attractive. And they looked nothing like the boys Beth and I had left behind just hours ago.
All three of them were tall and built, composed entirely of a series of powerful muscles that coiled like serpents whenever they lifted their drinks to their mouths. Those were not the lean sort of muscles earned by farming and woodworking. These muscles were larger, harder, different. Alluring in ways I hadn’t expected. I found it hard to draw my eyes away from the bulge of their biceps, the cords of their shoulders, and my mind went to a very dark place where I imagined with what ease those arms might hold me.
My heart was in my throat by the time I’d dragged my eyes up the neck of the one nearest to me. He had a jaw sharp and defined as the edge of a blade, and it looked just as strong as the rest of him. His chin was square, not soft in the slightest, and led up to the bow of his lips stained by a scant trail of foam from the beer he was holding. I saw his nostrils flare just a little and met his gaze, piercing enough to nearly startle me off my stool. His eyes were the most beautiful shade of brown I’d ever seen, the shadow of his brow giving them a depth that left me breathless. And yet they seemed to have an inner glow, a fire that turned them amber and then honey toward the center.
He lifted one of his jet eyebrows and curled his lips in a smirk when I didn’t look away. Then he swept his tongue, just slightly, over his lower lip and my pulse began pounding in my ears.
And… somewhere else, too.
I tore away and turned back to Hannah, who was grinning from ear to ear. When I began muttering a prayer, she rolled her eyes and took me by the shoulders.
“Sarah, loosen up! Most girls your age would kill for men like that to undress them with their eyes! Beth certainly doesn’t seem to mind.”
I looked over. My younger sister was distracted, gazing longingly in the same direction I had been a moment before. I shook my head at them both.
“Beth’s not old enough to know better,” I said, and it was true. She was just barely nineteen, hardly old enough for baptism let alone to know anything about men. I wasn’t much better at twenty-two, but I at least had the good sense to be wary of outsiders in a way Beth had never been. She was the baby, and that had afforded her a certain amount of freedom and naïveté that struck me as ill-suited for the English world.
At my detraction of her character, Beth blinked and looked at me, a scowl on her young and innocent face. “Hannah’s right, Sarah. You need to have some fun. This is what Rumspringa is all about.”
“It’s not!” I protested, fighting the urge to slam my hands on the bar. I nestled them in my skirts instead, clutching the material tightly. “Rumspringa is supposed to be a time of contemplation. We venture into a world of sin so that we may know the nature of temptation, and so we may be thankful for the simple lives we lead back home. Rumspringa is supposed to be a cautionary tale, not a license to… to…” I turned away, disgusted. “To become inebriated and fornicate!”
Hannah laughed, hard. To my right, I heard Jake laughing too, as well as a few other patrons who had undoubtedly overheard. My face was blazing now and I covered it with my palms, sending a silent prayer up to God that Beth and Hannah would come to their senses and we would all go back home.
“Sarah.” Hannah’s voice was in my ear, soft, lilting with the accent of our mother tongue. I looked up at her through my fingers. “It’s all right. I know how scary this can all be. But you do have admirers, and that’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
I wet my lips. “I don’t think that’s the case,” I replied in strangled, appropriated Dutch. “They’re probably looking at you, not me.” Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. The one with the black hair had stared right through me. We’d locked eyes. I could still feel the heat of his gaze, still see the glitter of his irises in the dark. They were terrifying, those eyes—filled with forbidden knowledge, witness to the kind of things I couldn’t even imagine, yet things that were perceived as normal here. The way they’d made me feel, though… like I was the only woman in the room—no, all the world… That delicious beat he’d inspired low in my belly, and further south still…
Hannah pulled my hands down gently and looked into my eyes. I remembered how she’d always protected me, growing up—Beth, too. Hannah was our guiding star as children. She was so tough and so wise. Now was no different except that she was also worldly, educated in matters beyond my and Beth’s comprehension. We were not on equal footing, Hannah and I, nor had we ever been… but the gulf between us seemed wider now.
Still, her protective embrace brought me comfort. Softly, I told her, “Even if he was—looking at me, I mean—he’s got a beard, Hannah.”
She blinked at me. “And… that matters why?”
I frowned. Had she really forgotten? Two years was a long time, but was it really that long?
“That means he’s married,” I whispered, and Hannah’s jaw dropped just a tad. Her lips moved, as if she wanted to say something… and then she laughed. At me. Again. I slumped forward into the bar, trying to find a way to curl up and disappear. I felt so foolish here. So much like I didn’t belong.
“You’re talking about Amish standards!” Hannah said, pushing my wine glass closer to me. Even that was strange and new. I’d never seen a glass that looked like that before. “Out here, men grow beards for fun, not as a symbol of their availability.” She eyed the stranger I’d been intrigued by. “Anyway, I’m willing to bet he’s single as can be. Guys like that usua
lly are.”
I tucked a strand of hair back into my bonnet. “Guys like what?”
“Bad boys,” she said with a shrug, picking up my untouched glass and downing its contents all in one go. I widened my eyes at her but she just shrugged. “Cocky. Sexy. You know.” She gestured vaguely. “Hot. Eligible! And they like to stay that way. For as long as they can, at least.”
“You’re not exactly pleading his case,” I replied as Hannah waved to Jake to fill up her glass again. This time, she handed it to Beth, who took a long sip. I slapped her arm and gave her a look, but she ignored me—I even caught her shooting me a petulant glare out of the corner of her eye. The nerve… Looking back at Hannah, I added, “By the sounds of things, I should stay far, far away.”
“Oh,” Hannah said, smiling slyly, “I don’t think that will be possible.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. “And why is that?” Did Hannah think I couldn’t resist whatever temptation that man offered? Did she think I’d get a taste of the world beyond our borders and vow never to return, as she did? I wouldn’t have put it past her. Hannah often believed her way was the right way, and there legitimately was no other. I wasn’t so sure that in this case, she was right.
But she just grinned at me a little wider and said, “Because he’s on his way over here, kiddo. And he hasn’t stopped staring at you the whole way.”
My stomach dropped to my feet and I whirled so fast on my stool I almost lost my balance. Hannah was right. The tall, dark stranger was on his feet and swaggering over to me, running a hand through his black hair to push it away from his chiseled face. Wolf’s eyes, I realized—he had the eyes of a wolf. Of a predator.
And judging by the way he was looking at me, I was his prey.
Pride is available everywhere now!
Bonus Book 1 - Outrageous Proposal
The first bonus novel I’m including is Outrageous Proposal. This is a British Bad Boy Billionaire Romance.
Chapter 1
Harrison
“Ugh… Bloody Christ.”
The words dropped out of Harrison’s mouth before he was aware of anything else except the pain. A cloudy hangover headache tumbled around his skull, pulsing, making his brain feel three times too big and about ten degrees too hot. He groaned and rolled over. The soothing cool of satin sheets beneath his bare, hot skin was a welcome sensation.
He kept his eyes clenched shut and tried to trick himself back to sleep, but it was no use; once he was awake, it was over, especially after he had drank as hard as he had the night before. Harrison sighed and opened his eyes. On the ceiling, reflections from the ocean water outside danced lightly, dim ribbons that would get brighter with the morning sun.
He heard a gentle moan next to him and turned to see his bed companion, still hard asleep against the white smooth pillow. She was gorgeous, thin, her skin a flawless golden tan. As shiny as her hair was, she probably never did it herself, she was too rich and dainty for that. As he watched the gentle rise and fall of her bare back and bony shoulders, Harrison thought with a half-smile: What was she called again? Tiffany? Theresa? Ah, well. She had been fun enough the night before, eager and willing to suck his cock and spend the whole night fucking and drinking.
Not that it was hard for him to find those qualities, of course. That was the whole reason he even stayed on this island.
A tide of pain rushed through his head and Harrison groaned again, finally in too much pain to ignore it. He stumbled naked out of bed and into the penthouse suite bathroom. The woman’s toiletries and extensive make-up supplies were scattered like chaotic stars across the black marble countertop, and among it all Harrison found a white bottle of ibuprofen. He quickly downed as many as he safely could, then closed the bathroom door to trap in the steam for the piping hot shower he was about to take.
He hadn’t been under the steaming stream a few minutes before he saw a flesh-colored silhouette moving behind the frosted glass of the shower doors. One popped open, and the sleepy head of what’s-her-name popped in. Her eyes were still tired and droopy, ringed black from the makeup she hadn’t bothered to take off the night before. There was a lazy, lustful smile on her full lips as she looked Harrison’s naked body up and down.
His cock wasted no time springing to life. “Morning, love. See something you like?” He stroked himself twice as he smiled meaningfully at her.
The young woman licked her lips, needing no more invitation than that. “Mmm, something I like a lot.”
“The water’s just right,” said Harrison, reaching out a wet hand to brush along her breast and erect nipple.
The headache very quickly became a secondary priority. Besides, didn’t orgasms help them? He was sure he had read that somewhere, and used it on a woman once or twice before as well. That at least made him a charitable git, if a git regardless.
The woman slipped into the shower with him, pressing her naked flesh up against Harrison’s. Her skin was still warm from the bedsheets, and Harrison slipped his hands all along it as she breathed heavily against his neck. He attacked her mouth with a ravenous kiss just as his hands reached up to squeeze both of her big, beautiful breasts. Her responding touch felt like magic as they skimmed over the lines of his muscular chest and arms. His cock, rubbing up against her wet, tight belly, was so hard it hurt.
But she knew exactly what he wanted. She pulled away from his mouth and kissed her way down his neck, chest, and abs, slowly dropping to her knees on the shower floor. Without any ceremony, she wrapped her hot lips around the pulsing head of his nine-inch cock and swallowed half of it down her throat. Harrison exhaled audibly and tangled both his hands in her hair.
“Fuck yes, baby,” he rasped. She hummed around his shaft in response.
When Harrison looked down, he saw the delicious view of her beautiful mouth stuffed with his cock, as well as her own delicate hand flitting between her legs, getting herself off at the same time. It was almost too much. She was far, far dirtier than he remembered from the night before, but he wasn’t about to complain. Instead, he figured he would find out just how dirty she was.
Tightening the grasp he had on her hair, Harrison began to fuck her face, holding her head tightly in his hands as he pushed his hips towards her. She only seemed to get more turned on by this, whimpering against the skin of his cock, sucking harder against it with every back-stroke.
He wasn’t going to last long at this rate. She was just too damn good at what she was doing.
“I never want to take my cock out of your throat,” he told her in a breathy groan.
She sounded like she was getting close to her own orgasm, and his dirty talk only seemed to make it worse. One hand on her clit, the other wrapped around his legs and ass to hold herself steady, she took him as deep as she could before starting to gag. Only then did she pull back slightly, her saliva lubricating everything as it spilled over the head of his cock and around the edge of her lips.
That was it. Her talented mouth pushed him to the brink, and he came with a hard growl. Yanking his rigid cock out of her mouth at the last second, he watched in orgasmic bliss as it spurted all over her face and tits. The woman’s orgasm followed his immediately, manicured nails gripping painfully into his leg as she shuddered. Harrison put his cock head back into her moaning mouth just a bit as she did, and smiled when she greedily sucked at it, waves of ecstasy still shaking her beautiful body.
“You’re something else, you know that?” he said to her. “Better clean yourself up.”
She sighed with a contented smile, and took his offered hand to stand up in the shower stream and rinse his cum off of her skin. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, pressing her body into his. “How about we don’t leave the room today?” she said in a throaty voice. “I can make you cum as many times as you can get there.”
Harrison did his best not to sigh and roll his eyes. They always wanted him to stay, no matter how many times he told them the night before that he wouldn’t. He rea
lly did try to be the least-douchiest version of himself possible, up front and honest about his expectations. But even at this resort, a place set aside for uninhibited and unattached hedonism, he still found the same trappings of the regular world: people who didn’t want to listen when they didn’t like what they heard.
“Afraid that’s not going to work for me, love,” he said. “I’ve told you, today isn’t my day off.”
She gave him an exaggerated, pouty frown that some bloke at some point had found attractive, he was sure, but one that did nothing to change his own feelings about her. The little girl act got old quickly. He didn’t have time for it. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” She nuzzled her face into the side of his.
“I’m sure,” he said with a gentle smile. “Maybe I’ll catch up with you later tonight.” He was lying, but he was good at it, so she only grinned happily and kissed him in response.
Royal Stripper Page 26
