by Liz K. Lorde
Table of Contents
Title Page
Newsletter
Other Works by Liz
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Newsletter 2
Liz K. Lorde’s Website
Other Books By Liz K. Lorde
Special Thanks
Bonus Novel - Hunter: MC Romance
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Contents
Title Page
Newsletter
Other Works by Liz
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Newsletter 2
Liz K. Lorde’s Website
Other Books By Liz K. Lorde
Special Thanks
Bonus Novel - Hunter: MC Romance
1
2
3
4
5
6
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8
9
10
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12
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Epilogue
Epilogue
Bonus Novel 2 - Gabriel: MC Romance
Prologue
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Our Happy Ending I
Epilogue: Darkness Broods Over Sequim
Author’s Note 2
HOTSTREAK (CHAOS, NEVADA #2)
A Badboy New Adult Romance
Liz K. Lorde
Liz K. Lorde Publishing
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STEEL KNIGHTS (Motorcycle Club Romance)
Revved Up Soul - Novel - Book 1 (not standalone) [FREE w/ MAILING LIST]
Revved Up Hearts - Novel - Book 2 (not standalone)
Gabriel: MC Romance - Novel - Book 3 - standalone
HELL REAPERS (Motorcycle Club Romance)
Hunter: MC Romance - Novel (100K words) - Book 1
CHAOS, NEVADA (Mafia / Various Genres Romance)
Our Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Novel - Book 1 (Standalone)
Hotstreak: A Badboy New Adult Romance - Novel - Book 2 (Standalone)
© 2017 Liz K. Lorde
CHAPTER 1
VIVIAN
EVERY PART OF ME WAS STILL aching for this man’s touch. How could he do this to me? No man should have this much power. This much control. Dad always warned me that it was a big, scary world that was waiting for me out here – nobody told me things could get this fucked up, but somehow they did. Somehow, I let things get this way. Stupid, I think to myself, that’s what I am. Stupid and weak for letting a man like this get me so close.
But after having his cock ravage me to the point of exploding around his shaft twice, I’m stuck feeling delightfully powerless. I’m supposed to be on a mission. Supposed to be doing everything that I can to find her.
He strips me of my mask and the light comes back to me. My vision fills with the delicious sight of his hard and ripped body. The dark sleeve of tattoos on his arm and over his chest? Sinfully tickling. The corded muscle of his powerful legs? Yeah, he just fucked me like a machine with those works of art. The condom on his cock is still glistening with all of my juices, and fuck if it doesn’t turn me on seeing my cum lingering there on his patch of trimmed pubes. I let my eyes work up to his handsome face, his thick but well trimmed dark brown beard rests there. His icy blue eyes possessing me with just one look. With his thick head of coarse brown hair, he stands over me like a god.
Now he’s dragging me to the end of the bed and grabbing a fistful of my black hair. “I’m going to fuck your pretty little face, Princess,” he growls.
This city’s beat me down and drained me. But he’s my dark, corrupting angel. My everything in this moment.
My savior.
SIX MONTHS EARLIER
NOTHING EVER HAPPENS to me. I’m staring up at the white ceiling of my room, laying naked (aside from sky blue panties) in my bed, and I couldn’t be hating myself any more than I already was because of one simple thing: The dream. But that’s not something I want to dwell on. Something I’d rather purge from my head and my heart.
The ear buds in my ear are blaring energetic punk rock from my favorite band The Sixty Sticks but you probably haven’t heard of them, nobody at high school or college ever did at least.
I couldn’t sleep. But there’s nothing unusual about that. My eyes are tired and weary, and they’re threatening to close even now; except I can’t miss work again, not today. I’d already been talked to by management for my issues with being late. Of course, I was only always so consistently late because I can’t sleep.
Cycle, meet vicious.
They never liked me though, and they made it a point to ostracize me from
all my other coworkers. Maybe I felt too different from them. I’d never even been laid before, but I tried not to let it show. The most action I’d ever gotten, if I remember, was in that first semester of college when I was drinking at a party and I ended up blowing some nerdy looking guy. Evans? I think that was his name.
Yeah it was an unexciting and sloppy memory, both literally and metaphorically. I think the dude blew his load within the first five seconds of me taking him in my mouth, and I distinctly recall not liking the way he tasted of both gross and disgusting somehow simultaneously. Plus, during that whole five seconds, I was thinking not so much about what we were both doing, but rather how I was going to spend my night not studying when I needed to be.
Well, fair’s fair in this messed up world because you know what? If people don’t like me, I don’t like them back. They act all buddy buddy at work, like they’re all best friends – why won’t they include me with them? Why was I for some reason the lost girl?
Lost. That’s a word I’m too familiar with.
It was a stupid thing to be fretting over as the morning sun creeps through my bedroom window. Dad was already at work. He must have gotten in at his job at the factory around three AM, and I knew that he wouldn’t be back until at least three PM. He always works so hard for me, and I just keep seeming to always disappoint him. Like it was my specialty. Vivian, queen of ice and disappointment. Better to be queen of something than to be queen of nothing, right?
I liked to think that my mother was a queen. That maybe she’d come back one day from her royal trip. That was one of the stories I enjoyed telling myself when all the kids would look at me; when they would laugh to each other and glance my way. Pushing out a breath through my silver studded nose and rolling onto my side in the bed, I reposition my head on one of my many blue colored pillows. Today was not going to be easy, and an ache starts forming in the sides of my head as soon as I close my eyes.
These headaches were not uncommon. In fact, they were becoming more and more frequent.
What else could God pile on me that he already hasn’t.
In my mind’s eye, I see those dark, mysterious waters that seemed to plague me no matter what I did or where I went; they were always there when I closed my eyes. Right before I tried to sleep last night, to at least try and act like a responsible nineteen year old, I saw it. That pool of water and this terrible, terrible feeling. Dread blankets me in it’s sickly warmth. I pull in a breath and all I want to do is shut the world out from under me. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? Not wanting to have to see those disturbing images, not wanting to feel those horrible pangs of the life being leeched from me – of which, I could feel my bones wanting to crawl from my skin now – I pull myself out of bed and sit on the edge for a moment.
Being messy is probably my room’s most interesting characteristic, save for my bookshelf which I always seemed to keep pretty much in tact. I loved my books, they were the only thing that ever seemed to give me a real sense of joy in life. For years they were my light in the darkness, the one thing keeping me sane and safe from any bad desires. But as my teenage years rolled on by, I found myself reading less and less; even though I keep them in order now, and every once in a great while I’ll read on my kindle, I just can’t seem to find the happiness in them that I used to.
For some reason that hurts me more than it should.
After flunking out of college, mostly because my father wanted me to learn a ‘real skill’ as he put it – in my case, learning how to program with computers – instead of letting me pursue what I wanted. I’d always wanted to be an opera singer, even if it wasn’t the most secure of work choices. Having a rough time in high school, there just didn’t feel like there was much out there for me anymore.
Life, for me, is seven shades of screwed. And not the Christian Grey kind either.
I rise from the bed and begin my disorganized morning ritual before work. Lighting up a quick joint, I take a few hits from it and exhale out the smoke, before putting it out on my crystal ash tray sitting on my desk. After that I slip over to my laptop on my desk and post my morning status on Facebook, quickly check through Instagram, and pin a few things on Pinterest. When I’ve gotten some paltry satisfaction from that, I scoop up all the clothes that I need for today, hop in the shower, clean myself for a good fifteen minutes, dry off, brush my teeth, brush my hair, get dressed and head out the door.
Outside it’s a clear morning, and it’s quiet too, I think. Sitting out there on the driveway is my beat-up and faithful blue 2002 Ford F-150. I hop inside of it, turn the engine, adjust the mirror briefly – catching sight of my hazel eyes – and head to my most favorite place. Burger Town, where serving you is truly our pleasure, because why else would we work for so cheap?
If you couldn’t tell, that was me being sarcastic.
Yeah. It happens a lot, so get used to it.
THERE’S A SMEAR OF OIL that’s sitting there on the white linoleum floor. Ugh, nobody ever cleans around here! But whatever, it’s not my job to be doing everyone else’s load of work; not like they’ll pay me extra or anything. I was sort of proud of myself that I’d made it to Burger Town on time.
Just where in the hell is Belle? She always got here early. See, Belle is one of our new Burger Town programmed zombies, so to speak, everyone just loves her. Never mind the fact that we used to be best friends when we were younger. She has the manners, she has the attitude, and she has all the pretty little lines of ‘customer service speak’ down pat. I’ll be the first to admit she’s a big improvement from our last person who worked the window service; Leslie Goode was a total bitch and if you can even believe it she perpetuated that disgusting stereotype, you know, the one where people in the food biz give you a little something ‘extra’ in your food.
Yeah, total squick.
Belle has it all. The pretty blonde hair. The perfectly feminine voice that’s not overtly girlish or annoying – the kind that makes you want to listen to every word that comes out of her pink matte lipstick covered mouth.
Thinking about her makes my stomach twist with knots. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her, I mean, she’s a sweet girl. It’s just that… well… everyone else likes her so, so much. And they just treat her like she farts rainbows and poops gold or something – she’s not Tywin freakin’ Lannister! She does have great blonde hair though, and I guess I’m slightly jealous of that heart shaped face, since my circular face is only framed by lackluster black hair. Maybe I’m just bitter that things aren’t the way they used to be between us.
My manager, David Russo, comes up from behind and clocks in on one of the POS machines with a much practiced grace.
“Hi David,” I say to him in a bored perfunctory voice, wiggling my fingers at him.
“It’s Mr. Russo,” he corrects me sternly, and somehow I’m not surprised by that response. “What are you doing here on time for once.”
“I thought maybe I’d try and impress you, obviously.”
David furrows his thick and bushy brows at me. He’s an older man. Probably a couple years away from hitting his forties. He has brown eyes and smiling was absolutely not his forte – unless of course, it was for Belle…
There’s a ring at the front door and this pulls David away from what I’m sure will be inevitably scolding me; he must have gotten off to that at night or something, because since day one that was a repeat thing. We turn and adjust ourselves to see if it’s a customer or what. Well, you know what they say about the devil. Speak of her and she gets up off of her lazy ass to make a grand, overtly dramatic entrance; I think that’s how they say it, at least. But whatever. Through internally biting teeth, I have to admit, that even coming in, in a hurried mess, Belle has a real aura of simplistic beauty to her. She’s singing a tune that I don’t know, and why it made my guts warm with jealousy I couldn’t be sure, it’s not like I asked to feel that way or anything.
Belle brushes back a feisty few strands of her golden tresses and s
miles over at me and David. “Hey, hi Vivian, David – I mean, Mr.Russo.”
“Hi,” I tell her, the ache in my head and the sleep in my bones making me come across more displeased than I would have liked. I shoulder be nicer to her, I know that I should.
“Please,” David says with a smile that looks like this was the first time a girl has ever spoken to him in his life. He raises a hand, “you can call me David.”
Oh now he wants to be called David. Of course.
Belle smiles over at us and carries her small little self behind the front counter and over to one of the POS computers.
A FEW HOURS LATER and our customers are starting to pick up. I’m taking orders at the front, and Belle is handling the window side, while our two cooks Robert and Timothy Morson have a little too much fun talking about ‘last nights game’ something I was supremely disinterested in. Most of the customers are not happy to have to deal with me, and trust me when I say that I put on the best face that I can when I’m here. They’d honestly rather deal with machines, I’m telling you. And every chance they get, they let me know that with the way they look at me, and the way they speak so shortly with me.
A tall, lanky, brown haired man comes in through the front door and strolls up to my front counter. The counter itself is long and red; funny thing is that we actually like to keep our soda machine in the back, that way customers can’t get refills. They despise this fact, and I don’t blame them. It’s bullshit for them, but it saves us money – so that’s how we do things.
The brown haired man gives me a tightly drawn frown like he’s just had to run a marathon to get here. “Hi,” he says.
