by Laura Avery
SHIVER
A DARK ROMANCE
BY LAURA AVERY
Copyright 2018 Laura Avery, all rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced without written consent of the author. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Shiver is a dark romance and is intended for mature audiences only. It’s extremely possessive and crude. Please don’t read if strong sexual situations, language, violence, and bullying offends you. All individuals portrayed in this work of fiction are eighteen years of age or older.
Sign up for Laura Avery’s mailing list here!
Chapter One
“Don’t even think about it.”
MORGAN
No one is going to hurt you.
Hundreds of men around me and I could still only think about one.
I couldn’t help it, though, couldn’t help but imagine the look on Pierce’s face if he ever saw me in a place like this. It would have been so judgmental, so superior, so sexy. I scowled at the last thought, hating myself for even allowing it to creep into my mind.
Pierce Lucas may have been beautiful but he was the worst kind of beautiful; the entitled, rich, and evil kind of beautiful that went around controlling everything in his sight as if he had the right. He had never been able to control me, though. The thought made me instantly smile, just because my best friend was obsessed with Pierce’s older brother didn’t mean I had to let him dominate me the way he did the rest of the world.
The thought of Emery instantly made me feel guilty. She had already been through enough the past year the last thing she needed was her best friend bailing on her, too. I hated the way I had just left without so much as an explanation.
Someday she’ll understand you did what you had to do for your family.
“Oh, God, yeah! Take it off, slut!”
I practically cringed at the drunken fool’s words in the front row of the club. It took all of my self-control to not pull my fist back and sock him over the side of the head the way my dad had taught me when I was little. But I didn’t, I knew I couldn’t. Instead, I slithered forward and wrapped my legs around the pole in front of me and shook my ass up and down nice and slow just like the owner of the strip club had taught me to.
I hated following rules, despised being told to walk in line.
“Look at that sweet ass!” Another voice called out.
I closed my eyes and told myself to get through it. Just keep going until the end of the dance, Morgan. Just one more dance, then an hour of lap dances, followed by two more sets on stage, before you can go back to your hotel and go to bed. Then repeat, five nights a week, for the next two months. All I had to do was get through it, pay off my mom’s debt, make sure she was safe, and then I could go be with my dad.
My dad, my good and kind father who had always taught me right from wrong. He was the reason I was doing this. He had always put his family above himself no matter how bad we messed up and now it was my turn. My mother was my responsibility now. I opened my eyes ready to transform into a different person; the kind of sexy and free woman who enjoyed taking off her clothes for a room full of men.
I widened my eyes and fluttered my lashes; ready to master the art of seduction, but the first set of eyes I caught in the crowd were enough to stop me in my tracks. I shook my head, sure that I must have been seeing things: it wasn’t him.
It couldn’t be him.
But the same shiver that always took over my body whenever he was near me was confirmation enough. It was definitely Pierce. His blue eyes were glazed over with all the things I knew they would be: judgment, superiority, and anger.
So much anger.
My earlier thoughts had been naïve, though, the stare he was burning into my skin was far worse than I ever could have imagined. How the hell had he found me? My legs had started to quiver under my body without my permission and I pushed my palm down on my thigh, trying to calm them down again.
Pierce followed my movement and his eyes narrowed into small slits.
The movement had been a mistake on my part.
Now he knew I was scared.
I shook my head back and forth two times, sending him a warning.
Don’t even think about it.
I should have known telling him to not do something would only piss him off more. He bit down on his lip and balled his hands into small fists before tensing his jaw and half smirking.
Then he was crossing the room to the stage with authority and evilness.
Why? Why did he have to find me?
Chapter Two
“The stripper protecting her daddy.”
PIERCE
I glanced up at the run-down building in front of me that had a half-faded stencil of a naked woman across the front. Hooks read the name in block writing over the top of the image. I glanced at Mitch with a skeptical expression. “This is the place?”
He shrugged. “No one said it was a fucking palace, rich boy.”
My jaw tensed at his words but I brushed the comment off instead of reacting. It had to be just as weird for him as it was for me that I had shown up out of nowhere. Coming into contact with a biological brother you knew nothing about wasn’t an experience I would have ever wanted either of us to have to go through but I was there now and I was determined to make the best out of it. My whole life I had felt like an outsider with my adoptive family, it was finally time for me to figure out where I came from. Maybe they could shed some light on why I was so fucked up.
“Do you want to tell me what we’re doing here now?”
“Sure, we can go over the plan,” Mitch said slowly as if I were an idiot. “Should we get dad on the phone or are you okay with it just being the two of us?”
I rolled my eyes at his emphasis on the word dad, he knew just as well as I did that I hadn’t called him that since I was two fucking years old. “I think I can keep up,” I snapped.
He shrugged and smirked; glad he got a reaction out of me, even if it had been a slight one. “One of the dancers inside is helping her father hide from the club. We need to find him. Fast. Your job is to get it out of her.”
If someone was running away from the motorcycle club my father had founded before I was born he must have been pretty fucking stupid. It was a sure way to end up dead. I had known about my biological father’s illegal activates for as long as I could remember. After the childhood he had given me I had never had any interest in being a part of anything having to do with him.
But things were different now.
That night had changed everything for me.
Mitch gestured toward the front of the building and cracked his knuckles back and forth a few times. “She tends to have a little bit of an attitude problem.”
The stripper tended to have a little bit of an attitude problem?
I scoffed; I wasn’t exactly surprised he had trouble controlling a woman. It was typical of a guy like him. He was the kind that went around talking about how powerful and bad he was until it actually came down to taking care of business, then you realized just how much he was making up for with his big words. A real man didn’t have to talk about how tough he was, his actions did the talking for him. I would have never let anyone pull something over on me, especially not a female. I had never met a woman I couldn’t control.
Well, except for one particularly spoiled brat.
I shook my head, refusing to go there. “You sure you want to give me the honor?” I cracked my jaw. “You seem like the type of guy who would enjoy using a defenseless woman to get what you wanted out of her.” The thought of having to intimidate the fuck out of some girl all night until she chocked up some information wasn’t
exactly my idea of a good time.
Mitch smirked, taking my words as a compliment. “I would but intimidation doesn’t work on this one, it’s exactly why she ran from the last place we tracked her down.” He shook his head, annoyed. “Trust me, I would love to get in there, but she would recognize me right away, but you? You’re fresh to our team. A little too fresh to be trusted with a project of this nature, if you ask me, but I’m not the one calling the shots.”
The fact that Mitch didn’t want me there only made me want to prove myself even more. The chances of me ever going back to the place I had run from were almost non-existent. Too much baggage waited for me there, it was time to create something new for myself with the family I had been running away from ever since I was a kid.
“If she doesn’t respond to intimidation why the fuck am I here?” I snapped, growing impatient. Being sent out in the middle of the night to some sketchy bar and being forced to deal with some sketchy stripper wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I had shown up on my biological father’s doorstep a few days earlier.
“You’re here to put those pretty boy good looks to use,” Mitch said slowly. “Seduce her, get close to her, get her to trust you, and then find out where the fuck her father is.”
I rolled my eyes. I had no trouble getting pussy. Hell, most of the time it just ended up falling into my lap. The idea that I might have to put in a little bit of effort for it was laughable. “I doubt I’ll have to work very hard to get her into bed,” I told Mitch cockily. “I mean, she does work in a place like this.” It was a dick assumption but I didn’t give a fuck, I wanted to remove that cocky ass smirk from his smug face.
Mitch huffed. “Oh, trust me, you have your work cut out for you. She’s no picnic. She’s only working here to pay off her mother’s debt. Her mom ripped the owner off for a bunch of drugs and offered her daughter up to repay her debt so he wouldn’t come after them.”
I groaned loudly. “Girl sounds like a fucking doormat, hiding her father and stripping for her mom.” I glanced at the door and took a few steps forward. “I’ll have her eating out of the palm of my hand in no time.” I had yet to find a woman I couldn’t get naked within twenty minutes if I really wanted to. I glanced back at him as I pulled the door open. “What’s my new girlfriend’s name?”
Mitch studied me for a few seconds and then took a step toward me. “She’s on stage right now.” He reached out and took the door from my grasp, holding it open for me. “Don’t let your ego get in the way of your job, big brother, this is your shot.”
He didn’t have to tell me what he meant. This was my chance to prove that I really belonged with them, that I had what it took to ride with whatever the family business got involved in. “Why do you want her dad so bad anyway?” The question startled me since I didn’t really give a fuck what they planned on doing to him either way.
Mitch closed his eyes. “That’s privileged, pretty boy, just do your job.”
I turned my back on him before his pupils snapped open again. I feared that if I didn’t I would have ended up smashing my fist into his face. I wasn’t used to anyone talking to me like that. Where I came from everybody knew if they tried anything like that on me it would have ended with their bones being broken. But it was different here. I was at the bottom of the totem pole. I had to prove myself. But it wouldn’t always be that way and until then I would just have to control my urges to smash people’s faces into the fucking ground.
I never would have wanted to punch Jackson or Liam the way I had Mitch.
Jackson and Liam were my real brothers.
Your adoptive brothers, Pierce.
I shoved all thought of my old life out of my mind. I refused to go there, going back home to a family that had never really wanted me after what had happened that night wasn’t an option for me. I didn’t belong there and I never had.
I had a job to do and I was gong to fucking deliver. Fuck my old life and my old ghosts. It would be easy to not think about them with my new little project. Only one look at my task and I realized just how foolish the thought had been.
Anger and rage immediately overtook my body. What was she doing in a place like this? Shaking her body up and down for a room full of douchebags to see? The urge to suddenly start smashing faces into the floor overcame my bones and I felt my knuckles start to open and close at the side of my body without my permission.
There, shaking her ass for the whole room to see on the center of a large stage was the most annoying woman I had ever met in my life. The one little brat I had never been able to tame with her bad attitude and smart mouth. The best friend of my adoptive brother's girlfriend and the stuck-up princess I had been forced to deal with on a regular basis back home.
Morgan Kennedy.
And, apparently, the stripper protecting her daddy from my father’s club.
Chapter Three
“I fucking hate you.”
MORGAN
I wanted to move, to scream, to run. To do something. But it was like I had lost control of my limbs and my body was glued into place, unable to move away from the tornado of evilness that was storming across the room toward me. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening.
Why was he here?
How was he here?
And then Pierce was right next to me, slipping his muscular arms under my legs and throwing me over his shoulders as if I weighed nothing. The men in the crowd started to boo as Pierce carried me off the stage, my body flying up and down with each step he took.
My heart was racing, my body shaking from the heat of his body. It was insane how quickly I fell back into my old patterns. Weeks of not being near him and within twenty seconds I was already allowing myself to be picked up and carried away by him.
The same wetness overcoming my center that I had to force away so many times before. Because that was the most infuriating part about Pierce Lucas. It wasn't how much I hated him. Rather, how much I didn't hate him, not at all. Not that I would ever admit that to myself, let alone him.
I shook my head, finally falling back down to reality. “Pierce!” I shouted over the loud music of the club. “Put me down right now!” I started pounding on his back as hard as I could. When he continued to ignore me I pushed my nails into the side of his neck with so much aggression that my body stilled.
He finally shoved me down onto the ground toward the back of the club. His broad chest was rising and falling at a rapid pace, his adrenalin pumping in and out of his veins as he let his eyes linger up and down my body slowly.
I got lost in his eyes without my permission. He was even better looking since the last time I had seen him if that was possible, which only made me hate him more. His blue eyes were glazed over with rage combined with specs of black and red, his perfectly toned chest and forearms had veins pulsating out of them in aggression, his normally smooth jaw had tensed and grown over with slight dark stubble. He looked too good for his own good even when he was pissed off.
“You’re still fucking crazy,” I snapped at him, my own heart pumping rapidly.
“And you’re still a fucking brat,” he roared huskily.
“What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “How did you find me?” I was suddenly all too aware of the fact that I was practically naked in front of Pierce Lucas. A part of me was ashamed to admit that I had dreamed about the moment before but not like this. Never like this.
“What am I doing here?” he spat back at me. “What are you doing here?”
“What does it look like I’m doing, Pierce?” I gestured behind him to the group of loud men that were milling around inside of the club. “I’m at work, I have a job to do.” I started to push past him. “So, if you would excuse me…”
“The fuck you are,” Pierce growled, grabbing me by the arm and shoving my body up against the wall in back of us. “If you think I’m going to allow you to go back up there and shake your ass in front of a bunch of drunk sleaze-balls then you’re the one who’s f
ucking crazy, Morgan.” He forced my thighs apart and pushed his knee between my legs to hold me in place.
My thoughts felt hazy, my emotions running into overdrive. He was so infuriating I almost couldn’t think straight. “You aren’t going to allow me to do anything, Pierce.” I pushed my hands against his chest, failing to make him fall back from me at all. “You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do! In case you forgot I’m not one of your fan-girls you can control and stick your cock up in whenever you feel like it.”
Pierce smirked and then ran his hand down the front of my stomach, letting it rest above the lining of my panties. “You know, Morgan, for someone who claims to hate me you sure do spend a lot of time thinking about who I do or don’t shove my huge cock inside of.”
I forced my eyes away from him, guiltily. “I don’t give a fuck who you fuck.”
Pierce grabbed my chin and forced my eyes back up toward him. “Why don’t I believe you?” He let his eyes travel up and down my body slowly, shaking his head at the sight of me before shrugging his leather jacket off and forcing it around my shoulders.
“Stop,” I snapped, pushing it off. “Go away.”
Pierce grabbed my arms and forced the jacket back onto my body, pushing the zipper all the way up to my chin and holding my wrists in place behind my back so I couldn’t push out of it. “For fuck’s sake, Morgan,” he snapped when I continued to try and get the fabric off of my body. “Why do you have to make everything so fucking difficult?”
I was so sick and tired of his judgment, no matter what I did or how hard I tried it was never good enough for the perfect and superior Pierce Lucas, just like it wasn’t good enough for anyone else. Hell, it had never been good enough to make my mother get her act together, it had never been enough to make anyone treat me like a damn equal, especially not Pierce and his stupid brothers. Everyone wanted me to fall in line, to be perfect and shy like Emery. It was the same thing I had heard my entire life: from teachers, friends, boys, even my own mother. Why can’t you be more like Emery, Morgan?
