Love the Way You Lie by Skye Warren
Publication date: March 12th 2015
Genres: Adult, Romance
Publication date: March 12th 2015
Genres: Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
I’ll do anything to get safe, even if that means working at the scariest club in town.
I’ll do anything to stay hidden, even if it means taking off my clothes for strangers.
I’ll do anything to be free. Except give him up. When he looks at me, I forget why I can’t have him. He’s beautiful and scarred. His body fits mine, filling the places where I’m hollow, rough where I am soft.
He’s the one man who wants to help me, but he has his own agenda. He has questions I can’t answer.
What are you afraid of?
You.
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Excerpt 2:
The Grand used to be a theater, back
when the city did more tourist trade than drug trafficking. Back when
you could walk down this street without getting mugged. They held
ballets and operas and one infamous magic show where a man was killed
by a faulty fake gun. Over the years the shows visited less and less.
This whole part of the city became gutted, empty. Attempts to
revitalize the theater failed because the good, rich folk who had
money to spend on theater tickets didn’t want to come to these
streets.
Now the building is just a husk of its
former glory—faded metallic wallpaper and ornate molding with the
gold paint scraping off. Tables and chairs fill the smoky, dark
floor. There is a balcony in the back, but it isn’t open to the
public.
The rooms for private dances used to be
ticket stalls in what would have been the lobby.
They don’t have doors. They barely
even have walls. The front window partitions have been ripped away,
with only brass rods and velvet curtains to cover them.
The first is occupied by Lola. A flash
of red fabric and a long mane of hair between the curtain tells me
that much. And I know from her position on the floor and the soft
groans that he’s paid for more than a dance.
The second room is empty.
The third room is the farthest from the
main floor. The darkest. I can only make out a shadow seated in the
chair. All I want is to get the hell out of here, but Blue is
standing behind me, crowding me, and the only way to get space, the
only place to go is inside.
I slip past the heavy velvet curtain
and wait for my eyes to adjust. Even before they do, I know it will
be him. Not safe, rule-following Charlie. It’s the other man. The
new one. The one with the strange intensity in his stare.
I see the outline of his jacket first.
And his boots, forming that same configuration—one leg shoved out,
one under the chair. That’s the way he sits, almost sprawled on the
uncomfortable wooden chair. He’s watching me. Of course he’s
watching me. That’s what he paid to do.
“What’ll it be?” I ask.
“What’s on the menu?” he
counters, and I know what he means. He means extra services. The same
thing that Lola is doing now. More than just a dance. He looks out
from the shadows like the Cheshire cat, all eyes and teeth and
challenge. All he’s missing are purple stripes filling in.
And if he’s a cop, he can bust me
just for offering it. Cops should have better things to do with their
time. But I already know cops don’t do what they should. I know
that too well.
I’m running from one.
“A dance, of course.” I run through
the prices for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes. No one needs longer
than that. They either go to the bathroom to jerk off or come in
their pants.
“And if I want more than that?”
Now that my eyes have adjusted, now
that I’m up close, I can see the tats at the base of his neck and
on his wrists. They are probably along his arms and maybe his chest.
There’s ink on his hands too, though I can’t make out what it
says.
His black shirt is tight enough to show
me his shape, the broad chest and flat abs. Underneath the shirt is a
chain or necklace. I can only see the imprint, but it makes me want
to pull up the fabric and find out what it is.
He wears his leathers like a second
skin, like they’re armor and he’s a fighter. I can’t really
imagine him walking through a precinct in a blue shirt. He’s not a
cop. But there was that feeling, when I was onstage. I felt
his interest, more than sexual. I felt his suspicion. I felt every
instinct telling me he is there for more than a dance. I can’t
afford not to listen.
“There’s no more than that,” I
answer flatly.
He grunts, clearly displeased. But it
doesn’t sound like he’s going to force the issue—or complain to
Blue. “Then dance.”
Right. That’s why I’m here. That’s
not disappointment, heavy in my gut. I don’t expect anything from
men except to get paid. So I dance, starting slow, moving my hips, my
arms, touching my breasts. I’m a million miles away like this. I’m
lying on my back, feeling crisp grass underneath my legs, looking up
at the night sky.
It almost works, except that I need to
get close to him. I need to climb onto him, straddling his legs with
mine, reaching for the back of the chair to shake my tits in his
face. And when I do, I smell him. He smells…not like smoke. Not
like sweat.
He smells like my daydream, like grass
and earth and clean air.
I freeze above him, body crouched, my
breasts still shivering with leftover momentum.
“Something wrong?” he asks.
And his voice. God, his voice. It’s
gone rough and low, all the way to the ground. It slides along the
creaky wood of the chair and the concrete floor and vibrates up my
legs. It shimmers through the air and brushes over my skin, that
voice. We’re not touching in any place, but I can feel him just the
same.
I swallow hard. “Nothing’s wrong,
sugar.”
“Then sit down.”
He means on his lap. Touching. It’s
against the rules, officially.
Unofficially it’s one of the tamer
things that happen in this room. “What if I don’t want to?”
One large shoulder lifts, making the
leather sigh. “I won’t make you.”
I hear the unspoken word yet
ring in the air.
I should probably refuse him. Whether
he’s a cop or not, he’s throwing me off. That’s dangerous. And
if there’s some other cop in the building? That’s even more
dangerous.
But for some reason, I lower myself
until I’m resting on his jeans, my posture awkward and off
balance—until he shifts, and suddenly I’m sliding toward him,
flush against him while I straddle his legs. Then his arms circle my
body, trapping me. Any second now he’s going to grope me. Maybe
take his dick out and fuck me like this. It wouldn’t be the first
time.
But he just stays like that, arms firm
but gentle. A hug. This is a hug.
Jesus. How long has it been
since a man hugged me? Just that, without touching anywhere else,
without his dick inside me? A long time.
AUTHOR BIO:
Skye
Warren is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of dark
romantic fiction. Her books are raw, sexual and perversely romantic.
Author links:
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