by Hannah Ford
“Okay.” I nodded. It was an unconventional approach. I knew that. But Noah was right. I wasn’t going to be out and about partying. I was going to be out and about living my life.
Going to school.
Walking my dog.
Decorating a nursery.
Looking and living like exactly what I was – a law student who was expecting a baby with the man she loved, one who’d been accused of a crime I didn’t commit.
“I love you,” Noah said.
“I love you too.” He started to close the door, then stopped. “And I still want to marry you. Right away.”
“Noah –“
“It’s not because of the baby. You know that. I told you before I wanted to marry you immediately.”
I nodded.
He began to shut the door again, then stopped and opened it.
“Yes?” I said, amused in spite of myself.
“Tomorrow after breakfast with Penn Dylan, we have a doctor’s appointment. With the best OBGyn in Manhattan. One I don’t have a history with.”
“Thank you.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
He shut the door then, and I watched through the window as he started to run, his thighs kicking up, the muscles in his legs flexing. I loved watching him run. I could have watched it forever, watched his beautiful, strong body moving through the streets of New York.
For a moment, out here, I was able to forget how messed up everything was. Was able to forget that we were out here in the middle of the night because Noah was tormented by something that made him need to run at the most inopportune times. Forget that I’d been arrested. Forget what it would mean for my baby if I went to prison.
I continued to watch him, his movements smooth, his body broad and masculine.
When he turned around the corner, I pulled out my iPad.
I would look into law schools, like he said.
I checked my email first, and was surprised to find one from Ivy, the dog walker.
H ey Charlotte –
I hope you don’t mind that I’m emailing you. Your email address was on the list of contact info provided by Noah’s assistant.
I apologize for having to rush out so quickly tonight.
I’d love to have lunch with you and talk about Docket, and get to know each other better.
Just name the time and place, and I’ll be there.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Ivy
I wrote her back , naming a few times and offering the name of my favorite café. Something about doing that made me instantly feel better – it was a quick sliver of normalcy in an otherwise crazy day.
I’d closed out my email and was just about to google Penn Dylan before I got to work on the law school search – it never hurt to have as much information on your enemy as possible – when the sound of squealing tires came from around the corner.
I looked out the window, just in time to see a black car pull up on the corner adjacent to our apartment.
A second later, the back door opened and something was thrust out onto the sidewalk with a heavy thud.
It was a person, I realized with a sick feeling. Someone had pushed a person out of their car and into the sidewalk.
My hand was already on the door handle, pushing it open even as I heard the security guard in front getting out, too.
I was faster than him, because I had a head start.
The black car took off, speeding down the Manhattan streets with another squeal of its tires.
I raced to the figure, who was dressed all in black – black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, scuffed black sneakers.
The person was facing away from me, curled up in a ball on the pavement.
I reached for the person’s shoulder and rolled them over.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Noah heading down the sidewalk toward me, completing his lap around the block.
When he saw me, he sped up, beating the security guard, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me back from the person on the ground. But not before I had a chance to pull the figure’s shoulder, and roll them over.
The face was a misshape of features, the skin black and blue, scratches and bruises all over.
But that wasn’t the most horrifying part.
The most horrifying part was the eyes.
One of the person’s eyes was missing.
All that was there was a bloody hole, and I felt my stomach turn.
Just like the professor’s eye, was my first thought as I turned away and vomited onto the sidewalk, Noah holding my hair back. Just like what had happened to the professor that night at Force, the night Noah almost died.
“You’re okay,” Noah said. “You’re okay.” He had my hair pulled back. “Do not turn back around, Charlotte.” He held his hand on the small of my back firmly, not allowing me to turn back around and see the horror that was on the sidewalk.
But it didn’t matter.
The image was burned against my brain.
And as the memory of it pulsed in my mind, the person’s features swam into focus.
And I realized the person who was lying there on the sidewalk was familiar.
A second later, I realized who it was, and bile burned at the back of my throat.
But why?
Why why why?
Noah began to guide me to the apartment, already on the phone with 911, calling for an ambulance. I was always going to be his first priority – he would get me upstairs and make sure I was safe before he returned to help the figure on the sidewalk.
But hiding me away in the apartment wasn’t an option. I needed to know what was going on.
So I turned and wrenched out of Noah’s grasp, running back toward the crumpled body.
“Charlotte!’ Noah was coming after me, but I got to the person first.
“What happened?” I demanded, even as Noah’s hands grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me back. “Who did this to you?”
The person stared blankly at me out of their one eye, not blinking and not responding, giving no indication that they’d heard me.
And then a hand reached up and pulled me close, and the person began to speak…
The End of Book Twenty-Five
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NOW TURN THE PAGE TO READ AN EXCERPT OF CHLOE HAWK’S SEXY NEW SERIES, BETTER WHEN IT’S WRONG…
BETTER WHEN IT’S WRONG by Chloe Hawk
PART ONE EXCERPT
C ole
It started the day I almost saw her naked.
Of course, it really started way before that, with a complicated history and dark secrets that spun together to create a tangled web of attraction that both of us were helpless to resist. We were drawn to each other because of that history, because of our shared past.
She was my soulmate, in every sense of the word. It wasn’t just sexual, even though the sex was the best I’d ever had. It was beyond that, a love that transcended everything, that took over my soul and consumed me in ways I’d never imagined.
The reasons we needed to be together are our prologue.
The reasons we couldn’t are our epilogue.
So let me start with chapter one.
The bachelor party.
My friend Duke was getting married, and we were at a strip club in Jersey celebrating one of his last nights of freedom. It wasn’t the kind of place I usually visited – I tended to prefer clubs in the city, upscale places where you didn’t have to worry about some asshole getting drunk and starting a fistfight or getting too grabby with the women. At strip clubs in the
city, the women were model-gorgeous and everything was classy and tasteful. The distasteful stuff-namely the fucking for money – took place in private VIP suites that were done up to look like a hotel room at The Plaza.
This place – the place in Jersey that Duke had picked – was rowdy and out of control. Everyone in the place was pounding cheap beer, and everywhere you looked guys were copping a feel, even though the club claimed to be ‘look but don’t touch.’
“I want to fuck that one over there,” Duke said, pointing to a young girl with long blonde hair who was sitting on a middle-aged man’s lap. “Her fucking ass is just begging for my dick.”
The lights dimmed then, saving me from a response.
I turned my attention toward the stage as a hot little brunette came waltzing out. She was wearing a tiny white bikini that strained over her round tits, her nipples clearly outlined through the fabric. The bottom was tied together by two tiny strings, her legs long and lean, her stomach flat and tan.
My cock instantly got hard. I usually didn’t get too worked up over strippers – I’d never had a problem getting beautiful women, and strip clubs were just too much of a tease when I could have the real thing anytime I wanted – but this girl’s body was insane. I imagined my hands caressing her as I untied the top of her bikini, how nice those big tits would feel in my hands.
The music started and the spotlight shone on the stage.
The girl swung around the pole, her dark curls streaming behind her.
And I choked on my beer.
I knew her.
It was my stepsister, Avery.
I hadn’t seen her in five years, when I’d left home at twenty-one and never looked back.
Jesus, she’d grown up. Her body was filled out, her hips curvy, her ass tight and toned.
She smiled at the crowd and Duke whistled.
“Yeah, baby,” he yelled. “Show us that ass.”
Avery obliged, leaning over until her ass was in the air, tight and toned. She was twenty-two now, old enough to be a stripper, I supposed. But what the fuck? I was confused as to why she was working here. Avery had always been smart, making straight As in school despite our parents’ total lack of interest in anything academic.
I should have left. I should have turned around and walked out of the strip club, or at least waited in the bathroom until she was done her set.
But I didn’t. Instead I watched as water came shooting down from the ceiling, drenching Avery in her tiny little white bikini until her nipples became visible, dark and hard, through the fabric. Her bottoms clung to her pussy, making my dick even harder as I thought about how tight it would feel around me, how hard my dick would get if I shoved it in her cute little hole.
Stop, I told myself. That’s your stepsister. She’s off limits.
But nothing was off limits.
I had money, good looks, and power.
And those things made it easy to get whatever you wanted.
I should have walked away.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I wanted her.
And I always got what I wanted.
A very
W orking at a strip club was definitely not plan A, but desperation could force you to do things you thought you’d never even consider. So when my friend Courtney told me I could take my top off, shake my ass a little on stage, and then make five hundred bucks by flirting with the guys who watched, I went for it.
I needed the money.
I needed to get out of my house. For good. And my job at CVS wasn’t enough for me to support myself and my mom, who I planned to somehow convince to come with me.
Last night last my stepfather Gordon had snuck into my room at two in the morning while I was sleeping. I’d cracked my eyes and watched as he crept over to my computer, where he pulled up a porn video and then began jerking off. I’d pretended to be asleep while the girl on the screen moaned in pleasure and Gordon jerked his cock harder and harder until he came, splashing cum on the wall by my bed. The stain was there this morning, a reminder that it wasn’t just a bad dream, or even a reality I could just forget about.
And that’s when I made the decision to do whatever it took to get the hell out of there.
And now here I was.
I’d never thought of myself as sexy, had never been that comfortable with my body. In gym class, while the rest of the girls were running around half-naked, I’d huddle in the corner, turning away to change my clothes. When I went to the beach, I’d stay covered up, wearing one-pieces and making sure I always had a cover-up close by. I’d learned pretty quickly that wearing a tank top or a skirt in my house – even a tasteful one on a hot summer’s day – was a way to get unwanted attention from my stepfather.
So I wasn’t used to being in clothes like this.
And now, here I was, standing on the stage in a white bikini and nothing else.
“Show us that ass!” someone yelled. I wanted desperately to do a good job and make a lot of tips, so I smiled at the crowd and bent over, obliging.
When I stood back up, water came pouring down from the ceiling, cold and shocking. No one had told me there was going to be water. It rushed over me in a freezing sheet, making me gasp. Goosebumps broke out on my arms and my nipples hardened under the sheer material of my bikini, useless now that it was drenched. You could see everything.
The men in the crowd hooted and hollered at me.
“Yeah, slut!” one of them yelled. “Show us that fat pussy!”
Suddenly, I couldn’t breath. Everything in my peripheral vision started to blur and my heart was pounding out of my chest. My head got woozy, and even though I’d just been drenched with freezing cold water, my skin felt like it was on fire.
I was going to throw up.
I needed to get off the stage.
I turned around and started to make my way backstage, but I was wearing high heels and the floor was slick from all the water.
I slipped and fell on my ass, smashing my collarbone into the floor. Pain radiated up my spine, and I tried to stand up, but the floor was too slick, and I went down again. I tried to brace myself with my wrist, but I landed at a weird angle and heard a sickening crack as I fell. The most intense pain I’d ever felt shot through my wrist, sharp and stabbing.
The crowd was laughing at me, the music still pounding in my ears.
My eyes filled with tears, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, he was there.
Cole.
My stepbrother.
The shock of seeing him there was enough to dull the pain for a moment.
“Hey,” he said.
“Cole,” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“Saving you,” he replied. And then in one fluid movement, he picked me up off the stage. I wrapped my arm around his neck. His body was strong and muscular, his arms safe and warm.
He led me through the jeering crowd and outside into the parking lot where he set me down on the pavement next to his car. My chest brushed against his. Heat warmed my cheeks as I became aware of the fact that I was wearing a tiny bikini. A tiny wet bikini that you could see right through. Cole’s eyes dropped down to my chest, and I watched as his gaze slid over my breasts. I tried to cross my arms over myself, but my wrist was screaming in pain.
Cole grabbed the handle of his car, a silver Lincoln Navigator that looked more expensive than my house.
“Get in,” he said, opening the door.
The car was elevated off the ground a little, just enough that I couldn’t get in without bracing myself on something. I tried, but my wrist hurt too much.
“I don’t think I can,” I said.
“Here.” Cole wrapped his arms around me, his grip strong and tight on my waist. He picked me up and set me down in the seat, then went around to the driver’s side. He got inside and turned the heat on full blast.
“Let me see your wrist,” he instructed.
I held it up and he reached out and took my arm gently, running h
is finger over my skin. His touch was soft, tender, and it felt weirdly intimate, having him touch me like that. My wrist was already getting swollen, turning purple and bruised. “Do you think it’s broken?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure, but it could be.” He reached into the backseat and grabbed a sweatshirt. “Here,” he said. “Lean forward.” I did as I was told and he helped me put the sweatshirt on, pulling it gently over one arm and then the other. He zipped it up for me, covering my body. As he zipped, the top of his knuckle grazed against my breast. A blast of lust shot through my body, intense and shocking.
“There,” Cole said.
He looked at me, and in that moment, I remembered why I hated him.
He was devastatingly gorgeous. Dark hair. Ripped body. Piercing blue eyes that contrasted perfectly with his dark complexion. He had a smoldering gaze that made everyone around him fall in love with him.
My friends used to joke that if Cole looked at you, you’d have your panties off by the end of the night. And it was true. He’d slept with most of my friends, and any other hot girl he happened to want.
It had been infuriating when we were younger, watching him sneak girls into his room at night, hearing them moaning and screaming his name as he got them off. He’d had things handed to him because he was beautiful and smart and good at sports. No one at school had cared about the fact that he was poor or that he lived in Culver City, which everyone knew was full of drugs and prostitution. They didn’t care that he couldn’t afford the right clothes – most of the time whatever girl he was dating would buy them for him, anyway. Hell, even girls he wasn’t dating would buy him things.
I hated him because he was everything I wasn’t. He was outgoing, I was shy. He was smart, I made mediocre grades. He was special, I wasn’t. But the biggest reason I hated him was because he left us. He left me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I blurted.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said, shifting his car into reverse and starting to pull out of the parking spot. It was typical Cole, taking over and getting things done without even asking anyone else what they wanted.