Awakening The Beast: A Bad Boy Romance
Page 1
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Awakening the Beast
A Bad Boy Romance
Carter Blake
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
READ THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS OF ‘THE LAW OF THE BEAST’
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
About the Author
Also by Carter Blake
Chapter 1
ELISE
Maybe I want him. Maybe I don't.
No, fuck it. I want him.
But I’m not going to tell him that.
Instead, I’ll flirt my ass off, swinging my dark hair dramatically as I bat my made-up eyelashes, and allow him to buy me a drink. Just one, though. I’m not going to be one of those women that blames alcohol for their poor choices and misdemeanors.
If I’m going home with this guy—and I’m telling myself I am--then I’m doing it fully aware of my indiscretions and completely of my own accord.
And purely because I want to screw his brains out.
So, let him be tonight’s poor choice. He’ll be just another one in a long line of them lately.
Cam. That’s his name. At least, he says it is. It did occur to me that maybe he lied about it because it’s cooler than his real name. But, then again, Cam—probably short for Cameron—really isn’t that cool, so why lie if he’s not going to use a name that's undeniably great?
“My name’s Elise,” I answer in response to his question, which A) is honestly my real name, and B) is really funny because it took him over forty-five minutes of fuck-me eyes and grinding on the dance floor before he even got around to asking.
“Pretty name for a pretty lady.”
It’s everything I can do to keep from rolling my eyes, but I manage to smile sweetly and pretend to be flattered by the compliment.
Let’s be honest, he doesn’t give a fuck what my name is. As long as I can moan against his ear at the appropriate times and get this skin-tight tube skirt shimmied above my hips, I’m exactly the type of woman he’s looking for. My name, occupation, and the price of fucking tea in China has nothing to do with it.
I nod toward the gin and tonic in his hand. “I wouldn’t mind one of those.” I lean forward as I speak, not only because the music is mind-numbingly loud, but because it gives him an eyeful of the cleavage my ridiculously low-cut V-neck top is accentuating. Breasts aren’t only a woman’s favorite fashion accessory, they’re also a sure-fire way to get exactly what she wants from a man.
And that’s precisely what I plan to do. Only, in my case, I want him to offer me one night’s worth of escape, of meaningless distraction, so that I can find a few hours’ reprieve.
From my life.
From what it’s become.
Cam isn’t the first man to be used as a momentary diversion from the emptiness I’ve succumbed to, and he won’t be the last. That is, if I can even go through with it.
Sometimes, I just can’t.
He, however, might be the first one I feel a hint of guilt at for the stunt I’m about to pull on him.
If he’s telling me the truth, then he’s here at Magenta for the first time ever. Seeing as I tend to come to this club quite frequently, I’m leaning toward the fact that he might be being honest about that one, because I’ve never seen him here before. And I think I’d remember him, seeing as he’s absolutely gorgeous and not at all like the hundreds of inebriated Neanderthals just looking to score.
I’m not judging anyone’s motives, especially since I’m contemplating pulling the sexual equivalent of a dine-and-dash, but my stance remains the same: Cam isn’t like the other drunken men in this club.
He says he’s here with a couple friends to drown his sorrows. “You know, the typical man-loves-woman, woman-finds-someone-else bullshit.” He’d laughed when he’d said it, waving a hand dismissively as he explained, but there was something in his tone that showed a crack in the foundation of jokes and faux smiles he built his facade on.
“It’s her loss,” I’d offered, reaching out to pat the hand that held his drink in place. I said it because it was the right thing to say, the appropriate thing to say, and also because, if some woman had cheated on him, it was her loss.
I don’t condone cheaters. I might find my entertainment underneath men that I see once and never again, but if I have even the slightest inclination that the man is a lying bastard with a girlfriend or a wife at home, I’m out of there before he even knows what the fuck is happening. Well, that’s a lie. On the few occasions I have come across assholes on the warpath toward infidelity, they end up wearing the drinks they bought me, so I guess they technically do know what happened, but I waste no time letting them know my feelings regarding their unfaithfulness to whomever might be waiting at home for them.
Now though, I get no sense that Cam is cheating, and I tend to believe the shielded sadness in those blue eyes of his.
He’s on the rebound.
Maybe he needs this just as much as I do.
At least, that’s what I’m going to tell myself to make myself feel better.
A glass of gin and tonic is slid toward me across the bar, and I give the bartender only a partial glance. He’s seen me here before, and he’s undoubtedly figured out my game. Which means he knows Cam’s fate, and knows that I won't be around here in a few hours to see the shame and self-disgust on the poor man’s face.
I’ll be too busy dealing with my own.
Chapter 2
CAM
I definitely want her. No question about it.
If she’s half as incredible as she seems to be, then coming out to this too-loud, too-crowded atmosphere with too many goddamn strobe lights is worth it.
And, to think, when Danny, my best friend since grade school, coerced me into tonight’s club crawl, I’d spent more than an hour trying to convince him that I was in no mood to go to Magenta during nighttime hours, let alone “get back on the proverbial horse”, as he so obnoxiously put it.
Now that I’ve had time to check out Elise—from the waves of her chocolate brown hair, down the hypnotic curves of her body to the pink polish on her toes—my body is saying that getting on her wouldn’t be a half bad idea.
But that’s not my style.
I don’t have sex with random women.
And I certainly don’t pick them up in nightclubs.
Especially not in nightclubs that I own.
I’ve always been the gentleman, the one who keeps it all together, and reins it all in. The one who puts everyone else first. The one who plays the part of the man others need me to be.
A lot of fucking good that did me.
After two years of being the good boyfriend, just like Christina wanted me to be, I’m left with nothing.
Oh, sure, I’m successful. Owning Magenta, one of the biggest and most sought out clubs in the Phoenix area, lines my pockets pretty well.
But money doesn’t buy happiness. And after the past few weeks since watching Christina walk out with her new boy toy, I have to say that it doesn’t cure lo
neliness either.
Which is why I’m in the bar that Danny and I own together, for the first time during operating hours. It’s just never been my scene, and I’ve always stayed behind the scenes, working in the upstairs offices during the day when the place is closed and quiet.
Now, I’m drinking my own profits, and flirting with my clientele.
Classy.
No, I take that back. I’m flirting with Elise, and only Elise.
I might be trying to break out of my introverted shell, but shamelessly hitting on multiple women is just something I’ll never be able to do.
But Elise? Hell, I can’t not flirt with her.
She’s gorgeous. She’s got eyes that pierce through to the innermost depths of my being, and a body that would have any man on his knees in a heartbeat, begging for one touch.
But Lorenzo, the bartender who keeps watching us from the corner of his eye, seems to be hovering. I’m sure he’s heard the rumors that Christina left me, and that I didn’t handle it well. The holes in the wall of the apartment we shared prove just how badly I took the news.
To be honest, I didn’t even know I had the capacity for that kind of rage until it hit me, but by then there was no way I could stop myself.
And judging by the shocked, fearful look on Christina’s face, she hadn’t expected that level of anger from me either.
I realized two things then.
The first was that I’d lost the woman I loved…for good. The second was that I hoped I never made anyone fear me ever again.
I didn’t like the feeling. It didn’t bring with it a sense of power. It was the exact opposite, actually. Instead, I felt weaker than I’d ever felt before, like having to resort to brute strength was some kind of last resort I’d succumbed to.
But the truth was, maybe I’d just been holding it in for far too long.
I’d kept my frustrations, and my anger, and my emotions buried for so long that they’d all come out at once, resulting in fear.
Fear from Christina…
And fear from me.
I didn’t want to be that guy. I wasn’t that guy. So, in the end, even though Christina had flat-out admitted to my face that she’d fucked around on me with some guy from her office, I ended up feeling like shit for the way things ended.
Because she seemed scared of me. Because I was scared, too. Scared of what losing her meant for me. Scared of how spineless I was, because for a fleeting moment, it occurred to me to pretend like she hadn’t cheated, just so I wouldn’t have to be alone.
I know, I still can’t figure it out either.
Just like I can’t figure out why I’m still sitting here, mere inches from Elise now, and I haven’t so much as touched her.
I want to. Fuck, I want to so bad.
I own this place. I could have her bent over the desk in one of the back offices in a matter of minutes, if she’d let me.
But it’s so engrained in me—Be a gentleman, Cam. Take it slow.
“We should get out of here.” Elise’s sultry voice pulls me from my thoughts. Her hand slinks across the table, and her fingers are cold and damp from the condensation on her glass.
Well, shit.
She wants me to fuck her. I’m not blind, or an idiot.
“That sounds pretty amazing, but I can’t really leave my friend—” I tear my gaze from her for a second to scan the crowd for Danny, only to see him at one of the far tables with his tongue down the throat of a pretty redhead.
“Who says we have to leave?”
I turn back to her, and suddenly she’s closer, silently stalking me until there’s nowhere for me to go. Her voice is silky and seductive, her breath warm enough to melt my resolve.
“What’d you have in mind?” I find myself asking before I realize the words have crossed my lips.
She has me, entranced and mesmerized. Between the touch of her fingers on my wrist, tracing slow, playful circles up my forearm, and the smoldering blatant intent in her eyes, my body is betraying me, despite the warning bells going off in my head.
Danger, danger! You’re out of your league, Cameron Nichols!
And she may very well be, but she also might be exactly what I need to break free of the insistent funk I’m in since Christina made me look like such an idiot.
A Cheshire cat-like grin spreads across her lips.
Before I realize I’m saying it aloud, the words tumble off my tongue. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Elise’s fingers are still on my arm, but her eyes narrow. They’re harder somehow now, though still alight with lust. “Upstairs?”
Oh, right. The upstairs of this place is off limits to patrons. “I own this nightclub. We can go upstairs.”
Ever so slightly, her eyes widen at the revelation. “But you said you were here with friends.”
I lean forward, pointing to the table Danny and his flavor-of-the-night are practically dry humping at. “I am, and that friend just happens to also be my business partner.” I turn back to her. “Is that a problem? I wasn’t lying to you. I just didn’t see how it was relevant.”
Maybe I should apologize, but I don’t. It wasn’t a lie, per se. It really is my first time being here in a social capacity. But I also didn’t want her pretending to be interested just because she thought I had money.
Which I do. More than enough. But, again, it’s irrelevant.
She’s watching me with the inquisitiveness of a feline, searching my features for…what? When she doesn’t answer after what seems like forever, I think she’s reconsidering her proposition, and that I’ve blown my chance.
“No problem at all,” she says finally. “Show me the upstairs, Cam.”
Chapter 3
ELISE
He owns the goddamn place.
We’ve been sitting here almost an hour and he just failed to mention that? It might have been only a lie by omission, but it’s still a lie.
And he’d said it was his first fucking time here.
He’s just like all the other men here.
Once again, I no longer feel bad about wanting to screw him and run.
The only thing is, if he owns this place, my days of coming to Magenta might be over. I wouldn’t want to take the chance of running into him again. That’d be too awkward.
Oh well. A new club just opened over on Forty-Second Avenue. I’ll just have to go there instead.
As Cam leads me up the metal staircase to the far left of the room, his thumb caresses the palm of my hand, sending a delicious tingle straight to my core. Grinding on the dance floor is one thing—especially with a man who can dance—but the sensual touch of fingertips on flesh drives my body into a frenzy.
Every. Single. Time.
The loft-like hallway with a frosted glass partition that divides the offices from the nightclub itself has mirrored walls, and a pair of muscled bouncers prevent entrance to it. As the neon strobe lights flash and reflect brightly off the mirrors, I notice the curt nod exchanged between the bouncers and Cam as they step back to let us through.
Their eyes never meet mine, which makes me wonder how many times Cam has passed by them before with a woman on his arm.
Cam swipes a key card against the sensor beside the door, and I see the green light flash near the handle as the door unlocks.
As soon as the door is shut, I’m surprised by the sudden quietness. Only a faint thud of the techno beat is heard, and the office is softly lit by two antique-looking wall sconces. It’s a vast difference from the décor and atmosphere we’d been in only moments before.
Cam’s back is to me, and he’s peering into a bar fridge. Jack Daniels, Canadian Club, and a bottle of Smirnoff sit on top of it, with two crystal-cut tumblers. “Would you like something to drink?”
The plush gray carpet beneath my feet silences my steps as I close in on him.
It’s show time. I can’t chicken out now.
“What I’d like…” I whisper, pulling him away from the fridge and shutting the door, “…is
for you to stop being such a gentleman.”
A glimmer of uncertainty is in his eyes as I expertly undo the first button of his shirt. His hands are still at his sides.
“Tougher than you’d think, seeing as I am a gentleman,” he says.
But his voice is hoarse now, giving me just enough encouragement to continue.
Don’t think, Elise. For Christ sake, don’t think.
Because if I do, the guilt will set in. The self-loathing. And I won’t be able to go through with it.
“Well, for tonight, how about we just pretend you aren’t?” I smirk, leaning upward to flick my tongue against the sensitive skin just below his earlobe.
“Elise…” He sounds like he’s pleading with me, and I can feel him teetering on the edge, trying to reason with himself. Maybe he’s telling the truth; maybe this really isn’t like him at all.
Maybe I’m a bad influence.
Shh, the voice in my head says. He’s just a distraction. That’s all.
“Cam,” I whisper against his ear, my breath hot and damp against his skin. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to let go? Forget about right and wrong, and just feel?”
I slide my hand between us, dragging my fingertips along his erection that pushes against my hip. He’s aroused, and the hitch in his breath at my touch gives away the effect I’m having on him.
“It’s okay, baby,” I breathe. “I won’t tell.”
I barely get the last word out before his hands are on my hips, pushing me back against the wall. The suddenness of his assault makes me gasp, but as his lips find the soft skin of my neck, and a low growl of need escapes his throat, everything else around me fades into the background.
I’ve pushed him, prodded at his innermost desires, and promised a release from the pressures of everything around us. My words sound enticing, even to my own ears, and I’ve only heightened my own arousal by saying to him the words I long to believe myself.