I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances

by Sophie Brooks

It’s high.

  For a college student, that is. For the company he’s just acquired, it’s ridiculously low.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Very.”

  Theo’s eyes are hypnotizing me again. He looks so sincere that I feel a bit ashamed that I just doubted him.

  “B-but you’ll lose millions.”

  “And I get to keep you?”

  * * *

  Investing experts sometimes describe what they call the Pac-Man defense. It’s a wildly uncommon scenario that can arise during the course of a hostile takeover. In an attempt to avoid being acquired and perhaps dissolved, the target company may turn the tables and try to buy the hostile acquirer, turning it into the target to be taken over. It’s named the Pac-Man defense because it’s similar to what happens in the videogame when Pac-Man is being pursued by the ghosts and swallows a special, big, blinking pill. At that point Pac-Man turns into an angry ghost-eater and the ghosts start fleeing in fear of him instead of following him in an attempt to eat him. The prey becomes the predator, at least for a short while.

  Theo had coined his own, more complex version. He called it the transitive Pac-Man maneuver. In this transitive version, the target company, T, is about to be taken over by the acquirer, A, only for a third player, company P, to target A and then be bought by T. In this way, the target performs a Pac-Man defense on the acquirer through this other third player.

  What he did in this case, though, was even more complex, and he came up with a new term for it: the Cold War takeout. In this case, a faction of the acquiring company attacks the apparent target T but in reality wants a different target U; a different faction of the acquirer reacts and neutralizes the threat by attacking U, putting it (via a transitive Pac-Man maneuver) in the hands of T, which then becomes a permanent ally. There are spies everywhere and almost everyone acts according to their own agenda. Companies as a whole matter very little and the players are individuals trying to deceive each other.

  I remember all this because Theo explained it to me many times. Boy, how he loves to brag about his conquests. Like most men, the only thing he enjoys more than butchering an enemy is telling everyone how he butchered his enemy and how good it was.

  I don’t care much about those gory battle tactics. What I admire most in his modus operandi are subtle traces of prescience, like a kind of magic. For example, when he set me up for a “date” with Sandor, he knew I’d wear the locket without him even mentioning it, and without me even suspecting what it was or what he wanted it for.

  Just as accurately as he predicted my actions, he guessed at Sandor’s motivations. This is one of the marks of the shark, getting into the minds of his enemies before making a move.

  “If you knew what Sandor was up to, you could have done this before. You didn’t need to wait so long,” I protest. I’m lying beside him on my bed, kissing his hairy chest, feeling the hardness and weight of his muscular arm.

  “Oh, I knew he was an asshole,” he replies. “But I wanted you to know it. From his own lips.”

  I keep arguing, only stopping once in a while to kiss his chest some more.

  “But you didn’t know he was going to tell me. You just set up a date. He decided to tell me because...”

  “... because you’re a fine piece of ass,” Theo interrupts me, with his typical finesse. “And more than that. I think he may be in love with you. I was pretty sure he would try to win you over. That’s what I would have done in his place.”

  “Would you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that you may be in love with me?”

  “Not in the books,” he replies, and says no more. Conveniently, he starts kissing me, but then we both erupt in laughter and have to stop.

  We keep laughing together for a while, and then fall asleep.

  22. HERE NOW

  A few weeks ago, nobody in their right mind would have imagined that Theo Lambert would give the big step. For him, marriage was like a dark, intolerable prison.

  And yet, here we are, descending on the big circle painted on the boat’s deck.

  From up above, the gathering looks like a black garden full of colorful flowers, as the dresses of the women contrast with the black suits of the men. Dad is there, looking healthier and happier than ever. He covers his eyes with his hand to block the sun as the helicopter descends slowly and finally comes to rest in the center of the circle. Callie is there too, and Maurice, which makes me glad because I’d thought he wouldn’t come. A few members of my extended family have come as well, as well as a dozen friends and relatives of Theo’s.

  People who aren’t here: Marcus Feller, Sandor Vandell. People who fell off our story, never to return. It’s been six months since Everwood Press took control of WildImprints and there hasn’t been any reason to go back to that darkness. Bad apples rot alone.

  Someone who’s also not here: Vanina Vokhtazin. Yes, I googled her. I feel bad for the girl. I hope she can find happiness whatever she does, wherever she goes. But this ship has sailed.

  Theo arranged the wedding to be performed on a boat, in secret, because he didn’t want the press to ruin it. “I already have enough of the magazines when I’m not getting married,” he told me. “I don’t need more coverage.” I concur. In my mind, I can already see the titles they would publish: “TAMED!” “SOLD!” “OUT OF THE MARKET!” We don’t need that.

  Also, getting married on a boat is cool.

  Theo opens the door of the helicopter and gets down first. Then he extends his arm to help me. When the engine stops, I can hear everyone’s cheers over the sound of the boat cutting the waves.

  Callie is the first one to come and hug me. She’s in tears before we even touch each other. Her hug is the most intense I’ve been given in my whole life. She’s so genuinely happy for me that she’s making me even happier than I already was. Damn, I truly couldn’t have asked for a better friend.

  We make the whole round of hugs and kisses on the deck, beside the helicopter, and then we go inside, where the priest is waiting for us to begin the ceremony. It goes as well as weddings go; I’ll spare you the details, except for the vows. Theo had written some vows, which he read aloud at the ceremony. And since they speak to both of us beautifully, here they are:

  All of my life I’ve been buying and selling things. The idea is, always have been, buying low and selling high; the difference between these two numbers is what businessmen call “happiness”.

  Among businessmen, there is a special class: the ones we call “sharks”. Sharks aren’t content with buying low and selling high. They grab something and crush it until it dies, then they sell whatever took its place. They don’t go in search of opportunities; they create them. For a shark, happiness is not in the numbers, but in crushing and smashing.

  They’re all wrong. What they call “happiness” is a crock of bullshit. Happiness is not there and will never be there. To be happy, you have to be crushed. You have to be bought when you’re at the top and sold on the cheap. My father never understood this, and I was going on the same path until a woman appeared and saved me.

  This woman, Lara Everwood, is you.

  You came to me as a spy, and I blew your cover. But in doing so, I was only blowing mine.

  I bought you because I saw an opportunity. But then you turned the tables on me, and got my heart for free.

  You saved me, Lara Everwood, because you saw beyond the numbers. You saved me because you believed in what you couldn’t see. And so, I’m making you a promise.

  Lara Everwood, I promise that I won’t ever be good. I will crush, tear and tip, as long as I’m doing it to protect you. And I’ll let you crush, tear and rip my worst enemy: my ego.

  Lara Everwood, I promise that I will always lose. I will come to you in an Armani suit, riding an expensive car, wearing a watch costing a fortune, and I will end up standing before you vulnerable and naked.

  Lara Everwood, I promise that we’ll never
settle. Loving each other is all fine and dandy, but we won’t let the spirit of the shark die. I promise that you’ll suffer, you’ll stress out, you’ll despair, you’ll curse and you’ll cry, but you’ll never be bored.

  I love you, Lara Everwood, and now that I see tears in your eyes, I love you even more. This is my promise to you: I will never let another man make you cry.

  THE END (... but read on!)

  ***

  Thanks for reading Bought! We at Eros Shrugged Publishing hope that you’ve enjoyed the book. If you did, you’ll be delighted to know that Molly Thorne has teamed up with bestselling author Natasha Tanner to bring you a new sexy bad boy romance!

  You’ll see some characters from Bought pop up in this new book, full-length novel SOLD: a billionaire bad boy mafia romance, second installment in the Goldenhearts series. Most notably, you will identify the female main character, Vanina Vokhtazin. Get to know her story and find out how she found her second chance with a new, biggest, badass, dangerous bad boy!

  Check it out!

  ABOUT MOLLY THORNE:

  Molly Thorne is a new voice in the literary romance landscape. She likes her fiction with a rough edge, and that’s why she started writing about bad boys. Now she’s joined forces with bestselling author Natasha Tanner to continue bringing you stories about dangerous but irresistibly charming men.

  Stay tuned for more stories by Molly!

  Follow her on Facebook

  Please see her Author Central Account on Amazon for a full list of her titles.

  Would you like to join the exclusive Molly Thorne Street Team and receive free advanced copies of her latest releases in exchange for an honest review?

  Sign up here!

  ALSO BY MOLLY THORNE:

  SOLD (the Goldenhearts series / book two) (with Natasha Tanner)

  COMING SOON BY MOLLY THORNE

  OWNED (the Goldenhearts series / book 3)

  An excerpt from:

  SOLD

  “Do I look like Rachel Weisz to you?”

  He turns in the bed to face me, his hard muscles pushing the sheets around, and gives me a funny look. “N-no. Not at all.”

  “Steve told me once that he thought my photo in the website was fake because I look like Rachel Weisz.”

  Ace keeps silent for a few moments. It’s been more than a month since I called him from the Central Park. He went for me as soon as he got the message, but not before I spent a full hour meandering around in fear of seeing Piotr again. His face... has become surly, dangerous. I feared for my life. And in that moment, I could only think of the man who could protect me. He’s kept me here with him, in his house in Grey Gardens, until things get sorted out. We go out sometimes, but we need to take lots of precautions. Things are heating again in Frisco, Pip says, and Ace is watching out for Piotr and his eventual friends.

  “You don’t look like Rachel Weisz to me. At all,” Ace replies finally. “But it’s weird that you say that. The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like Rhonda, but Jack Starr said that you looked like someone he once knew. An old girlfriend.”

  “So I am the woman with many faces?” I chuckle. But he is serious, staring at me as if he was having a deep epiphany.

  “It’s your eyes,” he says, finally. “You don’t actually, physically look like other women. It’s only that for everyone else, looking into your eyes makes us...”

  “Mistake me for another?”

  “... happy.”

  A warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach. He can be so sweet... I’d fuck him right now.

  And why not? We are lying on the bed, after all.

  “I can make you happier,” I declare, rolling on my side to climb upon him. He seems fond of the idea.

  “Do you think I deserve it?”

  “I don’t know, but I do deserve it.” I explore his body with mine until his rapidly growing mound and my eager cavity, both still trapped under our underwear, interlock in a sweet embrace. I start rubbing myself back and forth, closing my eyes and concentrating on the awesome sensations. Soon I am moaning like I was impaled in his big cock, but I have my panties still on, and his boxer shorts are still covering his manly marvel.

  “Oh, Van,” he sighs, grabbing my hips and biting his lip as if trying to control his strength to avoid breaking me in two. His hands climb up my torso, then cup my breasts, sending a hot tingling signal all over my body.

  “Does this make you happy?” I ask, biting my lip too, then grabbing one of his hands and putting his index finger in my mouth. With that finger inside, as I run my tongue all around it, I repeat the question, this time muffled: “Does this make you happy?”

  “It does,” he says, with his voice strong and weak at the same time. “It fucking does.”

  With my other hand, I set aside my panties so that I will be free to mount him properly. I fumble with his shorts, and after a while, I am able to liberate his cock as well. He laughs and sighs. I bite his finger playfully and sit on his member, aligning its wide, hard shaft with my soft, hungry slit. “Does this make you happy?”

  “It... it does,” he answers. He sits up to reach my breast that is free from his hand. I know what’s about to come. He reaches it with his mouth and encircles it softly with his lips, his stubble tickling the orb, his saliva covering the nipple in a warm bath. It goes erect instantly, and when he starts sucking, I have to bite his finger much harder in order to avoid screaming in pleasure.

  “Does this... does this m-make you—”

  “Happy?” he finishes, raising my body with one hand and thrusting his cock inside me. He lets go of me and lets gravity do its job. I slide over the huge, powerful thing and my whole body shakes in arousal. “You bet.”

  “Oooh,” I moan, as my warm, wet flesh closes around his, and prepare to initiate the motion, up-down, up-down, up-down, swallowing it like a machine of heavenly friction. “It does... aaah... it does make me h-h-happy too.” The last syllables come out as sighs, since I am out of breath already.

  Ace Hart lets go of my breast and applies his mouth to the other. Meanwhile, I move my body up and down, realizing what I had just anticipated. It’s delicious and so hot I think my pussy will melt around his dick.

  He starts pounding on me harder and faster, for what it seems like an hour. With each thrust, I feel all my being a bit closer to an incredible climax, but the climax is coming slowly, sweetly, aligning perfectly with my desire like a prophecy.

  As we both approached our release, his member pulsating inside me with every inch it advances and recedes, my flesh vibrating in unison, I keep biting his finger, and claw at his hairy chest with my long, sharp nails. The pain seems to make him even more excited, and in the end, he’s yelling with each thrust, just as I scream in indescribable pleasure. We both come at the same time, and keep moving and rubbing until the last waves of arousal give way to a delightful sopor.

  The last thing I think before falling asleep on him, with his manhood still inside me, is: Holy fuck, I love this man.

  Want to keep reading? Check out this hot story by Natasha Tanner & Molly Thorne!

  ***

  Dirty Work

  By Sophie Brooks

  Chapter One

  COULD THERE BE anything better than a hot, naked man in my shower? And not just any man. I’d always liked the way Jake looked. Six foot two, with honey blond hair that a comb couldn’t tame. A sexy goatee and a trail of stubble lining his strong jaw made him look like the bad boy he was. He’d spent years working construction, so he had plenty of muscles in all the right places. His powerful arms were made for wrapping around me.

  I could go on about his chest for several days. Impossibly smooth, tan skin covered his hard pecs and abs. He also had the most piercing eyes I’d ever seen, deep pools of blue that were currently focused on me. Only me. “Let’s make this happen,” he said.

  And I wanted to. I wanted to tear off my clothes and join him in there. I knew he wanted me to also, because he got a commanding look on hi
s face and said, “Did you hear me?”

  I took a step forward. He was still looking at me so intently it made me melt. His perfect lips opened and I wanted to kiss them, but then his actual words finally got through to me as he repeated them: “When did this happen?”

  What? Reality came crashing down on me as the hot, pulse-quickening image faded away.

  There was a sexy guy in my shower, but he was fully clothed and looking at me like I was crazy. “It isn’t a hard question,” he said. “When did the window break?”

  Oh! “Sorry, I was thinking about something else,” I said, trying to appear as if I were fully vested in this conversation and hadn’t been imagining anything even remotely inappropriate. “On Monday. I opened the window to let the steam out after my shower and the crank broke. Now it won’t close.” My house wasn’t exactly new, and things often went wrong. Which was why Jake was here in the first place.

  “Can you fix it?” I asked.

  He rolled those baby blues. “I can fix anything, Red.”

  The last trace of the delicious fantasy vanished completely, and I sighed. We were back to this again. “My hair is red. My name is Fiona.”

  “Got it, Red. I’m gonna have to get a new crank from the hardware store.”

  “Is that expensive?” The thought of spending yet more money I didn’t have to fix this house drove all thoughts of the annoying nickname from my mind.

  “It’s a hand crank for a sixty-year-old casement window. I don’t think it’s going to break the bank.”

  “Well, how would I know?”

  He glanced at me and then turned back to the frosted glass window. It was the old-fashioned kind that opened outward like a small door. It was usually controlled by a small crank that turned to open or close it. When it worked.

  Jake let his gaze travel from the open window back to me. His mouth settled into a wicked grin. “If you’re low on cash, you could sell tickets to watch you shower.” His gaze fell to the street beyond my front yard. “Looks like there’d be a pretty good view.”