Release Day – 12th of August 2024

Leave a comment if you’d like an ARC.

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I wanted a monster’s attention. I wasn’t ready for his obsession.

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Filthy rich, powerful, and devastatingly handsome, Carlton Wilde is an unattainable luxury.

Especially for someone like me—a scholarship student at his elite college, and a far cry from the beauties wrangling for his attention. 

But when I’m alone at night he’s all I think about. So I put on a mask and worm my way into his secret night life to lose my v-card to him, certain he’ll never discover my true identity. 

Except he does, and I wake up to his first rose. 

And the roses keep appearing—on my windshield, at the library, even among my sheets, each one more sinister than the last. 

Because the roses never come alone. 

I realize too late the dangerous game I’ve been playing. Trapped, I must confront the terrifying truth: in Carlton Wilde’s world, there’s no such thing as a happy ending.  

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CHAPTER I – Excerpt

Annie

There he is.

Carlton Wilde, a.k.a. the iron fist of the Heathen Kings. The designer suit wrapped around his muscular body has all the girls here sighing and giggling, and when that million dollar smile appears, nervous laughter breaks out all around him. 

I swallow against the dryness in my throat. The man is out of everybody’s league, not just mine. Plus, there’s no version of this world in which he’s not marrying the tall, aristocratic blonde on his arm. And not just because that’s who the Elders chose for him, but because he’s an incorruptible member of the highly exclusive Heathen group. It’s a miracle that he even came to the engagement party of his fellow Kings to women they broke the rules for. He was very much against both of those relationships.

As for his fiancée, Rosalind Hayes, what can I say? Her looks match the power attached to her name and, by the way she prances in her impossibly high heels by his side, she knows it. Carlton is tall enough to dwarf her despite her stilettos, which I’m pretty damn sure turns her on. For a moment, I imagine what I would look like at his side. Even in high heels, I’d barely reach his shoulder. I’d look like a schoolgirl next to a sculpted god.

I’ve never been ashamed of my own desires, but I do feel a little stupid watching glossy-skinned models drooling over him. Especially since I have tried everything to get his attention. I even made fake profiles online and sent him nudes—from the neck down, of course, so he wouldn’t recognize me.

“You can still book a night with him, you know,” a familiar voice croaks behind me.

I glance over my shoulder at Doreen Dames—or the Matron, as Mireille likes to call her. She’s cradling a glass of wine in her heavily jeweled hand, her signature long fingernails giving her a distinctly witchy vibe. It’s pretty much her whole thing, really, with that red lipstick, the too-white foundation, and her tattooed eyebrows. She’s chewing gum to cope with her nicotine deficit. She could smoke out on the patio, but I guess she prefers to keep up appearances at this event.

I’m not surprised that Micah invited her along with his bikers. Duke Micah Royales has never made a secret of his scandalous lifestyle as the head of the ravenous pack of beasts that is the Flaming Skulls, nor of his friendship with Doreen, an older woman who arranges for girls like me to have their fantasies fulfilled by pierced, tattooed goons. 

Goons whom I just saw in the great hall a few rooms down, drinks in hand, grabbing their cocks and sticking their tongues out at appalled ladies clutching their pearls. A few sorority girls were giggling like horny teenagers as I followed Carlton into the wide open space. 

“I can’t afford the fee.” 

Doreen’s groan tells me she just rolled her eyes.

“I’d think you’d be done whining by now.”

My eyes remain locked on Carlton, certain he won’t notice me through the crowd.

“It’s my reality,” I say, taking in his smile and chiseled jaw, his skin a very lickable shade of melted caramel. 

“Money isn’t the only form of payment I take, you know.” Doreen stands closer behind me now, her voice as insidious as a snake’s hiss. “The Flaming Skulls love themselves a juicy piece of innocent ass.” 

“If I was going to pay for something, it would be to lose my virginity to Carlton,” I push out through my teeth.

“And that’s exactly what I’d be happy to help you with.” Her voice is now so subtle that I feel as though I can hear it only inside my head.  

“Then what’s my bargaining chip? What can I possibly give you if I don’t have my virginity?” It’s no secret that a girl’s virginity is one of the Matron’s favorite currencies. Mireille lost hers—or rather offered it on a golden platter—to the entire biker gang. But that’s what she wanted, and a twisted love affair was born from that event. I still shudder thinking about the guy with the forked tongue and the Viking beard emerging from her room a few days ago. 

“I’m sure we can work something out.” Doreen slurps her wine, the grating sound creeping along my skin. 

“I can’t go into this blind.” I know better than to leave the terms of our hypothetical agreement at Doreen’s discretion. 

“I’m not asking you to.” She leans forward over my shoulder so that her face is now aligned with mine, and we’re both looking at Carlton. “I’m just keeping my eyes on the prize, trying to evaluate its worth.” Then, licking her lips. “Hmmm, he’s delish. So much elegance and ferocity packed into one being. Deadly and devastating, and unattainable for everyone here.” She turns her head to me. “But he could be attainable for you.”

My eyes burn as I stare at him talking to the people around him, and I realize I haven’t blinked in more than a minute. A smile spreads on his face as Rosalind laughs and loops both her arms around one of his. Doreen is right. He’s devastating, especially when he gives the world that million dollar smile that has everyone around him melting.

“If this happens, he can’t know it was me.” I won’t be able to live with it if my identity transpires. Carlton would back off a hundred percent. We never talk, but he doesn’t seem to like me much, probably because of how obvious I’ve been, staring at him in the cafeteria. 

“You’d be wearing a mask. He wouldn’t have you without one anyway.” 

“What do you mean?”   

Her red lips pull into a smile, her red lipstick cracking.

“Do you think Sade and Micah are the only fucked up Kings?”  She motions in the general direction of the soon-to-be grooms holding Justine and Eva close to them as if hawks were circling to steal them away. “Look at them. Ready to take on the Incredible fucking Hulk if that’s what it costs to keep their women. Sade would wipe out an entire government for his pretty little poet, and everyone here knows it. That’s why they stare at him in fear, like he’s a ticking time bomb. As for Micah, he took on the Elders, which should have been pure suicide. But Carlton Wilde.” She clicks her tongue and shakes her head, staring in his direction like he’s the crown jewel of her discourse. “He’s something else. Not only a rule follower but a rule enforcer. The golden boy of the Heathen Kings if there ever was one.”

“Yeah, he went ballistic when Sade and Micah chose to go against the Elders.” Which is also why my attention has always annoyed Carlton. He doesn’t care for the infatuations of horny girls who throw themselves at him. If anything, he despises them.

“What you don’t know is who he is behind closed doors.” Doreen’s voice lowers, and the air around us thickens. “For all his strong principles, Carlton Wilde has a shadow side. Your crush is no knight in shining armor, Annie, and the things he likes to do to women aren’t for the faint of heart.”

I bite my lip so hard that I taste blood, remembering the smoldering darkness that took over those eyes when he found me crouching in a corner during the mayhem a few months ago. Remembering how he had spirited me away, keeping me safe from the bullets and the knives.

“It’s what I want,” I whisper. “I want him to go feral on me.”

As feral as he was that night, when he caught one of the Morningstars’ hitmen standing over me with a psychotic grin on his face, blade in hand, looking forward to killing me. The man was rabid with bloodlust. I made myself smaller in the corner, hopeless at the prospect of his next move. But Carlton’s blade slid across his throat from behind. 

That moment that will haunt me forever. 

Blood gushed out in the wake of his knife, and the attacker’s stunned carcass fell to the floor. I knew that, in his last moment, the high was gone, and he was fully aware that trying to harm me was the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Carlton flipped him on his back with the tip of his blood-splattered designer shoe.

Then he looked at me.

The ferocity in his deeply dark eyes, the molten bestiality in them, spoke volumes. He bent down to me and, next thing I knew, I was cradled in his powerful arms, his large hand cupping my head and keeping my face to his chest so I wouldn’t see the mayhem all around us.

But I did see things when he put me down in order to get Micah and Eva out of the lounge study. I threw up for days, and the nightmares haven’t stopped since. There are still nights when I wake up screaming, and the only thing that calms me down is the memory of his scent, the protective warmth of his body, of my cheek pressed to his chest, slick with the blood of the man he killed for me.

He killed for me.

Every time, I lay back down focusing on the memory of him like a mantra. 

Carlton’s eyes shift. They find me so quickly that I could swear he’s been aware of my exact position in the room the entire time. His gaze is like smoldering coals, sending heat all over my skin. 

“I mean it, Doreen,” I whisper through barely moving lips. “If we do this, he can never know it was me.”

He looks away with that tic pulsing in his jaw, annoyed by the fact that he caught me staring again. 

“Don’t worry. We take the utmost care with the delicate nature of these things. Not to mention that he will be very much distracted by your body. He won’t care about who it is behind the mask. You’re exactly his type.” Her breath comes skin-crawlingly close to my ear. “He’s been asking for girls like you lately.”

I angle my head to her. “Girls like me?”

“Mhm.” She slurps from her wine again, then smacks her lips without giving a damn about the aristocrats staring at her in disgust while passing by. “He’s wanted them small and delicate for months. Perky round tits and round ass. Hard to find, that lot. If we play our cards right, he might actually pay for you.”

The idea sends a squirm down my thighs. I like the thought of Carlton paying for me, and not because of the money. But because of what it would mean—that he actually wants me. And being wanted by him is my greatest wish. I want to leave a dent in his memory, a mark in his life that no other woman will be able to erase. If my type is what he’s into, then here’s my chance. 

I face Doreen in full, her nicotine-yellowed teeth showing as her lips pull in another grin. 

“Name your price.”

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