Wicked Pursuit: A Black Rose Auction Book
Wicked Pursuit: Chapter 1

I shouldn’t be here.

I told Luke I was going out with Michelle and some of our other friends, but that wasn’t the full truth. I made a stop first. I needed to get out of the increasingly oppressive atmosphere of our apartment. Of the silences that grow more and more strained as the weeks pass and it feels like we’re no longer the people we were when we met.

I love him. I think. Or at least I used to.

It feels like a lie right now, while I’m sliding down another man’s cock.

The man in question . . . I can’t remember his name right now, not with desire and shame and alcohol fuzzing my thoughts. He’s handsome in the way so many men in the life are, harsh and cruel with scars on his knuckles and tattoos creeping up his wide neck.

“That’s right, baby. Ride my cock.”

“Shut up,” I mutter. But I don’t stop. He’s got my dress rucked up around my waist back in this private booth that really isn’t that private. Not that it matters. Luke is a good man. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar like this. One where the floors are sticky, where smoke lingers in the air, where every person is carrying. A bar frequented by the most dangerous people in Carver City.

No, Luke prefers bars that are frequented by professionals in business suits sharing a drink as they decompress from a long day at the office. Places where the emphasis is networking. Where the music is never too loud and is intentionally palatable. Where the drinks are named fancy things that hint at prestige but are made with well alcohol.

Luke is a lot like those bars. He doesn’t incite dramatic passions, and the most exciting thing he does is travel incessantly for work. These days, being with him is as comfortable as a well-worn sweater. And as coma inducing.

No. Holy fuck, no. I am not thinking about him while I’m doing this.

I snake a hand down to stroke my clit. If I’m going to be a horrible, cheating girlfriend, then I’m at least going to get off while I do it.

It doesn’t take long. It never does when I’m doing something that good girls don’t do.

Not that I was raised with that kind of bullshit, but I’ve had the sword of Damocles hanging over my head since I was old enough to be aware of what it means that my aunt, the leader of our territory, has no children. Of the fact that my mother only has me. That math only adds up to one solution, and it’s one that’s never sat comfortably on my shoulders. I never asked to be heir. I don’t really want the title or the responsibility.

Even so, there’s a part of me that strives not to disappoint the people in my life. I went through school without a single bad mark on my record. I got good grades and didn’t bother to date much, because no one was brave enough to face down the required family dinner. After high school, the wildest I got was using a fake ID to get through the door of the Tower, our favorite club in town. I had my first taste of freedom there, of what life might be if I were just another rich girl, no responsibility chaining me to a future I didn’t choose for myself. It was heady and amazing and addicting.

Then I met Luke on my twenty-second birthday.

He doesn’t know what my family does. He’s not from Carver City, didn’t grow up here with the oppressive “family” culture—really just another way to say “mob” culture. He looked at me and saw the girl I’d always strived to be, good and kind and always coloring inside the lines.

I’m not being good right now.

I stroke my clit faster, the shame that’s coating me driving me over the edge and into an orgasm that might not change my life but feels good nonetheless. I ease off the stranger’s condom-covered cock and stagger to my feet. Coming here was a mistake, but fuck if I don’t feel at home in my own skin for the first time in years. Maybe ever.

The man reaches for me, his brutal expression relaxed. “Where you going, Red? I’m not done with that pussy yet.”

Red isn’t my name, but with my crimson-dyed hair, the guy didn’t question it when I gave it to him. I pull the skirt of my dress back down over my hips and easily dodge his hand. “Thanks for the good time. See you never.”

“Hey!”

I ignore him and stride out of the private booth. The bar is much the same as I left it, dingy and dark and filled with people who live and work in the shadows. The enforcers who keep rulers like my aunt in power. People like my fathers, with blood on their hands. People like I’ll eventually be when I take over the Belmonte territory. The clock ticking in my head had been silent while I was fucking the stranger, but it starts right back up again. My parents may have given me space before cramming me into the heir role, but it’s only a matter of time before they tire of my resistance.

But it won’t be tonight.

I pull my phone out and text Michelle.

Guilt flares. I didn’t set out with the intention of cheating on my boyfriend, but as I was walking to the bar to meet Michelle, I saw this bar and . . . I stared at that grungy front door and neon sign and could see an alternate universe where I was a different woman, a more dangerous one. The kind of woman who could walk into a bar, crook her finger at a man, and fuck him with barely another word.

And then I did it. And it felt good.

I swallow hard and type out a response.

I hitch my purse more firmly onto my shoulder and stride out the door. It’s not particularly late, so there’s plenty of foot traffic. I fall in with a group of chattering college students. There was a time when Carver City was split more intensely, but years of peace have changed things. Now college bars nestle right up next to places where seedier business is arranged. There’s an unspoken agreement—the lieutenants of the various territories stay away from civilians, and if a normal person wanders into the wrong business, they’re sent on their way without any violence. It works. Mostly.

The small hairs on the back of my neck lift.

Someone is watching me.

I glance over my shoulder, certain my ill-advised partner has followed me. He’s nowhere in sight. In fact, no one seems to be paying me much attention. That’s almost enough for me to brush off the feeling, but I’ve been trained too well.

Growing up the way I had, even while dodging my responsibilities as heir, there was no way I could avoid certain realities. Carver City may be at peace, but that doesn’t change the danger inherent in our life. Violence could erupt at any moment, at least in theory. As a result, Da taught me to trust my instincts. If they say run, then I run. If they say hide, then I hide. Better to be overcautious than to end up dead.

Right now, they’re saying that someone is following me.

I pick up my pace, hurrying to the bar where Michelle is waiting for me. She’s a perfect mix of her parents, short and with generous curves and a thick waist, her skin medium-brown and her hair dark and wavy. Tonight she’s wearing a pair of painted-on jeans and a cute flowery top that does wonders for her cleavage. “About time you got here!”

“Sorry, I got held up.” I’m still not quite sure how I feel about what happened . . . No, that’s a lie. My nerves are alight and my skin feels too tight. I want to move. To dance and scream and chase this feeling of being alive. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” She makes a show of pouting. “The only person who returned my text was Zayne, and only to tell me that he’s got work in the morning and isn’t interested in being hungover for it.”

I drop into the chair next to her. “That sucks. I haven’t seen him in ages.” He’s not an heir like Michelle and me but like Michelle, he’s one of the only people in this city I consider a friend. Or at least I used to, before I started dating Luke. The rest of the heirs and spares range from friendly acquaintances to those who don’t give me the time of day. But at least none of us are enemies. We’ve all grown up the same, with the importance of peace in Carver City drilled into us from an early age.

“You’d see him more if you came out more.”

I shrug because she’s right. Luke and I used to come out with them when we first started dating, but then his job got more demanding and I convinced myself I liked the chill nights at home and . . . here we are. “Tell me about this new girl you’re seeing. When do I get to meet her?”

“Oh, you know.” She waves that away, happy to flit to a new subject, just like I hoped she’d be. “It’s not that serious. So probably never. But I just heard the juiciest gossip.”

My phone buzzes. I motion for her to keep going as I glance at it. Unknown number? Frowning, I pull up the message.

I scoff. And someone has never heard an original line in their life. I’m about to put down my phone when it buzzes again. This time, it’s a picture message. The lighting is dim and the framing is strange, as if it was taken through a gap in a door. Even so, I recognize what I’m looking at immediately.

My dress, held up around my hips by hands with scars on their knuckles.

My bare ass, lifted just enough for someone to see that I am most definitely fucking the man I’m straddling. The man who isn’t my boyfriend.

And, in the mirror behind the booth, my face.

Another buzz.

“Is something wrong, Ruby?”

I startle and nearly knock off the glass of wine the bartender just set down in front of me. “No. It’s fine.” I don’t sound convincing, even to myself. Sure as hell not enough to get past Michelle.

She narrows her pretty green eyes. “We lie to other people. We don’t lie to each other. What’s going on?”

My resolve to keep my earlier activities to myself crumbles. I’m not ready to talk about whoever the fuck is texting me—I’ll deal with that later—but cheating on Luke? That knowledge is a stone in my stomach. I cast a look around the place. It’s a completely different crowd than the last one, even though only a handful of blocks separate the bars. We’re firmly in neutral territory here, and while there hasn’t been war between the territory leaders since before I was born, everyone still breathes a little easier when they’re in the shadow of the Underworld. Whoever took that picture of me isn’t here. I’m sure of it.

Mostly sure.

I shiver. “I, uh, just had sex with some guy in a private booth at the bar down the street. That’s why I was late.”

Michelle lets out a whoop that turns several heads in our direction. “So you finally broke it off with the wet blanket. That calls for a toast and some shots.”

For the first time, guilt takes proper residence inside me, overriding the other emotions. “We didn’t break up.”

She freezes. “Ruby.”

“I know.”

“No, I don’t think you do.” She nudges my wine toward me. “Look, I get it. Luke is hot as fuck, and he knows his way around a clitoris. So do a lot of people. You’re bored with him. Worse, in my opinion, you’re boring while you’re dating him. Or at least you are lately.”

I jerk back, stung. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”

“I only do it out of love.” She sips her wine. “I understand the urge to play daddy’s little girl, especially since you have two dads, but aren’t you tired of pretending to be someone you’re not? I threw that shit away years ago.”

Yeah, Michelle had. The second we turned eighteen, Michelle buried her last give-a-damn and went to town. She partied everywhere except the Underworld—there are some lines not even she was willing to cross—and slept her way through half of Carver City.

I was so jealous, I could barely breathe past it.

There was nothing stopping me from doing the same thing. Nothing except myself and the expectations I set up. As if by carefully not stepping out of line, I could keep my parents from intervening and pushing even harder for me to take up my role as heir—I never realized that the strongest chains a person can be bound in are those of their own making.

“It’s different.”

“If you say so.” She shrugs. “Look, I understand exactly how exciting it can be to do something you’re not supposed to. You get no judgment from me there. I just don’t understand why you’re staying with Luke if you’re out riding someone else’s cock.”

I toy with my wine glass, not sure if I can fully explain what I don’t entirely understand. “I care about him.”

“See my last point—you don’t care enough to not cheat on him.”

My phone buzzes on the bar and I shudder. “I don’t know, okay? I’m just not ready to break up with him.” I drop my phone into my purse.

“Is it your parents? You know they aren’t going to think less of you that the first boyfriend you ever had isn’t your end-all, be-all.”

She’s being logical, and there’s nothing about this situation that’s logical. “If I break up with him, there will be questions. I’ll have to move home, and then Aunt Sienna will be in my business. She already doesn’t believe he’s good enough for me, and if she thinks he did something—because she’d never believe I’m the issue . . .”

Michelle grimaces. “At that point, we might as well kill him and save him from her locking him up in her murder basement and torturing him for months.”

“It’s not a murder basement,” I say faintly. “It’s a lab.”

“Two terms, same result. Besides, the alternative is for you to stay with Luke forever, becoming the cliché of a bored housewife. What’s next, sleeping with the pool boy?”

“We don’t have a pool in our apartment complex.” The protest is weak, even to my ears.

“Then tennis coach, tutor, fill in the blank. You know what I mean.” She nods at my glass. “I think we need something stronger to continue this conversation.”

I’m already motioning the bartender over. “Agreed.”

Several hours and far too many shots later, I still don’t have a good answer for why I’m climbing the stairs to the apartment I share with the boyfriend I . . . love? I don’t know if that’s even the right word.

When Luke and I first got together, we were like a wildfire. I was drunk off the freedom of living on my own and having hot sex with a partner who showed every evidence of being completely obsessed with me. He was handsome and sexy and wanted me more than anyone ever had. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other, and there were more than a few times we were caught fucking in places we shouldn’t have been. I don’t know when things changed. Maybe when we moved in together. Maybe when he got his new job and started working longer hours and traveling out of town for extended periods of time, selling insulation to companies. Things are fine, but fine feels tepid at best.

Maybe my standards are too high. Look at my parents, after all. They’ve been together for nearly thirty years, and they still flirt and play grab-ass and make regular trips to Hades’s kink club. The fire never burned out between them, and gods help me, but I want that fiery love.

I thought I had it with Luke. But then, I was never completely honest with him, was I? It’s no wonder we fell apart along the way.

I stumble through the front door and stop short. I expected the apartment to be bathed in shadows. He has an early morning tomorrow. A meeting with . . . someone. He definitely told me, and I definitely forgot as soon as the conversation ended.

Except he’s not in bed like I expected. He’s sitting on the couch with a tumbler of whisky and a paperback. He’s so fucking handsome that the first time he approached me, I couldn’t believe he was even talking to me. Now I wish he were less perfect. A few scars. A crooked nose. Something to make him feel human and fallible.

Is it any wonder I went seeking sin just to be able to breathe? Except that’s not fair. It’s not Luke’s fault that I’m a shitty, cheating girlfriend. The blame lies solely with me.

“Hey, Ruby.” He holds out a hand, and maybe it’s the alcohol making me foolish, but I’m crossing to him and taking his hand before I realize I really shouldn’t.

I jerk back. “Sorry. The bar was so damn crowded, and I’m covered in perfume and cologne. Let me take a shower and we can chat.”

“I was just going to bed. I was reading and lost track of time.” He rises easily and brushes a kiss over my lips. “Glad you got home safe.”

“Me too.” I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying. I stand there, numb, and watch him walk into our bedroom.

It’s only when I set my purse on the counter that I remember the weird messages. Luke and I don’t go through each other’s phones, but there’s no reason to leave out clear evidence that I was up to no good. My stomach drops when I click on my phone and see the series of texts.

I glance at the clock. Five minutes until three. I should ignore it. There’s no reason to engage with this weird-as-fuck interaction. He called me Red, just like the guy at the bar. Maybe it was one of his friends who somehow got my phone to get my number . . . Except that doesn’t make sense. My purse was right next to me the entire time. It’s more likely that whoever this is, they were close enough to hear the guy call me Red.

I bite my bottom lip. It’s hard to think through the film of drunkenness making me feel loose and reckless. “Fuck it,” I mutter. I type a reply.

I blink. “This motherfucker is out of his goddamn mind. Does he think I’m flirting with him?” Now’s the time to walk away. Put down my phone and call . . . Well, not my mom. Not Dad either. They’ll ask too many questions. Da may, too, but he’d at least take care of the creep first.

Except I don’t.

A pause, long enough that I let out a sigh of relief.

Then my phone buzzes.

The blood rushes to my head. Or out of my head. I can’t tell if I’m furious or terrified.

I stare at the text, my mouth hanging open. “The audacity of this motherfucker.” My nails click against the screen as I type too hard.

I’d let Michelle convince me to join a wet T-shirt contest. It was a wild time. It was also the night I met Luke for the first time. We’d been flirting for hours, and after that contest, we ended up in the parking lot, and he ate my pussy right there against my car.

Shame heats the back of my neck. I got quite the lecture after the contest pictures were posted—all three of my parents got a word in edgewise about it. Our family has a reputation, after all.

No one talks about the fact that my parents engage in public kinky behavior every Saturday night, but I show my tits once and it’s the end of the world.

I don’t know if it’s the shame or the alcohol or the kernel of fear growing in my stomach. Whatever the cause, I replace myself in the bathroom. I jerk down my dress and raise my middle finger as I snap a photo.

His response is nearly instantaneous.