Never Loved
Dark Obsession # 1
Dark Obsession # 1
By: Charlotte Stein
Releasing July 21st, 2015
Loveswept
Perfect for fans of Abbi Glines, the first novel in
the Dark Obsession series tells the story of a beautiful wallflower who falls
for a chiseled street fighter—and learns just how dangerous love can be.
Beatrix Becker spent most of her life under the
thumb of her controlling, abusive father. And now that she’s free and attending
her dream college, she has no idea how to act like the normal crowd: partying, going
on dates, even having a conversation. Then she meets Serge Sorensen. Big and
surly with a whole host of riotous tattoos, Serge is supposed to scare the hell
out of her. But beneath his harsh exterior, Beatrix discovers a kindred spirit
who knows what it’s like to be a misfit. Most exhilarating—and terrifying—is
what he does for a living: illegal street fighting.
There’s nothing like the rush Serge gets from the
intense athleticism and brutal glory of combat—though his chemistry with
Beatrix comes close. Slowly at first, he introduces her to his world, where he
lives by instinct, passion, and desire. He even helps her out with her equally
traumatized brother. But when Serge gets in too deep with the wrong people, he
ends up paying in blood. And suddenly, just as Beatrix has been drawn into
Serge’s perfectly sculpted arms, she’s thrown once and for all into the fight
of his life.
“I tell you what, girl. How about
you hop on, and I’ll take you to where he is.”
Some of the guys around him laugh.
Hell, he seems to be laughing a little, too. He even slaps the back of his bike
like the punch line to this whole crazy joke—he knows I’m never going to climb
up on that thing. Everyone knows I’m not going to climb up on that thing. I’m a
soft little kid, in corduroy.
Though for once in my life, I
don’t want to be. I want to say yes, just to show him. Just to make up for all
the times when I went back to my room and changed and changed and changed until
my clothes were suitable, or stayed silent because silence was golden and
talking back got you the basement. I don’t have to stay silent here, if I
really don’t want to.
But that only makes it more
disappointing when my sad little mouth leaks out, “I can’t do that.”
In fact, it’s so disappointing
that he seems to catch some of it. He snorts, of course, as though he expected
that answer all along. Yet beneath that snort I think I see something else,
just sort of drifting around down there. A bitterness, I think, that carries
through his otherwise amused and rather withering words.
“Afraid of bikes, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“And maybe afraid of me?”
“I’d have to be insane to be
anything else.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Think it’s pretty obvious.”
“Try me.”
“Mostly it’s the size.”
He makes a face like Yeah, that makes sense.
But the shadow of that odd
disappointment is still there.
“What can I say? I’m a big guy.”
“And maybe the tattoos.”
“I sure got them.”
“And the hair.”
“You don’t like it?”
He runs a hand over that thick
black stripe right down the center, like some lady at a salon showing off her
new hairdo. And it’s funny; it really is funny. It’s so funny that the
assembled crowd laughs again to see him do it. This is probably the kind of
show he does all the time, and I’m sure none of them ever question it.
But I’m questioning it. I can
still see that serious undercurrent beneath his jokey manner, and it makes me
answer him in a more impassioned way than I intend. “No, no, it’s not that at
all,” I say, though it’s only afterward that I realize how true that sentiment
is.
Yeah, he’s scary as fuck. Yeah,
the thought of riding off with him on that bike almost freezes my blood. But if
I’m honest with myself about liking that hair . . . I can’t exactly say no. I do
like it. I like a lot of things about him, in a way I don’t fully understand.
He should ping just about every aggressive-man fear I have, but every time I
try to think of him that way, something else happens instead. I see the
contrast between those black stripes and his pale blue eyes, and the way he
waits for my answer in this actually interested manner, and how strange all of
his clothes are and that flash of bitterness or weariness in him again, and
then suddenly there it is:
The word handsome.
Dear God, I think he might be
handsome, though I’m not going to stick around long enough to find out for
sure.
“I’ve got to go,” I blurt out, but
I immediately regret it. I should have just turned and run really quickly—not
given him warning. Now he’s got time to punish me as I ever so slowly start to
walk away. Oh, look at the little college girl. She’s frightened,
he’ll say, and then someone will throw a rock at me. All of them will throw
rocks at me, until I’m a bruised and bloody pulp on the front page of
tomorrow’s newspaper. Idiot Student Finds Angry Biker Handsome, I imagine, though I’ve no
idea why I’m doing it.
That doesn’t even make any sense.
People don’t write reports about girls randomly noticing attractiveness. They
write reports about girls being murdered, so really, that should be my
headline. Idiot
Student Has Arms and Legs
Pulled Off by Handsome
Biker,
I try, but I can’t help noticing that the word handsome is
still in there.
God, I wish it wasn’t still in
there.
It’s hard enough as it is to walk
to my car without glancing back. Putting the word handsome in
there makes it nearly impossible. My eyes want me to double-check, and not just
because I probably hallucinated how good-looking he is. They want me to check
because I’m almost positive I can feel his gaze pressing into my back. I can
feel it the way people in books say they can feel it, even though I usually
snort and roll my eyes when I get to stuff like that. You can’t sense someone’s
stare in real life. That’s just not the way it works.
So how come I’m right?
I dare to glance up once I’m
inside the safety of my car, expecting to see him going about his business.
Maybe he’ll be in the middle of some awful drug thing, I think. Maybe he’ll be
making some kid pay for wanting to do something other than come right home
after school. But he isn’t doing either of those things—not even close.
Instead I see those frostbitten
eyes still steadily on me, as everyone around him returns to their rowdy and
brutal ballet.
Charlotte
Stein has written over thirty short stories, novellas and novels, including
entries in The Mammoth Book of Hot Romance and Best New Erotica 10. Her latest
work, Run To You, was recently a DABWAHA finalist. When not writing deeply
emotional and intensely sexy books, she can be found eating jelly turtles,
watching terrible sitcoms and occasionally lusting after hunks. For more on
Charlotte, visit: www.charlottestein.net
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