Dark Lust: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Books 1-5) Read online

  DARK LUST

  Books 1-5

  Kira Matthison

  Contents

  Book 1: Twisted Lust

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Book 2: Dangerous Lust

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Book 3: Treacherous Lust

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Book 4: Sinful Lust

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Book 5: Scandalous Lust

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Book 1: Twisted Lust

  Chapter 1

  Donovan

  I saw her the moment I walked into the bar.

  She was sitting with her friend at the bar stools, facing out onto the bustle of the Chinatown street. Long black hair trailed over a bare shoulder, pale in the dim light. My breath came short as I watched; I was aching to tangle my hands in that hair and pull her head back, lay my teeth against the tender skin of her throat. I wanted to hear her moan of pleasure as I slid into her. I wanted those long legs tangling with mine while I fucked her, and her head thrown back with pleasure. I wanted to see marks on that pale skin.

  “Go over to her.” Hayden nudged me with his elbow.

  “Hmm?” I didn’t look over at him. I took a slow breath and adjusted my cuffs, leaning against the bar. I didn’t take a sip of the drink the bartender set down for me. The liquor here was terrible. I’d learned that the hard way.

  “I said, go over to her. Look at that ass. And she’s a good girl, you just know.”

  “Mmm. Not worth it.” Hayden was watching the wrong girl, anyway—the friend. I didn’t bother to correct him, my eyes staying locked on the other girl’s half-profile. I hadn’t seen her face yet; I had been watching her for a few minutes, waiting for her to turn around.

  I forced myself to focus. Tonight’s meeting was going to be tense. Something was wrong, and Sheng-li wouldn’t open his mouth to tell me the time of day unless his bosses let him. That meant I was going in blind, and I hated going in blind.

  I cradled the drink in my hand and considered. I should have walked away from all of this long ago. Failing that, I should walk away now. Common sense said you didn’t deal with men like these and expect to come out unscathed.

  I should ask myself why I wasn’t leaving, but I knew why: I always won. I liked winning, and winning meant nothing when there was no challenge.

  “Good girls are the dirtiest.”

  I was too used to Hayden to respond, or even waste a thought on how predictably his mind ran. I gave the friend a once-over, though. She was perfectly put together—and a recent immigrant, to judge from the confused looks she’d been giving at the décor. The Chinese people who grow up in America, they got it, but the ones who actually grew up in China could never make sense of it: everything red. Pagodas. Random Chinese words painted in gold. And probably a good-luck cat or two, because Americans can’t reliably tell the damned difference between Chinese and Japanese.

  Chinatown was for the tourists now. Tourists, and men like the ones I’d be meeting with later. I took a sip of my drink, an unconscious gesture, and winced. I let my eyes drift over the girl who’d caught Hayden’s eye. Her hair was curled, her makeup spotless, and Hayden was right: this was a good girl. A girl who studied. A girl who did her laundry every week. Just the kind of girl Hayden would like to lie to, get into bed, and then never call again.

  “Come on…”

  “She’s not my type.” She really wasn’t. I had no interest in corrupting innocents; it was more trouble than it was worth.

  “Oh, seriously?” He groaned and let his head drop back. “How long has it been for you?”

  I spared a glance to raise an eyebrow at him. I might not take advantage of the young and inexperienced, but I had never been a saint, and I knew he knew that.

  “You see my point, though.” He raised his brows at me.

  “Don’t.” I knew where this was going.

  He met my eyes, saw the warning, and went for it anyway. “Anyone’d think you hadn’t gotten over Evangeline, the way you—”

  “One. More. Word.” My voice didn’t even rise, but Hayden fell silent. He might be a total idiot, a douche with a hundred times more money than sense, but he also knew he’d taken it too far.

  “I’ll…go wait in the VIP room.” He set down his glass.

  “Good idea.” I took another sip of my drink, not looking at him as he slid away; the drink burned on its way down, the bad way, but I needed that right now.

  Why the hell had Hayden needed to bring Evangeline up now? Every time I forgot, every time the memory faded…

  I pushed the thought away. I never let myself dwell on it.

  And I had a good distraction, anyway: the girl. Hayden never would have noticed her. I wasn’t even sure why I had. She was an American; I knew that right away. Her black hair tumbled carelessly over one shoulder, and she was dressed in a tank top and skirt that had seen better days. Orange flip-flops, the dollar store kind. From the pained looks her friend was giving her, I just knew she told the American to dress up, and this was her version of that.

  After God knows how long of women painted and primped and botoxed into oblivion, she was a breath of fresh air, something completely different from—

  Evangeline. I drank the rest of my drink in one gulp. I was going to regret that in the meeting, but right now, I was too angry to care. I’d destroyed Evangeline’s life; there was no more revenge left to take, just a yawning rage that nothing could quench.

  And then the girl turned around, and I forgot everything. She wasn’t the careless girl I had been picturing: freckles on her nose, maybe the wrong shade of lipstick, too-dark eye shadow. No, she was…regal. She wasn’t wearing any makeup at all, that I could tell. She was tall—her legs went on forever from under that miniskirt, and she held herself with the sort of easy elegance that you can’t learn.

  She was white, I saw, with a certain surprise; from the black hair and the friend, I had drawn the wrong conclusion on that one. But what I had pictured was wiped out of my mind in an instant. It didn’t matter. In her careless elegance, she was everything I had imagined and more. From the long-lashed, dark blue eyes, to the high cheekbones and the pretty pink lips, this girl was perfect.

  I didn’t feel myself move, but I was blocking her way to the back of the restaurant. She almost ran into me, expecting me to move, and her head jerked up in surprise. She opened her mouth to say excuse me, and I saw the words die on her lips.

  I could feel it, and from the look in her eyes, she could, too—the crackle of energy between us that had my cock rock-hard and every sensible part of my brain telling me to walk away from this and not look back. Pretty girls? I could have a dozen at my apartment in an hour by snapping my fingers. I could tell the men I was going to meet that I wanted a black-haired girl with blue eyes, and they could get me ten girls prettier than this one. I didn’t need her. I didn’t need anyone, and that’s the way I liked it—the way it had to be now, given who I did business with.


  Only…I did need her. Right now.

  “Come with me.” My voice was rough.

  “What?” She sounded almost lost, the perfect bow of her lips parted as she stared up at me.

  I didn’t answer, just pulled her after me into the back hallway. She was up against the wall a second later, my lips on hers. There was one moment of shock, her body rigid in my arms, her hands at my chest, before she melted against me with a little moan. Her fingers clenched and one arm crept up around my neck. Her lips parted under mine. She pressed against me, uninhibited, heedless of her own pleasure.

  My breath was harsh in my own ears. My hands found the smooth skin of her thighs and slid up to trace over the curve of her ass, lifted her easily. This wasn’t an empty hallway, or a secluded one, but I didn’t care. Right now, I would have fucked her right here until she was screaming my name. I could feel the heat of her through her panties, and when she rocked her hips against mine, I nearly lost it.

  Someone cleared their throat awkwardly, and I felt the girl freeze in my arms. I stopped, my fingers clenched around her ass, and said a silent prayer for the strength not to kill Hayden where he stood.

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  “I’ll be there in a moment.” My voice was even. I wasn’t looking at him, though, as he melted back into the VIP room. I was looking at her, at the dark blue eyes that were searching my face wonderingly. Her lips were swollen from my kisses, and I dragged my thumb over the bottom one, my eyes locked on hers. She gave an unsteady breath as she stood, tried to pull away.

  “I’m…” She shook her head. We both knew the second word was sorry, as if she’d bumped into me in the hallway. She ducked her head, trying to push past me to leave.

  As if I would allow that. My arm caught her around the waist, dragging her back to me. She fit against me perfectly, I noted. She was made for me. Made to have me inside her, made to writhe on my fingers. She gave in to passion with abandon, and I wasn’t going to let her go without feeling her come around my cock. How would she respond to a riding crop? To a blindfold? How would she respond to a collar? One finger traced along her throat and I was pleased to see her take an unsteady breath.

  I had to have her.

  “Look at me.”

  She raised her head warily at the command.

  “Who are you?” Tell me how to find you.

  Her shoulders rose helplessly. “No one.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lily.” A breath.

  I waited.

  “…Harris.”

  “Lily.” The way I spoke her name was a promise of every single thing I wanted to do to her, and she gave a shiver as my words slid over her skin. “I’m Donovan White. Don’t leave.”

  “I have to…” She gestured vaguely, as if she had entirely forgotten why she was here.

  Satisfaction spiked through me, and my lips quirked. I heard some sort of commotion in the VIP room and could hardly spare the interest to wonder what it was.

  “I have some business to attend to.” Important business, though right now, for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine why I cared. “I’ll be back.” My fingers tipped her chin up. “Don’t leave.”

  “I…um…” She blinked at me.

  “Don’t. Leave.” My voice was soft, but there was steel there, and she heard it. I brushed my lips against hers and smiled when she pressed against me, yearning. I drew away with regret, and watched her as she walked back to the restaurant, fingers brushing at her lips.

  I straightened my cuffs and my tie, let my breath out slowly, and strolled to the VIP door. I would get this over with, and then I would go find her again. I felt my lips curve and spared a moment for the memory of her pressing against me.

  Soon, she would be mine.

  My smile lasted only until I pushed open the door to the VIP room. Pushed it open, and saw the woman tied up on the floor, and the blood already staining the ropes they’d tied her with.

  “Mr. White.” Sheng-li gave me a smile from one of the tables, lifting a glass of beer in a mocking toast. Beside him, Hayden was white with horror. “Please, sit down. We have some matters to discuss.”

  Chapter 2

  Lily

  “Are the bathrooms clean?” Bei looked over at me and frowned at the look on my face.

  “Um.” My fingers were tracing over my lips, as if searching for the secret of what had happened an hour ago. I’d dragged this dinner out as long as I dared, but I was realizing that my actions were literally the only evidence I had that a gorgeous man in an expensive suit had pushed me up against the wall, kissed me, and then asked me to stay at the restaurant until he came back. I forced myself to consider the facts, and had to accept that it probably wasn’t real. How could it be, after all? Stuff like that didn’t happen to me. I sighed and let my head drop forward.

  “Are you all right?” Bei seemed genuinely worried. “You’ve been strange all night.”

  “I think so.”

  Bei frowned, the way she always did—careful not to wrinkle her forehead. Even now that she was away from Shanghai and out from under her mother’s watchful eye, she still did everything she had been taught to do: a skin regime that seemed to take hours, religious use of parasols and sunscreen, dry-cleaning her clothes, and so many more little things that it was a miracle she managed to get anything else done, much less have time for me. The friendship we’d forged during my study abroad had stuck, however, and now that she was here in the U.S. to finish her law degree, we’d been planning to meet up for ages.

  That plan had accelerated sharply when I walked in on my boyfriend sleeping with my roommate. I’d spent the past week living on Bei’s couch, crying my eyes out every night and drinking far too much wine. Now that the weekend was here, she’d taken me out—to remind me how to have fun, she said—and for a while I’d lost myself in the familiar smells of xiaolongbao and yangchun noodles.

  And then, for some reason, I’d kissed a man I didn’t even know in the hallway. That was, if it hadn’t just been some elaborate fantasy of revenge.

  “Lily?”

  “Huh?” I flushed guiltily.

  “I said, I know it will take a long time, but I believe you will feel better.” Bei laid her hand over mine gently. “And I really hope you will consider forgiving him.”

  I scowled. This had been a common refrain this week, and I was not up for hearing it again now.

  “I know you do not want to now.” Bei gave me a look and gestured delicately with her chopsticks. “But life is long, and love is important. Perhaps later, one transgression will not matter so much.”

  I fought the urge to say something very unladylike. It was all a mask, anyway. Bei wanted me to forgive and forget, but how could I? I had known Chris was slipping away even before I left for Shanghai all those months ago. We had made the sort of promises every long-distance couple made, that nothing would ever come between us, but the truth was that I’d known, even then, that I wasn’t enough for him. I wasn’t elegant enough, witty enough, outgoing enough. I wasn’t the kind of girlfriend you showed off. I was smart, sure, but I didn’t know when to shut my mouth. I wasn’t the sort of woman he could take to academic parties to help him schmooze his way into a job.

  When I walked into that room and saw him in bed with Sarah, my first emotion was relief. For one brief moment, I’d understood the truth: that I’d been waiting for this for months, and that I could finally move on with everything now that it had happened.

  And then the moment had disappeared into tears and the bargaining and the self-doubt and the guilt. So much guilt. How could I be glad that he’d cheated on me? Shouldn’t I want to go back to him, like his texts and voicemails suggested I should?

  I dropped my head into my hands.

  “Lily—”

  “I’ll be okay. Really.” I saw her glance at her watch surreptitiously, and felt horrible. “You should go get some sleep. I know it’s been a long week for you already.”

&nbs
p; “What about you?”

  “I’ll…catch up with you.” The man had said not to leave, after all, and while it might have been a fantasy, it was at least a pleasant fantasy. I could indulge in it a while longer.

  “You’re…sure?”

  “Yeah. I’d just like to sit and think for a while.”

  She wavered. “Call me if you want someone with you on the ride home.”

  “You’re sweet.” I smiled at her and waved her off. “Now go get some sleep. No homework. You’ve been up late studying every night this week.”

  Bei smiled fondly and gave me a quick hug before slipping out of the restaurant to hail a taxi. I watched her go, sipping at my tea and watching the hands move on the men’s watch I wore. I had liked it from the first moment I saw it, and no matter how much Bei and Chris and everyone else insisted that it wasn’t a watch for a woman, I liked the deep blue hue and the clean composition of it. I even liked the dark brown leather band, the sort they never put on women’s watches.

  The street was getting emptier and emptier as I waited. I tapped my fingers impatiently on the table. This was ridiculous, wasn’t it? I must have seen that man at the bar and just…imagined him kissing me. It didn’t make much sense, and it sort of suggested I was going crazy, but it made a lot more sense than some gorgeous guy in a tailored suit picking me to kiss. Me. Of all people.

  He really had been gorgeous. I sighed contentedly and rested my face on my hand, toying with the wrapper from my chopsticks. A jaw that could cut glass, eyes that seemed to stare all the way into your soul and promise you things you would never even be brave enough to ask for… I shivered, feeling a thrill go down my spine. I didn’t even know what I was thinking about, just that it terrified me and I wanted it, all at the same time.

  He’d known, though. He’d known exactly what it was.

  I swallowed hard. He wasn’t real, I reminded myself. The gorgeous guy at the bar had been real, but everything about his eyes, about the way he issued careless commands and pressed himself up against me and turned me into some girl who kissed strange men in hallways—