About Lovegame:
 
True Crime novelist Ian Sharpe has spent his career writing about serial killers for very personal reasons. For his latest exposé, he is taking on the sadistic madman known as the Red Ribbon Strangler, and when his research leads him to Hollywood’s most private and provocative actress, he will break every rule to uncover her truth.
 
The daughter of one of Hollywood’s golden couples, chased by paparazzi and treated as a commodity her entire life, Veronica Romero wields her sex appeal like a weapon. She expects Ian to be as easy to control as every other man she’s ever known. But from the beginning, he refuses to fall into line. Mysterious and cool, challenging and just a little bit dangerous, Ian somehow makes her feel safe—even as he digs into the deepest secrets of her life and pushes her to the breaking point.
 
As raw ecstasy gives way to agonized truths, their dark obsession exposes secrets that have been buried for far too long. Ian wants to tear down her walls and heal the sensual woman underneath. But if Veronica’s learned anything, it’s that the line between pleasure and pain is a narrow one—and when caught between them the only thing that matters is how you play the game.

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Exclusive Excerpt

For long seconds, I just look at her, taking in her pale face and dark, shadowed eyes. She looks like she’s seen a ghost—or more, like she’s well on her way to becoming one.

“What’s wrong?” I demand, stepping back so she can come in.

“Nothing. You told me to be here, and here I am.” She might be pale, but the look she gives me is pure, unadulterated Veronica. Part Disney villain and part Jessica Rabbit, it’s sultry and defiant and a little bit of fuck you all wrapped up in a solid punch to the dick.

“I told you to be here three hours ago.”

“Yes, well, beggars can’t be choosers, darling.” She all but pats my cheek as she saunters on by. “Hollywood’s a busy place. People to see, people to . . . do.”

Fuck. She’s been here five seconds and already I’m itching to put my hands on her—to show her she’s not the only one with moves in this game we’re playing.

I turn to watch as she prowls around the room—looking at this, picking up that—trailing her fingers along the edge of the bar, the sofa, the bed. For a moment I can’t help but see her there, spread-eagled. Naked. Her wrists and ankles bound to the iron bed frame as she begs me to fuck her.

It’s what she intends—it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know she’s here to seduce me—and it’s a plan my cock is totally and completely on board with. But as I step toward her, an image flashes through my mind. Poor, broken Alicia, lying violated and spread-eagled on that forest floor, a red ribbon wrapped carelessly around her.

My arousal dies a quick and terrible death.

I walk over to the desk where I was working, pick up my phone. “So, do you want to get started?” I sound abrupt and I know it, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Not when the violence of the past is mixing so brutally with the reality of the present.

But Veronica just lifts a brow, puts a careless hand on her hip and somehow manages to look every ounce the goddess, even in yoga pants and a hoodie. “Not even going to offer a girl a drink first, hmmm?”

“Nice try, but I’ve been down this road with you before. I’ll offer you a drink. After you answer one of my questions.”

“So it’s going to be like that, is it?” The bored look on her face doesn’t fool me. Not when I can see the bruises lurking in the depths of her eyes.

“If it is, it’s because you made it that way.” I move over to the winged arm chair in the sitting area of the suite. Gesture for her to take a seat on the sofa opposite it.

“Which way is that, exactly?” she counters as she slowly unzips her hoodie and drops it to the floor. Then she’s sauntering toward the sofa, hips swinging and nipples poking through the thin fabric of her tank top. “Oh right,” she murmurs as she passes me, her hand reaching out to palm my stiffening cock. “The hard way.”

Fuck. It’s amazing just how easily this woman could have me by the balls. I know what she’s doing, can see her tricks coming from a mile away. And still she gets me every damn time.

Because I want to give in to her, I grab her wrist instead. Then spin her around until her ass is nestled against my cock and my arms are tightly wrapped around her body. “Is this what you came here for?” I whisper against her ear. It’s a taunt and we both know it, especially as I work to get my fingers around both of her wrists. Once I do, I hold her hands in front of her body this time, pressed up tight against her abdomen.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she tells me.

But she’s wiggling her ass against me, getting me harder with each shift of her hips. In retaliation—or self-defense, at this point I can’t tell which it is—I bring my free hand up and cup her breast, squeezing her nipple between my thumb and forefinger.

Her breath hitches, breaks, and as her body melts against mine it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to kiss her. I manage it, but it costs me, even before she digs her nails into the back of my hand.

“I don’t have to flatter myself,” I answer when I can finally trust my voice again. “Not when you’re so good at doing it for me.”

“Letting you scratch an itch isn’t flattery.”

“Maybe not. But knowing I’m the only one who can is.”

“Touché.” She turns her head then, presses a hot, openmouthed kiss against my jaw. “Now, are you going to give me what I came here for, or am I going to wander downstairs to the bar and find someone who doesn’t ask nearly as many questions as you do?”

I laugh. I can’t help it. She’s a fucking handful. And I’m a fucking idiot for being so turned on by it. By her.

Because she is—and because I am—I keep my hand around her wrist as I tug her arms up and over her head. She’s all stretched out now, back arched, neck long, tits sticking out. It’s a good look for her. A very good look.

I keep her like that for several, long, drawn out seconds just because I can. Then I start moving, my thighs pressing against hers and pushing her forward, forward, forward, until she’s pressed up against the window that runs the length of one wall—a window that also happens to overlook the very busy, very famous intersection at Hollywood and Vine.

Only then do I let go of her wrists.

“Hold them there,” I order as she starts to lower her arms.

For the first time, her bravado falters. “We’re on the third floor. People can see us.”

It’s a real concern, especially considering just how famous her face is. That still doesn’t mean I’m going to give in. She’s not the only one who likes to push. “Press your palms against the glass,” I tell her firmly. “And keep them there.”

There’s a part of me that expects her to ignore my words, a part of me that is even looking forward to it. But in the end she does what I ordered. And there’s an unexpected pleasure to be found in that, too.

Especially when I get to watch her tremble, her whole body shaking with what looks a hell of a lot like desire. Now, I just need to figure out if it’s the exhibitionism or the orders that have her so turned on.

“How long—” She’s trembling so badly, breathing so quickly, that her voice breaks on the second word. I put a soothing hand on the small of her back, stroke her softly. Her breathing calms down under my ministrations, but the trembling only gets worse.

Desire then, not fear.

Good.

“I’ll make you a deal,” I say as I take a step back. She starts to step back, too, but I put one hand on her upper back and another on her thighs. “Stay where you are.”

She doesn’t respond, but her whole body goes pliant beneath my hands as she lets me press her back up against the window.

“You okay?” I ask as I hold her in place.

She nods.

“You sure?”

Another nod.

“Okay enough to stay there, even when I walk away?”

This nod takes a lot longer to come. But what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in conviction.

Instinctively, I reward her with a kiss to the nape of her neck. With a press of my body against hers, from shoulder to thigh. “If you want this to stop, all you have to do is step away from the window,” I tell her as I lick my way up the slender column of her throat. “Or say no. All you ever have to do is say no.”

She does look over her shoulder then and there’s more than a trace of amusement mingling with the desire I can so plainly see there. “Not a very original safe word,” she drawls, half-amused and half-testing.

“It doesn’t have to be original. It just has to be effective. And memorable.” I give her a pointed look.

“I’ll remember,” she assures me, shivering. This time her hands don’t even start to leave the glass.

She sounds like she means it and that’s good enough for me. Especially considering the fact that it’s obvious from the way her skin is flushed, from the way her chest is heaving, that this thing really turns her on. Just the thought has my dick ready to punch right through the front of my jeans.

Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Wolff

About Tracy Wolff:

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Tracy Wolff collects books, English degrees and lipsticks and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven she forayed into the wonderful world of girls lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten she’d read everything in the young adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mom started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her life-long love. Now an English professor at her local community college, she writes romances that run the gamut from sweet contemporary to erotica, from paranormal to Urban Fantasy and from young adult to new adult.

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