You owe me.
Crap, she’s right. I do owe her after she helped me out that night. I hate having to keep Honor in the dark though. I hate being in the dark, because I don’t know what’s happening either. At least, wherever she is, she has her phone and the presence of mind to text me.
I type again. Are you safe?
For now.
I think I’m going to strangle that girl. Only after Honor has a go of it, of course. But maybe every girl needs a little rebellion. She might need it more than most, the way Honor has protected her—overprotected her. After their rough beginning, it’s understandable that her older sister wanted to hold her tightly. Maybe a little too tight.
At least she isn’t taking a gray bus out of town, never to be heard from again. Well, I’m pretty sure she’s not doing that.
Stay that way or I’ll hurt you, I type before shutting off the screen.
My mind is racing, trying to think of how I can keep Honor calm without actually telling her anything. Okay, that is pretty impossible.
Ivan appears in the door, where I’ve seen him so many times. He doesn’t come inside, just gestures for me to come out. I can tell by his dire expression that he’s heard Clara is missing. In the hallway, I burrow myself into his side, needing to feel his solidity, his strength.
“Do you know where she is?” he asks, so softly I barely can hear him.
I shake my head without looking at him. “But she said she’s okay.”
He gives a faint nod. “That’s enough for now.”
Enough for now. Yes. I can trust her that much. God knows, she trusted me much more than that. I have to hope she knows what she’s doing, because I love her like a sister.
I love Honor like a sister. Lola too. I have an entire family here, built with every swing of the pole, every rough customer thrown out. For so long after I left Harmony Hills, I felt the loneliness like physical pain. But these girls are my family.
The Grand is my home, just like I told a crowd full of beautiful strangers tonight.
And this man is my heart.
Ivan watches me with quicksilver eyes. “To the basement, little one.”
He calls to me, and I follow him down, into the heat of him, the depths of him, burned and made new again. He takes my desire and turns it around, turns it into sweetness. He takes my kindness, my love, and warps it into lust. And each time he twists me, I’m bound a little closer to him, tied a little tighter. There is nothing that could break us now.
Every love story is a knot, and ours is threaded with steel.
He follows me down the metal stairs, and I whirl in the dank grey space, a flash of color, a bloom. “Where do you want me, Daddy?”
He sits at the high-back chair and pats his lap. I start to climb onto him, but he shakes his head. “Bend over, little one.”
I drape myself over him instead. His thighs are warm and unyielding against my front, caressing my breasts. He pushes up my skirt, and I hear his breath catch at what he sees.
My lace panties are torn away. They land on the concrete, a pile of pink scraps.
He found me lost, alone, and helpless—and gave me a place to call mine. This basement, this building. The space where he watches me, both of us held by our own dark desires, in these moments before he gives me my reward.
We are made of the same thing, he and I. Of sin and hope, of power and pleasure.
We were made to dream.
Thank You
Thank you for reading Pretty When You Cry. I hope you loved Ivan and Candy’s story!
The next couple in the Stripped series is Giovanni and Clara. Hold You Against Me comes out in early 2016. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter so you can find out when it releases!
The previous couple in the Stripped series is Blue and Lola. You can read their story in the novel Better When It Hurts and sexy follow up novella Even Better.
If you’re new to the series, meet Giovanni and Clara for free in the prequel novella Tough Love. Then read the scorching hot and darkly mysterious Love the Way You Lie with Kip and Honor.
You can also join my Facebook group, Skye Warren’s Dark Room, to discuss the Stripped series and my other books!
I appreciate your help in spreading the word, including telling a friend. Reviews help readers find books! Please leave a review on your favorite book site.
The Stripped series is dark, dangerous, and twisted. If you loved this, you will probably also love Wanderlust, which is included a free bonus novel! Turn the page to start reading…
Wanderlust
Skye Warren
Praise for Wanderlust
“Great edge-of-your-seat writing, touching emotional introspection, and enlightening… even in its darkness.”
–Maryse’s Book Blog
“It was emotionally harrowing yet had bursts of humour, so extremely dark and disturbing yet sensual.”
–TotallyBooked Blog
“I love how Ms. Warren is able to make the angst of these two people so real…downright heartbreaking.”
–Salacious Reads
“I fell in love with Hunter, not sure if I was supposed to, but I did.”
–Sam, E and R’s Awesomeness
“And Hunter – you psychotic, tortured and oh-so complex beast of a man…how I adore you! How I would give anything to hear the rumble of your 18-wheeler behind me and the squeal of your brakes beside me.”
–Not Now… Mommy’s Reading
“I would say this was dark and disturbing…..and it kind of was but for me, when it counts, it’s a seriously sweet emotional book.”
–Dark Reading Room
Chapter One
The Niagara Falls were formed by glacier activity 10,000 years ago.
A clash of pots and pans came from downstairs. I winced but remained cross-legged on my bed, staring at the assorted items I’d deemed essential. Some clothes, toiletries.
A map.
There was so much I didn’t know, so much I hadn’t seen. My absence of knowledge had become an almost tangible thing, filling me up, suffocating me until I needed to kick up to the surface just to breathe.
Ironically, my innocence was my mom’s explanation for keeping me home. The world was too scary, and I wouldn’t even know how to protect myself. To hear her tell it, the streets were filled with ravening men who would attack me as soon as look at me.
That was the anxiety talking. At least that was what the counselor had said before we’d stopped going.
“Evie!” my mother yelled from the kitchen.
It would be three more times before she elevated to screams. Four before she threw something. Six before she came up to my room, demanding I make her coffee or whatever else she needed.
I’d grown up fast, fumbling with mac and cheese before I was tall enough to see over the pot, explaining away my excess absences to disinterested teachers. In high school, I’d stayed home and studied to get my GED. Two years of correspondence classes through the community college, and I was desperate for any human contact.
I picked up my book, running my fingers over the cool, glossy surface.
The library was one of the few places approved by my mother. I must have read almost every book in that place, living a thousand lives on paper, traveling around the world in eighty days and through the looking glass. I knew about hope and death, about fear and the dignity required to overcome, but only in theoretical constructs of ink and ground tree pulp. That was my irony: to wax poetic about the meaning of life while being unable to do something as simple as pay rent.