Wolf (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 2) Read online

  WOLF

  Tall, Dark, and Dangerous, #2

  Bella Love-Wins

  Copyright

  WOLF

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  Cover Illustration: Tempting Illustrations

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  Tall, Dark and Dangerous Series

  Beauty and her Billionaire Beast

  Wolf

  Seduction and Sin Series

  The Billionaire and the Virgin (Jackson and Dahlia)

  Billionaire Daddy's Virgin (Jace and Cherry)

  The Billionaire and the Bad Girl (Vanessa and Liam)

  The Billionaire and the Virgin Chef (Dylan and Emily)

  The Billionaire and the Virgin Intern (Caleb and Rosa)

  MC Romance

  Outlaw

  Filthy Daddy

  Sports Romance

  Win Big

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  Other Series

  Hero Series

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  Standalone Stories

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  Angelo

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  Bella is a Wall Street Journal (Begging for Bad Boys) and USA Today Bestselling Author (Begging for Bad Boys, Alphas for the Holidays. Shifters in the Snow: Bundle of Joy, Shifters in the Shadows), who loves writing steamy, high-action romance stories about bad boys, athletes, firefighters, billionaires, and alpha males who know what they want and aren't afraid of laying claim to the women who catch their interest.

  She enjoys a happy ever after ending, as well as reading, hiking, the countryside, and traveling to destinations unspoiled by commercial tourism, like Las Vegas. :)

  Like so many characters in her novels, Bella gets all hot and bothered for action, romance and unexpected love connections that take her breath away. For the next while, you'll find her in Toronto, plotting and writing about her latest stories on her MacBook.

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  Contents

  Copyright

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  About Bella Love-Wins

  WOLF

  Blurb

  Epigraph - Rose

  Prologue - Rose

  1. Thorne

  2. Thorne

  3. Thorne

  4. Rose

  5. Rose

  6. Thorne

  7. Rose

  8. Rose

  9. Thorne

  10. Rose

  11. Rose

  12. Thorne

  13. Rose

  14. Thorne

  15. Rose

  16. Thorne

  17. Thorne

  18. Thorne

  19. Rose

  20. Rose

  21. Thorne

  22. Rose

  Epilogue - Rose

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  WOLF

  Bella Love-Wins

  Blurb

  I found her so she’s mine.

  Thorne Pierce

  They call me the Hunter.

  A cold-hearted predator with the killer instinct.

  A deadly threat to anyone who becomes my prey.

  I’m pulled off of an existing job to watch a new target and her grandmother until I’m issued the order. I see her for the first time from the edge of the woods. Rose Adams. Silky red hair flowing down past her waist, soft curves, a sassy mouth, and that body that’s made for sin.

  I tell myself she’s just another target, but I’m dead wrong.

  Little Red beats me at my own game.

  She sets her sights on me and everything changes.

  I shouldn’t feel a thing. Haven’t for years.

  But I do.

  When it’s time to finish the job, I take her and we run.

  Forget the rules; I’m going to follow the only law that matters.

  The law of the wild: Possess my prey.

  *Author’s Note: Wolf is a Standalone Romance with a guaranteed HEA ending and no Cliffhanger. Each story in the Tall, Dark and Dangerous Series can be read in any order.

  Epigraph - Rose

  Once upon a time, my life was a fairytale. I had parents who adored me and everything I could ever dream of.

  Then, at the age of seven, my world ended.

  They murdered my parents in front of my eyes, and I learned that fairytales are only in storybooks.

  What I witnessed hardened me. What I saw taught me that to survive in this world, I needed a different skill set from little girls who played with dolls, dated cute boys, and went to college to prepare for their white picket fence lives.

  It also built an impenetrable wall of hatred around my heart that only my grandmother’s love could breach.

  After I turn twenty, they send someone to keep tabs on me and my grandmother. Probably to finish the job because I was a loose end on their books. I sense him before I see him, and soon, while he’s spying on me, little does he know that I am looking right back at him.

  From a distance, my big, bearded, beautiful predator is elusive and evasive. He’s utterly dark and dangerous. A heartless, violent yet gorgeous curiosity that I can’t stop thinking about.

  Then, one day, we come face to face and everything changes.

  Prologue - Rose

  “How the fuck did you find me, little girl?” my tall, dark and dangerous stalker says from his spot at the large bay windows, his voice threatening.

  I don’t answer him when he turns to face me. All I do is take him in. The setting sun creates a menacing silhouette of his body as light floods in with hues of gold, orange, and purple. He’s gigantic. He must be close to six feet five inches tall. His broad, muscular frame has a leanness to it. It’s not quite a runner’s build, but I can tell from the fit of his clothes that he has a rigid workout routine.

  I scan his body from up in his thick, jet black hair, all the way down to his dark, polished military boots. On instinct, I know to assume that a man like him is packing hidden weapons, but a thorough visual inspection can’t hurt. I can’t help but appreciate what I see in front of me. From his spot at the bay window, the sunset hits his face at an angle, and the flecks of his eyes start to sparkle like diamonds.

  Then I notice that
he’s doing his own search of my body. His brows raise as he checks me out from top to bottom. Not that he needs to. That camera he’s been using to watch me has a telescopic lens that can probably pick up the finest freckles on my nose and cheekbones. I’m sure he’s seen a lot. Still, that predatory expression in his eyes makes me feel like he’s looking through me, beyond my clothes and possible weapons, beyond my hardened heart, straight to my soul. Heat washes over me under his gaze. My pulse jumps, and I glance away from his face briefly to catch my breath.

  Continuing my appraisal, his dark gray muscle shirt and black casual pants show the sharp lines of his fit body. There are no tattoos visible on his body, but I find myself wondering whether he has some elsewhere. I have no reason to, other than the fact that he looks like the kind of man who’d have one or two. His chest perhaps, or maybe something that takes up his entire back. I’d kind of like to find out first hand… if he doesn’t try to kill me first. Or vice versa.

  I take one step backward, and that’s all it takes for him to react. He storms over to me, taking surprisingly light, ground-eating steps from the window that served as his perch to spy on me for the last week or longer.

  He’s ready to attack.

  But I’m ready too.

  When his large, callused hand grips my upper arm, my other hand is quickly up at his collarbone. I angle my wrist, and a wave of satisfaction washes over me when my Bowie knife is less than an inch from his throat. But he’s just as quick as I am. I feel the hard steel of a handgun pressing on my ribs. I’m not afraid, though. Everybody dies, eventually. Plus, my odds are promising. I can slice his jugular in about the same amount of time it’ll take for him to let off a round from his gun. Maybe less. Except, keeping a knife at this particular man’s throat will take a hell of a lot of extra effort for me. He’s way over six feet tall, eclipsing my five-foot-one height by a huge margin. I may be small, but I won’t be intimidated. Years of mixed martial arts training, daily practice, and this knife are on my side.

  “Who are you and why have you been watching me?” I demand.

  He moves forward slightly, ignoring my sharp blade when it touches his skin. “It’ll take a lot more than a tiny pigsticker to scare me, Little Red,” his voice rumbles at me.

  I’m not too impressed that he assumes he can call me Little Red. It’s a pet name that I only let Grams call me. Everyone else is at arm’s length, acquaintances who wouldn’t dare get that comfortable with me. And he’s not even that. At best, he’s a complete stranger. Worst case scenario, he’s my enemy.

  “Haven’t you heard it’s not the size that matters?” I warn. “And by the way, that’s a nice drawl you have. I take it you’re a southern boy. Let me guess. Houston? Austin? No, wait. You’re either a Baton Rouge or Lafayette native. Am I right?”

  “Good ear,” he confirms and presses up closer to me. So close that our bodies touch. So damn close that I look up and see not only his steel gray eyes but the slight trickle of blood at the spot where my knife meets his neck.

  “You’d be surprised how much I can figure out about you from just spending a few more minutes here.”

  “Show me,” he says, daring me to prove what I can do.

  “You lace up your boots like someone with Special Ops training, tight to just below your ankle, with a few rows of the laces undone, just in case you have to wake up and shove your feet into them to move from one place to another at a moment’s notice. You cut your own hair, and I can tell from the slight nick on that one spot on your hairline. You also finished a military op very recently. Somewhere sunny, from the tan line of the chain you hold your dog tags on. Shall I go on?”

  “Impressive.”

  “Yes, but let’s not get too distracted. I asked you a question.”

  “It doesn’t matter who I am or why I’m here,” he growls. “What matters is how much longer I’ll play your little game, and how much time you’ll have left if you keep digging that knife into my neck. By my estimation, it isn’t a lot.”

  “Why you’re here is all that I care about. Although I’m starting to think it’s better if you’re not here at all.” I add extra pressure to the knife to get my point across. If I press much more, it’ll cut into his jugular and then it’s bye-bye, Mr. Sexy Stalker. “Do you like your life? Do you like breathing air? It’s a lot easier than choking on your own blood. Tell me what I want to know.”

  I’ve been involved in mixed martial arts for a long time. At least ten years. But clearly, I don’t know it all. In a split second, he somehow pivots and finds a way to push the blade away. He instantly lifts me off the floor and turns me around. With one goddamned hand. I’m so angry at myself for giving him the leeway he needed to have this advantage over me now. I try to fight him off as my knife falls, but he’s too fast. He gets behind me, his gun digging into my side, and his big body has me jammed up against the wall beside the door I came in.

  He gurgles out a low chuckle. “The only answer you’ll get from me is advice. Do you want to hear it?”

  “No, I want you to fuck off and leave me alone,” I shout.

  “Well here’s the advice, anyway. Next time you try to confront your pursuer, be ready for anything.”

  “Let me go right this instant!” I scream, struggling to break free. “Or just kill me right now, because if you don’t, I’ll be the one after you, you big bastard.”

  “If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need to watch you for days or weeks before I actually do it. You’d be six feet under long before you had a chance to figure out that I’m watching you.”

  He wedges me against the wall with the weight of his body, and his free hand runs slowly up my arm.

  “Stop that right now!” I shout.

  Ignoring me, his hand moves up from the curve of my hips and past my waist. “Fuck, all these curves in this tiny body are enough to make me want to do more than just this weapons pat-down,” he whispers at the whorl of my ear. He stops over my breasts, massaging the flesh for a moment before slipping his hand past my collarbone and across my neck.

  “Please stop,” I say as his straying hand comes to rest with his fingers buried in my long hair. This time I’m begging, but I hear the weakness of my voice and can’t help but become angry at myself. His touch ignites my body, sending heat and need to places I’ve never known could feel this hot.

  “Make me,” he dares, and tugs my hair back, immobilizing my head, probably so I don’t reverse head-butt him in the face. I feel his lips at my ear and his hard cock at my back, and when his hips rock forward, I know it’s intentional, to make me fear for what he’ll do next, to show me that I’m at his mercy.

  Reaching back with my arms, I catch fistfuls of his shirt and try to move him away, but it only makes him lean more of his body weight into me. I use one foot to back-kick his shins, but it’s no use. I have zero leverage.

  “If you’re not going to kill me, let me go,” I ask again. A faint whiff of his woodsy cologne hits my nostrils, and I swear my body reacts with a tremor. Then I feel his mouth at my earlobe. He tugs the flesh with his teeth, and his lips slide down to my neck, sucking one spot so hard I’m sure it’ll leave a mark. I curse myself as my hips push back into him, getting a firmer feel of his dick on me. I want to resist. I want to fight with everything in me, but I have to admit, I also want to stay and find out what else he’ll do to my body. I should be ashamed for feeling this way about the man who’s been shadowing me all week. I just can’t help it.

  “I’ll let you go, Little Red,” he growls. “But just remember. You might’ve found me, but I’m the one who marked you. Be grateful that I don’t follow my urge to fuck the fight out of you. Right here against this wall.”

  His words hit me like a Mack truck, sending unfamiliar need coursing through my veins, all the way to my pulsing core.

  Losing my parents so early on made me mistrustful and at a distance from most everyone. I’ve never had a man or boy put his cock this close to me, and I never had the desire to.
Survival and blending in were my only two goals. I think my life or death instinct kept the boys away too. They looked, but they never made a move on me all through high school. I probably intimidated them. But this man, he’s not in the least bit afraid of me. I’m intoxicated. It’s as though his words, his body, his mere presence is a key that unlocks my body and makes it come alive.

  “I’m going to count to three,” he continues in a threatening groan and tugs my hair a little harder. “On three, I’ll let you go, and you’ll have five seconds to pick up your pigsticker and get the fuck out of here. Understood?”

  “Dammit,” I answer, feeling my anger bubble up my chest for letting him have the upper hand this time. “Okay yes, but can I at least know the name of the man I plan to place at the top of my list of enemies? Just in case it isn’t clear, I mean you.”

  “I can give you one of a dozen fake names. None of them will help you track me down. But as you asked nicely, it’s Thorne Pierce. You’ve been marked by The Hunter, Little Red.”