Exclusive First Look at Tracy Wolff’s LOVEGAME

LOVEGAME

 

About Lovegame:

Hailed by J. Kenner as an author who “knows how to steam up the pages,” Tracy Wolff delivers a darkly addictive novel of seduction and psychological obsession. The stakes are high in Lovegame, when a movie star with a shattered past meets a man who can either break her or make her whole.

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.

 

Exclusive Excerpt

“Is there anything else you want to see in here?” I ask him even as I move toward the door.

He puts down the book he’d picked up when I’d been texting—The Lover by Marguerite Duras—and says, “Actually, yes.”

I wait for the inevitable request to see my bedroom, for the inevitable innuendos and the lust he doesn’t even try to hide.

They don’t come. Instead he turns slowly, examining every nook and cranny of my over-the-top sitting room. His gaze lingers at the watercolors on the wall above the couch, and on the guitar resting drunkenly in the corner.

He’s so quiet in those moments, so self-possessed and reflective and not what I was expecting at all, that I can’t help wondering . . . can’t help thinking . . . what it would be like to be with him.

The soft touch of his hands on my skin.

The wet press of his mouth to my neck.

The silken glide of his hair across my lips, my breasts, my stomach.

Heat sparks deep inside of me, unfurls in my abdomen. My nipples tighten of their own volition and I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware of the feel of my clothes against my skin.

Is this what it feels like, then? Is this heightened awareness, this heightened sensitivity, what everyone is on about all the time?

Is this what real, true desire feels like?

His gaze meets mine, then, and the question—whatever it is—is still there. But with it is a sudden awareness, a knowledge of what I’m thinking. What I’m feeling. I can see it in the rapid rise and fall of his chest, can feel it in the wave of heat emanating from him. Can hear it in the sudden harsh intake of breath that shatters the silence of the room.

“Veronica.” My name is husky on his lips, dark, and as he takes a step toward me, I take two back.

I never retreat, never give up ground. Not in public and never, ever in private.

But this is different than my usual encounters. This is real and I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with that. With him.

“Veronica.” This time when he says my name, it’s a question mixed with some underlying thread of emotion I can’t quite identify.

He doesn’t come any closer and still I take another step back. Still I seek to put distance between us. He makes me nervous when for years I’ve made a point never to let a man matter enough to make me nervous. The fact that he does . . . I don’t know. Not what it means or what I’m supposed to do about it.

I lick my lips, force moisture into my too dry mouth. “What else do you want to see?”

“What?” He sounds as dazed as I feel.

I swallow, ignoring the bowling ball in my stomach and the heat still sliding along right under my skin. “You said you had something else you wanted to see in here. What is it?”

“Something that matters.”

“I don’t understand.” Is this sudden onset of lust making me stupid or is he talking in riddles?

“I want you to pick one thing from this room—besides the ceiling your dad had made for you—that matters to you and I want you to tell me why. It can be anything.”

Fuck. No.

Fuck, no.

Fuck no.

In the seconds after his pronouncement, I run the gamut of emotions as I frantically try to figure out how to get out of this. Normally I’d flirt a little, distract him that way. But that’s not an option right now, not when he’s looking at me like that’s exactly what he expects me to do. And now when I’m feeling so unsteady. So . . . vulnerable.

I shudder at the word, at the lack of protection it implies. And at the knowledge that the feeling will only get worse if I tell him what he wants to know.

Because there’s only one thing in this room that matters to me, only one thing I give a damn about, and I would destroy it myself before I let him—before I let anyone—know about it.

Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Wolff

 

Tracy WolffAbout 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.

Connect with Tracy: Website | Facebook | Twitter

 


2 thoughts on “Exclusive First Look at Tracy Wolff’s LOVEGAME”

Leave a Reply