Another quick update on the Hellfire Riders!
Hey everyone! Just a quick rundown of stuff I’ve been posting around social media, because I know not everyone is at every site.
- There’s a pre-order link! I set it for late this month just to give myself some wriggle room in case something happens (again.) But if I get the final version ready early, I’ll release it then and you’ll get the pre-order early. If you plan to read on Kindle Unlimited, you can’t pre-borrow, but I’ll be sending out newsletters and of course updating here when it’s live.
- On Facebook, I’ve been posting brief excerpts from Stone’s book. I’ll post them here, too, for those of you who want a sneak peek (scroll down for those.)
- If you signed up for ARCs, please remember to add 1theclub1@gmail.com to your approved Kindle senders list! I expect to send those out around the 15th or so.
- I posted the comic-style recap here on this site (see the previous update) and should have another this weekend or so for Jack & Lily.
- I’ve updated most of the ebooks for the series. Some have refreshed covers, most have refreshed back matter with the new updated series listing (see previous updates about that — mostly I’m just trying to streamline the series numbering with Saxon & Jenny as book 1, and Jack & Lily as book 2).
- The entire series is available for 99¢ right now!
Excerpts from Losing It All
Note: These were copy/pasted from Facebook, so of course the final content will not be censored.
A little excerpt from LOSING IT ALL, maybe? I’m so bad at picking these out and trying to avoid spoilers… ARCs are going out in about two weeks, I think, and the book should be available not long after that!
***
It’s with mixed emotions that I watch two guards escort Stone outside to join Crash and Handlebar at the track—my heart aching because he’s been thrown into this mess. But genuinely smiling again when he greets Crash like a long-lost brother, pulling him in for a back-thumping hug.
“No contact unless you’re in the Cage!” Delta calls out.
Stone ignores that order. He draws back but grips the other man’s shoulders, grinning at him. “We’re a long f*cking way from Afghanistan.”
“Not that you’d know by looking at this place,” Crash says, gesturing to the desert scrub around us, then to the turret where a guard watches over the track with a sniper rifle.
So they know each other from the military. I want to tell them not to reveal that connection, to pretend they aren’t friends. Because if Papa truly can’t find a family member to use against Stone, he might use that friendship with Crash.
But Crash is ahead of me on that. In a low voice, he says to Stone, “Handlebar tells me your family are ghosts. So if they pull some sh*t and try to use me—don’t let them. [SPOILER].”
Stone frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”
“NO CONTACT!” Delta bellows.
“They *will* tase you,” I tell them softly.
That draws Stone’s attention to me, and his frown darkens. “They couldn’t give you a f*cking coat?”
Because we’re in the high desert, but it’s the middle of November. This outfit doesn’t do a thing to protect me from the cold. Since the fighters have nothing but sweatpants and running shoes, they aren’t covered much better. But as soon as they begin their run, they never seem to feel it as much.
I pretend not to feel it, either. “I’m used to it.”
“Are you?” His voice lowers. My breath stops when he catches my wrist and flattens my hand to his bare chest. His pectoral feels like heated steel beneath my palm. “Your fingers are freezing.”
“Yo, f*cking new guy!” Tango shouts. “Don’t touch the nurse!”
“She’s checking my heart rate, a**hole!” Stone’s gaze never flickers away from mine. “How’s it seem to you?”
Deep. Strong.
“A little fast,” I whisper, though that’s just my own frantic pulse, racing as his warmth seeps into my hand. He’s flirting with me as if nothing has changed—as if we’re still in the tavern, where he kissed me and made me remember a time when I still had a future. When I still had hope.
But we’re not at the tavern anymore, and hope isn’t as sweet as a kiss here. Instead it hurts so much. Like a blade through my chest, like the clunk of a locking stall. And my throat aches when I tell him, “You should be more careful than this.”
“She ain’t lying, brother,” Handlebar says. “And they won’t care if they take her down with you.”
Stone’s jaw clenches and he releases my wrist. I curl my fingers, trying to hold onto his warmth. But it’s gone before they finish their first mile.
Another quick excerpt from LOSING IT ALL!
***
And then there’s Cherry. Six in the morning, the Rocket Man starts burning out his fuse over the speakers, and out of her stall she comes—looking like the angel Handlebar said she was. A sweet, sexy angel whose bright smile and cheery voice make all this sh*t a little more bearable.
It’s a damn good thing these a**holes don’t know much about me and where all my soft spots are. Because it’s not just my family they could threaten. It doesn’t even matter that what happened between Cherry and me in the tavern was faked, that she was just dangling bait. I’m a sucker for a girl in trouble. So all they’d have to do is threaten to put a bruise on her, and I’d be in the Cage so fast their heads would spin.
Hell, if they brought a dog in here and aimed a gun at its head, I’d hold out for maybe half a second.
Probably not even that long.
Lucky for me—and for Cherry—the guards here must figure my interest in her is just careless flirtation to pass the time. And it is a way to pass the time, true. But I still can’t remember if I f*cked her before I passed out on whatever she slipped into my drink. Can’t remember if I got up in that hot little c*nt—or if I got my mouth on more than her lips. Christ knows, eating her p*ssy would have been the first thing I did. I was craving a taste from the moment I saw her. While talking to Gunner—and while she must have been spiking my drink—all I could think about was spreading her thighs and making her come on my tongue. But whatever happened after that…I don’t know. I’ve only had a few flashes of her throwing a wig and of her looking up at me, those soft lips trembling.
I still want a taste. But next time, there won’t be any roofies involved. And I’m sure as hell not going to forget everything I do to her.
She won’t forget it, either. Because she didn’t fake everything when I was kissing her. I’m certain of that. And she won’t fake a thing when I’m with her again.
And she knows it. Yeah, she does. Like now, when she turns away from Handlebar’s stall holding her tray of vitamins—only two little cups left, one for me, one for Tusk. There’s a moment every time her eyes meet mine when that emerald goes so dark, when she bites her lip before remembering to smile bright and wide. When her gaze slips down over my chest, and for an instant she looks so damn hungry that her mouth might as well already be on my d*ck, it stiffens up so quick.
That’s not just her being a good nurse and giving me a visual examination. That’s want. That’s need.
So maybe I did give her something to remember that night. Maybe I licked her p*ssy like she was made of sugar. Maybe I f*cked her real good.
All I know is, we’ll be doing it again. Soon.
Another excerpt? We’ve seen part of this scene before in BREAKING IT ALL (Gunner & Anna’s book.) But here it is from the other side…
This is now up for pre-order! Unless you plan to borrow through KU, then it’ll be available toward the end of the month. https://amzn.to/39KeDzp
***I look back down the aisle. Tango is looking that way, too. Victor comes out of the control booth—though he’s not usually in the barn so late. My stomach sinks as he heads straight to Stone’s cell.
“I have a message for you, Mr. Wall.”
Oh no. No, no, no. Dread pulls me back down the aisle. Because I’ve seen this before. When the Iron Blood threatens or beats anyone, they take a video as proof. I’ve never seen Victor make such a production of it, though, turning off the music first and announcing that he has a message.
He stops in front of Stone’s stall and holds up a tablet—and whatever Stone sees on the screen turns his face white. His hands come up to grip the bars, his burning gaze fixed on the image before him.
I can’t see what it is. But I’ve seen them before. People beaten, bloodied. Crying and begging.
Victor taps the tablet to start the video playing. The volume’s up so high everyone in the barn can hear. At first nothing but a faint, frantic barking in the background.
Then a man’s voice. “Say something to your brother, Anna.”
“I’m okay. Don’t freak out,” is a woman’s quick, hoarse reply. “I’m all right.”
“A little roughed up,” the man agrees cheerfully. “But it could be worse. This could be my fist.”
A sharp crack follows—a slap hard enough that the sound echoes through the barn.
Stone flinches but doesn’t take his gaze from the screen. His jaw is like granite. The barking in the background continues.
The man in the video says,“Now, Stone, here’s the deal. You fight, you win, and you’ll get to call your pretty sister and hear how alive she is. In fact, you can call her after every fight you win. Anna—do you know what happens if your brother doesn’t call?”
“It means he lost,” she chokes out on a sob.
“It means something else, too. Because for everyone else, the threat to their family is enough to make them fight. Then we leave the family alone, even if he loses. And they keep their mouths shut so it’s a win-win for everyone. Yeah? But with your brother, and because he’s so f*cking stubborn, we’ll be doing something different. Because as soon as you lose, Stone, I’m coming back here to finish what I started. I’m going to f*ck your sister’s sweet a**, I’m going to tear that p*ssy apart with my c*ck, and then I’m going to put a bullet in her brain. So as soon as you lose, motherf*cker, your sister loses, too.”
Victor lowers the tablet. And the way Stone stares at him—I’ve seen that look before. All humor gone. Only a promise of death left.
Neither man says a word before Victor heads for the barn exit. But I hear Handlebar telling him quietly, “I’m so f*cking sorry, man.”
I am, too.
As if he hears me think that, Stone’s deadly gaze slices in my direction, cutting me open with all the hate and anger that I deserved from him at the beginning.
“Let’s be clear, girl,” Stone tells me in a voice that I’ve never heard from him. So cold. So lethal. “*Now* I’m mad.”
At me. Because I’m the reason he’s here. Because I’m the reason his sister was beaten. Probably r*ped. Maybe worse.
With a burning knot in my throat, I nod. Stone turns away from me as if I’m nothing to him now. A second later, the pounding on his heavy bag starts up again.
“Come on, then,” Tango says. “Show’s over.”
And no skip left in my step. Just a heart so heavy, I barely make it to my stall before I begin to cry.
And….another scene that we’ve already seen from the teaser in BREAKING IT ALL, but from the other side.
This is now up for pre-order! Unless you plan to borrow through KU, then it’ll be available toward the end of the month. https://amzn.to/39KeDzp
***
Voice sharp with irritation, Stone calls out, “The f*ck is it?”
Over the storm of my heaving breaths, I barely hear the muffled reply. Through the door. Because someone was out there. Knocking. I can’t make out the response, only the hiss of Stone’s breath through clenched teeth. He abandons the bed, snatches up his jeans. But he doesn’t put them on, just pulls the key from the pocket. From the duffle he digs out a pair of sweats and hauls them up to his hips.
I whimper, desperately aware that I’m tied spread-eagled on a bed, naked and flushed from my orgasm, with someone I don’t know on the other side of that door.
Stone shoots me a fierce look. “Not a f*cking sound.”
He can’t be worried about who’s there. Not here on club property.
But I should have realized. He doesn’t share. Not even the sounds I make. And not the sight of me. He only opens the door about six inches, then blocks the view into the cabin with his body. I can’t hear any of the short conversation, but when he draws back and slams the door, he’s holding a wad of money. He drops the cash onto the table, then digs around in his duffle again and pulls out a phone.
Whatever he sees on the screen make him smile. A genuine smile, as if it’s good news. He types something out as he returns to the bed, then drops the device right next to my leg.
Oh, that b*stard. Putting that phone so close to me. Putting escape so close. But I’m tied and can’t reach it.
His lazy grin says he knows exactly why I’m glaring at him. But I can’t keep glaring. Not when his fingers scratch at his broad chest, then slip down his washboard stomach and into his sweats. He drags out that thick c*ck, and everything inside me tightens again.
His big fist strokes his length from root to tip. “You remembering how it tastes?”
My gaze shoots to his again. He’s watching me with narrowed eyes, no longer smiling, his expression hard and intense…and so hungry.
And I’m so ready.
“You think I’m going to f*ck you now? Nah, not yet. We’ve still got a long way to go before that, making sure you get every bit of punishment you deserve.” His hand jerks harder, rougher, and I can’t stop watching. “This looks real f*cking familiar, doesn’t it? Except it was me tied up while you sucked on my c*ck. But what’s real similar is how you’re about to discover how goddamn hard you can come, even when you hate the f*cking sight of the person who’s getting you off.”
He’s all wrong. I don’t hate him. Shaking my head, I try to deny it but go utterly still when he climbs onto the bed again…but lower this time. Settling his shoulders between my thighs.
Sheer need rocks through me like an earthquake, leaving me shivering and shaking. Just a little tease from his fingers made me come harder than I ever have from my own touch. And now he’s going to lick me?
Oh god. Oh god.
His head dips toward my p*ssy, his warm breath wafting over my slick folds as he says harshly, “But here’s the difference in this scenario: Men, we only come once. Twice, if we’re real lucky. But you? You’re going to come over and over again. Until you break and give me what I f*cking want.”
I’m not going to break. I’m not.
But I fight again, wildly pulling at the restraints and bucking beneath him, because I don’t know how much I can take.
Hard hands clamp over my hips, forcing me to still. His thumbs spread me open, exposing my cl*t to his hungry gaze. The way he looks at my p*ssy is devouring me already, consuming every bit of my resistance from the inside out. Desperately I close my eyes, as if that will shut out everything that’s coming.
It doesn’t. It doesn’t shut out anything. Not his mouth, so hot and hungry when he dives right in. Not his groan of pleasure when his tongue slicks through my folds. Not the shattering ecstasy when he begins sucking on my cl*t.
Oh my god, his mouth his mouth his mouth. Unable to move away from the devastating pleasure of it, not even able to writhe my hips, I can only take what Stone gives. And he gives so much. Or he’s just so greedy. I don’t know if there’s a difference between taking and giving when his tongue slides over my cl*t again and again, if he’s good or bad, I just know that I’m coming and coming, and that he groans in satisfaction while his mouth rides out the helpless convulsions of my flesh.
I’m still gasping, quivering when he bends his head again.