BWWM Romance Excerpts | The Dirty Contract (Second Chance Romance)
Some readers may recognize that this book was previously published under a different title. This story has been significantly updated to fit a modern audience. You can check out the first chapter here!
This is a friends-to-lovers second chance romance with BDSM and a lot of kink that I think you will enjoy, especially if you missed the original novellas. The sex scenes in this story have been significantly updated and the books in the previous series combined to make one long-ish novella. Enjoy the preview chapter.
Romance Novel Excerpts | The Dirty Contract
ROBYN LAMBERT
I wake up to the throbbing ache in the back of my head and my stomach still performing drunken somersaults. How did I get here? Where am I? Waking up is impossible. And I don't want to. It's Saturday, so I don't need to. I roll over onto my stomach, grabbing madly for a pillow I can clutch to my stomach until it ceases its relentless spinning. My arms don't whack my soft fluffy pillow. They hit a body — solid muscle and soft skin. A man. He’s warm and he feels nice to touch. I guess I got it in last night…
My stomach still feels like it’s 90% tequila. Shit… What did I do last night? This so isn’t like me. I extend an exploratory stroke along the length of his chest. It’s a nice chest with just a little sprinkle of chest hair. The man groans. Where did I find a man? I don’t really go out, but last night, I guess I was in the mood.
I came into town and ended up meeting up with an old friend. Well, a sort-of-friend. Wilder. If I could ever have called Wilder my friend and not my ex-boyfriend’s…
Yes… This is all coming together. Last night, I went out to catch up with Wilder, a man I hadn't seen in 7 years. Crazy football Wilder, ten years after McGraw College. I must have found a man after… Wait.
Oh no.
Shit.
Oh fuck. Oh fuckity fuck.
"Hm."
The groan sounds familiar. Wilder is in my bed except... the sheets around me are not the 300-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets I bought in January. They are red. Scarlet. I’m not at my house. I am definitely in a bachelor pad.
Oh fuck. How the fuck did this happen? I slept with a white guy. No!!!
I want to vomit, but if I move, I know he'll wake up and if he wakes up, I'm completely fucked. Ugh. My turn to groan. I decide that I'm going to sneak out and never call him again. I’ll have to use all the stealth my hungover behind can muster. Fuck.
Maybe I'll change my name to something dark and sexy like Sloane St. Clair, and then I'll join a convent. There is no chance of me sleeping with old college friends if I'm in a convent. Especially not white boys like Wilder.
I slowly creep my toes across the bottom of his bed until they hang over the edge. Wilder shifts in his sleep, his muscular ass bared as his movement shifts the sheets. Damn! That white boy has an ass like two watermelons. I fight the urge to stay behind and smack his big butt, waking him up and succumbing to my fate.
You have to get out of here, Robyn. One leg is over the bed, and I establish a firm grasp of the floor. Now I need to slide my ass and thighs off the bed without waking him up. I don’t know if Wilder’s a light sleeper or not. When he played football with my ex, Desmond, I was all about him.
Maybe going over headfirst will be easier? I decide against headfirst, but when I slide my ass over the edge of the bed, his eyes blink open. Brilliant, sparkling, three different shades of blue, Wilder’s eyes catch and freeze me in place. I am mercilessly caught and dangling awkwardly halfway off my old friend's king-sized bed.
It is no consolation that his eyes snap open with surprise and he speaks my thoughts aloud.
“Oh fuck,” he groans.
Oh fuck is right. I promised Desmond in the breakup I would stay away from his friends. It was a weird, dumb promise since none of us live anywhere near each other, but it’s a promise I’ve just broken. As for Wilder…
"I'd better go," I say sheepishly, forcing myself to stop glancing at his ass. I bet I could bounce a quarter off that thing.
"You're naked," he announces, or maybe notices for the first time, his blue eyes flitting over me and landing right on my breasts. My stomach turns uncomfortably. There’s still tequila in my stomach, but I’m not drunk enough for this. Wilder, a man I never thought twice about, can’t keep his eyes off my breasts.
In college, white guys and black women didn’t mix, especially not guys like Wilder who had the divine privilege of good looks, brilliant grades and athletic stardom. I want to sink into a hole as he stares and the awkwardness settles in.
I'm half-glad he at least notices my nudity, because in my shock, I haven't. I'm naked, and my ass is sore, and I need to get the fuck out of here.
Wilder can’t stop staring and that’s also freaking me the fuck out. He's not staring in the good "I'm smitten" way, but more like a freaked out dog during a thunderstorm way. What happens next happens quietly. I get my humiliated, naked, sore ass out of bed and search for my clothes without saying a word. Wilder doesn’t say anything either and I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.
I imagine my clothes will be nearby but I'm wrong and I follow my shameful breadcrumb trail of bra, panties, pants, tank top, button-down and finally find my camel Michael Kors purse hanging on the front door handle.
I hope that I can run out and initiate my action plan: disappearing off the face of the earth and joining that convent, but of course, he follows. Wilder doesn’t follow women out his bedroom door. He roomed with Desmond senior year and paraded one blonde with a microscopic waist after another through their room. I watched so many of them leave and never return.
I was never the type to become one of the women Wilder uses like toilet paper.
"Robyn, we should talk,” he says calmly, following me to the door. Are those four words ever used in a context that’s good?
Now, I really will be sick. I don't know what to say, but words come out anyway.
"We don't. It's fine. I barely remember what happened,” I babble ahead. Unfortunately, the tequila’s unclogging from my brain and memories flood back into my head, smacking me hard.
I glance up at Wilder, but I can’t bear to look at him because looking at him, I remember every sickening detail of how I ended up in bed with my old friend. If he were my best friend, it would be the start of some gross Hallmark movie love story. But it isn't. Life doesn't work that way.
When you sleep with an old friend it's just weird and awkward. He's definitely not looking at me like a guy in a Hallmark movie.
He tries his best to save the situation, something I've clearly given up on.
"You're leaving town tomorrow, right?"
"Yup."
Why can’t I talk to him anymore? Wilder was like a brother to me for years. Last night, we still clicked the same way we did in college, laughing at each other’s corny jokes and reminiscing on all the people we hated. One stupid fucking decision and I’m a tongue-tied mess in front of him. Wilder nods slowly, a crop of blond hair falling over his forehead just a little. Ugh, why does he have to look so good today?
"Oh. Cool. You're welcome to crash any time you're back in Boston."
The worst possible thing he could have said.
"Thanks."
My throat is dry and I choke back my hangover sick. I try not to run out of his house, but if I hadn't, I would have been sick all over his black leather couch instead of his front doorstep. I don't feel better once I've yakked all over his landing, but I do run. Fucking fuck. Wilder will be so pissed when he sees what I've done. Not like it matters, I'm changing my name anyway.
Sloane St. Clair and I will have a long time together repenting my stupid, stupid choices.
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