Heartnapped
by Jessica N. Lane
Genre: Contemporary / Interracial Romance
Date Published: July 9, 2014
Book Description:
Jayla Simmons never imagined herself working in a place like Vice, but what's a girl to do when she has a child to support all on her own? Her disdain for the place isn't limited to her occupation. Her boss, Carter Rossi, has had a strange fixation on her since she started dancing at Vice, and though she's reluctant to admit it, she's drawn to him as well. Carter Rossi is tired of the cat and mouse game he's been playing with Jayla's since the day she walked into his club. The son of Don Antonio Rossi has been denied few things in life, and Jayla Simmons will be no exception. He'll have her by any means necessary.
by Jessica N. Lane
Genre: Contemporary / Interracial Romance
Date Published: July 9, 2014
Book Description:
Jayla Simmons never imagined herself working in a place like Vice, but what's a girl to do when she has a child to support all on her own? Her disdain for the place isn't limited to her occupation. Her boss, Carter Rossi, has had a strange fixation on her since she started dancing at Vice, and though she's reluctant to admit it, she's drawn to him as well. Carter Rossi is tired of the cat and mouse game he's been playing with Jayla's since the day she walked into his club. The son of Don Antonio Rossi has been denied few things in life, and Jayla Simmons will be no exception. He'll have her by any means necessary.
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Excerpt
I
ignored them. After two years of doing this job, I'd become a pro at blocking
out the cat calls and propositions of the vultures that always seemed to
surround me here.
"You're
doing this for Jorden," I reminded myself as I finished my
"dance."
Working
as a stripper wasn't so bad. I mean, I could forget my morals and put my self
respect on the back burner for a few nights a week, right? What I hated so much
was having to live in the small town where this place was located.
I'd
come to Barton, Texas, pregnant and alone, almost four years ago. My mother
kicked me out two days before my eighteenth birthday when I told her I was
carrying Jorden. I stopped in Barton originally just to grab a bite to eat, and
saw a flier advertising $600 rentals with utilities included. I dialed the
number on the bottom of the neon sheet of paper, and the rest was history.
Not
many of the citizens of Barton were outright hostile to me, but the leering
glances from men and the death glares I received from their wives spoke
volumes. My skin crawled knowing that most of the male population in town knew
what I looked like beneath my clothes. I'd only been intimate with one person
in my entire life, and that was Jorden's father. That didn't stop me from
feeling dirty and violated every time I stepped offstage.
I
hated this, but I didn't have many other options, so I swallowed my pride and
went backstage to change for the next number.
The
stench of hairspray mixed with booze and cigarette smoke permeated the cramped
changing room as girls rushed in and out wearing sparkly, lacy
next-to-nothings.
"There's
the superstar," Joanne croaked, her voice mangled by age and years of
smoking. "I was beginning to think I'd have to entertain your boyfriend
tonight."
My
dark complexion made me a hot commodity around here. That had its benefits. For
starters, it meant that I usually made the best tips out of all the girls I
worked with because I... stood out. It also meant that I never had to 'work the
floor.' No lap dances and no private room quickies. The boss wanted to keep me
as desirable as possible to the clientele, so I only ever did stage
performances. "Everybody wants what they can't have. You'll be like a
star; beautiful and distant." Those were his exact words to me, and how
I'd chosen my stage name.
"Mr.
Rossi is not my boyfriend. He's my boss!"
Carter
Rossi had given me this job on sight. He'd tried to talk me into being a
waitress, but I knew that I'd make more dancing. Almost immediately after I
started working at Vice, Carter became oddly fixated on me, leaving the other
girls to think that something was going on between us. Little did they know that
I wouldn't dream of touching Carter Rossi with a 10-foot pole.
The
man wasn't a gargoyle or anything, far from it. He was gorgeous beyond belief,
and he knew it too. The cocky bastard would strut into Vice every night like he
owned the place... okay, he technically did, but it still got on my nerves. His
black hair always looked like he'd just rolled out of bed, but the nonchalant
nature of it suited the handsome, rich boy who'd probably never had to work for
anything in his life. His eyes were so green they had to have been contacts.
I'd never seen eyes like that before in my life. He had a body worthy of his
Adonis-esque face, and all 6-foot-infinity-inches of him towered over everyone
in the room, making all stop and take notice.
In
short, he was the type of man that was used to getting any woman he wanted, and
unfortunately, he'd set his sights on me. If I was a different kind of woman,
or even the me that I was four years ago, I might have enjoyed the attention
Carter chose to lavish me with, but life had seen fit to make me wiser than my
years about the ways of men. I knew Carter's kind -I'd lost everything to a guy
just like him four years ago- and I wasn't about to be taken in by good looks
and a few sly words. It wasn't just my heart at stake this time. I had Denny to
think about. The last thing she needed was for me to provide her with a
lackluster male role model when she'd already been asking me for the past year
about her dad.
"Could've
fooled me," Joanne continued. "The way he looks at you should be
illegal."
"So,
he's a perv. That doesn't make us soul-mates or anything like that."
"Oh,
you can tell he wants you, Jayla, but it's not all lust." There were
murmurs of agreement from a couple of other girls in the room.
She
was right even though I was loathe to admit it. There was lust in his gaze, and
plenty of it, but there was also possessiveness, longing, a little sadness and
something else I didn't quite know how to describe. Instead of acknowledging
Joanne's comment, I waved her and the others off, and dressed for my next
number.
I
quickly changed into the bedazzled white bra and boy-shorts before having
Heather, another dancer, help me secure the huge angel wings to my shoulders.
I''d barely finished shoving my feet into the thigh-high boots I'd been given
before I heard T.J. announce my stage-name.
"Last
but not least," he began as the drunken cheers of the blue-collar
inhabitants of Vice drowned out the remainder of his announcement. "You're
on, Star," he said with an encouraging smile as he passed me on his way
backstage to flirt with Heather.
I
took a deep breath, and confidently took the stage. The applause from the men
in the crowd was thunderous, but I tuned them all out and focused on the
pre-choreographed steps I'd rehearsed earlier in the week with Liz, the club
supervisor.
I
was always able to tune out everything and everyone around me except for Carter
Rossi and tonight was no exception. He sat at a table, front and center, with a
cigar clutched between two fingers. The minute I made eye contact, my brain
turned to mush. Luckily, muscle memory carried me through the majority of the
hip swaying and back arching required of the routine. Toward the end of the
routine, a man came to stand with his arms folded across the edge of the stage.
The big finish in my routine called for me to slide my back along the pole and
bring my hands slowly to my knees before doing a peek-a-boo for the crowd, a
move that required me to spread my knees apart while balancing on the balls of
my feet. It was only after I'd done the move that I realized that the man who'd
wandered to the stage earlier had aligned his eye level perfectly with the apex
of my thighs.
I
felt shocked and immensely violated. I knew that I was basically a faceless
piece of meat to the men here, but never in the two years that I'd been working
here had I ever felt quite so objectified and dirty. Before I'd even had time
to rise from my seated position, I watched dumbfounded as Carter Rossi shoved
the man roughly from behind, causing him to stumble into the stage and then
jerk him around by the shoulder before punching him across the face. The man
fell to the floor, but Carter evidently wasn't done with him. He grabbed him by
the front of his shirt and punched the nearly unconscious man again before
releasing him. I didn't see the rest of what happened because Heather and T.J.,
noticing how shocked I was by what was unfolding in front of me, joined me
onstage. Heather took me by the hand and led me backstage, while T.J. tried to
calm the crowd and get everyone to leave the club in an orderly fashion.
I
took one last look at Carter as Fred, the bouncer, and a couple of other guys
pulled him away from the other man who was now laying sprawled across the
floor. His eyes met mine and I felt a combination of desire and fear make
itself known in the pit of my stomach.
About the Author
I grew up in a tiny town with lots of room for my imagination to grow, and never outgrew my love for playing make believe. I developed my love for storytelling when I was very young, and used it as a way to escape and explain the world around me. That storytelling ability has grown and evolved a lot since then and taken me many different places. I'm having fun following where it leads me. I've been writing since I was a child; seriously, my mom has the crayon illustrated short stories to prove it. My writing has been mostly private since the end of my UIL creative writing days circa 1998. The writing bug bit me again when I was a freshman in high school, and I finally had the guts to publish my first e-book, Purple Hearts, in July of 2013! Now, I'm hooked, and determined to make a career out of this little passion of mine. My writing style is very direct with a little bit of humor. Alpha males are my guilty pleasure, but don't expect my female main characters to be passive damsels in distress. Every girl needs a little spark to her to keep the guys on their toes, right? I write mostly interracial/paranormal romance, but I've been toying with contemporary and historical romance plots as well. In short, I'm a dreamer by nature and an artist by trade. I endeavor to take my readers on a different journey with every new story I write.
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