CARDS OF LOVE: KING OF WANDS by Alexis Anne
Release Day: October 23rd
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Fast. Volatile. Gorgeous.
Those are the words they used to describe Kingston Reynolds on the first day of my internship. Well, it wasn’t so much of a description as it was a warning. Do not fraternize with the drivers if you want to keep your job.
It was a rule I had no problem following. I never saw King. He was a God of racing while I worked at the factory with a public relations team of incompetents. That was until I found myself the center of his fast, volatile, gorgeous attention.
On the circuit he’s known as the King of Wands because he’s incredibly focused on winning...unless you cross him. Then he’s as ruthless and cunning as a real life villain. The more time I spend with him the more I discover he’s earned his name well.
I shouldn’t want to be with a man like him. They warned me to stay away. And yet here I am, playing with fire and hoping I won’t get burned.
King of Wands is part of The Cards of Love series releasing October 2018!
EXCERPT
Even in the dim light I could feel the moment his eyes began searching my face. I wanted to refuse to meet his gaze. I wanted to be stronger than his magnetic pull, but I wasn’t.
“Seeing you dancing with another man makes me stressed.”
“It was only Adam—a happily married older man.”
“Doesn’t matter, Isabel.”
I loved the way he said my name. Three syllables starting with an E sound. E-sa-bel. No one else said it quite like him. “Why doesn’t it matter?”
He looked so sad, as if he expected me to turn and run the moment he told me the truth. “I want to be the only man who touches you. Does that scare you? It scares me.”
It definitely bothered me. I never wanted to be a possession, but with King it didn’t feel like ownership—it felt more like a mutual claiming. I didn’t want anyone else touching him either.
“Why does it scare you?”
He pushed off the wall and came closer. The lights of the party danced off him as he walked, highlighting his hair, eyes, and chin in alternating patterns. When he stopped in front of me I realized he was sucking on a mint. He sighed, slow and deep. “Why do I feel this way about you? I like it, but it’s unnerving to have zero control over it. Especially when my feelings seem to hurt you. Like they did on the way here.”
“I feel the same way, you know?” I wanted to move into his arms and sink into his embrace, but that was crazy, right? So I stayed where I was. “But feelings aside, at the end of the day, we both have lives to lead. Lives that have rules we need to abide by.”
Or was that just an excuse I was telling myself?
King cocked his head a little to the side, a faint, sexy smile forming at the corners of his lips. “You know what? You think too much. You’re too analytical. That’s the difference between us. You’re all analysis and I’m all instinct.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The one thing I kept coming back to over and over again was that I needed to be logical. Every minute in the same space with King was a battle between good and evil, the evil obviously being my lusty, traitorous body that chose the worst possible time to awaken.
“And my brain is telling me I need more data while yours is what? Horny?”
He smoothed his hand down my arm. “You’re confusing instinct with lust. I am not.”
“What’s the difference?” It was an honest question because to me it would seem a man’s instinctual desire to have a woman would have to come from lust.
King wandered to the edge of the balcony, turning to lean against it. Out there the breeze caught his hair more fully and it danced along his forehead. “I was raised by my aunt, did you know that?”
“No.” All I could find on King was that he was poor and talented, selected by Luis for a special sponsorship. There was no mention of his parents in his biography.
His fingers twitched like he wished they held another cigarette. “I have no clue who my father was but my mum loved her heroin more than she loved her boys. I was eleven when she finally died. My Aunt Melanie took us in but she already had three boys of her own. Six boys is a lot to handle.” He stared off into the ballroom. “We all did what we had to do. Some of us still are.” His gaze sharpened and unfocused, causing his brow to furrow.
And darn it all, I wanted to smooth away the lines. It was like this nonstop irrational instinct to soothe and please—something so completely foreign to me. “And what does that have to do with lust?”
He shrugged. “Boys let their lust lead them around by their dicks. I’ve never had that luxury, nor do I want it.”
I found myself stepping closer and closer. “What do you want?”
“To be the best,” he said simply. “I love being in a car. The speed, the control, the instinct . . . it’s part of me. I want to break every record, win every race. All these assholes who don’t want me around . . . they’ll be kissing my ass in the end.”
He wanted revenge. And maybe security, if I were to read under his words to what they really meant. “So you’re focused on a singular goal. You can’t be led around by your dick—to steal your phrase—because you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Am I understanding you correctly?”
“You say funny things.” He reached around my waist and pulled me against him. I liked the warm contact of his firm body against mine. “I like your funny sayings. Yes, I feel lust, Isabel. I feel a great deal of it for you. But that isn’t why I get angry when other men look at you.”
He got angry at looks too? “Then why?” I was whispering now because we were so close. Our bodies touched from hip to shoulder. His lips were only inches from mine. He was so warm and strong and heady to be near.
His eyes traced the features of my face and I couldn’t help but do the same. Those lips . . . god, how I wanted to know how they felt. “For years you’ve been a trophy, Isabel. Marcy and Luis’s angel. They speak reverently of you. You’re brilliant and nice and kind and wonderful. I thought you must be awful.” He played with one of the waves of hair that kept blowing around my neck. “That first day at the factory, I saw you across the room and I thought, damn, now that is a gorgeous woman. I felt lust.” He nodded and smiled while his eyes drank in my body now. “And then we were introduced and I realized who you were. And you weren’t awful—not at all. You really were brilliant and nice and kind and wonderful. And that just made me want you even more. But then you spoke up for me in the meeting. You had a whole plan right off the top of your brilliant, beautiful head, all for me, and I thought . . . now that’s a woman I can really fall for.” His eyes flicked up to mine. “I trust you because it feels right in here.” He patted his chest. “Lust is what I felt when I first saw you . . . but instinct is what has me standing here asking you to be with me now.”
About the Author
Alexis Anne has a BA in Anthropology, and an MA in Applied Anthropology with a concentration in Historic Archaeology and GIS (Geographic Information Systems.) She scribbled her first stories as soon as she could write and has never been able to kick the addiction. As a native Floridian she's still getting her seasons mixed up after a move to North Carolina with her husband (affectionately known in the writing community as The Sexy Editor), two parkour-loving sons, and their adventurous husky. She prefers coffee, whiskey, travel, music, and most of all, exploring all the different ways love has made the world a better place.
Connect w/Alexis
Website: https://alexisannebooks.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexisAnneBooks
Instagram: http://instagram.com/alexisanneauthor
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