Review & Giveaway: Arrogant Bastard by Zara Cox

ARROGANT BASTARD
Series: Dark Desires #3
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Author: Zara Cox
Release Date: September 12, 2017

I’m known as the Black Widow because the desires I hide inside are pure poison.

I was a different person once. Faith, a young wife, hoping to become a mother. My life was pleasant. Stable. It was hell. Until Killian Knight opened my eyes to a world of espionage and intrigue. He saw something in me, something I was too afraid to acknowledge. I didn’t want to be excited by the danger. Didn’t want to crave the wicked passion only he could provide. But I did want, so now I run. And I pay.

I never meant to corrupt her, but I’m not sorry. 
After all, I’m already damned.
After four years of searching and longing, I’ve finally found her. Faith, the one person in the world I breathe for. She lives beneath my skin as surely as I wear proof of our transgressions inked on my body. And like the forbidden fruit that doomed us from the beginning, our end is inevitable. We lived with no regret. We loved without inhibition. We betrayed those closest to us. We killed for that love. Now…we will burn in hell together.

AMAZON | B&N | B-A-M | GOOGLE PLAY | iBOOKS | KOBO 

Chapter One

Killian

Present Day

I’ve found her.

After four years and two months.

I stare at the screen, my blood pumping relief and shock and fury and joy through my veins. The cocktail of emotions paralyzes me for several minutes.

Then I force myself to analyze what I’m seeing.

Her hair is different. Longer. Darker. Pin-straight and rigid where soft, friendly waves used to be. The curve of her jaw captured by the camera lens also shows the difference. She’s leaner. Meaner. Even from this obscure angle, I can tell any trace of gentleness has been wiped clean. Eroded by sin and tragedy and horror. The change was probably inevitable, but I still don’t want to see the evidence.

To anyone else, the picture would seem ridiculously vague, the image nothing more than a blurred black-and-white pixelation of hair, chin, and shoulder.

It’s the reason my algorithm spat it out almost reluctantly, a last batch of possibilities in the dregs of to-be-discarded possibilities, and then dumped it in my supercomputer’s equivalent of a spam folder, the code scrolling impatiently as it waited my command to delete, delete, delete.

But I know it’s her. Despite the dark leather cap pulled low over her forehead. Despite the bulky jacket designed to hide her true shape. Her stealth speaks volumes. Besides, she’s in my blood, in my heartbeat. After so many years of dead ends and fruitless hoping, of agonizing disappointment and withering despair, this time I simply…know.

It’s her. The Widow.

My hand shakes as I hit the zoom-in key. My gut churns, and I feel a little sick as my ever-helpful brain cheerfully supplies me with all the ways she could’ve continued to elude me—if I’d turned away, for a second, to stare at one of the other three screens on my desk. If I’d trusted my supersmart computer and accepted the prompt to delete without reviewing this particular needle in my mountain of haystacks. If I hadn’t tweaked the code yet again last night to capture just such an obscure image.

Hell, if I’d blinked at the wrong time…I torture myself with infinite possibilities as I stare at that mesmerizing angle of chin and shoulder.

A chin I’ve trailed my treacherous fingers over many times in helpless wonder.

A shoulder I’ve rested my guilty but secretly unrepentant head on.

There’s so much more to her. And I treasured every single inch of her forbidden body, fucked her at every opportunity she granted me. Until she systematically erased herself from my life.

But why New York? And why now?

I know how good she is. Hell, she’s the best or she wouldn’t have eluded me for this long. The thought of another four years without her punches a cold fist through my gut. With it comes the certainty that I wouldn’t have survived those next four years without her. That I’ve been clinging on with the very last dregs of my endurance to make it this far.

But here she is…

The Widow.

I can’t see her eyes, but I don’t fool myself into thinking they’ll hold an ounce of softness. What we did changed us forever. And not for the better.

I lean back in my chair. Exhale slowly. Terrified of blinking in case she disappears from my screen. It doesn’t matter that I’ve copied and stored the longitude and latitude of her location in a dozen vaults on my server and memorized every single piece of data on the screen.

New York City. East Fifty-Third Street. CCTV camera. A one-in-a-billion shot.

Without taking my eyes off her, I reach for my phone and press the voice activation app. “Good evening, Mr. Knight.”

“Nala, how many times do I need to tell you to call me Killian?”

“You have yet to change my default settings, Mr. Knight.”

My lips twitch but a smile doesn’t quite form. My eyes water with the need to blink. But I resist. “I changed them last week. You reset them again, didn’t you?”

“I assure you, I’m quite incapable of doing that.”

“Yeah, right. Fine. Place a call for me. Pilot. Home.”

“Dialing pilot. Home,” the female AI obliges me.

Nelson Whittaker, my LA-based English pilot, picks up on the second ring. It’s three a.m. but he answers as if it’s normal working hours. Which it is, to be fair. Everything is normal for me in my line of work.

“Good morning, sir.”

“How soon can you get to the airport?” I snap.

“As soon as I put on my trousers and chuck a bucket of water over my son to wake him up,” he replies with a dark chuckle.

My fingers fly over the keyboard as I save her information in a few more electronic vaults. “Give William my apologies,” I say.

“No need. He’s been champing at the bit to take the new girl for another spin.” The new girl being the Bombardier Global 8000 I added to my collection of private jets last month.

“In that case, I expect to see you at Van Nuys within the hour.” At this time of the morning, traffic from their Santa Monica apartment should be light enough to get them there fast.

“We’ll be there.” He clears his throat. “I expect the paperwork regarding out-of-curfew flights—”

“Will be taken care of. I’ll text you the details but we won’t be straying far from the usual parameters.”

“Very good, sir. Destination?” he asks crisply.

My gaze tracks that chin. That shoulder. The hair. Four years’ worth of turbulent emotion threatens to rip free. My chest burns with it, but I contain it. “New York.”

We went from forbidden fruit to torrid lovers without pausing to take a breath. Then added the dangerous ingredient of international espionage to the mix right up until it all blew up in our faces. Then I took the only option available to me and ran like hell.

I have a slight obsession with this series. Zara Cox has a signature grit to her writing that I simply can’t get enough of. Her stories are passionate and with a dark undercurrent that never fails to satisfy this picky reader. Arrogant Bastard had a slightly different feel that the other books in this series. Killian wasn’t the broody alphahole like Q or the tortured alphahole like Axel. He was a man that lost the only woman he loved and was determined to do anything to get her back. Even if all the odds were stacked against him.

Known simply as the Black Widow in the Punishment Club that she works for that’s owned by Axel Rutherford, B is not a woman that you want to mess with. She metes out punishment like the deadly creature that she is, leaving men panting in her wake. But she’s a woman that’s clearly running from her demons and secrets so dark, that not even those closest to her know them. But then the man that she ran from all those years ago tracks her down, and her carefully constructed new world gets tilted on its axis.

B and Killian share a past that no one knows about. It was a convoluted and dangerous connection that in the end, cost B everything. She’s been running since. But when a dangerous enemy learns that she’s alive, Killian knows that he’s the lesser of two evils and will stop at nothing to protect the woman that he’s never forgotten or gotten over.

Arrogant Bastard was an action packed, sizzling combination of espionage, suspense and romance. B is one hard core woman on the outside, but on the inside she’s never healed from the scars of her past. Killian is a dangerous enigma that’s as lethal as he is sexy, but beyond the man’s magnetism and allure, he’s completely head over heals for B and makes no qualms about it. Their road to a HEA is not an easy one but entertaining from start to finish. Zara Cox wrote a real page turner that kept this reader up well into the night, eager for each little morsel of information that ultimately led to one mind blowing revelation.

My only quibble is the hows and whys of B getting into the line of work that she did. It seemed a little much even if I did suspend my disbelief for the sake of enjoying the story. But ultimately, I stopped caring because I was enjoy the story and couldn’t get enough of her and Killian together.


THE DARK DESIRES SERIES


BEAUTIFUL LIARBLACK SHEEPWICKED S.O.B.ARROGANT BASTARD

Zara Cox has been writing for almost twenty-five years but it wasn’t until nine years ago that she decided to share her love of writing sexy, gritty stories with anyone outside her close family (the over 18s anyway!). This series is Zara’s next step in her erotic romance-writing journey, and she would love to hear your thoughts. Visit her:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Wicked S.O.B. by Zara Cox

WICKED S.O.B.
Series: Dark Desires #2.5
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic Romance
Author: Zara Cox
Release Date: August 8, 2017 

For so long, I lived for revenge. Now I live for her.

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you that Quinn Blackwood is not someone you mess with. I see. I want. I take. And you better not get in my way. That’s how I built my billion-dollar empire. That’s how I made my enemies pay. That’s how I won the one good, pure thing in my life, Elyse “Lucky” Gilbert. But after what I’ve done, my luck may have run out.

There is a fine line between love and obsession.

I’m not a fool. I didn’t think coming back to Quinn would be easy. That we would fall into a happy future and the darkness inside him would just disappear. Still, after everything we’ve been through, I couldn’t leave him to fight his demons alone. I’ve tried to convince myself nothing else matters as long as we’re together. But if I give him what he needs, will there be anything left of me?

AMAZON | iBOOKS

In a world of unlikely possibilities, Quinn and I ending up together was one in a million.

Considering just how much I loved Beautiful Liar, I was practically giddy to get another hit of Q & Lucky. I’m not typically a reader that enjoys follow-up novellas. Why mess with a good thing when the couple already got their HEA? But in the case here, I craved more of this couple. Their relationship was tumultuous, filled with lies and deceit. There was bound to be fallout even if things did fall into place for them at the end.

This novella was the perfect taste of this couple that I was craving. We find Quinn dealing with the fallout from seeing his plan through and finding revenge against his father. Having prepared himself to not make it past his 30th birthday, it’s an adjustment for him to deal with his new reality. He traded in one obsession for another. Where before revenge fueled him, now it’s his obsession in his love for Elyse.

Fucking was a means to pass the time before I met Elyse. Now fucking Elyse has become as necessary to me as breathing.

Quinn and Elyse are just as incendiary together as ever. They practically burn up the pages. There’s also an added suspense plot that’s added to spice things up. Admittedly I thought it would go in a totally different direction than it did with what I now assume was a red herring the author threw out. While it served to drive the plot forward, I was slightly underwhelmed with the revelation.

But that barely registered on my radar in comparison to how much I was enjoying this book. And enjoy it I did. Wicked SOB was utterly delicious, sinfully erotic, and a page turned from cover to cover. If you haven’t discovered this author yet, you’re seriously missing out.


 

 THE SERIES

BEAUTIFUL LIAR | BLACK SHEEP | WICKED S.O.B. | ARROGANT BASTARD

 

Release Blitz, Review & Giveaway: BLACK SHEEP by Zara Cox.

BLACK SHEEP
Series: Dark Desires #2
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic Romance
Author: Zara Cox
Release Date: August 8, 2017 (Paperback)

**Now Available in Print for the First Time!**

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, 
I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest.

My father has hated me since the day I was born. The feeling was mutual. In the shady underworld that was my legacy, Cleo McCarthy became my light. She was beautiful, passionate, and my whole world. So naturally my father had to destroy us. First he sent me away. Next he claimed Cleo as his own. But now I’ve returned, and nothing will stop me from taking back everything that is rightfully mine.

He was the love of my life – when my life was still my own.

We were young enough to believe we would last forever, Axel and I. But neither of us realized how cruel life – and our families – could be. Now I’m trapped in a gilded cage: desired by Axel, who must never know the full truth, and controlled by his father, who would sooner see me dead than free. And I wouldn’t even care, except that it’s no longer only my life at stake

AMAZON | AUDIBLEiBOOKS | B-A-M | GOOGLE PLAY | INDIEBOUND | KOBO | B&N

I trust no one. But like I do with Quinn Blackwood, the Black Widow and I share a special bond. Not one I would swear life or death on by a long shot. But there’s an…understanding. She’s the only one who’s been allowed into my special room, the only one who knows the ingredients of my sweet poison. The only one who’s seen what this room does to me. The longest I’ve been able to withstand is five hours.Her concern is warranted.

I see her swallow before she reaches into her pocket. The small remote is directly linked to the chains. She sets the time but hesitates before pressing the requisite button.

Boldly she steps up to me, and she slides her hands through the hair at my nape. I jerk away but cannot escape her touch because of the cuffs. She stops, staring down at me with narrowed eyes.

I’m on the edge. Hell, who the fuck am I kidding? I was born on the edge. But tonight I’m a whisper away from annihilation and we both know it.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Fuck no. Hell yes.”

She opens her mouth.

“No,” I preempt her.

“I don’t have to stay here with you, but I can be outside.”

“No. Press the button. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Axel…”

I close my eyes and shudder as my fists ball. I want to hear my name, but I don’t want the voice to be The Black Widow’s. There’s only one voice I want to hear right now. One face I want to see. Cleo’s.

“Do it and leave. Now.”

“I will, but at least let me come back and check on you—”

“Say another word and I’ll fire you.”

Her eyes harden to ice chips. “Fuck you. Have your six hours if you want. But I’m coming back in three hours to check on you. Fire me then if you want.”

With a defiant flick of her wrist, she sets the timer down between my feet, within touching distance.
The moment her back is turned, I kick the remote. It bounces against the last step and skids sideways halfway across the room. She hesitates, her back stiff, but she doesn’t turn back around. In silence, she leaves.

The moment the door shuts, twenty projectors on the dark gray walls flicker to life. Large, small, and in-between, they take up every inch of the circular wall. If space allowed I would have had more screens put in, but I work with what I have.

Each one is set on a half-hour loop at full volume with a different video. With barely an inch between them, they could be one jumbled-up picture but I know each screen like I know the length of my cock.
I take a deep breath as the first reel plays on the middle screen. The chair moves, the wheels beneath the floor spinning it slowly around.

Fading sunlight dapples over a lake before the camera swings to the figure in the tiny white bikini fleeing a large wave.

The wave catches her, splashes up to mid-thigh. She shrieks. “Omigod, you’re such a liar. The water is collllldd—What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

She approaches. Her hands come up to block the lens. “Stop filming me. I look fat.”
A different set of hands reaches out to grasp hers, gently nudging hers aside. “You don’t look fat, Cleo. You’re perfect.”

Feminine hands curl around a masculine one. Together they slowly lower until long-lashed, deep blue knowing eyes stare into the camera. “You’re only saying that because you’re in love with me.” Sultry words whispered from between kiss-swollen lips.

“Yes, I’m saying that because I’m in love with you.” Gruff, hopelessly young, newly broken voice, thick with seething emotion. “I’m also saying it because I have fucking eyes in my fucking head.”

A naughty, goes-straight-to-an-eager-cock giggle. “You’re so bad swearing all the time. Daddy says he’ll paddle my behind if he catches me swearing.”

A wobble of the camera before it steadies. “If he lays a fucking hand on you, I’ll tear his fucking head off.” A voice no longer gruff, hard with rigid purpose. Harsh breathing. “I mean it, Cleo. I see so much as a scratch on you, someone will fucking die.”

A gasp. “You can’t say things like that!”

“I can. I fucking am. Because you belong to me. I don’t care who created you. You are mine. No one else is fucking allowed to touch you. No one is allowed to take you away from me, do you hear me?”
A bite of her lip as her nostrils flutter in a shaky inhale. “You’re scaring me.”

Deep, harsh breath. “Am I? Really? Tell the truth. Are you scared, Cleo?” Camera poised with intent, recording every flutter of her lashes.

A pause. A firming of plump lips. Then a shake of the head. Thick, vibrant locks frame her stunning face.

“Say it. I want to hear you say how it makes you feel when I say this to you.”

“It…it excites me.”

“That I claim you as mine?”

A shy nod.

“What else excites you?”

A flick of her gaze between the lens and the face behind it. “Come on. I can’t say it on camera.” She reaches out.

The camera angles away from her but remains on her. Focused. Rabid. “Tell me.” The voice that will one day command hell itself.

“It excites me when you say that you’ll do…all of that for me.”

“All of what?”

“That you’ll…tear his head off.”

“I fucking will.” A solemn promise. A brief pause. “You think I’m a sick psycho?”

“I think you’re…you’re…”

“What?”

“I think you’re effing amazing.”

“Effing?”

Pink color stains her cheeks. “Don’t tease me.”

“I won’t if you say the word. The actual word, Cleo.”

“I won’t.”

“Right. Then I’m not as amazing as you want me to think, am I?”

Blue eyes, opened wide. “You are.”

“Then say it. You’re not going to burn for it. It’s just a word.”

“I hate you when you’re like this.”

“You don’t hate me, but fine. Don’t say it.”

The camera swings out to the lake, to the setting sun that’s almost swallowed up by the orange water.

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest. Abundantly despised by my three brothers, actively hated by my father. She was the golden princess. Put on earth to test every single one of my hardened edges. And I happily burned away every last one for her.

If I said that I was an insta-fan of this author after I finished I, Porn Star, this book solidified it. Damn. Just damn. Zara Cox knows how to weave one complex and erotic tale that’s equally spine tingling and toe curling. It’s addicting and twisty and downright intense.

Her eyes tell me she hates me. Her body beckons me with the promise of transcendental lust.

If you like a good second chance romance with a healthy dose of hate lust mixed in to blur the edges, all wrapped in a story with dark undertones and enough twists and suspense to keep you glued to the pages from start to finish, you’ve found your next read.

Whatever twisted roles fate may have chosen to star us in, the savage power of our mutual feelings for each other will never diminish.

Being born to a cruel and abusive father intent on hardening his sons enough to help run his mafia empire has hardened Axel. He’s the black sheep of the family, the son that wants nothing of his father; not his name and not his infamy in the dark underbelly of organized crime. He dreams of escaping the life with the only person that makes his heart beat and gives him hope. But that hope gets ripped away from him with a jarring betrayal that now years later still continues to haunt him. Losing everything and the one person he always thought he could trust is enough to change a man and change the course of his life forever. Now Axel lives and breathes vengeance. His father will pay, and if the woman that’s now back in his life after costing him everything is the pawn that he’ll have to use in this brutal game, so be it.

Once upon a time, when my addled state didn’t know better, I stupidly believed the phenomenon of our gazes connecting had the power to stop the world from spinning. That view has altered significantly.

As a young girl, Cleo loved Axel with everything she was worth. He was her everything…until he wasn’t. Forced back into his orbit by an arrangement in which she’s nothing but a puppet on a string of a cruel master that dangles the one thing she wants in exchange for her cooperation isn’t what she wants, but she’ll do it. Even if it forces her to own up that while she hates the man he is now and doesn’t see a remainder of the boy she once loved in him, the carnal effect his mere presence has on her hasn’t changed even a little.

You may have condemned my decayed soul and closed your heart to me, but in some respects, nothing has changed. Your body will always sing the perfect tune for me.”

Black Sheep delivers on another twisty story full of betrayal and revenge. Zara Cox is truly a master of her craft and I’m absolutely captivated by her writing style and the characters she creates. I couldn’t put this book down for even a second. I walked the edge between hating and loving Axel. But between all the secrets and twists that kept unearthing, my mind was too busy spinning to focus on any singular emotion.

She never needed a gentle knight in shining armor. So I become her marauder.

Axel was perfection. He was a dirty talking, angsty, domineering and deliciously sexy perfection. My heart broke for him and what he’d been through. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for all the secrets to finally get revealed so the puzzle pieces can click together. And let me just tell you, when they did? Mind. Blowing. Yet another addicting installment in what’s now become a favorite series of mine. I absolutely can’t wait for more!

I want to roar with rage. I want to fuck until I explode into a million pieces. This is what she does to me. What she’s always done.

Each book in the Dark Desires series is a standalone in an interconnecting world. So if you’ve read the first book, you’ll appreciate Quinn’s cameo in this one 🙂


DON’T MISS THE FIST BOOK IN THIS SIZZLING SERIES!

BEAUTIFUL LIAR (Previously published as I, Porn Star)

I may be Quinn Blackwood, occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights as Q, porn star to an exclusive few who pay millions for my work. And I may be an unhinged asshole with serious daddy issues. But no one said I wasn’t a giver.

PURCHASE | READ MY REVIEW

BEAUTIFUL LIAR | BLACK SHEEP | WICKED S.O.B. | ARROGANT BASTARD

Zara Cox has been writing for almost twenty-five years but it wasn’t until nine years ago that she decided to share her love of writing sexy, gritty stories with anyone outside her close family (the over 18s anyway!).

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Goodreads

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Release Week Blitz, Author Q&A, Review & Giveaway: Beautiful Liar by @ZCoxBooks @ForeverRomance

BEAUTIFUL LIAR
Series:
Dark Desires, #1
Author: Zara Cox
On Sale: April 11, 2017
Publisher: Forever
Trade Paperback: $14.99 USD
eBook: $4.99 USD

**NOW AVAILABLE IN TRADE PAPERBACK**

People call me many things: CEO, billionaire, bastard. Q.

I love women. I love sex. I love money. I love hot, wild nights with no promise of a future, because a future is one thing I don’t have. I’m twenty-eight years old. I won’t live to see thirty, and I don’t care. Or I didn’t, until her.

Nobody plans for a life like this. Some of us just end up here.

They call me Lucky, though luck has never been on my side. Before I met Q, my life was a big, twisted mess. Never enough money, never anyone to trust. No way out. With Q, the shame and fear disappear. Instead I feel pure pleasure, and that’s something I’ve never had before. But if what I’ve just learned is true, we’d better enjoy every second together while we can…before our time runs out.

BEAUTIFUL LIAR was previously published as Porn Star

AMAZON | B&N | BOOKS-A-MILLION | GOOGLE PLAY | iBOOKS | INDIEBOUND | KOBO

“So it’s true? It’s not a con? This job really pays a million dollars? For…sex?” she rasps.“You think I’d admit it if it was a con? What did the ad say?”

Her delicate jaw flexes for a second.

“One million uninhibited reasons to take a leap.

One million chances to earn a keep

One million to give in to the carnal

Are you brave enough to surrender,

For a payday to remember?”

It speaks even more to her desperate state of mind that she remembers the ad verbatim.

I remain silent and wait for her to speak.

“So…assuming it’s not a con, how will this work, then?”

“If you pass the next few tests, and I decide you’re a good fit, you get the gig. You’ll receive one hundred thousand dollars with each performance.”

“So…ten performances…over how long a period?”

“Depending on how many takes are needed, anywhere between three weeks and a month. But I should warn you, it’s hard work, Lucky. If you think you’re just going to lie back and recite the Star Spangled Banner in your head, think again.”

Her fingers drum on the table, the first sign of nerves she’s exhibited. “I…I won’t be doing anything…skanky, will I?”

“Define skanky.”

“This is going to be straight up sex. No other…bodily stuff? Because that would a firm no for me.”

My mouth attempts another twitch. “No water works, waste matter or bestiality will be involved in the performances.”

Her fingers stop drumming. “Okay.” She waits a beat, stares straight into the camera. “So when will I know?”

I hear the barely disguised urgency and I rub my finger over my lip again. “Soon. I’ll be in touch within the week.” I’m not sure exactly why I want to toy with her. But I sense that having her on edge would add another layer of excitement I badly need.

When she opens her mouth, I interrupt. “Goodbye, Lucky.”

A passing thought about the origin of her name is crushed into oblivion. I press the remote to summon the bodyguard to escort her out, and I leave the room.

In my study a few minutes later, I bring up the screen on my desk and activate the encrypted service I need. I open the application and within minutes, the members of my exclusive gentlemen’s club are logging in.

My email is short and succinct.

The next Q Production is scheduled for release on 20 May 2015.

Limited to ten members.

Bidding starts in fifteen minutes.

I start the countdown and rise to pour myself a neat bourbon. I swallow the first mouthful with two prescribed tablets, which are meant to keep me from going over the edge, apparently, and stroll to the floor to ceiling window. I look down at Midtown’s bumper-to-bumper traffic. This mid-level penthouse is one of many I own in this building and around New York City.

Technically, I don’t live here. I only use it when volatile pressures demand that I put some distance between the Upper West Side family mansion and myself. I would never stray far for long. For one thing, I’ve accepted that my family would never leave me alone.

I know what I know. So they’ve made it their business to keep me on a short leash. But with over three hundred properties in my personal portfolio, and a few thousand more under the family firm’s control, there are many places to disappear to when the demons howl.

Today, the Midtown penthouse is my temporary haven.

I turn when the timer beeps a one-minute warning.

I return to my desk and adjust the voice distorter. When the clock reaches zero, I click the mouse. “Gentlemen, start your bids.”

My words barely trail off before the first five bids appear on the screen. Sixty seconds later, the total bid is at a quarter of a million dollars. I steeple my fingers and wish I were more excited. The money means nothing. It never has. It’s the end game that excites me.

My mind drifts back to Lucky. I turn the gem of her elusiveness this way and that and admit to myself she has potential.

I want to take a scalpel to all her secrets, bleed them and soil my hands with the viscera. I also want to fuck her until her body gives out. Right in this moment, I’m not sure what I want more.

So I concentrate on the numbers racing higher on the screen.

Half a million. One million. One point five.

My phone beeps twice. I pick it up and read the two appointment reminders on the screen.

7pm – Dr. Nathanson. My shrink.

9pm – Dinner with Maxwell.

I re-confirm the first and delete the second.

Cancelling dinner with Maxwell will bring a world of irritation to my doorstep. No one cancels dinner with Maxwell Blackwood. For a start he’s one of the most powerful men in the country.

He’s also my father.

Yeah, my name is Quinn Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood Estate, only child of Maxwell Blackwood and Adele Blackwood (deceased). My family owns a staggering amount of property across the eastern seaboard of the United States and a few in the west. According to the bean counters, I’m personally worth twenty-six billion dollars.

But tangling with my father in hell is what I live for. Have done since I was fifteen. So I ignore his summons and watch the stragglers fall away until I’m left with the top ten bidders. The bids wind down, and within the space of half an hour, I’m just under two million dollars richer.

I spot the familiar name of the top bidder and I sneer. Taking his money on top of everything else is darkly satisfying.

Once bidding ends, I close down the application and call up another list. Dozens of charity websites showing pictures of starving children flood my screen. Within minutes, fifty charities are the grateful recipients of two million dollars.

I may be Quinn Blackwood, occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights as Q, porn star to an exclusive few who pay millions for my work.

And I may be an unhinged asshole with serious daddy issues.

But no one said I wasn’t a giver.

AUTHOR Q & A

DGR: What was your favorite scene in Beautiful Liar?

ZC: It’s almost impossible to choose a favorite scene but one of my favorites has to be the first time Quinn & Elly meet “in real life”. He doesn’t look at or acknowledge her as she serves him his lunch, but she’s completely electrified by him. When he gets up to leave he sees this woman that he’s only seen through his camera lens and he’s in turn captivated, but only for a second because he can’t reveal who he is. Portraying their emotions during that scene was fantastic to write.

DGR: What was the most difficult scene to write in Beautiful Liar?

ZC: Hmm, maybe this should come with a spoiler alert, but it’s the heartbreaking moment when Quinn watches his mother take her own life. That was heartbreaking to write because he lost the only person who loved him, until Lucky came along.


The hate, the vengeance and sex are instruments that oil my existence and keep my compass true.

HOLY. SHIT.

I did NOT see this book coming. I’m so happy it got a title and cover change because the old one didn’t do it justice AT ALL. I’m serious. If you think this is yet another run of the mill smut filled romance read, think again. The writing. The story. It was hauntingly captivating. I’m absolutely blown away and got myself a new author to stalk.

I may be Quinn Blackwood, occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights as Q, porn star to an exclusive few who pay millions for my work. And I may be an unhinged asshole with serious daddy issues. But no one said I wasn’t a giver.

Q is a man of wealth and power. He’s a man skirting the fine edge of revenge and depravity and he makes no excuses or apologies. Every single move is calculated to achieve his end goal. His revenge. To right a wrong of years past, to punish those responsible, even if he doesn’t survive to bask in the glory of the fallout. It’s not time to make his most calculated move yet. Everything he’s been doing has been leading up to this…his grand plan. And the key to it is a woman with haunted eyes and a closet full of skeletons who may be hiding more baggage then even him. Lucky.

I want to take a scalpel to all her secrets, bleed them and soil my hands with the viscera. I also want to fuck her until her body gives out. Right in this moment, I’m not sure what I want more.

The writing in this story is absolute perfection. It’s haunting and lyrical. The characters are so well developed, they practically have an energy that you can feel through the pages. The sheer power of Q’s presence is enough to captivate even the most cynical reader.

Quinn Blackwood’s eyes are soulless pools. Staring into them is like staring into a bottomless abyss in the middle of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Every word has a purpose. Every description leading to a new revelation. It was dark and hypnotic. Erotic and captivating. I was glued to every single page, practically salivating for more.

While Q was an erotic enigma full of sex appeal and secrets, Lucky was an interesting blend of cracked glass about to shatter but with a hidden steel reinforcement. This is a woman that survived her own hell and will do anything to escape it…even sell her body and her dignity for a million dollars.

We’re caught in a cycle of wrath and cruelty and sex. He’s unleashed his darkness, and I’m the sex-hypnotized recipient of all of it. Even after he roars his climax, he keeps going, keeps flaying me.

A voice cleverly disguised by state of the art technology and a face hidden behind a steel mask is all she sees of Q. The rest is a veil of blindfolds, mind games, and sex so mind-blowing that she struggles to hold on to the fact that none of it is real…and it doesn’t take long for the lines to begin to blur… for both of them.

God, I want to fuck you till you break. I may not be the right person to put you back together, but I want to do it anyway.”

This story is so much more than a romance. It’s a story of survival and revenge. It’s a sizzling romance wrapped around a captivating mystery. It’s a splash of dark and suspense. And while the book is long, the pacing was perfect.

If you’re looking for a new author to check out and a read that’s totally different from the norm, this is the one book I can’t recommend enough. Zara Cox now has a forever fan in this girl. I will gleefully pick up anything this woman writes. No questions asked. She’s a talent that I wish I discovered sooner and am kicking myself for not reading this book when it first hit my radar. But better late then never, if you ask me.

Maybe my cracks aren’t so bad. Maybe the chasm isn’t as deep as I thought. Maybe she’ll take the leap with me. Maybe with her, I’ll survive the fall. Maybe she’ll even save me. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe…it’s too late.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to immediately dive into book 2!


THE DARK DESIRES SERIES

BEAUTIFUL LIAR, #1
BLACK SHEEP, #2
WICKED S.O.B, #2.5 (August 8, 2017)
ARROGANT BASTARD, #3 (September 12, 2017)


Zara Cox has been writing for almost twenty-five years but it wasn’t until nine years ago that she decided to share her love of writing sexy, gritty stories with anyone outside her close family (the over 18s anyway!).

WebsiteFacebookTwitterInstagramPinterestGoodreads

FOLLOW FOREVER ONLINE

WebsiteFacebookTwitterInstagramPinterest


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Black Sheep (Dark Desires book 2) by @ZCoxBooks

BLACK SHEEP
Series: Dark Desires #2
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic Romance
Author: Zara Cox
Release Date: March 14, 2017

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, 
I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest.

My father has hated me since the day I was born. The feeling was mutual. In the shady underworld that was my legacy, Cleo McCarthy became my light. She was beautiful, passionate, and my whole world. So naturally my father had to destroy us. First he sent me away. Next he claimed Cleo as his own. But now I’ve returned, and nothing will stop me from taking back everything that is rightfully mine.

He was the love of my life – when my life was still my own.

We were young enough to believe we would last forever, Axel and I. But neither of us realized how cruel life – and our families – could be. Now I’m trapped in a gilded cage: desired by Axel, who must never know the full truth, and controlled by his father, who would sooner see me dead than free. And I wouldn’t even care, except that it’s no longer only my life at stake

AMAZON | iBOOKS

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest. Abundantly despised by my three brothers, actively hated by my father. She was the golden princess. Put on earth to test every single one of my hardened edges. And I happily burned away every last one for her.

If I said that I was an insta-fan of this author after I finished I, Porn Star, this book solidified it. Damn. Just damn. Zara Cox knows how to weave one complex and erotic tale that’s equally spine tingling and toe curling. It’s addicting and twisty and downright intense.

Her eyes tell me she hates me. Her body beckons me with the promise of transcendental lust.

If you like a good second chance romance with a healthy dose of hate lust mixed in to blur the edges, all wrapped in a story with dark undertones and enough twists and suspense to keep you glued to the pages from start to finish, you’ve found your next read.

Whatever twisted roles fate may have chosen to star us in, the savage power of our mutual feelings for each other will never diminish.

Being born to a cruel and abusive father intent on hardening his sons enough to help run his mafia empire has hardened Axel. He’s the black sheep of the family, the son that wants nothing of his father; not his name and not his infamy in the dark underbelly of organized crime. He dreams of escaping the life with the only person that makes his heart beat and gives him hope. But that hope gets ripped away from him with a jarring betrayal that now years later still continues to haunt him. Losing everything and the one person he always thought he could trust is enough to change a man and change the course of his life forever. Now Axel lives and breathes vengeance. His father will pay, and if the woman that’s now back in his life after costing him everything is the pawn that he’ll have to use in this brutal game, so be it.

Once upon a time, when my addled state didn’t know better, I stupidly believed the phenomenon of our gazes connecting had the power to stop the world from spinning. That view has altered significantly.

As a young girl, Cleo loved Axel with everything she was worth. He was her everything…until he wasn’t. Forced back into his orbit by an arrangement in which she’s nothing but a puppet on a string of a cruel master that dangles the one thing she wants in exchange for her cooperation isn’t what she wants, but she’ll do it. Even if it forces her to own up that while she hates the man he is now and doesn’t see a remainder of the boy she once loved in him, the carnal effect his mere presence has on her hasn’t changed even a little.

You may have condemned my decayed soul and closed your heart to me, but in some respects, nothing has changed. Your body will always sing the perfect tune for me.”

Black Sheep delivers on another twisty story full of betrayal and revenge. Zara Cox is truly a master of her craft and I’m absolutely captivated by her writing style and the characters she creates. I couldn’t put this book down for even a second. I walked the edge between hating and loving Axel. But between all the secrets and twists that kept unearthing, my mind was too busy spinning to focus on any singular emotion.

She never needed a gentle knight in shining armor. So I become her marauder.

Axel was perfection. He was a dirty talking, angsty, domineering and deliciously sexy perfection. My heart broke for him and what he’d been through. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for all the secrets to finally get revealed so the puzzle pieces can click together. And let me just tell you, when they did? Mind. Blowing. Yet another addicting installment in what’s now become a favorite series of mine. I absolutely can’t wait for more!

I want to roar with rage. I want to fuck until I explode into a million pieces. This is what she does to me. What she’s always done.

Each book in the Dark Desires series is a standalone in an interconnecting world. So if you’ve read the first book, you’ll appreciate Quinn’s cameo in this one 🙂


DON’T MISS THE FIST BOOK IN THIS SIZZLING SERIES!

BEAUTIFUL LIAR (Previously published as I, Porn Star)

I may be Quinn Blackwood, occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights as Q, porn star to an exclusive few who pay millions for my work. And I may be an unhinged asshole with serious daddy issues. But no one said I wasn’t a giver.

PURCHASE | READ MY REVIEW

Review: Beautiful Liar by @ZCoxBooks

BEAUTIFUL LIAR (Previously published as I, Porn Star)
Series: Dark Desires, #1
Genre: Contemporary, Erotic Romance
Author: Zara Cox
Release Date: September 13, 2016

“An exotically filthy, devastatingly beautiful story that will captivate and tease you long after the book is finished.” -Audrey Carlan, New York Times bestselling author
Previously published as I, Porn Star.

People call me many things: CEO, billionaire, bastard. Q.

I love women. I love sex. I love money. I love hot, wild nights with no promise of a future, because a future is one thing I don’t have. I’m twenty-eight years old. I won’t live to see thirty, and I don’t care. Or I didn’t, until her.

Nobody plans for a life like this. Some of us just end up here.

They call me Lucky, though luck has never been on my side. Before I met Q, my life was a big, twisted mess. Never enough money, never anyone to trust. No way out. With Q, the shame and fear disappear. Instead I feel pure pleasure, and that’s something I’ve never had before. But if what I’ve just learned is true, we’d better enjoy every second together while we can…before our time runs out.

AMAZON | iBOOKS

The hate, the vengeance and sex are instruments that oil my existence and keep my compass true.

HOLY. SHIT.

I did NOT see this book coming. I’m so happy it got a title and cover change because the old one didn’t do it justice AT ALL. I’m serious. If you think this is yet another run of the mill smut filled romance read, think again. The writing. The story. It was hauntingly captivating. I’m absolutely blown away and got myself a new author to stalk.

I may be Quinn Blackwood, occasional user of prescribed meds to keep the demons in check, who moonlights as Q, porn star to an exclusive few who pay millions for my work. And I may be an unhinged asshole with serious daddy issues. But no one said I wasn’t a giver.

Q is a man of wealth and power. He’s a man skirting the fine edge of revenge and depravity and he makes no excuses or apologies. Every single move is calculated to achieve his end goal. His revenge. To right a wrong of years past, to punish those responsible, even if he doesn’t survive to bask in the glory of the fallout. It’s not time to make his most calculated move yet. Everything he’s been doing has been leading up to this…his grand plan. And the key to it is a woman with haunted eyes and a closet full of skeletons who may be hiding more baggage then even him. Lucky.

I want to take a scalpel to all her secrets, bleed them and soil my hands with the viscera. I also want to fuck her until her body gives out. Right in this moment, I’m not sure what I want more.

The writing in this story is absolute perfection. It’s haunting and lyrical. The characters are so well developed, they practically have an energy that you can feel through the pages. The sheer power of Q’s presence is enough to captivate even the most cynical reader.

Quinn Blackwood’s eyes are soulless pools. Staring into them is like staring into a bottomless abyss in the middle of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Every word has a purpose. Every description leading to a new revelation. It was dark and hypnotic. Erotic and captivating. I was glued to every single page, practically salivating for more.

While Q was an erotic enigma full of sex appeal and secrets, Lucky was an interesting blend of cracked glass about to shatter but with a hidden steel reinforcement. This is a woman that survived her own hell and will do anything to escape it…even sell her body and her dignity for a million dollars.

We’re caught in a cycle of wrath and cruelty and sex. He’s unleashed his darkness, and I’m the sex-hypnotized recipient of all of it. Even after he roars his climax, he keeps going, keeps flaying me.

A voice cleverly disguised by state of the art technology and a face hidden behind a steel mask is all she sees of Q. The rest is a veil of blindfolds, mind games, and sex so mind-blowing that she struggles to hold on to the fact that none of it is real…and it doesn’t take long for the lines to begin to blur… for both of them.

God, I want to fuck you till you break. I may not be the right person to put you back together, but I want to do it anyway.”

This story is so much more than a romance. It’s a story of survival and revenge. It’s a sizzling romance wrapped around a captivating mystery. It’s a splash of dark and suspense. And while the book is long, the pacing was perfect.

If you’re looking for a new author to check out and a read that’s totally different from the norm, this is the one book I can’t recommend enough. Zara Cox now has a forever fan in this girl. I will gleefully pick up anything this woman writes. No questions asked. She’s a talent that I wish I discovered sooner and am kicking myself for not reading this book when it first hit my radar. But better late then never, if you ask me.

Maybe my cracks aren’t so bad. Maybe the chasm isn’t as deep as I thought. Maybe she’ll take the leap with me. Maybe with her, I’ll survive the fall. Maybe she’ll even save me. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe…it’s too late.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to immediately dive into book 2!


Pre-Order BLACK SHEEP, book 2 in this sizzling series releasing March 14!

In a family of cold-hearted black sheep, 

I, Axel Rutherford, am the blackest.
My father has hated me since the day I was born. The feeling was mutual. In the shady underworld that was my legacy, Cleo McCarthy became my light. She was beautiful, passionate, and my whole world. So naturally my father had to destroy us. First he sent me away. Next he claimed Cleo as his own. But now I’ve returned, and nothing will stop me from taking back everything that is rightfully mine.

He was the love of my life – when my life was still my own.
We were young enough to believe we would last forever, Axel and I. But neither of us realized how cruel life – and our families – could be. Now I’m trapped in a gilded cage: desired by Axel, who must never know the full truth, and controlled by his father, who would sooner see me dead than free. And I wouldn’t even care, except that it’s no longer only my life at stake.

Copyright © 2015 · Dirty Girl Romance

%d bloggers like this: