Venom and Lace: Book One of the Venom Series

by Dani Antoinette

Genres: New Adult Romance; Romantic Suspense; Romantic Suspense; spicy; enemies to lovers; slow burn romance

Synopsis

Not all monsters hide under your bed. Some of them entice you into theirs.

A new enemies to lovers, slow burn romance is coming to Kindle Unlimited March 13th!

Being blackmailed into being the fake fiancé of Chicago’s most eligible bachelor was nothing compared to what was coming. Ryzen Goodacre’s ruthless pursuit to be number one had made him one of the richest men in the city, but I was about to pay the price for his ambitions.

Most women would kill to be in my shoes. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t like most women. Prove to the world we’re madly in love and follow the rules. Otherwise, he would crush my dreams with the snap of his fingers.

But there was one thing I hadn’t counted on. And by the time I saw him coming, it was already too late.

Haunted by a past that has left him with scars that can never be healed, Cian Blackwood’s bitter rivalry with Ryzen has me trapped in a twisted game where the line between right and wrong was more than just blurred. It was downright sinful.

Possessed by the need for revenge, Cian will destroy anyone who stands in his way.

Including me.

And my heart.

 

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Release date: March 13, 2023

Sample

Chapter One

The minute I dragged my suitcase into the elevator, it burst open, spilling out vibrators. It looked like someone had beaten a piñata to death, but instead of candy, a mountain of pleasure devices had spewed out at my feet.

Fate was a slippery old witch, and I had a feeling she was messing with me right now.

I glanced up at the Hulk-sized man marching towards me and jammed my thumb against the ‘close’ button of the elevator, the button squeaking. He signaled with his finger. “Hold the doors.”

I shrugged, my hands held up as the doors began to close. “Sorry, I can’t.” He narrowed his eyes as he came closer, the doors moving painfully slow. “It’s too fast…” I trailed off as the doors shut in his face.

Don’t get me wrong, on any other night, in any other elevator, in any other building, I would have been happy to hold the elevator for a perfect stranger. But not tonight, and definitely not in a building where the average income per household was over a million dollars.

I kneeled back on the floor as I gnawed on my lower lip. My suitcase lay in the corner, halfway open, the zipper seam busted. Over twenty pleasure devices lay thrown about the elevator floor, half of them vibrating so loud it sounded like a swarm of bees hanging around a honeycomb. The universe was not on my side.

I dragged my suitcase closer and began piling the silicone toys back in. Juliet had told me to take the samples to our off-site storage unit. That we could store them there until we moved into our new warehouse. But did I listen? Of course not. And so here I was, in the elevator of my new apartment building at Goodacre Estates, hoping that I didn’t run into any of my new neighbors and give them the wrong impression. Yes, I was the co-owner of a sexual wellness shop called The Shiver Box. No, I was not having an adult toy party in the elevator.

A ding snapped my attention to the doors as they reopened. The shadow I had shut out seconds ago now lingered there, arms crossed against his chest.

Cue eighties rock ballad and slow-motion walk. The man standing in front of me looked like a god straight from GQ magazine. Dark, disheveled hair, perfect straight jawline with just the right amount of stubble. It should be illegal to look that good. His suit molded to his body in a way that had me drooling. His eyes roamed over the mess on the floor, and he scowled.

Be cool.

“Oh.” I grinned and leaned back on my heels. “Well, you certainly are a quick one.”

Smooth, Nova.

He raised an eyebrow and stepped over a runaway vibrator humming against the floor. I wasn’t embarrassed. There was no need to be. Sexual health was important to everyone’s overall wellness, although this was probably not the right time to bring that up. Grams had stressed not to make her look bad, and so far, I wasn’t doing a great job at it.

He turned his back and pressed the ‘PH’ button on the elevator panel. The doors shut with a swoosh, much faster than moments ago, and the floor jolted underneath my knees as we started moving.  

“Can you press twenty, please?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and pressed the button. The awkwardness grew as we passed the first few floors. It was like he was refusing to acknowledge my presence, or the situation currently happening. I glared at his back. There was an expensive Italian label on the heel of his shoe. Typical.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering where I was. The waitlist to get a unit in this building was over two years. I knew that because my Grams, the matriarch of the La Roux family, had given me a long lecture about how many favors she’d had to call in to get the place, and that I needed to behave myself and act respectably around my new neighbors. I knew she only had good intentions and was trying to celebrate my success, but taking a handout from anyone in my family was something I’d never wanted. Besides, I had been happy living with Juliet in our two-bedroom apartment where the water pressure sucked and our best view was of the trashcans in the alley. It was charming, in that when you sat on the toilet, you banged your knee on the corner of the bathtub. But it was home.

Well, not anymore. You didn’t say no to Grams. Not ever.

The man tapped his foot to the soft music playing overhead, the last rebellious vibrator humming in tune as well. His phone beeped, and he pulled it out, holding it against his ear. “Tell me something good.” He paced to the other side of the elevator and ran his fingers through his hair. “How the hell did Blackwood find out about the deal?” His voice was a low growl, and something told me the person on the other side of that call was in big trouble.

I inched towards the side, snatched the last toy up and powered it off. I risked glancing up. Dark eyes scanned my face, and he looked away, as if I wasn’t worth the trouble. His scowl was back. I stuck my tongue out at him, shimmying myself backwards until my boots hit the back panel. Now was not the time to get worked up over some gorgeous, strange man. I needed to get my suitcase closed and inside my apartment before I did something stupid. I pulled off my leather jacket, ignoring the fancy-pants rich guy as he barked into his phone, and wrapped the sleeves around my suitcase. All those hours watching Naked and Afraid were going to pay off. I tied them into a knot, securing the lid, and sent a silent thank you to the universe when it stayed closed.

The elevator jerked to a sudden stop, a light flashing a red hue over us.

Universe two, Nova zero.

I grabbed the railing and hoisted myself to stand up. It was eerily quiet except for a clicking coming from above my head. Of course this would happen to me. I glanced up, half-expecting a hand reaching through the roof of the elevator. A shiver ran down my spine. OK, new rule. No more listening to serial killer podcasts before bed.

“Serial killer?”

I jumped at the sound of his voice and turned to find him watching me, his phone now put away as he crossed his arms over his chest and stood with his legs slightly apart. In rich-man land, this was the “I am in charge” stance. I knew because I had seen my father take this same stance many times when I was growing up. He loved to do it when he found out I had snuck out of the house at one a.m., one of his security dragging me back upstairs to his office. Or when he was dealing with one of his employees who had done something that was very easy to do—made him upset.

“I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” I plastered a smile on my face and leaned back against the elevator wall. The metal was cool against my back. “Well, this”—I threw my hands up in the air—“was not what I had planned for my Sunday night.”

The man arched an eyebrow, his eyes flickering to my suitcase, then back up at me. “Obviously.”

Jerk.

“We should call someone.” The elevator jerked again, enough to knock me off balance, and my heart slammed against my chest. It wasn’t that I was afraid of tight spaces, heights, or anything even close to that. But being shut in a small elevator at least fifteen stories up was enough to ruffle even my feathers.

“I am someone,” he muttered.

I gave him the side-eye as I inched around him. “Sir, not like in the philosophical sense. I mean a person to get us out of here.”

He looked at me as if I had grown another head and pulled out his phone. I stepped closer to the doors. There was no way I wanted to spend another second trapped in here with him taking up so much space. My throat tightened, and I swallowed, focusing on my breathing. Breathe in. One… two… three. Breathe out. One… two… three. Breathe in… and out.

He lifted his head from his phone and peered at me. “Are you OK?” His voice was soft, not as snippy as it had been seconds ago. “It’s OK, we’re not stuck.”

I gripped the railing and tried to appear casual, unbothered, as I let out another shaky breath.

He stood in front of me, closer than I should have allowed. Gray eyes pierced mine, his phone held against his head. “Just breathe.” I leaned in closer and breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. “That’s good. Nice and easy,” he murmured, as if talking to a wild animal. “Again.” He breathed with me as I relaxed.

OK, so maybe he wasn’t just some rich jerk. I knew better than most not to judge a book by its cover. We were inches apart, our breathing in rhythm. My body warmed as his eyes pierced mine, and I decided I might not mind being stuck in an elevator with him.  

A muffled voice coming from the other end of his phone brought me back to reality, and I looked away as I tried to regain my composure.

“I’m in zone P2. Why are we stopped?” His voice was filled with authority. Did he always sound like this? So commanding? I bet he was bossy in the bedroom as well.

Stop being a ho, Nova.

I rubbed my forehead and tried to think of anything other than the compromising positions he could put me in. This was what happened when you hadn’t gotten laid in over nine months. Every interaction with the opposite sex could become something dirty.

He didn’t take his eyes off me, his lips in a flat line. “Someone left the parking gate open?” He gave me a pointed look, and I closed my eyes. I had been so focused on getting my suitcase out of the rental car that I had forgotten to shut the gate. “Send someone to close it and bring the elevator back down.”

Just like that, the elevator started moving. My shoulders relaxed and I let out the breath I had been holding in.

Wait, that made little sense. “Why would the elevator stop working if the parking gate was left open?”

“It’s a security issue.” Gone was the soft soothing voice. Back was the scowling face with the annoyed tone. “Who exactly are you here to visit?” His eyes narrowed, looking me up and down, as if truly seeing me for the first time.

I got that look a lot. Mostly from uptight businessmen who worked with my father, and their stuck-up wives whose idea of a good time entailed mimosas at the garden club at nine a.m. every morning. It was usually the tattoos that set them off. My body, my canvas. I straightened up and pulled my shoulders back. “What I’m doing here is none of your business.” I knew all about his type. Give a man a little money and he thought he was king of the world.

“Actually”—he crossed his arms against his chest—“what goes on in my building is my business.”

I rolled my eyes, dragging my suitcase closer to my side. “Yeah, OK, you own the building. Sure.” Was I supposed to believe this guy was Ryzen Goodacre, owner of Goodacre Estates? Real estate mogul who owned half of Chicago? This youngish, sexy, jerky guy was supposed to be him? “You own this one and I own the one next door, buddy. Nice try.”

His smile got bigger as he ran his thumb across his bottom lip. “Impossible, considering I own that one, too.” He stared at me expectantly, as if waiting for another smart-ass remark. I remained silent, and he took that as an invitation to keep talking. “Look, there are rules when you enter this building. Rules that need to be followed—even if you are a lady of the night.” He waved his hand up and down my body and back to my suitcase.

My mouth fell open, heat rushing up my neck to my cheeks. “Lady of the night? Are we in the 1950’s?” I wheezed out a laugh. “You mean to tell me”—I took a step forward and pointed my finger at him—“the only reason a young woman could be in this building is because she’s a prostitute?” My voice rose as I pressed my finger against his chest. “I couldn’t possibly live in this building, right? Or be a successful businesswoman? Because the hem of my skirt ends three inches above my knee, is that it?” I emphasized each word with a poke.

His smile faltered, eyebrows drawn together. “I didn’t mean to offend.” He reached up and gently lowered my finger with his hand. “I just assumed because of all the sexual devices. My apologies.”

I opened my mouth, ready to take the conversation to a childhood level with the good old “you know what happens when you assume things—you make an ass out of you and me” retort, but a yelp came out instead as the elevator jerked again, dropping us with a thud to the ground from about five inches up.   

He wrapped his arms around me tightly as I lost my footing and stumbled into him. I gripped the lapels of his jacket as I tried to steady myself. Of all the elevators in all the buildings in the world, I’d had to step into this one tonight. My face heated as our bodies pressed against each other. We had been in this elevator all of five minutes and I’d been up close and personal with him for almost the entire time. He smiled down at me, and I noticed a dimple in his left cheek. Damn, that was a gorgeous dimple.  

You know when things aren’t going as planned, and you ask yourself, What could possibly make this situation worse? Yeah, don’t do that. Don’t shout questions out to the universe, because it will answer, and chances are you won’t like the response.

Case in point, as we stood there pressed against each other, the elevator doors swooshed open. A figure stood there dressed in all black. There was a bright flash pointed at us and a series of clicks as someone started taking photos with a phone.

Mr. Dimples body tensed against mine, and he cursed under his breath. Just as soon as they had appeared, they were gone.

I leaned back, blowing my hair out of my face. “What in the James Bond was that?”

He looked between me and the person retreating before dropping his arms and sprinting after them.

I took that as my cue to get the hell out of there. The last thing I needed was to be standing around an empty parking garage while some pervert snapped pictures of me. I grabbed my suitcase by the handle, making sure my makeshift knot was secure, and dragged it to the doors. The chase was nothing but a blur as I peeked my head around the corner. There was another elevator thirty feet away, in the opposite direction to the one they had run in, and I made a beeline for it. I pressed the button for the twentieth floor and held my breath as the elevator started moving without incident.

Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks by the time I made it to my floor, my eyelids heavy. There were only two units per floor, separated by a long hallway that curved at the end, giving the appearance of having the entire floor to yourself. One of the many attractions of the building, as it provided a sense of privacy in a busy downtown neighborhood.

I pressed the security code for the door, disarming the in-unit alarm, and stepped in. “Lights,” I squeaked out, feeling stupid. Grams had said the unit was state-of-the art, with each apartment having its own security system and voice-activated features. The video I had watched on the Goodacre Estates website earlier that day had shown a man walking through a unit, using voice commands to do random things like turn on the lights, pre-heat the oven, turn on the fireplace, start the shower. I cringed at the thought of barking commands into the air like a spoiled brat who expected everything to be done for her—an image I had fought my whole life to avoid, unlike my sister.

“Lights!” My voice echoed down the hall. Nothing happened. I sighed and moved my hand along the wall, looking for the light switch, dragging my suitcase behind me.

A noise came from around the corner, and I froze, holding my breath. I knew from looking at the pictures of the layout that the kitchen was where the noise was coming from. Could someone have broken in? There was no way. Not after the website had touted how great their security was. I gnawed on my lip, realizing that I had just left the parking gate open like an idiot, so yes, it was possible for someone to get in.

As quietly as I could, I unzipped the panel on the outside of my suitcase and reached in for the only weapon I could think of. I gripped the silicone tight in my hand and inched down the hall, my pulse quickening the closer I got. Everything I had learned at the self-defense seminar I took last summer had gone out the window. I was pretty sure rule number one of thinking someone had broken into your home was to turn around and run away, not to grab the biggest sex toy you could find and confront them with it.

I neared the corner and said a silent prayer before jumping out and yelling “Lights!” at the top of my lungs, a vibrator held high above my head. The lights turned on and revealed an empty kitchen. The freezer made a noise—the noise—and my shoulders sagged as ice fell out of the ice maker and scattered across the floor.

Could this night get any—no, don’t even think it.

I tossed the toy on the counter and pulled out of my phone, seeing several missed calls from Juliet. It was well past midnight, but I knew she was up. We were both a horrible combination of night owls and early risers, sleep often an afterthought when you had a business to run. I hopped up on the counter and picked up the card sitting next to a bottle of expensive champagne.

To my favorite daredevil—never stop chasing your dreams. No matter how dirty they are. Here’s to all your hard work and to your future success.

Love, Grams.

I popped the cork, taking a healthy swig as I called Juliet. She picked up on the first ring. “Nova, we have a huge problem. They sold the warehouse on Waveland and Ash. Our new lease isn’t valid. We are screwed!”

Mid-swallow, I choked, spitting champagne across the fancy marble countertop.

Could things get worse? Why, yes, they could.