Until We Burn: Beautifully Broken, #4

By Courtney Cole

Dominic Kinkaide does bad, bad things. 

As a 24-year old actor with the world on a string, not many women tell Dominic no. In a life where no doesn’t exist, he stretches the boundaries between what is right, what is wrong and what is downright depraved. Dark and damaged, Dom wants no commitments. 

He wants no attachments. 

He only wants to disappear into the taboo, into a place where he feels something. 

Anything. 

But when the aching need to disappear into the darkness is the only thing he has left, Dominic flounders. In a world that is hollow and sexual, without a guiding light or a reason to breathe, Dominic is lost and broken. He knows he’ll never be fixed. So he makes a decision. 

If he’s going to hell, he might as well make it worth it. 

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UNTIL WE BURN is a novella (book 2.5 in the Beautifully Broken series) intended to introduce Dominic Kinkaide, to enhance the reading experience of BEFORE WE FALL (Book 3). Please note that because Dom's lifestyle is wild, this novella contains graphic content and adult material.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lakehouse Press, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519963697

Courtney Cole

Courtney Cole is a New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author.  She was born and raised in rural Kansas, lived most of her adult life near Lake Michigan, and has recently relocated to Florida where she writes beneath palm trees.  

Book preview

Chapter One

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Harder, the girl whispers. Obligingly, I slap her ass again.  Hard.

The stinging sound echoes through the night, rippling through the silence of Mount Lee.  A hundred feet below, the giant letters of the Hollywood sign gleam ghostly white in the darkness. 

I smile against the back of the girl’s pale neck and bite it.  Hard. 

My teeth sink into her soft flesh, but she likes it.  She moans, twisting around so that she can clutch at my chest, twisting her fingers in my tux jacket. 

Dominic, she sighs.  I can’t believe I’m here with you right now.  Dominic Kinkaide is slapping my ass.

Dominic Kinkaide is doing more than that to your ass, I point out, remembering how I’d just pulled out of it a minute ago, how I’d rolled off the condom and flicked it away. 

As the coatcheck girl from the black gala event I’d just vacated, she probably had no idea when her evening started that it was going to end like this:  with quick, hard anal sex in public....with me.

Even though it’s two a.m. and it’s unlikely that anyone will be hiking up Hollywood Ridge Trail, the knowledge that they could, the knowledge that strangers might stumble upon us and find us in this intimate situation, turned me on quicker than anything.

I finished what I set out to do within a few minutes and now, I pull away and adjust my clothes as the girl pulls at her own. 

I don’t know her name. 

Her name doesn’t matter.

The girl looks up at me, batting her eyelashes.  "That was nice.  If you want to... you know, um, actually sleep with me, call me, okay?  I’ll give you my number."

I look at her in amusement.  Actually sleep with you?

She looks embarrassed.  I don’t mean like... sleep in my bed overnight.  I mean, real sex.  Not just... what we did.

Anal? I raise an eyebrow.  We’re both adults here.  We can call a spade a spade. 

Yeah, she manages to say, her cheeks flushed.  Anal.  That’s the first time I’ve ever done that, by the way.

That’s what they all say and I have a hard time believing it.  This is the twenty-first century after all.  I grin at her though, deciding to humor her.  

And?  What’d you think?

She bats her eyelashes again, coy now, laying her hand against my chest.  I think that you can do anything you want with me, she purrs. 

I fight to not roll my eyes at her sticky-sweet tone now.  She’s too compliant, too needy, too willing to do anything at all that I ask of her.  Why the fuck are they always like this?  Are they so desperate to sleep with someone famous, even one single time, that they’ll do anything for it?

Nine times out of ten, the answer is yes. 

And nine times out of ten, I capitalize on that.  I’d be an idiot if I didn’t. 

But to be honest, the whole thing is getting tiresome.  I’m weary of it. I’m weary of the shallow people, I’m weary of people using other people, I’m weary of easy women who constantly throw themselves at me. 

They only want to say I was with Dominic Kinkaide. They want to claim a tiny piece of me, no matter how small that piece or moment was. 

In this case, Coatcheck Girl will be able to say that she claimed ten minutes of my time.  But from the look on her face, the wonderstruck expression, that ten minutes was enough.

Won’t Amy be mad at you? she asks curiously as she runs her fingers through her tangled hair in the dark.  She doesn’t sound concerned as she mentions the woman that most people assume is my girlfriend. 

I shake my head at thought of Amy Ashby, a woman whose fame is equal to my own, a woman whose jaded outlook on life surpasses even my own.  She’s beautiful, successful and savvy.

She’s also a cold-hearted bitch.  It’s one of things I like about her.  

For one thing, Amy and I aren’t exclusive, I answer, turning to walk back toward my car.  And for the other, it’s not your business.

My voice is