Girl After Dark - Book One: Girl After Dark, #1

By Charlotte Eve

There's So Much A Girl Can Get Up To ... After Dark

Melissa Lane has it all: a beautiful flat in London, great friends, a cute boyfriend, not to mention the most amazing job ever. Because whenever Melissa turns on her video camera, she transforms into VintageHoney, one of YouTube's most popular fashion bloggers!

But one fateful day her whole world comes crashing down around her, and Melissa finds her squeaky-clean reputation left in tatters. Suddenly the whole internet is gossiping about her now and she just needs to escape.

So Melissa flees to New York, a city where she can finally be anonymous; a city where she can start all over again on her own. But what she doesn't realise is that love – and lust – are waiting just around the corner in the form of Carson, a mysterious hunky stranger that Melissa just can't seem to escape ...

From the author of the Taming Blake trilogy comes this brand new, smoking hot series. Due to adult situations and descriptions, this book is only suitable for those aged 18 years and older ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Garden of Eden Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393678243

Charlotte Eve

Charlotte Eve was born to English parents and grew up between London and New York. She returned to England to study, and has now settled in London, where she loves the history, the culture and the tea. Maybe not the rain though. Charlotte still visits New York as often as she can, to shop until she drops.

Book preview

Prologue

A knock at the door. Loud. Insistent.

My heart lurches.

This is it. The moment I’ve been anticipating and dreading in equal measure. The moment when I find out if fantasy really does live up to reality.

The door’s open, I call out, trying to make my voice low and sexy, to sound like I know what I’m doing, to sound like I’ve done this before.

The door to the hotel room opens, and at first all I can see is his shape — a broad, athletic silhouette, standing there in the doorway.

I feel another shiver of … what exactly? Excitement? Fear? Both?

He’s every bit as tall as his profile suggested. And as he makes his way confidently into the room, allowing the door to slam shut behind him, it dawns on me that we’re completely alone in here. It’s just him and me. Anything could happen. He could do anything he wanted to me. Anything.

I want to look him straight in the eye, but I can’t quite do it. Instead, all I can manage is a timid little glance.

Now he’s stalking towards the bed, like he owns the room and I’m his prey. I automatically pull my flimsy silk robe a little tighter around my body. I’m wearing almost nothing beneath it: just my equally-flimsy black silk bra and panties. And I look up at him, towering there above me, fully dressed in his immaculately tailored suit, I feel so naked and so much smaller than my already petite 5’ 4" frame.

No matter how hard I try, I still can’t quite bring myself to look at him directly — to see if reality matches the face I saw in that photo.

So Instead, I look down at my hands and wait for him to speak, hoping he’ll be the first to break this pulsing, heady silence. And as I wait, I can hear my own breath shivering past my lips.

But still he doesn’t speak and eventually, I just can’t take it anymore. My words come out in a dizzy rush of nerves:

So, um, how was the traffic? Did it take you long to get here?

Oh my God, I think immediately. Why did I say that?!

I feel like I’m going to die of embarassment, and the feeling increases with each fresh second he doesn’t speak.

I’m silently begging him to say something now, absolutely anything at all, to save me from making an even bigger fool of myself than I have already.

But still he doesn’t speak. He just steps forward from the shadows, his face for the first time becoming fully visible. And now I can’t help myself. I look at him head-on for the first time, my gaze taking in his impossibly chiseled jaw, his full, sensuous lips, and his eyes …

Oh my God.

Those eyes.

It’s what I imagine being shot by an arrow might feel like, the moment he fixes me with those big, green-grey eyes of his. They’re even more dazzling in real life than they were in his profile picture. And in that half-second, I know I’m lost. I’m his. And I will do anything he demands of me.

The silence between us now is no longer embarrassed; it’s electrifying.

He takes another step towards the bed. Towards me. But it’s all too much. Too soon.

Wait, I blurt out, stalling to buy myself a moment longer. Let me fix you a drink!

At this, he smiles. A slow, playful smile that lets me know he can see right through me. He knows exactly what I’m playing at.

And then, finally, he speaks:

"You didn’t invite me here to drink, he says, his voice so low and confident. You invited me here to fuck."

I tremble at the word, feeling another shiver of excitement flash right around my body.

Fuck.

Hearing it said aloud, I’m aware just how different my fantasy is from this reality. Because this is so much more intense that I could ever have imagined. And we haven’t even touched yet. I think back to our messages. Sure, it was one thing then, to tell him that all I wanted was sex. But here in this hotel room? As that word vibrates and pulses between us? I realise I’m way out of my depth.

He hasn’t taken his eyes off me, not for a second. And I can feel his steely gaze demanding an answer, willing me to speak now.

I … I … I stammer. I just thought, you know, a drink might help get us in the mood?

For the first time, his gaze unlocks from mine, but only so that it can travel the full length of my body, covered only by the silk robe, those big green-grey eyes taking me in so hungrily, so greedily..

You look like you’re already in the mood to me, he says confidently, arching an eyebrow, his eyes fixing on my obviously stiffening nipples standing up in prominent bumps from beneath my bra.

I don’t know what to say — how to reply.

And this time he fills the silence not with words but a gesture, reaching out to softly touch me — his fingertips gently stroking the flesh I already have on display, tracing lightly but firmly upwards, from my ankle towards the inside of my thigh. And as his fingers graze over my skin, they leave in their wake a trail of goosebumps. It must be clear to him just how turned on I am by now.

Your skin’s so soft, he murmurs, more to himself than to me, his hand coming to rest confidently at the top of my thigh, right at very point where my robe ends, his thumb brushing back and forth against the tender flesh just inches from my sex.

I can feel every little movement his thumb makes: his touch is burning and radiating against my skin, stunning me into a trembling, electric silence.

Once more, his eyes lock onto mine.

So? he says. Are we gonna fuck?

Chapter One

One Month Earlier …

"So, Vintage Honey, your real name’s Melissa, right? Is it okay if we use your real name for this article?"

Sure, I smile back, trying to cover my nerves. That’s fine. You can call me Melissa. Although sometimes, I’m not sure where Vintage Honey ends and Melissa begins. Honey’s kind of a nickname for me, you see …

Great! says Clara, the Teen Vogue journalist, smiling at me warmly from across the table in my kitchen. "Okay, so