Pretty When You Cry
A Stripped Novel
by Skye Warren
I came from a place of dirt floors and holy
scriptures. They told me the world outside was full of sin, and the first night
I escape, I find out it’s true. Ivan saves me, but he does more than that. He
takes me. He makes me his own girl.
My conditioning runs too deep. Ivan sees what I am.
That’s the thing about showing a mouse to a cat. He
wants to play. And it’s terrifying, even for me. Because the only thing darker
than my past is his.
“Dark, perverse, and unbearably erotic, Pretty When You Cry is Skye Warren at her gritty best.”
~ Anna Zaires, USA Today bestselling author of Twist Me
A new dark romance novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderlust and Prisoner…
Excerpt:
The bed is the largest one I’ve ever seen, but
somehow too small for two people. Too small if one of the people is Ivan. He’s
physically large and, more than that, terrifying. What will he do to me? I
can’t fight him. God, I’m not sure I want to try. Home.
In the end I push back the heavy blankets, almost
as thick as my sleeping pallet in Harmony Hills, and climb onto the bed. The
pillow is perfectly soft, so clean, and I let myself drift away. I’m floating
on a cloud, plush and high up.
I dream in those moments. I dream about color and
light. I dream about the sky.
There is a deep voice from above and all around
me, telling me to get on my knees. Commanding me to pray. This is the first
time in my life I’ve ever skipped bedtime prayers. The first time I haven’t
begged for salvation. I’m not going to beg, not ever again.
The hand on my face doesn’t feel angry. It isn’t a
slap for my insolence. It strokes down my temple and cups my cheek. My eyes
flutter open. Ivan.
His hand falls away.
“Candace,” he says in the same deep voice of my
dream.
And there’s a look in his eyes, the same look
Leader Allen gives Mama. The same look he started giving me. That look is the
reason Mama sent me away.
“You’ll stay here,” he says softly. “I don’t want
you to dance, but you can stay.”
The allure of it beats through me, a heart of its
own, thumping away to a dream that isn’t mine. Safety. Home. I want those things, but I want freedom more. I want the
flash of lights and of skin. I want the power those women had onstage.
Ivan wants to put me in a cage, but what I really
want is to fly.
“Okay,” I lie, because one sin becomes many.
Leader Allen taught me that, and he was right. I’ll convince Ivan, though. One
day I’ll dance on that stage, and Ivan will watch me.
One day he’ll teach me everything there is to
know.
“Good girl.”
The praise washes over me, undeserved and darkly
pleasurable, a stroke along my spine. It feels good, but I know what it is. A
trap. A chain around my ankle to keep me on the ground. In this moment, it
locks me so tight that I’d accept anything he did to me. If he were to touch me the way the woman with the kind
eyes meant. The way Leader Allen touches Mama during prayer.
Ivan leans down, and I hold my breath. Large hands
take hold of the blanket, lift slightly. I feel everything between
us—anticipation and denial, lust and fear corded together. We feel them
together, breathe them in through the air, pulse them with each beat of our
hearts. It’s a kind of knowledge, this feeling, connecting a thousand nerve
points to the core of my body. This is what he meant by teaching me. This and
so much more.
Then he pulls the blanket higher, tucking it
around me. “Good night,” he says, eyes glittering in the dark.
He is silver and light, made even brighter by the
shadows behind him. It’s strange, the disappointment I feel that he isn’t going
to touch me. He isn’t going to teach
me. Not tonight. “Good night,” I whisper back.
Then he’s gone, shutting the door against the
dark, locking me in. And I slide away into sleep, without dreams, without
color, with only the shameless black of contentedness, knowing I am safe for
the night.
Review:
First & foremost...this book is dark~very dark, darker than any of the other book in this series...you have been warned!
This entire series just drew might right in. I soaked it up and was left quite breathless by all of it. But this book in particular was absolutely incredible. The relationship between Candy/Candace & Ivan is almost indescribable....almost. Ivan rescues Candace from a really bad situation and then takes on the roll of her "Daddy" ~ and it's definitely not a parental role! Candace is looking to escape from all the men in her life who have control over her, yet, she keeps returning to the one man who holds the most control ~ Ivan! You will find a bit of suspense in this story too. Someone is making mysterious threats at The Grand, the strip club that Ivan owns & where Candace dances. Candace recognizes the words from these threats and knows exactly who is doing it.
I found this book to be so dark, extremely gritty, and unbelievably intense and I just loved every second of it!
Other books in the series
Tough Love (Stripped #0.5)
Love the way you Lie (Stripped #1)
Better when it Hurts (Stripped #2)
Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling
author of dark romance such as Wanderlust and Prisoner. Praised as a “true
mistress of dark erotica”, her books have been featured in Jezebel, Buzzfeed,
USA Today Happily Ever After, Glamour, and Elle Magazine. She makes her home in
Houston, Texas, with her loving family, three dogs, and one evil cat.
Author links
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