Beastly Beautiful by Noelle Cross

ROURKE: Do you ever wonder at the beast inside you?
I don’t have to wonder.
I know.
I know the taste of blood. I know the taste of fire and ash and death in my veins, coursing through my body, making me a beast of prey. I live for the hunt. The kill. Both in the boardroom, and out of it. I’ve crafted the perfect polished image of a high-powered executive, owner of global development giant For King and Country, hiding my sickness in plain sight. I surround myself with beautiful things. With delicate things. But underneath the fine wool suits and the platinum watches, nothing can conceal what I truly am.

A monster straining at my leash, desperate to be free.
And the night I meet her?
Is the night I lose control. The night I snap. The night I nearly kill a man—because if I don’t?
I’ll take out the hunger in my blood on her pale, innocent flesh. And if I hurt her…
I’ll never be able to live with myself again.

SILVER: I’ve never met a man as fascinating and terrifying as Rourke King.
The first time I saw him was in a concrete arena, his powerful, tattooed body covered in the blood of another man. The second time I saw him, he was a slick and hard-edged thing in a fine black suit. And the third time?
The third time I saw Rourke King, he saved me…and showed me what it means to be free.
After a life in captivity to the cruelest man alive, I don’t know what to do when I’m thrown into the real world. When Rourke tears me away from my owner and tells me I can stand on my own, if I just try. He says I don’t have to serve anyone; says I belong to no one.

But what if I want to belong to him?
I don’t understand Rourke. I don’t understand how one man can be both noble and knave, knight and dragon, angel and demon. His code of honor makes me trust him. His brutal, animalistic side makes me need him, drawn to him by something primal that I can’t control. He entices me. He infuriates me. He confuses me. He frightens me. And deep down?
I want to be afraid.
But the delicious bite of fear that Rourke inspires is nothing like the sour, awful terror that comes when my owner, one of the most powerful men in New York’s criminal underworld, says he wants me back. Says he’ll kill anyone to take me home. And Rourke?
Rourke is the only one who can keep me alive.