A Sinful Vow: Inked Angels MC, #1

A SINFUL VOW: Inked Angels MC (Book 1)

By Zoey Parker

I'm about to marry a monster – and there's not a thing I can do to stop it.

OLIVIA

I don't deserve this.

All I wanted was to escape my past.

But when my brother needed me to get him out of trouble,

I didn't have a choice.

Now I'm standing at the altar with an animal...

A handsome, rugged animal.

He's going to bend me over.

Break me.

Swallow me whole.

And I'm about to be his...

'til death do us part.

Blaze

I don't chase girls – I replace them.

And I thought I'd seen the last of Olivia.

But when the survival of the club depends on it,

I didn't have a choice.

But now that I'm about to marry her,

there's only one thing on my mind:

Finish what I started.

She might hate me, but I don't give a damn.

I'm going to make her MINE.

Chapter 1: If Only

Olivia

If only I had known everything that was about to happen.

Maybe then I wouldn’t have fallen so hard for him. It was an easy fall—swift and sudden, with Blaze’s hazel eyes staring me down as I tumbled over and over through my nightly fantasies. Every time I fell asleep, I dreamed of his muscular arms wrapping themselves around me. I felt his breath hot on my ear and the surging electricity that raced up and down my spine. I heard every filthy word that slipped between his lips.

Blaze was impossible to resist. He sat on his porch every day when I walked home from high school. His limbs were long and relaxed in the Texas sun. The cigarette in his hand never wavered, never betrayed what he was thinking. He just smoked and watched me walk past, bright eyes glinting with mysterious intentions.

Blaze knew what he did to me. He had to; although I did my best to ignore him. I stared straight ahead and held my books to my chest, attempting to hide the breasts that threatened to erupt from under my tank top. I was desperate to stay hidden from him. Some little voice in my head told me that if I gave him any bait, he would pounce, and that would be the end of it—the end of me.

Not that it would have been such a tragic fate. As much as I hated the cigarette smoke curling around his face, Blaze exuded an animal attraction that kept poking and prodding me when I was at my most vulnerable.

My dreams at night were hot and relentless. If I was being honest with myself, I wanted more. But the tattoos that lanced across his shoulders, marking him as a young prospect of the Inked Angels MC, screamed danger.

I knew I shouldn’t be having thoughts like that about Blaze. Luke, my older brother, would’ve killed me if he ever found out. Luke was an Inked Angel, too. He had the same skull inked into his right shoulder, and he bore the scars and leather to back up everything that the skull implied. Luke had warned me a thousand times to stay away from anyone with that mark—it meant nothing but trouble for a girl like me.

Luke himself was uncontrollable, had been ever since our parents had both disappeared when I was five.

Without either parent around to keep him in line, Luke ran wild. He joined the Inked Angels and quickly gained a reputation for taking on suicide missions, the kind that no one else would be fool enough to accept. But Luke did it, and by the skin of his teeth, he’d made it out alive every time. His daring was enough to skyrocket him up the ladder at the clubhouse, and it wasn’t long before he was being groomed for the presidency.

Or so I heard. Luke made damn sure that I was kept far away from anything involving the Inked Angels and their business. Headlines popped up in the newspapers from time to time—Ten Dead in Motorcycle Club Shootout, Local Club Involved in Major Heist—but whenever I asked Luke about it, he would only stare me down, clench his jaw, and angrily command me to mind my own business.

So the MC had always been a distant thing to me, almost an illusion; Luke made sure of that.

But then Blaze joined.

Suddenly, this handsome neighbor boy with the filthy mouth had shown up wearing the ink and walking with the swagger of a full-blooded Inked Angel. He was still only a prospect, but when Blaze pushed through the doors of the local bar, every girl in the joint swooned and nobody dared to challenge him.

For the first time, it made it all seem real to me. This club, with their leather and the roar their motorcycles made as they tore down the street, had always seemed more fantasy than anything else. It wasn’t until Blaze joined them that I realized how deadly serious the Inked Angels were.

If only I knew how deadly things would get.

SHADOWS WERE STEALING over the sky as I walked home. My backpack was heavy, crammed with textbooks and papers. I had been staying late to study in the library, since there was never any peace and quiet at home with Luke and his friends hanging around at all hours of the night.

The cicadas were humming in the bushes on either side of me. My shoes rasped against the concrete of the sidewalk. Everything else was still.

I rounded the corner onto my block. The houses were squat and nestled close together. Lit windows framed families eating dinner. They all looked so happy and complete. I wondered sometimes what that would feel like, to sit down with a mother and a father and talk about normal things. I had never had that kind of a home.

It almost made me want to cry. I looked at my driveway at the end of the street and saw a car on cinderblocks and several motorcycles propped up along the curb. Motor oil stained the asphalt and beer cans littered the yard. Why did I deserve this? All I ever wanted was to be normal. To be happy. Instead, I got skull tattoos and the empty void where my parents were supposed to be.

I reminded myself that I was blessed; at least, that’s what people said. Teachers often told me I was beautiful, though to be honest, I didn’t understand why. Whenever I looked in a mirror, I saw only brown hair that refused to lie flat and eyes with colors that didn’t match. I glanced down at my body. The gentle rise of my breasts attracted more leering creepers than anything else. I’d taken to wearing full-throated shirts just so the pathetic boys in my classes would stop staring at me. I wore my backpack low, too, to hide how my jeans strained to keep my ass from wiggling all over the place.

I sighed. I needed to get the hell out of this town.

Blaze’s house was dark and quiet as I walked past. I couldn’t help but sneak a look at the window, just to see if I might be able to catch a glimpse of his muscular body silhouetted in the night. But there was nothing. Just cicadas and shadows.

I turned onto my driveway. In spite of the bikes out front, it didn’t look like anyone was home. The blinds were drawn and no noise came from inside. I started to walk past the broken-down car that hadn’t moved in years.

Out of nowhere, an arm snaked out and wrapped itself around my shoulders. I tried to scream, but a hairy hand clamped over my mouth.

Shh, girl, shhh, whispered Travis, one of my brother’s friends. His eyes were bloodshot and the stench of booze rolled off of him in waves. You’ll wake the neighbors makin’ all kindsa noise like that.

I bit his hand covering my mouth. He recoiled. Damn, girl! he barked. Ain’t no need for that! I’m jus’ tryin’ to say hi, is all. Play nice, okay?

I spat back at him. Hi, okay? Now get off me and let me go inside.

Instead of letting go, Travis drew me in closer. The smell of sweat and whiskey was overpowering. All I wanted was to get out of there, before something bad happened.

Aw, c’mon now, ’Livia, that’s no way to treat a friend of the fam’ly, he murmured. His lips were brushing against my ear. I