RELEASE TOUR: Crave by CF White
Length: 85k words
Series: Pretty Poison 1
Prior Reading: n/a, first in series
Genre: Contemporary Dark Gritty Romance
Tropes: Opposites Attract/Class Divide, Forbidden Romance, Instalust/Obsession, Morally grey antihero, good boy drawn to the dark
Trigger/Content Warnings: drug use, gang violence, criminal activity, power imbalance, class-based prejudice, emotional manipulation, obsession, and a non-HEA ending in Book One. (This is book one of three – there IS an HEA coming, don’t worry!)
Designer: Kelly Martin
“He was everything I didn’t want. Danger dressed in leather. Salvation wrapped in smoke. And once I tasted him, I couldn’t stop. He was in my blood. My sweetest poison.”
https://getbook.at/PrettyPoison1
Razor
I control the drugs in East London for a man with a soul darker than the devil’s. Violence kept me breathing. Loyalty kept my sister and her baby fed. Control was the only thing I’d ever owned.
Then he walked into my world and tore it apart.
Tristan Hale-Fitzroy.
Rich. Beautiful. Irresistible. A bloke who should’ve run when he saw me coming. Instead, he stood his ground with lies on his lips and defiance in his eyes. And I was hooked on something far stronger than anything I’d ever peddled on the streets.
I knew he didn’t belong.
I knew he’d ruin me.
I let him anyway.
Tristan
I was born into privilege and raised inside suffocating expectation. Performing perfection on demand kept me obedient. My status kept me in lavish luxury. Until betrayal showed me the truth—I had everything except control.
So I went looking for something real and found him.
Razor Slade.
Rough. Raw. Untouchable. A man carved hard by the streets. He thought I was simply another transaction in his violent world. I let him believe it, because the truth was far more dangerous.
He wasn’t my escape.
He was my addiction.
I was desperate for another taste.
Crave is the first book in the Pretty Poison Trilogy—a dark, addictive MM romance set in London’s criminal underworld, about forbidden desire, class collision, moral corruption, and choosing love in a world designed to punish it.
EXCERPT:
Back in my car, I hunkered down to watch the front door as if it was an altar, lighting a cigarette. I smoked the whole thing, eyes on. Then I flicked the stub into the gutter when I saw movement. A figure came off the station towards the row. I ducked lower. Lie if I said my heart didn’t jack up. Because it was him: my gutter boy, walking straight for the house. He looked different here, though. Nice chinos, clean boots, cashmere under a coat costing more than my rent. Leather laptop bag slung across one shoulder. Earbuds in, little white stalks framed by smooth as silk honey-blond hair, wind ruffling it just so. The whole package sat wrong on my road and proper on this side of town.
Pretty boy did things to me I wasn’t used to.
Pulled at something stupid and dangerous.
I breathed, told myself to move like I meant it. Then I counted to three, shouldered open the car door and got out, lurching like a shadow across the road. He had one foot on the step, slipping a hand into his bag when I clamped mine over his mouth, circling his waist with my other arm and yanked him back so hard our bodies collided, all sharp bones and startled heat.
And fuck…
If I said I didn’t feel anything at the press of him like that, I’d be lying.
I gave no warning, though. Used the silent stealth I’d learnt on the streets and dragged him down the alley until the wall stopped us both. There, I slammed him into it, face first, brick meeting his delicate skin. He gasped, fear bleeding out into something else entirely.
I didn’t want to see what it was, though. Couldn’t afford to.
Not if I wanted what I came for.
Which wasn’t him.
But for a moment, I kept us there like that. Crushing my bulk into his back, pinning him to the wall, my breath hot at his ear and his warming the inside of my palm. I could feel his pulse right through his lips, and everything in me strung tight on the wrong charge.
“You don’t make a sound,” I said, low and close enough for the words to graze his skin. My hips were tight against him; I could feel tremors running through every inch of him and the way his body tried not to move. I didn’t mean to get hard, but fuck, he smelt of money and cologne and some sweet poison I couldn’t shake. “You make one sound when I take my hand off, and I’ll open you up. Got it?”
He nodded, eyes wide, then darted his gaze to try and see me.
I eased my hand away, giving him space. He didn’t run. Didn’t even try to move. He stayed there pinned to the wall, too frightened to look, swallowing down his fear. So I grabbed his shoulder and yanked him around.
Up close, there was fear, yeah. He trembled. But under it, something else pulsed. Cause his eyes, Christ, they burnt like firelight. Temptation wrapped in panic. A fucking siren. I’d never seen eyes like that. Eyes pulling me in, looking as if they saw straight through the noise and dirt.
about the author:
CF White writes gritty British based stories about imperfect men falling in love against the odds and has been accused of sprinkling a bit of humour into them from time to time too. Because what’s life without sprinkles?
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CC Belle 