Alex in Wonderland (Twisted Fairytales #1) Read online

  Despite Margie, the tour started off smooth. Bobby led us, and we followed behind like little neon ducklings ready to listen to his every instruction. But as we headed down the iconic palm-tree-lined street better known as Sunset Boulevard, things took a turn for the worse.

  “Shit. Margie!” Bobby called from the front. “Get back on the sidewalk.”

  But apparently, she didn’t listen.

  In a blur of neon, she zoomed past me with her Segway on the actual road and proceeded to fly past everyone in our group, the instructor included.

  He continued to shout for her to slow down and get back on the sidewalk, but the woman was possessed by a speed demon. Her red hair flowed out from her head as she hauled ass up the street.

  Passing cars honked their disapproval. But Margie gave zero fucks.

  Well, she had given zero fucks, until a car backing out of a driveway stopped her momentum completely. She crashed into the passenger side with a loud thud. Her Segway hit the ground, and she followed its path straight until she ate pavement.

  Oh, shit! And I’d been thinking about killing her!

  For lack of anything better to do, everyone in our group awkwardly slowed to a stop. Which, I had to say, takes a fucking moment on a Segway. There was no quick stop and hop off on these things.

  Once his wheels had halted, Bobby jumped off his Segway in a rush. By the time he reached Margie, the driver was out of his car and asking if she was okay.

  She clumsily climbed to her feet and stared down at the scene with both hands on her hips. “Why didn’t it slow down? I was trying to slow it down,” she complained. “These tours are dangerous. I’m lucky I didn’t get killed!”

  Holy hell, this woman is nuts.

  Bobby ignored her complaints and somehow found the strength not to finish the job and strangle her in the middle of the road. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” she stated and attempted to walk to the sidewalk. But from the awkward, protruding state of her right knee, it looked like walking wasn’t the best idea.

  “I think you need to sit back down, Margie. Your knee looks really bad.”

  “I’m fine. No thanks to your Segway, but I’m fine,” she spat and tried to walk again, but her knee gave out, and she fell like a sack of potatoes to the cement.

  “Should I call an ambulance?” the driver asked Bobby.

  He nodded and sighed at the same time.

  All the while Margie lay on the ground, moaning and holding her knee, shouting profanities and threats of lawsuits.

  It was a shitshow. A Segway tour of insanity. Luckily, I wasn’t actually responsible for her accident, but it alarmed me how quickly I’d gone from valuing human life to thinking maybe, just maybe, she got what she deserved.

  Jesus Christ, what is Wonderland doing to me?

  Thirty minutes and no less than fifty threats of legal action later, Margie was inside of an ambulance and headed toward the hospital. Another truck had already arrived and was packing up our Segways in the bed. Apparently, after an accident occurs, they can’t proceed with the current tour.

  I had a feeling Bobby was all tapped out on tours for the day anyway. I couldn’t blame him. Fucking Margie ruined it for everyone.

  I fix problems, Matt’s voice sounded in my head. Angry at his refusal to leave me alone for the day, I shouted back at my subconscious. Well, it ended my fucking tour, so I’d say your strategy needs some work!

  Once we were transported back to home base and Bobby had refunded everyone’s money, I decided that a shopping trip was much-needed after that disaster.

  I hopped on the bus and rode it back toward downtown LA and got off a few blocks before my apartment to visit a cute little lingerie shop I’d heard was amazing. Gorgeous collection without the designer price tags. A perfect combination.

  One foot into Undressed, and I was in lingerie heaven—silk, cashmere, cotton, in all various soft and bright colors. A girl could get lost in a place like this—especially me. Lingerie was a weakness.

  From bras to panties to lingerie sets, this little boutique had quite the collection that spanned from everyday use to utterly beautiful and quietly seductive pieces.

  Yeah, I’ll be spending some time here today.

  After perusing every nook and cranny of the store, I headed into the dressing room with my hands overflowing with sexy undergarments.

  Sure, I was single and didn’t exactly have anyone to show these to, but that wasn’t the point. Sometimes, a girl needed to remind herself she was beautiful and sexy. Our beauty and confidence didn’t lie behind someone else’s eyes.

  It lay within us.

  It also didn’t matter that I’d spent an hour in another shop called Silk, only a few blocks from my apartment, just yesterday. Lingerie shopping knew no bounds.

  Clad in a soft pink and very see-through bra and panty set, I stood in front of the floor-length mirror. My gaze moved over my body, scanning it all. The beauty. The imperfections and flaws. Me.

  I felt pretty and sexy, and I couldn’t deny the soft, sheer material was crazy comfortable. I quite liked the set.

  I wonder what would Matt think of this? Would it turn him on? Would it make him hard? God, I want to see him hard again…

  My eyes went wide of their own accord as I stared at myself in the mirror. Had I really just thought that? I moved my gaze down to my chest and noted the hardened peaks of my nipples damn near poking through the material. Jesus, I was standing inside of a lingerie dressing room fantasizing about Matt’s penis. I was a pervert.

  As I reached for the next bra to try on, my phone started ringing inside my purse and startled the fucking shit out of me. With shaking hands, I bumbled it out of the front pocket and my jaw practically hit the floor when I saw Matt Hadder’s name flashing across the screen.

  What in the ever-loving fuck? It was like he knew I was thinking about him or something.

  My internal debate over whether I could handle talking to him or not was short-lived. I answered by the third ring. “Hello?”

  “I like the black lace set you bought yesterday better,” he said by way of greeting. “Although, I guess I can’t be certain until I actually see them both.”

  “What?” My eyes damn near popped out of my head, and I quickly looked around the dressing room in confusion. “How do you know what I bought yesterday? Wait…how do you even know where I’m at or what I’m doing?”

  Was he following me?

  Holy fucking shit.

  “I think you should try on that set in soft blue,” he said, ignoring my questions completely. “I’m a big fan of that shade. It matches your eyes.”

  “I’m so confused right now,” I muttered, and he responded with a soft chuckle.

  “Open up, little one,” he murmured. “I’ve got something else for you to try on.”

  Three soft knocks to my dressing room door followed his words. Startled, I dropped the bra out of my shaky hands and all but jumped out of my skin.

  I cracked it open and found Matt standing on the other side, holding the soft blue bra and panty set.

  “You’re here?” I asked with wide eyes.

  He merely smirked and gently pushed the door wider so he could walk inside. He shut it with a quiet click once his large frame dominated the small space of my dressing room.

  I stood frozen in my spot in the sheerest fucking lingerie imaginable. Nipples, areolas, it was the full fucking monty. All my goods were on display beneath the soft pink material.

  How nice. Just like the day we met.

  But no words were exchanged.

  Instead, Matt stood at my back, staring at me in the reflection of the mirror. His honey gaze slowly moved down my body, stopping briefly at my hardening nipples, until he took a long pause at the apex of my thighs.

  His lips curved up into a slow and seductive smile at the sight.

  “The pink is better than I imagined,” he whispered into my ear. “But I need to see the blue to be sure.”


  I didn’t know how to respond to that. Didn’t even need to respond. Enthralled, I watched his long, sexy fingers slide up my arms and around my back until they unclasped the bra. He removed it with sure but careful movements.

  I didn’t stop him. Didn’t try to stop him. Didn’t want to stop him.

  Frozen to my spot, I stood there and watched as his fingers barely skimmed my skin as he removed the panties, leaving me completely bared for his heady gaze. As he slid the soft blue bra over my aching breasts, I clenched my thighs together to quell the constant throbbing that had taken hold. And when he slowly slid the panties up my legs and over my ass, a shiver ran up my spine, goose bumps following in its wake.

  Matt gripped my hips and gently pulled my back to his chest. I felt the hardness of his arousal through the sheer material covering my ass.

  Jesus. He was hard. And big.

  I wanted to see it. I wanted to turn around and unbuckle his belt, unzip his pants, and bare his aroused cock for my greedy gaze.

  But before I could find the courage to give in to my desire, his hands moved to my shoulders, and he spun me around to face him.

  Vivid, intense, amber eyes, strong jaw, full lips. God, he was handsome. I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever realized how handsome Matt Hadder really was until that moment.

  “Buy them both,” he said, and, with a steady hand, he slid a wad of money into the bra. “But wear the blue tonight.”

  “Tonight?” I asked and realized it was literally the first word I’d spoken since he’d stepped inside the room.

  “Another party,” he answered. “Be there at eight. I’ll text you the address.”

  I nodded, trying to swallow the accumulating saliva in my mouth before it overflowed. It’d be good for my dry throat anyway.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he said as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

  I just stared back at him, my mouth unable to form words.

  With a soft smirk etching his full, sexy lips, he gazed into my eyes for a long moment. And then, without another word, he was gone.

  FOR TWO DAYS, I’D WATCHED Alex Little take the information I’d given her about Vinnie Pat—and the subsequent insight into the business of me and Wonderland as a whole—and do absolutely nothing with it.

  She hadn’t shared it, sold it, and as far as I could tell by listening to a few recorded sessions from her apartment, she hadn’t even confronted it internally.

  Instead, she’d shopped for lingerie twice, gone for ice cream, watched approximately eleven hours of One Tree Hill on Netflix consecutively, strolled Rodeo Drive with a latte, not going into a single store, and gone for a Hollywood style tour on a Segway.

  Obviously, it hadn’t taken Cal long to warm to his new assignment as her tail.

  Each hour that passed, he became more enamored of her—and more protective of her. It was just as I’d hoped.

  Of course, the more he spoke of her and her unusual outings, the more I’d wanted to be a part of them. To see her, follow her, know what she was thinking about every dirty detail I’d revealed and even those of a fictitious nature she’d extrapolated from them.

  I’d given in to my weak will eventually, joining her at the lingerie store on the second day. I could still feel the silk of her skin on my fingertips from dressing her. They throbbed with an unsatisfied ache, begging me to reunite our skin again.

  Jessie Cat’s signature strut caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, and I reached out and grabbed her elbow to pull her to a stop.

  She jerked at the unknown contact, relaxing as soon as she saw it was me. “Matt? What are you doing here? These parties aren’t normally your scene.”

  We were at a modern mansion in the Hollywood Hills for Justin Wilkes, one of the hottest young pop music sensations to hit the radio waves. He was green, easily impressionable, and not quite old enough to have his own wants and desires. Reading him wouldn’t tell me anything about his party needs because he didn’t have any other than pleasing the people around him. Popularity. It was what had gotten him here, and simultaneously, the only thing he strived for.

  As a result, the most prominent part of this party was drugs. Illicit, prescription, experimental—it didn’t matter.

  To me, it was all the same, and as Jessie Cat said, it wasn’t something I normally focused on.

  But I’d come for Alex. It’d be her first party with this many people under the influence of mind-altering substances, and I didn’t like the idea of being somewhere other than here should anything go south.

  Not that I’d tell Jessie Cat or anyone else that.

  “You know I like to check in from time to time,” I told her with a wink, shaking my glass to emphasize the uncovered ice.

  Jessie caught the hint. “Of course. It’s good to see you. I’ll bring you another drink.”

  Across the room, I watched as Alex bent over to serve a group of twentysomething-year-old men who’d just finished snorting a few lines of cocaine.

  All eyes were on her breasts, so exposed, the sheer blue lace of the lingerie I’d put on her myself peeking out from the top of her thin white shirt.

  Jessie’s gaze followed my own as I ordered, “Have Alex bring it.”

  She nodded knowingly—at least, what she thought was knowingly—and strode straight to Alex to relay the directive.

  I looked on as Alex leaned closer to hear Jessie over the music, and I knew the very moment my name was mentioned. Skittering and skidding, Alex’s eyes jumped frantically from the carpet directly to my own, as if she’d known where I was all along. But I knew from the hour I’d spent following her every move, and the unnaturally wide set of her pretty blue eyes, she’d had no idea.

  Even from this distance, I could see the pebbles of her teasingly hard nipples cutting tiny cones into the crisp fabric of her shirt.

  That’s right, little one. I’m watching you.

  Jessie gave her a squeeze on the arm as she stepped around her and headed for the bar, and then with one last curious look at me, headed down the hall to check on the only two pleasure girls attending this party.

  Alex didn’t look over once as she waited for the bartender to finish putting my drink together, but I didn’t mind the view. The bottom swells of her ass peeped out from the bottom of her sinfully short skirt, a uniform of Justin Wilkes’s request, and her legs looked twice as long in the five-inch heels she had on.

  Scotch settled on her tray, she picked it up and rested it on her forearm before turning toward me and walking in my direction. Her steps were slow, seemingly calculated as she neared. I didn’t wait for her to make it awkward.

  “Have a seat,” I instructed instead, taking the scotch from her tray without ceremony and placing it on the table in front of me.

  She glanced to the couch and back to me before taking the spot I’d offered and setting her tray to the side.

  “You look as good as frozen lemonade on a hot beach day,” I complimented.

  “I look like lemonade,” she semi-repeated, her voice no mask for her dissatisfaction with the analogy.

  I smirked. Oh yes. “Entirely drinkable,” I explained playfully, stroking the skin of her breast with the backs of my fingers. “Will you let me imbibe, Alex? I’m exceedingly thirsty.”

  Fingers toying with the exposed fabric of her bra, I leaned in to put my mouth to her neck. She tasted like salted candy as I sucked a spot right in the middle before teasing the sensitive skin with a swirl of my tongue.

  Her breathing was ragged as she stuttered, trying to take both of our focus off of what I was doing. “Frozen lemonade on the beach, huh? What would you know about frozen lemonade on the beach?”

  I smiled into the skin of her throat, nipping at the rising goose bumps with my teeth until her hand shot up to grab me by the neck. It shook there, fighting itself and me, trying to pull me to her at the same time as she pushed away.

  “I was a child once,” I mused, pulling back to meet her eyes—and to give he
r a moment to collect herself. I could smell her arousal as she pushed the flesh of her thighs together to mute it, and my cock was so hard I could use it to give Mickey another black eye.

  “You? A child?” she commented disbelievingly. “I thought for sure you were an immaculate conception born of the devil himself.”

  A memory of my mother laid out in her casket while men and women stood around whispering insults and judging her life flashed in my mind, but I suppressed it. I knew the truth about what the devil really was, and he wasn’t even one small part of the woman who’d loved me enough to take me to the beach for frozen lemonade every chance she got, despite having no money for herself.

  “Do you find me that evil?” I asked openly, searching Alex’s eyes and running my hand up the inside of her thigh until it just graced the lace covering her pussy.

  She shook her head and shivered at once. “No. Just bad.”

  I smirked again, curling my finger into the material of her panties and ever so slightly pulling the delicate material away from her flesh. The cool air of the party rushed over the wet heat I’d created and made her clamp her thighs together over my hand. Moving toward her once more, I bent in and put my lips directly to the shell of her ear. “Ah. But doesn’t it feel good to be bad sometimes, little one?”

  She didn’t answer—other than the moan she couldn’t contain when just the tip of my finger skimmed the wet warmth of her arousal—but she did scowl when I removed my hand and sat back.

  “That’s it?” she asked almost irately.

  This time it was me who chose to forgo verbal affirmation. Sometimes actions were more powerful.

  Slowly enough that she could follow the movement all the way, I took my finger, ripe with her sweet honey and brought it to my mouth for a taste. I hummed as her sugary juice hit my tongue for the first time.

  Fuck me. I was going to destroy her perfect pussy the first time I got my mouth on it; eat from her for hours until she didn’t have any more to offer.