Broken Dreams
Abbie Roads
(Beautiful Nightmare, #2)
Publication date: May 9th 2023
Genres: Adult, Dark Romance, Romance

A stalker. A killer. A v!rg!n hero who will sacrifice himself to save the woman he loves.

FBI Special Skills Consultant Lathan Montgomery has a genetic anomaly that he uses to solve cold cases, but it forces him to live in seclusion. When he saves a woman from a roadside attack, instead of her presence causing him to lose control, she soothes him. For the first time in his life, he experiences love.

But someone is watching them and planning to make them both suffer.

Broken Dreams is the second book in Abbie Roads’ Beautiful Nightmare Series of dark romantic thrillers. It features a v!rg!n hero who never thought he’d find love. If you devour true crime and romance novels then you’ll love a series that combines both in a roller-coaster ride of danger, mind games, and swoon worthy love.

Buy this dangerously dark romance today!

Trigger warning: Depictions of SA and violence.

Previously published under the title Hunt the Dawn

Goodreads / Amazon

EXCERPT

Psstt… Lathan is hearing impaired.

He opened the throttle on his Fat Bob and surged forward at a reckless speed, full concentration locked on navigating the twisting roads. Countryside blurred by him. Bad thoughts got left behind, replaced by the thrill.

A tow truck parked in the middle of the narrow pavement forced him to slow.

Vehicles rarely traveled this far out into the country. Probably horny teenagers, frantic for a place to screw, had broken down and needed a tow. He skirted the edge of the pavement and started to pass.

The lollipop-red Miata on the other side of the tow truck grabbed his attention for only a second, but the woman standing in front of the car, waving her shoes at him, completely captured him.

Her skyscraper legs ended in a pair of miniscule black shorts. The neckline of her shirt plunged to the valley between her breasts. And those shiny black shoes she gestured with were hooker-sexy in her hands—he didn’t dare imagine what they’d look like on her feet.

Pressure built inside his torso like a dangerous case of indigestion. The air flowing over his face stung like a charge of electric current. His grip on the handlebars faltered. The bike wobbled. He felt unsteady as a kid without training wheels.

When he drove by her, the pungent scent of garlic permeated the air. Fear. Fear always stunk.

Was she frightened of his appearance? Typical reaction. One he counted on to keep people away. He steadied the bike, and continued forward without increasing his speed.

Something was peculiar about her. Something felt peculiar within him.

He had to meet her.

He gripped the brake. Hard. His Fat Bob fishtailed around on the pavement. He turned the bike in a tight U-ey in the middle of the road and saw what scared her. A guy crouched in the ditch, nearly hidden by her car, creeping toward her as stealthy as a hawk stalking a rabbit.

“Behind you!” As he shouted the words—words he wasn’t certain she could hear over the roar of his bike—the guy sprang. Grabbed her arm. She whirled around, awkward in her movements, her limbs loose like a rag-doll ballerina. She pushed at the guy, tried to pull away from him, but the guy shook her, shoved her. She fell to the pavement, landed on her butt and elbows, shoes bucking from her hands. Pain hacked across her face.

Every muscle, every tendon, every cell inside Lathan clenched. Fury zipped along his neural pathways, then outward to his extremities. He shot forward on his Fat Bob, closing the distance between them in mere seconds. He didn’t even stop the bike, just dropped it and launched himself at the guy, tackling him, driving him back until the car stopped their momentum.

Underneath him, the guy’s muscles strained like a slingshot pulled back, ready to snap. Lathan tensed, bracing for the blow, the swing toward his ribs the only move open. “Go ahead. Try it.”

The guy punched. Lathan blocked, then mashed his fist into the guy’s ribs. Lathan stepped back, watched the guy fold over, clutching his side. A plug to the ribs hurt, but it wasn’t on the scale of a knockout. Someone who buckled from a simple rib shot probably only picked on women and the weak. When confronted with someone he couldn’t easily dominate, this guy wimped out.

Lathan turned to the woman sprawled on the road.

She didn’t quite wear the holy-crap expression he expected, but she gaped at him with wide doe eyes the color of the sky on a full-moon night. Flecks of gray twinkled in the irises. Her eyes drew him in, engulfing him in their depths. He swore he glimpsed a shard of heaven.

His heartbeat shifted to a lackadaisical rhythm. His breathing relaxed until the metallic mineral tang of blood mixed with the garlic of her fear. She was injured and still scared.

“Are you okay?” His gaze locked on her lips to read her words, but she didn’t speak. He’d read that telling a person your name put them at ease. “My name is Lathan.” He knelt next to her, careful to keep the guy in his peripheral vision, and held his gloved hand out to her.

She grabbed his hand with greedy strength. She sat up but didn’t release him. “I’m a funny.”

His eyes read her words, but his ears heard nonsense.

I’m a funny?  Did she hit her head? Or was he not reading the words right? V’s and f’s looked exactly same. Vunny? Avunny? Didn’t make sense.

The guy lurched to his feet, reached into his shirt pocket, and removed a yellow paper. Stitched across that pocket was the name Junior. Great. Somewhere out there was a Senior, who was probably just as big a jerk as his son.

“She’s none of…business.” Junior’s volume was loud enough Lathan heard the essentials. He rose to his full height. He had at least four inches and fifty pounds on Junior.

Still clutching his hand, the woman scrambled to her feet and hid behind him. He had a solid hunch that if she could, she’d open a door on his spine, crawl inside, and hide until Junior left.

“She’s standing with me, holding my hand. I’d say she’s my business.”

Author Bio:

Abbie Roads is the best-selling author of the Fatal Dreams Series and the Fatal Truth Series. Her novels have been finalists in many prestigious contests including The Golden Heart, The Greater Detroit Booksellers Best, The Oklahoma National Readers’ Choice Award, The Write Touch, The Strut Your Stuff Contest, The Aspen Gold Contest, The Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, The Heart of Excellence Readers’ Choice Award, The Midnight Sun, The Kathryn Hayes Contest, The Chanticleer, The Daphne du Maurier, The National Readers’ Choice Award, The New England Readers’ Choice Contest, The Beverly Award, and The Maggie Award. Her debut novel Race the Darkness was Publishers Weekly Top 10 Pick for Fall and Never Let Me Fall is an Amazon Editor’s Pick.

By day Abbie Roads is a mental health counselor always focusing on the bright side. By night she writes on the dark side, putting her characters through the wringer before she gives them their happily-ever-after. She loves a good inspirational quote and is a fan of true crime.

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