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Caught Up: Chapter 9

Lauren

Junior was at Velvet. Sitting in the voyeur room. Right next to me. After he’d just given me a ten-year-late apology like it was no big deal.

My brain couldn’t process what was happening. How had he found me? Had he followed me all day after church? Or had I somehow summoned him with my unholy thoughts? After this morning’s possession, I couldn’t rule out the paranormal.

I turned my head just enough to side-eye him. Black boots. Black pants. Black button-down. Paired with the black half mask and tattoos, he looked like exactly what he was: an obvious sex demon come to claim my horny soul.

I craned my neck even farther, catching Taylor’s gaze two rows back.

IS THAT HIM? she scream-mouthed at me, pointing at Junior’s back. She must have seen him walk in (matching his description to the one I’d given her earlier) and then talk to me and made a lucky guess.

I nodded, and that traitor swooned sideways into her boyfriend and started fanning herself. Jackson, a nearly seven-foot-tall redhead who was just as unserious as his girlfriend, caught sight of me and waved emphatically, a huge grin splitting his face.

No help there.

I turned the other way and tried to find Ryan in the crowd but couldn’t spot them. Panic swirled in my belly. Junior had to leave. Now. Before things really got started. Maybe I could find some way to force him out, threaten to call the cops or something. I didn’t want him here, in my safe space. This was for me, my friends, and like-minded people, and Junior wasn’t among them. He was a ghost from my old life who ran in backward, misogynistic circles. I doubted he’d understand, let alone approve of what was about to take place.

Shit, what if he ruined this? Made some gross joke or said something offensive in the middle of the scene? Or worse, kink-shamed everyone in here?

My face started burning with anticipatory embarrassment. I had to get rid of him.

Uncrossing my legs, I leaned over just enough to whisper, “Leave, or I’ll call in a bomb threat and blame it on you.”

He cocked a brow. “That feels like an overreaction.”

“Don’t test me. I have Homeland Security on speed dial.”

The bastard lifted his hand and brushed my hair over my shoulder, exposing my ear so he could whisper back, “Call them. I dare you.”

And then he kissed my neck.

My entire body clenched up, and not with the rage or fear or disgust I should be feeling.

Oh, this was bad. All the years I’d spent exploring kinks with past partners were coming back to bite me in the ass. Because the fear play, rough sex, and danger were just pretend, and I’d been protected by safe words. Junior was the real deal, might pose an actual threat to me, and instead of being freaked out like I should have been, I was turned on.

This time, I didn’t even have a raunchy nun to blame it on. This was all me.

Belatedly, I wrenched myself away from him. Shit, shit, shit.

Onstage, Morgan finished untying Stephanie’s second heel and slowly set it on the ground. Then he lifted her leg and planted a kiss on her toes. She made a low hum of approval, and he began kneading the ball of her foot in a way I knew must feel like heaven.

Soft music filtered down from the speakers, low, melodic, sensual but not in an overt way. The song was more of a suggestion, a promise of pleasure to come. I was starting to get desperate.

“Please,” I whispered, turning back to Junior.

He dragged his gaze to mine—he’d been focused on the couple onstage. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to embarrass you.”

I blinked. How had he known where my thoughts had gone?

He shifted sideways, bumping his shoulder against mine. “Because I know you, Lo.”

I glared at him. The actual nerve of this man. Ten years had passed since the last time we’d seen each other, and a lot had changed in that time. He didn’t know the first thing about me, and I resented the insinuation that he did.

I shot him one last warning look, trying not to get sucked into the vortex of his green eyes, and then faced forward in my seat. Lord help him if he didn’t keep his word or his chill through what was about to play out in front of us, because I wouldn’t be so forgiving.

I hadn’t been lying when I said this was my place. Velvet was a shared-ownership club, with my friend Sylvia holding the largest stake. Ryan, Taylor, myself, and several other acquaintances and performers held smaller portions, having bought in when times were tough to give the club a much-needed boost and keep it afloat. We all believed in Velvet. We were invested, not just financially, but with our whole hearts, willing to do whatever it took to keep this safe space open and thriving.

Onstage, Morgan’s fingers continued to work their way up his wife’s leg, moving from her foot to her ankle.

“That feels amazing,” she told him.

Normally, at this part of the scene, I’d be feeling the beginning stages of arousal, but instead of a welcome rush of soft desire, my body was at war with itself. What I felt was closer to aggression. Electric, charged. Uncomfortable. Far from what I’d come to expect at Velvet. And it was all because of the man at my side. I might not have thought of him much over the past decade, but now I couldn’t stop the flood of memories from breaching the dam. Him fingering me beneath the fireworks. Me jerking him off in a stairwell at school. The night he’d snuck into my bedroom and I lost my virginity to him. Three days later, he’d denied ever knowing me.

I tried to look at it logically. Core memories were especially a thing when it came to a person’s first sexual encounters. We all had our own examples. Taylor couldn’t smell cigarettes mixed with cheap cologne without getting turned on. Likewise, Ryan experienced their first public boner after an especially handsome waiter served them mediocre pizza at a well-known chain restaurant, and now they couldn’t walk into one without having to quickly sit down.

My reaction to Junior was a natural response, but it didn’t have to mean anything more than that. Fighting it would only make it worse. Instead, I chose to accept that this was how he made me feel, physically, so I could move past it and focus on the more important matter: how he made me feel emotionally.

Which was confused. Very confused.

As much as I hated to admit it, our back-and-forth exchanges were kind of . . . fun. And he’d apologized so quickly after realizing he’d fucked up at church. Was that why he’d tracked me down? Just to say sorry? If that were the case, today’s stalking suddenly seemed a lot less concerning and a lot more, I don’t know, determined, maybe? I wasn’t used to men owning up to their mistakes like this, mostly because I wasn’t in the habit of giving them the chance to, and I didn’t know how to feel about it. I also hadn’t missed Junior’s last comment: I figured it was better people thought you were just another obsessed moll than someone important to me.

I’d been important to him back then? That was surprising. Before the fair, he’d never even looked at me, and he’d dropped me so fast afterward that I figured our hookups meant nothing to him.

No. He must have been lying when he said that, trying to get into my pants. It’d been so easy back then and he thought it’d be just as easy now. Well, it wouldn’t be. He was a huge part of why I had so many trust issues, and I wasn’t about to let him charm me into forgetting that.

I sent him a sideways glance, but he seemed too distracted by the couple onstage to notice. His gaze was fixed on them, spine straight, body almost completely still, only the steady rise and fall of his chest to indicate his mood. I’d seen other people who’d jumped into the deep end at Velvet before they were ready, and they’d looked nothing like Junior. They’d been twitchy, obviously nervous, unable to watch what was happening in front of them, looking everywhere but at the stage. Junior was a man transfixed. Like he was caught in the spell that Morgan and Stephanie were casting over the audience.

Huh. Maybe I didn’t have to worry about him embarrassing me after all.

I faced the stage, still battling my inner turmoil. And to think, before Junior showed up, I’d been having a nice moment with . . . what was his name again? Oh, right, Kevin. Or was it Carl? Shit. Faces, I never forgot, but names were my nemesis. Either way, there had been some chemistry there. Kevin-ormaybe-Carl had been soft spoken, affable, and obviously interested: The perfect person to share a bit of fun with because the stakes were so low. Maybe once the show was done, I could find him again. Send Junior packing and go back to having a good night.

A soft moan echoed through the room, and I let my thoughts of Junior slip away as I turned my whole focus back to the scene. Morgan had kissed his way up Stephanie’s leg, all the way to her inner thighs. The red dress she wore was hitched around her hips, and she’d arched forward, arms straining as she gripped the seat of the chair behind her. As I watched, Morgan shifted closer, opening her legs wide enough that the audience could see when he hooked a finger into her underwear and gently tugged it aside, revealing her to us.

Her pussy was waxed bare, the folds of her lips already shiny with the evidence of her arousal. The frenetic energy of my own desire shifted at the sight into a calmer, more welcome heat. Morgan and Steph were my favorite couple to watch. Not only were they both hot as hell, but their love for each other was palpable. And their lust? Good lord. It set the room on fire.

They also came from a theater background, so they had fantastic stage presence and understood how to pose themselves so the audience got the best view of every touch, stroke, and lick. I’d been hoping to find a willing partner in the crowd—audience participation was more than welcome at Velvet—but this might be even better, getting turned on to the point of discomfort before finally finding release on the fingers or tongue or cock of someone else. If Kevin/Carl was no longer an option, I’d seen Moriah downstairs earlier, a gorgeous femme who bore a striking resemblance to Zoe Saldana. We’d hooked up here several times before, and she’d recently split from her girlfriend. Was two weeks post-breakup too soon to make my move?

Up front, Morgan made a low sound of masculine approval that rumbled through the room. I shivered. His voice was trained for the stage, deep, resonant, one of those voices that could probably talk you into an orgasm under the right conditions, no touching required.

He glanced up at his wife. “You’re soaked, Steph.”

She drew him closer, her smile turning seductive. “What are you going to do about it?”

With a low groan, he leaned in. If they were alone, he probably would have gotten straight to work, but a little teasing went a long way, both for the audience, and your partner, and Morgan understood that better than most. One big hand went to her knee, spreading her wider, showing us just how much she wanted him.

“Here?” he asked, kissing her thigh.

She shook her head and exhaled a breathy “no.”

He shifted to the other leg. “Here?”

“Almost,” she told him.

He lifted a finger and stroked it down the crease of her inner thigh, and I was close enough to see the full-body shiver roll through her. Morgan repeated the motion on the other side, taking his sweet time, moving his finger a little so that he nearly brushed her folds on the way past. The tease.

Behind me, people started to shift in their seats, and I grinned. Their impatience was palpable. I could almost hear them begging, Just touch her already! But Morgan was immune to peer pressure. Instead, he leaned in and breathed over Stephanie’s heated flesh, making her toes curl and her arms strain from gripping the chair so tightly.

Just when I thought he might finally taste her, he started to pull away. Someone let out a disbelieving whimper in the crowd, and we all laughed, glad that the tension had been broken. There was almost always a moment like this in a scene, usually early on, that helped both the performers and the crowd settle in.

“Let’s get you out of these,” Morgan said, his melodic voice tinged with amusement as he gripped the sides of Stephanie’s underwear.

She lifted just enough to let him slip them over her hips. And then he was dragging them down her legs, taking his time to drop kisses on her skin. Once her underwear were past her feet, he pulled them to his face, breathing deeply.

“I love the smell of you,” he said, low, guttural.

Junior shifted beside me, dragging me out of the moment. My gaze snapped to him, expecting the worst, even though he’d promised to behave, but he was only readjusting himself.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, I begged myself, but down went my eyes, just in time to catch the outline of his obvious arousal beneath his dark pants.

Goddamn it.

I wrenched my gaze away, trying to calm my pulse. Junior was as turned on as I was by what we were watching, and I didn’t know what to do with that information.

How about this? my brain helpfully supplied, flashing an image of him fucking me from behind, one hand dug into my hair, the other gripping my hip, his expression ruthless, thrusts brutal. I nearly swore, wondering what I’d ever done to my brain for it to suddenly turn against me like this.

Onstage, Morgan balled his wife’s underwear up and slipped them into his pocket, and I lost all control of my heartrate. Something about that was so innately sexy to me. Like he’d put them there for safekeeping, or to pull them back out and sniff them later, whenever he needed another hit of his wife. It spoke of possession, obsession, and there was nothing hotter to me than someone who was so unselfconsciously infatuated with their partner.

Morgan leaned back in, his wide shoulders making room between Steph’s knees. She arched her back, scooting closer to him, and he wrapped his arms under her thighs and gripped her hips, holding her in place.

A low moan echoed from the far corner of the room. The sound of shifting fabric filled my ears. We’d reached the point of audience participation, and I knew that if I turned around, I’d find people making out or surreptitiously touching their partners in the darkness. Some nights, I sat in the front row because I wanted all my focus on the show. Others, I chose the way back, so I could watch not only the stage, but everyone around me. I was still undecided as to which was hotter. As a voyeur, it was hard to choose.

Morgan finally put us out of our misery, leaning in without hesitation, his fingers dimpling his wife’s hips as he fit his mouth to her pussy. The moan she let out was low and ragged, a sound that raised goose bumps along my skin. Morgan angled his head slightly, and whatever he’d done made Steph shudder, her lips popping open to form a perfect O of surprise.

“Again,” she said, releasing the chair to palm her own breasts.

Morgan repeated the movement. With another moan, Steph exposed her chest and bumped her fingers over her nipples. The sight made me want to squirm in my seat. God, these two were fucking hot.

“Touch yourself,” Steph panted.

Morgan didn’t have to be told twice. He dropped a hand to the waistband of his pants and made quick work of the button and zipper. His cock sprang free, and then one big hand was wrapped around it, his arm bobbing as he worked himself.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I glanced sideways again, wondering what Junior thought of all this. The mob was notorious for its misogyny and machismo. Watching another man jerk off was probably against all their unwritten rules and could get you labeled as whatever their current favorite homophobic slur was. But Junior didn’t look like he was ready to bolt. He was tilted just slightly forward in his seat, watching the stage with rapt attention, his gaze shifting from where Morgan’s head was buried in his wife’s pussy, up to where Steph played with herself and back again like he couldn’t decide where he’d rather look.

Was he . . . into this?

A glance at his lap revealed that he was now rock hard. I could see the entire outline of his large dick shoved down a pant leg. That couldn’t be comfortable. It must have been hot and tight, cutting off blood flow, and . . . oh no. Now wasn’t the time to imagine him pulling it out to readjust himself. But there went my goddamn mind anyway, reminding me of how smooth it was, the way he’d liked it when I’d licked my way around the underside of his head. Saliva pooled in my mouth at the memory of trying to fit something that big down my throat.

He shifted, like he felt me watching him, and started to turn my way.

I snapped my gaze back to the stage before getting caught. Real nice, Lauren. Vow to never think of the man again only to imagine gagging down his dick five seconds later.

An image of Taylor chanting Hate sex, hate sex, hate sex popped into my mind unbidden.

No. I couldn’t. That would be too much. Hook up with the man who’d stood by and watched my world burn to the ground? Absolutely not. I had too much self-respect for that. As soon as this scene was over, I’d go grab Moriah and the biggest strap-on I could find and fuck her in one of the upstairs bedrooms like the well-adjusted adult I was.

Stephanie let out a desperate moan, her hands falling from her breasts to her husband’s head. She dug her nails into his hair and gripped him tight, her hips shifting as she rode his face. Softer moans echoed hers throughout the crowd, and I heard hot, wet noises from a few rows back. I wouldn’t be surprised if Steph wasn’t the only one getting great head right now.

Instead of working himself faster, Morgan released his dick to put both hands on his wife’s hips, helping her thrust into him as he tongue-fucked her. I had to bite my lip to keep from whimpering at the sight, especially when Steph’s eyes fluttered shut and her head fell back.

“Babe, I’m close,” she said, moving at a frenetic pace.

Morgan, knowing what she needed, stayed right where he was, pulling her into him as she started to lose the rhythm. She came a heartbeat later, shuddering and moaning, a blush stealing into her cheeks as she called out her husband’s name. It was stunning, beyond sexy. All it would take at this moment was the brush of someone’s fingers against my clit and I would come, too.

Junior let out an audible exhale beside me. I saw his right hand white-knuckling his knee out of the corner of my eye. He turned my way, and, knowing it was probably a mistake, I lifted my eyes to his.

“Lo,” he said, his voice deliciously rough. His pupils were blown wide, a wild look in them that made me worry he was about to drag me to the floor and fuck me right here in front of everyone.

God help me, in my current state, I might let him.

This was the real reason I’d been so desperate for him to leave. I’d told myself that it was because I was afraid he would embarrass me, but the truth was, I was more worried I’d embarrass myself. Ryan and Taylor were in the crowd, and I’d just spilled my guts to them about how much Junior had hurt me. How pathetic would it look if I hooked up with him right after?

Movement onstage drew my gaze forward again. Morgan had scooped Steph off the chair, her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her to the bed.

The real show was about to begin.

Caught Up: the brand new sizzling dark romance from the author of TikTok sensation Lights Out (Into Darkness Book 2)

Caught Up: the brand new sizzling dark romance from the author of TikTok sensation Lights Out (Into Darkness Book 2)

Score 9
Status: Completed Type: Author: Released: June 10, 2025 Native Language: English

From the author of TikTok's favourite dark and steamy romance, Lights Out, comes Navessa Allen's second book in the New York Times bestselling Into Darkness trilogy

I want this woman, and I'm a man who always gets what he wants. Nico 'Junior' Trocci knows Lauren Marchetti is off limits. Men like him don't get to have women like her. It's why he pushed her away in high school and still keeps his distance. But Junior follows Lauren online, and now that the shy, bookish girl he remembers is gone, he can't stop obsessing over the strikingly beautiful woman who has taken her place. He's ruthless; a walking red flag. Good thing red is my favorite color. Lauren 'Lo' Marchetti knows Junior is dangerous. He broke her heart once and she won't let him do it again. But as their flirtatious encounters escalate, Lauren starts to remember why she fell for the brooding antihero all those years ago. As old obstacles resurface, Junior and Lauren are forced to face their true feelings for each other and decide just how far they're willing to go for a second chance at love. Caught Up is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally grey male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the content warning at the beginning of the book. 18+ mature content. Not suitable for younger readers.

Trigger Warnings

Caught Up is a dark, stalker romcom with heavy themes. Reader discretion is advised as this book contains:

Camwork

Sex work

Mafia and organized crime

Blackmail

Coercion

Religion

Blood

Violence

Gore (brief)

Graphic sex (including multi-partner)

Breath play

Primal play

Fear play

Voyeurism

Exhibitionism

Bondage

Light BDSM

Stalking

Child abuse

Domestic abuse (remembered)

Bullying (remembered)

Slut-shaming

Alcohol

Gambling

Smoking

Mention of serial killers and their crimes

Cannibalism (off-page, alluded to)

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