I gave in to temptation, but happily ever after was never part of the deal. Beautiful Liar (Arcadia U Book 2) MM Mafia Romance by Roxas Winters Release Blitz & Giveaway

SERIES TOUR and NEW RELEASE

Arcadia U Books 1 and 2 by Roxas Winters

Books 1 and 2 should be read in order. Neither of them ends in a cliffhangar.

Overall Heat Rating for the series: 4 flames

Publisher: Evernight Publishing

BOOK DETAILS

BOOK 2 - NEW RELEASE

Book Title: Beautiful Liar

Author: Roxas Winters

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Length: 80 000 words

Release Date: March 21, 2025

Genres: MM Contemporary Romance, mafia, college-age

Tropes: Second chances. forbidden love, obsessive love, secrets, alpha male

Themes: Hurt/Comfort, healing from abuse (abuse happens off page)

This story is best enjoyed after reading book one.

It does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links

Amazon US | Amazon UK

I gave in to temptation, but happily ever after was never part of the deal.

Blurb

Kieran

I gave in to temptation, but happily ever after was never part of the deal.

I am heir to a mafia kingdom and taking my place means leaving Arcadia behind. Arcadia U was built to house bastards of the criminal elite and wayward children of soldiers loyal to the four founding families. I am neither. When a death at the school puts everyone at risk, I return to keep my friends safe. But things have changed since the three months I've been gone. Loyalty must be earned, and my secrets revealed. But is it too late to save what I want most?

Tomás

I chose the enemy. I chose to be a secret. Kieran asked me to wait until he was ready, and I fell easily into the lies. But I have a lie of my own. After a death puts the school on lockdown, I'm forced to face a past I buried. A past that threatens everyone I love, including Kieran. To protect him, I must lie to him.

But lies fester. And the rot always finds a way out.

Excerpt from book 2

Tomás

“What did I tell you would happen if you ran from me?” The voice I knew so well whispered in my ear. All the tension lifted and for a slight second, I let myself be vulnerable. Kieran had come for me. The reaction to him that got me in this mess in the first place—trusting Kieran. Giving him space in my heart. But he hadn’t come back when he promised. He hadn’t been there when I needed him. Ignoring my body’s response to him, I wasn’t my dick, I moved. I just wanted to feel physical pain, so damn tired of the pain I couldn’t reach inside, the itch I couldn’t scratch burrowed under my skin.

I twisted my body, grabbed his arm meaning to throw him over my shoulder to the floor, but the fucker was fast. A surprised inhale brushed my cheeks. Oddly satisfying in my current pissed off state. I didn’t get to slam him against the floor. Fucker had cat reflexes. His feet landed on the counter, and he used the leverage to push off, sending me back against the refrigerator hard. Shit tumbled around us. He used me to keep his footing, pushing off and putting space between us.

The low light was enough to still get a good look at his face. Three months and four days hadn’t changed his appearance. He looked … good. As if he hadn’t suffered like I had. As if he hadn’t cared. I wanted to talk shit, but my ruined voice would only come out meek, cracked, broken. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing me pathetic, so I said nothing.

Kieran took my silence as submission. He narrowed the gap between us. “What is your problem?” he started.

Once he was close enough, I swung. The fist to his face felt better than I thought it should. He stumbled back. And I moved before he could recover. I spun him against the counter and shoved him face down onto the surface. His ass against my groin. I may have been bigger than him, but he had more fighting skills than me. I knew he could’ve gotten free from my hold if he wanted to, but he didn’t.

He didn’t even struggle.

“Fuck you,” I managed to whisper into his ear, pushing my body against him. “I’m no longer yours.”

“You sure about that?” he said, pushing out his ass right into the rod tenting my joggers. Because of course my cock would respond to him with an erection. Which only pissed me off more.

“Unlike you, I’m not my dick. And unlike you, I can put my dick into whoever the fuck I want.”

I felt the vibration first. Like a canvas rippling against my skin. The jolt of it forced me back, but only a fraction before he had me on the floor pinned under him. The impact pushed the breath out of my lungs, made me disoriented. He pinned my wrists above my head, his body sprawled on top of me, his face close enough to see the lighter green bursts in his eyes. “You think I would ever let you stick your dick in anyone else,” he hissed. “Try it, Tomás. Test me. I will end that motherfucker.”

BOOK 1

Book Title: Beautiful Dark Temptation (Arcadia U Book 1)

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Length: 76 200 words

Release Date: September 27, 2024

Tense/pov: first person; alternating pov

Genres: Contemporary MM Romance, college, mafia

Tropes: Forbidden love, enemies to lovers

Themes: Bisexual awakening

It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links

Books to Read Universal Link

I’m not ready to lose it all for a beautiful dark temptation

Blurb

Tomás

I’ve lost everything.

Forced into a prison masking as a school, I find myself in the crosshairs of more than one killer. My savior? The arrogant prick who wants to control me. Kieran is a nightmare wrapped in a seductive package and when he sets his sights on me I don’t know whether to fight him or kiss him.

Kieran

I am the eldest bastard of one of the four founders of Arcadia University, and I will do anything to see my family fall.

The secrets I’ve kept hidden behind my heart now threaten to bury me alive with the arrival of Tomás. He consumes my space, my thoughts, my nightmares. I hate him for how he makes me feel. This toxic attraction between us forces me to question what matters most—vengeance, power, love. But Tomas doesn’t fit into my world of lies and violence and I’m not ready to lose it all for a beautiful dark temptation.

Beautiful Liar - Book 2

Do my best for no spoilers -
There are a lot of HOLY SHITTAKE moments and some pretty wild reveals

"Pieces of a puzzle that will never fit. Is that what we are?"
Tomás and Kieran are still a beautifully disastrous mess
Kieran still refuses to come out, and Tomas still loves him despite being his dirty little secret

"I'm sorry for falling in love with you"
Kieran is a fool if he believes his "brothers" do not see the truth

"Lies between us cause dissension"
They are unraveling at the seams
The pressure - The lack of trust
The nightmares come to life
The Betrayals
The Losses
If they don't get it together, everything they had hoped and worked for is going to slip through their fingers

"Every day was a fight to survive. I was fucking tired. And at twenty, I should've just been living my life, not contemplating death"
In book one, we were given little clues and breadcrumb trails that helped us put together a rough draft as to who was who and what might be going on
Now we are given the final pieces to craft the whole picture
How the guys interconnect, the catalysts that brought them together, and the curators behind it all
We get their backstories
We also get to meet some new players, and Holy Cow, mixed feelings here!
Keep an eye on Lucas- I am with Tomás when it comes to how I feel about him
There are some pretty intense moments to get through, and not all ended the way I thought they would

This does end with an HEA for our main couple, but there are still so many unaccounted-for and unanswered questions

This is an organized crime mm romance with some darker elements and a whole lot of WTF moments
High steam, turbulent relationship between our two main characters - Yes, they are on again and off again, but there is a method to that madness

Some of my favorite quotes
"I couldn't break. I couldn't let him break me. I couldn't"
"My heart shattered. The last pieces flaked off like the shards of the mirror I'd busted. If this was the only way to have him, I didn't want it"
"I swallowed the beautiful lie with a bruising kiss. The words tasted like sweet poison on my tongue. He wasn't mine"
"It's everything. I want to be what he needs. I want him to be happy and safe. I want to be home for him"

Beautiful Dark Temptation - Book 1
"You, Tomás. You're the last light I have left."
I can not rave enough about what an absolutely ducked-up relationship these two have.
Even at the end, though I am pretty sure it is also the beginning,
these two were so toxic for each other
They were a tailor-made couple - Dark meet Light

"The dead screamed in one unison cry inside of me"
A lot is going on with the different characters, at times we just get teasers or glimpses.
We know very little about them for the first half of the story.
As the storyline progresses more is revealed about who they are and how they are connected
There are a couple of scenes that just threw me a curve from nowhere - major plot twists

"We were the throwaways"
Pretty much a school for the unwanted.
Some families just didnt want them acknowledged
Some had defects, but nothing serious, they just weren't perfect enough
Others were there for their safety, so their sponsors said

"At least in the hood, we fought for respect, family, land area that didnt belong to us. We fought for something."
Tomás stole my heart. Despite the abuse from his mother and the loss of certain family members, he was still so innocent, so honest, and so damn trusting
The sacrifice thing made me so mad!
And then for them to turn around and act that way toward him...
He was a lot more forgiving than I would have been

"The stains of all those suffering bleed on the walls, the floor the ceiling. They scream and nobody listens"
Kieran...
Falls in the morally grey area
However, at the same time, he doesn't
A lot of the things he does and how he responds are his way of protecting the people he cares about as well as responses that have been ingrained into his psyche (I'm trying not to ruin it)
His youth was as bad as Tomás' but in a different way

"It's not that I want you. It's that you are mine."
I just want to circle back to the relationship between these two
Holy Hades...
Tantalizingly Toxic

"My father always said not to go digging for answers I wasn't ready for"
I am so torn with rating this one. I did devour it in one sitting but there were a lot of scenes that brought me out of the storyline and had me looking for answers. A me thing, as I am sure the author left unknowns, and actions to be questioned for a reason and to be answered at a later date. I do wish she had maybe split this into two books or just had more information on things. There are some surprises, some pretty gnarly twists, and some characters that left me with questions

About the Author

Roxas writes dark, forbidden MM Romance with morally gray characters you will love to hate. Beautiful Dark Temptation is her first novel in a planned series.

Author Links

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