Love Among Reptiles

Love Among Reptiles K.A Merikan He's a monster with sharp teeth, but I'm the snake he won't see coming. Miguel. Tormented. Lethal. Dead inside. There is only one reason Miguel became the bodyguard of a cartel boss’s son. So that one day he can take revenge and put a bullet between his father’s eyes. To do that, he needs to keep his secrets close and play a double game with the outrageous Nero Moreno. And there has never been a more infuriating demon of a man than Nero. From his filed teeth and green hair to the gaudy gold necklaces and a diamond-studded AK-47, he is narco excess personified and everything Miguel despises. The fact that Nero hits on Miguel every chance he gets is just another burden, because Miguel decided long ago that there is no room for love in his black heart. Nero. Slutty. Deadly. Lives to spite the world. No one refuses Nero Moreno. When he sets his sights on a man, sooner or later, his mark surrenders. With the endless buffet of flesh available to him, he shouldn’t care about rejection, but every time his insanely hot bodyguard gives him the cold shoulder, Nero is more set on seduction. He can see a spark of interest behind the dead black eyes. What does Miguel hide under his tattooed skin and expressionless face? Why won’t he let Nero touch him? Is his heart really made of stone, or does it hold a soul gentler than Miguel would like to admit? Nero will not rest until he finds out. When their goals collide, blood follows bullets, and it turns out nothing is as it seems. “It’s just a kiss. What could it possibly mean?” Everything. It could mean everything. Gritty, dark, and intense, “Love Among Reptiles” is a dark enemies-to-lovers M/M romance novel set in the world of cartels. Prepare for brutality, heated arguments, slow burn pining, and scorching hot, emotional, explicit scenes. Themes: enemies to lovers, cartels, revenge, masculinity, coming out, first times, opposites attract, betrayal, double-crossing, undercover, grumpy/sunshine, crime, traumatic past, road trip Length: ~117,000 words (Standalone novel) WARNING: This story contains scenes of violence, offensive language and morally ambiguous characters as well as sensitive topics of homophobia, suicide, child abuse, and SA. Copyright This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, places or names is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means, without the written permission of the publisher. Uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without a permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Text copyright © 2023 K.A. Merikan All Rights Reserved http://kamerikan.com Cover design by Natasha Snow https://www.natashasnow.com/ Editing by No Stone Unturned https://www.facebook.com/NoStoneUnturnedEditingServices/ Contents 1. Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapter 3 4. Chapter 4 5. Chapter 5 6. Chapter 6 7. Chapter 7 8. Chapter 8 9. Chapter 9 10. Chapter 10 11. Chapter 11 12. Chapter 12 13. Chapter 13 14. Chapter 14 15. Chapter 15 16. Chapter 16 17. Chapter 17 18. Chapter 18 19. Chapter 19 20. Chapter 20 21. Chapter 21 22. Chapter 22 23. Chapter 23 24. Chapter 24 25. Chapter 25 26. Chapter 26 27. Chapter 27 28. Chapter 28 29. Chapter 29 30. Epilogue Chapter 1 Miguel The large bottle of Dom Perignon exploded, splashing forty thousand dollars’ worth of champagne all over the patio. Several more stood around and on top of a stuffed albino caiman with precious stones for eyes, ready to be wasted. In other words, yet another Tuesday in Miguel’s line of work. At least he hadn’t been roped into participating in the ‘fun’ this time because he could barely stand this pointless challenge when people were going hungry in this very town. On the upside, destroying fancy booze didn’t even come close to the most outrageous things he’d seen since becoming Nero Moreno’s bodyguard three months ago. Those included testing machetes on an unlucky traitor, Nero forcing several people to let him tattoo them during his birthday bash, and a gay orgy in the pool with most of the participants blindfolded. Miguel considered himself fortunate that Nero spent most of his time partying or lazing around, and left the gritty part of the cartel operations to his men. Despite having the personality of a rabid hyena on coke, he only let disrespect fly if it entertained him. When it did not, his baseball bat did the talking. One didn’t want to be on this bastard’s bad side, no matter how widely he smiled, flashing his sparkly grill at people. Like his father, Nero was predictable as the caimans marking their skin—they were cold-blooded and loved ripping people into shreds. At least unlike Raul ‘The Cannibal’ Moreno, Nero didn’t eat people. The gossip of the big boss boiling his enemies alive for some kind of fucked-up human broth still made Miguel’s skin crawl. Miguel could only hope to hide his true intentions for as long as necessary and never end up on Raul’s plate. The fountain, which currently served as his bench offered respite from the sharp sunlight, and Miguel dipped his finger in the whispering water to cool down as he watched his employer twist in something akin to a triumphant dance. He could hardly believe that this stain on humanity was the heir to the largest and most ruthless cartel in South America. But while Nero was many unsavory things, he took pride in his legacy and showed it off. Caimans, the emblem of his father’s organization, swarmed over his skin, locked in a fight to the death. The largest of the beasts wrapped around Nero’s body, from his chest to the knee with scarifications making up its scales. And after knowing the bastard for three years, on and off, Miguel had the design imprinted under his eyelids, because Nero had no qualms about