Prisoner
by Annika Martin
& Skye Warren
Publication date: October 23rd 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Publication date: October 23rd 2014
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Synopsis
He seethes with raw power the first time I see him—pure menace and
rippling muscles in shackles. He’s dangerous. He’s wild. He’s the
most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
So I hide behind my prim glasses and my book like I always do, because I have secrets too. Then he shows up in the prison writing class I have to teach, and he blows me away with his honesty. He tells me secrets in his stories, and it’s getting harder to hide mine. I shiver when he gets too close, with only the cuffs and the bars and the guards holding him back. At night I can’t stop thinking about him in his cell.
But that’s the thing about an animal in a cage—you never know when he’ll bite. He might use you to escape. He might even pull you into a forest and hold a hand over your mouth so you can’t call for the cops. He might make you come so hard, you can’t think.
And you might crave him more than your next breath.
"Sexy, dark and thrilling. I loved every second of it!" – New York Times bestselling author Katie Reus
So I hide behind my prim glasses and my book like I always do, because I have secrets too. Then he shows up in the prison writing class I have to teach, and he blows me away with his honesty. He tells me secrets in his stories, and it’s getting harder to hide mine. I shiver when he gets too close, with only the cuffs and the bars and the guards holding him back. At night I can’t stop thinking about him in his cell.
But that’s the thing about an animal in a cage—you never know when he’ll bite. He might use you to escape. He might even pull you into a forest and hold a hand over your mouth so you can’t call for the cops. He might make you come so hard, you can’t think.
And you might crave him more than your next breath.
"Sexy, dark and thrilling. I loved every second of it!" – New York Times bestselling author Katie Reus
Excerpt
Heavy
bars close behind me with a clang. I feel the sound in my bones. A series of
mechanical clicks hint at an elaborate security mechanism beneath the black
iron plating. I knew this would happen—had anticipated and dreaded it—but my breathing
quickens with the knowledge that I am well and truly trapped.
“Can
I help you?”
I
whirl to face the administrative window where a heavyset woman in a security
guard uniform stares at her screen.
“Hi,”
I say, pasting on a smile. “My name is Abigail Winslow, and I’m here to—”
“Two
forms of identification.”
“Oh,
well, I already filled out the paperwork at the front desk. And showed them my
IDs.”
“This
isn’t the front desk, Ms. Winslow. This is the east-wing desk, and I need to
see two forms of identification.”
“Right.”
I dig through my bag for my driver’s license and passport.
She
accepts them without looking up, then hands me a clipboard with a stack of
papers just like the ones I’d already filled out.
I’ve
been dreading this day for weeks, wishing I’d been assigned any other project
but this one. You’d think I was being sent here for a crime. My professor—the
one who’d forced me into this—warned me that prisoners were not always
receptive to outsiders. Apparently nobody here is.
I
complete each form, arrange the pages neatly on the clipboard, and bring them
back up to the window. The guard accepts them and gives back my IDs…still
without looking at me.
My
hands clench and unclench, clench and unclench while the guard eyes my
paperwork.
Seconds
pass. Or are they minutes? The damp chill of the place seeps in through my
cardigan and leaves me shivering.
Leaning
forward, I read the name tag of the guard. “Ms. Breck. Do you know what the
next steps are?”
“You
can have a seat. I have work to do now, and then I’ll escort you back.”
“Oh,
okay.” I glance at the bars I just came through, then the open hallway
opposite. “Actually, if you just point me in the direction of the library, I’m
sure I can—”
Thunk.
The woman’s hand hits the desk. I jump. Her dark eyes are faintly accusing, and
I wish we could go back to no eye contact. How did I manage to make an enemy in
two minutes?
“Ms.
Winslow,” she says, her voice patronizing.
“You
can call me Abby,” I whisper.
A
slight smile. Not a nice one. “Ms. Winslow, what do you think we do here?”
The
question is clearly rhetorical. I press my lips together to keep from making
things worse.
“The
Kingman Correctional Facility houses over five thousand convicted criminals. My
job is to keep it that way. Do we understand each other?”
Heat
floods my cheeks. The last thing I want to do is make her job harder. “Right.
Of course.” I shamble back, landing hard on the metal folding chair. It wobbles
a little before the rubber feet stop my slide.
I
understand the woman’s point. She has to keep the prisoners in and everyone
else out, and keep people like me safe.
I
reach down and pull a book from my bag. I never leave home without one, even
when I go to classes or run errands. Even when I was young and my mother used
to take me on her rounds.
Especially
then.
I
would hide in the backseat with my nose in the book, pretending I didn’t see
the shady people who came to her window when we stopped.
A
little green light above the barred doors flashes on and there’s an ominous
buzz. Somebody’s coming through, and I doubt it will be a library volunteer. I
slide down.
Pretend
to be invisible.
It’s
no use. I peer over the top edge as a prisoner saunters through the door, and
my pulse slams in my throat double time.
He’s
flanked by two guards—escorted by them, I guess you’d say. But they seem more
like an entourage than anything. Power vibrates around him like a threat.
Read,
read, read. Don’t look.
The
prisoner is half a foot taller than the guards, but he seems to tower over them
by more than that. Maybe it’s his broad shoulders or just something about the
way he stands, or his imperiously high cheekbones. The dark stubble across his
cheeks looks so rough and unforgiving I can feel it against my palm; it
contrasts wildly with the plushness of his lips. His short brown hair is
mussed. There’s one scar through his eyebrow that somehow adds to his
perfection.
The
little group approaches the window. I can barely breathe.
“ID
number 85359,” one of the guards says, and I understand that he’s referring to
the prisoner. That’s who he is. Not John Smith or William Brown or whatever his
name is. He’s been reduced to a number. The woman at the desk runs through a
series of questions. It’s a procedure for checking him out of solitary.
The
prisoner faces sideways, spine straight, the corner of his mouth tilted up as
if he’s slightly amused. Then it clicks, what else is so different about him:
no visible tattoos. Tough guys like this, they’re always inked up—it’s a kind
of armor, a kind of fuck you. This guy has none of it, though he’s far
from pristine; white scars mar the rough skin of his hands and especially his
forearms, a latticework of pain and violence, a flag proclaiming the kind of
underworld he came from.
The
feel of brutality that hangs about him is compelling and…somehow beautiful.
I
drink him in from behind my book—it’s my mask, my protective shield. But then
the strangest thing happens: he cocks his head. It’s just a slight shift, but I
feel his attention on me deep in my belly. I’ve been discovered. Caught by
searchlights. Exposed.
My
heart beats frantically.
I
want him to look away. He fills up too much space. It’s as if he breathes
enough oxygen for twelve men, leaving no air for me at all. Maybe if we were in
the library and he needed help finding a book or looking something up, then I
wouldn’t mind the weight of his gaze.
No.
Not even there. He’s too much.
Two
sets of bars on the gate. Handcuffs. Two guards.
What
do they think he would do if there were only one set of bars, one guard?
My
blood races as the guards draw him away from the window and toward the inner
door, toward where I sit. His heat pierces the chill around me as he nears. His
deep brown eyes never once meet mine, but I have the sense of him looming over
me as he passes, like a tree with a massive canopy. He continues on, two
hundred pounds of masculine danger wrapped in all that beauty.
Even
in chains, he seems vibrant, wild and free, a force of nature—it makes me feel
like I’m the one in prison. Safe. Small. Carefully locked down.
How
would it feel to be that free?
“Ms.
Winslow. Ms. Winslow.”
I
jump, surprised to hear that the woman has been calling my name. “I’m sorry,” I
say as a strange sensation tickles the back of my neck.
The
woman stands and begins pulling on her jacket. “I’ll take you to the library
now.”
“Oh,
that’s great.”
That
shivery sensation gets stronger. Against my better judgment, I look down the
hallway where the guards and the prisoner are walking off as one—a column of
orange flanked by two thinner, shorter posts.
The
prisoner glances over his shoulder. His mocking brown gaze searches me out,
pins me with a subtle threat. Though it isn’t his eyes that scare me. It’s his
lips—those beautiful, generous lips forming words that make my blood race.
Ms.
Winslow.
No
sound comes out, but I feel as though he’s whispered my name right into my ear.
Then he turns and strolls off.
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AUTHOR BIOS
Annika
I’m a NYT bestselling author living a stone’s throw away from
the Mississippi with my awesome husband and two cats in a home full of
plants, sunshine and books. I'm heavy into writing love stories about
criminals--some of them are dirty and fun (my Kinky bank robbers!) others
are dark and intense (Prisoner!)
I also write gritty romantic suspense as the RITA-award winning author Carolyn Crane.
I also write gritty romantic suspense as the RITA-award winning author Carolyn Crane.
Author links
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Skye
(No author photo)
Skye Warren is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling
author of dark romantic fiction. Her books are raw, sexual and
perversely tender. For those new to her work, consider the bestseller
Wanderlust or Don't Let Go.
Author links
Giveaway
One (1) ebook
copy of On the Way Home by
Skye Warren AND one (1) ebook copy of The Kinky Bank Robbers boxed
set by Annika Martin (both to the same winner).
Open
internationally.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I enjoyed the excerpt very much. This sounds like a very good book.
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