Entwined

by Kat Catesby

  Kat Catesby

  Entwined

  First published by Kat Catesby Publications 2020

  Copyright © 2020 by Kat Catesby

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Kat Catesby asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  First edition

  Cover art by The Cover Collection

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgement

  Also by Kat Catesby

  About the Author

  Prologue

  I knew I was asleep.

  I knew he wasn’t here but it didn’t make the sound of his deliciously sensual voice rasping my name any less real, my skin scorching under his firm caress. My spiteful mind torturing me with images of his wickedly full lips tantalizing an over-sensitized nipple on my achingly swollen breast. I gasp his name in a desperate plea for him to push me over the edge into a fiercely blissful climax before I lose my mind.

  He moves his mouth to mine, crushing my lips, his tongue devouring me with wild abandon as his fingers continue to fuck the slick, throbbing tissues between my legs making every muscle clench in anticipation. I thrust shamelessly into his dextrous probing, needing it rougher, faster and just...more.

  I need more.

  I scream his name as he parts my flesh, places the crown of his impressive, rock hard erection into my opening and I can’t bear the teasing. I feel like I’m going to combust as he shifts his ripped sex-on-legs body in preparation to pound deep into me. His abs clench and I know its coming and I’m so desperate for it; I need to be filled with him. I tilt my hips up to meet the violent thrust that consumes me completely...

  …And like always, I wake up, sweaty and denied.

  * * *

  Jackson Smoak.

  A man who frequents my dreams often and my nightmares even more. Even the erotic ones leave me trembling…and not in a good way.

  He scares and excites me in equal measure and even when I do have a dream that wakes me gasping with sweat beading on my face and an unrelenting tightness in my core, the fierceness of my subconscious reaction to him terrifies me.

  So, I never win.

  Jackson continues to leave his mark and I can’t escape it.

  For ten years he’s haunted me and if there was any possibility, supernatural or not, that he could influence my dreams, I’d swear he was doing it on purpose.

  The erotic dreams leave me needy, breathless and very sexually frustrated. When those feelings subside enough for me to reconnect with the rest of my emotions, I feel weak, exposed, shameful and horribly empty. The first three make sense; the powerful reaction to Jackson in person is understandable, but to continue to respond like that to a dream? It’s more than a little pathetic. But I don’t want to give any real thought as to why my dreams leave me feeling empty; I’m frightened of the answer to that one.

  In the past decade, on the occasions our paths have crossed, he’s been relentless and never left me alone no matter how much I begged him to. And I’ve spent a lot of energy ignoring the persistent voice in my head telling me that I’m glad he doesn’t listen. The voice never wins out; Jackson Smoak is dangerous and I run…every time…without fail.

  So, here I sit, in the quiet dark breathing deeply with the soft bed sheets pooled around my waist, trying to recover from the raging desire my dream has left me with, willing my pulse to slow and knowing how futile it is as I recall in vivid detail how my Jackson obsession began...

  Chapter One

  As a freshman at Dartmouth, I’m definitely struggling more than most to acclimate to student life.

  I’d been reasonably popular during high school, but that was due in large part to being Emilia Vincent, daughter of the mega-successful businessman James Vincent and his loving wife Margot.

  I finally had the opportunity to strike out on my own, to step out from behind the shadow of the Vincent name and I’m determined not to depend on daddy’s bank balance to succeed academically or socially.

  And that right there is the crux of my problem – I never had to try in high school and now I just don’t know-how.

  Academically, I have a sharp mind and am consistently a grade ‘A’ student, but if you grade my interpersonal skills, I’m pretty sure I’d score an ‘F’.

  James and Margot Vincent are something of a rarity in the New York super-elite…my father is successful and supremely rich but has managed it without becoming an asshole and my mother is the exact opposite of a trophy wife. She’s undoubtedly beautiful but did not come from money; she met dad at college and works tirelessly for his company, for which she is the only stakeholder besides himself. Margot Vincent detests excessive shopping and can just about manage the tedium of charity dinners and galas. She only took a back seat with regards to the company, Stellar Enterprises, after my arrival…which was when she also outright refused to hire a nanny. This led to a surprisingly normal upbringing, I think…well as normal as it could be with limos and 24-hour bodyguards.

  My parents adopted me as a baby after several failed pregnancies; they had a lot of love to give and desperately wanted a family, but their dream was being poisoned every time they lost another precious child. This made them a little overbearing with regards to my safety and annoyingly my father has the money to finance their compulsion to shield me from the harsh realities of the world…hence the 24-hour security.

  That had been a hard-fought victory on my part as I was packing for life at college; I didn’t want an armed guard following me everywhere, but the idea of me leaving home terrified my mother.

  I often insult their paranoia towards my safety, but I suspect there’s more to it than I know – it’s the only time I feel like they are keeping a secret from me.

  We agreed on a compromise in the end; a security detail would be located no more than ten minutes from campus but was not to make any contact with me unless I required their assistance.

  I won that battle by a narrow margin, but at least I wouldn’t be followed around by a gun-toting gorilla all day. Because that wouldn’t intimidate any friends I made at all…which I guess is a moot point as I don’t have any.

  Not that I’ve told my parents that.

  I’m horribly unsure of myself, which shocks me as I’d never considered myself to be socially awkward, but the truth has hit me like a brick in the face, I’m shy and self-conscious…and it sucks.

  Growing up, I’d pretty much just followed the same set of peers from kindergarten to prep school, all the way
through to my high school graduation (families with money stick together, after all).

  It’s easy when you’re five years old; you haven’t learned to fear anything yet, haven’t learned that people can be cruel and judgemental. Making friends is easy because you all want to play with the same toys. Fast forward to college selection and I found myself deliberately choosing one where none of my previous classmates had applied so that I could make a fresh start…have my own big adventure…be independent…Big. Error.

  Having a friendly face around would be beyond nice right now.

  I sit cross-legged on my basic bed, staring out of my dorm window at all the students milling around on the campus below; loud voices, laughter and random bursts of eclectic music float through the darkness to my ears.

  Most freshmen are out celebrating their new affiliation with the Greek system; frat boys, sorority sisters, alcohol and a whole bunch of wayward hormones will make tonight messy for most people…not me though. I’ll just curl up in bed and watch a movie before falling asleep before midnight.

  So much for college spirit.

  It really shouldn’t be so hard to just go outside and join in and be me…but who exactly is that?

  I feel increasingly disjointed and isolated and just well…not myself.

  It’s been this way for weeks and at first, I put it down to the apprehension of leaving home for the first time, but now I’m not so sure. Something feels different, but I don’t know what it is. Some days I actually feel unwell; tired, queasy and dizzy.

  Maybe it’s just the stress of being away from my parents and not presently having a friend to talk to?

  I’m hoping it doesn’t last for much longer, as I can’t really focus on anything externally, which is the reason I didn’t try to join a sorority, even though it would have solved the friendship part of my conundrum.

  I can’t seem to relate to anyone; they all seem so different from me. They’re all too happy…hyper...exuberant…on speed?

  I just feel like such an outsider and I don’t know why. It also doesn’t help that I don’t have a roommate…I am officially alone.

  I glance at the empty bed on the far side of the room. Apparently, my no-show roommate decided to take a gap year at the last minute. I guess the upside is I don’t have to make polite small talk with someone I potentially wouldn’t like…I don’t have the energy for that.

  Louder, more distinct voices fill my room from the campus below; a gaggle of girls giggling flirtatiously while masculine sounding voices tease and encourage them. I figure this could be worth a look, so I focus my attention on the sidewalk below.

  Six burly looking guys are clearly looking to score with the five very pretty, well-dressed cheerleader-type girls. I try not to laugh at the stereotype cliché and notice I’ve seen these guys around campus a few times, always with a throng of women in tow…total players.

  Easily noticeable by their completely masculine physiques – tall, broad-shouldered types with the kind of thickly muscled forearms that you know are a prelude to the ripped bodies they hide under their trendy ‘I’m-trying-not-to-look-like-I’m-trying’ clothes.

  They look utterly at odds compared with other college guys – even the really athletic ones, who by comparison look boyishly adolescent. Definitely not first years…probably seniors who get a thrill from fucking and dumping the young freshman girls.

  But even that doesn’t seem right…they’re just too masculine in their looks and the way they carry themselves to be college guys.

  I suppose there’s always the possibility they are mature students, but they don’t seem old either. There’s an air of maturity, but not. A wisdom that’s being deliberately dumbed down.

  Either way, you can’t blame the girls fawning all over them; if I came face to face with them, they would fry my synapses with their devastatingly handsome, chiseled faces. Every single one of them.

  That bothers me also; it’s not usual for a group of men with such similar physiques to all be so attractive. Normally in a group of people, there is more variety than that. Usually, you can pick one that you would throw out of bed…if you’d been drunk enough to get in it with them in the first place.

  But not these guys. Sure, there were differences in height, hair, and eye color, etc. but they are too similar in some way I can’t put my finger on (apart from being players).

  I look closer and can pick one guy who stands out more than the others, but maybe that’s just because he’s larger – taller, more muscled and obviously, quite the kisser as he unashamedly kisses one of the girls very publicly, very passionately and somewhat erotically as his tongue probes her mouth…

  How can I see that from here?

  I close the window and draw the blinds to drown out the sounds of her moaning, his friends cheering in that congratulatory way guys have, and to stop myself from being perverted and admiring his prowess.

  In the loneliness of my room it feels like a taunt; “see what the rest of the world can do while you can’t even open your mouth enough to make a friend, let alone open it wide enough for me to devour it with my amazing tongue”.

  I hate my internal monologue.

  Not even a movie can hold my attention now. There is nothing for it but a really early night.

  * * *

  The weekend passes in a monotonous blur – I’m not sure how I fill it but eventually its Monday again and I make my way to an astronomy lecture. Dad is keen, to say the least, that I follow him into the family business, which means I have to major in business, but I’m permitted to minor in whatever subject fascinates me the most…I just have to figure out what that is.

  Astronomy seems like a good starting point as I adore the telescope my parents bought me one Christmas and spend hours staring into the night sky, enjoying how inconsequential people problems seem compared to the grandeur of space.

  Once I’d even been brave enough to say that to a particularly obnoxious business acquaintance of my father, in an attempt to stop him droning on and on about the latest difficulties in a hostile takeover bid of his. Dad had the good grace to find it amusing, the uptight prick in a suit? Not so much.

  Walking through the bustling campus I notice I’m starting to recognize some familiar faces of others who live in the same dorm as me, a couple even smile politely at me. This puts me in a genuinely happy mood and I’m still smiling as I take a seat in the cavernous auditorium – somewhere safely in the middle with no one sat between me and the stairs and by extension, the exit.

  I grab my pen, notebook, and laptop from my vintage blue, leather satchel; my parents are funding my education, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to squander their investment…I’m here to learn.

  Settling into my seat, I exchange a few cursory nods and polite smiles with some classmates in my immediate vicinity – which boosts my confidence no end. Just as I begin zoning out the consistent hum of chatter, the doors open again and in walk the hot guys from Friday night. Only three of them this time, but the last one through the door is definitely the taller guy with the oral expertise.

  He follows his friends up the stairs to find a seat and I allow myself to stare at their perfect features, especially as I wasn’t the only one admiring them…they turn heads, both male and female. I smirk to myself at how ridiculously we all react to them until the tall, dark and dangerous kissing god looks me straight in the eyes…

  Holy shit.

  Synapse frying is an understatement.

  His seriously deep indigo blue eyes have me held in some frightening tractor-beam type trance; I can’t blink, let alone look away. His intense, overpowering eyes start to frown at my blatant and quite rude staring, but I can’t see clearly anymore. Everything around me starts to fade away and images that feel too much like memories shimmer and dance in front of my eyes. My heart races painfully as the lecture hall and noisy students fade away leaving me standing in the middle of an ornate ballroom. The vision of delicately carved, black and white marble columns surround
ing a circular, cavernous ballroom with an equally exquisitely polished marble floor and the most enormous sparkling chandelier glittering in the soft light consumes my senses. Couples dance across my eyes in perfect time to a string quartet playing a song I don’t know and wearing clothes that haven’t looked in place for at least a century. I look down to see that I’m dressed beautifully in a similar fashion and wish there was a mirror I could see myself in.

  The image blurs around the edges as my attention is drawn away from the room to the hand resting possessively on the small of my back. A delicious shiver runs through me as I turn to face the mystery person and find myself face to face with the dark and dangerous kissing god, dressed to devastating perfection in a black suit.

  He takes my hand in his, pulls me a little too close to his body and begins to dance me effortlessly around the grand ballroom and even in this vision/dream hallucination, he smells so good I can’t breathe. His body supremely hard that my legs go weak and his eyes…Christ, his eyes…they burn with such ferocious intensity that I’m thrown; my brain won’t work, it can’t make sense of anything. They’re so real and I genuinely can’t tell if he’s here or if my mind has spun out of control.

  I’m starting to panic; I can hear my breathing accelerate and I’m stuck like this and becoming increasingly aware of the voice screaming at me from some tiny, besieged part of my brain that I’m in a lecture and about to have a panic attack. I try to pull myself away from him in the hope that this will give me back my actual eyesight, but his arms constrict like steel bands, depriving me of my ability to move even an inch from him. Lightening quick he moves his hand to caress my cheek, setting my face on fire, and leans his face towards mine...

  “Emilia,” his voice caresses my name with his deep, possessing voice.

  Fuck!

  That sounds and feels terribly real.

  “Emilia,” he prompts again.

  I blink my eyes shut tightly and when I open them the lecture hall is back. No one noticed my meltdown and people are still busy chatting to one another, but to my horror, ‘tall, dark and dangerous’ really is inches from my face. His burning eyes searching mine for something…probably a sign that I have some cognitive ability.