Cort turned back to her, and a muscle ticked in his cheek.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other. She raised her arms. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Please.”
He hesitated for a second, and then his hand snaked out and he shackled her wrist. He yanked once, and she tumbled into him. Their bodies smacked hard as he caught her around the waist, his hands hot on her bare back.
She threw her arms around his neck and sagged into him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him. With only her bra and his T-shirt between them, the heat of his body was like a furnace, numbing her pain. His name slipped out in a whisper, and she pressed her cheek against his chest. She focused on his masculine scent. She took solace in the feel of another human’s touch, in the safety of being held in arms powerful enough to ward off the grief trying to overtake her.
His hand tunneled in her hair, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck, his body shaking against hers.
“Cort—” She started to lift her head to look at him, to see if he was crying, but he tightened his grip on her head, forcing her face back to his chest, refusing to allow her to look at him.
Keeping her out.
Isolating her.
She realized he wasn’t a partner in her grief. She was alone, still alone, always alone.
All the anguish came cascading back. Raw loneliness surged again, and she shoved away from him as sobs tore at her throat. She couldn’t deal with being held by him when the sense of intimacy was nothing but an illusion. “Leave me alone.”
Kaylie whirled away from him, keeping her head ducked. She didn’t want to look at him. She needed space to find her equilibrium again and rebuild her foundation.
“Damn it, Kaylie.” Cort grabbed her arm and spun her back toward him.
She held up her hands to block him, her vision blurred by the tears streaming down her face. “Don’t—”
His arms snapped around her and he hauled her against him even as she fought his grip. “No! Leave me alone—”
His mouth descended on hers.
Not a gentle kiss.
A kiss of desperation and grief and need. Of the need to control something. Of raw human passion for life, for death, for the touch of another human being.
And it broke her.
Sneak Peek: KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK
(The Soulfire Series, Book One)
(humorous paranormal romance, available now)
“Let’s get it done.” Blaine grabbed her arm and began to propel her down the sidewalk.
“My car is the other direction—”
“We’ll take mine.” He nodded ahead, and Trinity saw a large, black motorcycle parked up beside the curb.
She stopped. “I can’t ride on that.”
He frowned. “Why not?”
“It’s…dangerous.” It was the best word she could think of. She didn’t take risks right now. She kept all emotions tucked deep away inside, held tight like steel netting was wrapped around her. The motorcycle…too wild. Too adventurous. Too passionate. Too everything she didn’t dare to be.
“Been riding for over a century. I’m good.” He strode toward it, not bothering to wait for her. “I’ll keep you safe.”
“No.” She was already walking toward it. She had to touch it. To feel what that kind of freedom felt like. She laid her hand on the seat. The leather was soft, but it felt tough at the same time. The chrome was gleaming. The wheels were immaculate. It was the ultimate expression of daring to take on life, of refusing to go gently, of feeling the passion and fire burn through her until she wanted to explode. Of embracing risk and danger.
It was everything she couldn’t afford.
Not in this moment. Not with the spider edging so close to the line.
Right now, she needed to keep a stranglehold on her emotions. It was about self-control. It was about showing she could manage the cravings and desire burning inside her. It was about driving her Subaru below the speed limit while wearing her seatbelt.
Blaine swung his leg over the seat, straddling the huge machine like he owned its soul. Like it was a demon he controlled by his mere presence. “Just got it. Nice, huh?”
“I can’t ride that.”
“You’re my ticket to freeing Christian.” He held out his hand to her. “Trust me, I’ll protect you. No chance you’re getting hurt with me around.”
“It’s not that.” She clasped her hands behind her back, against the urge to climb on there with him. She could almost feel the wind blowing through her hair, that sense of being utterly free in a way she never had been. Ever.
He turned the key, then punched the ignition button. The engine roared to life, so loud it drowned out the thoughts in her head. It thundered in her chest, made her body vibrate, reducing her to nothing but a physical, visceral reaction to the power and freedom it offered.
He didn’t bother with a helmet. He didn’t bother to shout above the din. He just jerked his chin at her and revved the bike with a twist of the right handlebar.
She saw the determination in his eyes. He was man who wasn’t going to lose his race for Christian’s life.
He wasn’t even considering it. He’d do whatever it took, and he’d succeed.
She wanted to be like that. She wanted to be so sure, so confident, so certain in who she was and what she wanted that she never doubted herself again, never feared the monster within. She wanted to wake up in the morning with that same expression that Blaine was wearing. The one that knew, without a doubt, that she could have anything and everything she wanted.
Maybe she’d been going about it the wrong way. Maybe fighting her passions had been a misguided approach. Maybe the right choice was to embrace her inner fire and let it shine.
Blaine grinned, a smug look that told her that he knew she’d changed her mind.
Even as she started toward the bike, even as she slid her leg over the seat behind Blaine, even as she wrapped her arms around his muscled waist, she knew was using the logic as an excuse to get on and feel that fire, a choice she knew in her gut was the wrong one, the dangerous one, the choice of an addict unable to ditch the high.
Blaine let the engine idle, and it subsided to a quiet roar. He pointed to pegs poking out of the bike near her feet. “Rule number one. Your feet never, ever come off those pegs unless I tell you. Not even when I stop. Your feet get in my way, and we could crash, or you could burn your leg off.”
Her heart started to race, but she put her feet on the rods. What was she doing, riding this bike? This wasn’t her. But it was too tempting. She wanted to live, just once. How could a bike ride trigger her into going crazy and becoming a murderer?
By stripping her of what little self-control she had left, that’s how. What if she liked the high too much? What if she wanted it again? What if—
He twisted around so he could look at her. “Second rule: you tuck up against me and let your body fall in with mine. When I lean into the corners, you relax and go with me. Got it?”
Oh, man, she so couldn’t do this. Release all resistance and let the world take her? “I—”
“If you need to stop, tap my side with your left hand. Other than that, just keep your feet on the pegs and let your body move with mine and the g-forces of the bike, and you’re good.” He grabbed her knees and crushed her thighs against the outsides of his.
Heat began to throb through her inner legs. An awareness of his strength. Of the intimate feel of his body between her thighs.
He flipped a grin at her over his shoulder. “The name of the game is submission, Trinity.”
She stiffened. Submission was a dirty word in her vocabulary. Submission meant giving into the curse.
“Surrender yourself to the bike and to me.”
“I can’t surrender to anything—”
He revved the engine with a flick of his right wrist, drowning out her protest. She frantically hit him on his left side to tell him to stop, but all he did was raise one eyebrow at her. Then he di
tched the kickstand and the bike began to roll.
She lunged to get a grip around his waist, hugging desperately with all her strength. What had she been thinking—
She suddenly became aware of a deep vibration echoing up from the bike, like the pulsing of a bass drum throbbing in her core, down her legs, in her belly, along her thighs where she was pressed so tightly around Blaine.
And then the bike lurched forward with a squeal of tires. She tightened her grip around his waist, and then she felt the earth move beneath her. As the bike roared down the street, the cold wind whipped at her face, yanked at her hair, and her whole body shook with the vibration of a thousand pounds of force, she felt her soul come to life in a way she never had before.
She raised her face to the sky, felt the sun fighting to warm her against the wind’s coldness, felt the heat of Blaine’s body between her thighs. He turned a corner and they leaned as one with the bike.
She looked down as her right knee skimmed just above the pavement. They were going so fast, the ground was nothing but a gray blur, rushing past. Another inch closer and her kneecap would turn into a Frisbee. So close to utter destruction, dancing on the edge—
He straightened the bike and they moved upright again. Away from danger. She’d threaded the edge, but she’d never really been at risk. She could feel Blaine’s complete control of the machine of the power beneath them. One wrong move and the bike could be an instrument of carnage and lost dreams. But in Blaine’s grasp, it was a tool of pure, unadulterated freedom.
To be able to control death so easily? To turn it from hell into joy? Tears filled her eyes as she pressed her cheek to Blaine’s back. The heat from his body pressed at her inner thighs, burning through her jeans. Her hair knifed at her cheeks, her shirt flapped ruthlessly, as if the fabric wanted to rip free from her body, to fly through the air. She hugged tighter, suddenly afraid.
Blaine tapped her wrist and held his right arm up to the sky, like he was reaching for the sun. “You can let go,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Try it!”
She shook her head and held tighter.
She felt the laughter rumble in his chest, and then he leaned over the handle bars and the bike leaped forward, as if he’d unleashed a wild cat from a cage. She felt his muscles flex, felt a sudden energy pulse through his body, like sparks were jumping from his skin onto hers, and then he whipped the bike onto the highway, and let it all out.
And all she could do was hang on.
Stephanie Rowe Bio
Four-time RITA® Award nominee and Golden Heart® Award winner Stephanie Rowe is a nationally bestselling author with more than twenty published books with major New York publishers such as Grand Central, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dorchester and Sourcebooks.
She has received coveted starred reviews from Booklist and high praise from Publisher’s Weekly, calling out her “…snappy patter, goofy good humor and enormous imagination… [a] genre-twister that will make readers…rabid for more.” Stephanie’s work has been nominated as YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.
Stephanie is published in paranormal romance, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, teen “girl power” fiction, middle grade fantasy and motivational nonfiction.
A former attorney, Stephanie lives in Boston where she plays tennis, works out and is happily writing her next book. Want the inside scoop? Visit Stephanie online at one of the following hot spots:
www.stephanierowe.com
http://twitter.com/stephanierowe2
https://www.facebook.com/StephanieRoweBooks
Select List of Other Books by Stephanie Rowe
(For a complete book list, please visit www.stephanierowe.com)
PARANORMAL ROMANCE
The Order of the Blade Series
Darkness Awakened
(Book One of the Primal Heat trilogy)
Darkness Seduced
(Book Two of the Primal Heat trilogy)
Darkness Surrendered
(Book Three of the Primal Heat trilogy)
Available May 15, 2012
Darkness Reborn
(Order of the Blade, Book Four)
Available Summer 2012
The Soulfire Series
Kiss at Your Own Risk (Book One)
Touch if You Dare (Book Two)
Hold Me if You Can (Book Three)
The Immortally Sexy Series
Date Me Baby, One More Time (Book One)
Must Love Dragons (Book Two)
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot (Book Three)
Sex & the Immortal Bad Boy (Book Four)
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
The Alaska Heat Series
Ice (Book One)
Chill (Book Two)
Alaska Heat Book Three Available Summer 2012
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
Birch Crossing Series
Dawn at Birch Crossing (Book One)
Available Summer 2012
NONFICTION
The Feel Good Life
FOR TEENS
A Girlfriend’s Guide to Boys Series
Putting Boys on the Ledge (Book One)
Studying Boys (Book Two)
Who Needs Boys? (Book Three)
Smart Boys & Fast Girls (Book Four)
Stand Alone Novels
The Fake Boyfriend Experiment
Available Spring 2012
FOR PRE-TEENS
The Forgotten Series:
Penelope Moonswoggle, The Girl Who Could Not Ride a Dragon (Book One)
Penelope Moonswoggle & the Accidental Doppelganger (Book Two) Available 2013
Table of Contents
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
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
Sneak Peek: DARKNESS SURRENDERED
Sneak Peek: DARKNESS AWAKENED
Sneak Peek: ICE
Sneak Peek: KISS AT YOUR OWN RISK
Stephanie Rowe Bio
Select List of Other Books by Stephanie Rowe
Darkness Seduced (Primal Heat Trilogy #2) (Order of the Blade) Page 37