Book Blitz: Prisoner by Annika Martin & Skye Warren
Prisoner by Annika
Martin & Skye Warren
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
Goodreads:
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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.
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.
Author
links:
Skye
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:
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