Prologue

SKYE MONTGOMERY COULD FEEL HER ALREADY WORN-THIN RESOLVE crumbling, succumbing to the pressures of the drug that still lingered in her veins and the heavy weight of exhaustion that muddled her thoughts. As she scrambled to hide herself in the crevice of a dirty old laundry chute nestled among the corridors of the farmhouse, fear of the unknown crippled her body, and heartache coursed throughout her veins like liquid fire. She could hardly breathe; so torn apart, so shattered that it took every last ounce of courage and strength she had left in her just to fill her aching lungs with air.

Being careful not to make too much noise, knowing very well that he could easily find her if she did, she pushed the wooden chute’s door shut. Immediately she was swallowed by suffocating heat and darkness. Her erratic pulse rang in her ears, climbing with her unease. Footsteps creaked across the floorboards just outside the chute, hesitant and in pursuit. It was enough to steal her breath away. 

“Come out, come out wherever you are.” The roughness in his tone scraped against her eardrums like nails on a chalkboard, puncturing her with an overwhelming jolt of fear. “You can’t hide from me forever, Skye. I will find you.”

The footsteps retreated, drifting down the other side of the hall, and Skye filled her lungs with stuffy, much needed air. Her shaking hands grappled for the door handle, rubbing against splintered wood, as her chest constricted from the intense feeling of claustrophobia that dug its claws into every pore of her skin.
No light, no air, I can’t breathe . . . was all she could think of while she fumbled for a way out. Part of her knew that she should be more careful; if he so much as spotted her she’d be trapped in an instant, doomed to suffer a fate worse than death. Doomed to live through something worse than the horror she’d already witnessed that night. But because of her drugged state, all her thoughts were scattered and unclear, and the only thing she knew for certain was that she wanted clean air—and plenty of it. She craved it.

With one more desperate claw at the door, she came across the latch and slid it open, blinking against the dim light that poured through. Her entire body was shaking erratically by the time she peered down the foreboding hallway, searching for the figure of a man cloaked in the shadows. After finding nothing—not even the creak of footsteps—she swung her legs out of the chute and stood on her tiptoes, cautiously testing the give of the floorboards. No sounds emanated from them.

She padded her way down the hall, headed towards the staircase, with her head spinning and her ears ringing. Something flashed in her peripheral vision, something dark and quick, and she bolted for the front door, for escape. Her breath hitched in her throat; her lungs burned. Blackness speckled her vision, while beads of sweat trickled down the sides of her face. Loud and heavy footsteps—whether they belonged to her or her hunter, she couldn’t tell—caused the old, rotten floorboards to groan, protesting to the new weight they withheld.

    On the second to last stair, she stumbled and lost her footing, reaching her arms out in a desperate attempt to preserve herself, grasping for something solid to hold onto so that she didn’t lose her advantage.
But the damage had already been done.

    Her hands smacked against the floor first, followed by her knees, and a jolt of teeth jarring pain shot up all the way from her toes to the tips of her fingers. She groaned as she scrambled to get her feet back underneath her so that she didn’t become easy prey, but it was easier said than done and her efforts proved to be futile. Her body was too worn down, her mind too muddled to put an action into motion; the agony of it all was crippling.
   

A body wracking sob shuddered through her core. She curled in on herself, ignoring the heated pain that fired across her chest, and let all of her troubling burdens and fears overpower her. She let herself cry, let herself fall apart. Let herself accept the reality of her own impending death.
It wasn’t that hard. To let go, to give up. A piece of her was already missing—one that would never come back—and no matter how hard she tried to mend that brokenness, she couldn’t. Not with her hunter closing in on her. Not with her death so near. Not without him, the boy she’d never let go. 

She felt the daunting presence of her hunter before she saw his shadow crossing over her still, battered body.

 “I told you I’d find you.” The coolness of his voice chilled her to the very bone. “Why did you try to run? You must’ve known you wouldn’t escape me.” He leaned over her body, his warm breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. “Unlike last time, you’re never going to see your loved ones again.” He knotted a fist into her jacket, yanked her closer to him. His other hand wrapped around her neck, pinching the skin and bone. “The only thing you’re going to see is your life flashing before your eyes. I can promise you that.” 

1. Someone Like You {Part One}

October, seven weeks earlier

DERIK   PEMBROKE   WAS   NOT   THE   KIND   OF   MAN   SKYE   imagined him to be. That much she knew from the three months she had begun getting to know him—her biological father, the same man who had left before she was even born. Even from her very first encounter with him, back in the dreamland of summertime, she had sensed something different, something better than all of the things she had ever thought him to be. And now that he had finally come back for her, she knew things were as they always should have been. More or less.

       “So . . . what do you think?”

       Skye, with her legs tucked underneath her on the plush cushions of her mother’s living room sofa and her fingers fumbling with the tassels of one of the throw pillows, turned towards the familiar sound of Jules’s low, mesmerizing voice. He stood before her in a crisp, freshly dry-cleaned tux, hands at his sides, eyebrows raised with inquiry, his lips squirming around a sloppy smile.

       Her heart missed a beat; her insides fluttered with uncontrollable desire and excitement. Any previous thoughts of her father vanished. Gooseflesh covered her arms, satisfying chills rolling throughout her body in electric waves. She couldn’t stop her lips from spreading into a wide smile at the sight of her breathtakingly handsome boyfriend; couldn’t avoid the happiness that swelled in her heart at the love so blatantly etched across his features. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—but no words came out. All she could do was gaze into his eyes, mesmerized by them, by him.

       “Well. I’m afraid I’m not an expert on these sorts of things, but I do believe that you could use a little help in the area of tying a tie,” Derik, who was lounging on the recliner across from Skye, said, measuring the young man up. His words were laced with sarcasm, while his lips were curled in a devilish half-smile. Giggles slipped from Skye’s lips when she, too, noticed the midnight-blue tie that was draped carelessly around Jules’s neck, sloppy in contrast to the starkness of the rest of his suit. “Didn’t your father ever teach you the basics, son?”

        Skye couldn’t help herself; she burst out into a parade of giddy laughter, cupping her hand over her mouth to cover up the sound. Jules, who was now scrambling to fix the tie, frowned at her, seemingly unimpressed with the way she was reacting.

        “Aw, don’t frown, baby,” she cooed around another fit of giggles, slowly catching her breath. She dragged herself off the sofa and approached him, all the while trying in vain to calm her restless, over the moon spirit. “I think you look rather dashing, Julian Rane. Sort of like my very own dark prince.” She pulled the distressed tie out of his hands, tentatively entwining their fingers together instead. Without hesitation he drew closer to her like a moth to a flame, his hands untangling from hers and fanning across her back, pulling her closer, while his lips crept over hers.

           “I love it,” she whispered, grasping his white buttoned-down shirt in her delicate hands and pulling him even tighter against her. “Kiss me, my dark prince.” Her voice was so quite she wondered if Jules had even heard it.

        But he responded before she could second guess it. His lips met hers with a feverish passion and electricity that made everything else fall into the background. The task at hand—finding Jules the perfect tux for her mother’s wedding—the watchful presence of her father. Nothing else mattered but his lips on her lips, his fingers spread across her back, just the feather of a touch, and the warmth that blossomed deep inside of her from all of the foreign sensations.

       The moment could have lasted forever. Skye wanted desperately for the moment to last forever. Every touch was like static electricity running along the tenderness of her skin, every kiss was like a delicate secret drawing the two infinitely closer to each other, and every gentle confession mumbled between a kiss was like a whisper on a warm, breezy day. Each one haunted every fiber of her being.

        “You taste sweet,” Jules said, running his tongue along her upper lip as he broke away from a kiss, “like sugar and . . . strawberries.” His glazed over eyes found hers, and he cupped his hands around her face. “I love it.”

        Running her fingers along the buttons of his shirt, in sole purpose to torture him, she bit down gently on his tongue and went in for another earth-shuddering kiss.

        “Ouch,” he whined after a moment, despite the smile on his face and the unmistakable pleasure in his eyes. “Did you just bite me?”

        “Shh,” she shushed him, placing a finger against his lips and giggling a little, “Derik’s here.”

        “Okay . . .” The seductiveness of his low voice shattered any last strand of self-control she possibly could have had, and a warm blush spread across her face, sinking into her every pore. “My turn.”

         He crushed her against him, smothering her with hot kisses. After the initial surprise of his aggression, she felt her body surrender to his, her insides quivering from the licks of heat that spread throughout her womb, blossoming into delicious sensations so overwhelming they almost hurt. His teeth nipped on her lips softly at first, his tongue expertly sliding into her mouth, and then he was devouring her, and she knew she wanted to follow his lead with the same kind of fervor.

          But the moment—their moment—was over almost as quickly as it had come.

        “I hope that I’m not interrupting something magical here,” Derik piped up from behind them after a while, coughing into his fist a little, “but I do believe that I am still in the same room as you two, and your mother, Skye, is waiting for us.”

        Skye’s heart leapt at the sound of her father’s deep voice. And if she hadn’t been so completely entranced by the spell that Jules’s touch cast on her, she would have been shamefully embarrassed to have been so . . . intimate with her boyfriend in her father’s presence. Especially when her said father wasn’t too fond of the idea of them together.

        But the fact was Jules had yet to let go of her, his presence still as intoxicating as ever, and all she could think about was how tantalizing their—many— kisses had been. It didn’t matter that Derek was surveying their every move; all that mattered was how safe and secure it felt to be in Jules’s loving embrace.

       Her eyelids fluttered open slowly, her mind still wrapped in its pleasure-induced daze. A small, pitchy sound bubbled up from the bottom of her throat. Despite the fact that she knew she should be pushing Jules away from her and scurrying on into the dining room where her mother was waiting for the three of them to join her at the table for dinner, with a sincere apology for her rude behavior directed towards her father, she leaned in for one last satisfying kiss on the lips from Jules.

        He grinned against her lips. “We’re not done here,” he murmured, running his fingers slowly up her spine, taunting her. His voice was husky, his words sluggish. She could tell he was being like that on purpose, just to torture her. “Meet me upstairs, in your bedroom, after dinner with the ‘rents. I’m not ready to let you go just yet.”

        Skye’s heart was pounding, and not only from his touch; his words were just as effective, just as achingly tempting as his lips were as they left a tantalizing trail of kisses along her jaw, her neck. Something tickled her stomach as she realized she wasn’t ready to let go yet either. They had unfinished business.

       But, at the moment, that didn’t matter. Because tonight was her last night in Troven for a while, her last night with Leah for a while, and they had yet to discuss the specifics of her upcoming living arrangements with Derik and his family.

         Ever since he had asked Skye to let him into her life, she had been itching to open up to him, itching to discover the truth about why he had ever left in the first place. And while she had learned the important details, she still longed to understand each and every detail of him that he would be willing to share. And the best way to do that, she figured, was to move in with him for six months. Six more months to fix a relationship that had ceased to exist for the past seventeen years of her life. He owed her that much.

         So thus began a new chapter in her life.

         But unfortunately, little to her dismay, this chapter had little to do with the boyfriend that stood before her now, sporting his trademark smile that had the power to make her week in the knees, every time. And, seeing as how they wouldn’t be around each other for a little while, she longed to make the most of their last night together. The thought of leaving him without so much as a memorable farewell was unbearable.

           “It’s a date,” she promised Jules, nearly out of breath from the heat that still lingered in her body, coursing through her veins like liquid fire. Her swollen lips were curled into a lazy smile, her body still reeling from the pleasure of their less-than-innocent act. She just couldn’t seem to snap out of it. It didn’t help that Jules still had her in his arms, either.

      Going against the part of her that couldn’t help but get utterly lost in his embrace, she pressed her small hands against his chest, pushed herself away from him. Her body ached to stay in his arms forever, but her mind—still a little hazy from his touch even—knew better. After all, Derik was still present. And now, with her common sense weaving its way back, she was starting to second-guess her hasty decision to be so affectionate with Jules in his company.

       The things I do for this boy, I swear, she thought, shaking her head in the slightest. It’s a good thing he seemed to enjoy that just as much as I did. Otherwise he’d be in big trouble right about now. And even worse . . .  so would I.

        Turning her back towards Jules, she narrowed the space in between her and her father, with a sheepish smile on her face while her gaze flitted about the room. “Sorry, Derik,” she said, as genuinely as she could. “We just got a little carried away, I guess.” She tried her best to feign her innocence, flashing him what she hoped to be a convincing smile. “It won’t happen again.” Her stomach tightened a little at the lie, but she couldn’t take it back now. She wasn’t about to trust her father with every little personal detail of her life yet. Not when she had only met him a mere few months earlier. There were some things he just didn’t need to know.

      “Good to hear.” Derik, with his gaze boring into Jules’s, crossed his arms over his chest, taking a step closer to the two of them.

         Skye’s heart faltered when she noticed the look of fatherly over-protectiveness that came across Derik’s face. She knew that look, and it usually meant that a confrontation was in order. And confrontations were never the least bit comfortable, especially when they came from Derik.

         Clasping her hands tightly together in front of her, she tried in vain to ignore the urge to reach back and grab Jules’s hands, to pull him close and never let go. After all, Jules didn’t need to have “the talk” with Derik again. He and Skye weren’t about to do anything that intimate any time soon.

         “I still don’t know how I feel about you two having your hands and . . . other body parts . . . all over each other.” Skye nearly cringed at Derik’s tone of voice, even though she figured he was purposely trying to make the two of them as uncomfortable as possible. “And I highly doubt you want to have another meeting with me again, young man.”

        Skye peered over her shoulder at Jules, who now stood tall, regarding Derik with a straight, no non-sense expression, his hands tucked in the pockets of his pants, his grin replaced with a hesitant smile of respect. “No, Sir,” he said, sneaking a quick glance at Skye. Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink, which in turn seemed to relax him a little. “She’s right: it won’t happen again.”

        For a moment she thought he really meant what he had said, and her heart missed a beat. But when she saw the twinkle in his eyes, and the way his lips crept into a wider smile, she knew he was still on her side. I’m sorry, she mouthed, flashing him an uneasy smile.

        His smile only grew in response.

        “Very well,” Derik said, snapping Skye’s attention away from Jules. His expression softened as he lightly touched her on the shoulder. “What do you think, Skye? Are you ready for dinner?”

       Letting out a breath she’d unconsciously been holding, she nodded. Her heartbeat had returned to its regular, steady pace, her insecurities had vanished into the back of her mind . . . everything back to how it should be. A flutter of nervous excitement spread like a frenzy throughout her stomach. “Ready.”

        “You’re free to go put that tux back where it came from, son,” Derik instructed Jules, holding his arm out for Skye to take. “Before Leah finds out that her daughter wrinkled it.”

“GUESS WHO?”

       Skye, with her hands deep in the sudsy dishwater of the kitchen’s deep-set, stainless steel sink that was filled with and array of dirty dishes from dinner, jumped at the sound of Jules’s smooth as silk voice, laced with a suggestiveness that sent heat coursing throughout her bloodstream. Warm hands, calloused from the many hours he spent working on his father’s farm over the summer, covered her eyes. His breath provoked the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end, warm against her cool, sensitive skin.

        “No idea,” she whispered, with a smile, breathless from his close proximity. Her body yearned to mold into his; her hands itched to reach back and grab hold of his, to entwine their fingers together.

        After an hour of being apart from him, trapped in the seat between both Leah and Derik— as they had insisted— during dinner, she had become slightly restless from his absence, longing to be with him as they’d planned to be. Even with the distraction of conversation around the table, she couldn’t help but find herself lost in her fantasies of an innocent night spent alone with Jules. Not to mention lost in his mesmerizing gaze as they sneaked each other secret little glances throughout the night.

        Now, she stood, frozen in place, having abandoned her task of washing dishes for the moment, with Jules’s chest pressed up against her back, his mouth brushing her ear, and nothing more to say. Then he laughed, the familiar sound echoing softly in her ears, and her knees went week, her body surrendering to the pull of his touch.

      “You’re a terrible guesser, Trouble,” he said, and slowly pulled his hands away from her eyes, wrapping his arms around her waist instead. “Ever even played this game before?”

       Laughter tumbled from her lips as she recalled the many times the two of them had played this game together, reciting nearly the same words each time. “You bet I have,” she replied, turning around in his arms and reaching up to leave a trail of suds along his jawline, the sound of tiny bubbles popping filling the space between them. “I’m a sucker for surprises, after all.” Tangling her wet fingers in his hair, while water trickled down her arms and onto his olive-green t-shirt, she pressed herself even closer to him—if that was even possible— and added, “But I could never mistake the sound of your voice, Julian Rane. Never.”

       His grin widened and his emerald eyes were alight with admiration as he leaned down and gave her one long, tender kiss on the forehead, taking his time. She closed her eyes, treasuring the moment, and let out a shaky breath. Her entire body quivered in his embrace.

        “Skye,” Jules whispered, capturing her hands in his and bringing them down into the limited space between them, “you’re so beautiful.” He kissed her knuckles, one at a time, a smile still poised on his lips. “I can’t believe it took me so long to find someone like you.”

      Skye’s heart soared when he crashed his lips onto hers, pinning her against the counter with his body. His words replayed over and over again in her mind, filling her with an overwhelming spirit of glee. The moment was like paradise, and nothing could change that. No one could interrupt them—Leah had already retired to bed for the night, seeing as how it was shortly after nine, while Derik had retired to the living room sofa for a couple hours of Sports Central, something he rarely abandoned for anything other than a bathroom break— and every second that passed was pure bliss.

       Eventually, after what felt like an eternity but had, in reality, only been a few minutes, Skye managed to break away, turning her head to the side. Jules’s lips left a trail of kisses along her jaw and down, until he finally nuzzled his face in the crook of her neck. She heard him mumble something against her skin, his hot breath tickling the bare flesh. The effects of it all were overwhelming.

       But before she knew it, she was saying, “Wait, Jules. W-we can’t. What . . . what about the dishes?” Her voice came out in a breathless whisper; her body gone weak. “I promised I’d do them. And you promised you’d clear the table.”

       He made a sound in the back of his throat, a cross between a laugh and a groan, and leveled his head with hers so that they were eye to eye. “I did, Skye,” he said, pushing a fallen strand of her long, raven-colored hair behind her ears. “And about the dishes . . .” He reached his other hand behind her and unplugged the drain. “Forget about them. It’s your last night in town; you shouldn’t be spending it washing dishes.”

      “But—”

      “Skye.” He shook his head. “Don’t. It’s not a big deal. I will do them for you tomorrow, after you’ve left. Okay?”

      She was about to object again, but the pleading look on his face stopped her. She couldn't help but take the bait. “Okay,” she murmured around a sigh, running a hand through her hair. “But only if you’re sure . . . ?”

      “I’m sure.” His lips crept into a devilish smile. “Now,” he said, lifting her onto the counter, which, consequently, caused a high-pitched squeal to expel from her lips, “where were we?” His voice was low, but his words— and the meanings behind them—rang loud and clear. “Oh, that’s right . . . I believe we had a date, Miss Montgomery.”

        She grinned. And without giving it another thought, she wrapped her legs around his waist and knotted her hands in his shirt to pull him into a kiss, picking up right where they had left off. 

      

Impressum

Texte: All Rights Reserved, Stephanie Jane, 2012. Do not copy, steal, or re-post elsewhere. Thank you for your cooperation. :)
Bildmaterialien: Cover from Google images.
Lektorat: *Has yet to be edited
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.09.2012

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