Showing posts with label King's Captive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label King's Captive. Show all posts
King's Captive by Amber Bardan
For three years, I've belonged to Julius King.
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I'm not here as a guest. Not even close. I'm a prisoner. I'm his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can't give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can't let him have any piece of my heart. I won't. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
This book is approximately 81,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I'm not here as a guest. Not even close. I'm a prisoner. I'm his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can't give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can't let him have any piece of my heart. I won't. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
This book is approximately 81,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise
“Glad we could do business again.” Julius steps towards Jack and they shake hands. It’s a funny thing; Julius must be twenty years younger than Jack. He’d be no more than thirty to Jack’s fifty, yet when they clasp hands it’s Jack who lets go first.
Chairs skate backwards on the polished floors as everyone gets up. The sound bursts my bubble. Everyone’s leaving and so must I if I don’t want to be caught alone. I tuck the money into my handbag, then push back my chair, slow and easy, then slip to my feet. Inch away as the men shake hands. Take one last look at Julius’s broad back, then turn to the door. They’ll all be going directly out the doors from the pool room. Still, I keep my strides even, thighs clenching until I pass through the frame, and hit the cool dark stretch of the hallway.
My muscles loosen but I resist the compulsion to run before Julius notices I’ve gone. The sharp solid thud of dress shoes on wood echoes behind me. My backbone fuses for an instant. I stumble. One strappy heel twisting before I right myself, and keep my legs moving.
His steps trail behind me. Closer and closer. He doesn’t call out, or order me to stop. Just closes in somehow without seeming to pick up the pace. He’s always that much faster than me, that little bit ahead.
The light from the kitchen floods the end of the hall. I just need to make it through the kitchen and I’ll get to the back door. Be outside, then I can break into the jog itching through my quadriceps.
I reach the end of the hallway. A hand closes around my wrist and brings me to an instant breathless stop.
My skin sizzles where he touches me.
“How did you like your gift?” he says, still behind me, still holding my wrist.
I turn to him. Give him my best big-batting eyes. “Thank you, Julius, it’s always good to keep up with current events. I found the horoscopes particularly satisfying.”
He pushes the transitional sunglasses he wears for business up on top of his head, and I’m struck as always by his eyes. “Yeah, what do the stars say about your future?”
I don’t normally give him this much. Like my opinion, let alone a preference. I keep my personality all to myself, don’t give him any weapons. He has enough over me as it is.
But that newspaper fills the back of my mind.
It’s like I’ve been living the same exact day over, and over, and over, and over. Days and weeks bleed together. Like a movie, or a dream, time has no substance, means nothing here.
But that date—one month left.
Now I feel each moment as though I’m handed a grenade every time the minute hand twitches.
And I must do something, anything, to alter my course. I smile and wonder if it looks as stillborn on my lips as it feels on my face. “Oh, just that I’m going to meet a handsome stranger who will sweep me off my feet and take me someplace new.”
A stranger who’ll kill you dead.
Wickedness breaks across his face, and fuck-me if it doesn’t make him that much better looking.
“Ahh,” he says, and that one sound vibrates down my spine. He tugs me by the wrist and looks right down into my face. Those eyes in half light—I want to close my own. Shut them out. They see too much.
I keep my lids open, keep them wide.
Hold his gaze.
“Is that what you want, romance?” His voice drips with sweetness.
I’m no stranger to this side of him. He’s always offering, and offering, and offering, as though there’s an alternative to his food, his shelter, his company.
Luring and baiting.
Until I’m craving his cooking. Singing his damned songs. Thinking about his presence when he’s gone. He’s a devil—offering my damnation peeled, sliced and arranged on a china plate.
I suck in air. His scent is on my gasp, heady enough to taste. Spicy cologne, and something all him—male and feral.
He leans down, lowering his head.
I turn my face away.
Hold my breath.
His face touches my neck. Hairs stand and rise over my body. Not what I’d thought he’d leaned in for, yet somehow worse. His nose runs intimately from the base of my throat to my jaw. His sharp inhale hums right against my skin.
“What’s this you’re wearing today?”
I stare from the hall to across the kitchen, to the door to freedom. “I spent some time in the garden. It’s called sweat.”
He chuckles, low and rough. “Of course it is.” He touches my cheek, turns my face, and makes me look at him.
I blink slowly, unable to stop the sight of him filtering through my lashes.
“Do you want to kiss me goodnight?”
My lips part. Open with no answer and hardly any conscious volition.
The question repeats in my head. A thousand times. For every day I’ve been here and every day he’s asked. The full weight of time bears down on me in these moments and I understand exactly why people go crazy in prisons.
This is all there is.
Reality shivers. His lips are right there and I see them speak, again and again and again. In my mind, in memories, in dreams. Things he’s said and things I know he has not, until maybe the dreams are real, and this a nightmare.
Now it’s his breaths filling the space between us. Closer.
I almost lean in. Every day the struggle is the same. My will no stronger from practice. Julius’s voice compels surrender. Every single day it’s this—this temptation beating in my blood. Begging me to try. See what it’d be like to just-give-in.
I breathe in, breathe out through pursed lips, reach down inside myself to the place that’s hard and strong and inaccessible.
“No.”
He brushes my cheek with his fingertips. Maybe I’m going even crazier, seeing things with my eyes open instead of when they close, but for a moment I think there’s something a little heartbroken in the way he looks at me. “Why do you always lie to me?”
My chest squeezes and I wrench my face away.
His hand falls from me, but his voice rises up to take its place tormenting me. “One day, baby, I’ll have only the truth from you.”
Chairs skate backwards on the polished floors as everyone gets up. The sound bursts my bubble. Everyone’s leaving and so must I if I don’t want to be caught alone. I tuck the money into my handbag, then push back my chair, slow and easy, then slip to my feet. Inch away as the men shake hands. Take one last look at Julius’s broad back, then turn to the door. They’ll all be going directly out the doors from the pool room. Still, I keep my strides even, thighs clenching until I pass through the frame, and hit the cool dark stretch of the hallway.
My muscles loosen but I resist the compulsion to run before Julius notices I’ve gone. The sharp solid thud of dress shoes on wood echoes behind me. My backbone fuses for an instant. I stumble. One strappy heel twisting before I right myself, and keep my legs moving.
His steps trail behind me. Closer and closer. He doesn’t call out, or order me to stop. Just closes in somehow without seeming to pick up the pace. He’s always that much faster than me, that little bit ahead.
The light from the kitchen floods the end of the hall. I just need to make it through the kitchen and I’ll get to the back door. Be outside, then I can break into the jog itching through my quadriceps.
I reach the end of the hallway. A hand closes around my wrist and brings me to an instant breathless stop.
My skin sizzles where he touches me.
“How did you like your gift?” he says, still behind me, still holding my wrist.
I turn to him. Give him my best big-batting eyes. “Thank you, Julius, it’s always good to keep up with current events. I found the horoscopes particularly satisfying.”
He pushes the transitional sunglasses he wears for business up on top of his head, and I’m struck as always by his eyes. “Yeah, what do the stars say about your future?”
I don’t normally give him this much. Like my opinion, let alone a preference. I keep my personality all to myself, don’t give him any weapons. He has enough over me as it is.
But that newspaper fills the back of my mind.
It’s like I’ve been living the same exact day over, and over, and over, and over. Days and weeks bleed together. Like a movie, or a dream, time has no substance, means nothing here.
But that date—one month left.
Now I feel each moment as though I’m handed a grenade every time the minute hand twitches.
And I must do something, anything, to alter my course. I smile and wonder if it looks as stillborn on my lips as it feels on my face. “Oh, just that I’m going to meet a handsome stranger who will sweep me off my feet and take me someplace new.”
A stranger who’ll kill you dead.
Wickedness breaks across his face, and fuck-me if it doesn’t make him that much better looking.
“Ahh,” he says, and that one sound vibrates down my spine. He tugs me by the wrist and looks right down into my face. Those eyes in half light—I want to close my own. Shut them out. They see too much.
I keep my lids open, keep them wide.
Hold his gaze.
“Is that what you want, romance?” His voice drips with sweetness.
I’m no stranger to this side of him. He’s always offering, and offering, and offering, as though there’s an alternative to his food, his shelter, his company.
Luring and baiting.
Until I’m craving his cooking. Singing his damned songs. Thinking about his presence when he’s gone. He’s a devil—offering my damnation peeled, sliced and arranged on a china plate.
I suck in air. His scent is on my gasp, heady enough to taste. Spicy cologne, and something all him—male and feral.
He leans down, lowering his head.
I turn my face away.
Hold my breath.
His face touches my neck. Hairs stand and rise over my body. Not what I’d thought he’d leaned in for, yet somehow worse. His nose runs intimately from the base of my throat to my jaw. His sharp inhale hums right against my skin.
“What’s this you’re wearing today?”
I stare from the hall to across the kitchen, to the door to freedom. “I spent some time in the garden. It’s called sweat.”
He chuckles, low and rough. “Of course it is.” He touches my cheek, turns my face, and makes me look at him.
I blink slowly, unable to stop the sight of him filtering through my lashes.
“Do you want to kiss me goodnight?”
My lips part. Open with no answer and hardly any conscious volition.
The question repeats in my head. A thousand times. For every day I’ve been here and every day he’s asked. The full weight of time bears down on me in these moments and I understand exactly why people go crazy in prisons.
This is all there is.
Reality shivers. His lips are right there and I see them speak, again and again and again. In my mind, in memories, in dreams. Things he’s said and things I know he has not, until maybe the dreams are real, and this a nightmare.
Now it’s his breaths filling the space between us. Closer.
I almost lean in. Every day the struggle is the same. My will no stronger from practice. Julius’s voice compels surrender. Every single day it’s this—this temptation beating in my blood. Begging me to try. See what it’d be like to just-give-in.
I breathe in, breathe out through pursed lips, reach down inside myself to the place that’s hard and strong and inaccessible.
“No.”
He brushes my cheek with his fingertips. Maybe I’m going even crazier, seeing things with my eyes open instead of when they close, but for a moment I think there’s something a little heartbroken in the way he looks at me. “Why do you always lie to me?”
My chest squeezes and I wrench my face away.
His hand falls from me, but his voice rises up to take its place tormenting me. “One day, baby, I’ll have only the truth from you.”
After spending years imagining fictional adventures, Amber finally found a way to turn daydreaming into a productive habit. She now spends her time in a coffee-fuelled adrenaline haze, writing romance with a thriller edge.
She lives with her husband and children in semi-rural Australia, where if she peers outside at the right moment she might just see a kangaroo bounce by.
Amber is an award winning writer, Amazon Bestselling Author, and member of Romance Writers of Australia, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, and Writers Victoria.
Author Links
King's Captive by Amber Bardan
Coming February 13th
For three years, I've belonged to Julius King.
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I'm not here as a guest. Not even close. I'm a prisoner. I'm his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can't give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can't let him have any piece of my heart. I won't. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
This book is approximately 81,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I'm not here as a guest. Not even close. I'm a prisoner. I'm his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can't give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can't let him have any piece of my heart. I won't. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
This book is approximately 81,000 words
One-click with confidence. This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you're looking for with an HEA/HFN. It's a promise! Find out more at CarinaPress.com/RomancePromise
Chapter One
He’s coming.
A twig creaks. I jerk upright in the swing seat, where that day has been rolling through my mind like a snippet of a movie reel that’s been hacked to pieces, then glued back together.
Him—the reason I’ve spent the last three years in this tropical Caribbean prison.
Leaves crunch. He wants me to hear him coming. Julius enjoys anticipation.
I brush my dress over my knees. Pale blue chiffon picks up with the breeze. “Hello, Julius.”
“Good morning, baby.” He reaches my side and bends down and plants his lips on my cheek.
My eyes close for an instant. His kiss is deceptively warm, but then, hell is warm, no surprise the devil should be too.
“I’ve brought you something.”
The bitterness of his cologne coats my breaths. Like everything about him it’s a bit too much.
“Thank you.”
He leans closer, his watch right by my face.
Tick, tick, tick.
One tick to every two of my heartbeats.
He lays a rolled-up newspaper in my lap. I don’t open the paper.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Not a question, but then, nothing he says ever is.
My gaze collides with his. It’s like looking into the wind, makes me want to blink and look away.
“We’re having guests.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle. “I’m trusting you’ll be polite company.”
“Have I ever been anything else?”
He smiles his serpent smile and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “No, you’re perfect.”
I’d bite him, but he has a nice firm grip on my lady-balls, and he knows it.
Leverage. He has it—I don’t.
It’s the reason why, even if I could escape, even if he didn’t control all transport on and off the island, I’d still stay.
Everything here is in his control, even me.
Except for one thing.
I smile back at him, a real smile. There’s something I have that he doesn’t. Something that makes me want to gloat. Captivity has made me petty.
“Thanks.” I keep that satisfaction inside.
There’s a reason visitors make me giddy. There’s one thing I know that Julius doesn’t. There’s something that gives me hope.
“Dinner’s at five.” He releases my chin.
His sharp gaze disappears under the aviator sunglasses he slides over the bridge of his nose. I watch him leave, and wait until he’s rounded the corner to the house.
Only when he’s completely out of sight, I unwind the newspaper. He gives me many gifts, and on Fridays it’s always this. A weekly recap of a world moving along without me. It’s been rolled for too long and tries to curl back in on itself. I scan the headlines, flicking through the features and articles. Royals got married. A celebrity named their baby something that’ll plague the poor kid for the rest of eternity. Politicians broke election promises and sports happened. I circle back through the paper, trying to suck in this one taste of the outside world I ever get.
I scan one more time, pausing over my horoscope. “Do you really require the messages your forecast reveals? You have all the answers the cosmos can provide. Connect with your intuitive—”
I sigh and turn the page. What happened to the days when I could rely on the little strip in the back of the paper to tell me something useful, or at least hopeful—like to expect a tall dark stranger to sweep me off my feet? Please bring back that astrologer now. As much as I like my feet rooted in the dirt, I’ve spent the last three years praying for the stranger.
For anything.
Some small clue.
Now not even my fortune can be bothered pretending to reveal a sign. I close the paper, and fold it in half. Run my finger over the date.
The date...
My finger stills. I can’t move it from the number. I don’t want to see. Math was never my subject but I get this math right away.
I drag my finger aside.
One month.
I have exactly one month left until the first of October. The ticking in my head clicks louder than his watch had.
I’m almost out of time.
* * *
For a man with a fully staffed private island, it’s surprising the things Julius insists on doing himself. He likes to cook. More specifically, he likes to barbecue. Fat hisses on the grill. My tongue moistens despite myself. The empty plate in front of me seems bigger, somehow more empty. No one does meat like Julius.
He’s a master of flesh.
I’ve seen him butcher a calf himself. Make his own sausage, hang and cure charcuterie. I’ve watched him massage salt into a whole pig with his hands—impale lambs for the spit.
Today his table is full. So the barbecue will be too.
Unfortunately, I know all the faces crowding the twelve-seat outdoor setting. None of them are ones I care to see. Next to me, Dan pops the lid on a beer. His third. Don’t know why he bothers, it’s nonalcoholic. Not that Dan doesn’t enjoy his drink. I’ve seen the man stumble back to the table with piss on his jeans when he’s “off duty,” which isn’t often. Even off duty, Julius’s Men are always Julius’s Men.
And Julius likes his men and his muscle sober.
That’s Dan—muscle.
I glance at him briefly. He’s so big it’s heinous. Yet, for a guy who occasionally pisses on himself, I’ve seen those thick arms move quick enough to shoot a glass out of a person’s hands as they’re drinking. Unlike Julius, this snake doesn’t cover its scales. He wears jeans, and T-shirts that leave enough skin bare to let everyone know exactly how much time he’s done. Some days, if he’s had to stay over unexpectedly, when he lifts his arm to take a swig of his nonalcoholic beer, the odor alone is enough to knock a person dead.
No disguises, he’s a thug.
Julius lifts a T-bone with the prongs of his meat fork, then drops it onto the grill. A wave of smoke drifts over us. I wave my hand in front of my face, then reach for a glass of orange juice. The tang cleanses my palate. Sweet, and full of pulp I have to chew. Fresh-squeezed by Pa, the elderly man sitting two seats from me on the left. The seat between Pa and me remains empty. I set the juice next to the glass of wine beside my plate, untouched as always.
“Potato?” Dan hands me the stainless-steel bowl filled to the brim with potato salad. I take the bowl but pass it past Pa, who I know full well doesn’t believe in mayonnaise, to Leo.
Leo, Julian’s younger muscle, takes the potato salad without looking. He knows his eyes don’t belong on me. All of them do.
Almost all of them.
Julius joins us at the table with a platter full of meat. He serves his guests first. Jack Connelly and his five “brothers.” Then me. He lays a steak on my plate. Rib eye. Meat of the day is T-bone, but I have rib eye. My favorite, cooked medium how I like it. He’s never asked me to choose a cut, never asked me how well I prefer meat cooked, but he knows.
He had my tastes figured out in the first month. I can’t begin to think what he’s learned about me in three years.
“Thank you,” I say.
I give him only detached politeness. Formality. While he figures out my personal tastes, I figure out how little I can give him before he feels the need to reel me closer.
It’s a game—push-pull-push.
Julius always being the pusher.
He dishes up meat to his men, Dan, Leo, Pa and the new guy. I don’t look at the new guy. He hasn’t learned the rules yet and frankly I’ve got no desire to watch him bleed, despite the fact that if he’s working for Julius, he most likely has it coming.
The table’s split six to six.
Julius prefers things that way—even.
Even or in his favor.
He places a dripping steak on his own plate, then puts the meat tray in the center of the table with the mountains of other food.
My spine creaks more than his chair when he sits.
Dan used to sit where I’m sitting. Before I “came along.” Now I sit here, on Julius’s right. Yep, I’m his right-hand girl. I’ve brought nothing to this table, contributed nothing, but here I sit at his right.
I stretch for the garlic butter, and fork a large knob on top of the rib eye. You can bet your sweet ass I don’t hold back on that stuff. Never know when a girl might need a little garlic breath on her side. Male voices laugh and boom across the table, joining a chorus of scraping knives and clinking glasses.
They don’t speak to me, so I don’t speak either.
One of them, the stupid new one, watches me, though. He’s careful. Only glancing at me for a heartbeat or two before moving on.
But I don’t miss that throbbing pause. If he’s not careful, neither will Julius. He’s too stupid to live, that one. I make new guy a black spot in my vision. Don’t see him. Don’t hear him. When I look around the table, it’s like that chair is vacant.
“Something wrong with your steak, baby?”
The voices around us dull. Everything grows quieter when Julius speaks.
I set down my fork, one untouched morsel on the tines. “It’s a little overdone.”
It’s not, it’s perfect. No steak would ever suffer overcooking in Julius’s care. I don’t smirk. By some divine miracle the satisfaction stays under wraps.
“You should have said something.” He leans closer, leans right over me. “You know I’ll always take care of you.” His voice is low, dropped down to some husky key that seems to be reserved solely for me. My breath hiccups. Yes, he takes care of me. Every single moment of every single day. It’s Julius who feeds me. He who clothes me. He who keeps me safe.
He who can take all away.
He drags the steak off my plate with his fork, and tosses it onto the grass with a sharp swing of his arm. Not on a plate or in the bin, onto the lawn that looks as though it’s been trimmed by a thousand leprechauns with nail clippers, not a blade out of place.
Julius did that. Julius, who likes everything just so.
My pulse pounds in my ears like it’s trying to tell me something. I’ve heard this same thudding warning for years.
Watch out, watch out, watch out.
My heart doesn’t seem to realize I never stopped doing just that.
He cuts his T-bone, then scoops half up. Blood drips in the space between us. He drops the cut on my plate. So rare it’s almost blue.
I stare at his arm.
His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his right arm exposed to the elbow. That’s the benefit of sitting on his right. I get his clean side. Don’t have to stare at the evil thing on his neck. Dark hairs run down his forearm to his wrist, growing finer as they bridge the top of his hand. I wonder how far I’d get if I rammed my fork in that arm—right in his wrist joint—if I just lodged it right in there...
How long would it take for him to reach for the gun at his side?
How far could I get?
To the dock, maybe, with the help of a little adrenaline? Before Danny boy got to me. Before I remembered that every way off this island is Julius’s.
Before I remembered the other things keeping me here.
“Happy?” There’s that soft personal tone again, and it’s impossible not to hear. Impossible not to catch the switch when he speaks to me.
I look at him, something like a smile biting the corners of my lips. “Thank you, Julius.”
He turns back to his guests. The Connellys all sit together on the other side of the table. Jack Connelly in the middle. If Jack is here, it means one thing—today’s business is guns.
The kind Julius carries around tucked in the back of his pants.
Until I met him, I’d never seen a handgun.
I’d seen plenty of shotguns. At home even our gardener walked around with one on his back. Growing up, I thought everyone who worked on acreage carried a shotgun. Dad told me they were for snakes. Yet, in all my years, I never saw a single snake.
Not one.
But then, there were a lot of men with a lot of guns on our ranch to keep them at bay.
Now I know they were always waiting for a different kind of snake.
He’s coming.
A twig creaks. I jerk upright in the swing seat, where that day has been rolling through my mind like a snippet of a movie reel that’s been hacked to pieces, then glued back together.
Him—the reason I’ve spent the last three years in this tropical Caribbean prison.
Leaves crunch. He wants me to hear him coming. Julius enjoys anticipation.
I brush my dress over my knees. Pale blue chiffon picks up with the breeze. “Hello, Julius.”
“Good morning, baby.” He reaches my side and bends down and plants his lips on my cheek.
My eyes close for an instant. His kiss is deceptively warm, but then, hell is warm, no surprise the devil should be too.
“I’ve brought you something.”
The bitterness of his cologne coats my breaths. Like everything about him it’s a bit too much.
“Thank you.”
He leans closer, his watch right by my face.
Tick, tick, tick.
One tick to every two of my heartbeats.
He lays a rolled-up newspaper in my lap. I don’t open the paper.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Not a question, but then, nothing he says ever is.
My gaze collides with his. It’s like looking into the wind, makes me want to blink and look away.
“We’re having guests.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle. “I’m trusting you’ll be polite company.”
“Have I ever been anything else?”
He smiles his serpent smile and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “No, you’re perfect.”
I’d bite him, but he has a nice firm grip on my lady-balls, and he knows it.
Leverage. He has it—I don’t.
It’s the reason why, even if I could escape, even if he didn’t control all transport on and off the island, I’d still stay.
Everything here is in his control, even me.
Except for one thing.
I smile back at him, a real smile. There’s something I have that he doesn’t. Something that makes me want to gloat. Captivity has made me petty.
“Thanks.” I keep that satisfaction inside.
There’s a reason visitors make me giddy. There’s one thing I know that Julius doesn’t. There’s something that gives me hope.
“Dinner’s at five.” He releases my chin.
His sharp gaze disappears under the aviator sunglasses he slides over the bridge of his nose. I watch him leave, and wait until he’s rounded the corner to the house.
Only when he’s completely out of sight, I unwind the newspaper. He gives me many gifts, and on Fridays it’s always this. A weekly recap of a world moving along without me. It’s been rolled for too long and tries to curl back in on itself. I scan the headlines, flicking through the features and articles. Royals got married. A celebrity named their baby something that’ll plague the poor kid for the rest of eternity. Politicians broke election promises and sports happened. I circle back through the paper, trying to suck in this one taste of the outside world I ever get.
I scan one more time, pausing over my horoscope. “Do you really require the messages your forecast reveals? You have all the answers the cosmos can provide. Connect with your intuitive—”
I sigh and turn the page. What happened to the days when I could rely on the little strip in the back of the paper to tell me something useful, or at least hopeful—like to expect a tall dark stranger to sweep me off my feet? Please bring back that astrologer now. As much as I like my feet rooted in the dirt, I’ve spent the last three years praying for the stranger.
For anything.
Some small clue.
Now not even my fortune can be bothered pretending to reveal a sign. I close the paper, and fold it in half. Run my finger over the date.
The date...
My finger stills. I can’t move it from the number. I don’t want to see. Math was never my subject but I get this math right away.
I drag my finger aside.
One month.
I have exactly one month left until the first of October. The ticking in my head clicks louder than his watch had.
I’m almost out of time.
* * *
For a man with a fully staffed private island, it’s surprising the things Julius insists on doing himself. He likes to cook. More specifically, he likes to barbecue. Fat hisses on the grill. My tongue moistens despite myself. The empty plate in front of me seems bigger, somehow more empty. No one does meat like Julius.
He’s a master of flesh.
I’ve seen him butcher a calf himself. Make his own sausage, hang and cure charcuterie. I’ve watched him massage salt into a whole pig with his hands—impale lambs for the spit.
Today his table is full. So the barbecue will be too.
Unfortunately, I know all the faces crowding the twelve-seat outdoor setting. None of them are ones I care to see. Next to me, Dan pops the lid on a beer. His third. Don’t know why he bothers, it’s nonalcoholic. Not that Dan doesn’t enjoy his drink. I’ve seen the man stumble back to the table with piss on his jeans when he’s “off duty,” which isn’t often. Even off duty, Julius’s Men are always Julius’s Men.
And Julius likes his men and his muscle sober.
That’s Dan—muscle.
I glance at him briefly. He’s so big it’s heinous. Yet, for a guy who occasionally pisses on himself, I’ve seen those thick arms move quick enough to shoot a glass out of a person’s hands as they’re drinking. Unlike Julius, this snake doesn’t cover its scales. He wears jeans, and T-shirts that leave enough skin bare to let everyone know exactly how much time he’s done. Some days, if he’s had to stay over unexpectedly, when he lifts his arm to take a swig of his nonalcoholic beer, the odor alone is enough to knock a person dead.
No disguises, he’s a thug.
Julius lifts a T-bone with the prongs of his meat fork, then drops it onto the grill. A wave of smoke drifts over us. I wave my hand in front of my face, then reach for a glass of orange juice. The tang cleanses my palate. Sweet, and full of pulp I have to chew. Fresh-squeezed by Pa, the elderly man sitting two seats from me on the left. The seat between Pa and me remains empty. I set the juice next to the glass of wine beside my plate, untouched as always.
“Potato?” Dan hands me the stainless-steel bowl filled to the brim with potato salad. I take the bowl but pass it past Pa, who I know full well doesn’t believe in mayonnaise, to Leo.
Leo, Julian’s younger muscle, takes the potato salad without looking. He knows his eyes don’t belong on me. All of them do.
Almost all of them.
Julius joins us at the table with a platter full of meat. He serves his guests first. Jack Connelly and his five “brothers.” Then me. He lays a steak on my plate. Rib eye. Meat of the day is T-bone, but I have rib eye. My favorite, cooked medium how I like it. He’s never asked me to choose a cut, never asked me how well I prefer meat cooked, but he knows.
He had my tastes figured out in the first month. I can’t begin to think what he’s learned about me in three years.
“Thank you,” I say.
I give him only detached politeness. Formality. While he figures out my personal tastes, I figure out how little I can give him before he feels the need to reel me closer.
It’s a game—push-pull-push.
Julius always being the pusher.
He dishes up meat to his men, Dan, Leo, Pa and the new guy. I don’t look at the new guy. He hasn’t learned the rules yet and frankly I’ve got no desire to watch him bleed, despite the fact that if he’s working for Julius, he most likely has it coming.
The table’s split six to six.
Julius prefers things that way—even.
Even or in his favor.
He places a dripping steak on his own plate, then puts the meat tray in the center of the table with the mountains of other food.
My spine creaks more than his chair when he sits.
Dan used to sit where I’m sitting. Before I “came along.” Now I sit here, on Julius’s right. Yep, I’m his right-hand girl. I’ve brought nothing to this table, contributed nothing, but here I sit at his right.
I stretch for the garlic butter, and fork a large knob on top of the rib eye. You can bet your sweet ass I don’t hold back on that stuff. Never know when a girl might need a little garlic breath on her side. Male voices laugh and boom across the table, joining a chorus of scraping knives and clinking glasses.
They don’t speak to me, so I don’t speak either.
One of them, the stupid new one, watches me, though. He’s careful. Only glancing at me for a heartbeat or two before moving on.
But I don’t miss that throbbing pause. If he’s not careful, neither will Julius. He’s too stupid to live, that one. I make new guy a black spot in my vision. Don’t see him. Don’t hear him. When I look around the table, it’s like that chair is vacant.
“Something wrong with your steak, baby?”
The voices around us dull. Everything grows quieter when Julius speaks.
I set down my fork, one untouched morsel on the tines. “It’s a little overdone.”
It’s not, it’s perfect. No steak would ever suffer overcooking in Julius’s care. I don’t smirk. By some divine miracle the satisfaction stays under wraps.
“You should have said something.” He leans closer, leans right over me. “You know I’ll always take care of you.” His voice is low, dropped down to some husky key that seems to be reserved solely for me. My breath hiccups. Yes, he takes care of me. Every single moment of every single day. It’s Julius who feeds me. He who clothes me. He who keeps me safe.
He who can take all away.
He drags the steak off my plate with his fork, and tosses it onto the grass with a sharp swing of his arm. Not on a plate or in the bin, onto the lawn that looks as though it’s been trimmed by a thousand leprechauns with nail clippers, not a blade out of place.
Julius did that. Julius, who likes everything just so.
My pulse pounds in my ears like it’s trying to tell me something. I’ve heard this same thudding warning for years.
Watch out, watch out, watch out.
My heart doesn’t seem to realize I never stopped doing just that.
He cuts his T-bone, then scoops half up. Blood drips in the space between us. He drops the cut on my plate. So rare it’s almost blue.
I stare at his arm.
His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his right arm exposed to the elbow. That’s the benefit of sitting on his right. I get his clean side. Don’t have to stare at the evil thing on his neck. Dark hairs run down his forearm to his wrist, growing finer as they bridge the top of his hand. I wonder how far I’d get if I rammed my fork in that arm—right in his wrist joint—if I just lodged it right in there...
How long would it take for him to reach for the gun at his side?
How far could I get?
To the dock, maybe, with the help of a little adrenaline? Before Danny boy got to me. Before I remembered that every way off this island is Julius’s.
Before I remembered the other things keeping me here.
“Happy?” There’s that soft personal tone again, and it’s impossible not to hear. Impossible not to catch the switch when he speaks to me.
I look at him, something like a smile biting the corners of my lips. “Thank you, Julius.”
He turns back to his guests. The Connellys all sit together on the other side of the table. Jack Connelly in the middle. If Jack is here, it means one thing—today’s business is guns.
The kind Julius carries around tucked in the back of his pants.
Until I met him, I’d never seen a handgun.
I’d seen plenty of shotguns. At home even our gardener walked around with one on his back. Growing up, I thought everyone who worked on acreage carried a shotgun. Dad told me they were for snakes. Yet, in all my years, I never saw a single snake.
Not one.
But then, there were a lot of men with a lot of guns on our ranch to keep them at bay.
Now I know they were always waiting for a different kind of snake.
After spending years imagining fictional adventures, Amber finally found a way to turn daydreaming into a productive habit. She now spends her time in a coffee-fuelled adrenaline haze, writing romance with a thriller edge.
She lives with her husband and children in semi-rural Australia, where if she peers outside at the right moment she might just see a kangaroo bounce by.
Amber is an award winning writer, Amazon Bestselling Author, and member of Romance Writers of Australia, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, and Writers Victoria.
Author Links
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)