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
“Dark, sexy, and intense, Prisoner is an emotional ride that does not let go until the end. I loved it!” ~ USA Today bestselling author Kristen Callihan
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“Gritty, raw, sexy, intense, and powerfully intriguing” – The Sassy Bookista
“Prisoner had me hooked from their very first meeting with her head in a book checking out the goods. This was a wild ride from beginning to end and I loved it.” – She Hearts Books
“The action is heart pounding. The sex is extraordinary. The plot line is fascinating. The characters are full of life and multidimensional. This story. Sigh. These authors pairing up created something truly beautiful.” – Fictional Candy
“Prisoner is terrific and frightening, sexy and dangerous, sweet and heavy on messed up, tortured characters. ALL LOVERS of Dark Erotic Thrillers must read this book!” – Mistik Ink
“Prisoner is captivating, emotional, and raw. I can’t wait to read it again. This might just be my favorite book of the year.” – Wicked With Ink
“Wow! This hunk of a male with a hunted past was a force to be reckoned with. I understood the allure of him and his raw sexual appeal. After peeling the layers back, I understood him, and just like Abby, I wanted to fix him.” – Pearls and Peacocks
“This is a great read it will have you hooked from the beginning…I highly recommend you get it now and read it is just that good.” – Summer’s Book Blog
“Books. We read the stories that they contain. Some of them are just a passing of the time. An escape of sorts. Others are game changers. “Prisoner” by Skye Warren and Annika Martin was that type of book for me.” – Country Gal Sexy Reads
“Prisoner is sexy, twisted, intense and total Kindle Crack! One click this one…and be prepared to spend your day in prison with Abby and Grayson.” – Kindle Crack
“Although disturbing and heart wrenching I don’t regret a thing. Prisoner is going down as one of my favorite reads this year.” – Monlatable Book Reviews
“In this tale, Ms. Martin and Ms. Warren took their readers on one raw, dark and compelling story. There is no black and white. No right and wrong. Only there is the truth.” – Four Chicks Flipping Books
“Prisoner is gripping, unique, and will appeal to fans of romance, mystery and suspense, and dark erotica alike. The writing team of Annika Martin and Skye Warren is one I certainly hope continues, as I look forward to reading more from this dynamic duo.” – Romantic Reading Escapes
“Prisoner is a thrilling and engrossing read that will leave you desperate and feverishly flipping pages to find out what happens next. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for something absolutely engrossing and just plain great. It’s sexy, hot, a bit dark, and fascinating.” – Sinfully Sexy Books
“Sexy, Intense, Obsession at its BEST” – Prone to Crushes
“WOW!! Watch out guys, this is an explosive read. It is fast paced, it twists and leaves you surprised at every damn turn it makes.” – Perusing Princesses
“Annika Martin and Skye Warren have created an addictive read with Prisoner. Told through the alternating points of view of Grayson and Abby, the writing pair weave a web of secrecy and intrigue, curiosity and shock throughout.” – Obsessed by Books
“This is a beautifully dark story of captivity, vengeance and love. Utterly consuming, this grim story is the warped course of two caged souls, bound by their pasts, who may have just found freedom in each other.” – Angie & Jessica’s Dreamy Reads
“I loved Wonderlust by Skye Warren and Prisoner did not disappoint…The writing was amazing. Once I started I could not stop reading and then I thought about the characters days after finishing.” – She Book Blogs
“WOW! Talk about a book that takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions! Prisoner by Skye Warren and Annika Martin does just that!” – Wicked Women Books and More
“Prisoner is an action-packed, fast paced read, featuring a dangerous man and a woman who’s got no intentions of giving up, mixed in with hot, smutty fluff in a great combo. I loved it!” – Read Our Lips Book Blog
“Skye Warren is my go-to author for dark, sexy, richly-written erotica…I couldn’t put this book down. The prose is perfect and the story thrilling, sexy and even tender and heartbreaking at times.” – The Book Bellas
EXCERPT FROM PRISONER
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.