Dark.
Powerful. Dangerous.
Philip Murphy has all of Chicago under his thumb. Except me.
We met in a perfect storm of violence and lust. He saved me and then disappeared from my life. Now I pretend I never knew that kind of darkness. I focus on midterms and campus parties, as if they can wipe the slate clean.
Then he turns up outside my dorm room--wounded and barely conscious. He's the head of a criminal empire, a powerful man, but he needs me now. There are traitors in his midst.
I can help him, but I can't fall for him.
Not again.
Philip Murphy has all of Chicago under his thumb. Except me.
We met in a perfect storm of violence and lust. He saved me and then disappeared from my life. Now I pretend I never knew that kind of darkness. I focus on midterms and campus parties, as if they can wipe the slate clean.
Then he turns up outside my dorm room--wounded and barely conscious. He's the head of a criminal empire, a powerful man, but he needs me now. There are traitors in his midst.
I can help him, but I can't fall for him.
Not again.
EXCERPT
The sound came again, louder. A shiver ran through me. It
was coming from outside the room, but not from either side. It was coming from
the door.
I crept over and looked out the peephole. An empty hallway
bulged in the distorted lens.
Now I was doubting myself. Had I actually heard something?
Maybe it had come from the dorm room across the hall. When I first moved here,
it had been shortly after my “ordeal,” as my adoptive mother called it. I had
jumped at every sound, both real and imagined, more traumatized by my brush
with danger than I’d wanted to admit.
My gaze snapped to my phone.
I could call my adoptive mother right now, but I knew she
wouldn’t want to be bothered. I could call the building management, but I knew
what would happen. The same thing that had happened last time I called them.
They’d send my floor advisor to check on me. If there was anything scary in
this hallway, she’d have to face it first.
And if there wasn’t anything scary, if it was my imagination
again, the PTSD I didn’t want to acknowledge, well then everyone would know how
fucked up I was inside.
No, I had to be overreacting. This was nothing. There was no
one in the hallway. And even if there was, it would be some drunk guy, passed
out on the wrong floor.
I’m a normal college student, I reminded myself. I’m not
afraid of anything.
Both of those things were lies, I was neither normal nor
brave, but at least I could send a drunk frat boy on his way.
I opened the door a crack. Nothing.
Relief filled me, and I opened the door wider.
A body slid inside, slumped over without the door to support
him. A short scream escaped me before I caught myself.
He was wearing a three-piece suit stained with blood, his
expression slack, eyes glassy with pain and delirium. Philip.
Oh God, he was hurt. Really badly hurt if he couldn’t stand
up. Horribly hurt if he’d ever have come to me of all people. I didn’t have
time to process the shock of it, of seeing him again. I had to get him out of
sight. If he’d been injured like this, someone was after him. Someone would
want to finish the job.
“Come inside,” I whispered urgently, pulling his arm.
All that earned me was a weak groan.
Panic beat in my chest. Was he losing consciousness? Was he
dying?
I managed to sling his heavy arm over my shoulders,
staggering under even that much weight. Christ. Awake he was pure packed power.
Half-conscious and injured, he was like a pile of steel bars—unmovable and
unwieldy.
“I’ll never forgive you if you die on my doorstep,” I said.
Something like a grunt escaped him—it might have been a
laugh. Either way, he surged up, tapping into some deep well of energy or
survival instinct. His effort and all my strength pushed us through the doorway
and into my dorm room. It had seemed small before. Now it seemed tiny as we
bumped into walls and staggered to the bed.
I wanted to lay him down gently, careful with his wounds,
but in the end we both fell under his weight, tangled on the bed in a heap of
exhausted limbs. With a coarse shove I managed to get him on his back so I
could shut the door.
The hallway was just as empty as when I’d found him. There
was a little smear of blood on the doorjamb. It turned a mottled brown when I
wiped it with my shirt.
That would have to be good enough for now.
I just hoped no one had followed him. I just hoped no one
found him.
And I really hoped no one found me.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Skye Warren is the New York Times bestselling author of dark
romance such as Wanderlust and Prisoner. Praised as a “true mistress of dark
erotica”, her books have been featured in Jezebel, Buzzfeed, USA Today Happily
Ever After, Glamour, and Elle Magazine. She makes her home in Texas with her
loving family, four dogs, and one evil cat.
Website: http://www.skyewarren.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skyewarren
Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/skyewarrenbooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skye_warren
Links for DEEP
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1Q2eESk
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Kobo: http://bit.ly/1PLs0B7
Google Play: http://bit.ly/1R2ZfO2
All Romance: http://bit.ly/1QuSv11
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ReplyDeleteOh the book looks so good! Do you have a quiet place you like to go and write?
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