Innocence Burned Paperback
Excerpt:
Isabella
I turned around and took in my surroundings. Someone could have easily followed me or tracked down the cab company by now. The couple at the end of the pier were so into each other I doubted they noticed anyone. Even a runaway bride.
A family of four stood huddled together off to the side, holding up a cell phone to take a series of selfies, also oblivious to those around them. They’d noticed my arrival, giving me a strange look as I passed them, but quickly moved on to whatever brought them here in the first place. Most likely tourists if I had to guess.
In fact, no one paid any attention to me at all. Some of the tension keeping me strung tight loosened. But still no new plan came to mind. I was still standing on a pier in a wedding gown with nowhere to go.
With increasing desperation driving me to do something, movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and that’s when I saw him. A stranger sitting alone on a bench with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
I moved to avert my eyes when his gaze caught mine and held it. Well, I froze, he didn’t move. I couldn’t look away from eyes so blue they almost glowed. In the darkened grey day on a quiet Seattle pier, those eyes stood out like beacons calling my damn name. The rest of him wasn’t half bad either. Short brown hair cropped close to his head, and enough stubble on his face to indicate more than a few days had passed since he shaved. And he wasn’t so much sitting on the bench as he was sprawled on it with his legs kicked out in front of him. Worn denim hugged long, thick legs, making it impossible not to notice the muscle that lay underneath.
The rest of him looked pretty big too from what I could tell. Despite the black leather jacket covering his torso, I still saw the dark T-shirt underneath conformed to a broad chest and likely tight abs underneath. Heavy combat boots completed the look and made me groan. He might as well have hung a blinking neon sign around his neck that said, ‘Bad boy. Come and get it.’
Getting it would normally be a bad idea. But in this case… That new plan I’d been looking for crystallized in my brain. He was the perfect solution in every way.
A place to hide.
A way to take my mind off my craptastic life.
And the easy way out I needed.
Except he was still staring at me and the longer he did the more it unnerved me. His facial expression didn’t change and if not for the end of the cigarette lighting up when he took a drag, I might have believed he was a figment of my imagination.
It was then I realized what I was probably staring at. He wasn’t just some guy. He was the real deal. Some kind of powerful badass clear to the bone. Guys who wanted to be like him came by the dozen with no hope of ever actually being him. None of them would still be holding my gaze hostage like this one.
Something inside me jumped. A feeling I hardly remembered. Something darkly sexual weaving its way through my blood.
Of course, standing here dressed in a wedding gown I couldn’t be further from his type if I tried. He didn’t know that I’d been forced to wear this dress. Or that the man I’d been about to wed would be more than happy to force me if I dared to defy him. That had been my cross to bear because of the family I was born to and today I’d refused my duty and run.
Isabella
I turned around and took in my surroundings. Someone could have easily followed me or tracked down the cab company by now. The couple at the end of the pier were so into each other I doubted they noticed anyone. Even a runaway bride.
A family of four stood huddled together off to the side, holding up a cell phone to take a series of selfies, also oblivious to those around them. They’d noticed my arrival, giving me a strange look as I passed them, but quickly moved on to whatever brought them here in the first place. Most likely tourists if I had to guess.
In fact, no one paid any attention to me at all. Some of the tension keeping me strung tight loosened. But still no new plan came to mind. I was still standing on a pier in a wedding gown with nowhere to go.
With increasing desperation driving me to do something, movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and that’s when I saw him. A stranger sitting alone on a bench with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.
I moved to avert my eyes when his gaze caught mine and held it. Well, I froze, he didn’t move. I couldn’t look away from eyes so blue they almost glowed. In the darkened grey day on a quiet Seattle pier, those eyes stood out like beacons calling my damn name. The rest of him wasn’t half bad either. Short brown hair cropped close to his head, and enough stubble on his face to indicate more than a few days had passed since he shaved. And he wasn’t so much sitting on the bench as he was sprawled on it with his legs kicked out in front of him. Worn denim hugged long, thick legs, making it impossible not to notice the muscle that lay underneath.
The rest of him looked pretty big too from what I could tell. Despite the black leather jacket covering his torso, I still saw the dark T-shirt underneath conformed to a broad chest and likely tight abs underneath. Heavy combat boots completed the look and made me groan. He might as well have hung a blinking neon sign around his neck that said, ‘Bad boy. Come and get it.’
Getting it would normally be a bad idea. But in this case… That new plan I’d been looking for crystallized in my brain. He was the perfect solution in every way.
A place to hide.
A way to take my mind off my craptastic life.
And the easy way out I needed.
Except he was still staring at me and the longer he did the more it unnerved me. His facial expression didn’t change and if not for the end of the cigarette lighting up when he took a drag, I might have believed he was a figment of my imagination.
It was then I realized what I was probably staring at. He wasn’t just some guy. He was the real deal. Some kind of powerful badass clear to the bone. Guys who wanted to be like him came by the dozen with no hope of ever actually being him. None of them would still be holding my gaze hostage like this one.
Something inside me jumped. A feeling I hardly remembered. Something darkly sexual weaving its way through my blood.
Of course, standing here dressed in a wedding gown I couldn’t be further from his type if I tried. He didn’t know that I’d been forced to wear this dress. Or that the man I’d been about to wed would be more than happy to force me if I dared to defy him. That had been my cross to bear because of the family I was born to and today I’d refused my duty and run.
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