Sacrifice (The Venus Chronicles #1)

Chapter 1

One

I bet the water’s fucking freezing.

Eve stared down into the rushing, black flow of the Thames and the chill of winter crept beneath her coat. This had been a bad idea.

Her vision swam in and out of focus from the height and the booze and her hand that gripped the iron balustrade stung from the cold. She’d had way too much wine to be standing on the wrong side of the railings on Hammersmith Bridge. Climbing over had been a big mistake.

Somehow, the winsome heroines of fiction always made these desperate bids for attention seem so much more romantic. So much more satisfying.

Eve flopped dejectedly and wobbled on her perch. She could see the problem, of course.

Someone needs to give a shit, Eve. Not much point in being dramatic if no one’s going to notice.

She craned her neck to look in either direction along the bridge. It was deserted. It was also fucking freezing.

Eve sighed.

Another day on the never-ending treadmill of career disappointment had culminated in possibly the lamest Christmas party she’d ever had the misfortune to attend. Condemned to the ‘Gift Shop Table’, she’d watched as all the truly interesting people had formed an impenetrable clique on the other side of the room.

While they discussed upcoming exhibits and the museum’s contribution to national culture, Eve had fought off the unwelcome advances of Gilbert, the gift shop manager, and parried the dreary self-obsessed wittering of Sienna, her fellow gift shop assistant.

At least there had been alcohol.

Possibly a bit too much alcohol.

The beginnings of a headache thudded behind Eve’s eyes and she realized miserably that she’d left her migraine meds at home. Another reason to just chuck herself in. Eve sighed and took a moment to reassess.

Two minutes ago, climbing over the railing to stand on the edge of oblivion had felt like the perfect expression of her frustration. Now… Now it was clearly madness. She should just go home and hope her parents hadn’t noticed how late she was.

Still living with my parents. Christ, I’m pathetic.

She slumped again and threw back her head, disgusted with herself. How many of her twenty-six-year-old friends still lived with their parents? None. They were either married or shacked up or off travelling, actually having a life.

She took a deep breath and released her grip on the freezing iron to make a grab for the top of the railing. The top railing, however, was much higher from this side and out of reach.

She swiveled to get a better angle. The ledge wasn’t quite wide enough to take her whole foot and her heels dipped alarmingly over the edge. Eve’s heart jolted and she snatched for the railing. The surface was slick, and her fingers slithered off into nothingness. Then she was too far over the edge to bring her center of gravity back and, before she knew what was happening, she was tipping backwards with nothing behind her but air.

Holy shit!

Eve flapped her arms like an insane, panicking bird, desperate to pull itself forward, but the laws of physics had taken charge.

“No!”

This had not been the plan! There was never going to be any actual jumping. Someone was supposed to have come to her rescue, to talk her out of it. It has just been for the thrill, to try, just for a moment, to feel alive. Now she was going to die!

“Fuck!”

Rushing air tore Eve’s coat up over her head, and she plunged, flailing and blinded, toward the river, knowing that at any second, the icy water would hit. She clamped her mouth shut and screwed up her eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears, and when the surface came, it was like hitting hard ground. She’d barely registered the pain before icy water swamped her.

Her body flexed with shock. She wanted to gasp and scream but knew better than that, knew she had to keep her mouth tightly shut.

The current pulled her down and twisted her clothes into a suffocating tangle. All around was black.

Oh my god, where’s the surface?

She kicked against the dark and scrambled to be free. Arms bound by the knot of clothing, she fought against the freezing, engulfing water, not knowing which way was up or what to aim for. Her lungs burned, desperate for air.

Unseen rocks on the bottom slashed at her body and licks of weed wrapped around her legs. Panic took hold. She flailed against her coat and managed to free an arm to tear it away.

Her lungs screamed for oxygen, and consciousness stuttered. The current took hold of her again, dragging her on, propelling her through. She sensed its grip around her waist and the wash of water against her skin. Then she was free of it, but exposed to bitter air that stung her flesh with freezing vengeance. Pain and cold swept through her body, overwhelming and unsustainable. Her consciousness waned, then faded away.

Warmth was the next thing Eve was aware of. A source so close at hand that it radiated into her. The icy depths of the Thames had gone, to be replaced by… what exactly?

Trapped in that place between dreaming and waking, Eve felt about for information.

She was laying down, somewhere soft and comfortable, enveloped by darkness and heat and breath.

Breath. That was a weird one.

She tried to move and open her eyes, but found she still couldn’t. Unknowingly, she must have made some kind of noise though, because someone pulled her closer and said in a deep, reassuring voice, “Shh, don’t fuss. I’ve got you now.”

Her heartbeat picked up to thud in her chest.

What the hell…?

A man’s body was so close she couldn’t believe she’d not realized immediately. Her head was laying against his hard muscular chest, and his arms wrapped around her, one hand pressed to the small of her back, the other at the nape of her neck, his fingers in her hair.

Heat tingled in her flesh beneath his fingertips as if energy from his body flowed directly into hers. It was like being brought to life, every nerve tingling beneath his touch.

“Wha...” Eve fought against the weight of her eyelids, but the world stubbornly remained a blur.

He shifted his position and gently laid her away from him onto her back. She didn’t know who he was or how she’d got here but the loss of proximity made her want to reach out and grab him. He placed his hand on her hip, his palm on her naked skin, his breath hot on her neck, and instantly she felt soothed.

Eve wracked her fuzzy brain for the ability to speak and eventually managed a single word.

“Where?”

“You’re at my house on the river. I pulled you out of the water. What the hell were you doing?”

His voice was like a low rumble of thunder. He was angry. Someone had noticed, after all.

“You were half drowned and frozen. Sharing body heat is survival 101.”

He shifted position and pulled her back into him. Eve appreciated then, through her misty consciousness, that she was entirely naked. And so was he.

This should have been ringing alarm bells. Even Eve’s limited experience with men told her that this was not normal. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have been comfortable naked with anyone until a long way into a relationship, yet here she was buck naked with a stranger—a stranger who, she had to assume, had saved her life.

And it felt good.

He smoothed his palm down her thigh, and where goosebumps had faded from the all-consuming cold, fresh ones formed beneath his touch.

“You seem to be warming up,” he said, and his breath brushed across her collarbone. The goosebumps ran across her chest and hardened her nipples in response.

“Yes,” she managed.

His hand swept over to her other leg and inched upwards, his thumb tracing a line up her inner thigh.

“It takes a little while to raise your blood temperature. Try to relax.”

A wave of warmth trailed in the wake of his touch. His hand came to rest in the hollow of her hip, and his fingers curled lightly around to rest at the very top of her inner thigh.

Heat poured from his fingertips, and Eve’s breathing deepened.

“Yes,” he whispered the word into her neck. Relaxing was the only possible path. Then his hand was moving again, raised to touch her only by its very fingertips now. He brushed along her side, and tingling breaths of pleasure rolled through her.

“Goosebumps. You’re still cold.” He said and slid the flat of his palm around her back to pull her in.

The sensation of his chest pressed against her naked breasts was all-consuming. A stranger’s body, but so appealing. Heat and energy penetrated her skin and reached inside. Her heart picked up its rhythm, and her breathing followed. She stretched out an arm to drape over him, and her hand found his back. Smooth and hard.

“Sleep,” he said, and despite the unfamiliarity of it all, she let her mind relax and told her eyes to stop fighting to see.

Later, Eve. You can find out who he is later.