Temptation (Poison In My Veins #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Darkness.

“You just woke up, didn’t you? I can tell. Your body went all tense and extra hard.”

A woman. Her voice—soft and husky in the darkness. She was…on top of him? He could feel her curves pressed against him. Could smell her scent. Strawberries.

“I’m going to need you not to panic. Panicking will not help us in this situation.”

Who the fuck was she? Where the fuck was he?

She was on top of him, he was below her, his body spread on something hard. Felt like a damn board.

“You don’t know me, but my name is Sloane.”

Sloane.

“And it’s going to be all right,” she assured him.

He liked her voice. He didn’t like the cobwebs in his mind.

“Try to keep your breathing nice and slow,” she encouraged him. “Because we are going to make it out of here. I, um, don’t know how much air we have and how long it will last so I’m just trying to—”

“What. The. Fuck?” How much air they had?

Her breath blew lightly across his cheek.

His hands lifted to curl around her waist. He was gonna move her off him. But, when his hands moved, his knuckles slammed into something hard. As hard as the board beneath him.

Wait a damn minute…

A board below him.

Boards on the both sides of him.

Darkness all around.

“I can’t get off you,” she said, sounding apologetic. “There’s just nowhere for me to go.”

Rage twisted inside of him. “What is happening?”

A soft sigh. “I’m afraid…that we’ve been buried alive. Together.”

He opened his mouth.

And she kissed him. Her lips were cool. Soft. Plump. Her breath tasted of peppermint and when her tongue dipped into his mouth, when she teased him with the sensual skim of her lips, a sudden, surging bolt of desire burned through him.

“Kiss me back,” she urged against his lips.

He…did.

Instinct. Need. Desperation. They all thundered through his veins.

His hands grabbed to her, locking around her hips, as his mouth opened wider.

Her taste—the feel of her against him… Lust blazed.

Erupted. Consumed. They were in the dark.

They were in hell, he knew it. Knew it because he’d been there before.

He’d been to hell and back, but he’d been there alone before.

He wasn’t alone this time. She was with him. An angel in the darkness. Kissing him. Her body so soft against him as she sprawled over him. Over his body…

In hell.

“No.” Her mouth lifted. “I know you can do better than that.” A husky admonishment. “You think a woman doesn’t know when a man isn’t focused one hundred percent on her? I want you to kiss me. Kiss me as if nothing else matters.” Her head lowered. “Kiss me.” A plea. Frayed at the edges.

She was afraid. He heard it in her voice, and something in him reacted to her fear.

Can’t let her be afraid. Won’t.

His mouth took hers. He drove his tongue past her lips, greedily taking and tasting every drop of her.

She met him. Kissed him back with sensual skill tinted with the hint of desperation.

His hold tightened on her hips. She was flush against him…

Wait, her legs were between his. She had to feel the growing dick shoving hard against her, not like there was any place where he could hide his erection.

She was soft and warm, and the fresh scent of strawberries seemed to cling to her skin. A sweet scent.

In hell. We are in hell. Trapped.

Her mouth slid away from his. Skimmed his jaw. “You’re doing it again,” she chided. “Focus on me. Breathe with me. Feel my body against yours. Feel me as I take a breath in, then let it out. Nice and slow, okay? Feel me. Breathe with me. Focus on me.”

She pulled in a soft breath. Let it out.

He felt her breath. Felt it as her chest pulled in, then pressed out.

He…

Breathed with her. In and out.

Again.

Not desperate, heaving breaths. She wasn’t doing that. She was breathing slowly. Carefully. Because she didn’t know how much damn air they had. Because she knows that we are buried in a fucking coffin. Buried alive.

His breath rushed out.

She kissed him again. A quick slide of her tongue. A caress that had his dick hardening even more and had him instantly focusing on her once again.

“Every time you panic, I’m kissing you,” she said. “Be warned. My mouth will find yours. You’re going to get awful addicted to me and my kisses before we’re rescued.” A teasing note had entered her voice.

A warm, sexy voice. One that he thought might have just held the faintest trace of a southern accent. But he didn’t really care about her accent. Instead, he was focused on what she’d just said…Before we’re rescued. “No one will come to save us,” he rasped. They would not.

Soft laughter. Light. Husky. “Of course, they will.”

He shook his head, and the back of his skull seemed to bang against the wood beneath him. “We’re buried in a coffin.” His hands remained on her. He’d rather touch her than the hard wood around him.

“Preston…” She breathed his name like a prayer.

Preston. He swallowed. Twice. He didn’t know his mystery lady in the dark, but she knew him.

I’m Preston Byron, and I’ve been thrown into hell again. Fucking again.

But he wasn’t alone. Not this time.

“You noticed the coffin, huh?” Again, that slightly teasing note even as her voice tried to fray around the edges.

How the hell could she tease when they were going to die?

“What gave it away?” she asked him. “The wood or the small size? Because you’re bigger than me…let’s see, you’re probably around six-foot-three? Maybe six-four?”

He was six-four.

“This coffin has to be tighter for you. Are your feet hitting the wooden slat near them?”

Yes, they were.

“Or maybe it was the darkness that gave things away. Was that one of the big clues? Because you woke up and you knew instantly where you were and what was happening.”

He wanted her mouth back on his. When her mouth was on his, he had sweetness in hell. “Been…here before.” Gritted, rough words. Brutal in their savagery.

“You’ve been buried alive before.” Not a question. More of a statement.

But he still answered. “Yes.”

“Most people go forever and never get buried alive, not even once. And this happened twice to you.”

“Just call me an unlucky bastard.” But it wasn’t about being unlucky, was it? It was about being targeted. Hunted. I escaped him once before. I escaped. I got out. I can do it again. “Been here before,” he gritted out once more.

“Not with me, you haven’t.”

No. He’d been alone in the dark when he’d been a teen. “No one…coming to save…”

“No one saved you before? Well, if you were in the dark before, how did you get out?” A careful question.

Another swallow. He was far too conscious of the movement of his Adam’s apple. Of the softness of her body against his. Of the slight trembles that shook her every few moments.

She is not as brave as she appears.

“Preston?”

He liked how his name sounded on her lips. A strange thought to have but…

“How did you get out before?” she pushed.

“Loose piece of wood.” He’d gotten lucky.

The coffin had been handmade. Not the kind you went to a funeral home and bought.

Because that kind would have been traceable.

“Was able to pry a few nail free, able to break that board.” His breath heaved at the memory. “Then all the dirt came crashing in—”

She kissed him again.

Every time you panic, I’m kissing you. His fingers pressed tightly to her waist. Too tightly? Was he hurting her? Because he was kissing her hard, with too much force, and he had to hold back. He didn’t want to hurt her.

But we’re both going to die in this hell.

“We aren’t dying.” She’d raised her head off his. Not far, because there wasn’t very far for her to go. “We are going to get out. You got out before. We’ll get out now.”

He’d had to dig his way out of his own grave before.

He’d barely made it. His fingers and forearms had been bloody, ripped to shreds.

He’d choked on dirt. Had spat it out over and over again, but the dirt had gotten in his nose.

It had gotten stuck between his teeth. He’d had the taste of it on his tongue—

Peppermint.

She kissed him again, and he tasted peppermint.

“Trust me.” She nipped his lower lip. “We are not dying here. This is not how I’m going out. We are going to be rescued.”

“How can…” Too rough. Too snarling. He tried again, “How can we be rescued when no one knows where we are?”

“You and I don’t get to just vanish. There are people in this world who will look for us.” A pause. “I have friends who will not stop until they find me.”

Yeah, but they might find her lifeless body, sprawled on top of his.

You have to save her. Protect her. Get her out of here.

They couldn’t just stay in the dark, kissing whenever he fucking panicked.

And the very fact that he had panicked? That he’d let the old ghosts rise up to choke him?

Something that both infuriated and embarrassed Preston.

But he needed that rage. He needed it to fuel him as he pounded his way out of this nightmare.

I will break the coffin. I will dig us out of this grave. I will get her to safety.

He might deserve to die. His angel didn’t. “Tell me your name again.” A gruff demand. Preston thought he remembered, but when he’d first woken up, his mind had been cloudy. Too cloudy. Still was, in some ways. What happened to me?

“Sloane.” Just that. A first name. No last name. Musical. Mysterious.

Kind of like the woman on top of him. A woman he hadn’t seen. He couldn’t. It was absolutely pitch black in their grave. No matter how his eyes strained, he would never see anything but the darkness.

He eased in a slow breath.

“You seem calmer,” she noted. Cautious optimism whispered through her words. “Is that calmness due to my incredible kissing talent?”