Condemned Series
Gemma James
(Condemned #1-4)
Publication date: November 23rd 2015
Genres: New Adult, Romance
One lie. One act of revenge. One obsessive love.I was only fifteen when I sent the love of my life to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Rafe Mason, rising MMA star, my brother’s best friend, and the guy my foolish heart yearned for—the guy my foolish heart won’t forget even now that eight years have gone by. But now he’s free and only wants one thing: me at his mercy.And I am.I’m a prisoner on his island, a willing captive to his deviant desires, bound by his justified fury. Even worse, I’m a hostage of my own treacherous heart. But the lie I told eight years ago is ricocheting, destroying lives and altering the course of fate. Neither of us saw it coming.The violence and death. The betrayal. The utter destruction that leaves us in ruins.How can a single lie cause so much devastation? Redemption seems impossible because neither of us can undo what’s been done. I belong to him as much as he belongs to me, and we’ll fight for each other or go down in flames trying.The Condemned series bundle includes Torrent, Rampant, Fervent, and Vagrant. Intended for mature readers who enjoy a psychological dark romance thriller with kidnapping and other disturbing themes. Not for the faint of heart. You’ve been warned.
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EXCERPT:
I leaned against the door and stared at her with a nonchalance I didn’t feel. God help me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off all those dark curls cascading over her tiny shoulders. The slender slope of her neck drew my attention, and I imagined closing my hands around her throat and squeezing the essence from her, imagined the panic in her eyes as she neared loss of consciousness.
“Miss me?” I asked.
Her eyes, already wide at the sight of me, grew even rounder. “What?”
I crossed my arms, aware of how my biceps bulged. “I didn’t stutter, sweetheart. It’s been a long time. Did you miss me?”
“Did I…?” She shook her head, as if I’d uttered the most ridiculous question she’d ever heard. “What do you want, Rafe?” Her words fell from her lips in a nervous whisper.
“I think you already know.” You couldn’t send an innocent man to prison without expecting some sort of consequences. Except Alex didn’t know two fucks about me. The real Rafe Mason was about to do reprehensible things to her, like toss her deceitful naked ass into a cage.
Her gaze veered to the floor, and I barked at her to look at me.
“If I could change things, I would,” she said, inching back, a fist rising to her mouth to hide her trembling lips.
“Would you now?” I tilted my head. “What would you do differently? Would you take it back, what, a week later? A month? Maybe after I’d been in there a couple of years? Eight fucking years, Alex. That’s what you took from me.”
“I don’t know what you want from me.” Two more steps back.
I pushed away from the door and followed, hand sliding into my coat pocket to finger the syringe. “I want to know why you lied.” I’d waited so long to ask that question, and the set of her jaw told me she wasn’t going to answer. “You didn’t even have the guts to face me at the trial.” She’d refused to make eye contact, even once. That hadn’t surprised me nearly as much as Zach’s cold shoulder treatment. How he believed I’d do something so vile, to Alex of all people, was beyond comprehension. She must have put on quite the performance for her family, because her testimony in court had been mechanical, as if she’d read from a script.
She’d stripped everything from me in that courtroom. My career, friends, freedom, and she’d displayed no emotion while doing it.
“I-I can’t do this now,” she said, a tremor stringing her words together. “I have to go.” Darting past me, she made a run for the door and managed to fling it open by the time I whirled around. That’s when the duffle swinging on her shoulder caught my attention, and it dawned on me she was running.
Because of the note I’d left on her door? Guess my mind-fuckery had done the trick, only I never expected her to take off. There was no way she could know what I had planned for her. Before she escaped the house, I shot an arm out and slammed the door shut, then pressed into her soft curves that fit perfectly against me.
“You’re not going anywhere.” Even in that heady moment, as adrenaline pumped through my veins, I hesitated. What I was about to do changed everything. I was about to become the criminal they’d accused me of being.
But no one deserved comeuppance more than Alex.
Author Bio:Gemma James is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of a blend of genres, from new adult suspense to dark erotic romance. She loves to explore the darker side of human nature in her fiction, and she's morbidly curious about anything dark and edgy, from deviant sex to serial killers. Readers have described her stories as being "not for the faint of heart."She warns you to heed their words! Her playground isn't full of rainbows and kittens, though she likes both. She lives in Oregon with her husband and their four children--three rambunctious UFC/wrestling-loving boys and one girl who steals everyone's attention.
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