Jane Blythe – USA Today Bestselling Author

Tag: romance

  • Week 142 – Its so hot

    All of a sudden Connor launched up, chair still swinging off his wrist, and slammed into TJ.
     
    The two men scuffled, but everything was a little blurry.
     
    The world around her was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges.
     
    Like she was here but not really here.
     
    Her leg was burning where the bullet had gone in earlier today and Lacey wondered absently whether it was infected.
     
    She sagged and the added weight on her arms and shoulders was unbearable, or at least it would be if she wasn’t fading in and out.
     
    Suddenly there were hands on her and she screamed.
     
    “It’s me, Lace, its Connor,” a voice soothed, and she blinked and tried to clear her vision enough to make the face come into focus.
     
    Connor.
     
    It really was him.
     
    “TJ?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
     
    “Dead,” he replied. “Hold on, I’ll get you down.”
     
    Supporting her weight against his, Connor cuts the rope and as her arms drop Lacey cried out against the sudden onslaught of pain as her blood deprived limbs suddenly get blood flow restored.
     
    “I got you,” Connor croons in her ear, as he cuts the rope binding her wrists, then very gently scoops her into his arms.
     
    “It’s so hot,” she murmured, her head lolling to rest on Connor’s broad shoulder, the heat from the gunshot wound was spreading through her body like wildfire.
     
    “Its okay, just hold on, I’ll get you help,” Connor said, his voice panicked, but it also sounded faraway. “Lacey, stay with me. Don’t you pass out on me. Hold on, Lace. Don’t give up on me.”
     
    She wanted to do as he begged.
     
    She really did.
     
    But the culmination of the shooting, the gunshot, seeing her best friend lying dead in a pool of blood, the explosion, TJ getting her back was all too much for her exhausted body to take and Lacey found her eyes fluttering closed and her mind going blank.

  • Week 141 – Showtime

    TJ was touching Lacey.

    That was all Connor could think about.

    The man was putting his filthy, disgusting hands all over Lacey.

    “Showtime,” TJ sang at Lacey as he pulled out a knife. “You think you can walk away from me, that you can leave? How about I write my name on your skin, remind you that you will always belong to me.”

    TJ produced a knife and used it to cut away Lacey’s clothes, then pressed it into the smooth, white skin on her chest. Blood bubbled and leaked out, Lacey trembled, balanced awkwardly with her arms yanked behind her back and restrained in what he knew was a way that would leave her in agony.

    The sight of blood on Lacey made him see red, it got a deep protective rage bubbling inside him that seemed to fuel him, give him extra strength. Connor launched up, one arm coming free from the rope that bound him, and he slammed the chair that was still attached to his other wrist into TJ and the man stumbled and dropped the knife.

    Since his gun had been taken from him when the explosion knocked him and Lacey out he lunged for the knife, the only weapon in the room.

    Just as his fingers were curling around it TJ slammed into him sending the both skidding across the floor. Connor wasn’t going to let this man win because if he did then Lacey would die. And that wasn’t happening on his watch.

  • Week 140 – The car exploded sending Lacey and Connor up in the air

    The car exploded sending Lacey and Connor up in the air.

    Lacey didn’t remember landing.

    She didn’t remember the pain.

    Or the men.

    The ropes or being throw in the trunk of a car.

    She didn’t remember anything.

    There was only darkness.

    She knew a lot about darkness.

    Every second she had spent with TJ had been dark. The second his mask had fallen and his true self had been revealed he had plunged her into the black portal of pure evil.

    Slowly something came into the darkness that had soaked inside her.

    Pain.

    She was in pain.

    Everywhere.

    Her whole body ached. Her leg from the bullet, her whole left side from the explosion, and her shoulders because …

    Wondering why was enough to prod her fully awake and she opened her eyes to find that she was in a house. A nondescript house that could be anywhere. She was-thankfully-still dressed but her wrists had been tied behind her back and then pulled up at an awkward angle and secured to a hook on the wall. Already her shoulders and arms burned with pain and she knew enough to know that TJ wouldn’t have mercy on her.

    So she was TJ’s again.

    All these months where she had been rebuilding her life, hoping he wouldn’t find her, were all for nothing. She wished she had been shot back at the ballet audition, at least that would have been quick, because whatever TJ had planned wouldn’t be.

    That time Connor had saved her but now …

    Wait.

    Connor. Where was he?

    Lacey scanned the room and found him tied to a chair about three years to her right. His eyes met hers and although he was gagged she could clearly read what he was telling her. To hold on, to stay strong, to believe that they would somehow get out of this.

    She might have believed him but the door to the room suddenly opened and her worst nightmare stepped through it.

    TJ.

    She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t survive him again.

    He smiled that wicked smile at her as he walked over, towering above her. “There’s no escaping, Lace, you’re mind,” he told her as he brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “Forever.”

    Forever.

    With a grim sigh, Lacey accepted her fate, her one regret was that she had dragged Connor into this, and now her fate was going to become his as well.

  • Week 139 – You scaled down the wall like Spider-man, Connor

    Lacey’s weight on his back and the way her arms wrapped around his neck in a vicelike grip made scaling the apartment wall almost impossible, but the fear of TJ getting his hands on her again were enough to spur him on.

    He didn’t know how he did it but somehow he reached the ground.

    In one piece.

    It was a miracle and he prayed that their luck held and they were able to get back to the station. Once they got there he could make sure that Lacey was safe while they figured out where her ex was hiding out and go and arrest him.

    “Lace?” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle because he knew what a horrific day she’d had. She was still clinging to him like they were five storeys up, and the back of his neck waste with her tears. “We’re on the ground.”

    She didn’t say anything, just held on to him and shook so hard her teeth were chattering.

    “You scaled down the wall like Spider-man, Connor,” he joked, his tone light, hoping that maybe brightening the mood a little might help.

    “You’re amazing,” came her shaky reply. “I’m okay, you can put me down now.”

    Instead of putting her down, he pulled her around and rearranged her in his arms. “You really should be keeping off your leg.”

    Connor expected her to argue but instead she asked, “So, what next?”

    “Next we get you someplace safe, then we figure things out.”

    “Do you think you can find TJ before he kills anyone else?” she asked, her blue eyes shone in the stormy light and rain dripped down her face, mixing with the last of her tears. All he wanted to do was kiss her and take away her pain, make her feel safe, but now wasn’t the time or the place.

    “Yes,” he answered confidently because she needed reassurance right now. “But first how about we get out of this rain?”

    “Sounds good,” she said, offering up a weak smile.

    Smiling back, he started walking. “My car was parked around the corner because I didn’t intend to stay at my apartment for long, hopefully we’re in it and on our way to the station before they realise we’re no longer in the apartment.”

    “And if we’re not?”

    He didn’t want to think about that right now. He just wanted to focus on getting Lacey to the station. She’d been shot and she was supposed to still be in the hospital, he would get her checked out and make sure that she was taken care of so he could focus on keeping her safe.

    “Here we go,” he said when they managed to reach his car without incident. Because it was raining, and he had Lacey in his arms, he yanked his keys from his pocket as he approached and pressed the unlock button.

    The second he did the world around him exploded.

  • Week 138 – Keep running

    Lacey had never been so terrified in all her life.
     
    She had escaped TJ and her own personal hell, she had started building a life for herself, focusing on her dancing again, and making friends, getting job, and now it was all over.
     
    TJ had found her again and this time she didn’t think she would be getting away alive.
     
    “We can’t go out the front door,” Connor was speaking to himself, “and there are no other doors, that means we either stay and fight, or …” he trailed off, looking thoughtful.
     
    “Or what?” she asked, her teeth chattering so hard it made it difficult to speak.
     
    “Or we go out the window,” he said, his eyes brightening.
     
    Out the window?
     
    He lived on the fifth floor.
     
    “H-how? W-what?” she stammered.
     
    Connor had stopped listening and was already grabbing her hand and dragging her through his apartment, stopping in the bathroom. “This should work, its around the other side from the front, and they won’t be expecting us to climb out through the window.”
     
    “I can’t,” she said, yanking herself from his grasp. “I’m afraid of heights, and my leg, I can’t climb down the side of the building.”
     
    “You can climb on my back,” Connor said, opening the window. “Come on, lets go. We’ll climb down and then we’ll start running and we’ll keep running until we get away from here. We’ll go back to the station, you should be safe there until we find TJ and get him in custody.”
     
    Lacey didn’t have time to worry about that, right now all she could think of was the fact that Connor wanted her to climb out a fifth storey window, get on his back, and hold on while he somehow climbed down.
     
    This would never work.
     
    It was crazy.
     
    She was going to tell Connor that she couldn’t go through with it, but he was already out the window, he pulled her over, took her arms and wrapped them around his neck, and then the n ext thing she knew she was hanging off a building five storeys up.
     
    “Hold on tight,” Connor said as he started to move.
     
    As if she was going to do anything else. Lacey clung to Connor like her life depended on it and prayed that this worked and they didn’t fall and break their necks.

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