Has been optioned for television by Lionsgate.

Sylvia Day captivated by you

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20 Acknowledgments Follow Penguin

Sylvia Day is the number one Sunday Times and number one international bestselling author of over twenty award-winning novels sold in more than forty countries. She is a number one bestselling author in twenty-three countries, with tens of millions of copies of her books in print. Her Crossfire series

has been optioned for television by Lionsgate.

Visit Sylvia at www.sylviaday.com, Facebook.com/AuthorSylviaDay and on Twitter @SylDay.

Titles by Sylvia Day The Crossfire Novels

Bared to You Reflected in You Entwined with You Captivated by You

…

Historical Novels

Seven Years to Sin The Stranger I Married Scandalous Liaisons

Ask for It Passion for the Game

A Passion for Him Don’t Tempt Me Pride and Pleasure

…

In the Flesh Spellbound

This one is for all the readers who waited patiently for this next chapter in Gideon and Eva’s story.

I hope you love it as much as I do!

ICY NEEDLES OF water bombarded my overheated skin, the sting chasing away the clinging shadows of a nightmare I couldn’t fully remember.

Closing my eyes, I stepped deeper into the spray, willing the lingering fear and nausea to circle the

drain at my feet. A shiver racked me, and my thoughts shifted to my wife. My angel who slept peacefully in the apartment next door. I wanted her urgently, wanted to lose myself in her, and hated that I couldn’t. Couldn’t hold her close. Couldn’t pull her lush body under mine and sink into it, letting her touch chase the memories away.

“Fuck.” I placed my palms flat against the cool tile and absorbed the chill of the punishing deluge into my bones. I was a selfish asshole.

If I’d been a better man, I would’ve walked away from Eva Cross the moment I saw her.

Instead, I’d made her my wife. And I wanted the news of our marriage broadcast via every medium known to man, rather than hidden away as a secret between less than a handful of people. Worse, since I had no intention of letting her go, I would have to find a way to make up for the fact that I was such a fucking mess we couldn’t even sleep in the same room together.

I lathered, quickly washing away the sticky sweat I’d woken up in. Within minutes I was heading out to the bedroom, where I pulled on a pair of sweats before heading to my home office. It was just barely seven in the morning.

I’d left the apartment Eva shared with her best friend, Cary Taylor, only a couple of hours earlier, wanting to give her time to catch a few hours of sleep before she headed into work. We had been at each other all night, both of us too needy and greedy. But there’d been something else, too. An urgency on Eva’s part that gnawed at me and left me uneasy.

Something was bothering my wife.

My gaze drifted to the window and its view of Manhattan beyond it, then settled on the empty wall where photos of her and us hung in the same space in my penthouse office in our home on Fifth Avenue. I could imagine the collage clearly, having spent countless hours studying it over the last few months. Looking out at the city had once been the way I encapsulated my world. Now, I accomplished that by looking at Eva.

I sat at my desk and woke my computer with a shake of the mouse, taking a deep slow breath as my wife’s face filled my monitor. She wore no makeup in the photo that was my desktop wallpaper, and a smattering of light freckles on her nose made her appear younger than her twenty-four years. My gaze slid over her features—the curve of her brows, the brightness of her gray eyes, the fullness of her lips. In the moments when I let myself think of it, I could almost feel those lips against my skin. Her kisses were benedictions, promises from my angel that made my life worth living.

With a determined exhalation, I picked up the phone and speed-dialed Raúl Huerta. Despite the earliness of the hour, he answered swiftly and alertly.

“Mrs. Cross and Cary Taylor are heading to San Diego today,” I said, my hand curling into a fist at

the thought. I didn’t have to say more. “Got it.”

“I want a recent photo of Anne Lucas and a detailed rundown of where she was last night on my desk by noon.”

“At the latest,” he affirmed.

I hung up and stared at Eva’s captivatingly beautiful face. I’d caught her in a happy, unguarded moment, a state of being I was determined to keep her in for the rest of her life. But last night she’d been distressed by a possible run-in with a woman I’d once used. It had been a while since I’d crossed paths with Anne, but if she was responsible for aggravating my wife, she’d be seeing me again. Soon.

Opening my inbox, I started sifting through my e-mails, drafting quick answers when required and working my way toward the subject line that had caught my eye the moment my e-mail opened.

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 466