Prelude (On My Knees Duet) Read online

  Prelude

  Ella James

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Untitled

  1. March 2016

  2. Vance

  3. Vance

  4. Vance

  5. Luke

  Want more?

  Author’s Note

  Prelude is a short novella that overlaps with the first 13,000 words of Worship, a longer book that is the first title in the On My Knees Duet. Readers who have purchased Worship need not download Prelude.

  Praise for the On My Knees Duet

  “HOLY FREAKING SHIT, THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING!" -Whoo Gives A Hoot Book Blog

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  "Five Holy Hot stars. God, I'm for real blown away right now!" -Whitney West, Amazon reviewer

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  "Worship is absolutely stunning!" -Mary, Amazon reviewer

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  "A ten-star read!" -Vanessa L, Amazon reviewer

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  "A brilliant internal brooding romangst. It's hot and dirty, and hands down a perfect soul scratching addition to Ella James' fantastic library." -Aphrodites Reading Alphas

  ☆

  "Can I give it 6 stars?" -Bookworm250

  ☆

  "One of the best-written, most suspenseful, and downright dirty books I have read in a long time. A one-sitting read!" -Amy J, Amazon reviewer

  ☆

  "One of my favorite books this year." -Traci, Goodreads reviewer

  1

  March 2016

  Vance

  “You good?”

  She looks up from re-tying her bikini bottoms, smiling with her teeth pressed to her lip. “Yeah.” The word is a purr. Her eyes are still glazed as they look me up and down. “So…” She flashes me a dimpled grin. “Can I get your number?”

  I’m lost in thought—so much so that I don’t realize she asked a question until her freckled cheeks blush. “Only while we’re on the cruise, if you want, but…” She does that little laugh—the awkward one that women do when they’re self-conscious.

  “But you want my number.” I arch my brows.

  Another giggle. “Sort of.”

  “How old are you, sweetheart?”

  She straightens her shoulders, making her little tits jut out. “How old do you think?” Her voice has gone all sexy-hoarse again, but she can’t keep the smooth seductress act up. She smiles, and her pink cheeks and blonde pigtails make her look all of eighteen years old.

  “Twenty-two,” she says. “Just an office manager from Indiana, cruisin’ with my squad.” She steps closer, making the island hut feel smaller. Her finger traces my pec. “What do you do, cowboy?”

  Huh? Oh, right. I was wearing a straw hat back on the catamaran, before our little group went snorkeling.

  I run a hand over the soft mound of her breast, tweak her nipple gently with my fingertips. “You.”

  I give her a numb, drunk grin. She laughs—a high-pitched, you’re-so-crazy kind of laugh—as her brown eyes rove over me again. She gathers her pigtails in one hand, lifts them off her sun-kissed shoulders. Then she kneels before me on the hard-packed sand floor.

  She tilts her chin up at me, and I think: she’s pretty. It’s true. Still, though, the thought is like a pep talk. Fuck her, Van. Just fucking fuck her already, and get it over with.

  I reach for the tequila bottle on the scarred wooden table, tip it back, and take a long pull.

  Just fuck her…

  The echoed thought bobs to the surface of my consciousness. I try to reach for it, to make sense of it, but my damn head’s pounding.

  Shit.

  I crack my eyelids open, squint at the shifting blob of black and gray above me. It’s swaying. Or…I am.

  A swarm of sound fills my ears. An ocean sound. I turn my head a little. Ow. My bleary eyes sting as I look down myself. Swim trunks. I shift slightly in the hammock, and the canvas stings my sunburned back.

  Fuck. I’m—I’m still on that little island. The one we went to for the snorkeling excursion. Why’s it dark?

  I try to swallow as I look around, but my mouth’s dry. Like…really dry. I sit up in the hammock and my head spins. Nighttime. What happened? There’s a sheen of moonlight on the flat, black ocean. It glints off the waves as they roll to the shore.

  I step off the hammock on unsteady legs, feeling like I might be sick. My heel comes down on something cold and hard. There’s a bottle of tequila, empty and half buried in the sand. My eyes throb. I rub them with a sweaty hand.

  “Fuck me, cowboy. Fuck me!”

  We fucked in the hammock. I remember now. Pigtails. I’m on the backside of the island—just a little crumb of sand we came to with the cruise’s Sunday afternoon catamaran excursion. She and I—what was her name?—we grabbed a bottle of tequila from the open bar and cut through the sand mounds at the center of the island. Sneaked back to the east shore, where these huts are. My gaze moves over the one she blew me in; they’re just these little, round, wood things with straw roofs, kinda scattered through the palm trees.

  Shit. I’ve gotta get back to the island’s other side, fast. I’m surprised the snorkeling has run this long. Maybe they did some kind of kitschy bonfire thing after.

  I must have passed out hard if Perky Tits left me here. What was she…some sort of business manager? Something responsible. Girl like that wouldn’t let them leave without me.

  I ignore the moon’s position in the sky as I dig my flip-flops out of the sand and slide my sunburned feet into them, then start toward the island’s middle. One deep scratch on my ankle from the underbrush, and I’m angling back toward the beach. Too dark for that shit. But I’ve gotta move fast.

  I swallow against my dry throat as I squint out at the water. What time is it? Wait—my phone! Where’s my fucking phone? I whirl back toward the huts, patting my pockets.

  I left it on that boat. The catamaran. They had these little dry bags and—

  “Oh, fuck.”

  The moon—near full and beaming stark white light down from the center of the sky—is saying, “Hey asswipe, it’s midnight.”

  Maybe shit is different in the Caymans. Sky shit changes with your latitude, right? Still, I start to jog over the hard plane of damp sand beside the water, my heels tossing surf behind me as I make like the Road Runner.

  What if the bonfire’s almost over? What if that damn boat left me? I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Not like no one’s ever coming back here. They’ll be back tomorrow. Another day, another group of dumb-fuck tourists.

  My head throbs as I lope over the sand. The pale shore curves, and I pick up my pace. Be there. Fucking be there. Please! There’s no way they left me. Head counts. Lawsuits. Nah—it wouldn’t happen.

  Finally…the moment of truth. Sweat rolls down my back as I round a grove of palm trees. Then I’ve got a straight-shot view down to the big hut where they had the open bar.

  The stretch of beach is bare, the sparkling water out beside it empty. No boat. I turn a circle. Holy hell, the catamaran is gone.

  They left me!

  I got fucking left here!

  I think of Lana in her all-white sitting room back in Tribeca, glancing up from the glass of green tea she was holding the night she cut me loose.

  “Just go on the trip alone, Van. You have a client to meet with. Have a great time. I would like you to.”

  And I laugh.

  Luke

  It’s been too long since I kicked back with my favorite scotch. Good ole Bunnahabhain 25. Too pricey to drink in public—which works out just fine since the public doesn’t know I drink.

  I take a tug straight from the bottle and fold one arm back behind my head. I’m lying on my back on top of a towel. I could be chill
ing in the captain’s seat or lounging on the padded benches back in the yacht’s cockpit, but tonight, it’s the front deck for me. I don’t know why. I guess because I don’t want to be comfortable. Make it match up: miserable mind, miserable body.

  Anyway, from up here on the bow, I can see everything—the whole sky. I have another swallow and look for the sea goat constellation. According to my office manager, I’m Capricorn—the zodiac’s ambitious control freak. But tonight, the sea goat is nowhere to be found.

  I let my breath out…rub my eyes. The idea was to get away. This is my favorite secret: Sea-3PO. She’s a 65-foot sailing yacht. I like to keep her down here in the Caymans. Not as many people recognize me—usually.

  Another swallow, and my head starts sort of drifting with the tide. My eyes feel heavy. That’s what I need, right? A little R&R so I can go back rested and ready. Time alone to make some headway on my new book. I’ve got twelve weeks till it’s due to my publisher.

  Usually there’s something in me, something I can kind of juice—this thing I use to build thoughts and ideas. Books. Films. Lately I’m not myself…and I know why.

  I lift my phone from where it’s resting face-down on my abs and tap in a web address. I’m already hard when I reach into my shorts and wrap my hand around my dick. I shut my eyes and work myself from tip to base. Then I squeeze there and stroke upward.

  Something shifts—the yacht rocks—but my head’s spinning. Probably just a gust of wind. I breathe deeply, focus on the images on my phone’s screen. I need this—badly. Some release while I’m here and using an anon IP address.

  I’m lost for some time—in fantasy, in pleasure. I must have needed this more than I thought. I’m panting, close to coming, when a drop of water hits my foot. I look up, and my heart stops. Someone’s standing over me. As horror pulses through me, I jump up. He darts back toward the rail, footfall rocking the yacht.

  “Who are you?”

  When he starts toward me, I react on instinct, lunging for my scotch bottle and hurling it. I watch in horror and sick satisfaction as it strikes his forehead, sends him staggering. He grabs the boat’s rail, then fumbles with a thick steel hook that’s hanging from the railing.

  Before he can unfasten it and throw it at me, I rush him, head-butting his midsection so hard that he topples backward over the boat’s railing. He hits the water with a big splash, and I watch as he surfaces, gasping.

  “HELP!” He makes a choking sound, accompanied by splashing. “There’s fucking sharks!”

  What the what?

  He’s flailing around—like someone who can’t swim. “I got left! By a cruise ship!”

  I shift my gaze behind him, to the sandy little island maybe sixty yards out. I dropped my anchor near it for some shelter from the wind.

  “I need water. Please!” His voice cracks. There’s a life preserver tacked onto the back of a nearby seat. I grab it off, step to the rail, and toss it to him. The guy swims a few strokes to it, throws an arm around it. His head bows for a second before tilting up at me. “Let me back up—please, man!”

  I look around the inky water, then back to the island. Nothing looks amiss, but why should I trust this guy?

  I lean on the railing. “How’d you get left?”

  I think I hear a hollow laugh, but it’s lost in the music of the water lapping at the boat’s hull. His head lifts back up toward me. “Passed out.”

  “What ship was it? Which cruise-liner?”

  “Sierra of the Seas.” He sounds frustrated. Tired.

  “They don’t get up close to islands like that.”

  “I went on a snorkeling thing.”

  That could be true, I guess. “And you passed out? Drinking?”

  “I’m a fucking idiot, okay? Let me up—please. It’s nighttime, and I’m fucking bleeding here.”

  I rub my hand back through my hair. I am, of course, going to let him up, especially since it’s likely my fault he’s bleeding. I’m just not going to do it quite yet.

  I fold my arms and look down at him, trying to gauge his build and age from just the swatch of shoulders I can see. Up here on the deck, he seemed well-proportioned. I get the sense he’s younger than me—but that’s probably because of the profanity and the passing out.

  “Were you traveling alone? On the cruise?”

  This time there’s no mistaking his hoarse chuckle. “Booked the trip with my fiancée.”

  “Where is she?”

  “New York.”

  I wait a beat for him to say more. When he doesn’t, I ask, “What’s your name?”

  “Hey, yeah…you got the internet? Google me, man. Vance Rayne.”

  It takes me a second to find my phone, lying face-down where I dropped it on the deck. I shut the porn window, take a second to delete the history, and search the name he gave. The first thing that pops up is an article from Page Six where he’s pictured on a red carpet beside a tall, thin blonde in a sapphire blue gown.

  I squint at her familiar face—one of the Ellisons, I think—and then drink in the image of the man in the tuxedo. Prickling heat spreads through me as I note his messy brown hair; sharp, dark brows; and a rougeish dimple paired with a smile that’s part mischievous, part chill. The jacket stretches over his broad shoulders, so he’s bulky…but seems lanky, too.

  I skim the article, which confirms he was engaged to Lana Ellison, one of Manhattan’s career socialites, until the date of the article, which reports they’ve broken things off. The story refers to him as an artist. I click on that link.

  “Hey, man—”

  “Give me a second.”

  I squint down at a mural depicting a blue-haired woman with her face tilted up toward pink clouds. It appears to cover the side of a brick building. Interesting.

  I slip the phone into my pocket and search the deck for my Bunnahabhain, find it by the rail and scoop it up. I’m still warm and fuzzy from the scotch, so I splash my face with some water from an Evian bottle before stepping back over to the railing.

  “Meet me at the stern, Vance.”

  He’ll know how to get up. He’s already done it once.

  This time, I drop the ladder for him and watch him ascend. I was right about his build. He looks lean—almost lanky, but with too much muscle to be called that. Moonlight shines off his impressive chest and shoulders. Water rivulets twine down his well-defined legs, dripping from swim shorts that cling to him like a glove.

  When he steps onto the deck, he pushes his hair out of his face, and I realize it’s almost shoulder-length. I look him discreetly up and down. Guy works out. Probably not every day, but with some regularity. I can’t tell who’s taller—him or me—but I think I’m definitely bulkier. I’m an every day guy. Got the home gym thing going.

  Vance Rayne, long-haired artist, wipes a palm over his face, and I can see he’s classically attractive. Strong, dark brows over striking eyes. Sharp cheekbones, a straight nose…lips that aren’t too thick or too thin. I think he’s maybe twenty-five.

  His eyes find mine.

  “Water. Please.” His voice is rough. His face, all Adonis lips and cheekbones, looks suspended in the moon glow. He’s half swallowed by the inky darkness—not quite corporeal. And yet his realness drums through me.

  “Sure,” I manage.

  I beckon him forward a few feet to the sectional seating around the cockpit. The space has the feel of several couches arranged in a broken square. He doesn’t sit, though, as I grab some water from a cooler.

  I notice a dark blot on his forehead. It smears down toward his eyebrow, and my stomach does a slow roll.

  “You are bleeding.”

  I watch as he drains the water bottle dry. As I pass him another, something dark falls like a shadow over my heart. It’s as if the night has gelled around us. Seconds crawl past surreally. I drag in a long, slow breath, and he quirks his brow, reminding me I need to do something about the gash.

  “Let me go get something,” I murmur.

  I
return from the cabin to find him sitting on one of the padded benches, his elbows on his knees, one hand pushed into his tangled hair. I turn a light on, casting the deck in amber. Then I drag the cooler in front of him and take a seat atop it.

  As I open the first aid kit, the salty breeze kicks up a bite of his scent: sunscreen and warm, male skin. When I look up, I notice the hand that’s curved around his forehead seems to be shaking.

  “You okay?”

  He lowers his arm. “Yeah.” But his face is drawn. His cheeks and jaw are covered with rough stubble, his lips cracked in one corner. He probably had a miserable day on that island. Had to have been pretty desperate to swim out to an unknown vessel.

  I lean in closer, squinting at the gash above his brow. It’s about an inch or so long, seeping blood, but not split open too wide. “Doesn’t look like I got you too bad,” I say quietly. “You seeing double, anything like that?”

  He mumbles, “No.” His eyes are cast down. They swing up to mine, and I give him a look I hope says sorry for the head wound.

  He smirks. “Hell of a welcome.”

  “After the fancy invitation, too.”

  “Touché.”

  I grin, then rip open a Betadine swab. “So, not much fresh water on that little island?”

  “None,” he says.

  “You want some more?”

  He nods, and I get another bottle. I watch as he chugs some and then twists the cap back on.

  “A day’s a long time without water.”

  “Cracked open a coconut.” He lifts his brows, twists his full lips. My pulse surges like an ocean wave as he grins.

  “How was it?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “That’s disappointing.” I hold the swab up. “I don’t think this stuff will sting, but…”