EXCERPT/GIVEAWAY: Skin by Kylie Scott

And then he bought a girl with canned goods.


Hi, my name is Kylie and I write erotic romances. Some of them are set Post-Zombie-Apocalypse. But I’m not here to talk about the glory of the shambling undead today. No, today I want to talk about forced seduction in romance. Capture fantasies and kidnappings. Because, as per the title of this post, the hero in my latest book, Skin, buys the heroine with a van full of food stuffs. Maybe we better start referring to him as an anti-hero. Nice guys don’t buy girls. They don’t even consider it. But that’s what fascinates me about anything post-apocalyptic. How will people behave once the rules are gone?

Nick, our anti-hero, has been on his own for months. He’s lonely and desperate. But that’s no excuse. Roslyn, our heroine, is in a truly crappy situation when they meet. The group she’s with is running low on food and one of the men has been harassing her. Nick can protect her and provide for her. Still doesn’t excuse him buying her. No way no day will Nick ever hurt her. Not even when she almost brains him with a wine bottle during an escape attempt. Nick might steal a kiss and cuddle without consent, but that’s as far as it goes. He would never rape her. But decent people do not slap a chain around a woman’s ankle, tethering her to the end of the bed. How on earth is he going to redeem himself from this point? How could someone ever forgive such a thing? That’s the real story of Skin.

Got a favourite anti-hero? Tell me about him in the comments to win a digital copy of Skin.

Skin (Flesh #2)

by Kylie Scott 

Six months since the zombie plague struck, former librarian Roslyn Stewart has been holed up in a school with eight other survivors. But now the shelves in the school canteen are bare. The stranger at the gate has supplies that will ensure the group’s ongoing survival, but at a cost. He wants a woman.

Nick is a man with a plan. He’ll treat Roslyn like a Queen, devoting the rest of his life to protecting and providing for her. In exchange, of course, for sexual favours. It’s the deal of the century given the state of the world. But Roslyn doesn’t see it that way. The first chance she gets she attacks the ex-army man and attempts to escape, forcing Nick to contain her. And so begins his awkward courtship of the woman, with her chained to the bed for security reasons.

Chained like a dog and forced to spend her every waking moment with a creep, albeit a good looking one, Ros is determined to escape. When circumstances force them to band together against a common enemy their very survival depends on their ability to learn to trust each other. An uneasy partnership develops, but can a relationship with such a difficult beginning ever have a future?

The hotly anticipated sequel to Flesh, Skin is set in the same universe with a different set of characters.

Check out the book by clicking here.

CHAPTER ONE

Stanthorpe, Queensland

188 Days Post Apocalypse

In the end they took a vote on whether or not to trade Roslyn to the stranger at the gate. They even gave her a say, demonstrating democracy was not dead even if civilisation had gone belly up seven months back when the virus first struck.

All nine survivors gathered on the school steps. The weak winter sun above them did little to combat the bitter wind. Her marrow was ice and her teeth chattered. She wanted to wrap her arms around herself, huddle down into the green school jacket she’d purloined out of a student locker. But she didn’t. Spine straight, shoulders back. Her father would have been proud.

She cleared her throat. No one would meet her eyes. They couldn’t do this and she would explain why in a sensible and rational manner using as many small words as deemed necessary. “I know we’re running low on food, but there’s no reason why we can’t make a trip into town to look for supplies. If we just make a plan-”

“Let’s get on with this,” said Neil, former head of the Maths Department. Still pissed she had refused to put out. Never had she met such a pretentious, unattractive git. “A raise of hands for ‘yay’.”

Her gaze skittered around the group.

Some hedged, but the hands were definitely there, six of them.

Shit. No.

The world slid sideways and she locked her knees, breathing hard. Holy fucking hell, they were really going to do this. How could they? How could this have ever happened? The world made no sense.

But wait!

Directly across from her, Janie hesitated. The girl’s elbow jerked back and her fingers folded. Hope blossomed warm, deep in Ros’s gut.

Neil ‘harrumphed’ and dealt Janie a stern look, brows drawn tight and mouth a puckered mess. It was the face reserved for particularly painful students and staff who dared cross his path. Janie caved. She reached for the sky, pale blonde hair flying in her pretty face. Her eyes were shiny bright and she blinked furiously, trying not to cry, the damn teacher’s pet.

Double shit.

Roslyn was right back where she started, except even more friendless and alone. She’d always basically been a happy person, a people person, but this... fear froze her solid. Ice had been working its way through her veins since the plague began. Today it took over.

No point blaming Janie. Not really. The stranger at the gate wanted a woman and Mrs Gardner, formerly of the Home Economics department, was well past sixty with an arthritic hip. That left Roslyn or Janie, and Janie was young. The girl had to be a good decade less than Ros’s twenty-nine. They’d found her on day two, huddled behind a filing cabinet, a bloody letter opener clutched to her chest. Apparently, she’d driven it through the Principle’s eye socket when the virus got the better of him. For months the girl had woken up screaming in the middle of the night.

Roslyn couldn’t have sent her out there. But why the hell did that mean she had to go?

The answer being: because the cowardly, lazy bastards wouldn’t dare a trip into town and the shelves in the school canteen were bare. None had ventured beyond the stout stone walls of the Gardens Hill College, and none of them were planning on attempting it anytime soon.

Spineless, back-stabbing-

“Nay,” Peter, the former groundsman said forcefully and raised his hand high. Mrs Gardner did likewise. Roslyn’s eyes fogged up.

Her own vote to the negative was a foregone conclusion.

The end tally stood at six for, three against.

She was outvoted.

Kylie has offered up a copy of Skin to one lucky follower. All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below.


a Rafflecopter giveaway