As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realized they would mean nothing to a man like Daniel Mercer. He might choose to inhabit a civilized world for now, but down to her bones she knew he didn’t come from one. The rules he played by were different than the ones she understood.
The hand that gripped her hair relaxed and sifted through the soft strands as though testing their resilience. His fingers slid through the hair at the back of her head, gently massaging her, the action strangely at odds with his aggressive behaviour. Though he wasn’t hurting her, she knew she wouldn’t be able to break out of his hold until he was ready to let her go.
“Why can’t I leave?” she asked. A shiver of cold and fear shook her body. He kept his apartment uncomfortably chilly.
“Saved your life,” he said simply. His husky voice came from the side as he reached past her.
He released her wrist and brought his hands up to wrap her loosened jacket tighter around her body. The stiff denim didn’t help much. She brought her aching wrist around from her back and crossed her arms in front of her chest, tucking her chin into the cradle her arms made. He stood so close to her she felt his breath fan across the top of her head and the heat from his arms surround her. She suspected he wasn’t a hugely large man like Tyson King, but quite leanly muscled, giving him the impression of bulk. Addison had thus far managed to avoid touching him as much as possible. Now she found she was somewhat curious.
“Come to bed.”
Addison nearly jumped out of her skin at the simply spoken, matter-of-fact words. “No!” she said in a panic and tried to lunge past him. Tears started in her eyes when he grabbed hold of her arm and swung her around as easily as he might a child. She slapped at him, but he held her hands so she couldn’t land a single blow.
“Please, oh god, please no!” she gasped as she fought a losing battle. The darkness behind her eyelids swirled with flashing lights alarmingly as he swung her up in his arms.
He subdued her so easily she began to despair that she was about to be one of the easiest rape victims in history. Her tears turned into ragged gasping sobs as he caught both of her wrists in one hand and dropped her onto a high mattress. She twisted and turned, but he held her legs down with one of his.
“Please, please, don’t do this!” she cried, nearly throwing up from anxiety.
In an effort to hold down her flailing limbs, he straddled her hips and took hold of her jaw. “Addison, stop it!” he snapped sharply.
She tried to twist her head away from him, but his fingers dug into the tender skin with bruising force. He leaned over her until he was full length across her body and snarled in her ear, “I’m not going to rape you.”
She froze under him, her breath still coming out in ragged gasps. Slowly he eased himself off of her, still holding her wrists and legs against the mattress, but giving her more room to breath.
“You’re not going to rape me,” she repeated blankly as though to convince herself.
Gradually her brain accepted the truth of his words and her anxiety began to pass. As she relaxed underneath him, convinced now he didn’t intend to hurt her, he began to slowly shift his bulk off of her until he was laying alongside her. He was close, only a few inches away, but he wasn't touching her anymore. She gulped in deep breaths of air.
"Slower," he said, "You'll get dizzy if you breath like that."
She sent a snarl in his direction, but attempted to do as he said and slow her breathing until her prior panic had subsided. Now she was left shivering from the chill air in the room. The tips of her fingers, nose and toes were freezing!
"Why... why is it so cold in here?" she asked, her teeth nearly chattering from the cold.
She felt him shift away from her. She barely breathed, her entire body tensing, readying to fly off the bed now that he wasn't there to hold her down. "Don't move, Addison," he said in his gruff, deadly voice.
She froze and then gasped as a blanket was flung across her prone body. Daniel's heavy body came down on top of the blanket next to her, effectively trapping her on the bed. She decided she was okay with this move as they were both fully clothed and there was a blanket separating them. Plus she was no longer freezing and his faint masculine odour was oddly comforting.
She knew he was facing her because she felt his breath across the top of her head and she knew the light in the room was still on because she could see the shifting shadows behind her closed lids. She tried to relax, but myriad questions flew through her inquisitive brain.
"Ask me," he demanded.
She gasped. He must have been watching the emotions as they crossed her face. She needed to be more guarded around this man. She wasn't used to men like him. He was brutal, highly intelligent and used to getting his own way, using whatever means necessary. She didn't even want to know what sort of things he'd done in his life to earn his reputation.
She licked her lips. "Why are you keeping me here tonight?" she asked softly.
She froze when she felt his thumb trace a path along her lips where her tongue had just been. "Was going to fuck you. Now we're just getting to know each other."
"Oh," she said faintly, her heart speeding up.
She desperately wanted to ask what changed his mind, but wasn't brave enough. Maybe he didn't want to hurt her. Maybe he had a conscience after all. Whatever veneer of civilization clung to Daniel Mercer, however, was extremely thin and easily discarded.
His fingers brushed across her eyelids. Her eyes fluttered open and stared blankly up at him. His arm rested behind her head and she could feel his fist clenching in the soft hair that spilled across his pillows. She noticed he liked to touch her hair, but seemed to have to stop himself from just grabbing it.
They laid that way for a while, the silence tense to her ears. She was used to directing conversations, to maintaining happy chatter and listening to music almost constantly. The quiet, which she sensed Daniel habitually surrounded himself with, seemed strange to her. As though expectations were building, but she didn't understand what kind of expectation or why.
"How are we supposed to get to know each other if we don't speak?" she asked.
