“I don’t know who you think I am,” he went on, “but like you said, I’m not some nameless grunt. I’m no fucking worker bee. I’m the man you call when you have a problem you can’t fix yourself, and I do whatever I can to fix it for you.”
God, this guy was intense in the worst way. Or the best way, depending on how you looked at it. Me, personally, I couldn’t look away. His face was a foot and a half away from mine, so close I could see the few wrinkles starting to form in his skin around his eyes—but they didn’t make him look old. No, they only gave him a wise, powerful aura.
“Then why didn’t you just kill me and be done with it? If I’m the root of all Tessa’s problems?” I asked as I struggled to get my heart under control.
He leaned in closer to me, his face now less than twelve inches away from mine. “Because I know Tessa, and I know there’s more to this than she’s saying—more to it than you’resaying. I’m not going to fix anything until I can take a step back and see the entire picture for what it is and not what she—or you—want me to see.”
Man, this guy was full of surprises. I really didn’t know how to take that, but I guessed I should be happy my life wasn’t going to end right here. There were still so many things I wanted to do, so many things I needed to experience, before I kicked the bucket for good.
“Then why kidnap me?”
He smirked. “Had to get you alone somehow, didn’t I?” He barely gave me time for that comment to register before he added, “You’re a tough girl to pin down, Laina Hawkins. Keeping you here is the only way I can make sure you don’t run straight to your boyfriends and tell them all about me.”
“Why does it matter if I tell them about you? If you’re that good at what you do, it shouldn’t matter, right?” I come out sounding way brattier than I intended, but that could be just because being so close to this tattooed silver fox was making me hot all over.
Bad, bad Laina.
A low, manly chuckle rumbled from his chest when I said that, and his smirk cracked into a full-blown smile. “You’re trouble. I can see how you lured Kieran away.”
Though it bothered me, the way he said that, like it was my fault he and Tessa had a falling out of epic proportions, I couldn’t say a word, mostly because I was trapped in those black eyes. Trapped in their depths, falling down, down, down, as deep as the blackness would let me. I was caught on his web, and he was the spider waiting for the perfect moment to sink his fangs into me and suck me dry.
His hands on my legs inched upward, or maybe that was all in my imagination. “You’re this scarred, candy-coated daydream, but beneath the pink and the blue, you’re hiding thetruth. The darkness in you can rival anyone’s. Tessa’s, Kieran’s… mine. It takes a certain kind of person to recognize that flavor of darkness, and I can’t blame Tessa for being so intimidated by you.”
It sounded almost like he was complimenting me. I was so freaking confused by this man. “You think Tessa is… intimidated by me?” A strange thing to tell a girl you just kidnapped. In fact, this whole thing was weird.
“Intimidated and maybe even jealous,” he said, and as he spoke he lifted one of his hands off my legs, bringing that hand to my face, where he gently tucked some of my hair behind my ear. The gesture was so tender, so intimate, that my breath caught all on its own. “You have what she’s always wanted, the thing she’s strived for damn near her whole life: notoriety. Infamy. A well-known last name.”
“Most people don’t resort to murder when they’re jealous of someone.” For some reason, it was insanely hard for me to say that. His hand had returned to my leg. Though I was tied up, it all felt like it was suddenly too much.
Too much, and strangely not enough.
“No,” he agreed. “You’re right.” He stood and took those warm, tattooed hands of his with him. “There’s something I have to do. Be a good girl and stay right where you are.” He walked around me, and I tried to turn my head to watch him go, to see where he went, but my head couldn’t turn that much. Eventually, I had to listen to his heavy footsteps as he walked away. A moment later, I was pretty sure I heard the door to this place open and shut.
Huh. He left me alone? Was this some kind of test?
Psh. My inner freak might have wanted to listen to him and be a good girl for him, but I would only be a good girl for my guys, and as sexy as that Jason was, I didn’t owe him a single thing.
Besides, why would I wait here when he was just going to kill me eventually? No matter what he said, that was always the end goal, Tessa’s endgame. Tessa would not settle for anything less. I wasn’t naive or stupid enough to think differently. If he thought she wouldn’t want me dead, he didn’t know her nearly as well as he thought he did.
I waited a few moments before I started to think up a plan. If I could reach the coffee table and get that gauntlet, the one with the claws, I could cut myself out of this rope, maybe, but hopping myself over there would be next to impossible. The chair I was tied to wasn’t exactly made of light, cheap wood.
It was heavy, and I didn’t think I’d be able to manage that.
Huh. Okay, next plan. Really, all I had to free was a single hand, and I could untie myself. The ropes around my wrists were pretty damn tight; no amount of fussing on my part would loosen them. I’d only give myself rug burns in doing so.
The only way I could see myself getting out of this chair was if I broke the chair, or at least the arm of it that my wrist was attached to. It was a long-shot, the kind of long-shot that probably wouldn’t work and I’d end up looking like a fool, but trying that long-shot plan was better than sitting here and twiddling my thumbs while I waited for Jason to come back.
Hell, the man could stroll back inside any minute. There was no telling how long he’d be gone. I needed to stop wasting time and get myself off this damned chair.
It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I managed to start heaving my weight side to side. It took a bit to get the chair going, using the momentum of me leaning quickly from side to side to get the chair off its four legs. The opposite of an easy process, I didn’t have much weight to put behind it.
Once the chair really started to sway, I made sure my hands weren’t off the edge of the chair’s armrests. The last thing Ineeded right now was to break something. With Jason and God knew who else on my tail, I needed to be as intact as possible.
All this time, it wasn’t my paranoia. It was real. Someone really had been watching me. I couldn’t get over it was someone like Jason; the man must’ve been really good at blending in, because with a face like that I definitely would’ve picked him out of a crowd of strangers.
It’s crazy to me. Absolutely crazy.
The chair rocked side to side, so close to falling over. I put all of my strength behind the next pull to the other side, and the chair toppled over, landing on the hardwood floor with a thud. The wooden arm didn’t snap off, but I did hear the wood crack—meaning I weakened it. I only hoped I weakened it enough that I’d be able to get free, otherwise Jason would come back and laugh at me.
