“You’re not a hostage.”
“Oh really?” I challenge, my voice shaking with fury. “Then open the damn door.”
His eyes flick to mine, dark and challenging. “Sit back,” he says, voice dangerously soft. “Put your seatbelt on.”
“Go to hell.”
“Already there, sweetheart.”
I clench my jaw so hard it hurts. I glare at him, my body still humming with tension, my pulse hammering in my temples. I should try again. I should grab the handle and wrench the door open, force my way out before we get too far away from the city, but Damian is fast. Too fast. And just as the thought crosses my mind, he moves again.
Before I can react, he leans over me, his body pressing in close, stealing the space between us. Heat rolls off him, suffocating and inescapable. His scent, something dark and clean, like cedar and leather, wraps around me, making my head swim. My breath catches, but I don’t dare move. His hand grazes my stomach as he reaches for the seatbelt, his touch searing through the thin fabric of my shirt.
My body betrays me. A shiver explodes down my spine, quick and sharp, my skin prickling where he’s too close, where he’severywhere.
I hate this. Hate the way my pulse pounds for reasons that have nothing to do with fear. Hate the way my stomach clenches, heat pooling low, twisting into something Ido notwant to name.
His fingers brush my bare arm as he pulls the seatbelt across me, slow and deliberate. I suck in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, doesn’t react. He just clicks the buckle into place, locking me in like I never had a choice to begin with.
He lingers. Not moving. Not speaking. Just close enough that I can feel his presence, the steady rise and fall of his breath, the undeniable power in the way hedoesn’trush.
I hate him. Hate that I feel anything other than rage. Hate that a small, treacherous part of me likes the way my body tightens with something too close to anticipation.
Finally, he shifts, his lips just brushing the shell of my ear as he murmurs, “Stay put.” It’s not a threat. It’s not a request. It’s something worse, something that makes my stomach drop and my pulse trip over itself.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’tthinkuntil he pulls back, settling back into his seat like he didn’t just ruin my panties in the last thirty seconds. I swallow hard, my throat dry. My skin feels too tight, too hot, every nerve wired and buzzing.
“I hate you,” I whisper, but my voice lacks the conviction it had before.
Damian smirks. “Probably only half as much as I hate you,” he murmurs.
I scoff, crossing my arms so I don’t do something stupid, like slap that smug expression right off his face. “So let me get this straight. You’re asking me totrustyou to take me where we need to go and not, I don’t know,chop me into tiny little pieces and scatter me across the desert?”
Damian lets out a low laugh, shaking his head like I’m the most exhausting person he’s ever met. “Jesus, your imagination is fucking insane.”
I snarl. “Why can’t you just tell me why we’re driving in the opposite direction we are supposed to be going?”
“Because I don’t want to. Now be quiet, because you being chopped up in little pieces is starting to sound very enticing.”
I smirk, tilting my head as I meet his gaze. “Then I really hope you cleaned that hotel room well,” I say, my voice drippingwith mock sweetness. “Because my DNA is all over it after last night. And, lucky for me, I told a ton of people I fucked you.”
Damian’s expression darkens for just a fraction of a second before that arrogant smirk creeps back onto his face. He leans in slightly, his voice dropping. “Yeah, you did,” he murmurs, eyes glinting with something wicked.
I let out a dry laugh, but my pulse kicks up.
His lips curve further, his eyes dragging lazily over me like he’s reliving every second. “Bet you’re still feeling it, too.”
Cody chokes out a laugh from the front seat. “Jesus Christ.”
Bridger groans. “I swear to God, if I have to listen to this weird-ass foreplay for one more mile, I’m throwing myself out of the car.”
Somewhere in the chaos of our back-and-forth, I didn’t realize the music had been turned off. The silence makes everything sharper. The tension, the gravity of Damian’s stare, the heat simmering between us.
Damian looks away for a beat, wrestling something back down. But I see it, the flicker of something behind his eyes, the slight stiffening of his neck.
He’s still feeling it too.
Good. Let him stew in it.
