Her pupils were wide, nearly eclipsing the gray of her irises.
"Done fighting?" I asked, my thumb stroking over the racing pulse in her wrist. Once. Twice. She shuddered beneath the touch.
"Never," she whispered, but her body betrayed her—swaying toward me even as she bared her teeth. "You're a monster."
I leaned in, close enough that my lips nearly brushed her ear, her whole body going rigid. "I know,maya soloveyka. But you're going to sing for me anyway."
Her breath hitched, a tiny, involuntary sound that went straight to my cock.
This was going to be more complicated than I'd thought.
Just then, my men entered the store and flanked the counter.
I stopped them with one glaring look.
"I've got this. Guard the door. No one gets in…or out.”
My men nodded and went back to their posts, the bell above the door jingling mockingly as they stepped outside.
I put both of her wrists in one of my hands, then wrapped my arm around her waist and propelled her into the storage room.
She gasped, the sound breathy and startled.
The curve of her hip pressed into my palm, the give of soft flesh over lean muscle.
I kicked the door closed behind me, the slam echoing like a gunshot.
She pulled out of my grasp again, stumbling back, and this time I let her go.
She was trapped. There was no getting away from me.
The back storage room was small. Claustrophobic, really.
Just a narrow little table and a few sets of metal shelves filled with odds and ends—record sleeves, tangled cables—with a lot of dust floating in the dim overhead light. The air was stale, thick with the smell of old paper and something chemical, maybe cleaning supplies.
She moved to the other end of the small space and swung to face me, putting only a few feet between us.
It wasn't enough.
She wasn't going anywhere. There was nowhere to go, and although there was a phone not too far from her on a cluttered shelf, she didn't reach for it.
Smart girl. Not that she would succeed if she did.
But was she smart enough to submit? Or did she have more fight in her?
I couldn't wait to find out.
With as much distance between us as possible, she shifted back and forth on her toes, a restless, prey-animal movement. Preparing to run from me. Or around me.
My pulse kicked up despite myself.
Unfortunately for her she had maybe four feet of space to work with in that tiny storage room. Four feet of air that was already heating with our combined body heat, growing thick and electric.
"Look, I don't know what you want, but we don't have a lot of money." Her words tumbled out fast, desperate. "Take it, take it all, take whatever you want. We have some vintage records…I'm sure you could sell them for a few hundred on eBay. No one will call the police. I'll give you the combination of the safe. I swear, take whatever you want."
I almost smiled.
She thought this was a robbery. Adorable.
