“Just admit that you enjoy being out of control,” he said.
I tried to kick my foot out again, but it had the same result as last time.
Sebastian’shands dropped on the mattress, a few inches from me.His tan, muscular arms flexed ashe slowly lowered his upper body towards me. When he was inches from my face, hisbreath crested across my skin.“You can deny it all you want, but if you really hated it, you know the word thatends it,”he whispered darkly.
He raised an eyebrow, challenging me with his eyes to say the word I knew would stop his touches. I remained silent, because damn it, I didn’t want him to stop.
With a smirk, his hands moved back to my black socks. He pulled the fabric back and revealed my purple and black left foot. He began rolling it around in circles, watching my face the entire time.
“I’m curious. If I hadn’t tied you up last night, what was your plan going to be?”he asked, now moving my foot from side to side.
There was no sense in hiding it from him now. I wasn’t sure why he bothered checking on my injuries. Soon he would call his men, and after that…
“Argentina,” I said, leaning back into the fantasy, rather than the reality of what my future held once his men got their hands on me. Maybe I’d gointothe mountains, away from the buzz of the city. Or maybe, I’d head to the Mendoza region, and try the wine from each of the vineyards there. While I preferred a cosmo, I wouldn’t turn down a glass of Malbec.
“You'd never make it. You only have ten thousand dollars, and too many men looking to kill you. They would have found you before you even set foot on a plane,” he said.
At the brutal reminder of reality, the vision of sitting in a vineyard while grazing on cheeses and sipping on wines vanished from my mind. Then an idea occurred to me, and the imagined scent of the vineyard returned. I knew it would never work, but why notgo to my death withhope?
“Why not let me try?” I asked, while his hands stripped off my other sock. “I’ll answer any questions you have, and you won’t even have to give me any extra cash. Just give me anhour’s headstart before you call yourmen. It’s a good deal.You have nothing to lose.”
He shook his head and rubbed ointment on my foot.
“Then why are you doing this?” I said, frustration lacing into my voice. “We both know as soon your men arrive, they’ll torture,” my mindstartedto short circuit at the word but I forced myself to continue, “me until they get the information they want. Then they’ll kill me.”
I wondered if they’d give me a clean death when they were done extracting their information. I didn’t want to think what would happen if they turned me over to Ray.
Sebastian’sjaw tightened, but he remained silent while running his finger over a deep bruise near my big toe.
I sighed, the fight going out of me. It was pointless. I couldn’t escape these restraints, and there was nothing I could do to avoid the fate that would soon come to pass.
“Why didn’t you go to your dad yesterday?” he asked, massaging at a deep ache in the arch of my foot.
“You mean after I kidnapped you?” I asked.
He shrugged, adding pressure to the spot. I let out a moan, and his fingers responded to my voice. They focused in, alternatively pulsing and kneading at the spot. I pushed through the haze of pleasure to respond to him.
“He would’ve handed me over to your brother. Tensions have been high ever since your father’sdeath,” I said.
“You mean sinceConorhad him killed.”
“There’s no proof of that.” And there wasn’t. Everyone had immediately suspectedmy father had him assassinated, and it had grown close to an alloutwar. However, no definitive facts had come out to prove that we had anything to do with his murder.The Amatofamily still had their suspicions revolving around our role in the death, but we had narrowly avoided a war.
Yesterday, if I had gone to my father with a gun pointed at Sebastian’s head, and he had allowed me in his house then a very bloody war would have broken out between the twofamilies.
Sebastianraised his eyebrows, but remained silent. Finally, he placed my sock back on my foot, and I immediately missed the pleasure of his hands. He stared at me for a minute, studying my face. I met his gaze and immediately felt embarrassed by my response to him. The hint of euphoria shifted into anger.Itwas a safer feeling.
I glared up at him. Did he want me to thank himforpreparing me like a prize cow right before it was slaughtered?
“I couldn’t getyou to Argentinawithout my brother finding out,” he said.
Icouldn’t keep the confusion off my face.
Sebastiancontinued, “I’d need to make phone calls in order to arrange it. And it would only take one disloyal man to call my brother and let him in on the plan.”
I’d already offered him an easier plan. Just let me leave, and he didn’t have to worry about whether or not I made it.
“However,I do have a way to get you out of this alive,”he said.
