Before I can fully recover my dignity, he leans in just enough for shadows to cut across his face, turning the gleam inhis eyes even colder. His voice drops low, shaking me to my core. “Anything else you want to try?”
There are many things I want to try. Many words I want to hurl at him. But I don’t…not while he looms over me like that, taking the breath right from my lungs.
I narrow my eyes at him, wishing I had some sort of upper hand here. But I cross my arms and lift my chin. “No.”
His lips barely pull, showing me only a flicker of a reaction. “Good.”
The door slams shut, and I force myself not to flinch. I sit there stock-still, hearing the muffled crunch of gravel beneath his boots while he rounds the vehicle like he’s simply chauffeuring me around for the evening and not abducting me just like the other man had.
My eyes track his every step, still able to feel the phantom pressure of his hands on me, along with the terrifying lack of control I had when he lifted me.
I don’t like being helpless, especially not while I’m aware of what happens in my family’s world. Of what men like him are capable of.
Wordlessly, he slips into the driver’s seat, closing the door with a heavy thud. The car fills with the heady scent of leather, a deep and rich cologne, and something distinctly him.
He doesn’t look at me while starting the engine, as if he’d rather not see me. Still, I glare at him even while he ignores me.
After a few minutes of silence that feels far too suffocating and tense, I can’t take it anymore. Maybe I should shut my mouth, but that’s not who I am. Not when this could be life or death for me.
“So, what am I supposed to call you…Vic or Wyatt?”
His jaw flexes, as if bothered by the question, but he still doesn’t look at me. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care.”
“No, I don’t.”
He keeps driving like he didn’t just respond with the emotional capacity of a rock, and I huff out a disbelieving sound.
“Most people usually care what name they go by,” I begin slowly, more like I’m speaking to a child than a grown man. An armed man, at that. “And for some reason, you have more than one.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I’m gathering that.”
His glance through the rearview mirror is brief but sharp, and in that fleeting exchange of eye contact, he almost looks familiar to me. “Then stop asking stupid questions.”
My mouth falls open at that, prepared to snark back at him, only to be cut off by his irritation.
“I just got you out of a situation you weren’t going to walk away from, so forgive me if I don’t feel like entertaining you.”
I don’t know why, but that stops me in my tracks, and my mouth snaps shut. Heat creeps up my neck before I can stop it, but not from shame. I just hate that he has a point, and I hate that I owe him anything at all. At least, depending on what he plans to do with me, whether I’m indebted to him remains to be seen.
Shifting my attention to the car window, I refuse to look back in his direction for as long as I can.
My pulse finally begins to settle as the road stretches on ahead, bringing us closer to the heart of Vegas, but my mind is nowhere near calm.
Even if my immediate panic has ebbed thanks to him being surprisingly passive, I have the chance to see him. To really, truly see him.
The man who just carried me to his car like it was nothing, and one with enough muscle to make a nun fold, flexing when he grips the steering wheel. One with broad shoulders straining beneath his jacket, and a jawline that seems even more intense from this angle.
Paired with his indifferent, unbearably grumpy attitude, he’s infuriating. And, to my dismay, exactly my type if that even remotely mattered in this moment.
God help me…I’ve been abducted by the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.
Sinking deeper into the seat, I try so hard not to look at him again, but it’s almost impossible.
I notice the small things I have no business noticing: the scar across his knuckle, the seemingly intentional length of his hair, and how he keeps checking the mirrors like he’s scanning for threats.
