“You really thought you escaped me? No, babe.” His nose pressing into my cheek, Grant gives me a squeeze that sends black spots through my vision. “Now, let’s get this off of you.”
He yanks my vest half off, pulling me away from the wall enough to shove the leather down my arms and to the floor.
It takes everything in me to keep myself breathing, shallow against his palm. Those steely eyes—cold, satisfied—track every shallow breath I manage. He likes this part. Likes watching me struggle for air.
“You’re shaking.” Grant’s thumb brushes under my jaw like a lover’s caress. His grip tightens just enough to remind me who controls the oxygen. “Is that fear? Or excitement?”
I refuse to answer him. If I open my mouth, I’ll waste what little air I have. My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out everything else—the dryer hum, the distant noise of the club, the fact that there are armed men barely fifty feet away who would kill him if they knew he was here.
He knows that, too.
That’s why he came for me alone.
“That’s what they don’t understand about you,” he says, voice low, conversational, as if we’re discussing dinner plans instead of my survival. “You’re not built for this world. You never were. You need structure. Direction.”
His free hand slides to my shoulder, fingers digging deliberately into the still-healing wound. Pain blooms sharp and white, stealing my breath in a broken gasp.
He smiles at the sound. “You need me.”
I bite down on the cry threatening to escape. If I give him pain, he’ll take it as permission.
A shout carries faintly through the walls—male voices raised, boots pounding. My heart stutters. Grant’s head turns slightly, listening, but he doesn’t release me.
“Your boys are about to cause a mess out there. And I don’t like messes.”
He leans in until his mouth brushes my ear. I smell his cologne—expensive, familiar, nauseating.
“You’re going to come home with me. Right now.” His fingers flex at my shoulder, testing my threshold for pain. “Or they die. I don’t mind starting with the little bartender girl. Pixie, right? Bright hair. Big mouth.”
Panic claws up my spine, feral and uncontrollable. Pixie’s laugh flashes through my mind. Her sassy mouth. How she had no problem snapping back when someone stepped out of line. The way she hovered when I was sick, when I was quiet, when I was scared.
I can’t let him touch her.
My muscles burn. My vision dims at the edges as pain creeps down my chest from the constant pressure of his thumb against my stitches and his fingers flexing at my throat. This is the part where I used to disappear—where I’d go soft, compliant, let him decide if he really wanted to hurt me.
Not this time.
I force my hands to move.
Slow. Careful.
I let them settle against his chest, fingers splaying as if I’m seeking comfort. His body stills immediately, attention sharpening. He’s always loved when I showed him affection. Like he’s been starved of tenderness his whole life.
“There you are,” he whispers, satisfied.
I swallow hard and make myself look up at him, lashes lowered, mouth parted. Every instinct screams that this is dangerous—that any softness will be taken as weakness—but it’s the only hand I have left to play.
“I can’t breathe,” I rasp. “Grant…please.”
His grip loosens just a fraction.
Enough.
My hand slides lower, brushing his waist, tracing the familiar line of his belt. I feel it then—the weight, the shape of the gun at his hip. My pulse spikes so hard it almost gives me away.
Grant watches my face closely, smug. “That’s it. Be good for me.”
My fingers curl around the grip.
