“Stop fighting me.” His chest rising and falling, he narrowed his eyes, allowing his gaze to fall from my face.
When I dared look away from him, I realized I’d still been wearing the towel when I’d attacked him.
Which was now pooled around my ankles.
We both followed the trail to the floor. When he lifted his head, the grin I’d seen initially upon almost meeting him had returned. But his eyes were cold, perhaps unfocused.
The blood continued to run down the side of his face and it would seem he had no intention of letting me go.
Mortified, I sucked in and held my breath, still struggling to try to free myself.
“Now, are you going to be a good little girl and calm down so we can talk?”
“Why, sure. Asshole. Why don’t you let me go so I can contact the police? They’ll get it straightened out for us. And a good little girl? In your dreams.” I was hot, the Italian blood in my flaring.As much as I’d tried in my adulthood to temper my anger, in a situation like this forget it.
His laugh sent a shower of electric tingles through me.
“I mean it, my lost angel. If you aren’t very, very good, I’ll restrain you again. I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Neither do I!” Was it possible the brutes from New York had found me, calling in local reinforcements?
By the way he dropped his gaze, his nostrils flaring, my powerful intuition told me he wouldn’t mind restraining me in the least.
“No, you will not. You’re going to explain to me what the hell you’re doing here.”
He cocked his head and I’ll be damned if tingles weren’t tickling every nerve ending. The rush of heat crisscrossing my face in what had to be ugly blotches didn’t seem to faze him in the least. I was barely two inches away and completely naked, yet he was huffing and puffing.
Granted, the man had a gash in his head, blood streaming down his face and quite possibly a concussion, but that was beside the point. I lived here. I was allowed to be in this house.
He wasn’t.
We glared at each other for at least a full thirty seconds. Both with labored breathing. Both with pinched faces. The only difference was the trickle of blood had finally reached his lip. I shifted my gaze to the soft rosiness of his full lips, loathing how much his physicality affected me.
He’d changed shirts, the one he was wearing no longer splattered with blood. With the sleeves rolled up past his elbows,I was given an incredible view of a spectacular rose tattoo on his forearm in full display. The artistry was classy, intricate in design and detail.
While the shadows from the night before had seemed protective, I’d missed seeing his body. This was bad. Very bad.
Without his tie and with several buttons undone, I was also allowed a quick view of his massive chest. He was as rock hard as I’d envisioned before.
With my hand free, I shifted my arm and he growled at me. As if I intended on hitting him again. When I rubbed my finger across the stream of blood so the distasteful element wouldn’t get into his mouth, he was shocked.
In a move so unexpected I was also surprised, he lowered his head until our lips were almost touching. Close enough that I licked mine in response, fighting a series of urges that had nothing to do with an intruder standing close enough to crush me with his bare hands.
“My lost angel. Now, you’ve become my captive.”
CHAPTER 12
Anna
“You are out of your mind. I’m not your captive,” I told him.
“You are until you confess your sins, which I assure you that you will do.”
“You bastard.” What in the hell had I seen in this man before? Other than that he was insanely good looking of course.
“Yes, my not so lost angel,” he growled. “I’d keep that in mind.”
The formally masked man took several deep breaths, dropping his head by another inch or two at the same time I tilted mine. The light brush was enough to jar us both. He was even more handsome than I’d envisioned, his strong brow and cheekbones chiseled from the finest stone.
