He’s about to get one.
ZARA
When Axel rises off the bench, I’m not sure what comes over me. I dash toward him, white-knuckling my last vestige of sanity. He’s unsurprised. In fact, he appears bored. Until I’m shoving his solid, damp chest. Then his sapphires smolder with the cravings he denies.
That only fuels my ire. “You’re trapping me here?”
He doesn’t respond in words. Instead, he manages to spin me so my back is flush with his chest, and he fastens his arm over my collarbone. In one fluid motion—clutching his forearm, turning my head to the side so he can’t choke me, lowering my stance, and sliding my body behind his so I can grab his knees—I knock him to the ground.
He emits a groan that lands somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle before barking an order. “Leave us.”
Maddox tsks. “You’re going to pay for that, Papa Axe—making me miss the show. Looks like Slugger will make it hurt enough though.”
Before Maddox utters the final word and the door clicks shut, Axel swipes my feet out from under me so I fall onto his chest, and he rolls us to obtain the dominant position.
“Stop,” he demands, hovering over me.
I don’t. Not yet.
I arch my back, use my knee to apply enough pressure to his groin that he has to squirm to thwart it, hook my other leg around him for leverage, and invert us so I end up on top.
“Zara,” he growls in his authoritative tenor that speaks to a host of deeper desires inside me, “that’s enough.”
In a blink, he seizes control, flipping us so he looms above me. His shins are pinning my calves to the floor, his knees flanking my thighs with force, and he’s clutching my shoulders, his thumbs brushing the feverish flesh on my neck.
I could flip him again, or I could fold my arms over his elbows and press down on them until he was forced to let go so they didn’t break. Part of me wants to keep fighting because I’m so riled up, but it won’t lead to anything productive. And soaking him in for a beat seems like a worthwhile consolation prize.
His chest is heaving, and I’d wager that it’s not from the exertion. His stormy eyes are ripe with hunger and adorned by a fan of thick lashes that are a crime against women. There’s a substantial bulge poking my thighs that isn’t my pistol.
And even in the humid gymnasium, he smells like the season’s first snow. The crisp fragrance of a chill before the sting.
“You’re holding me prisoner?”
“I’m doing exactly as I promised,” he says in his even-keeled, never-overly-ruffled lilt. “I warned you that you’d be answering to me if you returned, and here you are.”
“Meaning I never leave?” I grit out, warring with my urge to send his nuts into his throat. “Until when?”
“As long as it’s necessary.”
I dig my nails into his biceps, heeding the taut skin and sculpted muscle, but it isn’t enough to make him flinch. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You tell me,” he counters cooly, as if this were business as usual, just another wrestling match. “Your cover is blown. You may have survived that by leaving when we were on the Riverwalk, but it’s doubtful you will now. Any eyes on you saw you with me that day. They saw the control I had, the spectacle I made. And they saw me getting in my limo and youchoosingto return with me. This is the safe haven for the entire underworld. No matter what the mission is, the stakes are high. What happens to agents who blow a job of this caliber?”
My heart thunders against my sternum as the veracity of that statement sinks its burs into me. It already dawned on me during my conversation with Tripp that abandoning this mission wasn’t an option, but I guess I didn’t consider the danger of simply leaving the grounds of the one place where people in my world would be too afraid to strike. Tripp did though. He told me there were eyes everywhere.
A memory of what happens when things go sideways with a job smacks me in the face.
My closest friend, Jerry, was supposed to be back five hours ago. There’s a pit in my stomach. Why hasn’t he checked in? Why is no one else in the whole damn camp talking about it?
There’s a whisper inside me that insists the worst, but it can’t be right. He’s only twenty-five—four years older than me. He’s been an apprentice at our camp for three years, after a short stint in the military. He was uptight at first, but then he loosened up with Tripp, me, and a few other younger students here. We’ve all been inseparable for years.
I sprint toward the martial arts building, busting inside so aggressively that it disrupts the demonstration. Several of the mentees smirk or chuckle at my arrival, but my father sighs.
He’s in warrior mode, taking on everyone in the class. No one ever beats him on the mats or in our simulations, even though he’s in his forties. He’s always stronger, smarter, and faster.
I should be dressed, participating, but I can’t shake this feeling that something’s off.
When I rush toward him, he knocks the guy on his ass and tells him to take five.
