“Don’t move,” he barely whispered. His low voice was strained and hard. His breath kept falling hot on my skin.
Everything in me shuddered, and all the air escaped my lungs. A Horrible wave of fear crippled my mind, and the ridiculous thoughts abouthimnot hurting me shattered with his command. I should try to run. I should scream. I should do anything other than just stand there and wait for his next move. Whatever that might be.
But I obeyed him. I didn’t move. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My limbs had gone cold, unmoving just like they were at the auditorium when he looked at me.
“A-are yo-u…gonna…?” I couldn’t finish, tears choking me.
“Am I gonna what?” he asked with the same low, hard voice. So deep and masculine and terrifying.
Kill me? Rape me? Kidnap me? All three?I didn’t say anything so I wouldn’t put ideas in his head. Besides, I was hiccupping through the tears I could barely breathe, let alone speak. I closed my eyes, pretending this was a bad dream like I always did.
“Shhhh.” His breath came closer, sending a stronger shiver through me. Then I felt something pointy and scruffy on my shoulder. A bearded chin?Hisbearded chin? The confirmation came as the scruffy hair pressed to the side of my neck. Lightly, gently.
Suddenly, I was no longer cold. I was burning hot. The heat coming from his body seeped through my pores with his simplest touch. Oh my God, he was touching me.
And I was letting him.
Fear snaked down my spine, crippling me further. What the hell did I do? Why did I have to follow him? Why did I have to say what I said? I literally told him I wished I could’ve seen him, and here he was. What had I just gotten myself into?
And why the hell was I just standing there, unable to say a simple word such as no while he allowed himself to touch me without permission?
It’s just a bad dream.
Refusing to let me pretend, my senses crawled back into my foggy brain. He wasn’t exactly touching me. His hands and body were nowhere on mine. It was just his chin on my shoulder, and the side of his face on mine. So light and careful, as if he was afraid to break me, but it did make me quake.
Then I felt it. His hand. On my…hair.
Another gasp flew off my throat. He touched my hair so casually, so possessively, without hesitation. Like he had the right to do it. Like I belonged to him.
“What a-are y-you doing?” I stammered.
I heard him inhale deeply, and then he exhaled with the same intensity, inducing another shudder from my body. “You smell so good.”
Did he just sniff my hair? That was so creepy and sick…and so incredibly intimate.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered and took another deep breath.
Both my lashes and heart fluttered. Nobody had ever touched me in that way or said things like that to me before. Nobody except…
The horrible memory slapped me out of the tranceheput me in. “Please stop,” I gasped.
He mumbled something in a foreign language. Spanish maybe or Italian? It sounded native but he didn’t have an accent when he spoke in English. Then, just like that, the strand in his hand dropped on my back. “I’m not like your father,” he reprimanded, as if he read my mind, as if he knew exactly how I felt.
My hands trembled harder, and my heart pounded in my throat. This was no random guy. He knew about my father. He knew who I was.Oh my God. Is it really him?
“Ci vediamo, my sweet Angel.”
His warmth on my face was replaced by an unbearable coldness, and I heard him step back. He was letting me go, even though someone like him, someone that obviously didn’t play by the rules, someone that was probably the most dangerous man I’d ever met, could have gone further. From what I’d glimpsed earlier, he was twice my size. I wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight against him.
But he was letting me go.
I should run now, grateful that he was. I should find my way back to Nicky and never look back. Why the fuck was I still standing here?
“Can I please see you?” I asked under my breath, shaking, unable to begin to understand what the hell was wrong with me. Why did the urge to see him outweigh my self-preservation? Why would I want him to stay longer when all I should be doing was running for my life, praying I’d never see him again?
One more time, I waited like an idiot in the dark for his answer, but I could no longer feel or hear his breath. He’d left. So long for putting an end to my confusion and fear. If anything, they’d multiplied.
He wouldn’t even let me see his face.
