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He smiled at me, setting off alarm bells in my pounding head. What did he want? Someone who smiled like that always wanted something. I couldn’t think of a single thing I had that he’d want.

I didn’t like feeling so vulnerable, just lying here with him towering over me. I jerked at the cuffs, then rolled onto my side, scooting up the bed until I was on my knees, as close to the headboard as I could be. “What the hell is going on?” I rasped, then winced at the soreness in my throat.

“How’s your head?” he asked, moving closer. He reached his hand out to gently cup my jaw.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world to touch me like that.

Instinct and a lifetime of responding with violence had me turning and biting down hard on one of his fingers, not thinking for a second about the fact that I was restrained, half his size, and had no power in this situation.

I clamped down harder, though my teeth had always been blunt and based on how he wasn’t reacting, it didn’t seem like they were doing much damage.

“Let go,” he said, calm as ever. As if I didn’t currently have my teeth embedded in his flesh like the wild animal I was.

I glared at him.

He sighed. “Margot. Let go.” He tugged at his finger, but I held on. He reached up and grabbed my jaw, then squeezed the hollow of my cheeks so hard my mouth popped open and a startled gasp slipped past my lips as he pulled his finger from my teeth. When I tried the same trick again with his other hand, he’d already backed away a foot.

“Fuck me, you’re vicious,” he mused, seeming not the least bit put off by what I’d just done. His eyes were creased at the corners, his mouth tilted up in a small smile. He looked down at his finger, the one I’d latched onto. There were teeth marks embedded in his skin, but no blood.

And then he licked his finger, pink tongue gliding over the spot I’d just bitten. His eyes slid to mine, and whatever was in them made me feel like I was on a tiny raft in the middle of the ocean during a hurricane.

My heart hammered in my chest as alarms blared in my head. After the initial shock faded, panic set in.

What the actual fuck.

I had no idea what to do in a situation like this. He wasn’t right in the head. He was some kind of sexual deviant, he was going to do something fucking weird, and I needed to get the fuck out of here.

I rattled the cuffs and slammed my body into the headboard, but that only exacerbated the pounding in my skull. I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Try not to move. You hit your head really hard,” he said softly, almost like a reprimand. He also sounded a little concerned, though I was probably imagining it.

“Who the fuck are you?” And why had he been in the store? And why was I cuffed to this bed? And where were we? “What the hell is going on?”

He didn’t respond. His gaze slid to a spot just above my right ear, and then he turned and walked across the room. I lifted my head up to watch him as he grabbed a simple wooden chair from a table that sat in the corner, near what I assumed was a window that he’d pulled the curtains over.

If we were in a motel room, did that mean there were other people around? Should I scream? Would anybody even come?

He dragged the chair over to me, propped it by the bed, and sat his huge body down. I didn’t think I’d ever seen someone as built as he was. It was intimidating, and even if I wasn’t cuffed, there was no way I’d be able to fight him. Even if I had my pocket knife, I wasn’t sure it would do any damage.

He leaned forward, those light eyes boring into mine. “What’s an employee doing stealing from the store they work at?”

I said nothing. If he was just going to ignore my questions, why the hell would I answer his?

His gaze moved to the side of my head again, and I thought for the briefest moment there was rage in it, but it was gone as fast as it’d come. “Do you want a painkiller? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me how you’re feeling.”

I eyed him warily as he reached to the nightstand and picked up a pill bottle. He twisted it open, shook two tablets into his palm, then grabbed a glass of water that had been sitting beside the pill bottle.

Oh, fuck, I wanted that water so, so bad. I licked my dry lips as I stared at it. But I wasn’t dumb enough to take anything he offered me, no matter how thirsty I was or how much pain I was in.

He raised his brows and held out the water and pills like an offering.

As if I could take them with my hands cuffed. And in no world was I letting him fucking feed me painkillers and help me drink.

I kicked my foot out and knocked them from his hand. “Get these fucking cuffs off me, you bastard,” I seethed.

He smiled, then rubbed a hand over his mouth to hide it, leaning down and carefully picking up the empty water glass and pills to set them on the nightstand. “Alright then.”

The amusement in his voice made me want to punch him right in his pretty mouth.