Chapter Seven – Chelsea
I paced back and forth, back and forth, unspent energy rolling through my system with an insistent force. I didn’t know how much longer I could take being in here, how much longer I could cope with being trapped in these four walls before I lost my mind entirely.
As though I wasn’t well on the way to that already.
I had spent the night tossing and turning, my ears pricked for any sound of Zane. Not because I was scared of him, no. Because that almost-kiss we’d had the night before had burned itself on to my brain, and I didn’t know what I could do to force it out of my head again.
I was losing it. Well and truly losing it. Because what kind of person would have been attracted to the man who had kidnapped her? I thought I had been flirting just to try and get him off his guard, but there was something more to it, some real desire that was making my head spin in all the ways it shouldn’t have been.
Which was... a risk, I knew that. A huge fucking risk. I didn’t know what this man was capable of. Hell, I didn’t know, at this point, what he was planning with me, what he had decided he was going to get out of taking me at all. He’d said something about his brother, about taking down the Dogs, but I still hadn’t figured how I fit into all of that. Was he any clearer on it? I had no idea.
But I knew I wanted him. Being stuck here with him, it felt like he was the only thing I could think about. I had never found myself this needy for a guy in my entire life before, like my whole existence was spiraling down to how much I wanted him and how badly I needed this.
Did he have any clue how he made me feel? Was he banking on that being enough to keep me from pushing back against my containment? Was he playing with me, toying with me because he got off on it? Was everything he had told me about taking down the Dogs nothing but a lie, an excuse for what he truly intended to do to me...?
I stared at the ceiling, digging my nails into my palms. I hated this. I felt like my whole body was alight with anticipation, with a needy want I couldn’t control. I didn’t want to control it. God, after so long at college, making sure every little detail of my life went exactly as it was meant to, maybe there was almost a kind of... relief in knowing I didn’t get to choose how this went...
Or maybe I was just trying to make sense of the fact that I was really, really into that hot guy a couple of rooms away, when I shouldn’t have been.
It had been a while since he had come in with food or water, and I knew it was just a matter of time, just a small matter of time before he had to return. And when he did, what was I going to do? Pounce on him? No, don’t be crazy. I still didn’t know what this man was capable of, what he would do to me given the chance. I had been more or less playing by his rules up until now, and if I broke them...
If I broke them, I didn’t know how I might have to pay the price.
Suddenly, the door swung open. I had been so lost in my thoughts I hadn’t heard the lock moving. My head snapped up, and there he was, standing right in front of me. The heat in my cheeks rose at once, and I did everything I could to hide it, twisting my head away from him and praying he didn’t notice.
“I bought you more food,” he told me, his voice impossible to read. I nodded and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye as he laid out some stuff on the bedside table. Then I noticed his phone dangling from his pocket.
I felt my palms begin to sweat. I could grab it, and he wouldn’t even notice. He had taken my phone from me before I’d woken up, and I had no idea where the hell it was or if I would ever even see it again. If I could fire off a message to my father, I might be able to hasten my rescue a little...
Before I could stop myself, I moved a little closer to him, praying he stayed distracted. He didn’t seem to notice me getting any nearer to him. Now. I had to act now. If I was going to get this phone, I couldn’t hold back, I had to...
My hand shot out almost before I could stop it, and I tugged the phone from his pocket. Being this near to him, smelling the scent of him again, it was throwing my head in a hundred different directions, but I had to remain focused. I had to remember that this man had kidnapped me. I couldn’t let whatever desire I might have felt for him get in the way of that.
He fiddled with something on the bedside table. My heart pounded in my chest. My hands were so slippery with sweat, fearful of what he would do if he caught me in the act, I could hardly get a grip on the phone. I tugged it out, pulling it into my hand, and I was about to stash it into my jeans when...
“Shit!” I exclaimed. The phone slid out of my hand, landing on the floor with a crash. He spun around to face me, his eyes narrowing.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he snarled. I took a step back from him, eyes wide.
“I— I— I was—” I stuttered. He glanced down and saw his phone on the floor between us. Stooping down slowly, he picked it up, staring down at it for a moment, and then slowly lifted his gaze to meet mine. There was anger there, sure, but hurt, too.
“Were you trying to take this from me?”
“No, no, it wasn’t like that...”
He took a step toward me, closing the distance between us.
“Then what were you doing?” he asked. His voice was almost calm, eerily so. I could feel terror in my system, pulsing through every part of me, but being the center of his attention like this, it was lighting up a part of me that I didn’t need right now, a part of me that I should have known better than to allow right now...
“Nothing,” I blurted out. I knew he didn’t believe me. Why would he? He knew what I was doing.
“Because it looked like you were trying to take my phone,” he continued, moving closer to me still. He was glaring down at me, not breaking my gaze for an instant. I felt as though I might turn to ice under his sharp blue stare, like I was rooted to the spot.
“And what were you planning to do with it when you got it?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing, I just...”
“Were you going to call for the Dogs?” he asked me softly. He sounded almost... hurt, like he hadn’t expected me to pull that on him. How could it have come as a shock? He was holding me here against my will, after all.
“Yes,” I muttered. No point in lying to him. I cursed myself for trying this, cursed myself for being that stupid. I should have known better. Should have stopped myself...
“I didn’t take you for that kind of girl,” he remarked, and he lifted his hand, touching his finger to my chin to tilt my face up to look into his eyes. I swear, it felt like all the air was knocked from my lungs the moment I felt him touch me. Was this his way of trying to show me that he was in control here? Or was... was there something more to it?
“What kind of girl?” I asked. My voice sounded wispy escaping my lips, and I hated how obvious it must have been to him what was going on right now.
“You were flirting with me so hard the other day,” he continued, dipping his head to one side slightly. “I didn’t think you had any intention of going anywhere.”
Those words hung between us, his finger beneath my chin. He must have been able to feel my pulse beating beneath my skin, and I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. I was a rabbit, caught in a trap, staring back at the wolf, not wanting to run. Wanting him to bite me...
And before I could think better of it, I leaned up and planted my lips against his.