Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Hannah
Oh my gawd.
I’m dizzy, my body buzzes. I’d forgotten to be afraid while we were having sex, but now, awareness creeps back. I’m pinned against my workbench with my panties down and my wrists tied behind my back, a semi-stranger’s cock still stretching me.
What in the hell am I doing?
It may not seem like it now, but I’m usually cautious about who I have sex with.
I don’t know how I lost my head like that. It was just so hot. So animalistic. Feral. That teenage crush on Armando made it feel so necessary. I didn’t come, but I was so close.
Now I’m tingling and hot and needy as hell. Which doesn’t help the tolling bells for foreboding.
I could be in real trouble here. Life or death stuff.
I’m sorry I hurt you.
I cling to that one piece of evidence that this man is not a psychopath. That he didn’t just rape me. That I’m going to walk out of here alive.
A knock pounds on my back door, and Armando pulls out of me with a curse. He yanks my panties up and drops the condom in the wastebasket.
The taut urgency returns to his movements as he spins me around, his gaze darting around the premises. I stiffen when he pulls a roll of duct tape from my shelf and rips off a small piece.
“No—”
He slaps it over my mouth.
I scream behind the tape, terror suddenly ripping through me.
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.
What’s happening? What’s he going to do with me?
The knock sounds again, and Armando grabs my arm, propelling me toward the storage closet.
“Shh.” He puts his finger over my taped lips as he pushes me backward into the crowded dark space.
I try to scream no , but it comes out as nothing more than a muffled sound.
“Quiet, Hannah.” There’s a warning to his tone.
The door shuts.
Panic sets in. I’m afraid of the dark. I don’t like small spaces. And I definitely don’t want to be tied up and left in here to rot.
I want to slam my head against the door to make noise, except he was expecting whomever showed up at my back door. So it’s someone he knows.
Which means I can’t hope for a rescue from them.
In fact, if he’s hiding me in here from his associates out there, it could be for my own safety. Like they might insist on killing me.
Oh fuck.
My entire body starts to shake. Not a slight tremble, but a terrible shuddering that makes my knees knock together and my ribs lock down in a painful cinching.
I hear male voices and footsteps tromping past the closet. The sound of a body being dragged.
Tears drip down my cheeks and over the duct tape on my mouth. My breath rasps harshly in and out of my nose.
“What about the florist?” a male asks just outside the closet. “Need me to clean that up?”
“I got rid of her,” Armando says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She didn’t see anything. It’s cool.”
I was right. He’s protecting me. That’s why I’m in the closet. Because if his buddies out there knew I saw something, I might have to die.
But then… how do I know he’s not going to kill me anyway? Maybe he just wants to make me his fuck toy first. Keep me tied up in his closet for months and months and then throw me dead in a ditch.
Oh my God.
This is bad.
“I’ll finish the clean up here. I owe you. Don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll tell the don myself, yeah?”
“Yeah, as long as you do.”
“Swear to Christ. Hey—get rid of his gun, too. I can’t carry one.”
“Are you fucking nuts? Someone’s trying to kill you. You need a piece.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He definitely can. I just saw him take care of an armed man without ever firing. In fact, he’d purposely emptied the gun chamber. I don’t think he meant to kill that guy at all. It was definitely self-defense.
“I fucking hope so.”
The back door shuts. I wait, my shaking intensifying as the possibilities fly through my mind.
What’shappeningwhat’shappeningwhat’shappening?
The closet door flies open, and I blink at the sudden light. Armando’s face comes into focus. His brows lower when he looks at me. “Aw, baby. Did you think I was going to leave you in here?” He thumbs away the tears under my left eye.
Did I? Not really. I just didn’t like being tied up and standing in a dark closet. Feeling helpless.
He drags me forward, out of the closet and works the corner of tape free over my upper lip. “I’m sorry for this.” He yanks it all off in one pull. A strangled cry erupts as the tape leaves my lips.
“You okay?”
“No,” I snap. “Let me go.” My demand sounds way more watery than firm.
“Sorry, Flowers. That’s not possible.” He pulls me into my workshop. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to clean up your shop, and you’re going to stay where I put you and not make a sound. Can you do that, or do I need to put you back in the closet?”
I’m tempted—so tempted—to knee him in the balls. Except I just saw what this man is capable of. He fought a man armed with a gun and a knife, and he won. There’s no way it would go well for me.
He thumbs away the tears under my right eye. “Be cool, Flowers, and we won’t have any problems. Okay?”
“I don’t want you here.” It’s a dumb thing to say, but it’s true. I want him to leave. I want him out of my shop. My life. My reality.
I think I’m going to puke.
I wish this evening never happened.
“Feeling’s mutual, Flowers.” He pulls back the stool at my desk, which is essentially in the hallway where he can see me from the front room and pushes me into it.
“It’s Hannah.” I turn to face him as he gets a broom and dustpan out of the closet and moves swiftly into the shop. “But you know that.”
I’m a little bitter that his speaking my name was my downfall. If I hadn’t hesitated when he called my name, I would’ve made it out the back door.
“Hannah.” His back is to me. He sweeps up the broken pots and soil with swift, deft movements. “You own the place now.”
I watch the muscles in his back ripple each sure stroke of the broom. I shouldn’t be flattered that he knows things about me. And really, it’s not like he knows something earth-shattering. It’s a basic fact everyone in his organization knows. Yet it makes my pulse quicken.
“Armando.”
The sound of his name makes his head snap up and brings his gaze to mine. My stomach drops away. He’s as breathtaking as I remembered him, except so very serious now. There’s no hint of a smile on his face anymore. None of the charm and ease. And the eyes…
Compassion weasels in.
Because his eyes look ancient.
“You remembered.”
I shrug like he never starred in a hundred of my darkest fantasies. “You remembered mine, too. Where have you been?” My voice sounds rusty.
Shutters close behind his eyes, and he turns back to his work. “Prison. Just out.”
A shiver runs through me. Prison. Josie and I didn’t think of that possibility.
“Was that your… first time since getting out?” It would explain why he was an animal when I kissed him.
At first, I think he’s not going to answer. He ignores me, dumping the contents of the dustpan into the garbage. Then he mutters, “Yeah.”
I’m simultaneously pleased and destroyed by that. I guess I wanted to believe he was just that attracted to me. I mean, he did remember my name.
I am such a fool.
Then I realize he’s watching me, and I try to school my face. Keep on a blank mask like he wears.
“You okay? I was… rough.”
Oh shit, I’m blushing. I sense the heat crawl up my neck and spread to my ears and cheeks.
He was rough. And it was hot. I never knew I’d like having my hair pulled or my butt slapped, but I did. I’m still needy for more like a glutton. Almost painfully needy.
“I’d buy you flowers, but I’m guessing that’s not your thing.” He gives me the barest hint of a smile, and stupid me, I reward him with one in return.
“Only if you get them here,” I say, which is dumb because I wouldn’t really want a guy to buy flowers from me to give to me. I only said it because I need the money so badly, I’d be offended if he shopped anywhere else.
And why in the hell am I even examining this line of thought? I’m being held captive in my own shop. By a murderer.
It’s not time for roses and romance.
So I poke. “What happened to the fiancée?”
He grimaces, his expression going harder. “Lotta questions, Flowers.”
I arrange the pieces of the puzzle in my mind. “She didn’t wait,” I answer for him.
He straightens the toppled table and rearranges the remaining plants on it.
“I’m sorry.” It slips out before I can bite back my offering of compassion.
He ignores my sympathy, walking past me to fill the mop bucket in my large utility sink. I smell the scent of bleach. Well, at least he cleans up his own mess. He could’ve ordered me to do it.
I twist my hands behind my back. “These hurt.”
“Stop moving.”
“Thanks. Great suggestion. I hadn’t thought of that.”
He cuts a look at me while he dumps a generous helping of bleach in with the water. “You’re tied up because you gave me trouble. Maybe rethink the attitude if you want me to let out the leash.”
“Leash?”
He wheels the mop bucket into the shop. There was a smattering of blood on the floor, but not much, thankfully. He swabs the entire floor.
“Why didn’t you use the gun? Too loud?”
He shakes his head. “Shut up, Flowers.”
“You didn’t want him dead.”
Armando makes a tsking sound as he mops the hall, then wheels past me and dumps the dirty water into the sink. “Keep out of this. You saw nothing. If anyone asks, there was a struggle, but we both left to finish things outside. You locked the place up and left early.”
My stool is a spinning one, and I use my feet to whirl around on it like a kid. “No offense, but that story would not hold up under questioning.”
Armando stalks over to me.
The part of me bold enough to talk back shrivels, especially when I remember this man is a brutal killer.
He stops when he reaches me, indecision flickering in his expression. Maybe he sees the fear on my face. He reaches for me, and I flinch. He slows his touch. Burrows his fingers through my hair at the side of my head then curls them up to tug it tight.
“Listen. Hannah. I’d rather not say the shit I’m supposed to say right now. Not to you.”
My stomach flip flops as I try to decode the meaning of his words. I keep getting caught on the not to you.
Like he does think I’m something special. But maybe, I’m looking too hard for meaning, so I won’t regret what I just let him do to me.
Like I want to believe that crazy rough sex meant something to him.
I know I still feel it all over. And if I stop looking for meaning or wondering if I just degraded myself, I might believe experiencing a man like Armando was worth it.
I’m pretty sure he just ruined me for vanilla sex.
Ruined me for kinder, gentler men. I should’ve known there was a reason those mafia assholes always appealed to me.
I prefer an alpha male. I’m sure it’s a purely biological weakness many women share with me.
I try to swallow around the invisible band choking me.
“I won’t tell anyone what I saw,” I manage to say. My voice sounds strained.
“Good girl. Then we won’t have any problems.”
Oh, we’ll still have problems. Individually and together.
I screw up my courage because making demands isn’t my strong suit, especially not in a crazy situation like this. I lift my chin. “But you’re paying for the damages here.” I don’t take my gaze off his face as I flutter my hand in the direction where the pots had been broken.
“Yeah. Of course.”
Whew. That was easier than expected.
I sit forward on the stool, as much as I can with his grip on my hair holding me immobile. It only has the effect of pushing my tits out. His gaze drops to my cleavage and hunger creeps into his expression.
I lick my lips, and his gaze lifts to my mouth. “A-are you going to let me go?”
The hunger drops away, replaced by that hardened mask he wears. “We’ll see, Flowers.” He releases my hair and turns away.
A chill creeps across my skin.
All the horrific doubts crowd into my brain and cut off intelligent thought.
I surge to my feet. He whirls, his hand around my throat in seconds, not squeezing, but guiding me back to my seat. His voice is even when he shakes his head and says, “I didn’t say you could move.”
And it’s that cold hardness more than anything that freaks me the hell out.
He must see the panic in my expression because he puts his finger lightly over my lips, trailing it downward. “Shh. Take it easy. You do what I say, you won’t get hurt. Capisce ?”
I stare back at him and nod quickly.
“Good girl.”