Chapter Sixty-Nine
Isla
I was almost sound asleep again when I felt something more than the air shift.
In the next second, strong arms were under me, and I was being lifted off the bed, comforter and all.
“Hey!” Exhausted, shocked, I scrambled to kick free, but my legs were somehow caught in the bedding, and I realized I was wrapped like a burrito. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Testing a theory.” Holding me against his chest, he strode out of the bedroom and went straight for the private elevator.
Oh, fuck no. “I am not leaving this hotel room like this.” I was naked, and it was a bazillion star hotel. And what happened to my plan, my resolve?
“Penthouse suite, and yes, you are.”
Struggling to get an arm out of the comforter, I grasped the edge of the elevator door right as he stepped inside. Then I glared at him. “No. I’m not.”
Staring me down with that maddeningly locked expression and his outrageously green eyes, he hit the ground floor call button with his elbow.
Panic-driven anger flared. “You step into that lobby with me in this blanket, and I will make you regret it.”
“Comforter,” he fucking corrected. “And I already regret it.”
“Then set me down,” I demanded.
“No.” He glanced up at the indicator showing the descending floors.
Wait. Why did he regret it? “Do you know how many ways I could make this go very badly for you?” I was almost out of floors to still be able to make a move in private. Not that the elevator didn’t have a security camera.
Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he dropped his sharp gaze back to mine.
The calculating bastard didn’t say a word.
He didn’t have to.
His intent stare was lethal all on its own.
I stupidly asked the question. “Why do you regret this?”
“Because.” He lowered his voice and his face a mere fraction of an inch, but it had an overwhelmingly consequential effect. “Ma petite intruse, anything that potentially exposes your perfect little cunt to someone other than myself makes me react in a certain way.”
Damn it, I smiled. “Are you jealous?”
“Currently, only of the three men who fucked you before me. And jealousy isn’t the noun I’d use.”
“Possessive?” I supplied, my traitorous body part in question now pulsing.
“That’s a good start.”
The elevator doors opened, and he walked out, but he didn’t stride through the lobby. He cut left and went out a back entrance, where his giant SUV was parked and waiting.
I was so distracted that it wasn’t until he carefully angled me into the front passenger seat that I noticed what was hanging on one of his shoulders. “You have my backpack.”
“I do.” He pulled the seat belt out wide, then buckled it around me and the comforter he’d stolen from the hotel.
“Why?” I demanded.
A green-eyed warfighter palmed my throat, locked my jaw between his thumb and forefinger, then laid down his lethal dominance. “You’re moving in with me and Lincoln.”