Chapter 3
Kiss
Sunlight filters into the room, rousing me from my restless sleep of tossing and turning in sheets that smell of Cruz, cigarettes and leather.
It shouldn’t be sexy, but for some messed-up reason it is on him.
After one slightly terrifying but brief encounter, I shouldn’t know what his scent is, but in that short time, he invaded my senses.
The car ride on his lap with his arms wrapped around me was enough to stay with me for way longer than I want it to.
My guess is this is his bedroom, not Jagger’s or a spare room where they keep their prisoners; it looks too lived in.
A jacket and crumpled T-shirt are slung over the chair in the corner.
The bathroom is stocked with men’s shaving products and a hamper of men’s dirty clothes, and there’s a packet of open cigarettes and a lighter on the bedside table. Yeah, this is his room for sure.
Last night, after pacing the room trying to work out how I could escape, I eventually went looking for my phone, wanting to play some music to help me chill the hell out.
That was when I realized one of them had it.
I guess I should have been concerned with finding it earlier, but who can I call?
I don’t want my parents or brother to know where I am; the cops wouldn’t be able to help me, and even if they did, I would end up shipped back off home to my family — not an option.
What would I say, anyway? Some bikers called Jagger and Cruz have abducted me?
They haven’t actually hurt me, they just locked me in a stylish bedroom and told me to go to sleep.
The only person I want to speak to is Sloane.
She’s the only one who can help me now, but I don’t have her number.
Exhausted, I fell in a heap and must have crashed out eventually in the early hours of the morning.
But it wasn’t a comfortable sleep; it was haunted.
Part of me was terrified that one of them would come back and…
and I don’t know what. Kill me in my sleep, rape me, every dark and disturbed thought I could possibly have has entered my mind in the last few hours.
But after they left, I didn’t hear another peep from either of them.
A knock sounds at the door, and I sit up in a rush, pulling my coat around my middle tighter.
Yes, I slept in my clothes. As uncomfortable as it was, I wasn’t changing out of them.
They were like a protective blanket, a barrier keeping Cruz’s sheets from touching my skin.
It’s not that I find him repulsive or anything like that.
In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I’m intrigued by him, fascinated in a way I know is dangerous.
But it was the way he touched me, the way he spoke to me, calling me little darlin' like I was something special to him, that had me unable to look away.
And thinking about him long after the door was closed and I was alone.
The knock comes again. “You awake, flower? I have breakfast,” comes Jagger’s deep voice, probably the lesser of two evils. Probably. But at this point, who really knows? He just seems less psycho.
“I’m not hungry,” I mutter back, not wanting him to come in here with food, even if my stomach protests loudly. I haven’t eaten since my flight yesterday. Truth is, I only had enough money for my bus ride, so food had to wait.
Abruptly, the door swings open, the sudden intrusion making me flinch back up the bed.
Jagger comes strolling in like he owns the place, I guess because he does.
The fresh scent of his body wash wafts past me, and I can’t help but follow him across the room with my eyes.
He’s in a dark, almost black T-shirt that’s rolled up at the sleeves, showcasing his massive biceps and ink.
He leaves a mug of coffee and a couple of slices of toast and a banana on the bedside table.
The view of him from behind is almost better than the one from the front, his dark jeans fitting his ass in a way that has me wiping the drool from the corners of my lips.
He might be a scary-as-all-hell biker, but he’s an attractive one.
When he turns back to me, I glance away.
“Eat something,” he grumbles.
I shake my head, blinking back at him as I wonder how easily I could run past him right now when his guard is down.
He raises an unimpressed brow, giving me the kind of look my brother does when I’m annoying him. “You’re going to want to eat before your flight,” he snaps.
My head whips up to meet his dark gaze, a sinking feeling coming over me. “What flight?” My voice trembles.
His lips form a thin line, and his eyes narrow in on me. “You’re going home.”
I sit up taller, my body tight with tension as sickness washes over me. “No, I can’t. I don’t want to go home.”
“It’s done!” He pushes off where he was leaning into the wall and turns to leave the room.
With my heart in my throat and my pulse racing like mad, I jump out of bed and run after him. My hand comes to his shoulder, and he stops dead in his tracks, making me regret touching him immediately. I quickly retrieve my hand. “Jagger, please, you can’t send me back home.”
He turns slowly, his eyes locked with mine, his expression serious and stern. “I’m not in the business of babysitting fugitives, especially those who belong to the Morettis.” His words are laced with venom, making me flinch away from him and bump into the dresser.
He’s so cold toward me it’s unnerving, but why should he be anything different? I’m nothing to him. Just a thorn in his side. A witness who saw too much and ended up being someone he knows he can’t just kill to get rid of with my high-profile name.
Pain radiates through my chest, a lump forming in my throat as I try to stop the impending tears.
But it’s too late; my eyes well, and wetness coats my cheeks.
I turn away from him, not wanting him to see me fall apart.
I suck in ragged breaths, trying to get my emotions under control, but it’s no use.
“They will force me to marry some other asshole,” I whimper, but it’s mostly to myself.
I know he doesn’t care. “That’s what they said.
If Valentine doesn’t come back, they will find some other man to take care of me.
” I don’t know why I’m bothering to tell him the reality of my shitty life.
I’m sure he doesn’t care what my fate is, but I can’t help the words from tumbling out either.
Guess the good inside of me hopes there is a sliver of decency in him and he won’t send me back.
“You can’t make her go back, Jagger,” I hear Cruz’s sleepy voice from behind me.
I wipe away the tears and slowly turn back to find him leaning into the frame of the doorway in just a pair of low-slung sleep shorts, his chiseled chest on full display, more ink than skin.
I blink back at him, not able to help it. He’s some sort of evil god. I want to run from him and run to him at the same time. And the truth is, if he’s willing to help me, I’m ready to forget how we met.
Jagger’s face hardens. “Eat and shower, we leave in forty minutes,” he grumbles, like he didn’t even hear why I can’t go back. Or he didn’t care, that’s probably more like it. “Stay out of this.” He digs his finger into Cruz’s bare chest as he walks past him.
My sad, defeated eyes meet Cruz’s. His lips quirk up at the sides as he cocks his head to one side, his eyes running down the length of me.
“Morning, little darlin'. How did you sleep?” This bastard thinks my situation is funny!
Is that what that look is? He seems not to understand social cues at all or how upset I clearly am.
Rage suddenly courses through me. Screw him, screw both of them.
I stride through the room and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me to block out the cheeky asshole.
My new life is about to be over before it’s had time to begin.
I have to work out a way to escape these thugs before I’m forced onto that plane. Because I’m not going back.
I can’t.
I won’t.
An hour later, the three of us arrive at the airport. I have ignored all of Cruz’s attempts at conversation and so has Jagger, even though he keeps his voice light and playful and has chatted nonstop the whole way here, animatedly telling me about the sights of his town like he’s our tour guide.
I sat still, glaring out the window, with my arms crossed and eyes focused on the streets as they whooshed past me.
I wish one of them hadn’t confiscated my phone so I could have been tuning out to my playlist. Adrenaline surges through me, a constant pulse that fills me with hate for the two men in the front, my dream of living in America slipping through my fingers.
I have never been so on edge before. All I know is I need to run; I need to escape.
Jagger, the grumpy jerk, seems just as on edge, and I wonder what’s crawled up his ass. Is it just that I’m such a major inconvenience in his life or is there more going on?
“I’ll walk her in,” Cruz offers, his voice snapping me out of my depressed daze.
I glare toward the front of the car. “Going to need my phone and passport,” I snap at Jagger. I know he’s the one who has my stuff. I can just tell he’s controlling like that.
Jagger pops open the glove box, but instead of handing it to me, he passes it to Cruz. “Don’t be long,” he tells him, his tone deadly as his eyes meet mine one last time. The only good thing about being shipped off back home is I will never have to see him again.