Chapter 15 Wren #2
“Don’t think that’d fit in your little purse.” Resentment darkens his gaze. “Do it.”
The rough edge in his voice controls me like a puppet. It lifts my arm and curls my fist, and I land an uncertain blow on the center of his chest.
When he doesn’t even flinch, my cheeks grow hot, and when disdain curls his top lip, they burn.
“Scared you’ll break a nail?”
Well, yes, actually, but I’d never give him the satisfaction of telling him that. “No, I just don’t want to break your nose or anything,” I huff back.
A gruff laugh escapes his lips in a curl of frost. “You couldn’t break wind.” He steps backward onto the porch and jerks his chin. “Come here.”
My hand curls around the edge of the door, and every square inch of my brain screams at me to slam it shut, slide the deadbolt, and get a head start in the game of hide and seek that’d inevitably follow.
But my body has other ideas. I’m too nosy, too foolish.
I’m a little drunk on the idea of dancing with the Devil too.
And so, with a shaky breath, I step out into the night, following Gabriel’s retreat.
“Your first mistake was letting me get so close to you.” His heat shifts around my body as he circles me like a lion sizing up his prey. “You ever heard of fight or flight’?”
I’m viciously aware of the decking groaning under every footstep. “Yes?”
He comes to a stop behind me, the tingle of his presence making my back itch. “You have neither.”
Pursing my lips, I spin around to protest, but only a small breath escapes them when my shoulder grazes his stomach. My coat swishes over leather and the hardness beneath it, and both the feeling and sound are dizzying.
Proving him wrong, I choose flight and take a step back. Then I meet his eyes before my own can wander south to the stomach I came into contact with.
He pins me with a glare. “Since your punches are pathetic and you insist on letting men get this close to you, you’ll want to use your elbows.
” Lifting his arm, he connects his own elbow to his palm with a thawp so sharp it makes me flinch.
“It’s more effective for shorter range and has a higher force-to-surface ratio. ”
I frown. “And in English?”
His jaw tics. “It’ll hurt them more, and you won’t break a nail.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
Letting my sarcasm slide, he continues. “Strike in a downward motion and aim for the weak spots. Face, throat, ribs.” I follow his finger as he points to them on his own body. “And if all else fails, you kick them in the balls.”
Instinctively, I look down at his crotch. Though, I realize my error in less than a heartbeat and quickly glance away, sensing Gabriel stiffen.
“Not my balls,” he warns.
Heat floods my face. It touches more-private places too, because now I’m thinking about his private places and wondering what they look like under all that leather.
I bet his penis is huge. Like the ones in porn. I wonder if it’s tattooed like the rest of him, or even pierced, because he seems like the type.
“Got it,” I mutter, raking through my bangs as if it’ll brush away the sordid musings going on beneath it.
“Good.” He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, then beckons me forward with a gloved hand. “Hit me.”
His demand drags my mind up out of the gutter and sets me on edge. I regard his blank expression with caution, unable to read it. “Are you going to hit me back?”
He drags his front teeth over his bottom lip, eyes sparking with something menacing. “Not to begin with.”
Well, that doesn’t sound promising, but knowing this man isn’t in the business of asking twice, I reluctantly bend my arm and strike down on his torso. Nylon glides over leather with a frictionless swish, and I stumble forward.
Gabriel steadies me with a bitter hiss. His grip is impatient, and it lingers, soaking through my sleeve and into my skin.
“We’ll work on that,” he states. But I can barely hear him.
Can barely register my embarrassment because he’s still holding me.
Black-clad fingers sinking into pink fabric, so thick and long I’m sure if I were to turn my arm over, the tips of them would meet his thumb.
I’m still staring with morbid fascination when the tendons in his wrist flex. He suddenly yanks me toward him, ducks, and drives his shoulder into my stomach. The force lifts me up and over his body until I’m looking down the length of his back.
A puff of shock escapes me, though I don’t know why I’m surprised; I’ve been over this man’s shoulder so many times I should be used to the view by now.
Then he starts walking. The deck turns into steps which lead into the garden path, and the sight of my front door slipping away from me makes me heavy with dread.
“Where are we going?”
“You ask every man who kidnaps you that question?”
“If I ever get kidnapped, I’ll let you know,” I bite back, thumping my fist on his back in frustration.
“Won’t be long, I’m sure,” he mutters.
He takes a few more strides, then with a rough tug on the bottom of my jacket, he finally yanks me back down to terra firma.
The world is spinning, but his simmering glare remains in focus. “Your second mistake was letting me pick you up. Once your feet leave the ground, your chances of survival drop to thirty-three percent.”
My back hitches in suspicion. Kidnapped. Survival. All these buzzwords reach down and pull my heart into my mouth, and I don’t like the way it tastes.
What’s his game plan here, anyway, rocking up to my house after dark and giving me all these tips and tricks?
It’s not because he feels guilty for shoving me in his trunk, that’s for sure.
I don’t have to climb into his skull to know this man is incapable of feeling anything but anger, irritation, or simply nothing at all.
I study the hard set of his lips and search his eyes for clues too, but of course, his gaze in impenetrable, galvanized by the wall of disdain that, I swear, is built brick by brick with his hatred for me. The girl who saved his life.
My eyes narrow. “Did you have nothing better to do tonight than pay me a visit? You know, like puppies to slaughter, old ladies to terrorize?”
I regret my quip the moment it leaves my mouth. It tightens the lines of his shoulders and hardens his jaw. Makes him take a step toward me too and fills the gap between us with the threat of danger. “You think this is a joke?” he asks in a quiet rasp. “You think your safety is a joke?”
My confidence dissolves into my blood stream, and I frantically shake my head. Though I stop short of saying sorry because if he can’t say it, why should I?
A friction-filled beat passes. Then he lets out a puff of air through his nostrils and retreats.
He jerks his chin over my shoulder. “Get in.”
I glance around, squint into the darkness, and freeze.
There’s a motorbike parked by the gate but also a car next to it. Trunk open, headlights off. It’s a scene all too familiar, and I know all too well what comes next.
Terror whips through me, nearly knocking me off my feet. Curse me and my big fat mouth; I should have known there was no way the Boogeyman would let my snitching slide.
He’s carried me halfway to hell, and now he expects me to walk the rest of the way.
Panic seizing my lungs, my gaze darts from left to right, looking for an escape route.
Between the trees is his domain, and there’s no way I’m fast enough to spin around and run past him to get to Uncle Finn’s house.
Even if I was, all his lights are off. Maybe he’s had his power cut too, though it’s far more likely he’s at the country club guffawing over a glass of expensive wine.
Welp. My brain is too mushy to come up with anything else.
Running it is.
Twisting on the heel of my boot, I manage a step and half before a hand grabs my wrist and turns me around.
“Stop.”
“Let me go—”
His grip flies from my wrist to my face.
I freeze.
Butter-soft leather, all the evil in the world etched into the four fingers and thumb beneath it.
He could crack my jaw with the slightest squeeze; snap my neck with the flick of his wrist. And suddenly, I get it: the age-old appeal of bad boys.
Just being touched by a man like him has me breathless and out of sorts.
It feels like I’m riding a motorbike in the rain with no helmet, the roar of the wind louder than the threat of danger.
He lifts my chin and lowers his, and when his gaze touches mine, my heart does a double beat.
“You think I’d hurt you?”
Well, duh. Does the pope go to church every Sunday?
I let out a disbelieving laugh, but it wilts in my throat when his gaze drops to my lips and flickers with a different strain of annoyance. It’s softer, with no sharp edges. I don’t know why it twists my insides or why I have the sudden urge to reassure him I don’t.
He swallows and releases me. Walks toward the car, and pathetically, I follow.
“It’s highly likely that your annoying screaming and your pathetic elbow striking would scare a kidnapper off,” he mutters. “But if it doesn’t, here’s what you’re going to do.”
He grips the lid of the trunk with one hand and reaches out for me with the other.
The weight of unease slows my steps as I move toward him.
I take a deep breath and slip my hand into his.
As he pulls me closer, panic flashes through me like a lightning bolt, and I curl my fingers around his palm.
“You promise?” I blurt out, growing weak.
“You really promise you won’t hurt me? Because I swear if you do, I’ll never talk to you again. ”
A dry amusement sweeps over his gaze. “You trying to convince me or deter me?”
Before I can answer, he walks around to the driver’s door and dips his head to talk to someone through the window.
My ears prick up; obviously, he must have ridden here on his bike, but I hadn’t given thought to the fact someone else must have driven the car.
Even when I strain my eyes, I can’t see who it is.