4. Riley
Riley
C risp air sears my lungs as I race as far as these stupid five-inch heels will carry me.
I tear down the block and veer into the first alley I see. And nearly face-plant into a dumpster. Which makes enough noise to raise the dead.
Bile climbs my throat as heavy footsteps close in.
Fast. Steady.
Not running—hunting.
The more I realize this is a game to him, the more my adrenaline fires up, surging through my limbs, charging to my heart. I shove off the rusty metal and run.
Down one alley, then the next, until the fear that’s been nipping at my heels suddenly goes cold.
A brick wall. Dead end.
Then—hands.
Impossibly strong.
One hand yanks me by the waist, lifting me clean off the ground. The other wraps tight around my throat.
My scream dies before it makes it past the edge of my mouth.
“Shhh,” he murmurs—gentle, soothing. A shush for a toddler woken from a bad dream.
Only this isn’t a dream.
It’s one long, persistent, bullshit nightmare I can’t seem to wake up from.
His grip tightens—not enough to snap my throat. Just enough to prove he can.
His mouth is at my ear, rough stubble scraping the shell. “If you breathe too loud, draw too much attention, I will choke you out. Understand?”
My brain scrambles.
Not because I’m petrified.
Which I am.
And not because I’m remotely turned on by the fact that his enormous dick is currently prodding my back…
Which I’m not.
But because the more terrified I am, the louder my fucking Scottish snark gets.
My teeth grit around the words. “If I say no, do I get the next flying death star?”
A pause.
His deep chuckle vibrates against my back, a lit fuse licking down my spine.
“Beauty and petulance. It’s a shame to cover it all up.”
Wait—cover?
The second I spot the sack in his hand, instinct kicks in.
“Don’t—” I jerk in his arms. “Don’t you dare put that back on?—”
The more my body bucks wild against his frame, the tighter it becomes. A constrictor slipping into the cage to coil around the sparrow—bleeding all the fight from me until every last bit is gone.
“Eager for punishment?” he murmurs.
Embarrassed. Humiliated.
A shiver has nowhere to go but out through my voice.
“I’m afraid of the dark,” I force out. “Deathly. You might as well choke me out if that sack is going back on my head.”
Silence.
Cruel and curious, his breath dusts my neck. “Is that why it’s wet? From your tears?”
I swallow a fresh onslaught of them fighting to break free. “Yes.” Raw honesty, no shame left to chew on.
His grip eases—just enough to let me suck in a breath. But he doesn’t let go.
“I won’t tell anyone who you are,” I say, desperate to keep the sack off.
“Pinky swear?” he scowls.
“Yes.” And quickly add, “I haven’t even seen your face. And I have no idea who you or Andre D’Angelo are.”
He laps around the question, lets the face comment float past, and sharpens in on the bigger threat.
Something far more dangerous.
“You don’t know Andre?”
“No.” And by the sound of it, I really don’t want to.
A low hmm hums from his mouth, feathering my neck. Aimless and distracted in his own little world. “Well, he certainly knows you.”
“You can just let me go.”
“As much as I’d like to let you traipse off mindlessly to the next alley to get brutally raped and beaten, you seeing my face is not an option.”
“I won’t.” Hope lifts with each word. With both hands still bound, I manage to raise one pinky.
I can almost hear him mentally smirk as he thinks a moment longer. Then, growling, he caves.
“I don’t do favors. I trade.”
“Trade?” I blink. “I don’t have money. I’m barely scraping by on ramen and chewing gu?—”
“A kiss.”
My breath catches.
Do my delusional ears heareth correctly?
Or maybe the word kiss means something vastly different in Russian.
Like blow job. Or anal.
“You want a kiss?” I ask flatly, brimming with disbelief.
Not that I can exactly say no.
“Yes. One kiss. When and where I say. Agreed?”
“Can a starved mouse not take the cheese from the trap.”
An unamused beat. “Is that a yes?”
I blow out a silent breath, secure in knowing he can’t see my eye roll from my vantage point. “Won’t I have to see you to kiss you?”
“Obviously, you’ve never been kissed. Not properly, if you’re used to doing it deer in the headlights style.”
Not at all, really.
When I take a little too long to answer, he clucks his tongue in time with each swing.
My own annoying, human metronome.
Each tick bores under my skin.
When Hannibal Lecter demanded his own quid pro quo , did Clarice think he was a total butthead?
I bet she did.
The Russian’s low growl grows in warning. The sack is balled tight in his fist.
“Well?”
“Yes, okay, fine.”
Out of nowhere, his pinky loops around mine. “Agreed?” The roll of his r is almost endearing.
And it’s only a kiss. One measly little kiss. “Agreed, already.”
He yanks once. A firm vow. With a psychopath. Two kindergarteners locked in a binding contract. To kiss .
Did I just execute a pinky promise with a serial killer?
He lifts the sack again—and the instant panic subsides as he tosses it at my feet.
“Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
“We need to go somewhere private.”
“More private than a creepy dark alley?”
“Yes.”
In a huff, I do. I close my eyes and wonder if this is it .
If this is the moment the brutish beast sears a possessive kiss to my lips.
If it’ll be tender? Gentle?
Or take-no-prisoners rough? So much so, that I’ll have no choice but to crumble in his arms like a warm snickerdoodle?
And what about tongue?
Jesus , will I kiss him back?
My spiraling isn’t allowed to swirl for long.
Rather than cradle my cheeks and lock his thick Russian lips to mine, my body is hoisted up in the air and thrown over his shoulder like a hiker’s rucksack.
“ Ahh! What are you doing?”
“Like I said. Taking you somewhere private.”
“Where? To your cave?”
“Something like that.”