Chapter 10
The Villain
Jade
As if tranquilized, Alex suddenly went limp and his head dropped back onto the armchair with a soft thud. I stared at his Adam’s apple, waiting for him to say something—edge me again. Instead, he breathed in and out evenly. Calmly.
He was asleep.
Dead to the world in one second, leaving me all alone to process the last five minutes. This man arrived unannounced, demanded I serve him a drink, flirted shamelessly, and then passed out in the chair.
I looked him over, savoring the moment. The knuckles on his right hand were skinned and bruised. His hair was a bit disheveled, like he’d had a long day. And his legs were long. All of him was way too small for the armchair, and the couch too.
“Alex?” I said softly, hoping he would wake immediately, but it did nothing. “Alex,” I spoke a little louder, but it produced no results.
What. The. Fuck?
I hovered nearby for a while, half expecting him to wake up and explain himself, but after thirty long minutes—during which he moved exactly once to sigh—he was still out cold.
Alex was wide and long, and his limbs spilled out of the chair, leaving me with no other option but to move him. Move this fucking giant.
"Come on,” I muttered, more to myself than him.
“Come with me.” I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, noticing how hot his skin was, but also how ridiculously small my hand looked against his.
Because everything about this guy was…big and thick.
The same thought from the car rushed back to me—was his dick—
I inhaled sharply, puffing my cheeks and breathing through it because what the fuck was I thinking again?!
I hauled his massive arm over my shoulder and pulled and tugged, forcing him up on his feet.
"Mmm,” he groaned in his slumber. "Mmm-mm no, I jus—jus fo' a second."
I held back my laughter as I steadied him on his feet, half of him hanging over me. He smelled good.
But also, what was my life? I was moving my kidnapper to the bedroom to make sure he’d be comfortable.
Slowly, I pulled and pushed him forward until we made it to the bed, where Alex slumped down with a huff and then stilled, never opening his eyes.
His black T-shirt rode up on his abdomen, just enough for me to catch more tattoos, igniting a part of my brain I refused to acknowledge.
Was the rest of him tattooed too? His back? His chest? His…thigh?
I forced myself to turn and walk out of the room, occupying my time with everything possible for the rest of the day.
The devil man slept the whole afternoon, all evening, and through the night, which I spent tossing and turning on the couch under a throw blanket.
It was hard to fall asleep. Alex was in the next room, and something was happening to me. The ocean waves tried to lull me to sleep, but my mind buzzed without respite.
It had been three days since I’d seen him. A short time, really, but it felt like a century. I’d counted each day.
Morning, afternoon, evening.
His motorcycle was still parked outside, abandoned after his swift departure during our whipped cream…incident.
Because whatever happened that night got out of hand, and I heavily blamed myself for it. Heavily blamed myself for setting it up. I’d thought it all over carefully, knowing that if I climbed onto the roof, he’d come.
But now he was here unprompted.
I watched the sun peek over the blue horizon of the ocean, wondering how long it had been since my kidnapping. Time had no meaning here, and I wanted it to stay that way. I wanted this twisted reality to take over my life. Did they ever have to let me go?
I dozed off in the early morning hours with peace in my soul. I liked this version of me. This girl asked for what she wanted, including organic lavender honey, and magically, it appeared.
It was almost eight in the evening the day after Alex’s surprise arrival, and my kidnapper-turned-intruder-turned-roommate was in the shower. I padded into the kitchen, barefoot from the beach, and braless in my thin strap black dress. It was stained with salt and sand and freedom.
The kitchen, the house, the whole property had become my home, and I wondered where I’d even lived before. Sometimes I missed my apartment. Missed my shower loofah and my own couch, but tragically…that was it. Those were the only things I wanted from my past life—my loofah and my couch.
I opened the pantry, knowing that Maksim delivered coconut oil sometime at the beginning of the week.
“Good evening.” A deep and unexpected voice sounded close by and I halted, peering behind the cabinet door to see Alex—renewed, refreshed, and wet from the shower.
His hair was darker than tar, reflecting the light just as water drops collected on his nape, falling onto his white T-shirt. He changed his clothes.
We stared at each other for a beat, like both of us weren’t expecting the other. “Good evening. Did you enjoy your rest, Sleeping Beauty?”
Alex crossed his arms and leaned against the nearest wall, his smile mysterious and his eyes stealing glances at my naked legs. The dress was flowy but short, and so were his attempts to get a look.
He’d done that a lot, hadn’t he? Looked me up and down? Assessed me. I gulped, swallowing the feeling of guilt. I wasn’t supposed to like it when he did that. I wasn’t supposed to enjoy anything.
“I did. Thank you for letting me sleep.” Once again, the low pitch of his voice startled my senses. My gaze fell to his knuckles, clean this time, but bruised and visibly battered.
“What happened to your hands?” I tried to sound unbothered.
“I fell.”
Liar.
“Into someone’s face, I’m assuming?”
Alex smiled widely, his eyes half open, as if more than twenty-four hours of sleep wasn’t enough for him to get his rest. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He jutted his chin out at me, questioning my actions with just the look in his tired eyes and the dominant posture.
“Um…I-I’m looking for coconut oil.”
Did I…did I fucking stutter?
“Are those your dinner plans?” He pushed away from the wall and stepped closer, my heartbeat stuttering at the sight, too. “Not much in here, but I think…”
Standing right behind me, he checked out the pantry until he suddenly leaned over, and I took a deep breath in. He smelled like soap and something else I couldn’t name. He smelled like that the first night. The shopping trip. The time on the roof. Something fresh and indulgent.
“I think we can make dinner with this.”
He was so close I could count his pretty eyelashes. Instead of turning to me fully, though, he withdrew an unopened package of flour from the shelf and set it on the counter before strolling over to the fridge.
I just watched. Stood there like a tree and watched the giant tattooed man move around the small kitchen so casually.
“You have eggs? Only organic, free-run, I’m assuming?” He swung the fridge door open and peered inside, slowly taking out what he needed.
Eggs, flour, salt, olive oil. The ingredients were set on the counter while he turned on the stove and filled a pot with water. Then, as if this was his house, he reached for the precise drawer where the knives were kept and withdrew one, grabbing a bulb of garlic and squishing it with the blade.
“Do you own this house?” I asked, clutching the jar of coconut oil and watching him closely, afraid to miss how my kidnapper sliced the garlic like a professional chef.
He chuckled. “Why? You like it? Want me to add you to the deed?”
“So we can play house together legally?”
Amused, he looked up from the garlic for a second before dropping his gaze to my legs again. “I don’t really do legal.”
The gentle aroma of warm olive oil filled the kitchen, and none of this seemed strange anymore.
“I figured that much. What other illegal things do you do?”
He stretched the pause while he added a few tomatoes to the pan. “My business is multifaceted, Malyshka. Want to sit down?”
He pointed the knife toward the counter chair, and I followed his instructions, my mind sifting through the catalogue of all the cases our office was working on. There were a lot. We served more than half of Florida’s counties and all our work dealt with the dirty underbelly of humanity.
Drug and human trafficking. I watched Alex twist the cap off a jar of cannellini beans and throw them in the sauce after the garlic. He didn’t look like he’d be involved in either one of those crimes. I mentally scratched those off the list, praying I wasn’t wrong.
Racketeering and organized crime. Perhaps. Kidnapping fell under that too, but…I had strong doubts that Alex had kidnapped anyone in the past.
Grand theft auto. Maybe. We were working on one case for a long time, and while we made great strides in the past year, we still had no idea who was at the top.
White collar crimes or cyber-crimes. Strong, strong possibility. They kidnapped me from a crowded nightclub—no doubt with cameras on every corner—so how come no one could locate me? The only logical conclusion was that Alex and his crew hacked and crashed the security system.
Firearms trafficking? The list was endless.
“What are you planning to make with your coconut oil?” Alex turned to me momentarily, the smile on his face a bit shy.
“I’m planning to eat whatever you make. This is for my hair.”
“Oh. Too bad. I was looking forward to a coconut oil soufflé or a frittata at least.”
I hugged my jar of coconut oil, enjoying the view of Alex sifting the flour. Like this was his day job, he made a well in the middle, cracked a few eggs into it, and quickly mixed it with a fork. The utensil looked miniature in his large and tattooed hand—what a wild juxtaposition.
He mixed it, kneaded the dough, and rolled out a thin, delicate sheet. Carefully, gently, he sliced through his creation to make perfect long strips of fresh linguine. Wow. The tattooed giant knew his way around the kitchen.
Did he know his way around…Was he just as gentle in the bedr—
“Do you like Parmesan?”