Chapter 10 #3
She let out a laugh. “And I’m flirting with the man who held a gun to my head two days ago and killed the men who took me. I don’t live my life like some sheltered schoolgirl. I like danger.”
Releasing my hold on her, I placed her back on her feet and studied her. The moment of fear was gone and the confident pain in my ass was back. The fear had reminded me she was here for one purpose. But this side of her was one I wanted to play with, to explore.
“Are you going to take me into your dungeon and lock me away?” There it was. A flitting of fear behind the facade of confidence.
Taking her elbow, I dragged her behind me down the first few stairs. The change in her was instant. She scratched and pulled to get free.
“Please, Emerson,” she begged, a sound I normally enjoyed from my victims but detested hearing from her.
Pausing my steps, I peered back at her. Terror lined every part of her features and a sudden need to erase it from her stalked through me.
“Please. I’ll stop flirting. I’ll stop talking back. Whatever it is you dislike, I’ll stop. Just don’t lock me down here.”
What had happened in three small steps to turn my wildcat into a broken, pleading woman? My wildcat? That was new.
I turned and took a step up. Darkness from the basement spilled around me, but the light from behind her splayed out to give her an angelic look. Light to my darkness. The contrast was stark. What was I thinking, letting myself get close to this woman who was so different from me? So full of life.
Terror still darkened her eyes, and I wanted to take it from her, to replace it with the vibrance they usually held.
“Don’t do any of those things,” I said.
“Okay, I’ll stop. I promise.”
I halted her words with a finger to her mouth.
“No, don’t stop any of it. There’s nothing I dislike.”
Taking her arm, I noticed how badly it was shaking. Her entire body was trembling at the thought of being locked down there. I brought her hand up, watching it quake.
“See,” I said. “You were wrong. I do frighten you.” Normally, that would have excited me, but not this time. Not with her.
“You don’t,” she said, her voice meek.
“Keep telling yourself that.” I turned her around. “Go, you’re not spending the night down here.”
She was up the stairs before I could contemplate the brief urge to smack her ass. Wiping my hand over my eyes, I again questioned how comfortable I was with this woman. As if I had known her my entire life and not just two days.
“Are you always this slow? How do you manage to kill anyone when you move like an old man?” The fear was gone, replaced by her usual sass.
I stalked out of the basement and slammed the door behind me. “Did you just call me old?”
Hands on her hips, she said, “Well, you are in your forties, right?”
“And how old are you that you think that’s old?” She was younger than me, but it wasn’t until she answered that I realized just how much younger.
“I’m thirty.” She crossed her arms and waited for my response.
Fifteen years younger. Not as much of a difference as my brother and his new wife, but it was still big enough.
“Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder again,” I grumbled.
“I’d like to see you try.” There was that challenge in her eyes again.
I shook my head and walked to her, throwing her over my shoulder before she could even complain.
“There’s that wildcat,” I said, smoothing my hand up her calf before I could stop myself. “Flirty and bold.”
“Well, you did say I shouldn’t stop.”
“That I did.”
On the last step into my room, I lowered Ava to the floor.
She teetered for a moment and grabbed my arm to steady herself.
I stood there frozen, looking down into her piercing eyes and drowning in them.
The air in my lungs seemed non-existent, my pulse so slow I should have been comatose.
I might have been for all I knew because, in that moment, nothing seemed to exist but the spirited woman in front of me.
“I dropped my book,” she said, finally breaking the intensity of the moment.
Frowning, I glanced behind me, not seeing it.
“Can’t you go without it? Where did you get a book, anyway?”
“I may have convinced Breaker to get me one.” She must have noticed my muscles go rigid. “Don’t say anything to him. I think I annoyed him so much he figured shutting me up was worth your wrath.”
Nothing was worth my wrath and my teeth were grinding. Prisoners didn’t need books. But Ava did. If I didn’t know how Ava was, I would have considered making Breaker pay for heeding her request.
“I’ll get it in the morning.”
Those arms crossed again with a roll of her eyes to emphasize her annoyance with my answer.
“Are you serious? It’s after midnight. Why are you even still awake?”
Her eyes crinkled with amusement. “I bartend at night. This is early for me.”
“Bartender?” That was an unexpected piece of information.
Shrugging, she explained, “It pays well and leaves me time during the day for class and studying.”
My head tipped to the side as I contemplated her words. “You’re a student?” Another unexpected admission.
She scratched her nose, her stance relaxing. “Grad school. I took a few years off to play, then took my uncle’s offer to get my master’s. He offered to pay for school and my apartment if I moved to Bridgeville and closer to him.”
So he could keep her safe. And it was likely my brother who had footed the bill for school. The thought conflicted with my hatred for him.
“Of course, now that you’ve derailed my life, I’ll have to plead forgiveness and hope they don’t throw me out.” The attitude was thick.
“My brother owns that city. They’ll look the other way, trust me.”
I didn’t give her time to answer. The book was on the floor in the hall, near where she’d started fighting our descent into the basement.
I paused, looking at the basement door. She didn’t fear me, but she feared what was down there.
Or maybe the basement itself. Granted, it was nightmarish, and the ghosts of my past deeds haunted it.
By the time I returned to my room, I found Ava standing in front of the floor to ceiling windows that lined the one side of the room. I threw the book on the bed and moved next to her.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said with a slight melancholy. “Open and endless.”
I looked out at the view. The waves pounded the shore below. The tide was high and so they battered against the rocky alcove. A half-moon spread its golden light into a long stream over the ocean, highlighting the peaks and frothy curves.
“A silent predator,” I said. “Beautiful from the outside, but potentially deadly. Its rip currents could drag you under, its waves could break your bones and flood your lungs, and its creatures could devour you.”
I sensed her gaze fall to me, but continued to look ahead. “Like you?” she asked so quietly, I almost didn’t hear her.
Snorting, I replied, “I’m far from beautiful and far more deadly.”
“I’m not convinced.”
This time I did turn to her, but she was gone, strolling across the bedroom and jumping into my bed.
She crossed her legs and looked at me, a devious smile on her face.
My mind screamed that this had been a mistake.
That I needed to pick her back up and take her to her room.
I could tolerate the sounds of horror that came from her room, ignore the need to rush in and calm her.
But I couldn’t do it. I wanted her there, in my bed and in my shirt.
Wanted that smile and the wildcat that lived behind it.
“That’s my side of the bed,” I grumbled.
“No, it’s mine. I always sleep on this side. You slept on that side last night and you were fine.”
And just like that, my aggravation returned. “Get on the other side of the bed,” I said, stomping over to her.
“No.” She crawled further into the bed, a move that left my balls throbbing because it was so sexy. Sliding under the sheets, she picked her book up and ignored me.
“You’re not sleeping on my side of the bed, Ava.”
“I am, and nothing you do can make me change sides.”
I clawed my fingers through my hair. She was so frustrating, yet I adored and hated it at the same time.
“What is so important about that side?” I asked, feeling the muscles in my jaw sharpen.
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Because I put my gun and my phone on the nightstand.”
The book lowered and her eyes shifted over to the other side of the bed where a second nightstand stood. Damn it.
“And your reasoning?” I asked, skulking to the other side and knowing she was winning this argument as much as I despised admitting it.
“I don’t like sleeping on the side near a door.” Her voice was low, like she didn’t want to admit the truth.
I looked over at the door. She wanted to be as far from the door as she could while she slept. My fist clenched as I pieced together a reason for that reaction. What had happened to her to cause that fear? I couldn’t help but think it had to do with her nightmares.
Pulling my gun from the back of my pants, I stared at it for a moment, realizing she could have grabbed it while I’d carried her. Could have shot me and run. A stupid, dangerous mistake, but then I seemed to make plenty of mistakes when it came to her.
I placed it on the nightstand along with my phone and got into bed, staying on top of the sheets.
She picked her book back up and returned to reading, and I couldn’t help but consider how comfortable this seemed.
We could have been a married couple turning in for the night.
But we weren’t. We were hostage and captor.
A captor who was quickly falling for the hostage he should have avoided from the moment he saw her.