24. Chapter 24
What the actual fuck?
I groan, my brain trying to catch up with the sluggishness of my body as I peel open my eyelids.
The ceiling isn’t metal.
I blink once. Twice.
Wood beams stare back at me, dark and rough-hewn, crossing overhead in a way my bus never has. The air smells different too. Like pine and smoke with something clean underneath it all. I sit up so fast the world tilts around me.
“What the—”
The couch beneath me groans, old leather creaking under my sudden movement. My head throbs, not a splitting pain but pressure. Like someone has packed cotton behind my eyes and it’s slowly being peeled back to give me consciousness.
Last night comes back to me in pieces.
The paint and the bus. Imogen’s stupidly expensive whiskey she had left on my counter with a note that read to get ready to sell more paintings and drink better alcohol. There had also been a wad of cash beside it from the paintings she had already sold in her shop.
I remember chuckling to myself and pouring a drink.
One drink.
The rest?
Nothing.
And I know without a shadow of a doubt which slippery bastard is all over this.
I can practically smell his influence as I swing my legs over the couch and stand.
Every muscle pulls taut, but I ignore it in sake of studying my surroundings.
It’s a cabin, that much is obvious. Which means the freakishly-tall shithead had kidnapped me.
Oh, I’m going to kill him.
How in the hell did he think this was okay? What possibly could have gone through his mind that he thought the next plausible step in our relationship was to drug and snatch me up?
Woah, now. We aren’t using terms like relationship in regard to Alex, I remind myself.
Well, fuck him and fuck this cabin too.
Nobody kidnaps Sadie Morgan.
I mean, clearly he has, but I’m sticking by that statement as fact.
I stomp toward the front door and wrench it open, surprised to find it unlocked. That tells me enough about how confident he is that I’m not getting away any time soon. As if I would choose to stay after someone commits a fucking felony.
Call the judge.
I don’t waste time crossing the worn wooden boards of the front porch, barefoot as sunlight slams into me and the reality of my situation truly unfolds before me.
Trees stretch out in every direction. Dense forest with towering pines and shadows that layer thick and endless. A narrow gravel road cuts through the clearing around the cabin like a vein, disappearing around a bend, but there are no buildings. No cars. No sign of civilization.
Yeah, fuck all this.
I run.
My bare feet hit the gravel hard, pain flaring but useless against the adrenaline screaming through my veins. I don’t hesitate or think about where I might be going, I just bolt straight down the road.
At some point I will have to hit something or someone, right?
My lungs burn almost instantly as I push my body into motion, and I am acutely aware of just how out of shape I truly am.
I’ve got to get off the road though, because that seems like a dead giveaway if he comes to find me.
Branches whip at my arms when I veer off, crashing into the trees without slowing.
The forest around me so vast that it devours the sounds of my frantic footfalls and heaving breath.
I run like someone is chasing me because something is.
I can hear him.
“Sadie!”
I bark out a laugh that tears at my throat. “Fuck you, Alex!”
That ought to show him.
I run harder, until my calves scream and my lungs burn.
Twigs snapping underfoot as I barrel along.
Cursing when the ground suddenly slopes downward, and I nearly eat dirt, only just catching myself on a tree trunk.
I shove off its strong form without stopping, especially when I hear a branch crack behind me.
I can almost bet his freakishly long legs are faring far better than my own in covering distance.
I almost would place money on him letting me run.
The thought sends a fresh surge of adrenaline through me, equal parts wrath and exhilaration. I cut sharply left, then right, doubling back on instinct, trying to lose him in the underbrush. I hear his breathing though, closer now.
Too close.
“Little fox,” he taunts, and there’s something dangerous threaded into those words. Not anger or even warning, but enjoyment.
I burst through a cluster of low branches into a small clearing, sunlight blinding me for a second—and that’s all it takes.
A hand clamps around my wrist and I scream, twisting around and turning feral as I lash out with my free arm. I connect with something solid—his shoulder—and the impact jars me to the bone. He grunts, but doesn’t release me. Instead our momentum carries us both forward.
I stumble and he adjusts, my back swinging around to connect hard enough with a tree that it knocks the air from me.
“Let me go!” I snarl, struggling.
“Stop,” he hisses.
I don’t.
I fight like hell.
I buck and kick and claw like an animal caught in a trap, my heel slamming into his shin while my hands scrabble for purchase. My heart hammering so hard it feels like it might tear from my chest.
And the bastard absorbs it all. Every frantic movement and wild strike.
He shifts again, one stupidly smooth motion that changes his grip as his weight pins me. His fingers locking around my wrists and slapping them to the tree trunk above my head, caging me.
I’m seething, heat curling through me as his body lines up with my own.
His breath ghosts over my cheek, abhorrently steady despite the chase. I can feel his pulse where he grips my wrists, and it’s maddeningly calm. The man is a freak of nature and I will never understand it.
“Caught you,” he murmurs.
My chest heaves. “You drugged me!”
“Yes.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“I see you noticed that.”
“I will kill you.”
A smile blooms on his mouth, and it is a devastating thing. Christ, he’s good looking.
“You can try.”
I glare up at him, breathing ragged. “Oh, I will.”
His forehead dips closer, just short of touching mine. “I look forward to finding out what method you attempt to use.”
“You’re psychotic,” I huff—trying like hell to recover my breath. If I ever make it out of this, I might actually stick to my New Year’s resolution of working out.
“And yet here you are,” He purrs.
“Only because you snatched me! It was not my choice!”
“Mmm… I think it’s all rather romantic.”
I scoff. “Get away from me.”
He—of course—doesn’t. Because when has he ever done anything he is told?
Instead, his grip loosens just a fraction. “You can scream. You can hit me again. Or you can stop running.”
I hate him.
I hate myself.
I hate that some reckless, traitorous part of me thrills at being seen so clearly.
“Fuck you,” I whisper again, weaker this time. It’s becoming a mantra of mine rapidly.
His mouth curves again, and I realize he has a dimple in his right cheek when he lets himself truly smile.
“Say it like you mean it.”
I lift my chin, ready to bite out another insult—
And he kisses me.
I gasp in surprise and he takes advantage of it, swiping his tongue in to dominate my own just long enough to steal the air from my lungs and all thoughts from my head. My body reacts before my mind can catch up and he releases my hands.
They fall to cup his face as he gets to tugging my pants off of me.
I’d like to say I held my ground. That I did the big girl thing and fought him off and found reality, faith, God—anything.
Instead, I kiss him like every answer to every question is somewhere in that mouth and all I have to do is plunder it.
Dig it out with my tongue as his hand catches the back of my thigh and he hoists me just high enough off the ground to even us out, his zipper being tugged loud between us.
His hand braces against the tree over my shoulder as he lines up and thrusts in without preamble.
I moan, the sound downright filthy in the delicate space of the forest. My lips break from his as my forehead drops to his own. Each thrust of his hips driving my back up the bark as he holds my gaze.
God, he’s beautiful when he’s lost himself in the moment.
It hurts to see it.
His dark hair falling across his brow in a way it never does, the hue of his eyes more cerulean than ice when he’s inside of me.
Like the fire in him burns so hot that its color has saturated and found home there.
I arch against him, one foot barely brushing the ground as he holds the other hoisted up onto his hip.
Our moans the only words we allow as he takes, and takes, and takes.
He adjusts his grip, turning my hips into him and I see stars as my orgasm explodes through me violent and unbidden. My cry broken only because his lips slam into my own, our teeth knocking as he groans out and finishes inside of me.
Thank fuck for birth control, or we’d be in some serious trouble right now.
I slowly come down from the high he’s shoved me up into and he gently lowers my feet back to solid ground.
A soft whimper breaking from my throat as he pulls from me, his eyes never leaving my own as he ducks to grab my pants.
My hands drop to his shoulder, stuck in this strange limbo of silence as he pulls them back up and settles them around my hips.
I make to open my mouth, but he beats me to it. Righting his clothes in the next breath.
“Don’t fight me for like ten minutes.” He whispers and my throat closes off.
I make it clear with my glare that is exactly what I want to do, and he only smiles as he lifts me up bridal style into his arms.
The bastard is using his dick to win fights and I’m going to have to figure out a way to even the playing field and find advantage.