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My hands still wrapped firmly around Grace's upper arm, I steer her out of the door and into my waiting vehicle.
It looks like plans have changed.
ChapterFour
Grace
Massimo practically dragsme to the back of his waiting vehicle. He shoves me into the backseat before he folds his big body down gracefully behind me and slams the door shut. “Drive,” he snaps at his driver. The driver must hear the urgency in Massimo’s voice because he immediately punches the car into gear and takes off zipping down the street.
My mind is still reeling from everything that just happened as I try to process it all and catch up.
“What the fuck, Massimo?” My voice sounds shrill even to my own ears.
Massimo glances over at me and frowns. “Don't curse,” he berates me.
I let out an incredulous laugh. He just shot a man, and yet he has the audacity to reprimand me for cursing?
I look out the window, my heart fluttering when I see that we're not going toward my apartment. “Where are you taking me?” A tingle of warning goes up my spine.
“Somewhere you'll be safe.”
His tone brooks no argument, but I snap my head back to look at him and argue, anyway. “I want to go home.” I state my demand firmly.
Massimo doesn’t speak. He just presses his lips into a thin line.
“Massimo?” I prompt him.
He still doesn't look at me or speak.
“Take me home,” I try again.
He expels a heavy breath before he finally turns and looks at me, his eyes blazing. “No,” he says firmly. “Since you obviously cannot recognize danger when it’s right in front of you, you're coming home with me where you belong.” His tone is clipped, his eyes burning in anger.
I just stare at him, my mouth hanging open. This cannot be happening. He’s angry at me? Like any of this is my fault! “Are you kidnapping me?”
Massimo doesn't answer. He just tightens his jaw as he holds my gaze defiantly.
I don't know why I'm so surprised. Isn't this the next logical step up from stalking? After stalking, kidnapping? Isn't that what stalkers do? They watch their prey before they finally pounce?
“Massimo, you can't do this,” I try to reason with him. Oddly enough, my fear isn't really that he will hurt me so much as I’m bucking against having my freedom ripped away from me.
“I can do whatever I want,” he says coolly before he adds with a smirk, “or do you not know who I am by now?”
My cheeks flush as I realize he knows I looked him up. Of course, he knows. Isn't that a stalker’s job? To know everything about the person they're stalking?
I shake my head, “Please, Massimo,” I beg him. “I don't want this.”
Massimo’s eyes soften as he reaches out a hand to cup my cheek. A shiver runs down my spine at the contact, and I tremble beneath his touch against my will. “Oh,tesoro, you don't know what you want,” he tells me softly as he strokes his thumb along my cheekbone before he trails it over my bottom lip. My breath hitches as I stare up into the twin blue flames of his eyes.
This is not normal. This cannot be normal for a kidnapping victim to react to her captor this way. He hasn't even gotten me to wherever he's taking me, and I think Stockholm Syndrome is already setting in. Hell, I think it set in the first moment I saw him. That has to be what this is because I should have reported him to the police the night he essentially broke into the massage parlor and assaulted me. Of course, he didn't hurt me. It's more like he assaulted me with his dark, handsome, masculinity and those blazing blue eyes. Yes, those eyes are what assaulted me, pulling me into their orbs and washing over me with intensity, branding me so that I’d never be the same again.
“No,mi princesa,” he repeats softly as eyes roll over my face. He takes in my trembling body. His voice is deep and soft and husky. “You don't know what you want. Yet.”
He stares at me a moment longer, a heated look in his eyes, before he drops his hand from my face and pulls his buzzing phone up to his ear, answering it in Italian. He holds my gaze captive for another moment before he finally turns his head, releasing me from his hold and effectively dismissing me and giving his full attention to whomever he’s on the phone with.
No sooner do I feel dismissed does he lay his big hand on my thigh as if to let me know that I'm still on his mind. His touch brands me through our clothing, and I swallow hard.
I glance back over at Massimo to find his eyes trained back on me again. A lock of his dark hair falls on his forehead, and my fingers itch to brush it back. I clench my hands together tightly in my lap as I work to steady my breathing. I turn my head and look out the window to avoid his gaze.
