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“Good.” I paused and said, “I need to talk to you about what you said earlier about cooperating.”
She put the book down and climbed off the bed. Her hands were still cuffed in front of her body, the metal clinking with her movements. “I meant it.” She stepped closer. “I’ll do anything you want me to.”
Was I imagining the promise in her tone? “You’ll do anything I want you to?”
Her lips parted. “Anything.”
My cock jumped at the word. Wasn’t that what every man desired? A beautiful woman he could use in any way he craved? I knew that wasn’t what we were talking about here, but I couldn’t help my mind jumping to sex. That seemed to be all I could concentrate on when I was around her.
But it wasn’t just about her body.
I admired her. I admired her tenacity and her strength, and her ability to keep jumping back up, no matter what I threw at her. Many other women—men, too—would have been sobbing in a corner after everything she’d been through, but instead here she was, still fighting. Her nose was bruised across the bridge, and dark shadows marked beneath her eyes. She had the cut that I’d Steri-Stripped, and the cut across her cheek where she’d fallen on that first night was now a faint pink mark. Yet despite all these blemishes—or maybe because of them—she looked utterly beautiful to me. If anything, they only made me realize how perfect her lips were, how big her eyes. Her tiny frame made me protective of her, and I realized how fucked up it was that I’d kidnapped her, but I also wanted to shield her. It was as though I’d already made her mine, and, as with everything else in my life, I wanted to protect what was mine.
“How can I believe you, Jolie,” I asked, “after what happened last time?”
She moved closer still, closing the gap between us. “If there’s no plane, and no boat, how am I going to escape? This is my chance, too. I know that. I won’t do anything stupid.”
She was so close now, I felt her body heat between us. My dick grew harder still, straining against the front of my pants, and I was sure she was aware of exactly what she did to me.
“Please, Hayden.” She leaned in closer. “Give me a chance.”
Her hand reached for my cock over the top of my pants, and I jumped like she’d electrocuted me.
I grabbed her hand and shoved her away. “What the fuck are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything. I thought you wanted this. You certainly act like you want it. I see how you look at me, Hayden. Especially when I’m like this.” She lifted her hands and jangled the cuffs. “Don’t pretend it doesn’t affect you in all the right ways.”
The worst part was that she was right. Desire coursed through my veins, hot and heavy, and the thought of taking her overtook my mind. Thinking of her was the one thing that had overridden my hatred of her father for the past ten years. And in a way, it felt good not to have to think of him anymore. To think of someone else instead. But it was a dangerous path to travel down.
“We’ve been here before, Jolie. I’m sure we both remember how that ended up.”
She gazed up at me with those wide, dark blue eyes, like the deepest of oceans, and I was sure I could drown in them. “This isn’t like that. How am I supposed to get one over on you when I have my hands cuffed?”
I growled and turned away, so I didn’t have to continue to look at her. “I don’t know, but I’ve learned nothing about you is clear cut. Maybe it’s your way of getting under my skin so I’ll undo the handcuffs, and then you’ll take advantage of me.”
She laughed at that. “You’re worried I’ll take advantage of you? You do hear yourself, don’t you?”
I was the one who should have the power. I’d kidnapped her, and she was locked beneath my house with handcuffs around her wrists, yet somehow, she’d managed to turn things around, so I felt like the weak one. The vulnerable one.
“And anyway,” she continued, “if you’re going to take me onto the mainland, you’re going to have to uncuff me at some point. People are going to ask questions if you don’t. So, if it’s going to happen anyway, what would I achieve by kissing you?”
“I don’t know. That’s what bothers me.”
Her tone lowered, seductive. “You can’t just accept that maybe it’s because I want to? You’re an attractive man, Hayden. Rich, powerful. I’m sure I’m not the first woman to want you.”
“These are hardly normal circumstances,” I growled.
She shrugged. “Maybe there’s a part of me that enjoys this. Maybe I like being taken care of for once in my life. Maybe I even like the handcuffs, and how you’re always a little rough with me.”
I stared at her, trying to figure out if she was serious. I wanted to believe her—that was the worst part.
She stepped a little closer, her voice a purr. She lifted her hands, the cuffs jangling, and pressed her palms against my chest. “I’ll help you kill him, Hayden. I’d like to see the expression on his face when he realizes I was the one who helped. I want revenge just as much as you do—for all those murdered women and for stealing my childhood and family from me, too. We could be such a team, you and me. Just imagine it. I’ll come with you willingly, and I won’t do anything to fuck things up for you.”
She was selling me a dream, and I was buying every word. I still wasn’t sure I believed her, but there was one way I could test her. If this wasn’t real, she would stop me. She would say no.
Using the bulk of my body, I stepped into her, forcing her backward. Her breath caught in surprise, her breasts lifting at the action. It was enough to make a red mist settle over my vision. If she wanted to play games, then I could play them, too. And I wasn’t going to promise she would like them.
Her back hit the wall, forcing her to a halt. I grabbed her handcuffed wrists in one hand and lifted them up and over her head, slamming them against the wall hard enough for the metal to dent the plasterboard. From the gasp she let out, I guessed it was hard enough to hurt her wrists, too. Her eyes widened at me in shock, her perfect, full lips parting.
