“You would know, being the daughter of that piece of shit. To break your word is disgusting. To give a false promise in order to get closer to someone?” He shook his head, the disgust clear in his voice. “Your father has a debt to pay and only blood will settle it.”
“My father is a goddamned accountant! A CPA for Christ’s sake! I have no idea what kind of crazy you’ve got going on in there but you have the
wrong person!
You have to have the wrong person!” I turned away, refused to meet his glances in the rearview.
Why were the good looking ones either taken, gay, or crazy?
I found myself wondering. It was true. He wasn’t half bad to look at. Handsome face, long straight hair half way between his chin and shoulder and those shoulders were enough to drool over. If we’d been in the same bar or club I wouldn’t have hesitated to talk to him.
He continued to drive and he didn’t speak anymore. I didn’t try to engage him in conversation either. We had to stop sometime, for gas or food or even for him to take a piss. When we did, I would figure something out. I
had
to figure something out. I closed my eyes, weary. This is not how I’d planned on my evening ending, not at all.
Chapter 3
William
My throat hurt. Multiple times in a single evening she’d made me growl and I couldn’t keep doing that for long, it would do damage, take time to heal. And the fact she made me growl? It fucking irritated me. That growl was not designed for human vocal chords. If she kept pushing my buttons like this I would do some serious damage to my voice, and that damage took a while to heal, sometimes it became permanent.
I had made sure to fill up the tank before I’d taken her but I would have to stop eventually and I didn’t like the chances that she would throw a grade-A hissy fit in the back and draw attention to us when we finally did. I needed to figure that out sooner rather than later because on top of my throat hurting, I was hungry and I needed to eat.
“Hold out your wrists.” I said it so suddenly that it almost startled
me
, not to mention her. She jerked in the back where she was still laying down. She hadn’t been asleep, but she had been pretending.
“Come on,” I said, getting irritated again, “I know you weren’t sleeping, hold out your wrists.”
She was hesitant. Who could blame her? I’d attacked her in her home, kidnapped her from her bed, bruised her, threatened to rape her and then even gone so far as to threaten to mutilate her. It’s no surprise at all that she would be hesitant, but I didn’t have fucking time for this shit. I pushed back the rising tide of anger and breathed in and out slowly.
“Give. Me. Your. Wrists.” I demanded slowly and deliberately. She held them up and I reached back and with one hand, jerked loose the knot I had made in the satin sash from her robe. I knew she had already tried the door handle discreetly. I’d heard it, but I was already one step ahead of her, the child lock was on. The back doors wouldn’t open from the inside.
“Climb up front. Come here and sit down,” I ordered her. For a minute I thought she would stay in the back but eventually she decided it would be better to move. She climbed carefully into the front seat, trying to keep as far away from me as possible but the sedan wasn’t exactly roomy so I had to tilt my head slightly as her butt swung past me. Almost without thinking, I reached out and gave her ass a little slap.
She yipped and spun quickly into the seat, face flaming a brilliant red to match her hair. I didn’t bother to hold back the laugh that bubbled out of me. You’ve just got to love the Irish, they wear their emotions on their faces. That fine skin did nothing to hide shame, embarrassment, or rage.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
“Put your seatbelt on.”
“Suddenly so concerned with my safety?”
“I’m concerned that I don’t want to be pulled over because a cop noticed that you weren’t wearing your seat belt. I could easily kill you before anyone managed to do anything about you being here. Come to think of it, I could kill them too… so don’t argue with me, just
put your fucking seatbelt on!
” My volume had grown and my voice had deepened and by the last few words I was bellowing in a bass so low that it practically shook the car.
She put her seatbelt on, hands trembling so violently that she had trouble getting the latch to catch. I smiled at the small victory but it was drowned out by the wince. I rubbed at my throat. That
really
hurt. I needed to quit fucking doing that.
We were silent for a time. I paid attention to traffic, which was picking up as early morning crept on into mid-morning. She stared out the window, deliberately looking away from me but I could see the wheels turning. A sign caught my eye from the edge of the freeway and I changed lanes. Hitting the exit I reached behind me and grabbed a spare jacket which I dropped into her lap.
“Drape that across yourself,” I ordered and stopped at the light. She obeyed without question but there was a curious look in her eyes, which I ignored as I pulled into a parking lot and slid my hand under the jacket. I was throwing her off base, which was a good thing.
“Don’t say a word, or you won’t like what happens,” I warned.
She was stiff as a board, but nodded quietly as I slid my hand up the silky skin of her leg until it met the warm center between her thighs. She was clean shaven, I noted idly. I was tempted to mess with her seeing as she was such a pain in my ass, but I simply let my hand rest across her lips and hit the switch that rolled down my window with my free hand as we pulled to a stop.
“Welcome to Carl’s Junior, may I take your order?”
The voice emanating from the speaker was unnaturally loud and grating, something I didn’t appreciate but I nodded, even though they couldn’t see me.
“Four of the Super Star burgers, please. Three large fries, make two of those cross cut. A large chocolate shake and a large Dr. Pepper.” I glanced at her. “You want anything?” Her eyes were wide at my order but she nodded after a moment. Fear wouldn’t stop her from eating, good to know.
“A steak burrito combo, with a coke,” she said faintly and I relayed her order.
“Please pull up to the window.”
I pulled up, reached into my inside pocket and pulled out a black credit card with gold lettering to hand to the guy at the drive-thru. He was a pimply faced teen and I noticed him give an appraising look to Chloe’s barely covered torso. Can’t say I could blame him, she filled out all that creamy satin and lace really nicely. Still, for some reason his admiration pissed me off and I growled at the guy, my fingers tightening almost possessively on her before I could stop myself. She gasped and shuddered and I quickly loosened my grip.
“Will there be anything else, Sir?” the kid asked after he handed back my card, the receipt, and our food.
“No, that’s all, thank you,” I ground out, tersely. I hit the gas and roared out of the lot, irritation rasping in the center of my chest.
She said nothing but began separating out the food. There wasn’t room for her to spread out all of mine but she pulled out one of the fries and set it in between the seats and pulled out a burger which she held out to me with a shaking hand.
“Um… are you going to let go of me?” she asked and I realized I still had my hand resting between her legs. I nearly jumped, but I managed to calmly pull my hand out from under the coat and took the burger from her. I got onto the freeway and put my foot down, pushing the speed up until just under what I thought would flag police. Using my card hadn’t been the best idea, they would be able to find me, but my dumb ass hadn’t thought to grab cash.
I ate my food in silent contemplation of how I was going to make the rest of this work, all the while ignoring the girl’s fragrance on my fingers.
Chapter 4
Chloe
“Eat,” he commanded. Instead I continued my sightless staring out the window, my food growing cold and forgotten in my lap, which was thankfully, still covered by his coat.
“Don’t touch me like that again, please.” He stopped shoving food into his face and looked over at me. I could see him out of the corner of my eye but I didn’t turn to look. I was embarrassed for one. I should have been pissed, I should have been afraid, and I
was
, all of those things and more, but the humiliating part? I’d been aroused, too.
I don’t know what it was, if it was fatigue, adrenaline, or if maybe my hormones had gone wonky from the stress… I don’t know what, but his hand between my thighs had turned me on a bit and that bothered me more than anything right now.
“Eat your food,” he said again but his tone was different; not sharp, not angry… I think it had been the most normal sounding thing he’d said to me thus far.
“Who are you?” I asked, unwrapping my food with shaking fingers.
“Doesn’t matter,” his response was short but I think that had more to do with him shoving food in his mouth than it did with his being intentionally terse. He was eating like he was starved but at least he chewed with his mouth closed. I thought to myself,
if only his mother had gotten around to teaching him that kidnapping girls from their beds was a bad thing.
I couldn’t help it. It made me giggle, and once I started I couldn’t stop, the giggles turned into laughter and he looked at me with those wide brown eyes and I noticed the deep amber colored flecks in them. Beautiful, or they would be if he weren’t such a fucking weird maniac… Like I could talk, laughing hysterically like a crazy person as I was.
“What’s your fucking deal?” he demanded and that just made me laugh harder.
“
My
deal? Oh that’s rich, you asshole! I’m not the one kidnapping girls from their beds in the middle of the night!”
“Don’t call me an asshole.”
“Then tell me who you are, if I can’t call you anything else, ‘asshole’ it is.”
He threw the wrapper to his burger back into the bag and gripped the wheel of the car with both hands. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he gritted his teeth, but I simply stared at his profile. It really was a crying shame he was such a dick, because he really was handsome. Straight, dishwater blonde hair hung halfway between his chin and shoulder, just barely brushing the top of his coat. He had a full goatee that had been unkempt long enough that it was headed into beard territory but it added to his good looks, it didn’t detract. Same with the long pale scar along his jaw, almost hidden by the beginnings of his beard. He had ‘bad boy’ written all over him without the benefit of his having kidnapped me, and a mouth that was made for sin.
He turned those brown eyes on me and in the full light of day the amber colored flecks in his irises stood out more, almost glowed with a fierce inner light. I arched a brow and kept my mouth shut. The decision was his on if he wanted to be permanently branded ‘asshole’ or if he wanted to at least give me an actual name.
“It’s William,” he said finally.
“William what?” I didn’t mean for it to come out sounding so demanding but I was kind of glad it did. I needed to stand my ground with him. I couldn’t keep letting him run roughshod over me.
“It doesn’t matter,” he grated finally, after some more silence and a tense standoff.
“William the Asshole it is then,” I muttered.
“Just William, Little Huntress. Just William.”
“Chloe,” I demanded and he chuckled, rummaging around blindly in his bag of food for some more.
“Whatever you say, Princess. What was so funny anyways?”
“I was thinking at least your mother taught you how to chew with your mouth closed, it’s just too bad she skipped the lessons about kidnapping and hurting girls.”
His hands tightened on the wheel and that tick in his jaw resumed at a faster rate. He cleared his throat, “My mother’s dead,” he said. “She died a long time ago.” I looked out the window, the scenery swishing past as he kept a steady course on the freeway.
“Guess we have something in common then,” I said solemnly. I saw him turn his head in my direction and I turned and met the look.
“My mom’s dead too,” I said.
He nodded, “I know.”
The calm way he said it, with such assurance and something bordering on pity that it pissed me off. Wise or not, I lashed out at him.
“What the fuck do you think you know?” I snapped, “You don’t know anything about me!”
“Chloe Young. Twenty-four years old, twenty-five next month. Only child of Mathias and Marianne Young. Your mother was killed when you were eight by a hit and run driver who was never caught. You’re studying Law at NYU in prep to transfer to Harvard’s Law school. You want to be a lawyer. Based on some of the papers you’ve turned in, your focus is on prosecution
not
defense. Your favorite color is lavender. You like to play pool and enjoy martial arts but never practiced much yourself beyond the one tournament you competed in as a yellow belt when you were ten. You took second place. You like to do things yourself but you’re not too stubborn to ask for help when you need it. You have $10,327.58 in your checking account and your social security number is–”
“Stop, stop, stop,
stop!
” I shouted completely aghast. I was horrified, when he’d started talking my mouth had dropped open against my will. I couldn’t believe the flood of information he rattled off so quickly.
I
didn’t even know exactly how much money I had in my bank account! I hadn’t checked it in a while.
“What the fuck! How long have you been stalking me, you fucking ass?” I demanded.
“Eat,” he said and I reared back and let fly. I punched him, or I tried to at least. I hadn’t even stopped to think what would happen if I punched the guy in the face while he was driving but I was too furious to think straight. It didn’t matter though because his right hand came off the wheel and he caught my fist in a vice-like grip an inch before it would have touched him.
“You really,
really
, don’t want to do that,” he said in a low tone that sent all the rage I felt fleeing back to hide under a rock. A shiver of fear ran through me that I couldn’t begin to explain. He knew so much about me,
too much
about me. Which meant that none of this was a mistake. He knew too much about my life, my
family
for this to be any kind of mistaken identity which means he really
did
mean to kidnap me. Oh my God…