"I'm not a good guy, Goldilocks." I say it flatly. No theater. No softening.
"I don't believe you."
I reach into my pocket and flip the butterfly knife open in a single motion, the snap of it clean and sharp in the small room. The blade catches the light.
"Still don't?"
I trace the flat of it down her chest, slow, watching her face the entire time. Her breath goes uneven. Goosebumps bloom across every inch of exposed skin. I circle the swell of her breast with the spine of the blade and watch her try to hold herself still and fail.
"Still want me to touch you with this in my hand?"
"Yes." Barely above a whisper. She drags in a breath that presses her chest toward the blade.
I flip it. Press the edge lightly above her breast. A thin red line opens, slow, and beads trail down the curve of her skin in the silence.
Something takes over that I wasn't anticipating.
I lean in and drag my tongue along the line, warm and metallic, up her throat to the shell of her ear.
"Boo," I say quietly.
She jumps, a single tear breaking loose.
I straighten and snap the knife shut. My chest is heaving and I need it to stop. "Don't test me." I back toward the door, fingers laced behind my head to keep my hands accounted for. "You really don't want this."
I step outside before she can answer.
The night air hits and I stand in it and breathe and try to figure out what the hell just happened in there, and why every single part of me wants to go back through the door.
CHAPTER 26
HARVEE
What is wrong with me.
I had a plan. Seduce him, soften him, build enough trust to get the chains loosened, and run. Clean. Simple. Logical.
Except he's been gone for thirty seconds and my entire body is still buzzing like a live wire, every inch of skin too tight, the throbbing between my legs worse now than when he was in the room. Like my body is throwing a tantrum without his hands on it.
I have never been this terrified and this turned on at the same time. The fear is there — sharp, cold, completely reasonable given the circumstances. The arousal doesn't care about the circumstances. It swallows the fear whole and asks for more.
I squeeze my thighs together. The chains bite into my ankle and wrists when I shift, metal on raw skin.
I should be planning. Instead I'm thinking about his mouth. His knife. The specific weight of his tongue dragging along the cut on my chest, up my throat, and thenboowhispered into my ear like something between a ghost and a promise.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Harvee," I say out loud, to nobody.
The concrete absorbs it without comment.
The door groans open.
He steps back in, framed by the overhead light, and his eyes find me immediately the way they always seem to, dragging over my flushed face and parted lips and the way my hips have been moving against the couch cushion without my full permission. He takes in all of it in one sweep.
He knows.
"Goldilocks," he says, low. Like the name is both a greeting and a warning.
His gaze drops to where my thighs press together. He adjusts his pants with a small, irritated movement, the gesture of a man who is just as uncomfortable as I am and not happy about it.