The only indication he’s listening is the slight curl of his lips, twisting up in a smirk.
“We need to strategize. I think together we might have a shot at taking them down, when the door opens. If we—”
He snorts —loudly— and finally opens his eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious!”
“Love, it’s been a long night. A night which I intended to spend getting gloriously drunk to forget about all the shitty things that have happened today. Instead, I’m stuck with a delusional purple-haired pixie who’s either legitimately dumb or simply playing it, and, to top it off, my bourbon has run dry. Which means a hangover of massive proportions is soon to hit.” He closes his eyes once more. “So, no. I’m not going tostrategizewith you. I’m going to sleep and hopefully, when I wake up, this entire fucking day will have been a nightmare. You included.”
Purple-haired pixie?!
Nightmare?!
God, he’s such a prick. I should’ve known he’d be about as useful as a cellphone with a dead battery. But I’m not about to adopt his defeatist perspective. If he won’t fight back with me… I’ll just have to do it on my own.
Rage burning through me like fire, I turn to the partition and begin to wail on it with both fists. I let my anger fuel each punch.
“LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
I bang and bang until my flesh is stinging and sore.
A dozen hits.
Fifty.
One hundred.
“LET! ME! OUT!”
My raw screams are punctuated by skin-tearing strikes. My muscles are aching with the effort, but I don’t stop.
“WHERE ARE YOU TAKING US?”
An angry tear streaks down my cheek. I don’t pause to brush it aside.
“YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!”
He moves so fast, I don’t even see him coming. One minute I’m pounding the partition, the next I’m pressed tight against a broad chest, my wrists neatly manacled by two massive hands, my ass firmly planted on two unyielding thighs. I try to jerk myself free, but his arms are steel bands. It would take a brick of C4 to extract me from his hold.
When his mouth hits my ear, I go absolutely motionless; I don’t even dare draw a breath, frozen like a helpless bird between the paws of a lion.
One wrong move, he could tear me to pieces.
“Enough,” he orders in a soft tone that somehow lacks all gentleness — like the whisper of a sharp blade sliding into the space between two ribs. I thrash, but he doesn’t release me. In fact, he only pulls me tighter against him, until I can feel every delicious indentation of his chest plastered against the planes of my back. From this proximity, his scent — secondhand smoke and top-shelf bourbon and something spicy I can’t quite put my finger on — is intoxicating enough to make my head spin.
“Let go of me,” I hiss between clenched teeth.
“I will, when you agree to stop hurting yourself.”
“Hurting myself? I’m trying to get us out of this mess.”
“Love, there’s no getting out.”
“You haven’t even tried!”
“Thing you should know about me…” His nose grazes the side of my throat and I try not to shiver. “I don’t expend effort on useless outcomes. I’d rather put my energy into more…viable… pursuits, where the endgame is guaranteed to be satisfying. For all parties involved.”
My thighs clench of their own volition. I never thought the wordviablecould be so damn sexy.