He could kiss me. We’re so close now, breaths apart. I can feel his chest heaving against mine, his hot breath ghosting across my cheeks.
Why does he do this to me? Why is it hard to catch my breath? Why is my belly tightening and my clit aching like it’s thickening in response to his proximity? Why do I feel more turned-on than I ever have in my life?
He releases my chin and pushes back across the seat, away from me. “My name is Farrow Lochlan,” he says. “I am—was—a business associate of your father’s.”
Lochlan. The name rings a distant bell, though I can’t quite place it. Someone I’ve heard Dad talk about behind his closed study door, or in murmurs with suited men as they shake hands and bid one another farewell in the hall.
I shake my head and slide across the seat, away from him. Press myself against the door and lean my head on the window. It’s tinted, so I can’t see anything outside, but I keep my eyes on it, waiting until my breathing is even and calm.
“Where are we going?” I say.
In the window, I watch his reflection unlatch a sideboard in the limo. Pull out two glasses, followed by a bottle of dark amber. He swirls the drink, then pours it, neat, a hefty pour into each glass.
“Here,” he says, offering me one of the glasses. “Drink.”
“I’m not thirsty,” I respond, narrowing my eyes in the dark glass window. “I just want to know where you’re taking me.”
He takes my hand and lifts it. Uncurls my fingers with a tender, almost gentle touch. Then wraps them around the glass and folds it around, so I’m holding the glass in my lap now. When he releases me this time, my skin feels cold where his warm touch was a second earlier. “It will calm your nerves. Trust me.”
“Why on earth should I trust you?” I snap, turning to face him once more. “You carried me out of my house, threw me in this limo, took me away from my life, my family. I have a plane to catch tonight; my first day on campus is tomorrow, and you won’t even tell me where you’re taking me.”
Farrow laughs, hard. I clench my fist around the glass, afraid of what’s amusing him. When his eyes catch mine again, they flash with dark humor. “Pamona. You will not be making your flight tonight. You will not be attending college, either.”
“The hell I won’t,” I spit, my jaw clenched.
But he’s not done. “The only thing you will be attending to is me. My wants. My needs.” He reaches across to trail his fingers along my arm. From my wrist all the way up to my shoulder, where he casually brushes the strap of my sundress so that it falls down to my elbow. I startle so hard I spill my drink on myself. I grab my strap and pull it back onto my shoulder.
He watches me do it, smirking. “As I said, your father owes a debt. I look forward to you paying that debt back to me.”
I can’t help it. It’s a physical reaction, automatic. I throw what’s left of my drink in his face. He takes it without hardly a reaction, the smirk still on his mouth as he reaches for a napkin on the sideboard, and calmly wipes away the liquid dripping down his jaw.
“I am not a thing,” I spit. “I am not property. You cannot just take me, much less for some imagined debt you think my father owes you.”
“You have no idea what your father owes me,” he replies, those icy blue eyes flashing dangerously. “Or what he’d be willing to sacrifice to repay it.”
“I know my father wouldn’t willingly put me in this position. I know he’s going to stop at nothing to find me once he learns that you’ve taken me.”
“Oh, will he?” Farrow’s smirk widens with amusement. He pulls out his phone, and I wish I hadn’t thrown my drink so soon. I’d rather douse his phone in it. At least then he might be somewhat fazed.
He pulls up something, and hands the phone to me. It takes a moment for the screen to resolve in the darkened limo, and another moment for me to understand what it is I’m looking at.
It’s a website, but not one I’ve ever seen before. It looks like an auction site, except that the header is hot pink and emblazoned with scantily clad girls in sexy poses.