Silence lingers between us for a moment. When it’s obvious he’s not going to say anything more, I make myself ask the question that’s burning inside my brain.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
* * *
Gage
Are you going to hurt me?
Those words from her sweet lips are almost my undoing. They slam into me, reminding me again of how innocent this girl is in all of this. After watching her for weeks and using every resource I have available to me to find out everything I could about her, I’m convinced she has no idea about her father’s extracurricular activities.
She’s just a pawn in a game her father’s trying to play with me.
And I don’t know why, but I hate myself for using her like this.
It’s never bothered me before to use someone as a pawn to conduct business. Of course, I’ve never kidnapped anyone before either—much less the most beautiful angel I’ve ever seen.
She looks so much like a little lady, but she’s also so much like a child. She was wearing a flower crown on her head when I abducted her, for Chrissakes. I’d watched in fascination as she’d sat in that fucking wheat field and braided the fucking thing.
I see her watching me warily from where she still sits on the bed. She’s made no move to rise other than to sit up. No screaming fits. No running from me in a panic. She’s pretty much kept her head about her, and that actually impresses me.
“I promise you no harm will come to you when you’re in my care,” I vow to her. I’ve never meant anything more.
I know it’s probably not my best move. I should probably tell her no harm will come to her so long as she does what I say or some typical kidnapper shit like that, but the truth slips out instead. I mean what I said. I’d cut off my hand before I let any harm come to her. The irony that I’ve probably already emotionally traumatized her by kidnapping her isn’t lost on me. But I sure as hell won’t let any physical harm come to her, and I’m going to try my best to make sure that she’s not emotionally scarred either when all this is over with.
See, something happened during my weeks of watching her.
I became somehow mesmerized by her. She captivated me the moment I first saw her, and as I continued to gather intel about her, I came to look forward to every moment of the day that I stalked her. By watching her, I feel like I got to know her.
I know that her favorite drink at Starbucks is some sugary sweet crap called a caramel macchiato. I know that she’s popular on the surface in the city of Atlanta and that she has tons of “friends,” but she’s not particularly close to any of them. They’re all superficial relationships. She spends her evenings alone with her nose stuck in a book or wandering the fields behind her father’s mansion.
I know that her father dotes on her when she’s in his presence, but he’s otherwise neglectful, staying gone a lot doing the kind of business that really burns my balls and makes the beast within me rage for blood.
Her little brows furrow as if my last statement confuses her. Hell, I guess it does. I kidnapped her, but I promised no harm would come to her.
“Where am I?” she asks, glancing around the room.
Don’t ask me why I brought her to my bedroom. It’s the first place I carried her limp form after my private jet had landed and my driver had brought us here to my home in New York.
A small part of me knows that I just wanted to see her in my bed. The feeling that swept over me when I’d laid her gently on my plush mattress…the way her honey-colored hair had fanned out all around her on my gray bedding. She’d looked so innocent and tempting all at once. She’d looked so right. Like she belonged in my bed.
“My home,” I answer her simply.
Her lips purse, and those chocolate eyes hold my gaze. “What state?”
She asks the question like a double question, and I know the unspoken question within her question. She wants to know if she’s still in the U.S. or another country.
“New York,” I answer her. I don’t see the harm in letting her know what state’s she’s in. There’s no way she’ll ever be able to get away from me unless I release her.
I see some of the tension leave her shoulders at the knowledge that she’s at least still on U.S. soil.
“Who are you?” she asks. She still hasn’t made a move to get up from the bed. She’s regarding me warily, talking slowly and evenly like I’m a beast that could turn on her at any minute. Little does she know that I might be more beast than man, but I’d never hurt her.
“Gage,” I tell her my name. Again, a stupid move. I shouldn’t answer any of her questions. I shouldn’t tell her anything about me, much less my name, but I want to hear her say it. I want to hear my name on her lips more than I’d ever care to admit.
I know she’ll say it. I know she’ll have to taste my name on her lips just like I had to taste hers when I first learned it.
She doesn’t disappoint me. “Gage,” she says slowly, and my heart damn near jumps out of my chest at the sound. How in the hell does just my name from this girl’s lips have me turned inside out? No one has ever affected me this way.
She plays with the hem of her dress, a habit she has. She does it when she’s thinking or when she’s nervous. In this case, I’d guess she’s nervous. “When you’ve gotten what you want, will you let me go?”
Her big brown eyes are staring right at me, and a strand of that long hair falls over the front of her shoulder. She’s wearing another little casual dress with a floral print on it. Those seem to be her favorite. Floral print dresses. She looks downright delectable in them, the tops of her pert little breasts peaking out of the scooped necklines and a generous expanse of thigh showing as the dresses fall gently several inches above her knees. I love to watch her walk in the little things, watching the hems sway back and forth, caressing her skin with each step. Her hair is slightly mussed from laying down, and if her lips were only swollen, she’d have that sinfully innocent just-fucked looked.
I feel my cock start to harden and lengthen within my pants at the thought.
Fuck, will I let her go? Will I be able to let her go?
She’s still watching me warily, waiting for my answer, and I tell her the truth.
“I don’t know, princess.”