It’s been only a minute since I met him, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he did break my wrist. After all, he wanted to take a picture of me falling to my death.
And while that’s odd, it’s downright terrifying, too. Because I know, I just know that this American stranger would be able to do it in a blink and not think about the consequences.
“Let me go,” I say in a clipped tone.
His lips tip at the corners. “Ask nicely and I might.”
“What’s the definition of nicely to you?”
“Add a please or drop on your knees. Either will do. Doing them both at the same time would be highly recommended.”
“How about neither?”
He tilts his head to the side. “That would be both pointless and foolish. After all, you’re at my mercy.”
In a swift movement, he pushes me to the edge again. I try to stop the brutality of his movement, but my strength is a mere straw in the face of his raw power.
In no time, my legs are hanging on the verge of the cliff, but this time, I grab hold of the strap of his camera, his shirt, and any surface I can dig my nails in.
Cold.
He’s so cold, it freezes my fingers and leaves me breathless. “Please!”
An appreciative sound slips from his lips, but he doesn’t drag me back. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
My nostrils flare, but I manage to say, “Can you stop this?”
“Not when you didn’t finish your second part of the bargain.”
I stare at him, probably looking dumbfounded as hell. “Second part?”
He places a hand on top of my head, and that’s when I notice that he’s tall. So tall that it’s intimidating.
At first, he merely caresses a few strands of my hair behind my ears. The gesture is so intimate that my mouth goes dry.
My heart beats so loudly that I think it’ll rip from my rib cage.
No one has ever touched me with this level of nonnegotiable confidence. No—not confidence. It’s power.
The overwhelming type.
His fingers that were just stroking my hair dig in my skull and shove down so hard, my legs give out. Just like that.
No resistance.
Nothing.
I’m falling.
Falling…
Falling…
I think he’s pushed me to my death, after all, but my knees bump against the solid ground and so does my heart.
When I stare up, I find that gleam again. Earlier, I thought it was a flash of light, some semblance of white in the black.
I thought wrong.