“Itwasn’ta wedding dress.” An exhale. “I told him that I wanted to go home. To just take me home, but Preston said that wasn’t happening. That he’d been looking for someone with my skills, and he had no intention of losing me now. The next thing I knew, we were pulling up at a club he owned. He kept me at his side and told me he really didn’t want to use the gun…”
Preston, I am going to enjoy meeting you. Meeting you, then hurting you.
“The dress was waiting in his office. He—he told me to change. Made me change in front of him. He kept the gun on me the whole time. I was terrified that I’d hear it firing at any moment.”
I will hurt you so much, Preston.
“When I had changed, he took me out in front of everyone and announced we were getting married. The ring he’d taken? He put it on my finger while everyone watched him and smiled.”
Remy’s shoulders stiffened even more.
“He told me that we were going to be an incredible team. That he had so many plans. I was terrified, and I wanted to get away from him.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “When I told him that I was going to the cops, that was when he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. Preston said that he had more cops on his payroll than I could imagine, and if I went to them, they’d just bring me back to him. He said he owned me now, and he wouldn’t let me go.”
I will find you, Preston.“No one owns you.”
“No.” Soft but certain. “That’s why I left the minute his back was turned. Why I ran and kept running. My grandfather restarted our lives over and over while I was growing up, so I planned to do the same thing. Start over. I needed to get away. I did. I gave the ring to the truck driver as a thanks for helping me—I know it was stolen, but I had to give him something! I didn’t look back. I kept running until…”
“Until you found me.” He’d never been so grateful to have been in a rundown bar with a shitty beer in his entire life.
“Until I walked straight up to a former Fed.” Some of the tension seemed to leave her body. “Someone he can’t control?” Hopeful.
“Sweetness, no one controls me.” Not any longer. “I want his full name.”
“Are you…are you gonna call in some of your Federal friends?” Hesitant and, again, hopeful.
“I was thinking I’d handle this personally.” And get some grim pleasure out of the act. Preston sounded like an absoluteprick who thought he was gonna be playing in the big leagues. He could think again. Remy would stomp him back into his proper place in the world. “A full name.”
“Why do you call me sweetness?”
Oh, this was easy to answer. Since she still stood right in front of him, he lifted his hand. Curled his fingers under her jaw and leaned his head toward her. “Because the first time I caught sight of you, I thought you were the sweetest thing I’d ever seen.”
“I-I was a mess. A total wreck.”
“You smelled like sweet vanilla.”
“I use that lotion. I’m surprised you could smell it at all after my trek through the woods.”
“When I kissed you, youwerethe sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted.” He wanted her mouth again. Wantedher.“Like your life depended on it, huh? That was how you kissed me?”How I want you to kiss me again.
“I don’t understand what’s happening between us,” she confessed. “Everything is crazy, and when you touch me, things just get crazier.Why?”
He could break this down for her. “Attraction. The hot kind that makes you want to rip off your clothes and fuck for hours.” Blunt. Truthful. “Sometimes it happens when you least expect it. You see someone, and the primitive response is just there. No fighting it.” You saw someone and things clicked into place for you.
You saw them and thought…Where the fuck have you been? And why are you wearing a wedding dress?
“I’ve never felt a primitive response to anyone else,” she murmured. “You’re the first.”
She was freakingadorable.And so honest that it almost hurt. It was like the woman had no shields up at all. Hergrandfather had taught her how to crack safes like a pro, but he hadn’t bothered to make sure she was savvy when it came to the predators out there?
Guys like that bastard Preston?
Guys like…like me?
“It kind of scares me,” Jacqueline added breathlessly.
That gave him pause. “I scare you?” She didn’t even know half the secrets he was holding. If she did, if she knew the truth, Jacqueline would go running into the woods. Then he’d have to rush after her and carry her back. Not like he could let the bears or wolves get to her.
I’m the big, bad wolf.