She didn't get far. A merciless arm banded her waist, pulling her back against a chest built like a brick wall. She inhaled to scream, but the fabric he held to her mouth muffled the sound. When she tried to breathe, the air tasted like bitter chemicals and she almost retched. Oh God, she was being drugged. He was going to drug her and kill her. And who knew what else.
Panicked blood hammered in her ears. She had to think. What could she do? Kicking and flailing seemed hopeless, but it was her only option—Or maybe... She forced herself to calm. She held her breath and let all her muscles go limp. Maybe he would relax his iron grip too early and let her go. Then she could kick him in the 'nads.
Fighting every defensive instinct, she let her eyelids flicker shut. She willed her heartbeat to slow, praying she wasn't succumbing too quickly.
His breath tickled her ear. "Ah." If his voice hadn't been terrifying, his exotic accent would have sent her to her knees. "She's not so strong as I imagined. I'd hoped you'd put up more of a fight."
You'll find out how strong I am as soon as you let me go, she promised silently. Brave words, but doubts crept in. Starved of oxygen, her lungs began to burn.
He didn't loosen his grip one inch. Through her shirt, she felt a deep bass chuckle reverberate in his chest. "What a terrible liar you are. Did you think I would fall for that one, Max?"
He knew her name? She gasped in surprise, and took in a lungful of chemical air that stung going down. What stung more was how stupid she'd just been.
Idiot, she cursed herself, as the drugs leeched into her system.
Before she passed out, the last thing she saw was those wicked lips, smiling in triumph as he locked her left wrist in one side of a pair of handcuffs.
* * *
In her dream, Max was falling. Wind rushed past her ears at a crazed speed. She was panicked, out of control, plunging down a tunnel that closed in on all sides. Her world was a rush of sounds and colors that seemed to be a cryptic message she couldn't decipher.
Out of the madness came a single point of calm. A spot of shining gold, a ball the diameter of a silver dollar. It grew and glowed in front of her eyes. She reached out and closed her hand around it.
Everything stopped. She stood on her feet again, the earth beneath her. The rays of the moon bathed her in a glowing light as she walked along the high ridge of a shifting sand dune. A deep sense of peace and serenity enveloped her soul. The sand was cool between her toes.
A man stepped out from nowhere, and yet it seemed as if he'd always been there. She knew him for what he was. Her lover. Her other self. But she couldn't see his face. When she tried to concentrate on him, she saw only blank space. When he spoke, she heard garbled static.
Or... wait... There was a voice in her ear, pulling her out of the dream. She looked down at the golden sphere in her palm. It faded and she was falling again.
"-ke up, hayati. Come, open those pretty blue eyes for me."
She saw a wall of black. She blinked a few times, wishing she could wipe the fuzz from her vision, but her hands wouldn't seem to move for her. The black wall cleared up. She was looking at a... leather jacket? She was falling, sitting up, with her arms around a leather jacket? And her head seemed to be encased in plastic.
"I feel you moving back there," a caramel voice dripped in her ear.
She whipped her head around to see the speaker who seemed to be whispering directly in her ear. The plastic moved with her, like it was molded to her skull.
Wait. She wasn't falling... She looked down. The dotted centre line of a highway buzzed by, a foot from her toes. She gasped in shock and clung to... whatever it was she was clinging to more tightly. The driver, she guessed.
A motorcycle. She'd been kidnapped and taken on a motorcycle. Every second was taking her away from her home, from safety.
She couldn’t see much of the bike with the helmet blocking her, but tried to memorize what she could. Instead of being sleek, it was made of choppy angles and had all the aerodynamics of a praying mantis. She couldn’t see the brand from where she sat, but there couldn't be many bikes like that, right? Maybe if she could learn to hum the particular note of the engine, the CSI people could identify it from that.
Ah, hell, who was she kidding? There was no way she could point out the bike. It was too dark to even see the color. What was she going to say? Detective, it looked like it would morph into an armed robot at any second? She sighed, letting her frustration out.
"Awake now, then?" her abductor asked, seemingly inside her head. The driver of the motorcycle looked at her over his shoulder.
She put two and two together. "You have microphones in your helmets?"
"So that I may have the pleasure of speaking to you, hayati."
"My name's not Hayati," she said, with venom, despite—or maybe because of—feeling so freaked out about the situation. She pulled on her hands, but they refused to budge. Something seemed to shackle them together. She felt around with her fingers to figure out what was holding her.
"I suggest you not do that, hayati," her captor said.
"Why not?" Will I find out how to escape? She rooted around blindly, and felt something hard under her fingers. She poked it. It seemed to get a bit harder.
Fire rose in her cheeks as she realized she'd just been groping a strange man in his crotch. She pulled her hands back into the sleeves of her hoodie.
"That," he told her. "Is why not."
For an instant, she thought about squeezing his man parts as hard as she could and forcing him off the road. As much as she liked the idea, he might crash the bike. Even if she managed to get him to pull over, what would she do then? Her arms seemed stuck around him. Plus she hadn't seen a car on this stretch of road, just thick stands of pine swishing past. She had no clue how to drive a motorcycle, so the only other way back was to walk, which wouldn't work because he would just come after her on the bike.
He was in control here. For now. Until she found her opportunity.
With her hands in her sleeves, she felt the cold steel around her wrists. The memory of the handcuffs he put on her came dashing back into her mind. He'd cuffed her hands together, but shackled them around his waist like a belt, forcing her to embrace him from behind. Clever. It held her to him and let him keep her on the bike at the same time. How was she supposed to get out of it?
"Would you mind not doing that either?" he asked.
"Doing—"
Before she could complete the question, he broke in. "Bashing your head against my back. It's very distracting."
She realized he was right. She'd been hitting her head against him in frustration. Of course the helmet meant she didn't feel it. But did he? Hope swelled inside her. Could she use it to escape?
"Ah," he said, before she finished the thought. "We're at our destination."
* * *
She felt the bike slow just before they turned into a thin laneway anyone would miss if they weren't looking for it. Her gut clenched as he maneuvered the bike down a track that seemed more like a rut than an actual road. Twenty-foot tall trees bracketed them on either side, looming over her like nasty sentinels protecting the criminal who'd just taken her from her home. No one would ever find her here, she knew on instinct. Even the moon's light was hidden behind clouds. She'd probably never see it again. He'd brought her here to rape and murder her and bury her corpse in the woods where she would lie alone under the dirt forever.
She felt a single drop of moisture seep from one of her eyes. More than anything, she wanted to wipe it away, to hide her weakness from her torturer. But her arms were bound around his waist, keeping her from masking her humiliating emotion. She could only hope, as they bumped along the track, that the tear would dry before he took off her helmet.
"You are very quiet," he said, in a casual tone, steering the bike even more casually. "Have you thought about apologizing to me? Offering an explanation? Perhaps some begging? I do enjoy your begging, under other circumstances."
She
seesawed between rage and disbelief. Why should she apologize to him? He was the one who'd just committed a crime and he wanted to blame her for it? Acid growled in her gut at the injustice of it. But his words made her brain skip in confusion, like a CD with a scratch. He spoke like he knew her.
Well, of course he did. If he knew exactly when she was coming home from her vacation, he must have been stalking her for months. Didn't stalkers create elaborate fictitious relationships with their victims in their deluded minds? She knew she should probably play along, try to get him to relax his guard, but she couldn't. The injustice of the whole thing dug under her skin, even worse because he was blaming his victim for his own actions, like a man who raped a woman and then said she wanted it because of her low-cut shirt.
"I will never apologize to you," she spewed at him, as if the words were poisonous.
He slammed the brakes so hard the bike jerked. On instinct, she grabbed him for support.
With her hands clamped to his chest, she felt his heart beating a furious tempo, even through his jacket. He'd handled the bike... hell, he'd committed the act of abduction with such calm, but underneath the outward signs, he hid some great emotion. Excitement at his upcoming torture session? Or maybe something else?
She felt him slow his breaths as if measuring them out. He removed his helmet leisurely, with a controlled deliberateness.
He no longer seemed like a psychopath, but a very confused man. A confused man with hair that would have fallen to his shoulders if it hadn't been tied back. The moon, emerging from behind its cloudy screen for an instant, made his hair gleam blue-black. His profile, all strong chin and harsh lines, made her suck in a breath. His all-male gorgeousness seemed designed to melt women in their tracks. Combined with his powerful body, he didn't seem like the kind of guy who needed to abduct any girl. In fact, she could picture women lining up to be kidnapped by him.
If he wasn't pure crazy, she might have considered joining the queue.
He dismounted the bike, dragging her off against her will, since her arms were shackled around him. Without stopping, as if she was just a fly stuck to his back, he strode across the pine needle-strewn yard. His long steps forced her to scramble to keep from tripping.
"Hey," she protested, but he clearly couldn't hear her muffled voice without the helmet speaker. So she took the opportunity to curse him out in privacy. Each creative swear word strengthened her courage.
Her helmet blocked her peripheral vision, so she couldn't see much of what looked like a three or four-room cabin with walls of raw wood and tiles falling off the roof. The bike was probably worth twice what the cabin was. It didn't add up.
He twisted a key in the lock, and she zoned in on him putting the key away in his inside pocket, in case that info came in handy later. She paid such close attention that she nearly missed him place his thumb on a knot in the wood next to the door—and the subtle green light that swept over his thumbprint. She heard the distinct click of metal locks unbolting.
Really? A high tech security system for this tumble-down place? Her throat nearly closed. Maybe he intended on assaulting her and disposing of the body after all. If so, he could definitely give Dexter a run for his money.
The kitchen they stepped into was no less high tech. He turned on the light to reveal gleaming black appliances, polished granite countertops, and restaurant-quality gadgets. The outside of the 'cabin' might seem like it was about to fall over, but the inside? Pure luxury. The whole place was built to deceive someone into dismissing the exterior while the inhabitants lived in lavish comfort.
With one abrupt motion, he turned in place. Instead of being held against his back, Max faced him, getting a close-up view of the stiff curling hairs escaping the slight V of his dark shirt. He snapped the strap under her chin and lifted the helmet away, setting it on the counter next to his own.
Her mouth dried up. There had never been a man more handsome than this one. Flawless dark Arabian skin and eyes greyer than the granite that surrounded her. Lips—God above, those lips would seduce her all by themselves. It wasn't fair that he also had a strong column of neck and shoulders like rock cliffs. Not an ounce of fat on him. Carbs probably ran from this man in sheer terror.
She tried to lean away from him so he couldn't feel her heart pounding a crazy beat under her ribs. Her entire body had turned traitor. How could her hormones go into overdrive for the guy who'd just drugged and abducted her? It wasn’t fair. She looked at the floor, praying the blush incinerating her cheeks wouldn't betray her.
No hope. He caught her chin in one hand and forced her to look into his. For an instant, she thought she saw a spark of amusement there, before he narrowed his gaze to grey slits.
"On your knees, Maxine Rosalie Foss," he ordered.
Kneel? But that would put her at eye level with his... What did he want her to do?
Incensed by the unfairness of it, she wanted to scream 'never,' but she didn't trust her voice with that many syllables. "No."
"Do you prefer to be locked together like this forever? I don't mind if you don't." His seducer's lips quirked up at one corner.
In a flash, she saw what he wanted. She was supposed to lower her arms so he could step out of the circle made by the handcuffs. She hadn't thought she could blush any harder. Damn, she must be purple in the face by now.
"You could unlock me instead," she suggested, without much hope.
"But hayati." A scarlet tongue wet his full bottom lip. "That would be so much less fun for me."
He was in control—she couldn't do a thing about it. The more she resisted, the more he'd enjoy watching her writhe. Before she could think too much about it, she lowered herself to one knee and put her hands on the floor. Her cheek touched muscled thighs encased in dark, soft denim. She tried not to think about that, either.
He took his time stepping back, drawing out her mortification as long as possible. Before she could stand again, he planted a leather boot on the chain of the cuffs. She couldn’t misread the message. He had all the power. She could submit, or suffer.
On instinct, she looked up to see pitiless grey eyes smoldering at her. "Are you certain you will never apologize to me, Max?"
* * *
Ten minutes later, Max was handcuffed to a sturdy wooden chair in the center of a luxurious living room with a picture window view of a private lake. The man had removed her Sketchers and disappeared into the kitchen. While listening for him to return armed with a huge knife to carve her up or a mallet to start breaking bones, she looked around for anything that might help her escape.
It seemed like the place had been prepped for her arrival. Every flat surface was empty of safety pins that might pick locks, glass knick-knacks to make into weapons, and anything else she could hide in her palm.
She'd asked where they were, what he wanted to do to her. He didn’t answer. When she asked why he was doing this, he'd given her a killing look, clenching both hands, and left the room as if he needed to regain control of himself.
When he returned, he carried two glasses of wine and a china plate with sandwiches. She'd always been a sucker for a guy who at least tried to cook, and the sight of him in his tight black tee, carrying food, tightened something inside her. It would have been perfect, though she hated to admit it. Except then there was those handcuffs.
She hadn't eaten in what seemed like forever, but no way would she admit her hunger. Her stomach had a different plan. It growled, betraying her weakness. He smiled in response.
"Now," he said, as he pulled up a chair and sat backwards on it, hanging over the ladder rungs of the chair's back, spreading his legs wide in casual style. "We can talk in a civilized manner, I think. I have some questions for you to answer."
"I wish I'd stayed in the Dominican," she told him.
He froze for an instant, one hand fisting dangerously on the chair back as it had on the clipboard earlier that night. "No more than I do, hayati."
She was too pissed off to worry about i
rritating him any more than he already was. "Why, was it easier to stalk me there?"
"It has always been so easy to stalk you." He waved a hand in exaggerated dismissal. "In the Dominican or Newark. It is the same. But now I find myself wondering if it was too easy."
Too easy to stalk her? That made zero sense. You're dealing with a crazy person, she reminded herself. No matter how hot, or how her treasonous body reacted to him, he was insane and she had to escape. Or to get a message to someone so they could rescue her.
As if in response to that thought, he pulled out a cell phone and held it up to her. Wow, did it have great resolution... You could practically read the rivets on the back pockets of the jeans of the guy she was dancing with in the Dominican. Which made the photo that much creepier. It was definitely a stalker photo, taken in secret from a distance.
"Explain this in a way that makes me understand it." His voice was caramel again, but poured over shards of glass. "I'm waiting, breathlessly."
Her heart stuttered. She'd been so focused on being kidnapped that part of her hadn't truly believed she had a stalker until this second. Now she found herself locked in a room with him. The air seemed too thick to breathe.
"I can dance with a guy if I want to," she spat out. "No man owns me, no matter what you imagine."
His eyes narrowed. "Is that what you think? I wonder where you got that idea. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough with you. I won't make that mistake in the future," he said, a silky smooth threat.
She hated herself for it, but he sizzled on her awareness like a sixth sense. Every tiny movement he made registered on her brain, from a slight shift of his weight to the motion of his Adam's apple. His body was plain amazing, lithe and sinewy, slim-hipped and wide-shouldered. Masculine and powerful. Not your typical pasty white stalker who spent too much time on the internet. Or hiding in bushes with a telephoto lens.
"Am I going to have a future?" she asked.
"That depends on your answers to my questions." He lowered his eyelids, but his gaze turned to steel. "Why did you leave?"
Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart Page 36