Okay, stop yelling at the serial killer.
“I am not a serial killer, and if you’re gonna insult me in your head, at least keep it silent, Danny.”
I blush because I realize I’ve been yelling out loud in my angst, and he’s right. I should only insult him in my head or I could end up tied to that bed again and…
I shiver at the image and hate myself when my sex clenches.
“Look, I’m gonna do something I rarely ever do and explain some things so you can stop having a meltdown, okay? One, I was in the Army, so if your dad checks me out, he’ll see that. Two, I am not exactly taking out billboard ads declaring that I am involved in shady business, so you can calm the hell down and breathe,” he growls.
I drag in a breath, my lungs about to explode because I’ve been holding it without even knowing, and huff it out as I silently listen and keep my eyes on him.
“But what if people he knows tell him something and—”
“And what, Danny? As far as my cover story goes, I am a deep-cover agent who has been trading with criminals for years. Your uncle and father understand these things, so even if they come back with that information, I have evidence that I’m in deep and will be for years. You think I’m stupid, woman?”
No. No, I definitely do not, I think as I stare at him wide-eyed, relieved, and yet terrified of how intelligent he is. I get it, and it makes my skin crawl. Wylder isn’t new to this kind of stuff, and I now know that even if I run away and somehow get to the cops and evade the people that will try to kill me, well, I won’t get anywhere because if he can convince my daddy and Uncle Jon that he’s some freaking super-spy on the job, I don’t stand a chance.
I never did.
“You scare me,” I manage, my appetite dying beneath the blaze of his triumph.
He does. I may want him and feel things for this man, but he scares the hell out of me, and I don’t know how to get over that. Maybe he won’t hurt me. I believe he won’t, because he does seem to have a heart, but he is capable of a lot more than I ever suspected, and it’s terrifying.
I would never have gotten away, not from his associates and definitely not from him. He could have come back for me at any time, and no one would have helped me, save my family, who he doesn’t give a damn about.
“I don’t want to scare you, Danny. I want you and me to live together with some sort of happiness because I know that is what you need, but I won’t lie to you about how things are. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and I have plans and an endgame that don’t make room for your feelings. If you can accept that, we can live a good life. If not…”
“You’ll what! Kill me?” I snort, not believing it for a minute after the sex we had.
Wylder’s lips twitch at my sass, and I feel my eyes roll in anger.
“Maybe with pleasure.”
“Jesus, I don’t know what I did in a previous life to deserve this, but mark my words, Wylder, you are gonna come up short somewhere one day. You’re too arrogant and sure of things not to get caught.”
He loses the grin, and I feel his icy core come back.
“It’s possible, but not before I get what I want.”
What he wants? What more could he want?
“What more? You have millions, you’re powerful, and you’ve got your own personal sex slave. What more could you be after?” I gasp.
“Justice.”
Chapter Nine
Danny
If sex was a drug, I would be a total junkie, and I am not ashamed to admit it. It’s been over a week since we flew back from Hawaii, and Wylder is still going at me like he hasn’t ever touched me before.
It’s obscene the things he’s done to my body and the things he’s let me do to his. I crave him, want him, submit to him without conscious thought. All the time.
And I revel in it all, every wicked, dirty moment of having him inside me. If someone, anyone, had told me a few weeks ago that I would fall in love with a man like Wylder, I would have laughed in their face and slapped some sense into them.
But it’s true. After that chilling conversation and the confusing answer he gave me—justice, I mean, honestly, I don’t get it—we spent the rest of our days having sex on every surface in that house, on the beach, and once in the ocean, which led to some serious embarrassment for me because, damn, that water went places it didn’t belong.
It wasn’t all just sex though, which would have been fine. I mean, I am a girl. I need closeness and conversation, you know? It was all fine until the stupid, idiotic oaf decided to go all sweet on me and treat me like a princess.
I think Wylder might be nuts, but if he is, he’s a diabolical nutter with some very smart methods. He’s succeeded in reeling me in with nothing more than a change in his usually icy attitude, and I fell for it, even knowing it was wrong.
Don’t be all judgie. You have to understand that I am adrift here and the only life raft I have is Wylder. He’s literally all I have. I talk to no one else, see no one else other than the staff, who scuttle around like ghosts and don’t say a word to me.
He’s become the center of my universe, and he knows just how to play me. Take last night for example. I was stressing out about my dad, who is back today and should be on our doorstep any minute, and what did Wylder do? He took me out of the attic room where I sleep—just me, because he leaves after sex, just like a freaking pig!—and spent the night making love to me before cuddling me and stroking my aching muscles until I fell asleep.
It was so…romantic.
Until I woke up back in the attic room in the wee hours of the morning!
Dammit, I am definitely not right in the head if I am lost for a man who treats me like a hooker. I feel like freaking Anastasia from that book, with my own room and lack of sharing.
Because I just realized—I hit my head here and doh! like Homer Simpson—Wylder doesn’t reeeeally share anything with me, does he? More often than not, I am doing all the talking, and if he does tell me stuff, it usually ends with him threatening to off me if I betray him.
Aaaaw, the butterflies of romance just fill me, I think derisively, scowling at a pound of cookies that I made before I started thinking right. Cookies for Wylder, who confessed he has a rabid sweet tooth and loves coconut cookies with chocolate glaze.
All of this is making me crazier, and I envision Wylder taking me out and offing me because I eventually turn into the crazy person in the attic with no speech and minimal self-sufficiency.
I’m also worried about Lori, who I haven’t heard of in all the time I have been here. At first I was just focused on me, like a freaking self-absorbed loser, and then Wylder zapped me with his cocaine dick. Now that I am waking up from the sex trance, I feel terrible about not giving a shit about a woman who was there for me in my darkest hour.
And I feel adrift because, like I had to hear him remind me over and over again, I am in check here and no matter what move I make, I’m going to lose a piece unless I keep him in play.
Or whatever. I don’t understand half the stuff he says to me lately. All I know is that I have never been this content and yet freaked out in my life. I feel like if one wave isn’t dragging me under, then it’s another coming at me, with only Wylder there to keep me afloat.
“Hey, sweet thing.”
I turn with a scowl and narrow my eyes at him as he saunters in, his smile not slipping an inch as I glare and mentally rip his guts out.
“Are those cookies for me?”
He sounds smug, and I would give anything for that half-melted toothbrush right now when he shoves one in his mouth and groans, his happiness at this further sign of weakness making my hackles rise.
“What are you smiling about?” I ask suspiciously.
The only time he looks this happy is when he’s getting one over on somebody, and with that smirk, I have the unholy suspicion that I’m in the line of fire.
“Can’t a man just be happy?”
“No. You told me you ‘don’t do that
happy shit,’” I point out, biting into a cookie even though I hate coconut.
And isn’t that just hilarious? The man loves the stuff and I hate it, talk about a clear indication of how messed up our relationship is.
Wylder pauses and tilts his head, eyeing me thoughtfully before grinning again.
“You’re right, so let’s rephrase this. Can’t a man just be smug?”
“Oh God, what did you do now, rob a five-year-old of her candy allowance?” I snark, gagging at the little coconut pieces that spread over my tongue.
He laughs outright at my sarcasm and shakes his head at my grumpy gibes.
“Are you getting your period?”
Motherfu—
“No! Not that it’s any of your business, Wylder, but when you smile like this, it usually means you’ve managed to screw someone over, and the last few days, it’s only been me in the house.”
He chokes at that and is still laughing as he pushes me into a seat at the table, pours us both some milk, and shoves a candy bar at me while he sits over his plate of cookies like he’s a prisoner protecting his daily rations.
“For your information, your period is my business, seeing as you belong to me and I can’t fuck you if you’re bleeding.”
“You are such an animal!”
He just smiles as if I haven’t called him some variation of an animal constantly. He deserves it. Just listen to the stuff he says to me all the time.
“I’m a dog, I know, but you know it’s true, and yeah, I am smug, but it’s got nothing to do with you so lay off me and eat your chocolate, woman. Is this bad mood because I didn’t eat you out like I usually do first thing? I had a call to make, baby,” he says softly, making my blood pressure go through the roof.
For many reasons, but I refuse to admit that part of it is instant arousal.
“Wylder, for God’s sake, you’re turning me into a lunatic. I don’t know if I am coming or going half the time with the mood swings you throw at me, not to mention the fact that this whole situation is just unhealthy,” I wail, breaking down because I can’t take another minute more of this.
I just stood and baked cookies for a maniac like some freaking housewifey woman when, in reality, I shouldn’t be doing a thing but planning some Jason Bourne escape and a means to tell my family what is really happening!
And all because I’m hot for this man. What the hell is wrong with me, and how can I be swanning around like lady of the manor when things are all wrong?
“It is not unhealthy. Fuck, Danny, things have been good,” he mutters, still eating because not even a crime scene can kill Wylder’s appetite, and what does that tell ya?
“It is. We should never have met. Don’t you get that? And here I am having sex and making freaking goo-goo eyes at you when any sane individual would have stabbed you with a steak knife and run for help.”
“So, why haven’t you?” he asks softly, making me tense and look away.
I haven’t because after Hawaii I didn’t want to. It’s not right that it hurts to think of leaving Wylder. It’s all wrong, and I know it, and yet my main worry lately has been how to convincingly lie to my dad about the man because I don’t want him to get hurt if Daddy finds out.
Part of it is still about my family and those thugs who will kill them, but I have to confess that I am also not happy about Wylder being hurt. Wrong. It’s all wrong, but I don’t know how to change the way I feel.
“Danny?” he pushes, using a hand to turn my face and cup my jaw. “Why haven’t you tried to run if that’s what you feel is right?”
I should slap his hand away and just leave, but as I have already noted, I am a fool, a freaking idiot, and I just don’t know when to quit. Or be smart.
“Because if I do, then a lot of people will get hurt and I won’t ever know,” I whisper tremulously, swallowing the pain that swells my throat.
“Know what, baby?”
He’s still got my chin, and I can’t turn my head, but I do lower my eyes, no longer able to hold his gaze because I don’t want him to see what I feel. Feeling these things is already hard enough. Having Wylder know that I feel them would be a disaster.
First off, he’d probably find it hilarious, and then I’d attack him, and things would not end well. Mostly for me because that is a one-way ticket to coffinville.
I also don’t want or relish the certainty that he won’t say it back. Because he won’t. Wylder loves the sex and worships my body, but that is it. He doesn’t ‘do love.’
Or decency, apparently, I think when he slides his other hand over my thigh and stops just short of my sex.
“Talk to me or I’ll tie you to the bed and lick it out of you,” he warns.
Images and the ghostly feeling of his tongue at my sex have me squirming and inching closer, wanting that hand on me, distracting us both from this conversation.
He doesn’t blink though and clamps his fingers over my thigh, holding me still while he waits for my answer.
“I may enjoy that,” I whisper, going for seduction that fails all too easily, reminding me that Wylder is always in control.
“No, you really wouldn’t. Trust me on that, baby. Why haven’t you tried to get away if you think it’s the right thing to do? Why stay with me? Why ignore every chance I’ve given you to pick up a knife and try to kill me?”
He’s so serious as he looks at me, his confusion and the strange light in his eyes making me quake inside. I need to lie here, tell him that I don’t have a choice and being with him is nothing more than survival.
I have to lie, and yet what I say is nothing but the dirty truth.
“I don’t want you to get hurt if I leave,” I whisper, closing my eyes against the harsh reality. “If I go and they catch me, it’s not just me on the block. Your family has lost enough. You’ve lost enough. Maybe you’d live. Hell, you’d definitely live after you killed them all, but at what cost, Wylder? I won’t be responsible for getting your family killed. I won’t be the reason that another person you love dies.”
I expect laughter and some sarcastic gibe about what a stupid ass I am, but Wylder doesn’t react that way. No, he rears back, yanking his hand away as if scalded, and pushes to his feet so violently the chair tips and slams into the floor with a crash.
And then he just walks away without a word, his body taught and vibrating with something I can only identify as anger.
Well, shit! Great. I pour my heart out and the idiot gets mad at me. What a freaking joke.
His reaction isn’t surprising though because, as good as he can be at this seduction stuff, Wylder sucks at the heart stuff, the real nitty gritty of human emotion.
The only time I’ve seen him actually be human was when Wolf came over for dinner the night we got back and they talked about business. I asked about Lori a hundred times, and I was ignored, but it didn’t bug me too much because I was fascinated by the change in Wylder.
For the first time, I got to see him as I think he truly is, and it floored me. He and Wolf may rag each other to death, but there’s so much love and affection in their tones that it was painful to watch at times.
With me, it’s just sex and the basic politeness. I think the best I will ever get by way of affection is when he lets me cuddle him before I fall asleep. But never all night as we did in Hawaii.
Here in the real world, he’s back to business, and he makes sure I understand that he’ll be nice as long as I stick to the brief and don’t get too demanding.
I snort at that as I clean up the remains of his snack and fling the candy bar back into the cupboard. Oh no, not demanding. I can’t say freaking boo without him okaying it, and honestly, as I clean up and try not to cry like a loser, I fully accept that I have spent the last few days lying to myself about things because I wanted to.
He’ll never bend for me. We’re ‘engaged,’ and as far as life goes, this is it for me unless I can get over people dying if I make the wrong move. Will we ever get married? Do I want to?
I spend the rest of the day moping around the garden and sitting in the gazebo to escape Wylder, no better off by the time he finds me around dinner and drags me back inside than I was hours before.
The worst thing about this whole situation is that I don’t have any answers. I’m a prisoner in a gilded cage. I love a man who is all wrong for me. I am a liar and a cheat who’s hoodwinking the people I love. I love a guy who is not…
But all I keep asking myself as he tows me into the house is what his endgame is. It’s taken too long, way too long, for me to hit on what he said that day over breakfast after we first had sex, but it’s at the forefront now, and it won’t go away.
Wylder wants justice? For Sparrow?
“Your father is on the phone. I had Wolf answer when his number came up, so be warned. You say what we discussed, and do not try to give him any signals, because I will know, and, Danny, baby, you do not want me angry right now,” he warns when we pause at the door to his office.
My body chills at the hardness in his eyes, and all I can do is nod before he opens the door and lets me in, Wolf’s grimace and silence telling me exactly what to expect from Daddy.
I’m shaking and biting my lips to stop the trembles when I sit at the desk and Wylder hits the talk button.
“Daddy?”
“Danny girl! What the hell is going on?”
I want to giggle at those words, so like Daddy, who doesn’t bother to say hello before attacking me for information. I’m on the edge of a meltdown as I make myself breathe and ignore the men staring at me, focusing only on what I have to do now and keeping my emotions in check.
I want to cry and yell that I need him, that he has to come get me and save me from myself, but instead, I push out a giggle and pretend that this is what I want.
“Well, hello to you too, Major. So nice to hear your voice after weeks of nothing.”
I can just picture his grimace before he grunts and chuckles softly.
WYLDER Page 11