Neil (The Uncompromising Series Book 2)

by Sybil Bartel

  “Too late.”

  I shook my head. I’d stripped for years. I knew his type. But he wasn’t getting anywhere with me. “You know what will happen if you ever try that shit with me?”

  “Move,” he ordered.

  I half hopped, half jumped another inch, not because he told me to but because I wanted out of here. “I’ll hit back. Hard. I don’t have a submissive bone in my body, so get that shit out of your head right fucking now.”

  “I have no desire to dominate you.”

  I grunted through another couple inches and sweat broke out across my forehead. “No, you just wanna control the shit outta me.” Everything about him screamed control freak. And how the hell did he get tied up? He looked like it’d take an act of God to get him to submit.

  “Normally, you do not speak to me this way.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, nothing about this”—I swept my gaze around the shit warehouse—“is normal. And you didn’t deny your control issues.”

  “That is not what I meant and I do not have issues.”

  Another agonizing inch. At this rate, I’d need four hours to get to him. “Everyone has issues, but go ahead, by all means, tell me what you meant.”

  “You do not swear as much, nor use slang or blend words when you speak to me.”

  “Blend words?” What the hell did that mean?

  “Wanna, kinda.”

  The words sounded like shit coming out of his mouth. I hated the fact that I could see his point, which only pissed me off more. “If you want an Ivy League educated woman, go find one.”

  “If I wanted that, I would, but it is not my type.”

  I purposely scanned the length of him but I didn’t need to. I’d sized up his type in about zero-point-two seconds. “Let me guess,” I enunciated each word. “Models. Accents preferred.”

  His head tilted slightly, as much as it could with his neck covered in a thick rope time bomb. “Explain.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Your assessment.”

  I scooted another few inches. I wasn’t educated. I’d barely graduated high school because I was busy chasing Jason around and spreading my legs for his stupid, addicting smile. I didn’t know how to divide fractions or conjugate a verb, but I knew people. I assessed everyone I met within minutes and I could sum up their personalities. I didn’t know how I did it, but I was almost always right, except for Jason, but I blamed that on being young and dumb. I moved another inch, my focus on the floor, watching my progress.

  “You’re tall as hell, built like a Viking, controlling, bossy and unwavering. You probably are a bitch to work for, because whatever you do, you’re the boss. You like your women beautiful because you like excellence in all things. Your watch is expensive as fuck, your jeans are designer, your haircut isn’t from a barber shop and your teeth are perfect. But you don’t want commitment. You don’t want anything holding you down. Models fit that bill. Beautiful, flighty, more concerned about their weight and next cover shoot than getting a ring out of you.”

  “Look at me,” he demanded.

  Ignoring him, I glanced at my legs. The tape was loosening. “The accent part I threw in because you have one. Maybe it makes you feel like home, maybe it turns you on, hell, maybe you only speak Danish when you’re getting your freak on.” Another inch. My back screamed.

  “Ariella.”

  Panting, I glanced up. His gray-blue gaze stilled me the same as if he’d put his hand on my shoulder, and goddamn, something about that felt familiar.

  “Take a break,” he quietly commanded.

  Jesus, he was fucking gorgeous. And impenetrable, and dangerous in ways I was sure I didn’t want to know. “How did you get tied up?” Because suddenly, none of this made sense. Act of God or not, he wasn’t a man who let people get the best of him.

  He studied me. “I made a mistake.”

  Gooseflesh spread across my arms and I wondered what it would be like to be one of those models. “Bet that doesn’t happen often.”

  “How bad is your back?”

  “It’s fine,” I lied, mentally shaking away my ridiculous thoughts. “What kind of mistake?” I purposely spaced out kind and of.

  His eyes focused on mine and his stare dangerously crawled under my skin. “I let my guard down.”

  It wasn’t a statement, it was an admission. And it looked like it cost him. “Because?” Even though I asked, something told me I didn’t want to know.

  “You were injured.”

  The air shifted and the space between us narrowed to two people breathing. My hands tingled and my thighs ached. I wanted to touch him. His hand, his arm, his chest, it didn’t matter where, just one touch. But the way his gaze was burning into my soul like nothing was more important to him in this moment than me, I knew that one touch would be the biggest mistake of my life.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Your back?” he asked softly.

  Confusion, yearning, hope, anger, desperation, it all swelled into a storm and I couldn’t swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. “Who am I to you?” I had to know.

  His chest rose with an inhale. “Someone important.”

  The tingling in my hands spread over my whole body. “You don’t say that to many people, do you?”

  “No.”

  I dropped my gaze and moved the chair again. The slight screech-thump noise echoed like a gunshot but I did it again.

  “Look at me.”

  I focused so hard on the dirt-stained concrete floor that my vision blurred. I moved the damn chair again. And again. And a stupid sob broke free. I was a single working mom. I lived in a shit apartment on the third floor so junkies and gangbangers wouldn’t break in. I worked for my money and I took care of my kid. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I wasn’t supposed to get shot and kidnapped and duct taped. I was a good person. I even paid my fucking taxes on time.

  Foreign words filled the space around me, urgent and soft, and their rhythm wrapped me up in a comfort I couldn’t explain as tears I couldn’t wipe burned hot and helpless down my cheeks. My hair stuck to my face and I wanted his arms around me. I wanted my boy. I wanted them both in the same space, and I wanted out of here. I wanted it so bad that it scared the shit out of me because everything I’d ever wanted in my life never happened.

  “You are going to be fine. Your son is safe.” Switching back to English, he’d said the words like he could see right into my heart.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I promise you that.”

  Before I could tell him he wasn’t in a position to promise anyone anything, the door burst open.

  CANDLE WALKED IN FLANKED BY two more tatted-up assholes in matching vests. As one of the new guys turned to shut the door, I saw Lone Coasters written across the back of his vest in large white caps with a detailed skull and alligator emblem below it. My mind tried to make a connection.

  I closed my eyes to search my memory for something I was sure I should be grasping but Candle grabbed my hair again.

  “Come to your senses, sweetheart?”

  I glared at him because he wasn’t the type of man you backed down from. He fed off fear. “If by senses, you mean telling you to fuck off, then yeah, fuck off.”

  He chuckled and inclined his head at the two other jerks. They flanked Viking and I fought not to show my panic.

  “You wanna fuck, sweetheart? No problem.” Candle grabbed his junk. “How about we give your boyfriend a little taste of what he’s missing? I know how much you like to show it off.”

  I almost choked when he said boyfriend, my eyes swinging to Viking.

  Viking gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Touch her and you will regret it.”

  Candle grinned and hefted a chuck of my hair. “I already touched her. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?” He glanced at Viking and smirked. “And she loved every second of it.” His eyes glued on Viking, he gathered all my hair in both of his hands and leaned down to my
ear. Metal, oil, and bitter musk filled my nostrils as hot breath landed on my shoulder. “Bet you didn’t know she likes it rough.” He licked my neck.

  The two guys laughed and Viking’s nostrils flared.

  I barely resisted recoiling in disgust. “No woman likes a small dick.”

  He was upright and in front of me in less than half a breath. Thrusting his hips in my face, he pulled my head back by my hair. “Maybe you need a reminder of just how big I really am.”

  I forced a laugh but it came out like a choked gasp. “Maybe I need a reminder period, because your shit wasn’t memorable at all.”

  His eyes narrowed and his chest heaved. “Where are my guns, bitch?”

  “Up your ass, dick.”

  Fury slid across his face and I thought he’d hit me again. Instead, he backed up, slow and calculated, then he did something much more terrifying. He walked out.

  One of the vests shook his arm out and a metal stick he’d been holding extended to three times its length. A sick grin spread across his face and he moved behind me a second before Viking barked out my name.

  “Ariella.”

  Sharp pain jabbed into my sore back and radiated out like a thousand degrees of hell. I opened my mouth to scream but the agony of excruciating torture stole the air from my lungs.

  “You are a dead man,” Viking thundered.

  “Tell us where the guns are or I make her scream.”

  I didn’t have time to catch my breath. The metal stick dug into my back like the blade of a knife and an inhuman shriek curdled past my lungs and rattled out of my mouth. My back arched, my arms went rigid and my legs tried to kick out. Tape ripped and the pressure on my wound increased.

  I saw stars.

  “Stop.” Viking’s chains rattled.

  “Address,” my torturer demanded.

  My ears started to ring.

  Viking rattled off a number and a name.

  The pressure left my back but my vision tunneled. Desperate not to pass out, I bent forward as far as the pain and tape would let me. Right before I dropped my head, I saw the asshole with the stick stride over to Viking.

  The slap of metal hitting flesh then the thud of it connecting with bone echoed off the concrete walls.

  “That address better pan out. Otherwise, when I come back, you’re going to watch her bleed.” Two sets of heavy boots thundered across the floor and the door slammed shut.

  “Breathe, Ariella.” Quiet and soft, Viking spoke my name like a caress.

  Something close to a memory flared and I took in a breath, but everything felt like it was on fire and pain chased away all my thoughts.

  “In through your nose, out through your mouth. It will subside.”

  Bile in my throat, I prayed he was right.

  “Another breath,” he quietly ordered.

  I wanted to tell him to take a fucking breath but it hurt too much to talk. I tried another small intake of air.

  “Another. We do not have much time.”

  “What,” I panted, “the fuck is wrong with my back? Is there a bullet in there?” For some reason, that didn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of me. But it should. Being shot should scare the fuck out of me. What kind of fucked-up mess had my life become that I wasn’t afraid of a bullet being lodged in my flesh? The only answer I had was that there wasn’t blood gushing down my spine.

  “No. You were grazed. Look at me, Ariella.”

  Glancing up, I was about to tell him to stop saying my name like that when the words lodged in my throat. The skin under his right eye was split open and blood was dripping down his face. “Shit,” I whispered.

  “I am fine.” His features darkened.

  For the first time since waking up, I was seriously afraid of what he was capable of. “You’re bleeding.” But it didn’t make him look weak, it made him look angry and feral and about a thousand times more terrifying.

  “The tape ripped when you struggled. Force your left leg free. We are out of time.”

  His eyes narrowed, his breathing faster, make no mistake—Viking was pissed. Seriously pissed. I tested my leg. Pain shot up my back but he was right, it was looser, much looser.

  “Kick your leg out,” he demanded.

  Biting my lip so I didn’t scream, I leaned forward as much as I could and kicked out, fast and hard. Pain roared up my back but the sound of ripping duct tape filled me with hope. If I could get one leg free, then maybe the other, then my hands, somehow, some way, then I could get the rope off Viking’s neck.

  I kicked out on the one leg again and the tape ripped another half inch. It wasn’t much but it was enough to spur me on. I started kicking in earnest. My back screaming, my chair scooting forward with my every effort, sweat dripping down my face, I kicked and kicked. The tape that’d been holding me from ankle to shin ripped up my leg until only a small stretch was left intact. I leaned forward to give one last good kick.

  “Stop.”

  My head jerked up and I gasped. Blood, sweat, and the spiciest kind of musk I never could’ve imagined filled my lungs with everything that was Viking. Directly in front of him, he smelled like anger and death and sin and I shuddered. My last kick would have sent the stool under the board holding the concrete blocks flying.

  With the light shining down on him, he stared at me like he was my own personal savior. “Listen to my instructions carefully.”

  Huge arms, hard abs, shoulders twice the width of me—he wasn’t just bigger up close, he was larger than life. Speechless, I nodded.

  “Aim for the center of the stool. Kick hard. Use your heel. When the board drops, throw your shoulders left to tip your chair. You are going to fall then use your free leg to shove yourself five feet back. Questions?”

  A drip of bright red blood rolled down his chiseled cheek and fell off of his square jaw. It hit the board with a soft splat and landed next to a bunch of other splats. My gaze traveled north over the black-and-blue landscape that used to be his ribs and for the first time, I focused on the shadow that diagonally stretched across his chest. I’d assumed it was the lighting but now that I was less than two feet in front of him, I saw it for what it was. A quarter-inch raised scar ran from his left shoulder diagonally across his chest all the way to his right hip.

  “What’s the scar from?”

  “A sharp object.”

  I waited but he didn’t elaborate. “Who did that to you?”

  He stared at me. “A female.”

  I dared to ask. “Why?”

  “She was angry.”

  Another drip of blood oozed from his cheek. “Where you the one who made her angry?”

  “Yes.”

  I wanted to know more. “Why?”

  His massive chest rose with an inhale. “Kick the stool.”

  I needed to know what had happened to him. “Tell me why.” Maybe it would make me remember him.

  “After.”

  “What if there is no after?” What if we both died in this windowless warehouse and I never got to hear my son’s laugh or breathe fresh air again?

  “There will be.”

  A horrible thought occurred to me. “Did I do it?”

  He shook his head and the rope cut more into his neck. “No.”

  “Then tell me.”

  He studied me like he was trying to decide how much information I could handle. “I restricted her,” he finally admitted.

  I swallowed. “And she didn’t want that?”

  “No.”

  Oh God. Super kink. “But you did it anyway?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that turn you on?” I should’ve asked what he did. I should’ve asked if he hurt her. I should’ve asked a million different questions, but I didn’t. Because deep down, my heart was crushing in on itself that this man liked something I’d never be able to give him.

  His nostrils flared. “No.”

  I didn’t trust him. “Then why tie her up?”

  A steady breath made his chest rise t
hen fall like he was trying for patience. “I did not tie her up. I restricted her.”

  “Is that what you like?” I had to force the rest of the words out. “To restrain women?”

  His stare, absolute and unwavering, focused on me like no man ever had. “I do not keep women.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  His eyes darkened and his voice lowered. “When my hands are free, I am going to touch you.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath and felt a twinge in my back. “I don’t want you to touch me.” I didn’t think I would survive it.

  “I know.”

  I should have asked how he knew but I didn’t. “Have you touched me before?”

  “Yes.”

  Jesus. “Where?”

  “In your bedroom.”

  My mouth went dry. “I meant—”

  “I undressed you.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled a lungful of his scent. I wanted to remember so bad but a part of me was glad I didn’t because if he died… I shook my head. “Don’t tell me anymore.”

  “Look at me, Ariella,” he softly coaxed.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You need to.”

  Reluctantly, I lifted my gaze. Gray-blue eyes took me in like they saw everything I didn’t want the world to see. “I do not like seeing you restrained.”

  “Please,” I whispered, too afraid to speak any louder, too afraid to say what I was thinking. I was ashamed of the way I wanted to get lost in the way he focused all of his attention on me.

  He lowered his voice. “I do not want to see you like this ever again.”

  Tears welled. Not because I was tied up or separated from my son, but because I couldn’t remember this man and, God, I wanted to remember him. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “So you are not afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid.” I was terrified. He was the strongest, most confident man I’d ever met and I feared if I did remember him, it wouldn’t be a happy ending.

  “Kick the stool out.” Quiet but firm, his voice belied the fact that he was half-naked and beaten and hanging four feet off the ground by chains around his wrists.

  I followed the rope around his neck all the way down to the ties around his legs. “But the zip ties.”