Page 7 of Defended By Love

“So, this is a kidnapping?” I ask. Whatever. Can’t get more kidnapped, can I?

“No!” he practically yells. “Why would you… Do I give off a kidnapper vibe?”

I look him over. While he’s handsome as hell, the spandex isn’t screaming mentally stable.

“Well…”

“You know what? Don’t answer that. I should’ve just told you that I can’t let you down here because the ground might be unstable. I don’t know what caused the building to collapse… it could be a violent attack or unstable ground or any number of things. The point is: it isn’t safe.”

“And do you have a place that is safe?”

He shrugs. He looks away, but then his eyes drift sideways to find my own. He looks hopeful. He looks like those dogs in those videos of the animal shelter when they see someone walking towards them.

“We could go to my place,” he says.

I sigh.

“This really is a kidnapping.”

He scrubs a hand over his face. “Is it the hair? Do I have kidnapper hair?”

“A little.”

“Look, I just want to make sure you’re safe. I’ll take you home right after I get some food into you and know that you’re not in shock or something.”

“So, you’re taking me to a secondary location?”

He makes an exasperated sound that echoes into the air. The air that we’re floating a hundred feet up in. Then, he looks at me and smirks. “Can it really be called a secondary location if the first one has collapsed into a pile of sticks?”

I consider it. I still give it fifty-fifty odds on the fact that I’m being kidnapped, but I appreciate him trying to logic me into it. So much more refined than the whole zip ties in the trunk routine.

“Touché,” I say, a smile finally gracing my face for the first time since I nearly died.

He smiles back. It’s a nice smile, one of honeyed warmth that sends a shiver down my spine.

“I really am here to save you, you know,” he says as we start drifting off west towards the ocean.

“Thanks, but I don’t need saving.”

He smiles again, but this time it’s tinged with a bit of sadness.

Fair enough. I just got rescued from a building that would have crushed me into pieces so tiny that they probably would never have found them all. A building, I might add, that I never should have been in were I not such a hopeless workaholic.

No, under oath, I don’t think I could say that I don’t need saving.

Still, I like that he lets me say it.

As far as kidnappers go, he’s not so bad.

Chapter 5

Spandex Man, i.e. my kidnapper, flies me at a leisurely, but still terrifying pace, towards the ocean. Eventually, I start to relax and can appreciate how magical this is. Seriously, I’m in the arms of a gorgeous man who just saved me from a collapsing building. Plus, I’m actually getting to fly.

Now that the rain has ebbed away to an occasional drizzle, the night is calm and beautiful. The stars, as always, hide behind a veneer of light pollution, but the moon is bright. It hangs impossibly full, reflecting its gorgeous self out onto the inky ocean—an echoing duet for a lonely celestial outsider. In contrast to the chaos I just endured, this serenity is healing.

Which is a very un-me thing to think.

I don’t do serene. I do another-cup-of coffee-until-I produce-an-inhuman-amount-of-work-that-will-gain-me-a-scrap-of-my-boss’s-approval. I pair that with a side of tension headache—breakfast of champions.

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