Page 197 of Wreck Me

“Yeah? Is that right?” he asked, amused, while challenge lit his eyes.

“You miscalculated, big time. Kidnapping me was a grave error. One you won’t recover from.”

That amusement only grew as he told me, “Reality check, gorgeous—you’re bound to a chair.”

“Come closer and you’ll see how much that won’t matter.”

“Gotta say, I do love myself the feisty ones.” He winked. “Then again, you and me have got that in common, yeah?”

I growled low in my throat. “I’m not just talking about me and you know it. At least, you should, unless you’ve now gone completely off the deep end.”

“Ah, right, your beloved Caspian King. King of the City. The almighty himself.” He made a show of looking all around even though there was nobody in sight, then he dropped his voice to a whisper like a crazy person, “He’s not gonna touch me.”

“Sky was right, you really have lost your grasp on any form of reality.”

He roared, then thrust his fist into my face.

I hissed as his knuckles scraped across my skin, forming a graze on my other cheek now, my head snapping to the side from the power behind his blow.

Then he was leaning over me, his hands fisted in the tufts of my hair right to the roots and using it as leverage to yank my head back, forcing me to stare at him looming over me.

“Don’t talk to me about her. I talk to you about her.” All that anger dissipated in an instant, and then he was loosening his grip in my hair, and stroking my jawline. “You really are a gorgeous specimen, aren’t you? I didn’t mean to mess up you pretty face. Hearing her name from the mouth of another man just got under my skin a little.” He patted my cheek. “Bygones?”

“Get your fucking hands off me.” I lurched forward to smash my head into his face, but he jerked back just in time, all that fight training clearly paying off.

He laughed. “Whew! Close one. You move fast.” He waved his hand. “But take it down. I didn’t bring you here for a fight, or to torture you. Nothing like that.”

What? “Then why? And I’d get talking if I were you, you don’t have much time.”

He grinned. “You don’t think I do?”

“I’m certain of it.”

“You’ve got some balls. Tied to a chair, weaponless, defenseless, while knowing I’ve got armed guards with me. And let’s not forget the threat I am in my own right. I’m sure my girl has told you all about that, King too.”

“She’s not your girl,” I hissed. “You demented piece of shit. You deserve to burn for what you did to her.”

“Yeah, you don’t get it.”

“You’re an abuser, a sick motherfucker. That’s what I get.”

“The thing about Skylar is that she’s hella closed off. The girl’s got walls made of fucking titanium erected. You try to get close and she pulls away.”

“You didn’t get close to her. You stalked her, abused her, made her life a living hell.”

“The way it had to be in order to break her down, to smash through all that shit.”

“That shit was her rejecting you.”

“Nah, she wanted me. She still does. She’s just running scared.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Yeah? So it’s not happening to you then? She’s not cutting and running?” He made a show of checking his watch. “I’d say it’s well beyond time. Gotta give you props, you held her attention longer than I figured.”

I gritted my teeth.

His eyes lit up as I couldn’t check my expression in time.

---