Page 89 of Crossfire

I’d just defied a deadly assassin. If I had escaped, it would have been brave, but here I was, alone with him, at the mercy of whatever wrath he might unleash on to me for having disobeyed him.

“This is going to be more challenging than I thought, isn’t it?” Grayson murmured.

“What is?” I asked, trying to ignore the heat radiating from his proximity.

His fingers trailed down my arm as he pulled me up from the floor. The slow, deliberate movement sent an electric current up my spine, no matter how much I wished it didn’t.

“Keeping you confined.”

“I think the term you’re actually looking for ishostage,” I said. “And yes. If you want a girl who will sit quietly and listen to your orders, I suggest you go out on the street and find another woman to kidnap.”

He chuckled darkly, his hand sliding down to my hip. “I can see that.”

His expression softened, and he stared at me for several silent heartbeats, something unspoken passing between us.

See, this was one of those things where your feelings were evidently not in sync with reality.

Reality check: this man tried to kill me. His disarming warmth should not be eliciting butterflies in my stomach.

“You’re both wrapped into one—you know that?” he mused. “A lion and a kitten. Small and fragile, but when you’re threatened, you turn into a lion.”

My cheeks heated beneath what I was fairly certain was a compliment. One that I enjoyed far too much.

“Come on.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist. Surely, it was just a form of control, to prevent me from running off, but his touch…my skin still reacted to it as if he hadn’t turned out to be the villain in my story.

Maybe it was the way he gently cupped my hip with his fingers or the way he seemed to watch my face for any sign that I was in pain, but whatever the reason, my heart joined the party and launched into applause.

“You know I am trying to help you,” Grayson said. “Whether you accept it or not.”

Every muscle in my body tensed with his touch, but not in the appropriate way—in the way that my hormones cheered.

Dammit.

“Your version of help is twisted as hell.”

Grayson’s lips curled up on one side.

The guy was devilishly handsome. He might’ve had the face of an angel with green eyes that reminded me of the Caribbean Sea, but I needed to remember that he had the soul of a demon. And those sculpted muscles encasing his tall frame were lethally trained.

Grayson guided me slowly into the hallway bathroom, where he paused and looked at me before gripping me under my armpits and sitting me on the countertop.

He held out his hands waist high, palms up.

“Let me see your wrists,” he commanded.

I clenched my jaw and raised my chin in defiance. “I don’t want to be tied up again.”

To my complete and utter irritation, Grayson looked amused that someone half his size who’d just lost the battle would try to maintain control.

“I won’t run,” I claimed.

Grayson locked his knowing eyes onto mine, as if seeing through all of my false bravado.

“Yes, you will.”

Yes, I will.

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