Page 15 of Wanted

“Don’t do that,” he orders before the first squeak comes out.

I shouldn’t listen to him. He’s a stranger, he’s huge, and he broke into my room in the middle of the night.

He shakes his head. “I won’t hurt you.”

A mocking laugh comes out of my mouth. “How do I know that?”

He turns his head and stares out of the window. His chest rises and falls a few times and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying hard to restrain himself.

I suck in a gulp of air when he turns back to me, and again, that strange glow is in his eyes. I shake my head and blink a few times because I know I’m imagining things. Real people’s eyes don’t glow. He has to be playing some kind of trick or game.

“Because I came to save you,” he finally says.

“Save me…” I mumble to myself.

“You’ve made some enemies,” he replies.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His head snaps toward the window again as if he’s just heard or saw something. He quickly looks back at me. Whereas his movements were once slow, measured, he changes, moving before I can blink.

Before I can say “what the heck” he’s caught my arm in his strong hold. The lamp falls from my hands, landing on the bed.

“We don’t have time.” He pulls me from the side of the bed with one arm and grabs my suitcase that’s leaning against the wall with his other hand. “Pack your things.”

“What?” I try to shake free from his hold. This only makes him tighten the fist he has around my wrist. The hold isn’t painful, but it traps me to him, ensuring that I won’t be getting away from him anytime soon.

“Let go of me,” I insist even though I’m pretty certain he won’t.

Instead of listening, he takes it upon himself to start yanking the dresser drawers open and pulling out the clothes I’d neatly folded and placed inside.

“What are you doing?” I screech. He doesn’t bother to answer me. Nor does he pause. He doesn’t respond at all to my inquiry.

“Stop it!” I insist. Again, no response, but when I go to pull my clothes out of the suitcase, his free hand grips my wrist. Now both of my wrists are encircled in his.

“You’re in danger,” he says in a low voice.

“Yes, from you. A stranger who broke into my room and is now trying to kidnap me.”

He frowns, his face tightening. But he soon shakes his head and then goes back to putting my belongings into the suitcase.

“I’ve had enough of this,” I declare. Unfortunately, my phone fell from my hands and is now on the other side of the room. I can’t use it to call the police.

I open my mouth wide to scream, in the hopes that someone will hear me and come see what’s the matter. Or at the very least, call the police.

Yet, when I go to let out the first sound, a large, firm hand clamps over my mouth. All of the air leaves my lungs when I’m tugged backward into a wall.

No, not a wall. Him.

He’s pulled me against his very hard, muscular chest. Suddenly, I’m aware that I went to sleep in one of my silk negligees. The only sleepwear I have. Ever since I turned eighteen, my mother insisted that what I slept in was important.

A woman must look presentable at all times. Even when she’s asleep.She would tell me.

I wonder if she ever took into account that one of these days, I’d be pressed up against a huge, imposing stranger with his hand clamped over my mouth. All while my light-blue negligee that stops a few inches above my knees, rides up my thighs while he clasps me to him.

My body heats and I don’t know if it’s from fear, his body heat or something else.

Please.

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