Page 39 of Captive Souls

That was his sole intention, after all.

He wasn’t interested in me. There was no way he felt the spark between us. In order to feel a spark, you had to be capable of warmth. Possess human emotion. Neither of those applied to him. Whatever vision I’d had of him was conjured by my mind, having watched too many movies, read too many books, had too many fanciful notions about the inherent goodness of the human race. I’d spent my time around kindergarteners, letting the purity of their innocence sink in to remind me that everyone had been a child once, that everyone deserved a chance at redemption.

Not Knox.

“You shouldn’t be up.”

His cold tone slithered against my clammy skin, cooling it. Caressing it.

“You shouldn’t be telling me what to do,” I told his chest.

It was a nice chest. He was wearing yet another of his high-quality, outdoor shirts. Black. Long sleeves again. It hit me that I’d never seen his arms exposed, even on the overly warm days we’d been having. He always donned black, long-sleeved shirts. Though he never showed that he was uncomfortably hot. It made sense since he was cold as ice.

“You need to go back and sit down.” As usual, his voice told me he was unencumbered by my snark.

Why would he be? He was used to far more than snark.

I was forever reminded that I didn’t have the tools to go up against him.

“Again, I’m not doing what you tell me to,” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest and glaring at his defined pecs.

My fingertips itched with the need to rip at it, pull his skin apart, make him bleed.

“I’ll carry you back there if I need to.” The threat was barely audible yet uttered in an ironclad tone.

Finally, I found the courage to glare at him in the eyes. The expression on his face trapped the air in my windpipe. It was as blank as his tone… at first glance. But I could’ve sworn there was something different about the way he was looking at me.

I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, though. The slight flaring of the nostrils, the tenseness of his shoulders, the way his vein pulsated in his neck.

Did it speak of fury?

Or something else?

“You try to lay a finger on me, I’ll claw your face off,” I promised. “Mark that pretty skin of yours.”

I usedprettyon purpose. Men like him—toxic, alpha types—would see pretty as a direct affront to their masculinity.

Instead of reacting the way I expected, the corner of his mouth twitched in what could almost be described as a smirk.

“I’m not afraid of your marks on my skin, Piper.”

There! A flash of heat. Want. I was sure of it.

My intestines plunged toward the floor, and that wantonness I thought I’d assuaged came back with the heat of a thousand suns.

I struggled to keep my composure. What would he do if I jumped on him right now? If I plastered my lips on his and climbed him like a tree? It was so taboo, so wrong, so tempting to give in to base desires when there was no one watching, where I felt free from the shackles of any civilized arrangements.

That’s why I was there, wasn’t it? Stripped away from all semblances of appearance that our world operated under law and order. That I was safe.

It had been proven. I was not safe. Not even while running in broad daylight. Not while attending my sister’s birthday party.

And wasn’t I sick of living with that fear? Running from it? Yet when that fear was embodied in Knox, I wanted to sink into it, indulge in it.

Then my bladder alerted me to other baser needs my body required.

Thankfully.

“I need to pee.” I was still looking into lifeless eyes that mercifully couldn’t read my mind.

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