Page 42 of Burning for You

I look away, but I can’t stop stealing glances at his pecs through the low neckline. And those unbelievable biceps—no wonder it felt good to be carried in his arms, I must’ve been well swathed and padded over.

This isn’t Sunday morning. Around me is the scent of his raw sweat. I welcome it over the horse stench I had to deal with for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile his bare flesh, well-inked flesh, keeps making contact with my parched skin. For a moment this whole thing feels like salvation, not kidnapping.

Levi continues cutting the rope that binds my hands, saying, “You do as I say, understood?”

I nod meaninglessly. “Who hired you?”

He doesn’t answer.

His biceps are now crossing right on top of my nose. Even if I want to, I can’t escape the sight of his armpit. It glistens with sweat, and there’s no sign of the presence of hair—not even follicles. So he’s the shaving type.

“Did someone named Rupert Teller pay you?”

He might be wearing sunglasses, but he can’t hide from me. There’s a twitch on his face, one that says he’s heard of the name.

“Get up!” he says.

I force myself to step out of the trailer despite my dizziness. With how long the effects have lasted, he might as well have used cattle anesthetics.

“How much did he pay you?” I persist with my questioning.

“Don’t make me gag you,” he says.

“Where are you taking me?”

“We’re gonna do a little hike. You love nature, right, miss?” He points the gun at my chest. “Ladies first.”

Processing what might be going on, I come back to my guess that Teller is behind all this. And Josh is likely to have made a move behind my back. He looks too suspicious to be innocent. So my theory at this stage is, Josh is trying to interfere with Teller’s business and the Avatar isn’t happy about it, so he kidnaps me as a warning to my fiancé.

If my assumption is right, it means I’m just a person caught in the middle.

Is there a way I’ll be able to sway Levi? I’ve seen the soft side of him, and I’m pretty sure that’s who he is. This rough-and-tough persona he’s adopting right now is just wrong.

Levi is walking a few paces behind me. I turn my head to catch a glimpse at my once savior.

“Move it!” he says, pushing me forward.

I grumble.

Despite him being the villain at the moment, I can’t get past the fact that he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen, and that I wanked the life out of me over him.

I imagined he was tight and rather muscly. Now, only wearing a singlet and a pair of jeans, my dream has partly come true. Partly. Because in my dreams, he’s actually not this sinewy. It’s hard not to absorb this surprise with a degree of joy.

If only the circumstance surrounding the surprise were a bit friendlier. Perhaps I’d caught him dancing at a strip club or something.

“I know who you are,” I say. “Levi John Holt.”

“Doesn’t matter. The whole world can know me, but no one knows where you are.”

“Have you heard of Google maps?”

“Have you heard of the Yucatan peninsula?”

“I’ve been there,” I say proudly.

“Even after a decade of Google maps’ existence, there are still pyramids being discovered there. I’m not talking about those buried underground, either. They’re exposed, just like this valley. With that knowledge, Miss Meyer, you can be sure no one in New York knows about the spot where I’m taking you.”

---