Page 15 of Ride with the Devil

I run my thumb over the web of her hand, absently tracing the inked ‘H’ hidden there when her hand is closed. Her skin is so soft, I can’t stop myself from fantasizing about what it would be like ifshewas touchingme.

Stroking me.

Fondling me…

Fuck.

What are you doing, Luca? She’s at your mercy. You brought her here to keep her safe, not to fantasize about shit that will never, ever happen.

I need her loyalty. That’s it. If that means I need to steal her love, too, I will. To keep her alive, she has to want to protect me and my fellow Sinners above all else. If I expect that she’ll go running to the cops first chance she gets, Devil won’t even be the one to put her down. It’ll be my responsibility.

Sheis my responsibility.

And the first thing I have to do is make sure that she can’t leave me before I can convince her that she wants to keep quiet about what she saw…

Holding her arm over her head, laying it on the pillow, I use the free side of the handcuff attached to the headboard to keep her on the bed. She’s motionless and still, the sedative holding her under as I quickly drop to my knee.

Trying not to think about what Burns and his wife do down here with a pair of handcuffs and a shackle and length of chain connected to one of the cot’s legs, I fish it out from under the bed. It’s sturdier than the cuffs, and because it’s heavy, too, I make sure to loop the metal shackle over the top of her jeans to protect her ankle.

There. One hand cuffed to the headboard, a leg chained to the cot. She’ll stay right where I put her until I can explain why I had to take her. I don’t want to hurt her. I’ve basically kidnapped her to keep her safe, but despite the naivety she gave off earliertonight—walking around Skid Row without her phone, for one—I don’t think she’s going to be happy to wake up and realize she’s trapped in this mountain cabin with me.

She will be. I’ll make her love me. I’ll do whatever it takes so that this innocent creature will never betray me. I’ll be her captor and her savior, and when I’m sure that I own her completely, I’ll let her go somewhere far away from Springfield, where she can be safe and Devil won’t consider her a threat to squeal on us.

Crouching low, I trail my fingers across her forehead, stroking the top of her hair.

God, she’s so fucking beautiful. I only wish that we’d met in a different life, or in a different way. Before my parents fucked me up, or Emily shattered my heart to the point it’s basically unusable. Before she was there in the aftermath of Devil killing Collins. Before she ran and I had to chase her…

I might have been able to love her. Already, I feel this kinship with this woman. Like I was meant to rescue her, and she was meant to stumble into my life if only so I could protect hers. I’m finding it difficult to refrain from touching her. Even now, I’m caressing her skin before brushing her curls out of her face so that I can marvel at the length of her eyelashes, or how her lips curve slightly even as she’s unconscious.

I might have been able to love her, but I won’t be able to set her free until I’m sure she trusts me. It’s the only way I can trusther.And then she can return to her life, I’ll go back to my steering wheel, and we can both forget any of this happened.

Because, if we don’t, she’s dead.

And as loyal as I am to the boss, I just… I can’t let that happen.

SIX

FUN

KYLIE

Wow. There’s nothing like coming to, groggy and dry-mouthed, fuckingchainedto a cot to make you realize that you lost your edge.

They got me. Not like I made it that hard. I saw the Sig Sauer in Devil’s massive paw. If the driver didn’t grab me as quickly as he did, I have no doubt in my mind that the head Sinner would’ve shot me down to get me to stop.

To be honest, I’m still kind of surprised that he didn’t. From all the research I did on the mafias that run Springfield, everything I learned made me sure that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill.

But I’m alive. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. My mouth tastes like I tasted a shag carpet from a 1970s living room. My arms ache, and my legs… my legs…

I blink.

Okay. My right leg has some kind of metal shackle on it. The shackle itself is attached to a length of chain that slinks off the edge of the narrow cot I’m sprawled out on. And the chain is?—

Oh. No wonder my arms ache. Not both, I notice, now that I’m slowly becoming more coherent. But while my right leg has a shackle on it, my left arm is stretched over my head. One half of a pair of handcuffs is encircled on my wrist. The other? Looped around one of the bars on the headboard.

What the fuck?

I can’t see what’s going on with the chain because my arm is stuck. I don’t like that. Whatever kinky shit is going on here, I’m not about to stay put on this bed, waiting for my captor to return.

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