Page 17 of Dirty Little Sins

"Details, Zia. Stop throwing shade at me and get to fucking telling me what I need to know." I stopped, hesitating for a moment before I said the rest. "Unless you want me to persuade you in some other way. Is that what this is about? Youarein my bedroom. A bedroom that is fully equipped with everything I need to ensure you answer me one way or another."

"Your arrogance astounds me. I didn't even know this was a bedroom when I walked in. Let alone yours. So stop pretending you don't know that my slimy ex-husband blackmailed me and took everything I had!"

Her hand flew to cover her mouth, but it was too late. Whether she planned to reveal it or not she had. I now had the ammunition I sought and the fucking gun to take care of it.

"Dante blackmailed you? Seriously? I'm shocked. Who would have thought that little pedestrian shit had the balls for something like that. And what do you mean by he took everything? Whatexactlydid he take?" That anger I'd fought earlier was building into a dangerous rage. If I didn't get answers soon...

Her resulting shrug didn't help.

"I'm warning you," I seethed as the common sense and control I prided myself on left the building.

"You're warning me?" She leaned into my face and the sweet scent of her skin mingled dangerously with the rage flooding my mind. The anger that someone would hurt what I considered mine was almost too much to bear.

"Yeah," I growled. "I am. And unless you want to end up flat on your back and cuffed to that bed post I suggest you tell me what I need to know."

Her nostrils flared and her eyes widened in the beat of a few seconds before she spun on her heels and headed in the direction of the door.

I didn't take a moment to breathe or think through my next move. Instead I simply acted on impulse. Or instinct. I lunged for her and grabbed at her arm with my beefy hand in a grip I knew to be too tight and jerked her back against me. She stumbled as she tilted in my direction, but I was there to catch her and pull her against my chest.

Blood rushed in my ears as the frightened jack rabbit look appeared in her eyes. That sudden flare of fear sent a zing of excitement coursing through every inch of my body. My adrenalin spiked much like it did in a fight.

"You're not going anywhere until I let you."

I no longer cared how depraved or violent my graveled tone had turned. She was now my prey and I was now her hunter.

Chapter Seven

ZIA

Every muscle in my body seized at the dark chill in Vincent's voice. Something about the way he'd said I couldn't leave made my heart beat harder and my brain unable to function. What the hell was going on?

I wanted to fight. I know I did. Instead I didn't move. I lay there face down on his bare chest with the heat emanating from his skin to mine and the seductive scent of cedar wood and something else I couldn't identify seeped into my pores.

"I need to get out of here," I whimpered as I stood there not moving. "Please." The wound of Vincent's betrayal was again ripped open and it burned through my blood with the intensity of a thousand suns determined to destroy me.

"No. You cannot. Letting you go in Italy was a mistake. One I won't make again."

I could feel the burn of tears threatening at the edges of my eyes and I tried to focus on fighting those instead of his words. I would not cry for him. Not again. Not ever again.

"It doesn't matter what you say or do, this isn't going to happen." The second the words slipped from my mouth I immediately regretted them. I didn't need to see his face to gauge his reaction. I felt it in the tightening of his body and the sudden intake of his breath.

He'd just taken my statement as a challenge and I'd walked right into it.

"I didn't mean—" I pushed against his chest to put some space between us, but he held steady not allowing me to budge.

"It's too late."

The graveled sound of his voice was the only warning I got before he lifted me into his arms and carried me to the edge of the bed. I barely registered what he was doing before the cold metal of his cuffs snapped against my wrist with a click.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Somehow I'd found the words to object, but the breathy sound of them as my heart beat out of control hardly made them convincing.

"What I should have done in the first place."

He fished his cellphone out of his pocket and punched a couple of the buttons before pressing the device against his ear.

"Henry, bring the car around to the private elevator. I'm coming down now."

I sat there frozen in shock as he moved across the room and back into the closet he'd originally emerged from. He was going to leave? In the middle of the party? With me cuffed to his bed?

---