Page 52 of Oh No, My Kidnapper Is Hot!

I scoot back as he approaches, realizing too late that he’s herding me. He backs me into a corner, caging me with his arms. He’s not touching me, but the almost of it all is somehow worse than if he was.

“I’d let you, you know. Might even enjoy it,” he says.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m wooing you.”

“This seems more like a seduction.”

“I can’t help what you do.”

“I’m not the one–ah!” I yelp as he closes the minuscule gap between us. One hand grips my hip, fingers pressing into my skin, while his other hand finds its way into my hair, pulling gently to make room for his face against my neck. His body closes in, a warm, solid strength pushing me against the tile behind me.

I feel his breath on my neck, then the gentle movement of his lips as he speaks. “My apologies. I got distracted. What were you saying?”

I blink. I was saying something, wasn’t I? Something about… seduction? Seduction bad, I think, though it’s hard to remember why when his skin is pressed against mine. Did he drug me? I open my mouth to ask, only to be silenced by the warmth of a tongue on my neck.

Stryker’s tongue.

On my neck.

Histongue.On my neck.

I clutch his arms to stay afloat as my legs give out. His hand on my hip slides down my thigh, lifting it up and around him before his arm settles securely under me, giving me a place to sit. His tongue returns to my neck.

My eyes have closed at some point, and I can’t find the strength to open them back up.

“I’d like to mark you here,” he murmurs, low and hypnotic. “Like to mark you anywhere, but especially here – on the spot that makes you make that little noise in your throat. I’ve never heard anything more enticing in my life. It’s like a sigh and a beg, and it’s all for me.”

His hand in my hair tilts my head back a bit more, and he nuzzles the spot. A breath leaves me.

“Yeah,” he groans. “That one.”

His nose traces a path from my neck up to my temple, then follows the line of my cheekbone. He runs it down my own nose, ending his journey with a gentle nudge. Our foreheads touch. Our noses nestle together. His lips ghost against mine. The barest forward motion and we’d be kissing. My heart races.

“Ask me to kiss you, Millie.”

I whimper.

His lips brush mine with every word. My brain has short-circuited, turning my world into nothing but a haze of emotion and feeling.

Tension. Torment. Want. Need. Mine and his. They’re palpable, clogging the air, slithering into the minuscule gaps between us.

“Ask me, darlin’.” It’s a plea born of desperation – of yearning. “Ask me.”

I break.

“Kiss me, Stryker.” The whisper barely passes my lips before his are on mine – firm, soft and not at all gentle.

My hands find his hair, pulling him away just to bring him in again. Teeth nip. Tongues meet. Part. Meet again. My hands roam over his broad shoulders. His arms. His chest.

It goes on forever or maybe only seconds. It’s too long and not long enough. An eternity or a fleeting moment. I never want it to end.

“What are you guys doing?”

I jerk away from Stryker and yelp at the sound of Archie’s voice beside us. I whip my head around to find him lying on the ground, his head dangling over the water. His grin stretches beneath a pair of huge yellow goggles.

My face is four thousand degrees.

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