Page 11 of Assassin's Mark
I’d believed a man as hot as Levi would want an inexperienced girl like me. Whata fool. Funny that the first time I’d taken my fate into my own hands, stepped out of the cage that was my life, I’d ended up here, at the mercy of a…of him. A killer? A lunatic? Definitely a kidnapper.
My fingernails dug into the tender skin of my palms. Maybe all these years my father really had been protecting me, from myself if nothing else. I obviously wasn’t smart enough to be let out onmy own.
Except…Levi must have had plenty of practice fooling people. There hadn’t been even a hint of this hard, emotionless man last night, even in the throes of climax. And all my father’s control had gotten me was misery and an arranged marriage with someone I’d never even met.
Levi’s hands came into view, settling on the mouse and keyboard. He pulled up a Gmail account.
“What are you doing?”
A click to open a new e-mail. Panic squeezed my chest.
“Levi?”
My father’s personal and work e-mail addresses appeared in theToline. In the Subject line…my name.
My vision grayed out as he attached photo after photo.
“You can’t send those.”
“Why not?”
“Because—”
He turned his head, the threat in his stare cutting off my words. I closed my eyes, desperate to protect some small part ofme from that look, and yet the backs of my eyelids blazed with the images Levi had taken.
Could someone die from humiliation?
“Please…just don’t.”
No response except the clicking of keys. I could not let that e-mail go out. I wouldn’t.
I opened my eyes.
I have your daughter. Be ready. I’m coming for you next, motherfucker.
The cursor settled over the Send button on the e-mail.
“You didn’task him for anything.” Didn’t kidnappers make demands, tell their victim’s family what they needed to let them go?
“He doesn’t have anything to give that would stop me, Abby. Ever. He signed his death warrant the minute he decided to come after me.”
“And what about me?”
He shrugged without looking my way. “Maybe we’ll make sure you’re awake for the next session.”
His fingernail paled as hepressed the mouse, and a white-hot blast of panic threw me forward.
Too late. A distinctclickechoed in my ears even as my body hit his.
I went a little crazy after that. The fight was a blur, and then my back hit the desk, Levi forcing me down. Pain shot through my hips, my shoulders, the wrists he slammed onto the hard surface, locked in his hard grip.
He wasn’t even breathing heavy. I couldbarely suck in air as tears streamed from the corners of my eyes to wet my hair.
“Want to move up our timeline a bit?” Levi asked, his face right in front of mine, his stare unavoidable. “There wasn’t time for a second go-round last night before I drugged your water, was there? At least, not for you.”
He’d drugged me? And jerked off while taking those pictures? Or was he talking about somethingelse? My stomach knotted suddenly, the urge to gag surging up my throat. I jerked beneath him, rolled, did everything I could, but there was no escape, not when his full weight settled on me.
I knew that weight. I knew the breath that brushed my cheek, my hair, the wet trails on my skin, and then his mouth was at my ear, tracing the sensitive edge, my trembling jaw, the pounding beat of my pulsein my throat. Wet heat stroked my skin. I quivered, eyes squeezed tight against a reality I could do nothing to escape.
Some small part of me didn’t want to.
Levi knew too. His grip bit into my wrists. “I think you might like being tied up,” he whispered against my skin. “Maybe those pictures weren’t a lie after all.”
