Page 8 of Love Undercover
She snorted. “He didn’t give me anything but a migraine and a free drink.”
Either that was confirmation of what he suspected, which was her ignorance of what her ex was up to, or she was a lot more steely than any of them expected. Regardless of the answer, he needed to get them out of there while he still could.
Without preamble, he whipped out a bandanna and placed it over her mouth before she could react, praising himself for usingthe distraction well. She fussed and grunted, jerking her head back and forth as if it would keep him from being able to tie the back. It made it a little more complicated but didn’t slow him much.
Her eyes, huge and frightened and angry, begged him not to do what he was about to. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before he dragged her resisting form toward his trunk.
“I’m sorry to have to do this,” he murmured, popping the lid open.
She tried to plant her feet as she shook her head hard enough that he worried she’d knock her brain loose.
Her stance wasn’t much help as he backed her up, the trunk bumping behind her knees. By then, it didn’t take much to throw off her balance, and she tumbled in with a muffled yelp. He made sure to situate her in a way she might be most comfortable as he drove.
“I can’t have you seeing where we’re going.”
Why was he explaining? As much as he hated what he was putting her through—and it was, in fact, much kinder than whatever the goons back at her place would do—he didn’t owe her a reason or an excuse considering he had a reputation to uphold.
Once satisfied with some modicum of comfort on her end, he lowered the lid of the trunk on her glistening eyes as she continued to implore him not to.
He smashed her phone on the curb then snatched her purse and went for the driver’s side door.
Damn it. This was not going according to plan.
3
Junk in the Trunk
ThatwasChase Lundgren, right?
Sadie hadn’t realized it at first because the fear had shorted out her brain as soon as she’d heard his voice and seen the gun in his hand. All she’d thought in that moment was that she was about to die.
But then his eyes had widened, the gruff scowl on his face softening briefly. That split-second flash of utter surprise had lodged itself in her mind, tripping a chain reaction of mental gymnastics that eventually led her to a solid connection.
The giant man who’d bundled her into the trunk of his car was the quiet, brooding basketball star from that high school she spent only a year attending in Virginia when her dad had been stationed at Camp Elmore. They’d never interacted much, given how self-contained she’d been at that point. But she’d noticed him. Lots of people did. He was always ducking his head as the others cheered and slapped his back after a game.
The reluctant basketball hero.
And he’d just kidnapped her.
She’d been kidnapped!Oh, cripes. Stuffed into a trunk like a sack of groceries.
But she’d set out Meadow, her sourdough starter, to make some loaves later! She would die if Sadie didn’t feed her again. She’d been cultivating that starter for years. Her stomach flipped at that realization.
“Where is Greg Calloway?”he’d asked in a gruff baritone.
It had sent tingles down her spine. Because she had been terrified,obviously. Definitely not because of the fact that his body had been pressed against hers.
And what a body. His lean basketball player’s frame had bulked up, and he was all hard lines and muscle.
How was it possible to be thinking aboutthatwhen the man had just fizzing kidnapped her?
It was keeping her from panicking. That’s what it was.
Because if she dwelled on it, shewouldpanic and stop thinking straight, and she would probably make some grievous mistake that would get her killed before he had a chance to take her out himself, and that would just be ridiculous considering she had a glimmer of hope that he mightnotactually kill her, even though she knew next to nothing about him or his intentions, but he’d said he wouldn’t.
Panicking.
She grunted in frustration, startling herself in the darkness of the small space with her own voice. But that snapped her mind from the stream-of-consciousness hysteria and back into focus mode.
