Page 12 of Santa Daddy
It was the nicest room I’d ever seen.
It was also a cage.
“How long?” I heard myself ask.
He turned, one hand still on the doorframe. Pale eyes pinned me in place.
“Until I decide you are more trouble than you are worth.” His gaze dropped to my mouth. Lingered. “Or until you do something so stupid I cannot justify keeping you.”
“This isn’t a hotel, it’s a prison.”
“Is it?” He stepped into the room. I stepped back. Two, three shuffling retreats until my shoulders hit the wall. “You have bed you could only see on Instagram. Food you could not afford. Clothes that do not smell like fryer oil. Safety from men who would like to erase you from world.”
He stopped a breath away. The wall at my back cooled my spine. His body heat in front of me turned my chest into a furnace.
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“You did when you took shortcut.” His voice was low. Reasonable. Crazy. “You walked into my business. You watched me work. Now you are my problem to solve.”
“I’m your prisoner.”
“Wrong.”
His hand came up, bracing against the wall beside my head. His other palm landed on the other side.
Caged.
“You are mine,” he said simply. “My fiancée. My liability. My leverage. My responsibility.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What, mine?” His mouth curved. The not-smile. “You do not like word.”
“I’m not a thing you can just…claim.”
“Everything can be claimed.” His gaze dropped over my face again. “Some things must be claimed, or they are destroyed.”
My pulse pounded in my throat so hard I was sure he could feel it from where he stood. My skin prickled. My palms ached from how hard I was digging my nails in.
“Your men know I’m not really engaged to you,” I said, forcing my voice not to shake. “They’re not idiots.”
“They are idiots.” He snorted softly. “Big, useful idiots with guns, but idiots. They know what I tell them to know. Right now, they know you are my woman. That is enough.”
“Enough for what?”
He leaned in, just a fraction. Enough that his breath slid across my cheek. Warm. Cinnamon edged with whiskey.
“Enough that no one touches you without losing fingers.” His eyes hardened. “Enough that no one shoots you in back of head and leaves you in alley because you saw something you should not.”
The image slammed into me. Me, in the snow. Blood soaking my costume. My eyes empty.
I swallowed. My throat hurt.
“This is kidnapping,” I whispered. “You can call it whatever the hell you want; it doesn’t change the fact you took me.”
“I saved you.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “You moved me from one kind of danger to another. If you have enemies or if anyone finds out I could be a target.”
