Page 3 of Captivated

And then suddenly, hands grab me. I scream, but a huge, strong hand covers my mouth and clamps it shut. A powerful, muscled arm circles my body and draws me tight against a rock-hard, huge man’s body. I scream again, but it’s barely audible.

The man grunts and starts to drag me down a side-alley behind the student union. Suddenly, I hear a shout, and then a banging sound. I realize it’s a gun, and I scream again as something ricochets off the brick wall next to me. I look up to see Tony with a gun in his hand at the head of the alley. But the man holding me growls and yanks me out of sight.

He hauls me into the student union parking garage. It’s empty at this time of the evening, and fear grips me tight. He drags me like I’m weightless towards a van, and my heart seizes.

“Please! No!” I scream. But it’s muffled through his hand. I’m sure all he hears is “Pmmvvph! Nuurrrr!” I’m also sure he wouldn’t stop even if he could hear me clearly. He pushes me against the side of the van, pinning me to it with his muscled body. And I feel his breath right on my ear.

“I’m going to take my hand away, but I know you feel this.”

He pushes the metal barrel of a gun against my back through my sundress. I nod quickly. I know what that is.

“You’re coming with me,” he growls into my ear. I tremble. His voice is dark and ragged sounding. But it’s also so deep and smokey. God, you could almost call it sexy in another scenario.

“Wait, please!” I gasp.

“No,” he growls back.

“Hang on!” I gasp again when he yanks the sliding door to the window-less van open. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

I hate to use my family for anything. But in this instance? To stop me from being freaking kidnapped? Hell yeah, I’m flaunting who my father is.

But the man just sneers and laughs darkly. Suddenly, he spins me around and pins my back to the side of the van. I look up, and I gasp sharply. The eyes piercing into mine are wild and dark-lashed. The face around them is gorgeous and handsome. The lips sneering at me are captivating.

“I haveeveryidea who you are,” my captor growls. His voice is so smokey and sexy, but also dark and terrifying. I tremble in his grip. My throat tightens on my breath.

“And now,” he rumbles. “You’re all mine.”

He spins me around, and I whimper when a cloth ties over my mouth. I scream into it as my hands are yanked behind me and tied tight. He pushes me into the dark van, and then slams the door shut with a thunk. The van starts up a minute later, and my heart pounds as it pulls drives off.

I’ve been kidnapped by the hottest kidnapper ever. And I have no idea where I’m going.

3

Max

I pullthe van into the basement garage of the abandoned factory I’m holing up in. I kill the engine, and I take a breath. My nerves are raw from my drive through Manhattan into Queens. I stuck to side roads and took a long roundabout way to get here. But I’m still paranoid.

It’s not the only reason my nerves are shot and frayed though. It’s her. It’s the proximity to her and knowing that she’s all fucking mine. The savage side of me surges, knowing she’s tied up like a little present for me in the back of the van. But while I’ll indulge an animal instinct thought like that, I won’t act on it. Not like that. I want her, yes. But when I have her, she’ll be begging me for it.

I glance around the empty garage again. After the heist set-up, I knew I had Dino’s henchmen and probably a bunch of crooked cops after me. Probably the Senator’s private security, too. But by now, Dino will know that I’ve taken Tessa. Now, I can only imagine the hell and fury coming after my ass.

I take a breath, and I wince in pain. I pull up my shirt and growl at the wound. I caught two bullets in the heist at the Senator’s townhouse. One just grazed me. But the second put a hole in my side. It didn’t catch anything vital, or I’d be dead by now. But two days later, it’s looking pretty bad. My bandages need to be changed again, and I’m still bleeding pretty bad. I haven’t slept, and I chewed the last of my pain meds an hour before taking Tessa.

It’s my head that I’m worried about, though. I’m getting foggy from the pain meds and lack of sleep. And I can’t get foggy, especially not now that I’ve got her. I need to keep my senses attuned. I also need to remember where I left my shit.

When I opened the safe at the Senator’s place and didn’t see a hard drive, I knew I’d been set up. Being shot at about four seconds later confirmed it. So I grabbed whatever I could from the safe and took a dive out the window. I stashed the bag of whatever I took before I could even look at it, and I’ve been on the run ever since.

I take a breath and open the door to the van. I step out, gun in hand. My eyes scan the empty garage under the old factory. But it’s all clear. I’ve been using this spot for years when the heat got too hot. It’s an old boot factory way out in Queens. Not cool hipster Queens, either. Gritty, dangerous Queens.

Street gangs come around sometimes, but I’ve created a dead zone that separates my hideout on the top floor from the rest of the old building. I knocked out all the stairwells for two stories. Except for the secret one behind a pile of what looks like garbage in an old maintenance closet.

But the important thing now is that it appears no one’s here. I walk around to the sliding door and crank it open. Instantly, two pretty, pedicured and sandaled feet lash out. I barely dodge catching them in the teeth. But I actually grin. She’s a fighter, and I like that.

I take a step away from the thrashing legs and eye her lying there on the floor of the van. She’s bound and gagged but fuck me is she gorgeous. Her long auburn hair is splayed wildly, and her blue eyes glare at me fiercely. She’s screaming something through the gag, and I can tell it’s a stream of swears.

I don’t want to hurt her. It might sound strange, considering I’ve taken her as vengeance on Dino. But I really don’t want to hurt a hair on her pretty head. And I hate the idea of keeping her tied up. Well, unless under slightly different circumstances, I think to myself sinfully. My cock thickens at the thought of her being tied up for me in a different sort of scenario. I grin hungrily. Tessa’s eyes harden with fear and anger, as if she’s reading my thoughts. I move towards her, and she starts to kick again.

“Stop!” I roar. She keeps kicking, so I yank my gun out again. I don’t want to threaten her like this, but she needs to stop it. She goes quiet and still.

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