Page 5 of Stolen

“What was that?” he challenged me, leaning forward.

“Yes, sir,” I corrected, trying not to smirk.

“That’s better.” He nodded and then knocked. After hearing some form of acknowledgment, he opened the door and pulled me in.

2

Him

Eyes darting in all places, I gathered we were in an overly fancy office for what I assumed was either an abandoned prison or warehouse. Dark wood paneling lined the walls, accented by bookshelves that dominated the corners from floor to ceiling. Elegant black leather chairs were placed in front of a large open fireplace and a bar, garnished with half-full crystal decanters. Toward the back of the room, nearly front and center, was a large dark wood desk with two leather chairs across from it. Someone was sitting behind the desk, but I couldn’t see who it was just yet.

The lead guard stopped in the middle of the room and released me with a look of warning in his eye. Begrudgingly, I lowered my naked ass to the floor, sat back on my ankles, and kept my eyes on the ground. But the position didn’t stop me from utilizing all my other senses and relying on my peripheral vision to catalog everything else I could see. Fucko hadn’t said anything about that.

“What have you brought me today, Jared?” said a deep voice from behind the desk. It was smooth and rich, like dark chocolate, but there was an edge to it, something that left me unexpectedly anxious.

At least the lead guard now had a name, though it gave no light to the memory still hiding in the shadows.

“New meat,” Jared said, waving his hand at me. “The one you wanted to see yourself.”

There was a pause, long enough to reveal the sound of a pen scribbling on paper.

“The one who caused all that trouble the other night?” Damn, his voice was like low rolling thunder—deep, smooth, and sending little trembles up my spine. It demanded way too much of my attention.

But judging from the actual words he’d spoken, I apparently put up one hell of a fight last night, so much so that it caught his attention. I couldn’t yet tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Probably the latter.

“Yes, sir. I have a feeling you’ll like this one,” Jared said enthusiastically as he turned to stare down at me.

What the fuck was that supposed to mean?

The voice scoffed with obvious humor. “Doubtful. Then again, it’s not every day that my men come back from scouting with busted ribs and broken noses from a little girl.”

Little girl? Excuse me, bitch?

The man behind the desk got up from his chair, and I swore I heard the guards suck in their breaths. I could feel his presence moving throughout the space in the room until he stood in front of me.

From the ground up, he felt larger than life as a thick intensity radiated from him in massive waves that permeated the room, like his own gravitational pull. It was strange. But something even more odd was at play, something I couldn’t quite explain. Like something dark was following him, like a shadow of death that demanded fear in his presence, and for some reason, I was already starting to feel it.

“She doesn’t look like much,” the voice continued, unimpressed.

I scowled and shot my eyes up to the fucker, uncaring of the potential consequences, and held his gaze. But when I did, what stared back at me was not what I expected to see.

Eyes as blue as the deep, dark ocean, menacing and domineering, washed over my body, drowning me in a tsunami of toxic ice. His stare burned into me yet left me cold and stiff, frozen in place along with every second that passed. I felt my soul shrink up inside me in an attempt to hide from the intensity of his penetrating stare. It made my heart race, and my stomach clenched into tiny knots that threatened to rip me apart. Not only was this man practically eating me alive, but he was also drop-dead fucking gorgeous.

He seemed young yet aspired to have the look of a man in his very early thirties. He had dark brown hair with natural highlights from the sun gelled back to perfection and a hard, chiseled jaw with the beginnings of a five o’clock shadow. With a straight nose and perfectly proportion lips, he could easily grace the cover ofGQor any other magazine for that matter.

His mouth curved into a slight smirk as he looked down at me, making more knots form in my stomach. The smell of his cologne flowed through my nostrils, the clean musky scent filling my lungs and fogging my mind. But where his face was captivating, it was his body that truly impressed and honestly intimidated me.

Broad shoulders filled out his obviously custom-tailored black suit while a wide, powerful chest presented beneath a white dress shirt and blood-red tie. His massive biceps bulged under the sleeves of his black jacket, and large hands rested just outside his pockets.

Everything about his appearance screamed dominance and power as if he knew he was in complete control of everything and everyone around him. He was truly the epitome of male perfection.

Fuckhim.

By some divine power, I maintained the scowl on my face during my scrutiny, continuing to glare up into his looming dark eyes and craning my neck to do so. He continued to smirk down at me and folded his arms across his chest.

Something struck me funny about him as our eyes continued their little competition. Though he was handsome and fit, my internal radar screamed danger, sensing an air of evil around him…and it shook me to the core. I could tell this man was dangerous, could feel it in my bones, yet I refused to back down. First impressions were very important after all, and I would hate to provide the reaction he had clearly grown to expect.

“Well, aren’t you a little ray of fucking sunshine,” he said humorously.

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