Page 31 of Corrupted Seduction

She shivered as fear flickered in her eyes. “No, I don’t. But a man like you does what he pleases, does he not? I hardly see how my ‘combative tongue’ will sway the outcome one way or another.”

“Clearly, you haven’t spent much time in the company of many big, bad, scary men,” I mused asEl víboraand his men jumped to mind, and what they would have done to her if she’d talked back to them the way she’d been spewing snide comments at me. I may have teetered precariously on the line between kink and twisted fuck; they’d blown that line into oblivion.

I was waiting for a snarky retort, so it surprised me when she didn’t have one. I took advantage of the momentary silence, and led her down the mile-long tunnel to another set of stairs at the opposite end.

Up the stairs led us into a well-concealed one-car garage where a gunmetal gray Mercedes-Maybach was waiting there for us.

“Get in,per favore,” I said when I opened the car’s front passenger door and she stood unmoving in front of it. “Unless you prefer I put you in the trunk?”

I was rewarded with another glare, but she relented, sliding into the bucket seat and slamming the door closed behind her. And then she proceeded to glare out the window in silence.

It was music to my ears.

***

“Where are we?” Heidi asked, speaking up for the first time as I slowed the car, approaching the gated driveway that led home.

“We’ve had a similar conversation before, have we not?” I said as I turned into the drive and the tall iron gate opened up.

She huffed. “I can read road signs; our general location is hardly a mystery.”

Ah, how I missed this.

I didn’t respond as I shifted the car into park at the top of the driveway. Maybe I should have. I certainly should have seen it coming when she threw open the passenger door and bolted.

Fuck.

She was making a beeline straight back down the driveway, her bare feet slapping against the pavement. Even barefoot, she was fucking fast.

“Heidi, stop!” I yelled, chasing after her, but she couldn’t hear me.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She only made it another ten yards before Carlo, one of our men, stepped out into her path, gun in hand. Even without the gun, he would have intimidated the hell out of most people with his linebacker build and thick, dark beard.

She stuttered to a stop, too arrogant to put her hands up, too stubborn to surrender.

I couldn’t see her face, only the slight jerky movements of her head as she glanced left and right, cataloguing her options.

She couldn’t hear me approaching, and it gave me some sort of sick satisfaction when I wrapped my arms around her from behind and she jolted, a quiet squeak escaping her lips.

Without taking her eyes off Carlo, she tried to yank herself out of my grip. Her skin felt colder than it should have, and through my grasp on her, I could feel her body trembling.

“I’ve got her, Carlo.Grazie.”

“Si, Signor Luciano,” he said as he holstered his weapon, staring at Heidi a heartbeat too long before returning to his post.

“Get your hands off me,” she seethed as Carlo walked away.

I almost laughed. If only she knew what I was thinking with her writhing body pressed up against me… my hands probably wouldn’t have been the biggest worry on her list.

Chapter Ten

Heidi

He loosened his grip, and I didn’t waste a second. I yanked and broke free.

I thought about running. I wanted to run. But there was no point.

“No matter how many times you try to run, I’ll catch you,” he said. There should have been a creepy look in his eyes, but there wasn’t. It was all very matter-of-fact. “Even that stubborn brain of yours has to be piecing that together by now.”

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