I watch his emotions blow across his eyes like storm clouds rolling in. Anger flashes like lightning across clouds of determination.
Instinctively sensing the impending danger, I try to squirm my way out of his grip.
“Fine,” he grits out between his teeth, his hold on me tightening. “I’ll do it for the both of us.”
Before I can ask what the fuck he means by that, he’s picking me up off my feet and throwing me over his shoulder.
“What the hell, Gabriel?” I huff out as my stomach meets his shoulder.
“Stay still, I don’t want to drop you,” he growls and gives my butt a hard smack.
I stiffen in surprise, the pain radiating through my cheeks.
Did he really just spank me?
The unmistakable soft beeps of a code being punched in hits my ears and a second later I feel a breeze of warm air as the door to the house swings open.
He moves forward and my self-preservation kicks in.
“Put me down, asshole,” I snarl and kick at him.
Grunting, he ignores my attempts to hurt him.
Hands finding purchase on his back, I try to push up, to slide out of his hold, but he suddenly lifts me up as if he’s adjusting my weight. Tossing me into the air like I’m a sack of potatoes.
My stomach leaves his shoulder before I come back down in an even worse position.
I’m so far down his back now, I’m afraid I’m going to fall on my damn head.
“Put me down!” I screech, both furious and terrified.
“No,” he says, his arm tightening across the back of my legs.
As he stomps through the house, I have to grab at his damn pants to keep from bouncing all over the place.
Tears of anger well up in my eyes.
Just when I thought he couldn’t push me further past my breaking point, he has to go and do something like this.
My feet kick uselessly at him as I helplessly watch the floor scroll by. It’s probably stupid of me to keep fighting him, given my precarious position, but I just can’t help it.
“I hate you,” I mutter when he comes to a stop.
“No, you don’t,” he sighs and pushes a door open.
The hardwood floor transitions into carpet.
“I do!” I insist.
The door slams shut behind us. He takes two steps forward, and before I can prepare myself, he’s tossing me onto a bed.
I let out a shrill screech as I land on the mattress on my back.
I bounce once, twice, before my body can get its bearings. Scrambling into action, I try to sit up only to have him push me back down by the shoulders.
“You don’t hate me, Meghan,” he says, looming over me.
He keeps me pinned downed until I stop struggling. Until I accept that fighting his strength is futile.
Then he brushes some of the hair out of my eyes. “You just wish you did.”
The truth of those words cut right through me in a way that leaves me shaking. I do wish I could hate him. I wish I could despise him for the situation he’s put me in with all my heart.
Lord knows I’ve tried, but for some reason I can’t.
He’s just like every other monster in my life… and yet he’s not.
And I can’t fucking figure out what makes him different.
Taking in his face—his piercing eyes, his strong jaw, that bit of blonde scruff—I decide it’s not his looks. He’s fucking edible, yes. I’d love to sink my teeth into every inch of his body and bite down, but Alexei is arguably almost just as handsome.
His fingers tighten around my shoulders and his gaze continues to bore down on me.
It’s certainly not his personality. He’s just as overbearing and bossy as every other man I’ve ever dealt with.
He’s no saint, that’s for sure. Willing to kill… and even taking pleasure in it.
I want to say it’s because he’s tried to help me in his own, selfish way, but I’m not even sure it’s that.
No, it’s something else… It’s this damn spark between us. This intangible thing I can’t control, manipulate, destroy, or wish away, no matter how hard I try.
Even now it throbs inside me, pulsing through my limbs.
“Okay, I don’t hate you,” I grit out. “But I certainly don’t like you. So please, get the fuck off me.”
He seems to relax once I admit I don’t hate him. The look in his eyes even softens to something close to tenderness.
But he doesn’t move. He remains poised above me.
And the longer he looks at me, the more aware I become of the position I’m in. I’m pinned beneath him, completely at his mercy. We both know that he can do anything he wants to me.
We both know I can’t stop him.
For some strange, awful reason, my body finds this terribly exciting. My breath begins to quicken and a tingling sensation creeps over my skin.