by Jagger Cole
3
Max
I pull the 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.
“If I take that gag off are you going to scream?” I hiss.
She shakes her pretty head back and forth eagerly. Her hair falls across her face. I sigh. Screw it. I reach out and yank the gag out of her pouty lips.
“FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKING—!”
I slip the gag back in and sigh. I glare at her sitting there cussing at me with fury in her eyes.
“You done yet?” I grunt when she finally takes a damn breath. My eyes sweep over her. Fuck, she’s stunning. And the way she’s sitting with her legs tucked under her has her sundress riding high up on her thighs. A part of me wants to reach out and shove it the rest of the way up. But I’m not that man.
Not yet, at least. But I don’t know how long being around a girl as utterly tempting as her I can stand before I do become that man.
“Get that out of your system?” I snap. She just glares at me. One corner of my mouth curls into a lopsided grin. I do like that fire in her. I reach out, and with a growl, I tug the gag out again. She doesn’t scream, thank God.
“All better now?”
“Fuck you,” she spits at me.
I just smile.
“Do you know who my—”
“Yeah,” I snarl. My frown returns. “Yeah, I know who your daddy is.”
“Well whatever your problem with him is, I’m not him, okay?”
“Well thank God,” I smirk. “Because you fill out the sundress much better than Dino.”
She glares at me. Her eyes drop over me, and she frowns when they center on the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around my ribs. “Jesus Christ,” she murmurs. There’s actual concern in her voice, too. “Are you shot?”
“I’m fine.”
She glances back up at my face. “What do you want with me? Money?”
“Yep,” I shrug. At least, that’s all I did want. The idea was to take Dino’s daughter, and ransom her back for cold cash and a free pass out of New York. The idea was to escape to a beach somewhere with a whole bunch of Dino’s money and drink Mai Thai’s until the cows came home. But then I laid eyes on Tessa, and my whole world shifted.
“He can pay you,” she says quickly. “My dad, I mean.”
“I know he can. And he will.”
“So that’s what all of this is? You want money?”
“The whole world wants money, sweetheart.”
“Yeah, well some of us work for it,” she snaps.
I laugh. “Taking daddy’s dirty money is working for it?” She glares at me. “And I did work for it.”
“Doing what, kidnapping people? Killing them? Selling drugs?”
“Stealing, mostly”
Tessa rolls her eyes. “You’re ditching on me for coming from a wealthy family, and you ‘earned’ your money by stealing it?” She frowns. “Go play the sad working everyman act for someone else. I’ve seen a hundred wannabe thugs like you working with my dad.”
“Sounds like a really great childhood,” I say dryly. “Now, let’s go.”
She gasps when I reach for her. My hand closes around her petite arm, but I don’t yank her out. I help her up and help her climb down out of the van herself. Immediately, her forehead slams into my nose. I swear and double over. I can hear the sound of her sandals slapping the concrete as she runs off screaming her head off about being kidnapped.
Goddamnit, this was not the fucking plan.
I spit blood and run after her. I catch up with her in seconds. She screams bloody murder when I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. She tries to knee me, but I bear-hug her legs to my chest with a snarl. I turn and march over to the van to grab my shit. Then we’re off to the staircase that winds up into the factory building.
I climb the first five flights, then head down a dark crumbling hall. Tessa’s still screaming her pretty head off, but I ignore it. There’s no one around out here. And if anyone does hear her, they’ll never know where it’s coming from anyways.
In the maintenance closest, I find the secret staircase and head up those until I get to the locked door to my hideout. I try to ignore the pain in my side as I fish my keys out of my pocket. My head turns slightly, and I groan instantly.
Tessa’s sundress has bunched up with her slung over my s
houlder. And now, I can see her purple, lacy panties pulled over her creamy, drum-tight ass. I want to reach out and give it a healthy smack. Or fuck, bite it. But that knee of her slams into my chest. I hiss and unlock my door before I march in.
I storm across the big loft space of the old building. Tessa sees where we’re headed, and she starts to scream again when she sees the bed.
“Please! Please, no!”
“Relax,” I growl. I have my own bed out in the main loft area. But there’s a partition-walled little room to one corner of the loft that’s got a bed and a tiny bathroom. I march in and throw her down across the bed. I reach into my back pocket and yank out the handcuffs. She gasps loudly when one clasps around her wrist. The other clangs shut around the bed post above her head.
I stand back and watch her squirming and thrashing. Again, I hate to keep her bound—unless it’s under some different circumstances. But I’m also amused by the fire in her as she fights this.
“Don’t you touch me!” she screams.
I frown. “Calm the fuck down. That’s not my style.”
“Then what is this!?”
I fold my arms over my chest. “Your fucking father set me up and tried to take me out. So I took you.”
“And now?” She looks defiant, but also scared. Defiant I like. I don’t want her scared though.
“Now,” I growl. “You’re mine.”
4
Tessa
This is wrong. This is so very, very wrong. I’ve been kidnapped, thrown into a van, driven to God knows where, and then handcuffed to a bed. And the only thought going through my head is how crazy freaking hot the man who’s done it to me is.
His dark eyes burn hotly into me. It’s like his very gaze is a lover’s touch when it slides over me. Those eyes set my core ablaze, and the fuel is knowing how disturbingly wrong that feeling is. His sharp jaw covered in with a five o’clock-shadow grinds as he stands there at the foot of bed. He looms over me, too—definitely over six feet and pure brawn and muscle. He’s in ripped jeans and blood-soaked and torn t-shirt. The doctor in me is concerned about the bloody wound I can see through the rips in his shirt. The hormones in me are staring at the grooved abs I can see through those same rips.
“And now?” I gasp. I glare at him, doing my best to look unafraid. But I am. I’m afraid of who he is, and what he plans to do to me. But I’m also afraid that I might just want him to do those things to me…
“Now…” His growly voice is deep and powerful sounding. It’s smokey and smooth with a little grit to it that makes my core tighten. “Now you’re mine.”
That shouldn’t sound so hot. It should sound menacing, and terrifying. It definitely shouldn’t make my pulse skip and my core tighten.
“What if I have to pee?”
I want to die the moment I say it. Yes, ask the hot criminal about peeing. That’s attractive. But then, what the hell should I care about what I say to this asshole? I mean hot or not, he freaking kidnapped me off the street!
He nods that Armani model chin at a door. “There’s a bathroom through…” he scowls. “Fuck,” he mutters.
“Didn’t think this through did you, kidnapper?” I sass with a smirk.
His gorgeous, brooding eyes swivel back to me. “Tone it down, sweetheart,” he grunts. “Fine.” He marches over to me with heavy strides. I actually gasp a little bit at his intensity as he leans over me. His fingers defy unlock the handcuffs, and he steps back. Those eyes sweep over me again, making me tremble.
“The windows are bolted,” he drawls. “If you break them to try calling for help, no one will hear you. And it’s seventy feet to the parking lot below. If you’re thinking along those lines, I wouldn’t. Any questions?”
I know taunting him or pushing his buttons is probably a terrible idea. But I’ve never been that great at keeping my mouth from spilling what it wants to say.
“Yes. Is there a continental breakfast served in the morning? And is the room service any better than the shitty concierge service?”
He smiles thinly. I tremble at the heat in that fierce gaze. “Anyone tell you that you’ve got a mouth on you?”.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole?” I sneer back.
His thin, cool smile widens. “Oh this is me being nice, sweetheart,” he growls. “I could always cuff you to the fucking bed again if you’re so eager to push my goddamn buttons.”
“And I could just pee myself?”
He grins. “Well if you do, you let me know and I’ll grab a webcam. Never underestimate the weirdos out there on the internet who would pay good money for that.”
My nose wrinkles. “That’s disgusting.”
“You’re the one itching to piss the fucking bed, baby.”
“Fuck you.”
“Now is that any way for a mob princess to talk?”
“Sorry, I meant go fuck yourself!” I yell back.
He smirks and turns away abruptly. Something in me finally snaps. “You don’t have to be such a dick, you know!” I yell after him. “I mean you took me off the fucking street, gagged me, threw me in a freaking serial killer van, and drove me to your little creepy hideout! I think I’m allowed to talk however the fuck I want!”
He turns back to me. I hate that I tremble at the way his gaze sweeps over me. “Talk however you want.” He shrugs.
“And I’m not a fucking ‘mob princess,’” I mutter.
He chuckles. “Whatever you say.”
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me aside from who my dad is!”
“If I’m curious about who your favorite contestant on the Bachelor is, I’ll be sure to ask,” he says dryly.
He turns again, and I snap. Hard. I’ve spent my whole life with my father talking down to me, and dismissing me, and treating me like a delicate little flower. And I’m over it. My kidnapper walks towards the door, and I jump into action.
There’s a small wooden stool next to the bed. I grab it, swing it over my head, and bring it down with a smash over his back. He roars in pain and stumbles to his knees. For a second, I’m shocked that I actually just did that. For a second, I think about bolting past him and making a run for it.
But suddenly, he’s up. He turns on me with fury in his eyes. Oh shit. I tremble as he rushes into me. His big hands grab me tightly, and I gasp. He pushes me backwards until my back hits the wall behind me, and I gasp breathlessly.
He growls darkly, pinning me to the wall with his muscled, big body. My heart races with a mix of fear and something else. But I know that something else is “excitement,” and I blush. I know it’s wrong that I’m tingling all over at his touch. I know the way he’s just slammed me into the wall should not make my core tighten with heat.
I know I should be screaming in terror, not staring at his lips.
“Let’s get something crystal fucking clear,” he snarls lowly. He’s so close to me. My heart races at the nearness of him. And I can feel the heat of his body against my skin through the sundress.
“You’re mine now,” he growls. “You’re here, and you’re fucking mine. And while you’re here and mine, you will fucking behave yourself. Is that understood!?” he hisses.
I’ve had men talk down to me my whole life. But this doesn’t feel like that. It’s almost as if he’s talking to me possessively. Not like he’s above me, but like I’m really and truly his. It’s nothing I’ve ever felt before, and it makes my pulse beat faster. But I’m not shutting up that easily.
“And if I don’t?” I sneer quietly in response.
He stares at me. For a second, he looks surprised that I haven’t clammed up yet.
“Do you know what they say about bad girls who go looking for trouble?”
The words “bad girl” from his lips are like a trigger for me. It’s like a magic spell that makes my skin tingle and my core melt. I look up into his gorgeous eyes with defiance. But I’m barely hanging on. I shouldn’t feel this way about this man. But it’s like I’m slowly dro
wning in his eyes.
“Why don’t you fill me in?” I sass.
He smiles thinly. I gasp when he leans so damn close to me and opens those perfect lips. “They always, always fucking find it.”
“And let me guess, you’re ‘trouble?’”
He groans. “I might be.” He presses against me, and his grip on my arms tightens. My body tightens, and I realize I’m holding my breath. “But I know damn well that you are.”
In a quarter second, his lips are suddenly pressing hotly to mine. He kisses me savagely and deeply. It’s rough and demanding, but it’s the single hottest moment of my life. I let go, and my lips part for him. He growls and kisses me deeper, taking what he wants. And I’m willingly giving it to him.
It feels like there’s fire in my veins and a drum inside my chest when he pulls away. His eyes captivate mine, and his jaw clenches tight.
“Max,” he growls under his breath. “My name is Max.”
Without another word, he turns and strides out the door. It slams behind him, and I hear a key in the lock before there’s silence. Well, at least it would be silent if not for the deafening sound of my pulse racing in my ears.
5
Max
Shit. That should not have happened. I had a plan with all of this. It was a cobbled together one, but it was still plan: take Tessa, make Dino pay. And if he wanted to throw in a beach house somewhere that doesn’t extradite, even better.
The plan did not involve kissing Tessa. The fantasy did, but not the fucking plan. I mean I know why I did it, because I couldn’t stand another second of not kissing her. Because she provokes me, and winds me up. Because she entices me and temps me like nothing else in my life ever has. I know why I kissed her. But I also know that I shouldn’t have.
I replay it again in my head, and I groan. My pulse beats faster. My cock thickens in my jeans. I growl and reach down to cup my large, throbbing size. I give my swollen cock a squeeze through the denim and groan again.
