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And now that she was here, I didn’t want her to run anymore.

My instincts had always been better at catching people than letting them go.

I didn’t know what I wanted from her, exactly. I didn’t know what the hell she even was to me. But the minute she’d stepped out of that car, blinking through the rain, dazed and confused and absolutely done with the world…I knew I wasn’t finished with her yet.

I knew it, and it settled in like something that had always been there.

I could still see her in that room. Jeans half down, the curve of her ass caught in my sight a moment before she realized she wasn’t alone. Dark blonde hair plastered to her cheeks, mouth parted as if she’d forgotten how to breathe. Her tits strained against a soaked sports bra, nipples peaked from the cold—or maybe from noticing me. Her skin was pale, trembling, her chest heaving like she couldn’t decide whether to cover herself or keep stripping.

She had a body built for sin, and it seemed like it was housing a soul that was one bad day from breaking.

It had awakened something inside me. Something dark and restless, something ravenous.

Whatever it was, it was enough to distract me from the other ache inside me…the one that was easier to define but harder to control. And it didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want her to leave.

Not yet.

I leaned down under the car’s steering column, popped the panel loose, and pulled out the relay box. My hands moved with practiced ease, muscle memory guiding each motion.

I’d done this before…more than once. Not just back when I was reckless and young, but later, too, on those occasions when I needed to make sure certain people didn’t slip away. People who believed they could run. People who learned otherwise.

This was different, though.

This wasn’t about manipulation or control.

This was simply about time and how I needed more of it.

I plucked the fuel pump relay first. It was a subtle thing that was easy to miss. It didn’t come with warning lights or error codes. Just a car that would sputter and die once the tank dipped low.

I could have stopped right there. But I didn’t like to leave things to chance, and I never did anything less than fully.

So I pulled the ECM main fuse, too. Because if Mack figured out the fuel pump relay too soon…well. It would take him a while to figure this out, and she wouldn’t be going anywhere without it.

I slipped both pieces into my back pocket and reassembled the panel like nothing had happened. When I shut the door softly behind me, the car looked exactly the same.

Busted, sure. But fine.

I studied the car and tried to dress the whole thing up as strategy or necessity. The lie was weak even in my own head.

Yes, I needed time, and I’d seen something in her that I understood, but I had no idea why I was really doing this. Why I couldn’t just let her be on her way. None.

My mother had spent years trying to convince me that wanting things too badly could ruin a man. But the same lack of control she’d hated was the same thing pulling me toward Sienna…and the same thing behind my other urges.

And those were even more unacceptable to society.

I gave the car a final look, then left the shop, accepting the truth.

Whatever this was, this pull toward her, this need to keep her…I wasn’t controlling it.

It was controlling me.

Which meant Sienna Blake wasn’t leaving Blackwood anytime soon.

CHAPTER 6

SIENNA

Hattie didn’t so much offer a tour of Blackwood as decree it.