Page 31

Now I'm sitting in the chair he pushed close to the window yesterday, without comment, and I'm letting myself enjoy it. I guess this is what I get for good behavior. The thought makes me want to break something.

I breathe in the air. It smells like salt and something frying somewhere below, and it almost makes me homesick. It's the first thing that has felt real in weeks.

I hate him. It's not the blunt kind of hate of someone who’s afraid, or the violent kind of hate I had for every single one of the men who had me in a cell, especially Shamrock. This is the kind that comes from being outmaneuvered by someone playing your own game.

He got the wallet back. He got everything he wanted. He doesn't want me to forget that he's been three steps ahead of me since we walked in here.

What does he want with me? What is his next move? He untied me, only to torture me a little, but he hasn't retied me or mentioned doing it again.

Not a word, not a look, but there's just something about him that doesn't match the profile of a man who bought a woman at an auction.

I keep turning it over.

He made me come, and I told him the truth. I can’t decide which one is worse. There was no seduction in it. Just a man who understood that my body would sell me out before I would, and who waited.

Asshole. I hate him.

I quickly turn my head to the side when I hear the shower running. I'm slipping. I didn't even notice him go into the bathroom.

I look at his desk and blink in surprise. His phone is sitting there. I'm on my feet before I even decide to be. Thinking is what gets you caught mid-plan. Acting is what gets you information. My father taught me that, which is the only thing about him I've ever found useful.

I cross to the desk, pick it up, and tilt the screen. Part of me wonders—is this a trap? Will that bathroom door open, and he’ll find me with his phone in my hand? He spanked my ass for touching his wallet. What would he do if he knew I touched his phone?

Obviously, it's locked. I knew it would be. He's not dumb.

I try a random six-digit code out of desperation. I try the year he was born.

“Come on.”

Of course it doesn't work because I probably have a one-in-a-million chance. I hear the shower stop. I set the phone down exactly where it was, then I’m back at the window, sitting in my chair, albeit with my back a little straighter than before.

He comes out with a towel around his waist, hair dark and wet, and I make a point of looking at anything but him. His eyes automatically go straight to the desk, a man taking inventory of a room he left. His gaze comes to me next. I'm sitting in the chair, my hands in my lap, staring at the water.

He can't know I touched his phone.

“Hey.” I feel him look at me for a long moment, then he crosses to the desk, picks up the phone, stares at it, turns it once in his hand, and sets it back down.

Casually, he picks up jeans from the back of the chair and steps into them. I try not to look. It's hard not to. His body almost reads like a map: tattoos that run from his throat across his chest and arms, and the scar on his jaw. He moves like someone who is always on guard. Marks on him that have nothing to do with ink. I know what those marks look like because I have watched men inflict them.

He tugs on a white tee and looks at me. I watch as he crosses to the window.

My heart beats fast as he draws near. He knows. I don't know how, but he knows.

He shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “Bold as brass, isn't she?” he says, as if I'm not right there.

He doesn't even look angry. He just reaches for the window and closes it, then takes the edge of the curtain in his hand and draws it across. The light immediately vanishes. When the smell of salt and the sound of the city disappear behind several feet of blackout fabric, I know.

Something in my chest pulls tight, and I’m so fucking mad. The salt air and the sound of water were the only things in this room that were mine, and now they aren’t.

I'm on my feet. “Are you serious right now? You can't just do that.”

He tips his head to the side. “Can't?”

“That was the only freedom I had.”

“Should've kept your hands to yourself, lass. That's on you.”

“Torin—”