“Tonight? Just five.”
Oh. God.
Then his damaged hand slides up, and one finger flicks across my clit. Shock spirals through me along with electricity. A dark need. Heat bursts into the apples of my cheeks, and I duck my head, hating my body as much as him.
His chuckle moves his muscled abs against my flank.
I clench my bare thighs together and barely bite back a moan. “I would like to get off your lap now,” I say primly. How is this possibly intriguing? What’s wrong with me?
Thorn studies me. “Pity.” Then he releases his hold, lifts me, and settles me safely back in my seat.
Shock catches me for a minute. Is he trying to keep me off-balance? My eyelids become heavy. Shockingly so. Coldness sweeps along me and I miss his heat as I yank my flimsy skirt down as far as possible, which isn’t very damn far. There’s only one reason he’s kidnapped me. He doesn’t need money, and he’s already at war. “My family will come after you with everything we have.”
His eyes actually burn through the darkness. “Let them come, as I love a good fight.” He lowers his chin. “Besides. Your family has absolutely no idea where you are. Nobody does.”
SEVEN
Thorn
Astonishingly, she falls asleep on the drive out to the coast, leaving the softest hint of honey on my tongue. Reaching into the front seat next to Justice, I secure a worn sweatshirt and cover her with it.
She cuddles into the material, her fingers wrapped around the collar, and shifts closer to me. What the hell? Murmuring something, she nudges my shoulder with her head. Frowning, I lift my arm and let her head fall onto my thigh, where she snuggles in with a soft sigh, turning on her side and curling her legs up on the seat. Her smooth, bare, soft-looking legs. Jesus. She might actually kill me and not know it.
Just how much alcohol did she drink? She shouldn’t be asleep.
My gaze rises to meet Justice’s in the mirror, and he quickly banishes the amusement he let lurk in his brown eyes for a moment.
I look back down as streetlights and then shadows take turns dancing on her smooth profile. Her mountainous hair flows across my thigh and her back, and even a saint couldn’t refrain from sliding his fingers through those curly tresses.
I’m no fuckin’ saint.
At the first touch, I learn that silk isn’t the softest material in the world. Her hair . . . is. The playful strands wrap around my hand. This close, with the lights coming and going to torture me, I can see different colors in the thick mass. It’s a deep sable with red, blonde, and even a darker tone in it. I bite back a groan, and my zipper cuts into the flesh of my cock.
Why does she feel safe with me?
Oh, there’s no doubt she’s sheltered and possibly innocent. Funny and truly stunning, and she obviously knows how to influence the masses. While she might not be a rocket scientist, she surely has to be smarter than this. Yet I look closer and see dark circles beneath her eyes, the ones that makeup camouflages.
When was the last time she slept? Has her impending wedding to Cal Sokolov kept her up? Her brows draw down as if she’s reading my mind, and it takes every ounce of my self-control to refrain from rubbing the small wrinkle away. My hand in her hair is the only allowance I’ll take with her asleep. She’s safe for now.
She is a foreign creature to me. The women in my life are tough and live their own lives, expecting nothing from me but a rough night of sex that leaves us both panting. Satisfied physically. Not once have I felt this overwhelming sense of ownership. Yet knowing myself as I do, I easily recognize the edge beneath that feeling. It’s darker and deadlier than anything she will ever want. She’s too pure for me, but that won’t last long. She’s meant to be mine, and someday she’ll crave the darkness.
No question.
“Are you sure about this?” Justice asks quietly.
I look up and give him my death stare—the one that makes anybody in my organization piss their pants and then offer to stab themselves in the heart.
He looks back at the road, but not before I see the genuine concern in his eyes. Maybe it’s for me. Or perhaps for her. He does know me, after all. “She’s too good for an asswipe like Cal,” I retort. A moot point considering she’s mine.
“Agreed.” He snorts. “She did surprise me when she tried to jump from the car.”
My lips twitch and it takes me a second to recognize the feeling of a smile. “Her elbow made a decent impact on my throat.” I like that she thought through her options and decided to escape the vehicle without screaming, crying, or threatening. She calmly and quietly tried to destroy my larynx and run.
“I expected more of a hysterical shriek or two.” His gaze now turns appraising.
Not me. I’ve watched her for over a year, in person and on social media. The woman is calm and collected under pressure. “She was startled by the night’s events and apparently exhausted.” In sleep, she looks even more fragile, and warning passes through me. I’m not a bull in a china shop. No. Instead, I’m the silent whisper of death right before the pain starts. I can admit to myself that if anybody deserves the sickness imposed upon me, the curse as Justice calls it, it is me. Poetic justice. “I have no doubt she’ll come at me again tomorrow.” Truth be told, my neck is a little sore. I grin and then quickly frown.
What is wrong with me? Thank God Justice didn’t just see that. What nonsense. I take my phone and speed-dial Wynd to make sure he hasn’t killed everyone.
“Wynd.”
“Status.” I keep my voice low so as not to awaken Alana, and yank a harsh mint out of my pocket to eat and burn my taste buds temporarily. Wynd’s words taste like pine needles, which isn’t necessarily bad but is sometimes annoying.
“I left several breathing.” My enforcer sounds calm but slightly defensive. If he wants to succeed in our world, he needs to mask his emotions better.
I nod to Justice, whose jaw tightens. He’ll take care of the matter. “Good. What did we get?” Hopefully a shit ton of pyrope garnets. I need them. Now. My phones are the most secure in the world, so he may speak safely.
“I checked with all three teams, and we secured a boatload of regular quartz data crystals and four odd pyramid-shaped crystals.”
Damn it. No garnets. “Tell me about the odd ones.”
“They’re green if I look at them one way and kind of red in a different light.”
Fuck. “Those sound like alexandrite crystals.” I had expected the data crystals because Alana’s daddy and thus Aquarius Social need a stronger storage device, and we’ve discovered that a blend of quartz crystals captures more data than any other element, but they burn out faster. So having more on hand is necessary for anybody with servers like the four competing social media companies.
The possible alexandrite crystals, so rare, are a surprise. I despise surprises. “Can you determine where the alexandrite came from?”
“No. At least, not yet.”
