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“I’ll throw on some pants.”

“I think I prefer you in the shorts.”

She looks at me over her shoulder with that complicated sense of internal conflict. “I bet you do… Warden.”

I don’t like the nickname, but at least it’s unlikely I’ll forget exactly what’s happening here.

She returns wearing pants and a hoodie, but that does nothing to dampen my hunger for her. Meatball trails after us as we walk up the stairs and out the trapdoor. When I unlock the door, I notice her watching me carefully, cogs turning in her head.

“My closest neighbor is fifteen miles away,” I tell her as we leave the garage and walk toward the nearest terraced garden. I instantly wish I could take the words back. They make me sound like an evil man. But hell, maybe that’s what I need to be to stop her from running.

“Why would you say that?” she asks innocently, looping her arm through mine.

Her closeness, her warmth, her feigned innocence combine to provoke a laugh from me. After a day spent trapped in my office, being with her is a relief.

“Because you’re thinking about escape. I can’t blame you. But The Vultures have…” I trail off, a thought occurring to me as we walk beneath the terrace. “Do you have any idea where Mason and his men would go if they didn’t want to be found?”

“No,” she says. “They kept me in the dark about the club stuff. They only told me what they had to – and that was very little.”

Her voice goes quiet, scared, when she talks about them. Leaving the terrace, I stop at my small pond, sitting on the bench next to it. She sits beside me. We’re holding hands as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Which it isn’t. It’s a trick, all of it. I must remember that. “You sound frightened of them,” I say.

She squeezes my hand, hesitates, then blurts out, “What was your nightmare about? Did something happen in the SEALs?”

“Way to change the subject.”

She looks up at me with her penetrating eyes. “Well?”

I shake my head.

“What does this mean?” She mimics me, shaking my head, making a scrunched-up face that has her looking like Meatball.

“Is that supposed to be me?” I chuckle.

“Who else is it going to be, smart guy?”

“I don’t talk about that.”

“Then I don’t talk about my time with The Vultures.”

“We can just sit here. I like your company, Evie. I know you’re looking for an escape route. Thinking about how to get as far away from me as you possibly can. But maybe I’ll just pretend we’re a normal man and woman on a date.”

“If this was a date, now would be a good time to kiss me.”

I lean down and press my lips against hers. Her moaning noise sounds like pleasure, sounds genuine, and when I greedily grasp onto her hip, a vibration moves through her delectable body. She bites onto my lip, staring into my eyes.

“What if things aren’t as simple as they seem?” She whispers. “Maybe I’m confused too. But I don’t want to be manipulated.”

“I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

“The second we got intimate, the manipulation began.”

“Was that me, Evie, or was that you?”

“I don’t think it’s possible for the kidnappeeto get Stockholm Syndrome,” she replies.

“Is that what you’re getting?”