Page 25

Good.
“You planning to dive out?” he asked, voice cool and dry.
“Nope,” I said, twisting toward him in the passenger seat. “I just like to be comfortable when I’m abducted.”
He didn’t crack a smile.
Didn’t speak.
Which only made it more fun.
The silence between us wasn’t awkward. It was electric. Thick and sharp, like the air right before a thunderstorm. The kind that makes your skin itch and your heart misbehave.
I slipped off my hoodie, slowly—deliberately—revealing the damp black tank top beneath, stretched tight across my ribsfrom the wind and adrenaline. His eyes didn’t move, but I knew he saw. He didn’t miss anything.
“You’re really not going to ask where I want to go?” I said, reaching over to tug the elastic from my bun. My curls fell in a wild red mess around my shoulders, tangled from the wind. “Maybe I wanted to be arrested.”
His hands clenched the wheel tighter.
“You’re not going to jail,” he said flatly.
“Oh, is that a Dane family perk? Get-out-of-handcuffs-free cards for everyone?”
“You’re not going to jail,” he repeated, slower this time. “Because you’re not leaving my sight.”
My pulse thudded. Not fear—no, this wasn’t fear. It was heat. Hunger. The dark kind of thrill that curled in your stomach and whispered,More.
“You sound almost jealous,” I said, leaning my head against the window, watching his profile under the amber glow of the streetlights. “Would it bother you? Me locked up? Cuffed to something that isn’t your bedpost?”
His hands jerked the slightest bit on the wheel. Victory.
“I don’t share,” he said quietly.
“You barely even touch,” I countered.
His eyes cut to me, sharp and dangerous. “Don’t test me.”
I smirked, tilting toward him until my lips were just inches from his neck. “What if I want to?”
He didn’t answer. Just drove faster.
We took a turn, tires gripping hard, the SUV eating up the road. I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t care. Because wherever this ended, I wanted it. All of it.
Still, I wasn’t done poking the bear.
“You going to punish me, Cipher?” I whispered, letting the word crawl across his skin. “For making you climb a bridgein the dark? For making you want me so badly it makes you furious?”
He growled low in his throat. Not a word. A sound.
Good.
I reached out and laid my hand on his thigh—light, barely there, but enough to feel the steel coiled beneath the denim.
“You came for me,” I said, softer now. “You didn’t have to.”
His hand left the wheel for one second—just one—and wrapped around my wrist, pinning it in place against his leg.
“You think this is a game,” he said, eyes still on the road. “But it’s not.”