Page 27 of Pursued-

I can feel Zoe’s happiness, and it makes me happy too. I stretch out on the couch gratefully, languishing in the moment because I never get to have this. I never get to feel safe and content. I lick my lips, the fuzziness in my head effervescent and endless.

Through the haze, I hear men talking in the hall. After a few moments, Sasha enters and sits on the ottoman across fromme, putting his big hand on the side of my face. “You ready?”

I rub my cheek against his palm, liking its rough calluses. He’s a monster, but sometimes I feel like he’s my monster. “Ready for what?”

“To come to bed with me.”

I smile and blow out a breath through buzzed lips. “Should I do that?” I whisper, raising my hand to touch his lips. “You kidnapped me twice. It’s a lot.”

He moves his face so my fingertips catch on his chin instead of his mouth.

“Why’d you leave the cabin?”

“I had to. I thought I had to,” I mumble, my lids suddenly so heavy.

“And look what happened. You caused a standoff.”

“No, you did. All of you did.”

He strokes my hair. “You’re a bad girl.”

“I have to be.” I lick my lips again, the room spinning. I close my eyes. “I need to. Bad men all around.”

I fell asleep in a mansion.I wake in a concrete-walled studioapartment.

The king-sized bed is luxurious, but the rest is Spartan to say the least. Next to me, Sasha is awake and reading from an iPad. He sets it aside when I sit up. I slip from the bed and go to the bathroom. I’m wearing one of his shirts again and nothing else. My face is bare of makeup. When I finish and wash my hands and face, I try to remember the night before. It’s blurry from the G&Ts.

I step out of the bathroom and the bare floor’s cold. He needs a rug. And a decorator. And a house.

He leans against the headboard, big, muscular, mouthwateringly strong.

“Did we do anything last night?”

He shakes his head.

I pull the bench seat out from the lip of the granite counter that I guess acts as a breakfast bar. There is no kitchen table.

“Come back to the bed,” he says. “We’re gonna talk about yesterday.”

My gaze drops to his hands. The time in the cabin was surreal, but I haven’t forgotten that when I didn’t do what he wanted, he spanked me. My core hums at the memory, even as my mind rebels.

“I can talk from here.”

He gets out of bed, and I see he’s wearing black boxer-briefs. I guess it’s a relief, but there’s a part of me that wants to see him naked again.

ANVIL

Maybe she’safraid of getting near me where a mattress is involved. That doesn’t sit well, but I’ll deal with it later.

“I’m sorry things got dangerous for you yesterday,” she says. “Frank doesn’t like to lose, and he thinks I belong to him. You don’t need to confront him over me. It’s a bad idea.”

I enjoy that she’s like this. No one worries about me. For good reason. I’m a destroyer, with the scars to prove it. And yet, here she goes again, trying to pull me out of harm’s way.

“Fuck Frank,” I say coolly. “He’s the one who made the mistake, not me.”

“Winding him up is dangerous.”

“Not for you it isn’t. Anyone who tries to get rough with you will pay the price.”