Page 10 of The Vigilante's Lover

I do what he says and stand completely still. The night is chilly, though, and I’m not wearing much. I try to suppress my shivers.

Little ripping sounds signal the cotton getting sliced through. Fresh air hits more skin.

He’s cutting my gown away.

We’re in the middle of nowhere. He’s gone off the highway. There’s nothing for miles except empty fields, the occasional parked plow just a shadow in the moonlight.

He could rape me. Kill me. Do anything.

But I’m oddly calm. I think of my mother, her strong smile. Nothing got to her.

What would she do?

Laugh at him. She would show no fear.

He tugs at the strips of my nightgown, pulling them through the ropes that still crisscross my body. He works swiftly, carefully, and the cotton slides across my skin like a caress.

I look down, fascinated, as he tugs it away, revealing my body in the bluish light. White fabric litters the ground at my feet.

He examines each piece, frowning. His face is drawn tight in concentration as he squeezes every white strip. He looks at each button as he pops it from what once was the front of the gown.

The last section covering my chest pulls away with his sharp tug.

I might as well be a mannequin for all Jax notices as my breasts are revealed in the moonlight.

I stare at myself, my bare body in the red ropes.

I shiver with something more than the cold.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more alive than I do at this moment.

The tears and the fright just drop away, like the pieces of my silly frumpy nightgown.

My mother feels very close. I shove anything away that doesn’t help me. No fear. No crying.

Determination. Guile. Be like the letters. Be the girl who wrote them. I have it in me. It was the birthright I gave up when my parents died. I could have been like my mother and father, wild and dangerous. But I chose to live like my aunt.

No more.

Jax twists the last pieces of fabric in his hands. He walks quickly to the trunk of his car, opens it, and pulls some small device from a suitcase. He returns and passes a slender silver wand over the pile of fabric. Nothing happens.

He looks up at me. I’ve never been more vulnerable in my life. Naked other than the ropes and my panties, freezing in the wind. But I feel strong.

He notices me this time, like he senses something has changed. His eyes linger on my body. I don’t feel cold at all now, flush with his gaze. Heat blossoms through my body, growing painfully fiery between my legs. His eyes are shadowed, but he takes his time.

Even in the low light I can see something twitch in his jaw. I don’t know what it means, but it’s making me feel crazy. I want him to touch me, to do something. It’s the most insane sensation I can imagine.

But he didn’t hurt me or do anything before, when he could have. He seems to think I’m his enemy, and yet, he’s done nothing to harm me.

I no longer fear him.

He steps in closer and I suck in a breath. My heart is hammering so hard he can surely hear it. But he doesn’t reach out with his hand. The wand skims the surface of my skin, so close it almost touches.

I’m so sensitized that I almost cry out when he grazes my shoulder. My breathing is fast again. When he says, “Feet wide,” I almost can’t comprehend his command.

But I take a step out and the device makes its close path up my leg. I almost long for it to touch me, for him to be unable to resist. But he’s careful, and doesn’t make any contact with the panties or my thighs.

He steps back, arms crossed over the gray suit, watching me.

The cold grips me. I feel brazen enough to say, “You could have just used your wand while I was still wearing the gown.”

His laugh ripples across the empty fields. “This was much more enjoyable.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ve captured a Phase One Trainee quite as beautiful as you before.”

He thinks I’m beautiful. He’s the first person to ever say it.

The wind picks up, tossing my hair around. With my hands bound, I can’t move it off my face. I try to picture myself in the red ropes, standing in the moonlit field with this dangerous, ungodly handsome man.

Something odd is happening to me. I’m almost naked, wrapped in red rope, hands tied, completely vulnerable.

And yet I feel more powerful than I have ever felt in my entire life. I’m not Mia anymore, not the one curling up alone in her old-fashioned nightgown. I’m a woman who gets into dangerous liaisons with strange men who strip her down to bondage rope and doesn’t flinch.

“So, Mr. Jax De Luca,” I say in a voice I’m not quite sure is my own. “You’ve got me right where you want me. But you have no information, no clue about your missing Klaus, and you’ve kidnapped and stripped an innocent woman in a field. What are you going to do now?”

Jax continues to watch me. His eyes are dark and unreadable in the moonlight.

“I like you, Mia.” His eyes drift along my body. “I like you a lot.”

I feel like I’m on fire. I have nothing to lose here. If he was going to hurt me, he already would have. I take a timid step forward and lean against him. “Then get me something to wear,” I order him.

Jax laughs. “Yes, I think I’m going to enjoy you a lot.

” He turns to his trunk and drops the wand in.

He pulls off his own silk jacket and wraps it around my shoulders, buttoning the front.

The backs of his hands brush across my breasts and they perk up.

I have to fight against inhaling sharply.

I’ve never felt like this before, but I want more of it.

I want to go wherever this man goes. I want to keep feeling this way.

“I think I’ll keep you for a while,” he says. He opens the back of the car, but this time when I get in, he doesn’t tie me down.

I think this might be progress for both of us.