Captured Boxed Set: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys Who Will Capture Your Heart (85 page)

It was odd to sit and do nothing. I
had nowhere to rush off to. No emails to reply to. No to-do list to attack. I
was in limbo, just waiting for the man I loathed to appear.

My stomach was a ball of knots
wanting him to get it over with, whilst my jangled heart wanted him to stay
away forever. I’d never felt so jumbled inside—including my stomach.

It’d stopped growling for food
around dawn, but the empty ache only grew worse.

Jethro swung open the top partition
of the barn door, leaving the bottom closed. Resting his arms on the top, he
nodded. "Ms. Weaver."

The sun took the liberty of
bouncing into the gloomy kennel, granting bright light and silhouetting Jethro.
His face remained in shadow but his thick hair was wet and messy from a shower.

He’d shed his charcoal suit for a
more casual grey shirt, the diamond pin twinkling in his lapel. I’d grown to
recognize it as his signature piece, linking him to whatever organisation his
father ran.

Is it a gang?
Did they rob and cheat and kill?

It wasn’t my issue. I didn’t care.
I didn’t condone what they did. I was the innocent party—their hostage.

I didn’t return his greeting,
deciding to stay bundled in my blanket and glower.

Jethro sniffed impatiently,
removing his arms from the door. He unlocked the bottom partition, swinging it
wide.

More sunshine entered, illuminating
the bottom half of his wardrobe. Dark jeans. Well-fitted jeans. Jeans that made
him seem young and approachable and
normal.

My hands balled.
Don’t buy into
the projection
. There was nothing normal about this man. Nothing sane or
kind. I learned that last night—many times over. There would be no more begging
from me. No more pleading. It fell on deaf ears, and I was done.

Jethro snapped his fingers as if
expecting me to heel. "Get up. It’s time to begin." Taking a threatening
step into the kennel, he pursed his lips. "Shit, what did you do in your
sleep? Roll around like the dogs?"

I kept my lips pressed together,
watching him in the silence he so seemed to enjoy. When I didn’t move, his face
twisted, taking in my hay-riddled hair and dirt-covered blanket. "I won’t
tell you again. Get. Up."

I shrugged. It was liberating to no
longer care. To no longer be captive by the need to obey and jump to attention
for fear of retribution. I meant what I said to Kite. Everything inside me was
gone. Locked down, bunkered inside, ready to weather whatever war was coming.

Standing slowly, I placed my dead
phone into my jacket pocket. Letting the blanket fall off my hips, I brushed
lingering lint off my clothes.

Jethro snapped his fingers again,
and I moved willingly—coasting to his side exactly as he wanted.

He scowled, his gaze full of
suspicion.

I gave him an empty smile. I’d
found salvation in not caring. It didn’t mean I had to pretend to like him. He
wouldn’t know that by trying to break me last night, he only gave me a new
avenue of strength.

I’m ready.

For whatever he threw at me.

I’ll survive.

Until I no longer needed to try.

Running my hands through my hair, I
quickly gave up with the tangles and focused on pinching some colour into my
cheeks instead.

"You think that will save you?
Looking presentable?" His voice was blizzard and snow.

I didn’t say a word.

Jethro gritted his jaw. His hands
curled beside his spread legs.

My muscles braced for punishment.
The air shimmered with violence.

Jethro’s hand suddenly shot out,
capturing my throat. Without a sound, he spun me around and marched me backward
out of the kennel. The sun kissed my skin, fanning the warmth I’d tried so hard
to keep hold of from talking to Kite. I embraced it, hugging it close, so
Jethro’s ice didn’t slice me into pieces.

His fingers tightened around my
neck, but I refused to claw at his hold.
I repay in kind.
Whatever I did
to him in self-defence, I’d get back ten times worse. But none of that mattered
now, because I knew how to survive.

By being above them. By being
untouchable on the inside, even while they broke me on the outside.

"You think you’ve got it all
figured out, don’t you?" His arm hoisted me onto the tips of my toes.
Breathing was difficult, not fighting was impossible, but I permitted it. All I
did was stare silently into his golden eyes.

"I understand what you’re
doing." He smiled. "But mark my words. You won’t win." Shaking
me, he unwound his fingers, then smoothed the front of his jeans. The sun
gleamed on the gold buckle of his crocodile skin belt.

My stomach clenched, but I held my
ground. Raising my chin, I whispered, "Mark
my
words. I will win.
Because I am right and you are wrong."

Jethro seethed, silence thick
between us.

"You’re so high and mighty,
aren’t you, Ms. Weaver? So sure you’re the one in the right. What if I told
you, your ancestors were scum? What if I showed you proof of their
corruptibility and eagerness to hurt others in their chase for wealth?"

Lies. All lies.

My family tree was impeccable. I
came from honest and good and hardworking stock. Didn’t I?

I ignored my rushing heartbeat.

Jethro stepped closer, crowding me.
"The things your family did to mine sicken me. So continue on your quest
believing you’re pure, because in a few hours you’ll know the truth. In a few
hours, you’ll realise we aren’t the bad guys—it’s you."

My throat closed up. I didn’t think
he could say anything to crumble my fortress so soon, but every word was a
carefully planted spade, digging at my foundation until I stood on crumbling
ground.

My eyes danced over his, trying to
decipher the truth.

Were my bloodlines tarnished with
crimes I didn’t know about? My father hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with our
history, apart from telling us our family had always been involved in weaving
and textiles. It was how we were granted the last name Weaver. Just like the
Bakers, and the Butlers, and every other trade that dictated their last names. 

Jethro chuckled. "Don’t
believe me?" His hands landed on my shoulders, pushing me backward. I
stumbled, wincing as my spine collided with the bricked wall of the kennel.

"Don’t believe your
forefathers were sentenced to death by hanging for what they did to mine?"
His gaze latched onto my mouth. "Don’t believe you’re alive because the
Hawks granted them mercy in return for a few signatures on a few debts?"

His voice dropped, sending a
constellation of warning skittering over my skin. "Don’t believe I’m fully
within my right to do whatever I damn well please to you?"

His touch seared through my jacket
and maxi dress, sending unwanted intensity down my arms.

Do I believe it? Could
I believe it? That everything I understood of this situation was
reversed?

Mind games. Illusions.
All designed to trip me up.

Shaking my head, I snapped, "No.
I don’t believe it." My blood pressure exploded, thundering in my ears.
His focus was absolute, and it burned, oh how it burned. "Nothing you say
will make you the victim in this situation. Nothing you show me will make this
permissible. You think I believe a ludicrous debt that you say is over six
hundred years old. Wake up! Nothing like that would hold up in a court of law
these days. I don’t care that you’ve staged my disappearance, or following my
family with a loaded pistol. I don’t believe any of this, and I certainly don’t
believe you have anything law abiding on your side."

Jethro scowled, but I continued my
tyrant.

"All I believe is you’re a
bunch of sick and twisted men who made up some bullshit excuse to make
themselves feel justified while tearing other’s lives apart. Show me where you
have the right to own me. No one has that right. No one!"

He chuckled, gold eyes growing
dark. His body language switched from stand-offish to oozing with sexual
innuendo. It was like watching a glacier melt, shedding winter for volcanic
heat.

"I like it when you’re feisty.
Your whole perception of the world is warped. You live in a fairytale,
princess, and I’m about to destroy it."

His shoulders softened, lips
parting; his gaze caressed my face to land on my mouth. "You think we
don’t have men in high places? Men who make what we say absolute law? You think
we got to the level of standing in society or the obscene amount of wealth we
have by not using the very same law you think will protect you for our gain?"

His voice whispered over me,
threading with his heady scent of woods and leather. "So stupid, Ms.
Weaver. We own more than your family. We own everything and everyone. Our word
is unbreakable. And we have proof."

He leaned in; the violence he
emitted switched to dangerous lust, buffeting me harder against the wall. His
eyes were rivers of fire, annihilating my argument, dragging me under his
spell. "You think I can’t make you do what I want?"

I sucked in a breath.

He’d never looked at me like that.
Never given any hint he might find anything about me exciting. He treated me
like a leper. He looked at me as if I were a different species—a species not
evolved enough to warrant his sexual attention.

But that’d changed.

His interest trapped me, consuming
me better than threats and tightly restrained anger. This was unexplored
territory. Lust and attraction and flirting were terrifying, because I was the
novice and he was the expert.

I couldn’t fight against something
that made me
feel.

Jethro’s nostrils flared, fingers
twitching on my shoulders. His voice lowered to a husky whisper—a whisper best
suited for seduction. "You think you deserve a life built on other’s
blood? You think you’re worthy?" The rhythm and volume turned the horrible
questions into a poem rather than curse.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t let him
win.

He was already winning. He spun a
tale of a lethal, unstoppable force. His family’s legacy somehow granted him
police approval, government blind-eyes, and the right over life and death.

Who
gave
him that right?

I still couldn’t believe it. But it
didn’t stop my legs shifting, pressing together, trying to alleviate the
strange ache building with every moment.

Our fighting coaxed my unseen claws
to grow a little more. My temper made my legs firmer; my vision clearer. My
body unknowingly found a cure from dreaded vertigo, all while embracing anger
and rage.

Jethro noticed my tension, stroking
my shoulders as if I were a skittish prey. "We’re simple creatures, Ms.
Weaver. I know what’s happening to you." He smiled gently, his gold eyes
attempting to look soft, but unable to hide the steel beneath. "Your skin
is hot. You’re breathing faster."

He ducked his head, murmuring, "You
like this. You like being pushed past your limits."

I shook my head. "You’re
wrong. There’s nothing about you that I like."

He sighed, his gaze whispering over
my mouth. "Lying won’t work. I know you’re growing wet for me, wanting me."
His touch morphed from menacing to lightning, sending a rain of sparks through
my blood. "Want to know how I know? Because I taste it in the air. I smell
it all around you."

My lips parted. My chest rose and
fell, increasing faster and faster. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t push him
away. I couldn’t do anything but revel in the intoxicating, melting, glowing,
sparking need building rapidly in my core.

Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard,
trying so hard to dispel the sick and twisted desire he conjured. "I’m—I’m
not."

He ran his thumbs over my
shoulders, following my collarbone with infinite softness. "You’re not?"
he breathed. "You’re not feeling the rush of lust or the knowledge you’d
throw all your rules away for just…one…little…taste?" His lips came so
close to mine, pulling away in the ultimate tease.

Yes. No. I don’t know.

I’d lost control of my body,
hurtling straight for a cataclysm where everything was hot and sharp and
intense.

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t
know what he wanted.

He’s fucking with your mind.
That’s all he’s doing.

His thumbs stroked higher,
smoothing away the bruises he’d caused on my neck. "Tell me you’re not wet
for me. Say it."

I shook my head, willing the words
to come. "I’m not. I’m…"

"What?" Jethro murmured.

The ache grew stronger, sending a
rush of dampness against my knickers. My body didn’t care this was a monster.
My body didn’t care about the future. All it cared about was curbing the
intolerable need.

Opening my heavy eyes, I said, "I’m
not wet. Not for you."