Page 51 of The Vigilant

Tynan made low noises, sounds of a struggle that was a different kind of physical.

“Let me go.” I gave one last heave, an attempt to break

“Too late.”

My mouth parted, and then the world spun. He whipped us around, the floor going out from under my feet, and then I was flying—falling—landing on the cushion on the bed.

No sooner did I recognize the cloud-like catch of the mattress sinking under my body did I try to rise, my hands and knees scrambling for purchase. And then the full weight of his knee stationed itself to the center of my back, pinning me prone to the bed with one limb.

“Enough, Sutton.” His words landed like a key in lock, chaining me to submission.

“Fuck,” I grunted, gasping, and glared up at him from where my head rested in the duvet.

Even more than when he burst through the door, he looked like some kind of leather-clad Olympian. His dark jeans stretched over his powerful legs, one nailed to the center of my back, the other knee wedged against my hip. His white tee was almost invisible underneath the worn leather cut of his motorcycle jacket, the Vigilantes patch still only half-stitched to the left shoulder. The collar of the jacket was straight against his neck, drawing my straining eyes to the thump of his carotid, its pulse sparring with the equally ragged flex of his jaw muscle.

I shouldn’t think of him as beautiful—not when he had me pinned and prone on the bed, in a position to do anything he wanted to me, the worst: demanding the truth. But I did. I stared and thought him more beautiful and powerful than any man I’d ever met before.

“Sutton…” His eyes glinted like the clean still of unfired bullets, chambered and ready to fire.

I watched him let out a long exhale, his gaze affixed to the center of my scorpion like he didn’t dare let it wander in either direction lest the beast lunge out from my skin and sting him dead.

“Enjoying the view?” A shiver ran through me as the taunt pushed through my lips.

Seeing how he stared at me—the intensity and restraint, the promised savagery of its release—it made me hot. It made my nipples pebble against the comforter, and I felt the hot ache between my thighs grow stronger.

His eyes snapped to mine. “Let’s start from the beginning,” he clipped like he was my commanding officer, not my father’s best friend. “What did Kang really tell you about Mara in the alley?”

My teeth locked tight. Maybe I should trust him—implicitly—but I resisted the idea. My history with men had been nothing more than a string of lost battles of protection, decency, and morals. A history I promised myself wouldn’t repeat. Except Tynan was unlike any man I’d met before…

“Last chance,” he warned, and I swore I saw the smoke on his breath from the fire raging inside him.

Mustering my strength and what space I had, I managed to turn my face away from him, thinking to send a silent message.

Instead, I was about to receive a lesson.

Thwack.

“Ahh!” I cried out, pain blooming on my bare ass from the swift strike of his palm. It was so sudden and sharp, I couldn’t stop the prick of tears in my eyes, a reaction from instinct more so than from pain. “Fuck you,” I grunted, heat blossoming on my backside…and lower.

“What did he tell you?”

I flexed my fists at my sides.

Thwack.

My locked jaw caught the sound of pain before it escaped, but it still rolled unmistakably over my tongue.

“Fine,” I hissed, blinking rapidly to clear the watery haze from my eyes. “Jack told me he’d been approached by someoneat the White Pearl to have Mara sign up for this cam site online. He made her film a couple posts, and then the same person told him to bring Mara to the club that night.”

As I reeled the truth out of my lips, I realized that by tipping my chin closer to my shoulder, I could see a sliver of our reflection in the mirror on the closet door. My breath caught at the sight.

His body was so massive towering over me. His position one of power. Of dominance. Of fury. Except the look on his face made me believe I was the one with all the power. The flare of his nostrils. The hard strain of his jaw. His knuckles white by his side.

“What then?”

I heard him ask the question, but I couldn’t bring myself to continue, too enrapt by the sight of us to do anything but stare.

The black of his leather cut and dark jeans appeared to bleed onto my pale skin through the fine lines of my tattoos. His fist uncurled and then rolled tight again. My gaze lifted, finding his gaze locked on the mirror—and mine.

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