Page 13 of Trapped

“I know that aside from keeping you safe, my key motivation is your surrender, beautiful.”He rose, towering over me as he presented one of the bananas I’d packed.“Here.”He thrust the fruit at me.

“My s-surrender?”I could hardly believe what I was hearing, though, after previously calling me his property, I shouldn’t have been shocked.I enjoyed the depraved dynamic between us while we attempted to ride out the big freeze, but I had no intention ofsurrendering.Succumbing to his will between the sheets was one thing, but I wasn’t planning on becoming his slave.“Is that what you think this is?”

“Take the banana.”Barking the gravelly command, he managed to blow out a breath as though he was the one who was exasperated.He spun on his heel, heading for his bag as I muttered my reply under my breath.

“You could have said please.”

Stilling, he glanced over his shoulder, his gray eyes boring into me.“What was that, little girl?”

My heart beat faster at his glare, but I refused to back down.Manners cost nothing.“I said, you could have said please,sir.”

Once again, I added emphasis to the word he wanted to hear so badly, my tone in contradiction to the nervous energy snaking inside me.

“True.”He turned to look at me in one smooth motion.“I could have been more courteous, but you could equally be more compliant.”

“How am I not being compliant?”

“That tone for a start.”He folded his strapping arms—the same ones that had so recently wrapped around me—across his chest.“Keep that up and see where it lands you.”

Tossing the banana to the bed, my hands rose to my hips.“I can’t have the use of physical force hanging over my head the entire time we’re here.”

“Physical force?”A conceited expression lit up his otherwise irritatingly handsome face.“We’ve been through that as well, little girl.No harm has come to you.”

“You held me down and hurt me.”I pressed my thighs together, trying not to remember how else his ambush had affected me.“I can’t justget overthat.”

“Why aren’t you eating?”His focus flitted to the fruit flung on the covers behind me.

“Stop changing the subject!”I wanted to screech with irritation.“You’re either barking instructions or deflecting.”

“I’m looking after you.”His hands fell to his side.“Though God knows you don’t make it easy, do you?”

“Me?”Was he being ironic?He’d done nothing but avoid talking about what really mattered, proving that nothing about Eli was ever easy.“We both need to eat, and I’m sharing with you, sir.”

His face softened.“That's kind.”

“I am.”Usually.I held back the final word, cognizant of fresh heat pooling on my cheeks as he held my gaze, though how a man who’d already seen me strewn over his lap could cause embarrassment was totally beyond me.“You just seem to bring out a different facet of me.”

By my own stubborn standards, the insistent friction between Eli and me was growing troublesome.Even if I didn’t have to worry about the low-lying threat of his palm, constantly butting heads wasn’t helping us out of our snowbound situation.

“That’s funny.”His laughter washed over me.“I was thinking something similar about you.”

“Really?”Standing there, he seemed just as brooding and foreboding as the man I’d first met on the bridge.It wasn’t obvious howI’dchanged him.

“Oh, yes.”He smiled.“You have broken through much of my armor, little girl, though goodness only knows how.”

My sentiments exactly.

“I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather be stuck here with.”He pressed his lips into a hard line, suggesting there was more he had to say on the subject.

“Well, thanks?”I guess.

“Let’s start over, shall we?”He gestured to his bag.“I have a few energy bars with me, so we could share those as well.”

“Sounds good.”Having actual carbohydrates sounded bloody excellent.I’d have considered killing for a basket of bread right about then.“Thank you, sir.”

“Thankyou, little girl.”He nodded his appreciation.“Things can be a lot simpler between us if we both remember our manners.”

I couldn’t disagree on that point.We needed to turn our attention to staying alive beyond the few miserly pieces of wood we had left and the handful of provisions.The sooner we reached an accord, the better.

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