Page 66 of Captive Prize

She risked internal bleeding just to escape a chair.

The risks for her from this life were so much higher than anyone else’s.

And that was before she made an enemy of my family.

I couldn’t be sure if she would survive the games that she played.

The games she started.

The games it was my job to end.

I couldn’t rip my eyes from the stain and everything it represented.

Her mortality, her weakness.

And the choice I would have to make…

CHAPTER 17

ZOYA

Iwoke up in his arms. I’d actually slept next to a man without wanting to kill him—withoutactuallykilling him.

How strange. No. How dangerous.

This man was holding me captive, using me as a pawn. Just because he fucked me didn’t mean he was now my boyfriend and we’d suddenly have a normal life filled with arguments over getting a dog and whose turn it was to pick the next Netflix movie.

This was all just a game. A fucked-up twisted one, but still a game.

One I intended to win.

“Does this mean you will let me go?” I asked, before pressing my face into the crook of his neck.

Roman was warm, so warm.

Having his arm slung around my waist, holding me close to him, tucking me against his hard body, was surprisingly comforting.

He made me feel more than just warm; he made me feel safe.

That wasn’t something I had ever really felt.

Stop it. Remember. Violent kidnapping enemy. Not my new fucking boyfriend.

It was a trick. My body was just weary and worn out from everything that had happened, and the hormones coursing through my body after having sex for the first time.

That had to be it.

It wasn’t because Roman had taken care of me in the shower. It had nothing to do with the tender way he washed my hair, or the way my entire body felt like it was set on fire when he kissed me.

There was no way that it had anything to do with the intensity of the pleasure that wracked my body as he took me in a way no other man ever had, or the way he looked at me with passion and admiration as I slid up and down on his cock.

It had to be hormones, not the way he made me feel.

Right?

Roman’s breath was steady, his chest rising and lowering against me.

For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. I thought maybe he was asleep.

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